No, but I know someone who did leave their 7yo dd at church. It was a very small church, <30 people, so more like extended family. Both parents thought she had gone home with the other parent. Then, they thought maybe she had gone home, as often happened, with a friend. She was probably alone at the church for 20 minutes tops. The dd likes to mention her abandonment occasionally. ;)

I haven't read the other posts, so pardon me if I repeat advice. This is what I've gotten from those years: Hand as much of the discipline issues over to dh as you can. It's a natural part of them growing towards becoming men to balk at being bossed by Mom. Right or wrong, intentional or not, they seem to take it better from Dad, and the goal for me was to raise good men vs. remind them that I had authority over them too. Come down hard on disrespect and ask dh to as well. My dh took the stance of "no one will talk to my wife that way," and it helped a ton. Let the little stuff--room, personal appearance, etc.--slide. Start letting go of some of the management of his life and turning it over to him. Throw uplifting words at him whenever possible--stuff that affirms his man pride. Have him carry stuff for you, reach stuff you can't easily reach, etc. Send him out to volunteer in some physical way. Cut the grass for an elderly neighbor. Something. Anything that makes him feel useful and productive and gets him moving. It's a marathon, so hang in there!

I live in a college town and there are a ton of cyclists here. I have lots of questions. 1) Do you or any other adults in your house cycle on roads with car traffic? Not a lot, but dh does occasionally. We'd do more if we weren't up a stinking big hill from town. 2) Do you believe that bicyclists have as much right to the road as cars or other vehicles? Yes, where it's legal. 3) Are there many ADULTS riding bikes recreationally where you live? Do you have bike lanes? Yes to both. 4) How do you feel about cyclists riding on two-lane, rural roads and slowing down traffic? Should this be legal? I'm personally annoyed if it takes me forever to get by them, but I don't think it should be illegal. 5)What about on multi-lane highways with no designated bike lanes? Should they be allowed to ride in the emergency lane or in the slow lane? I think they're taking chances in those cases when the general speed is so much greater than bike speed. Just like someone going the speed limit on I-285 around Atlanta during rush hour--it's legal but not very safe. 6) Have you ever noticed (as I have ) that the most annoying cyclists tend to be riding high-end bikes and wearing super high-tech helmets and clothing? It's never the obviously poor guy riding his kid's bike because his car is broken down or his license got suspended, LOL. Haven't noticed that. __________________

I think it would be tough to go into Engineering with a ton of transferable credits unless you have a good CC feeder system that offers lots of the freshman engineering classes. My oldest is a computer science major, which is in the College of Engineering at VT. He went having done his freshman English and two semesters of Spanish at CC. It just didn't work to have him take more. I was leery of him taking classes like Calculus or sciences in the CC that might not prepare him well enough for later classes. Ds#2 entered the School of Business with 27 credits: English (2 sem), Economics (2 sem), Public Speaking, Music Appreciation, US History I, Sociology, and Psychology. He will start his second year as a junior. We were particular about having him take classes that would transfer and apply to his business degree or to the necessary liberal arts credits.

Other. I would and do submit completely to dh, but (a) I am always heard and honored and respected, (b) he defers to me WAY more than I defer to him, and © the issue of submitting would only come up if a decision had to be made and we were not in agreement. At that point, someone has to be the one to decide and take ownership of the decision and that's dh. I don't see this as patriarchal, although I suppose some might. In a way, we're like a company with a president and vice-president. The president leaves most decisions of the day-to-day operations to the VP and only rarely pulls his 'president' card.

Honey Curry Chicken? http://allrecipes.com/recipe/curried-honey-mustard-chicken/ Served over rice.

Because of the neighbor boys, I probably would not let them sleep outside unless her older brother was able to set up motion detectors around the tent. ;) In a group of girls, at least one of them will likely have the idea that hanging out with the boys in the middle of the night is a good plan. OTOH, if it was just my dd and one other AND I felt like I could trust them both, I'd be fine with it. When I was a very young teen, my and my friend's parents occasionally let us sleep in our docked boat at the campground we went to on the weekends. At some point, and I can't remember how old we were, they stopped letting us do that and I'm sure it was because we were starting to notice boys.

I was 21, and dh was a few weeks shy of 20. We got married right before our senior year of college and have been married almost 28 years.

A friend and I redid my wedding dress--made by my mil--into a dress for my then-13yo dd to wear to a masquerade ball. We used fabric spray paint to paint the skirt purple, added a wide black satin belt and added spaghetti straps. It was so fun to get a second use out of it after 26 years! (It was also shocking to see how tiny I was when I got married.)

Mine would have looked at me like I was crazy if I had a 'promotion ceremony' for them. We haven't even done graduation ceremonies. (We have done graduation trips instead!) We do school, we progress in skills and understanding, we take a break, we go on vacations, we do more school. And so on.

Dh has one older brother E, a younger brother J, and a younger sister T. He speaks to E a couple times a year, other than Christmas when we see them. He hardly ever speaks to J, and we might see them once a year. (OTOH, we are close with J's ex-wife so that might be part of the problem. For him.) He is very close to his sister T. She is 14 years younger and lived with us in the summers from age 12 to 21 or so. She just moved to the other side of the country for us, so that's rough but he probably speaks to her a few times a month.

I've been looking at the Wisepack backpack.

How stressful! I pray the doctors figure it out. Does this have a name? I have this and so does my mother. Generally it's from sharp or severe pain, but I think it might be related to the adrenaline rush out of my body that follows the rush in. Getting blood drawn doesn't bother me, but a serious whack to my funny bone would.

This is us. I did Easter baskets when the dc were little, but at some point it just felt wrong, or at least a little weird, to me. We have a small, intimate church, and we'll go out to lunch together tomorrow. But we have lunch together most Sundays.

I figure she is being raised with different rules in her house, and that I will probably have to do some training before she catches on the rules for my house. I would be somewhat understanding of anything that could be forgetfulness of the rules, but I would also make it clear, nicely, if it seemed she deliberately broke a rule, that she got one warning about it before she was sent home. Really, it will take some time and patience on your part because it's obviously been different for her at home. I would be As far as snacks, I handle it the the same as I would handle snacks for my own dc.

Education: BS in Civil Engineering Worked in land development, landfill design and environmental remediation

I thought that was a duh. There's no way my dss would have gotten anything done if they had the choice of screen time instead.

I'm sure mine would like all that too, if he thought he could get away with verbalizing it! :D In reality, I think your dh needs to let you know what his priorities are. Does he really want the family time and could he give up having everything clean? Does he really want it clean and could he chip in for 30 min after dinner helping? Does he want to read to the kids while you clean up the kitchen? I don't think it's realistic or fair for him to dictate a hectic day for you so that he can have a relaxing evening. I don't think he'd enjoy being micromanaged that way either.

I homeschooled for 11 years in NJ which also has no regulations. The only difference between what I did (oram doing) in NY before that, VA after that or in NJ was the paperwork. Or lovely lack thereof. I didn't know of any NJ homeschoolers who taught less because there was no accountability.

Since we've had kids, we've moved.... from NW Metro Atlanta area to Syracuse, NY. The boys were 6 and 3. It was a hard place to find friends at first, but we did. We are still in touch with a few families from there and the kids' babysitter. We made it a point to see as much as we could in the area and beyond while we lived there. from Syracuse to Central NJ. The kids were 10, 7, and 3. I was not a big fan of the move, but it turned out to be a great 11 years. We had an amazing church and wonderful friends we still visit regularly. Again, we made it a point to enjoy the area: lots of trips into NYC, the beach, Philadelphia, etc. from NJ to southwestern VA. The kids were 21, 18 and 14. It was very tough to make the decision to move away from our church and friends in NJ, but we do love it here. Both our boys go to college in town, so we get the blessing of seeing them on a regular basis. Well, older ds especially since he lives at home, but also younger ds who is the noise of the house. Yeah, it's an adventure. I miss a few friends in NJ terribly, but I am making friends here. I do try to focus on the positive and remember how long it took in the last place to find friends. The boys were most upset about the move when they were 6 or 7. Younger ds was absolutely convinced he wouldn't have any friends in NJ, and of course he does. You'd have thought that dd, at 14yo, would have been digging her heels in about this last move, but she was all in favor of it because she loves this town. She does miss her bff in NJ, but she's breaking into some groups here. Also there's a wonderful community theater program here that she's involved in. If it's going to happen anyway, you focus on the positive.

If we were going to a place both drivers knew how to get to well and there was no discussion about leading/following, then yeah, it's fine to pass and lose sight of the other car. Weird, but okay. I'd assume there was a desperate potty need or something. Otherwise, I'd be really annoyed. My child would probably not be continuing the trip in that car once I caught up to the other driver. Even if there were a good reason to pass, I'd expect the other driver to give me some indication of what was going on as he passed.

1. What is your cultural background? American/Southeast US 2. How much work were you expected to do around the house? Dishes from about age 5 to cleaning house by about age 12. My mom was divorced and worked, so we kids did a good bit of the cooking and most of the cleaning. It didn't seem excessive to me. 3. Did you feel like you had any input in family affairs (ie. how money was spent, where you went on vacation, etc)or did you live under the "my house, my rules" atmosphere? As a child, no input. 4. Did you want to leave your house? Yes, I was SO ready to go away to college and make my own choices. It was more that I wanted to be independent than that it was particularly difficult at home. 5. Did your parents stress the importance of being independent? Not really. 6. Would you like your adult children to live with you? Our oldest (21yods) is living with us. The girl he is courting is moving in with us in a month, and we expect that they will live with us for a period of time once they are married. So, I have no problem with it. I'm also fine with them living out of our home, but honestly I'd like it more if they were close.

I think the distillery tour sounds fine under the circumstances. I had three girls (10, 15, and 15yo) with me in Scotland for a week. Some of their favorite places were Doune Castle--A wedding was taking place when we were there, so we got to roam around and then watch the wedding party have photos taken. Craigtoun Country Park--The girls could not get enough of this place. They were fighting over rowing the rowboat, easily spent over an hour just on the playground, and ran around and posed with the statues. Seriously, they were all 8yo boys that day. Miniature golf at St. Andrews course

If they don't allow us to book online for 5 people and we know 5 will work in the room (aka enough floor space to put one), we book online for 4 people then call and say we have 5. They have never had a problem with it. We're not sneaky when we check in, and mine are all adult-size now. We don't ask for a rollaway bed; we just bring a sleeping bag for the 3rd dc. Over Christmas in my mil's town, we got two rooms because they were small. We were very glad we did because dd ended up getting a stomach bug that day. She normally shares a bed with ds18--which wasn't happening if she was throwing up!--and the extra bathroom was a blessing as well.

Yes. We have a very anxious Brittany spaniel. For her, it's any pressure change--"Oh no! It's raining SOMEWHERE! Take cover!" The Thundershirt definitely helps.