I would try to do some matchmaking and get her married! She's not going to understand until she has kids of her own. I know I didn't. :blushing:

I mapquested 1 hr 22 minutes from Jamesburg to Long Beach Island. We went there all the time in my childhood. Loved it. There is a family atmosphere and beaches you can walk and walk. Have fun!

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About AC-- I have liked him since I saw him report on a story once: it was about a child who had been in danger or an emergency of some kind (I forget what exactly), and AC prefaced the story by saying that the child was fine now, and then he went on to explain the scary news-worthy story. I thought that was so considerate to all the mothers out there, and so different from any other newscaster who is just trying to sensationalize everything and keep you hanging on through the commercials!

I would separate them. Baiter takes a time out. If teasing your sib is the most fun thing you can think of, then you will lose the privilege of being with him for a while. Apply this consistently and they will learn, I found. Even if we are in the car, I can stop for a 5 minute time out in the car with seatbelts on. Everytime they bother each other I start the clock again. This works for us. Also, my kids do this when they are winding down an activity and getting bored. I watch for this and try to switch up the activities before this starts. I suggest something or tell them to find a new activity. If we are in the car I can turn on some music for distraction. Also, to help the "baited" one, I learned about this program: "Kelso's Choices". There is a set of coping strategies suggested-- you try two, and if no results, get a parent/teacher. You can google it.

Returning to post again, now that I have had some time to think about you, OP. :grouphug: I was thinking what to reply, and then I was editing my signature, and I saw, of course-- Ecclesiastes. I love that book. There is a person who thought, often, that life was without meaning. And, "God has set eternity in the heart of man, yet in such a way that man can not grasp it." (my paraphrase) Yes, there are times when we can't see what the plan is, in fact most of the time we can't. The writer saw things going not the right way all around him, yet his final conclusion is that God is trustworthy and our duty was to fear him-- which I take to mean, obey him, respect him, and be in relationship with him. This is not the same thing as feeling an emotional connection or a sense that our decisions are right and that we are being "led." Sometimes we don't feel like we are being led. Sometimes he lets us decide and gives us that freedom. And, our perseverance doesn't depend on our feelings. As we've discussed recently in a thread about marriage, loving a person is not necessarily the same as "feeling like I'm in love". I think it is that way with God. It's not all emotional highs. Sometimes it's lows. But the relationship is still there. :grouphug:

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I agree with Kalamanak and JenniferB. I would go, and have as good a time as I possibly could. :grouphug:

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If you are fond of the family, I think the emptying the pockets on the way in and out would be enough. I'm glad you talked to the mom about it, since I would not do that without parents knowing. I had to laugh about searching the other kid's lego-- good luck trying to figure out which pieces are whose!:001_smile:

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So sorry that happened! :grouphug: Thank goodness they were baby teeth!

I don't quite understand, by speaking out, whether you mean communicating with the local decision-makers at the school district, or casual conversation with friends and neighbors. If the former, by all means speak up! If the latter, there might be times when it's just as well not to broach a touchy subject, and other times when you might really be able to inform a person who is interested in what you have to say.

:grouphug: Joanne :grouphug:

:grouphug: I'm so glad she was not hurt. I'd be upset too.

:grouphug: Thank you for the update.

I never heard of VBS until I was helping run one a couple of years ago! It was great fun but tons of work and you need a lot of dedicated volunteers. The program we used was by "Group" which makes "VBS in a Can". They have wonderful programs. Though we are Orthodox, we just had to tweak it a little to make it suit us. We didn't have an altar call (I forget whether Group has it in their plans). We could add Saint of the day and had the Missions section relate to our own Church's international outreach/churches, and tried to use our own music as well, and adapted the skits a little. The Group program plans games, crafts, snacks, music, skits, icebreakers, etc, (so you can have your volunteers do just the piece they feel confident of) all relating to a Bible story or theme. It was a wonderful way of reinforcing a good lesson. (They also have a Catholic version, but we just adapted the evangelical one.) We found it a great community activity for the adults involved and also for the teen volunteers, who learned some things as well. The kids of course had a great time. I'm pretty sure this is the program momto2Cs is referring to: I highly recommend this program if you are thinking of VBS. They also have a forum where you can look up what other churches are doing with the program you hope to use, and you can borrow supplies/scenery, etc, from other churches and pass them along. I think ideally it would be nice to do VBS for outreach, but in practice I would want to have the program run for a while & have some experience before trying that.

I always stayed.Sometimes they made a mess and had to fix it (splattered dirty water on the wall, etc). What I didn't like was keeping everyone off the rugs til they dried, which took 24 hours at our old place-- not sure if that is supposed to happen!

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I get it. The Russian person from my past who resembles your MIL resented & criticized every single thing I did. She would even grab my hand while I was eating and tell me I was holding my fork wrong! This relentless interrogation led me to learn how to lie, which I never would have thought of as a coping strategy on my own... once I told her that I had an X-Ray done which I never intended to do, just so she would stop barraging me about it. I'm sure she completely suspected me, though. The thought of my fictitious X-ray still makes me laugh. Look, at least your MIL is good for some stories! P.S. Acton is not posh. It's very nice, but it makes me think "apple orchards", not high culture. P.P.S. As a MA native, I am not offended, just have to laugh at Maine prejudices!!;)

Believe me, I have experienced exactly what you are talking about, down the the hometown of your MIL. This lady has what is known as a "kharakter!" and is a really "tyazholi chelovek." [heavy person] I wouldn't take too seriously what she says about HSing, though, because even if you move to MA and go to work and put the kids in Newton or Brookline Public Schools or something, she will still be worrying away at something else. It will always be something. With someone like this you can never win, so it's not worth trying, IMO. I was not that successful in dealing with the very similar person I used to know, but one thing I wished I had done was have stronger boundaries and tell her that she could not talk to me that way, and also to restrict contact in some way, either by amount of time spent together or location or something.. Also, I wish I had realized that trying to explain things would just make the discussion more involved. And, I hope that your marriage is rock solid. :grouphug: So :grouphug: to you, except for the bit about MA licenses... I'm from MA and I don't know what the problem is...:confused:;)

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