Whale. When I was an 8th grader living in Norway, I was required to take a special home economics class. My peers had taken home ec in 7th grade, but I and three Vietnamese immigrant kids had only started that year--so they made a special class just for the four of us. Every Wednesday morning we would cook a full traditional Norwegian meal together (from rolls, veggies, tea, main course, dessert) and eat it. They wanted us to taste "tradtional" Norwegian foods. Of course most Norwegians don't eat those dishes much any more, but we were to learn the culture, so we discovered foods like... Whale (red meat, kind of like venison) Reindeer (it is venison) Fiskeboller (fish balls, like meat balls made with ground fish) Gjeitost (Norwegian goat cheese--big mustard orange bricks, strange sweet taste) Salt Licorice and lots of boiled potatoes! I'm vegetarian now (and have been since I was 18), so my only "weird" dishes involve strange vegetables and fruits.

Wow! You got me! I did know that Plaid Dad was Mungo (of old), but I really did think that Mrs. Mungo was Plaid Dad's wife! No... that's Waxwing. My world is resolving into focus....

Let me start by saying that we got home late yesterday afternoon, Doug is fine. The bloodwork was negative, so they want him to follow up and schedule a colonoscopy soon, but not urgently. After our whole day I was simply too tired and drained to even attempt to post, and went straight to sleep. Those are the facts, boardies. But now, for the fabulous true tale of... DR. CRAZY! So we started yesterday by calling Doug's regular doctor's office for a referral to a gastroenterologist. I had talked to her during the night on my cel from the ER, and she told me rather than wait she'd get us a STAT referal to a GI doctor. We'd need it because in our medical group, only a GI doctor can order a colonoscopy, you have to see the GI guy first. I call in the morning, the referal woman is super helpful--she puts in the request and then starts calling around to find a doctor in the group who can see us that day. With Doug's long history, he's seen 3 of the gastroenterologists in the group, but none of them had any availablity until next week. So we were referred to a new doctor---Dr. Tsai--who's office is in the same building. Great. Fine. I call, and they tell me to come between 10 and 11 and they'll fit us in. We get to the office, and there's one person waiting before us. We sit down in the waiting room with the boys--they are really behaving well. Since we are frequent doctor's visitors, we to (cough cough) resort to handing out the video games. I was finishing up some history reading with my older ds, and then as our name was finally called I handed him the game, and we headed in. We're meeting with the doctor in his office, it turns out (at this point I'm wondering--isn't he going to examine Doug?). We start to introduce ourselves and he interrupt us "No! This is disruptive! You can't have them here!", he points at the kids. "OK", I say, "they're just going to sit quietly on the floor with their games...we do this all the time." "NO! I refuse!" So Doug stands up, ushers the boys around the corner (literally, the wall behind us is the wall of the waiting room) and comes in and sits. "You go too!" the doctor says, and points at me. Doug looks helplessly at me... I'm the one who knows all his history, all his info--his medical manager. He would rather eat glass than be left on his own to try to explain his condition. "I really need to be here to tell you about Doug's condition. He's been ill for a long time, and has multiple issues that might affect this, but we're here today because..." "No! I refuse! Get out!" He stands, walks around the desk to us. "You cannot be my patients! I refuse! I am going on vacation next week... I have to have lunch soon... he has seen other doctors.... I refuse!" At this point, he is screaming, loudly. Doug has moved out the door and around to collect our sons, who seem to be making curious movements towards the room... The next minute or so is a blur, with me saying things like "Please, we really need a referal. They think he might have a GI bleed, and we need to see a gastroenterologist" and "But you're a member of our medical group, you see all their patients--how can you refuse?" and the ever popular "What is going on?" I truly am using my reasonable voice, the one I use on small children and mentally disturbed homeless people who show up at my office fairly regularly. This is a 65 yo Chinese man having a temper tantrum--the whole time he is continuing to yell various things like "I'm too busy" "I don't have to do what I don't want to do". Finally he has gotten close enough to me (now I'm standing near the door holding my backback) that he shoves me out the door. I don't remember exactly what I said as I was being pushed (its all sort of crazy in my memory) but it was something like "This is crazy... and completely unprofessional!" He shoves me out, yells, "I am not Dr. Eddy's servant!" (Dr. Eddy is my husbands regular doc, who refered us) and slams the door in my face. Behind me his secretary (a young girl) is sitting, looking super embarrassed and pretending to be paying attention to her internet surfing. We sit in the waiting room while I try to call the medical group on my cel to figure out what to do next. We live half an hour away from the hospital and medical center, I'm not going to waste an hour when he needs to see someone now. They start trying to call Dr. Tsai to get confirmation that there was no consultation so we can go elsewhere, so his phone is ringing but he isn't answering it. Finally the receptionist walks over to his office door and is knocking on it--"Doctor? Doctor? Hello?" Nope. He won't respond to her or answer. He's hiding, won't answer his door. She gives up, goes and sits back at her desk, and burys her face in her work. The medical group calls back and says that the doctor is not available (um... yeah, he's refusing to answer the phone), so we can't have another referral because he needs to confirm that he did not treat my husband before they can refer us to another doc. I call back my doctor's office (she's out for the day) and they send us to ER again. So.... we wait in the ER, they do the bloodwork, which shows no sign of a bleed, and tell us to get a referral for the colonoscopy. We've seen probably 50 doctors over the past three years, and some are better than others, some are brusque, some we like, some don't... but I've never had a doctor totally lose it with or without provocation. It was like being on some strange HBO reality show or something. Our boys had lots of questions about what happened, of course, and we ended up having a long discussion of how when children don't learn to control thier words and their bodies, they can become grownups who can't control themselves, and that can have serious consequences. And, in the words of my 6 yo, "look embarrassing and stupid." Guess who we WON"T be going to see for our follow up? Part of me is so glad he freaked out in the office first thing--this is NOT the man I want to have a major piece of technology inserted into my husband. He's obviously close to a breaking point of some sort. Doug wants me to file a complaint, and I may, but we have so much going on in our lives right now, when?

Well... I still think it takes the right people, and commitment on both sides. A good marriage takes love, commitment and good timing as well. I have a friend who has been in a relationship with a much younger man for a while now, and while he has proposed to her, she keeps turning him down. Why? Because she is past her child-raising stage (she has 11 children, all grown, and no interest in raising more) and he is in is mid-30s. She knows he enjoys kids, and just thinks that even if it works out in the short term, in the long term he really needs to be with a woman who wants to have children. They may have the love and commitment, but the timing just isn't there for them. I think you need to decide what you want from a permanent relationship, what he wants, and then go from there. Of course, in this case you don't even know yet!

Ok now... that's just too cool! I never realized there's a limit on the amount of rep you can give... is that per day? Ever? You can just "run out" of rep? Inquiring minds want to know!

My step-dad (who is a wonderful, stellar guy!) is 4 years younger than my mother. They've been married for over 25 years... so I know it can indeed work when the people are right and the commitment is there--same criteria for any marriage!

We got home from the hospital--but weren't even seen. The ER was absolutely packed (probably over 100 people waiting, every single chair inside full), people sitting outside on the side walk, everywhere. I asked how long the wait was... they said the wait for TRIAGE was over 3 hours. It was looking like we might not actually be seen until the morning. I called my doctor, and she said at that rate she'll call in the morning and get us an urgent referal for a colonoscopy and do the bloodwork herself. So we headed home and relieved my elderly church lady from babysitting duty. If Doug feels faint or has another bout of bleeding, we have to go back to the ER immediately... but for now, we figured he'd feel better sleeping at home and getting tested tomorrow than trying to sit on the sidewalk all night. Ugh. So keep us in your prayers--I'll update tomorrow when we get some info from the doctor. Doug seems to be feeling fine, just fatigued--but with his history, we know it's nothing to mess around with.

He's been feeling really run down the last couple of days, and called me up to see there is a bunch of blood in his stool. I called the doctor right away because of his history--and she confirmed we really need to head in to the ER. He keeps saying "But I work tomorrow--can't we just ignore it this one time?" And I offered: Go to the ER with me, or I'll call his mom and he can talk to her about it. He agreed to go the ER. I've got a friend from church coming to sit with the boys (I hope) and we're going to have a nice night out together at the hospital... prayers for him and that this isn't anything serious or related to all his illness. Thanks!:o

Fantastic! Great they can get you in right away... keep us up to date, and we'll keep praying!

I'll be praying for you! I had mine out laproscopically about 5 years ago, and it was SO much better afterwards... surgery is never fun, but it will be over soon and you'll be home doing great!

(((Jean))) We'll be praying for you here. Please let us know what you find how... how terrifying it all is. We care and are thinking of you all.

My dh is 100% supportive of homeschooling, and does most of the teaching. We're both passionate about how wonderful it is for our family, though he can get worn out being a SAHD sometimes, and needs me to cover him and give him a break. I do all the planning and curriculum, and teach one day a week that he has "off" to go work at the comic book store. :rolleyes:

Sugar alchohols also aren't good for diabetics either... the "sugar free" candy can still spike your blood sugar, though it may take slightly longer. Artificial sweeteners are OK for diabetics, though.

We didn't get the flu... and did have shots. I know they only were supposed to protect somewhat this year, but worked for us at least.

The first was just in our bed until he was about 10 months, then was sleeping mostly through the night and moved to a crib for the most part. He is a very sound sleeper. The second time we had a sidecar co-sleeper... he was there until about 18 months old, then we moved him to a room with his brother. He would wake in the middle of the night and then come in and nurse. He is 4, and still comes into our bed every night at about 2 or 3 am and spends the rest of the night with us, though we weaned at 21 months. He's a light sleeper, and just wants to cuddle.:) I loved co-sleeping because I could just roll over, grab the baby, pull them in, and go to sleep with them latched on. I didn't have to wake up, sit up, move or otherwise disturb my own sleep. When we did move to a crib, it was much harder to get up and answer thier cries rather than just roll and hug.

I'll be praying for you today as well... hospital ERs are exhausting and stressful at any time, and when it is your child and other children are depending on you.... know that we are thinking of you and sending you strength.

Though that is always their favorite part! Our tradition is that they wake to find a "Bunny Trail" leading from thier bed... a trail of small wrapped chocolate eggs that lead them downstairs and around the house to thier hidden basket. The basket is full of non-edible gifts--stocking-stuffer type things usually from the educational store. Pencils, small toys, and 1 larger game or toy. Usually we organize an actual egg hunt later in the day at church.

We do Costco once a month or so... I like that the are now carrying so many organic products, and we buy all our meat/cheese/milk there now. Meat is a particularly good deal! Dh likes Costco because he gets great deals on DVDs and books, I like the kitchen-y gadgets. But we'd never go on the weekend!

My oldest (now in 1st grade) went to preschool 2 mornings a week for two years for the fun/social/play aspect. When the other kids were off to Kindergarten, we just said that we were homeschooling kindergarten--that was what the put on the "My new school" poster at the end of the year--and it was no biggie. "Some kids go to school in a seperate building, we have school here in our home with our family!" Our younger son is right now in his second year of Preschool (also 2 mornings a week), and will come home for K next fall. It has made it much easier to do school with his older brother on those two mornings--we get a lot accomplished on Tuesdays/Thursdays.

Thank you so much, all! Was busy at a seminar all weekend (and at church today), but came home... and we went with Dell. Ordered a new desktop (which will live in the kitchen, where we do school) and two laptops--dh got a royal blue one, mine is light green. I'm so psyched!:)

We need to buy a new desktop and two laptops to replace our current set-up. Mostly they all offer similar packages and prices, but what I want to know is: where have you had the best customer service and quality over time? Our last couple of computers have been Dells, but we've had spotty service, though perhaps that is ubiquitous? Please help me decide where to start looking! We're really not Apple people, and I'm pretty certain dh would never consider an Apple, but I've included it in the poll because I figured I'd hear about it if we didn't! We want to order some time this weekend.

Colleen... I think this is right on!

Sorry... I just clipped it because I realized I was leaving the realm the hypthetical and bringing in personal experience that isn't necessarily relevant. FYI to others--it was about kids not being "misbehaved" but excluding others from their play, and that parents rarely intervene to enforce inclusion, in my experience. Good for you in making sure it happens!

(Agreeing that we are far into hypothetical territory here)... Well, if a child does feel totally bullied when the other child doesn't have intent, then doesn't their parent have just as much a responsiblity to teach that child to speak up? My younger ds is the passive "receiver" type (like my dh, :-) ), so I've been at that end as well. I think there can be inappropriate introversion as well as inappropriate extroversion, but it's much less noticable because it is -quiet-. I don't know... social dynamics are tricky. I hold my kids to certain standards--if they are playing in a public area, they are expected to include anyone who wants to be included. Park play areas really are not the place for private quiet moments, and I think it's unreasonable to expect others will leave so that someone can enjoy their solitude. Now, if it was in a home... that's when you say "Thank you for coming! See you next week!" and usher them out the door to enjoy your privacy.

We're close to Michelle, and have the same reaction--I've never met these homeschoolers! Here, if I see a mom out during the day with 2 or 3 kids, the boys have very long hair, sandals or barefoot, all have home tie-dyed t-shirts, and they have peace stickers on thier VW, MAYBE I'd think homeschoolers... or just surfers ditching school. Totally different stereotype here, huh?