Just adding that she asked in a very kind, thoughtful way, though, and made clear that she'd choose another name if we objected.

My cousin asked me about this recently, as she's hoping for a boy, and wants to use the family name we gave our son. I think it's cool! My father and his only brother will have passed the name on through their daughters. :)

Oh, and I think one of DH's colleagues will now be receiving a box of tampons - perfect gift for him. :)

DH is giving my mother a salt lick. She loves salt. :D He made special trip to a tractor supply store, for this giant, brick-sized lump of salt, that will never be used. But she will laugh!!!

Thanks, one*mom!

Thanks for explaining that. I had no idea. It makes the geo-tagging of the pics a lot less ... significant. In this case, any way. And thanks for the links to facebook for reporting photos. That is good to have on hand.

:lol:

Yes, I'm sure that's it. Old fuddy duddies that we are! She does, indeed, put it ALL on facebook. :) But if we printed the photos (making sure there were no identifying features in them), and she scanned them or took photos of them... Wouldn't that alleviate the geo-tagging issue? Unless, of course, she took a photo of the photos while sitting in our driveway! Aaaaaggggh. I don't know. Part of me wants to just say, "To heck with it: Post away!" Another part of me is genuinely concerned about this person's acquaintances having access to our address.

P.S. Now I am plotting a move to Portland!!!!

I would go to the party, too. But then, I'm paranoid. :) (If you have doubts, see my question about pics on facebook!) Plus, my DS has had inhalation reactions. If she's had so many recent reactions, her "allergy cup" is full... Definitely try to cut down exposures, any way you can. :grouphug:

I didn't know we could do this. Would we need to have a facebook account to do so? Thanks! (Again, we would only do it with the ones that contain our kiddo's name and obviously identifying info about the location - those are the pics that have me uncomfortable.)

Yes, it is. We don't have to allow them in, we don't have to do anything, but we wanted to facilitate as much openness as we could. We have other children in open adoptions, and it's all very respectful, loving, and there is a genuine feeling of shared family and love. This situation is different, probably because of the substance abuse. The person involved is very, very young, and can't be expected to have great judgment, even sober. But the reaction when we've asked that pics not be posted on facebook is that we are, well, crazy. So I started to wonder... Hmmm, are we being too rigid here? Is this really the norm? Like I said above, I think the next visit we will ask that phones be checked at the door, and we will take pictures that we will print out before the visit ends. Do you think that would satisfy the need for pics? That way we can be sure they are not identifying, are not geo-tagged, and if they do get posted on fb, they at least won't contain info about our location.

:) No, probably not run of the mill. Your summary made me laugh! I really don't know what we'll do. I don't know how to do the cool multi-quoting thing here, so first... I'll just say thanks to all... I wanted to get a feel for what's normal in the world of facebook and posting pics of others' kids, in their homes. We'll probably ask that all phones be checked at the door from now on, or possibly make more of an effort to do visits in a neutral location. That should help with the geo-tagging issue that a PP brought up, and the identifying features of our neighborhood. Our attorney is no longer involved, thank goodness, we are way past that. But we did ask him before we finalized, and his thoughts were very clear and concise, also very rigid.

Yes. :( I hesitated to post too much info about it initially, then realized that I needed to clarify for the sake of getting opinions on this topic. We've asked many times, as nicely and gently as we know how to ask. Part of me wants to ignore it, and just let it go. If this is just normal facebook behavior then... Maybe we can learn to live with it. But there are real concerns about safety here, we think. I just don't know what to do. We did ask our attorney. His stance was very adamant, very rigid, and we have not wanted to go the route of his suggestions.

Thanks, all. It's good to get some fresh perspective on this. It's being done by a member of our kiddo's birthfamily, one with a history of drug and alcohol abuse, and very bad judgment. I don't mind her posting pics, but it bothers me when she takes them inside our home, or with identifying info, and posts them. I don't trust her acquaintances. :( I wondered if maybe my request that she refrain from doing this was just way out of line in the facebook world.

Oh, I don't mind if we are out and about, at an event etc. :) That's just part of life. I'm thinking of people coming into my home for a visit, taking pictures inside my home that are *only* of my children, then posting those on their facebook pages with my kids' names attached. Is that normal? Am I too sensitive on that? And again, I really don't mind if we are out, at an activity, or with friends. It's just when it's in our home, with pictures that might indicate where we live - like an address or another identifying feature of our neighborhood - that I get antsy and concerned. I've asked the party that does this to stop, but she has not stopped. She treats my request as paranoid, and ignores it.

Love those!

To preface, I don't do facebook. DH and I are holdouts. We are very into privacy, and prefer other ways to stay in touch with family and friends. I don't have a problem with people who do facebook, it's just not my choice. How do you all feel when (if) other people post pictures of your kids online? Is there some kind of etiquette around this? Since I don't do facebook, I have no idea, but it bothers me knowing that people are posting pictures of my kids - even in my house - on their facebook pages. Am I out of line here?

You can come here, too! We're not 8 hours away! :) Your van... You know, those strange noises are very concerning... I understand that odd knocking might be, the ummm, converter belt. (Is that a car part?) In fact, it might just be so bad you shouldn't risk driving it to the post office to mail those gifts! :grouphug: Families around the holidays. Ugh. Oh! And we have food allergies here... With non-compliant family members who do. not. get. it. It's ridiculous.

i think Jean and the others (re)stating that CFS and Fibro are syndromes, or sets of symptoms, are right on the money for bringing that up. These are names for a set of symptoms, and it's so important that everyone look for the root cause of their CFS or Fibro - just like one would look for the cause of any symptoms. It's frustrating when there is no apparent cause, but keep digging because eventually a very astute doc might just find it. Or a new breakthrough will happen - as just happened in my case. There has to be a reason. Years ago, when I saw an ID (infectious disease doc), he saw CFS and Fibro both on my chart. He made a motion of crumbling up paper and throwing it in the wastebasket, and called it a "wastebasket diagnosis" (like a PP said). He said we need to find the cause of the syndromes.

I don't think it's weird. We did this every other year when DSS was a child. He alternated years with us, so on years he'd be with his mother, we celebrated our Christmas on our own designated day.

Tick Borne Disease. Not Lyme Disease, but a complex of different diseases that overlap. Sorry.

I know of several teens who had CFS that young. I knew their moms, actually, not the teens. But the CFS was caused by (you guessed it) TBDs, so take that for what its worth - it was a symptom of another condition, technically. Let's see... one girl was a patient of Dr F in AZ, and she battled what's become known as the "Fry bug" for years... thinking it was a form of Bartonella. She now knows what it is, in her 20s, and is doing much better after a long struggle. Another girl had a persistent case of Babesia Duncani. I don't recall details on the others, but they were all caused by TBDs of one sort of another, so this might not be helpful. I'm sure there are non-TBD-related cases of CFS out there, I just happen to know lots of TBD people. :) Oh, and technically, I had CFS as a teen. The docs called it chronic, atypical mono. It started when I was 11 and relapsed and remitted for years. I missed 2 years of school - well, I had home tutors and graduated on time, but was technically absent from PS. (Hmmm, never realized I was partly homeschooled till now, we never called it that!) ...I still have CFS listed on my chart, it comes and goes. I still have the lovely "Fry bug" though, so I'm hopeful the CFS will resolve with treatment.

These are great ideas, so glad I opened this thread. For my Apple FanBoy DH, I'd love to get this: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/e8bb/

What, it isn't already January??