In my circle of friends there are many SAHMs. A lot of that is because my children are still young and many of my friends have children at home and are still having children. It will be interesting in the next 3-10 years as more of their kids go to school to see if they return to work part-time or even full time. Also, many of my friends are from my church where staying at home with children and having large families is encouraged. I don't homeschool and only know of one person in my area who does, and so that doesn't play a large role in whether women stay home or not. I have noticed that it's common for women in my church who are 10-15 years older than me and whose children are all in school often return to work part-time or even full time. There are also some women who work full time but have flexible jobs like being a professor, nurse, etc. I live in the midwest but in a fairly affluent suburb. Many of my friends' husbands have well-paying jobs, while others make significant financial sacrifices to live off of one income. Also, many of my friends have more than three children which makes it hard to work and pay for childcare. I'm not as well acquainted with moms from my children's school, but from what I can tell many of them work full time as do their husbands. They often have 1-3 children and it's not uncommon for grandparents to help with childcare. I work part-time and I feel like that's perfect for my family. I'm here when my kids get home from school and yet I am out of the house 2-3 days a week. I graduated and had children young, and so I feel like I never had a career and am now experiencing some of that. I know I will never have a full-time, affluent career and that's okay because it means more stability for my family. If I had married and had children later, I may have felt that I already had a career and would be satisfied being a SAHM full time. Having me work part-time also gives my husband greater flexibility so he can grow his career (which makes a lot more money than I would). Two weeks ago I was home all week taking care of sick kids and then last week I was sick. My husband picked up some of the extra slack when he was off work, but he didn't need to take additional time off of work. Having me handle the kids, budgeting, housework, and more helps us have the time to spend time together without running around nights and weekends. Part of the reason I returned to work was to keep my skills fresh and be prepared in case I was needed financially. I'm an ISFJ and so while I like helping both at home and outside the home, I need validation and part of that for me is getting a paycheck. So this is what works for me, but I support women in doing whatever is best for them and their family.

We had Influenza A in our household. It started a couple of weeks ago and went through all of my children and then me. I know it was Influenza A because my youngest was having breathing problems and so I took him into the doctor and they tested him for the flu. So he ended up with albuterol and Tamiflu. Now everyone is better, but it was a rough couple of weeks. Those affected had fever, chills, headaches, and one of my kids threw up. They still went to bed early 7-10 days after they got better. I'm training for a half marathon, and I probably won't be able to resume my training for another week. We live in the midwest, if that helps.

I feel like the lines between being a SAHM/WAHM have always been blurred for me. While I've mainly stayed home with my kids, I've usually brought in some income. Years ago I taught piano lessons. Then my husband returned to school and I became a general transcriptionist and worked from home while my children slept. After a couple of years of that, my kids started dropping their naps and staying up later which made transcription more difficult. Right now I am working part-time for my husband's business. I also earn a small amount of passive income each month from an online course I've created. My older two kids are in public school, and have been for two-three years. So it's just me and my three-year-old now during the day. Last year I really struggled with just being alone with a two-year-old all day. So this year I became an official part of my husband's business and pay for childcare for my youngest while his siblings are in school, 2-3 days a week. This also helps me separate work and home more, although I'm still "on call" when the kids are with me if I there's a proposal or document that needs editing. My son likes to play with other kids his age at his caregiver's house, so that's a bonus, too. It is important for me to be home when my older kids get home from school as much as I can. I feel spoiled to be able to work part-time with my husband and set my own hours. It's working out well for me right now. I've thought about going back to school when my youngest is in school, but I don't know if I want to add the chaos to our household, and my husband would need to find someone to replace me. Plus, there's the cost of an additional degree (I already have a bachelor's) when I don't want an 8-5 job. I figure that by working part-time I'm keeping my skills sharp and helping out my family at home.

I would think "The Martian" would count as science fiction. As of now, we don't have the technology or means to go to Mars. It's something that would happen in the future. The book is full of science, but at the heart is a survival story and a story of how much resources do you allocate to save one person on Mars.

I'll have to recommend Island of the Lost to my husband.

So I finished two out of three books that have been on my to-read list for over a year. The first one was Still Alice by Lisa Genova. It was an interesting yet sad glance into the world of early-onset dementia. Alzheimer's doesn't run in my family, but it runs in my husband's family when they get older. I was expecting more in the ending, but I don't know what. The second book I finished this week was called A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The authors are a husband/wife team who wrote "Half the Sky" one of my favorite non-fiction books. Half the Sky is about issues that women face around the world and steps we can take to support women and help them gain more economic independence and better health. It addressed issues I had never heard before. A Path Appears was similar in that it talked about social issues around the world, but it focused on how individuals can help alleviate poverty both in the US and abroad. It also talked about the challenges non-profits have and what successful non-profits are doing. It was very thought-promoting and helped me see that helping others isn't as hard as I may think. This week I am reading What Happy People Know: How the New Science of Happiness Can Change Your Life for the Better by Dan Baker and Cameron Smith. I've only gotten into the first chapter or so. I want to try reading this book more for retention and trying some of the strategies in this blog post. So I won't necessarily read every word, but I'll try to catch the main tenants of the book.

Thanks for all the responses. I think I'll call one of the groups to sign up.

I've been listening to a podcast called "what should I read next." It's made my books to-read list grow.

I'm a long-time lurker and a rare poster, but I need the wisdom of the Hive. We have an eight-year old son who attends school and is struggling with fitting in, self-worth, understanding social cues, and making friends. He has one or two friends who aren't in his class, but feels like others don't like him. He also is a perfectionist and thinks if he makes a mistake that he's, in his words, worthless. So we assume he's suffering from depression. He also has some anxiety (but that seems to run in my family). He's an introvert and is very much in his own world half of the time. He's also extremely bright, a hard worker, and has a sense of humor. He's grown a lot in these past few years controlling his emotions, but I feel like when I feel he's made some strides his teacher will report some behavioral or self-worth issues. I've read books and tried my best to be supportive and let him know he is loved, but we feel he could benefit from some outside help. I have found a couple of social skills groups for children in our area. Has anyone does this before and had success with them? There are some run by LCSW and others run by clinicians with a PhD. Is there a difference depending on credentials? If you've done these, did your child also need to do one on one sessions with a counselor or is that something that the group leader would recommend? We would most likely be paying for everything out of pocket, but some of it might count towards a very high deductible. I've found one class that was $250/8 sessions run by a LCSW. Another class I found was $70/session run by a clinician with a PhD. I have no idea what individual counseling would cost, but I assume it would be maybe $75-$100/session. Any thoughts that anyone had about how best to help my child would be appreciated. I've read some books, but would also be open to any book suggestions either for me as a parent or to read with him. Thanks!

This week has been a lighter week. I finished up two YA novels, "Glass Sword" (Red Queen #2) and "Calamity" (Reckoners #3). I also listened to "A Man Called Ove" and finished up "The Nightingale." This was one of the weeks where 3-4 holds arrived from the library and so I tried to finish everything before it was due. I also had more time to read due to family sicknesses. Next weeks' goal is to read my other library books that I've had on my to-read list for over a year.

I have one and like it, but lately it's been too cold to lay on it in thin clothing.

I just made a superman cape for my three-year-old. When I showed it to him he said, "Mommy, does it work?"

1st day of potty training. Hopefully the second half of the day goes better than the first.

Epi pens are soooo expensive. It's also hard that you can't buy single ones, only double packs. From what I understand roughly 10% of allergic reactions would require the second pen, but they can only sell it in a two-pack now. Our school nurse told us that technically we could just give the school one epi-pen with the original box and if there was a dire emergency they have a second one on hand they could use. So that's what we did and then kept one at home with other slightly expired epi-pens in case there was a need for a second pen. I'm comfortable with that because from what I can tell my son's allergies aren't as severe as other people's allergies and we only live five minutes from the hospital. So splitting the package between home and school could be something you could ask the school about. That way you only have to buy one two-pack.

My obgyn is affiliated with a local Catholic hospital. A little over a year ago I was interested in getting an IUD for contraceptive purposes. She said that if I wanted her to do it at the Catholic hospital it would be need to be considered a procedure that was done for health reasons (I forget the exact term) as opposed to being for contraceptive purposes. Yet if it was labeled that way at the hospital then it wouldn't be covered 100% by insurance (as mandated by the ACA) because it wouldn't have been for "contraceptive" purposes. So she had it set up to once a month do IUDs at a different non-religious location so that people who wanted an IUD covered 100% by insurance could have it billed as a contraceptive. I just thought it was interesting how it was the same procedure but treated differently depending on how it was labeled.

I save my library number as a draft email in gmail so I can just copy and paste it.

One thing that's interesting too is that often small business owners will show a high income, but they leave some in the business for future business needs. For example, if a small company had a profit of $150,000, but they kept $30,000 in the business, then their income still shows as $150,000, even if they only took home $120,000.

I would usually keep the baby home from church the first few weeks. Mostly it was because I felt church was a likelier setting to get germs since people were closer in proximity, people wanted to see or hold the baby, etc. I'd take my baby out to other things in the community, especially just for walks outside (most of my babies were summer babies). I didn't really take the baby to the grocery store, but that was more because I was too tired to do much shopping and had my husband do it for the first couple of months or did it when he watched the kids.

I guess I don't understand how it works. I have an Amazon account that's just my email. Our main account though is through his email. But, knowing my husband, he would want to access the books on his smartphone which is always logged into his email and his Amazon account. Would he have to sign into my account each time from his phone?

I was thinking of giving my husband six months of audible for Christmas. Too bad I can't use this code to sign him up before Christmas without him knowing. He would want access to it on his phone which is linked to his email.

My prayers go out to those affected. We have some friends from Pakistan. Although they could have been safe here and done well for themselves in the US, they chose to return to their home and try to make a difference. I have a lot of admiration for them, and pray that they stay safe.

We celebrated st Nicolas this morning. I had never heard of it until I married my husband who has German ancestry. It's one of my husband's favorite holidays. My kids love it, too. We did candy, real oranges, and chocolate oranges to share. My kids were telling their five-year-old friend about it the other day. My husband was explaining that it helps the kids know if they're being bad or good before Christmas. I had to tell him to clarify to the girl that not all families celebrate it so that she wouldn't feel bad when she didn't get candy in her shoes.

The thing that makes me mad is this showed up as sponsored content in my Facebook feed linking to the article. That is basically porn on my Facebook and I would have hated for my kids to see it by accident.

I'm very surprised there aren't travel restrictions in place for those who have had contact with ebola patients. Hopefully if other areas in the US run into Ebola patients they will have learned from the mistakes of Dallas and be more vigilant in tracking contacts and making sure those under watch don't travel, especially on airplanes. One thing I've thought about protecting health care workers is minimizing pregnant health care workers from interacting with ebola patients. From what I've read, ebola is even more deadly to pregnant women and their babies since it causes the babies to miscarry and then it's hard to stop the mothers from bleeding out. I don't know if you can make that recommendation or not, but if I was pregnant I would be concerned about working with ebola patients, even with PPE. I also have to wonder when in the future you can start to use robots and other technology to minimize human to human interactions and still provide proper care. Obviously that's way not here now, and it would be extremely expensive, but sometime in the future that may help deal with infectious diseases. Speaking of technology (and just pondering things here), I wonder if you could have some sort of temperature type device like a watch that you give to contacts to monitor their temperature and alerts public officials if their temperature goes up. You could also do the same to people who come in the country from affected areas. To make it actually work you would probably have to make it non-removable and have a GPS tracker which runs into a host of privacy and freedom issues. Obviously not something anyone would recommend right now, but would it be something to consider if there was a real pandemic sometime in the future? I also think if there are more cases if it would make more sense to have screenings and such done off site from a hospital where you're not exposing the public to the virus. There were conflicting articles that said the second exposed health worker was isolated right away and another report said she was isolated after 90 minutes at the hospital. I wonder why if you knew this health care worker had contact with Duncan that you wouldn't have them call a separate number and then provide transportation that isolates them right away.