It makes sense to me, insofar as mental illness can be genetic and could be a major cause behind both children being given up for adoption and divorce. Not to mention long-term damage done in utero from the abuse of things like alcohol, drugs, etc. The effects of that abuse could lead both biological parent and child to divorce.

I want a day off, without needing to be the one to do all the work to make it happen. I want DH to find a sitter for a day, pay them (or call a friend or family member who will do it as a favour), and let me be shocked and surprised that I get a day to do whatever the heck I want with no one hanging off of me, asking me for more milk, telling me I marked their exam wrong, asking me for more milk, complaining that they have to dissect something for biology (yes, AGAIN, it's biology), whining about having to actually practice piano, asking me for more milk, begging for more time in front of the computer, or realizing that the reason they keep needing more milk is that they keep dumping it on the floor under the table. What I will actually get: a hastily hand-drawn card on spare printer paper from a toddler that they made at Dad's sudden request at 7:30am on Sunday morning when DH's phone sends him a reminder that oh, crap, it's Mother's Day. Followed by an immediate request for milk.

Not particularly. This is the banking district, with shopping and high-value high-rises interspersed among the business buildings and parks. There's a fairly strong multicultural presence here, but in my experience this part of downtown generally tends more towards Indian & Asian cultural influences than Muslim. (There are large Muslim communities in some surrounding Toronto suburbs, though, including the one in which the suspect lives; Richmond Hill is firmly upper middle class suburbia.) The attack is only a mile or so away from the Jane & Finch area, however, which is the center of gang violence in the city. Given his social media postings, I wouldn't put it past him to try to pin this on a religious ideology just to fan some flames, though.

Just posting to keep this on the first page! Thanks, Tsuga, you saved me a lot of frustration last night.

Didn't the shooter target the freshman (or maybe it was sophomore) building? Nine of the kids killed were 14 or 15. How many of them were taken to a hospital 30 miles away? I can only imagine what their parents must be feeling when they hear this.

Our family needs a bigger vehicle, 9 passengers minimum. A 10-12 passenger would leave us a bit more wiggle room, but 9 would work. I hate parking a minivan as it is, so I'm a bit leery of overly large vehicles. Does anyone have any recommendations for me? Things to avoid, things that you liked, specific vehicle recommendations, etc? We really have no preference as to vehicle brand, etc, we just want something that can fit us all and get us from Point A to Point B.

Calgary is a LOT colder in winter than you be prepared for, lol. That being said, there are a lot of smaller cities in Southern Ontario that have lower COL and a climate that's quite similar to the East Coast. (Quebec has this as well, but depending on where you move you may find that the culture is not overly welcoming to Anglophones.) The East Coast provinces have a MUCH lower COL, but also much fewer resources, lower pay, high unemployment, etc. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/07/12/best-cities-jobs-affordable-homes_n_10740892.html (Fair warning that anywhere within an hour of Toronto has had a housing boom since this was written, and housing is no longer quite as affordable.)

On a case by case basis, I don't think it's rude for each person as individuals to ask about someone's heritage in the context of genuinely wanting to get to know someone better. It's not a question of it being racist or aggressive. BUT When I'm trying to get to know someone who's the same race as I am, I ask about what they do, what they enjoy, what their kids are like (if they have them), etc. I try to get to know who they are as people, and I enjoy the back and forth of a conversation about those sorts of things. If a person is a non-majority race and keeps getting questions like, "where are you from?" "What's your heritage?" etc, they are not being recognized for who they are. Imagine how tiring it would be to have the women at homeschooling group ask you "Where are you from?" and then turn around and ask the white woman beside you, "So what do you like to do?" And then imagine that happening a hundred times. While not rude on it's surface, it has the effect of consistently, insidiously leaving a person reduced to their heritage, or at least left with the impression that their heritage is the most important thing about them. When taken as a question posed by an individual, it's not necessarily rude. When taken as a question repetitively used in the initial stages of introduction, it amounts to a perpetual "othering" by society en masse.

My baby girl just turned 3, and she understands that Mother Gothel is bad, but not Hans. She understands that he hurts Anna's feelings at the end, but every time she watches "Love is An Open Door" she likes him again. The motivations there are too obscure for her to understand yet.

I've given up. We have no shopping days or schedules anymore. Our life is just a mess of, "We're out of this, can you pick it up on your way home from work?" almost every day.

It's not really fair to the siblings either for him to wait until tonight to bring it up; he knows they're assuming you guys will take them, and he's giving them all as limited time as possible to rearrange their own schedules if they DO want to take her. If one of the siblings DOES want to take her, they may need to talk to their boss or make other arrangements today. It's not really fair of him to toss that in their laps at the last minute. They SHOULDN'T be assuming that you guys will handle it, but you both know that they are. He should at least give them proper opportunity to help if they want to.

How would she react if you told her, "There was a misunderstanding, the service is next week. We'll be going with you!" And if she remembers or keeps asking about this one, just say, "Oh, that was a mistake, that's just her children getting together. The service is next week." And I would tear in to BIL for doing this to her.

I hope things went well last night once he got home. I'm not quite sure what "going well" would look like at this point, but I hope any conversation with him has reassured you, either in that he agreed to go the priest or that you're more sure of the next steps you need to take. You have so many huge decisions coming up, and I know there's probably a big temptation to just bury your head in the sand and continue as if nothing had changed, but you're doing the right things by dealing with the issue, even though it's so difficult.

From those first contractions where you go from mildly uncomfortable to "I think this might be it," my longest was 50 hours, my shortest 3 or 4 (I'm not quite sure at what point "real" labour started with that one, lol). The first four got increasingly shorter and shorter, with #4 landing at around 4-ish hours. I was worried about how fast #5 would be, but he also ended up taking about 4 hours, so maybe my body has finally figured this out.

I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that this payment will only be given on condition of them signing a document saying they will not speak to the press about the incident nor testify in any court of law.

Agreed, it is about the OP not feeling free to decide for herself whether she would like the dresses or not.

I am no way qualified to say *any* of what I am about to say, so take it for what it's worth. ;) It may come across as harsh, and I hope you can read it as coming from a place of concern, not anger (because I know how good people like these are at making people become confused about where the line between concern and anger is). Your mother does not sound at all like she has ASD to me. She is manipulating you. That's a VERY non-ASD characteristic. You say she "trained" you and your father; also very non-ASD. From everything you have said, she does indeed sound like a typical narcissist. Have you considered why you don't want to think of her that way? Does it possibly feel like a betrayal to think of her in those terms? Did you allow your mother to manipulate your daughters? In a way. You had your daughter to apologize to her grandmother because Grandma wasn't making her a dress anymore. She should certainly have apologized, but not because of anything Grandma would or wouldn't do for her. She should have apologized because it's rude to ignore people, regardless of Grandma's threats. your mother DID upset your other DD for no reason (she took sleeping as an insult?), though, and Grandma actually owes DD3 an apology right back, but we all know that's not going to happen. The bigger issue is that you know your mother is manipulative. You know that she "trained" you, to the degree that you as an adult can't even say, "No thank you!" to her without the world crashing down. She WILL do the same to your children if given the chance. Why wouldn't she? She's got everyone doing exactly what they want lest they anger her, chasing after her to pick up and return dresses she gave us a gift so she can get more attention from them, etc. The more people she has falling in line and the more involved she makes herself in their lives, the more attention she gets. You are giving her every opportunity to do the same thing to your children. It's time to start standing up for your children, start putting down firm boundaries, and make sure you don't allow her to subjugate your children the same way you she did you and your father. They deserve that, even if it feels impossibly hard for you. For your children's sake, you need to work hard to undo her "training." Start by saying, "No thanks, not this year," and continue by refusing to let her around your children without you there. And when you ARE there and she starts manipulating them, be prepared to call her out on it. If you don't feel prepared to do that, she should not be around your children until you *are* ready; you cannot let someone groom your children simply because you are afraid to say no.

Our kids LOVE Pi day, because they each get to choose a pie and we make ALL of them. Tomorrow we're have shepherd's pie, chicken pot pie, chocolate peanut butter cream pie, and apple pie. I've already made two of them because that it WAY too much work for one day, lol.

You think they have been involved for longer than 15 months (since before he separated), when her husband had died only 5 months prior? Edited to add rather than spamming two posts in a row: I think it depends on the nature of his separation from his wife. If it's a "just getting the formal paperwork ready and our ducks in a row to make the divorce legal" separation and they were both free to move on with their lives, that's different from a "let's take some part and see if we can work this out with some distance" separation. Legally and from a spiritual perspective, they're both affairs, but since I don't expect everyone to be held to my own spiritually-based standards, I can see how one is a whole lot more unacceptable than the other.

Honestly, before I look it up I'm going to guess... 175 million. People eat a LOT of beef, and there are dairy cows in addition to that. Off to see how horribly off I am!

Our governments are not some bastion of truth and competence. They are full of corrupt politicians, self-serving policies, scandals, etc. You simply don't see those issues because it doesn't interest your media (unless it's amusing... anyone remember Rob Ford?). Despite the same shortfalls, our countries make it work because the people continually force the issue when things go wrong with the system. Sometimes even so people to fall through the cracks... but from what we see on the outside, your system is already catastrophic for many people. Even the worst "cracks" would be far better than what people face now.

I can't find the sources right now, but this story in and of itself has been disputed by many passengers on the flight. Apparently the guy was deliberately getting badgering many people around him, shouting, yelling, etc, and then when he had ticked people off enough that someone called an attendant over, he spoke a few lines in Arabic to his friend... and then claimed everything was because of what he had spoken. None of that to say that this is outside of the realm of possibility, I believe it has happened to quite a few people on varying airlines. It just doesn't seem to be what happened to this little piece of work. Edited to add: couldn't find the full story, but I found this synopsis. Not the best news source, but hopefully it'll do for now, lol, I gotta go wrap presents. http://lawnewz.com/politics/delta-concludes-after-interviewing-multiple-witnesses-that-youtube-prankster-was-actually-shouting-disruptive/

If people need the parents to be "cool" in order for the kids to hang out together, I think at least half this board would have serious problems. ;) This isn't middle school, no one should care how cool or uncool you are (partners included). And if they do, they are welcome to learn some valuable lessons that everyone else learned back in the 6th grade, namely that in the long run, how cool someone is matters a whole lot less than... well, pretty much everything else about the person. This is a super busy and stressful time of year for a lot of people. To be honest, I'm perpetually feeling like I've forgotten something (because I have... 5 minutes I remembered I still haven't bought our annual Christmas PJs for the kids), and without reminders things just fall between the cracks. You shouldn't HAVE to send out reminders to people over stuff like this, but it can't hurt. If they're generally positive people who don't seem like they'd intentionally be hurtful, try to give them the benefit of the doubt this time. As for being extra-sensitive, I'd say that's justified. Someone you care about telling you "well no one wants to be around you" isn't exactly the sort of love and support you need. :/ Can I ask (hopefully not getting into SO-bashing here) if there sorts of comments/statements are common from your SO?

:grouphug: I wish I could give you some encouragement, but nothing I can say will take this weight off your shoulders. I just want you to know that I'm praying for you and that we're here to listen, no matter what happens.

Did you hear that he's going to be producing the music for Pat Rothfuss' Name of the Wind? If there was one thing that could have made me more excited for those adaptations, it's Manuel's involvement.