DH drives out in the oil fields here in CO. His current job offers a 5 on/2 off then 5 on/3off that he works. When he's home, he's home. We spend his days off mostly together or with family. He works 10-14 hours a day but that's the nature of the job. He is usually home for dinner on work days and then plays with the kids or, if exhausted, they play Disney Infinity or some other game for half an hour, works out with DS, and goes to bed.

I gave my kids so called classic names and people told me they were boring,. You can't please everyone. Go with what you like. That said, it's a lovely name. I know lots of kids with unusual names...it's not that big of a deal.

How wonderful! Congratulations!!

In my experience there is a curriculum coordinator for the district who has an e-mail address hidden somewhere on the district's webpage. I've e-mailed ours and gotten responses withing a week or so. I just identify myself as a parent with young children living in the district and trying to get more information about the school.

And you will continue to be sad, particularly when you think about some of the shows that get multiple seasons. But it's worth it. Also...if you have access to the DVDs, some of the episodes have commentary and the ones with Nathan Fillion are hilarious.

I'm so sorry about your mother. Thank you very much for offering to chat.

Thank you. We're already working on getting to an attorney to get asset management, estate planning(including SSDI, his existing pension and long term insurance issues etc.), a revision to their existing wills, POA, and such. My mother is his wife-they've been married 33 years. I have one sibling and so far we've been in agreement on how to handle this. My mom is looking to us to make decisions, but she's included in every talk. So far, dad mostly agrees. I live 30 minutes away. My brother lives a few states away. We have no other family locally. My mother doesn't drive and I am working on helping her to get a learner's permit, so she can re learn how to drive. Right now, I am driving back and forth every few days to handle errands and doctor's appointments. We actually have a long day of testing on Monday coming up. No personality changes yet. I take him hiking with my kids, he's very close to my son. My husband(who hates to fish) has suddenly developed an interest and he takes my dad and son. My dad can't handle tying lures or casting anymore. I have to say that I really, really, really hate dementia right now.

My son went to a year of preschool, spent every Tuesday during the school year in a MOPS childcare room with age segregated play mates for 3 years, I play Simon Says with him, and he runs around with neighborhood kids most nights. He's still not so great at games like Simon Says or Red Light, Green Light and gets upset when he has to start over. I'm honestly beginning to think a lot of behaviors have more to do with the kids and their personalities than their schooling

I wouldn't, but I have small children. My neighbor has a couple and they do not like children. Those things barked and growled whenever my kids went in the backyard to play. I finally asked her if there was anything she could do and she must have come up with something because the growling has mostly stopped and the barking has mellowed some, but at first she told me the kids should come over and meet the dogs and the dogs could see them and they could pet them. Uhhh, your dogs growl at my kids. There will be no petting.

Brooklyn 99! I'm currently binge watching Parks and Recreation, but I don't think that will be back until later in the year/early next year? My husband is trying to get me into The Blacklist, but so far it's not my thing. I kind of want to catch up on Sleepy Hollow.

Thank you all. The hugs, kindness, and prayer means a lot. I'll be following up with his neurologist once we get through this round of tests he's ordered. Thanks for the information and avenues to explore and research.

I am sorry to hear about your DH. Yes, my dad has been on cholesterol meds. Interesting.

No. My son is young yet, so there's still time. :) I can't recall negative comments at the moment. I've had some poorly worded questions, but the intent wasn't malicious. Or maybe it was and the person was really bad at being mean, but I doubt it. I do remember a article or blog post a few years ago where the writer interpreted a police officer or cashier asking the kids if there was school today or someone saying, "I could NEVER do that" to be negative comments. I have gotten a few of those, but don't consider them negative just curious, making idle conversation, or knowing themselves.

Thank you, both of you. <3 I am as loved by my parents as they are by me(and my brother, SIL, and husband). They have always been willing to love me through the hardest of times and help me when I was in over my head. I am happily doing what little I can to make this..somewhat less hard on them.

My father has been diagnosed with some form of dementia, among other issues. He's in his mid 50s and I was seeking any and all advice. I had a longer post up, but felt there was too much detail to leave up. I appreciate the hugs, well wishes, advice, and prayers.

My library has a feature where I can create lists online of books in their catalog that I'd like to check out in the future. I created a list for read alouds so I can easily request a few or see if a book is available.

I attended a potluck wedding several years ago. It was a lot of fun! It was a second marriage for friend/neighbor who had recently gone through an awful divorce to a real jerk. They were on a tight, tight budget. The bride and groom asked local family and friends to bring a specific dish and that plus attendance would be the best gift of all. She asked me to make my spinach artichoke dip. I was so happy for my friend and honored she liked something I made well enough to have it served at her wedding.

:crying: Some of you people are making the long trek east on I70 worth it and I'm missing the area. And the food. :glare: I'm also mad at you all who are making it sound worth it. That is a horrible drive.

I have been on WIC and it's a process to get approved, take the children with you every 3 months for weight checks, visit the Dr if there's any reason, medically, to switch a food offered(for instance-staying on whole milk past a child's 2nd birthday due to said child being underweight), and check out with the checks at the grocery store. Applying that in a much larger scale to food stamps seems unnecessarily wasteful of the tax money providing the assistance and the tax money providing a worker's salary. Not to mention the time spent at the grocery store. Not to mention that I don't view assistance once it's been given to the person needing the assistance as public money. It is their money/food stamps/health insurance to assist them. And of course, the idea that all people's food needs, transportation availability, storage, time, and cooking ability differ greatly. A singe disabled person living rurally who has limited access to a store abd very limited energy/health might have different needs than a young family with small kids living in the suburbs than a family with tweens and teens living in an urban area.

60, cool, cloudy, and raining. I'm in northern Colorado as well. I was just saying to a friend how glad I was that we didn't shell out the $300 for a pool membership this summer. I guess we'll see how August goes. I am kind of grateful for a cooler, wetter, less fire filled summer!

I'd never heard of it before, but now I'm curious. I'll probably give it a shot.

The Dropkick Murphys, particularly their cover of "Worker's Song". Pink's "So What". I also found an old Breeders CD the other day.

The abstinence pledges I am familiar with are ones that were done in a large group setting. The kids would be sitting in a hall and a speaker would get everyone pumped up about it and talk about purity and wedding night gifts and controlling hormones. Then there was a lot of external pressure to sign one right then and there. She disliked the pressure to sign right now and that people were aware of who signed. She felt it created a negative peer pressure situation instead of giving kids time to think and reflect if that was an actual value and goal of their's. Also...she felt that it made a mockey of the idea that sex was so "holy and sacred" if it took a pep rally to get people to sign on to that idea. There might be other ways to handle an abstinence pledge though, I was only exposed to them though invites to church youth events. I didn't regularly attend any of these churches. Or any church

My mom rarely talked to me about sex, but this article describes her general attitude when she did. IE, bodies and touching them are nothing to be ashamed of, having sex is a decision you make when you are ready to have it, are going to have it with someone who treats you respectfully and truly cares about and vice versa, and you can handle getting on birth control and using condoms, and that having sex is personal decision that only I could make for me and not to be made for any other reason than I was ready and wanted it. Which is probably why she equally hated abstinence pledges and Dan who took me to Homecoming. She might have a went a little overboard on the "If you get pregnant by this jackass you will be tied to him and his family for 18 years and IS THAT REALLY WHAT YOU WANT?!?" OTOH, she was right and Dan got dumped. He follows the Insane Clown Posse now. She is not a Christian and I was not raised one, so I'll have to figure out how I want to handle older kid stuff down the road. For now, the article doesn't seem all that big of a deal to me? Pretty normal in my world, I guess.

I have used WIC with the checks. I can not imagine the checker having the time to stop and hold my baby while they were dealing with the WIC stuff on their end, but if they could and had the time and wouldn't get in trouble with managment? Sure. I wouldn't feel pressured to say yes or anything though. It's not hard for me to say, "No, I've got it" or "Nah, she can cry" if I didn't want the baby to be held that day for some reason. Once when DS was probably 18-19 months we went to a new Dr. and I had to fill out a ton of forms and give the front desk a bunch of stuff to copy and DS was not cooperating or happy to be there. An older lady sitting in the waiting room started talking to him and they ended up walking all around the waiting room holding hands and he toddler talked to her and she talked back. For me it was a sweet and helpful moment from a lady who had probably BTDT. However, I told this story on a different board and judging by the reaction...I'm in a minority when it comes to strangers interacting with my kids. Also, she was possibly a kidnapper or diseased or both according to the other posters. So my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. :lol: