Thank you al for your replies. I’ve been studying on kindness lately, and I know Christians who will stiff a waitress for poor service ( like the “regular waitress” gives certain sauces for free but this waitress charged them for it.) sorry, I didn’t mention it was a hypothetical situation. Y’all have helped me figure this one out. It would take a LOT for me to not tip at all and I was wondering where I fit in.

How does a nice, classy person handle this? I hate withholding a tip from a waiter. That just seems awful to do to a person whose just making a few dollars an hour. so what do you do?

Whew! That’s over with. You handled it perfectly? And you are okay. And it’s fine if she calls the world. Really. Those who matter will give you the benefit of the doubt and not care what she says.

She will try constantly to get around the boundary. She’ll look for any reason, birthday, anniversary, whatever, to violate the boundary. Don’t let her do that.

It sounds like she’s still playing that game with you. Don’t call her back. Give it at least 2 weeks.

Bubbles. Stringing pony beads for bracelets and necklaces my kid like this tended to tag along with what I was doing. She liked washing dishes, could fold washcloths and match socks, stirring pancake batter and such. I moved cupboards so she could help put clean dishess away and set the table. She was a big help with her baby sister too.

We chose the name Barnabas since that biblical name means "Son of Consolation." Lucy was a wonderful consoling dog. She always knew when someone was sad or upset and would seek them out to cuddle them. Many tears were shed into her soft coat. We're hoping Barnabas will be just as consoling.

Doubtful. we Lost someone to covid and had to fight the “no large public funeral” battle for that person.

It literally took me 2-3 months to figure out how to load my Bosch. They designed their racks oddly. Now that I know how, it holds as much as my old whirlpool.

I have a Bosch dishwasher and I love it. My whirlpool dishwashers wore out after 4 years or so and this one works amazingly. I’ve had it over 5 years and it still cleans as well as when if we brand new. And it’s not loud.

Thank you. And yes it was so sad to have her go, but we preferred that she died here on e farm where she was happiest. She hated car rides and they stressed her badly. And we were spared those awful cost benefit analysis that are so heartbreaking.

When my third dd turned 5 we bought her a sweet great pyr pup named Lucy. My dd is now 16, sadly, 2 weeks ago Lucy died in her sleep of old age. She felt great right up til the last few weeks of her life. She was a wonderful dog and we were all so sad. well, we all know that the best salve from losing a dog is a pup. And we got my dd a new dog. This ones a boy. He’s named Barnabas. Oh he’s so sweet. ETA: the first pic is my dd and Lucy and the second is my dd and barnabas.

Yes, when all you have ever experienced or been around is not great parenting, you really have no tools to handle the challenges that come up. We can't forget that there are giant pockets of people who have only been around and experienced poor parenting. They know no better. So when a kid throws a fit and all the parent has ever heard or known is to swat them, that's what the parent does. And in some places the idea of using other parenting techniques is looked down upon as "spoiling a child." When all you've heard is that "the other parenting styles" is going to ruin a child, you go with what you know. How do I know this? Because I was that person. It took me years to learn other skills and if I hadn't moved from where family was, I probably never would have sought out help. When we ended up in a church that was much more gracious, loving, and understanding of children, I figured out that there was more than one way to do this parenting thing and got the courage to try more effective techniques. Also, finding this board gave me tools I needed, resources to try...because what I was doing was not working, I figured I had nothing to lose.

BINGO! My kid needed structure and consistency or we had meltdowns all day long. She really needed to know what to expect. To help this kid, it would be good if all the adults could get on the same page about a general daily routine. Also, if sitter can start looking at meltdowns as less a matter of poor character and more of a matter of "a tiny kid being overwhelmed with frustration and emotion and feeling alone and misunderstood" it will help. When a kid gets to that point, they need gentle and attentive adults. This will make the meltdowns end quicker. But the main thing is being fair to the kid by not expecting too much and heading off the meltdowns.

BTW, I had a 5 yo that still threw screaming fits. I SO wish that I had learned about de-escalation and better techniques for managing the situations that led up to the meltdowns. I didn't handle them well most of the time when that child was small and it's one of my big life regrets. To be fair, I had nobody to mentor me on this. I knew no one with a child like mine, and typical parenting advice did not help one bit. But I still regret that I couldn't figure out better ways of handling the big emotions in my kid.