We are also looking for a house right now -- very serious buyers, since like the PP, we have to move this summer -- and when I see the fresh vacuum marks in the carpet I always feel for the person who had to hustle to get it ready for us. I will say, sometimes you just can't tell until you're in a house, and when you're hunting from afar it's even harder. I flew halfway across the country and back with the baby for a same-day trip to look at a house just a couple of weeks ago. We were 95% sure it was the house for us -- i had my checkbook in my pocket -- and I came THIS close to making an offer, but in the final analysis it was the configuration of the yard that did it in. I kept trying to rationalize the issues away, because the house was so beautiful, but I finally went for a walk around the neighborhood to clear my head and realized that no, it just wouldn't work for us after all. If it gives you any encouragement, every time I walk into a house I am prepared to make an offer that day. But I do feel for you. We've never owned before but I am not looking forward to the day when we move out of our mythical future home and have to go through this process on the sell side ourselves.

Oh my. I can see how you would have been just a tad taken aback. Personally, my favorite way to deal with rude remarks is to just pretend that the person actually said something totally different (and socially acceptable) and respond accordingly. For example, we are an interracial couple and over the years people have occasionally asked inappropriate questions. I just pretend that they have asked, say, if I want a sandwich and reply cheerfully, "Oh no thanks, I'm fine!" In this case, I would probably have responded along the lines of "Oh, thanks! Yes, we're totally having a great time." Freaks people out, I tell you.

It does sound like she wants to be more involved with the kids but has a lot of constraints. Can you all visit her? Perhaps DH could take some or all of the kids and go visit her for the day? (Win-win!)

Here you go: http://www.graspingforobjectivity.com/2009/03/mom-jeans-and-dreaded-long-butt.html

I don't understand this. It doesn't sound like she knows the children that terribly well -- why does she want them to stay over? Does she have any idea about their routine, etc? Is she up for getting up in the middle of the night if someone has a bad dream or a tummy ache? Does she really remember what taking care of kids entails? Having them stay with her alone sounds like an unquestionably bad idea, even apart from the boyfriend. But now that I think about it, maybe there's something else going that might be worth exploring. Is it possible that she doesn't come to visit more often because it's getting difficult for her to drive? Does she have health problems? If she's actually trying to reach out, but just in a misguided way, are there other more plausible ways to facilitate her being more involved with the kids?

I just have to pause to note how awesome this is. Great kid :001_smile: I voted other. It works for us, right now. I have no opinion as to what everyone else should do.

I had this problem during the all-too-brief shining moment (year) that we had our own w/d. I believe that I bought a product at the grocery store -- made by Tide, I think? -- that was specifically designed for cleaning washing machines. I followed the instructions on the package and it worked great.

:iagree:

Oh, I'm not in the slightest bit concerned about that. I was just saying that I thought that perhaps the title also came from the metaphor (which wikipedia tells me comes from Juvenal, go figure -- I was only familiar with it from the Taleb book.) But I haven't seen the movie yet so I don't know if the metaphor would be relevant.

Isn't it also a metaphor for an extremely rare event?

Yes, some law schools do have loan forgiveness programs for folks who go into public interest law, although from what I've read those are being cut back somewhat these days. Years ago when a good friend graduated from med school she seriously considered going to a Native American community to work for a couple of years as part of a federal loan forgiveness program (a la Northern Exposure). I don't know if that sort of thing still exists, though.

I'm so sorry to hear about your husband's stroke. I hope that he makes a full recovery. Hugs to you :grouphug::grouphug: Just to be clear, I am not demonizing the man for not caring for his former wife. I'd like to think that my husband wouldn't divorce me if I became terribly disabled, but what makes me crazy about this story is him not wanting the children to have any contact AT ALL with their mother, as if she doesn't exist. The court order is for 5 days a YEAR. Her parents are fighting to not have her erased completely from her own children's lives.

My understanding is the same as some of the prior posters -- funding through grants/TAships/RAships is pretty standard for Ph.D. across the board. I know little about standalone MAs, but law school funding is much more unusual, although schools will sometimes offer money to especially strong candidates to coax them away from higher-ranked schools. (Which is not necessarily a good deal for the student, IMO, but that's another post.) My observation has been that at the Ph.D. level, at least, there is a big difference between state and private schools. Public universities are much more likely to make you teach a lot, and they have less money overall. Private schools can be more generous.

My husband goes off on that rant maybe once a month or so. :D

Take a look at Hello World: Computer Programming for Kids and Other Beginners. My son has been working through it with the help of his father and is picking up Python remarkably quickly. It's coauthored by a father-son team and I think it would be very suitable throughout elementary school.

I've read about this case before. While it certainly seems not in the spirit of 'in sickness and in health," I still can understand the father wanting to move on with his own life -- didn't he remarry? I seem to remember reading that before -- but she is their mother, even if she isn't his wife any more. Being terribly disabled doesn't erase that reality, even if he wishes it did. Clearly she isn't fit to tend to them on her own, but I can't see how she isn't fit to see them, and I really can't see how it could possibly be in the children's best interest to have this reality wiped away as if it never existed. I'm very glad, for their sakes, that they will get to know her, even in a tragically limited way.

Wow, weird. I think it's essays outside the bathrooms here, too. And in the B&N in our old 'hood, the bathroom was buried deep in the kids' section, then right outside that was parenting, and then religion. I'd definitely say something; I have to imagine the manager would want to know that. My ongoing problem with B&N is that the cashiers keep acting like I'm trying to shoplift when I use my Educator card, "Is this for classroom use?" "Yes." Dubious look. "Where do you teach?' "We homeschool. How much do I owe you?" But that's a different post.

I don't watch television, but those horrible posters are everywhere. One local store has an accompanying sign saying, "Please don't complain about this sign to us, we have to put it up." I can't stand them, but I do suspect that they are effective in scaring/indoctrinating the young. There is a poster with a hideously rotted tooth on the door of a pharmacy right outside our building, and it has prompted many, many conversations about the health ills of smoking. Still not a fan, though.

[quote name=leeyeewah;2555272 I'm curious - how often do you plan to have a native speaker be with your dc' date=' and in what capacity (tutor vs conversational playing/reading) ? I've heard of online tutoring with native Chinese, so if tutoring were your main concern that might be an option to continue the mandarin. Not trying to influence your decision, just floating it as a possibility.. I was thinking of something along the lines of once a week, not sure of the exact capacity. It would depend on the person, I imagine. I've also heard of the online tutoring and should check that out. My concern is that with Mandarin I just can't confidently reinforce anything but the writing on my own. I do think that we'll continue Mandarin in a more casual way (classes, videos, etc.) but I just feel that we'll do more foreign language work generally if I can find a language program that I am comfortable with myself.

She doesn't want to read any book by any author who acknowledges the indisputable fact that people around the world practice many different religions? That seems .... limiting. My oldest has some kind of aesthetic objection to books involving time travel, but he loves the MTH research guides.

It has recently dawned on me that all of my fretting about my inadequacy to teach a foreign language is getting us precisely nowhere, and I need to just go ahead and pick a language, buy some materials, hopefully hire a tutor, and start DOING it already. The issue here is that I do not speak any other foreign language truly fluently. I speak Japanese and French, but I was never really fluent, and I'd have to do a lot of review to be proficient again. DH speaks Cantonese, but not terribly well and he isn't interested in teaching them language anyway. We have been taking a wonderful preschool Mandarin class, and I think I'm going to keep up with some kind of classes for that, but I've come to the conclusion since I can't really reinforce it at home Mandarin just isn't going to work as a main language for us. So while it would presumably be optimal for them to have a mother who was a native speaker of another language and/or live in another country, given what we have to work with suboptimal has got to be better than nothing here. Towards that end, the best choices on the table are (1) French; or (2) Spanish, with me learning the language for the first time alongside them. In terms of usefulness/getting to practice, we currently live in NYC but will be moving to TN soon, so I'm thinking that that leans us more to Spanish. Or possibly not? Thoughts? In either case, I will try to hire a native speaker to reinforce and amplify lessons. And can anyone recommend materials for either a non-native teaching French or a non-Spanish-speaker 'teaching' Spanish?

I agree with the need to talk about it all and get on the same page. Around here DH tends to be the one who's all "Let's homeschool them forever!" whereas I'm more cautious, let's take it year-by-year, blah blah blah. I do think that it's reasonable for your husband to be concerned that the children stay on grade level enough that they could go back to school if things aren't working out. Is he perhaps worried about what you would do if something happened to him or he lost his job, etc? Of course, the two of you may well decide together that you're just going to do your own thing and not worry about what's happening in the school system, which is also perfectly reasonable. But I'd hash through his concerns. Being the primary provider for a homeschooling family is no small responsibility, IMNSHO.

I used sittercity.com to find a part-time sitter last year and was extremely impressed with the quality of candidates. I wrote a very specific and clear ad, too, which I think helped. I interviewed several -- all of whom I think would have been just fine -- and hired the one I liked the best. She has been wonderful. If you belong to a local mom's email list, those often have/take sitter ads, too. Also don't forget to investigate the tax consequences of hiring a sitter. Tax liability and reporting requirements kick in at a surprisingly low number of hours, especially if you're paying a relatively high rate. 4nannytaxes.com has good info, IMO.

This is a cereal, obviously, but my standby make-ahead breakfast is steel-cut oats put in the rice cooker overnight (mine has a timer). I imagine a slow cooker would work as well.

No opinion on the leather, but we have a fabric-covered (red corduroy) EKTORP couch and I love it. It has held up remarkably well under very heavy use, I have washed the covers numerous times, and it still looks great. I have also forgotten to air-dry the covers a couple of times and put them in the dryer, but they still came out just fine. A little shrunken, but they still fit. Great couch. Love IKEA.