DS went to a private, expensive school for K. They were very very generous with financial aid and I am grateful for that. Just bear in mind that along with financial aid may come expectations of large amounts of volunteer hours. The hours may be required or gratitude-related but it's just as well to know what the expectations are. My neighbor's child goes to an elite school and they pretty much own her (the mom) for the next few years!

Slipper, thank you for that explanation. It sounds very helpful!

Slipper, excuse my ignorance, but what is a sensory room?

The disorganization and miscommunication show a complete lack of having a clue! You've let him know your concerns, and he has not improved. I recommend going to the church leadership/pastor, who likely would not want things to be run this way.

I'm #30 on the list-- there are 14 copies.

My parents took us to live in Zurich for 3 months, for my Dad's job, when we were 5, 3, and 3 yrs old (twins). Mom and us kids lived in a convent's hostel while Dad had to stay at the dorm residence provided with his internship. We loved the toys and riding the trains there and cablecar up to the mountains. Somehow the Lego sets seemed better there! My mom knew German and tried to speak it everywhere and we listened and must have absorbed something. But i do remember times when people would interrupt and start in English, when she ran into trouble with German. What was difficult: when we 3 all got some kind of stomach flu :( I think one thing that would be helpful to find out in advance is the German name for medications you might need in a hurry, like Tylenol. Another difficult thing: this trip was quite an experience, but it was very stressful for my mom, as you can imagine. I would really plan to have a very lazy, slow month when you come back so you have a chance to rest up afterward, get over jetlag, and ease back into regular life. Have fun!

haha-- sometimes I think it's best just to let the service wash over you and forget the details!

I noticed you can see how many of your posts get liked. My likes-to-posts ratio is about half. I was pleased with that til I saw some of us have a much higher ratio!

OK, now, catching up to the thread. Greeks do not do the canon of St Andrew as often, in the parishes, no. On the other hand, Greeks will likely know the hymn of Kassiani which is chanted at great length on (I think) Holy Tuesday, but in OCA usage it is chanted no differently than the rest of the hymns/prayers and goes by in a flash! Alessandra, I believe you when you say that your Greek friends did Holy Week a certain way, but I can tell you that that is extremely unusual-- I'm saying this not just based on my personal experience, but on what we were taught at the Greek seminary in Liturgical Theology class.

Oh dear, Alessandra, I don't know about the Greek church you visited, but the Holy Week services are done the exact same way as the OCA/Russian-- the morning ones in the evening, etc. It may have been that that particular priest had to move a service for some local parish reason, but ordinarily they are exactly the same. [Having spent 10 years in OCA and 13 with the Greeks and helping chant/sing for many years, I feel I can answer this!] About the funeral, the only thing that is new for me is the 2-4 pm time slot. I'm not sure what exactly is happening there. Also I've never heard it called a 'wake' among Orthodox, but perhaps this family is of mixed background, or perhaps they are labeling it that way to try to explain to other people? In the evening, the service will be a Trisagion, a short service. There may be speeches afterward, or there may not. There may even be slides shown of the person's life. I am used to going to these services in a funeral home. The person's body will likely be in an open casket. Usually the family will be seated in chairs in the front. After the service is over we go up to the casket and take a last look at the person. Sometimes we may kiss them or make the sign of the cross and bow. It is not obligatory. Then we greet the family. You can say something to them or you can just hug them. Then usually there is some dry snacks to eat and wine and people chat. Sometimes they stay a long time and it is more like a party, and sometimes people just filter away more quickly. I dress in black and modestly for these. About 'looking down' on Greeks-- the Russians/OCA are more known for attention to liturgical tradition, and the Greeks made some changes around 1900 that make others think that they are omitting things (for example, OCA has the Beatitudes chanted during the Liturgy, Greeks don't). Each ethnicity has its strong point, and IMO for the Russian strain it is love for beauty and appreciation of suffering, whereas for the Greeks it's hospitality. Both are good. This looking down is really not a good thing, and a problem, and I fell into it myself when I came into the Greek community (by marriage) before I learned to love the Greeks just as much. HTH

Good going, Mama, that you got them to live up to their word!!! I'm sure I'm not the only inquiring mind who wants to know, what were the 'pointed discussions' like? How did you convince them? What did you say, what tone did you use, etc? So often we have threads asking for advice about how to handle a situation like this, and it's not often that the Hive is presented with a fait accompli. :)

:(((((((

There is a new, young NPR lady with a terrible Wisconsin accent and pretentious way of talking that drives me nuts! I don't understand how she got so far in radio with a voice like that At least we are in good company-- St. Therese of Lisieux wrote that one of the other nun's voices drove her up the wall.

No--- not unless you have truly exhausted all other options, AND it's something really important.

I would keep calling and asking for compensation. If someone refuses, just ask for a supervisor. I'll tell you how I did this, getting compensation from Travelodge one time-- long story-- I called and wrote multiple times and got nowhere. Then I was talking with a lady on the phone and she said with finality "you aren't getting your money back from this office." I was mad and I answered sarcastically "then what office AM I going to get my money back from???" And she said "Oh! Call this number." I called and they had a whole file on my case and refunded the money right away. So this leads me to believe there is always another level if you keep asking. Or else, I somehow I hit on the magic words--? :)

This case has been discussed exhaustively: there is definitely much more to the story than the medicalkidnap article. There were several articles in the local newspaper, and photos of the children-- the baby definitely looked thin and sad-- not how you want a happy baby to look Local CPS stated that home birth is not a risk factor they consider. [i've actually seen the local CPS in action before, and they impressed me as being reasonable-- overall.] What was problematic for this family was a violent and unstable home. The medicalkidnap article is a classic case for "there must be more to the story." I almost always say this now whenever I read something!

I sympathize with xx, and I understand the rule about doubling consonants when adding a suffix, unless the vowel 'says its name,' --- but look at other examples of words that end in x when you add suffixes: We don't see: vex --> vexxing wax --> waxxing fax --> faxxing suffix --> suffixxes fix --> fixxing, fixxes According to this pattern, it should be vaxers, even though that looks like vay-ksers. After I wrote all that out, I actually typed 'it should be vaxxers' and had to correct it! 'Vaxxers' does come more naturally...

I remind myself that in a couple of days I will feel much differently about the incident, and then I just move through time until that happens (if that makes any sense).

Well, Disney is pretty expensive. :)

Elisabet1, did you mean to say "dollar coasters"? :)

I never heard of wanderable but it does seem like an nice idea... we did register for expensive china and silver when we married, because that was what it seemed like you do! But, because we were moving, we had it all delivered to my MIL's... and there it sits in the original boxes, more than a decade later. We live far off so it would be more $$ to move it. Sometimes I wonder what on earth to do with it, and I feel bad for the wonderful friends and family who spent such money on it... Back to the OP-- I think a shower usually has a theme, and you bring some small gift appropriate to that, in addition to the wedding gift which you give later.

I would... except... one of my children is very tiny for his age. I know he is well-trained and clever enough to deal with ordinary problems that might come up on a mile walk, but I can't help thinking that it would be very easy for someone to pick him up like a feather and carry him off. Not a rational fear, but still, that's my mommy gut talking... if he were as large and strong for his age as his sib, I would feel completely OK with it. I think I recall the exact street from the article, and I am still OK with it, if we had practiced it together. To compare, when I was about 4 yrs old, I and my chum decided we would go and meet his sister at 'big kids school' which was about a mile or a mile and a half away. We walked all the way there, just the two of us. When we came home, our parents were upset with us, not because we had gone that far, but because we had not told anyone where we were going.

Why not? I did this at age 6.

Wear it. If anyone mentions it, just smile shyly and say "Yes, it is becoming, isn't it?" :)

Congratulations!!!!