I am so relieved for you that you will finally get to move on from all this. That is a WHOLE lot of instructions to have to pass on, I hope they appreciate it... and maybe that it's a bit of a wake up call to them about how much work it actually is to do all this.

We drink a lot of milk, I'd say probably 3 gallons a week. However, I had to choose the "other" option in your poll because we don't have gallon jugs up here, we have milk bags. Those get recycled.

Or maybe comments like this are your problem. Goodness, who could possibly imagine why you're not having any luck in the dating world? Newsflash: people are responding poorly to you not because you're a man, but because you're as ass. That meets my quota of troll-feeding for the day.

Wow, what a huge change! How has his attitude been over the past few days as he's been getting caught up on everything? I'm hoping that him getting all this work done over the past few days wasn't done at the expense of him lashing out at you. Either way I'm glad he caught up, but I'm hoping for your sake that it was in a positive, self-driven way. SO relieved for you... maybe there's hope for mine yet, lol. :D

Your daughter did more than anyone could expect from her. She tried to talk her friends out of bad decisions, made good choices for herself, stood up for herself against "friends" who were treating her badly, and not alone knew where to go for help when things went too far but took the initiative and went there on her own when no one else would support her. I think she did EXCEPTIONALLY well for herself. As for the other girls, well... too bad. She made bad choices and is now trying to pin them on your DD. It is not your DD's job to babysit or parent her friends. Nevertheless, she tried to convince her friend to come with her, and friend wouldn't. She can't FORCE her friend to make good choices. It sounds like your DD is much better at making decisions than both her BF and BF's mom put together, frankly. Sounds like this is the kind of friend (and mother) she's already outgrown, sadly.

We went with all four of our kids. The youngest is still a little young (18 months) to understand, but the boys really wanted her to go with them and experience it. She ended up having a GREAT time, going up to people's houses and getting to wave and say hi and sometimes pet their dogs, etc. She was stinkin' adorable. HOWEVER, at some points the boys would get excited and forget to wait for her to keep up with them, so they'd go on to a house alone and then DH or I would come behind a minute later with the baby. I felt badly, because I know we LOOKED like those parents who are taking out a baby just to get candy for themselves... but when we got home I realized that people must not have minded too much, because the baby's bag of candy was literally TWICE of heavy as any of the boy's, lol. People are certainly generous when it comes to cute kids! (pic of the kids just for fun. :) The baby was crying because there were people walking down the street who were literally SCREECHING about how cute she was and they terrified her, lol. She calmed down shortly thereafter.)

Our boys still need us to go with them door to door for social skills purposes, so we tend to do family outfits. Last year we did Alice in Wonderland. (I was the Queen of Hearts, DH was the Mad Hatter, Eldest was the White Rabbit, Middle son was the Ace of Hearts card soldier, Youngest son was the Cheshire Cat, and the baby was Alice.) This year we're doing The Wizard of Oz. I'm Glinda, DH is the Wizard, eldest is the Scarecrow, middle son is Tin Man, youngest son is the Cowardly Lion, and the baby is Dorothy. They're all excited to go out with the baby. She won't remember last year, and this year she's just at the age where going around to people's houses and having them hand you stuff is THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER. We're going to let the boys do a lot of showing her off, lol, they're more excited to watch her reaction than to get their own candy.

You don't see a difference between publicly leering at people for the purpose of judging their appearance and discussing the merit of a person's words/actions?

Well bless her heart. ;)

That was the question, though. Not "would the hike cause them lasting hardship," but "would you expect them to feel sore the next day, would they be tired, would they lag?" etc. Not that I'm disagreeing with you, since I know you feel the majority of kids would have a problem with it. But this would seem to say that even kids who would be "fine" with this sort of thing would still find it tiring by the end and be sore the next day. There's nothing bad about that, it seems like a normal physical response to activity like this.

I just ran this question past my husband, who (for a little context) teaches Crossfit for fun and does endurance mountain biking. His guess was that depending on if all the kids were used to mountain elevation or not, anywhere from 75 - 95% would have difficulty. Even kids who are fit in college usually get that way with short, intense training; students simply don't have time to regularly go for hikes of that length, so even the most in shape kids generally lack that sort of endurance. He pointed out that the distance is essentially a surprise half marathon through the mountains. Then he asked me why I was asking him such strange questions at midnight, lol. Just tossing in his opinion since I thought his answer might be different from mine, given that he generally has much higher expectations of people physically than I do.

I'd think 4 out of 5 would have some problem with it, and the one that said they didn't might be lying. ;) With no training, no chance to wear decent hiking gear, a mountainous trail, etc, in combination with kids who generally are students, not athletes... realistically, the only ones who would be able to do that with no problems at the drop of a hat will be those who are specifically making sure to take the time to do endurance training, which isn't a whole lot of people. I don't imagine most people of ANY age would appreciate having something like sprung on them without no warning. TBH, unless the person organizing it was aware of the full health history of everyone on the trip, I'd think it could actually potentially be quite dangerous. One kid with diabetes, asthma, ANY sort of physical complication, and there could be disastrous consequences.

I would also be concerned and seek an evaluation. There's no harm in getting it checked out, and some of those do sound quite significant and concerning. If there is a problem, it's more likely than not something as simple as low muscle tone that can be greatly improved (and quickly) with physical therapy.

We don't sort. The only exception is when we have new item of clothing that's brightly coloured. Then I'll make sure to wash it with like colours... although that's obnoxious because it usually leaves me waiting for a full load of like colours, which leaves laundry piling up for no real reason. :/

I'm familiar with it, but not sure from where. Then again, I'm Canadian which likely has a bit more familiarity with British expressions. I would also not be surprised to here someone use the term to describe going out in workout or grubby clothes, though, as in the opposite of "dressing up". I've never HEARD anyone say that.... but I can imagine someone using it in that context.

Good luck! Less than 2 weeks to go until you'll have an answer... I'm sorry you've had to live in limbo for this long already, but you're in the home stretch now! Hoping you can get the homestudy done on the 1st and have everything ready in time for National Adoption Day!

Always a fried egg with ham for breakfast. Depending on my morning blood sugar number, I'll either have it as a small omelette or on a slice of toast. Aside from that, I nearly always have a salad with dinner, usually with a chopped hard boiled egg and grated cheese in it in some way.

I would see it as someone trying to sound cool or clever when paying a compliment and going about it entirely the wrong way. Definitely awkward, but solely on the shoulders of the person making the comment.

I didn't say it made any sense, or that people had to understand it. Because it makes no sense, and I don't understand it myself. :lol: But I do know that I'm not the only one who feels this way when complimented... and that just because it makes some of us feel awkward, doesn't mean it's wrong to compliment someone, in much the same way that just because someone might feel awkward when given a muffin it doesn't mean that it's wrong to give them one.

The whole topic kind of reminds me of how I feel about compliments. I enver know what to say when someone pays me a compliment. I feel like, if I acknowledge that I've done something good, I'll sound conceited. And yet, if I DON'T acknowledge it, it looks like I'm ignoring someone who's clearly trying to be nice to me and reach out. Compliments make me extremely uncomfortable. That doesn't mean people should never say anything kind to me, or that's is wrong or rude of them to pay me a compliment simply because I don't know how to respond to it. I just means that I'm uncomfortable with compliments. That's not their issue. I don't know if that parallel makes sense to anyone else, lol, but I feel like I'm hearing that some people get the same deer-in-the-headlights feeling from unexpected gifts as I do from unexpected compliments. And yet without either of those things, the world would be a much poorer place.

I believe it's this, just modified to be cupcakes instead of a cake. It looks like it doesn't rise much, so not sure how it would adapt in to cupcakes, but... something tells me I might be willing to give it a try to find out for sure. You know, for science. http://withthegrains.com/2014/05/07/chocolate-whiskey-ginger-cake-with-whiskey-caramel-sauce/

I've been thinking about her and am just wondering how she's doing, if she's okay, etc. I understand that it may not be wise to post any detailed updates publicly, depending on the current situation, but just want to know if she's alright. I'm hoping someone here knows her or has kept in touch in some way!

I'm sorry. :( That's a lot of crap to deal with all at once.

We had Thanksgiving this afternoon at my in-laws. My parents are always out of the country in October, so no commitments there. Tomorrow was SUPPOSED to be a nice, relaxing holiday.... but the boys have asked if we can do a big Thanksgiving dinner at home with just our family. So yesterday we went shopping for everything we need for turkey, stuffing, pie, rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy, etc. I'm making them help me with EVERY. SINGLE. STEP. Tonight we made the turkey brine and the apple pies. Tomorrow the real fun begins, lol. If they want a big huge holiday dinner, they can darn well learn for themselves how much work it is and how to do it all themselves. ;) In actuality they love cooking, so this may actually be a reward for them.... I suppose we'll see once they've been on their feet all day tomorrow.

The midwivery practice I go to gives each midwife 5 clients due per month. However, we also have two midwives at all births, one primary and one backup. (They also see it as one to take care of the Mom, one to take care of the baby.) So they attend, on average, ten births per month. They also get two full months a year off because of the constant on-call nature of the job. So that's 100 births per year, only half of which they are the primary caregiver on. At 100 births a year, that's 15 full years of practice before getting to 1500 births... and that's only if you include the births where they were a support person instead of the primary midwife. If you only counting primary caregiving, it would take 30 years to get to 1500 births. Counting at least 4 years of post-secondary education and training to get a certification that would mean that the midwives who have supervised 1500 births are the one who are over 50 and about a decade away from retirement. And for the record, this practice is known to be one where the midwives are overworked and (voluntarily) take too many clients (because there simply aren't enough services in our area to meet demand, so they know that either they take on too many clients or those clients will get stuck with one of the few, generally horrible OBs in town who are available to take on new clients). Most practices around here prefer to stick to 4 clients due per month for each midwife... which would mean they're hitting 1500 births at around, um, retirement. Edit: Ugh, I just got sucked down the rabbit hole, didn't I? Regardless, I think she MAY have some valuable skills that could help in that area, but it seems like training across the US is inconsistent, and I'm sure care there is much different than here, so there should be specific training for that as well. None of which really makes a difference if they're not using their mission funds properly in the first place, lol. There's a whole lot we don't know about their specific situation.