I am 48. My hair is now naturally curly/wavy (it used to be straight, but having kids curled it!). I only use a light gel made for curly hair. No coloring, although so far I've been blessed with my dad's tendency to gray slowly.

We didn't realize 21 mos was "too young" when we trained ds#1. I was working, and dh was self-employed and stayed home with him that week while ds's sitter was on vacation. So, actually dh trained him. It was one very focused day for the two of them, but at the end of it ds was pt'ed. For YEARS afterward, he always had to go right when we sat down to dinner. Something about that day connected the two for him.:D I agree that there's an early window with most kids that many of us have been trained to ignore.

I don't recall that stipulation in the vows. In fact, wasn't it the opposite--"for richer or for poorer"? We got married while we were in college, so no income but enough savings to get us through until we graduated. I assumed he'd get a job that paid something, but I had no expectations to be 'kept' in any particular standard of living. We were both raised with very little money, so that probably helped. As it has turned out, we've had richer and poorer. More richer than poorer, but never undivided on the plan that was being worked at the time.

Yes. Each trip lasted about a week. Off the top of my head.... Multiple car trips from Atlanta to VA, 10 hrs, until the oldest was 6. Car trip from Syracuse to Atlanta, 17 hrs, when the boys were 3 and 6. Flight to Scotland with dd and fake dd when they were 10 and 15. Car trip to Nova Scotia/PEI with dd when she was 13. All of these trips were purely for our enjoyment.

Definitely would have gone out there immediately with the phone and stayed with the girl until appropriate help had arrived.

My ancestors include some who were here during the Revolutionary War, the pirate Henry Morgan, poor farmers in GA, and coal miners in WV. My mom knows more specifics because she researched her family for DAR.

We will all go with ds18 to move into his dorm in a bit over a week. However, that's all of 2 miles since we just moved to the town where he is going to school. Very different from the 7.5 hr drives to get ds21 here and home in the past few years. I grew up and my dad still lives less than 2 miles from there--when it was CNC. I used the library for high school research papers. It has really grown and matured as a school since then.

I imagine that texting was a major breakthrough in the hearing-impaired world. Ds18 played basketball against a deaf school, and I was struck by the amount of texting that went on in the crowd. I thought that was cool. I text. I like being able to quickly communicate with my dc or dh as well as sending quick "thinking of you" texts to my bff who is now 500 miles away.

Do you know a computer geek teen (or adult) who might be able to help you out? My ds is allergic to Macs ;), but other than that he often has so many parts lying around that he could build a new computer out of them. What would be incredibly outdated to him would be a great computer for most others who aren't gaming. I bet you know someone similar.

I was going to say that none of my stuff was at my parents' house when I realized that I actually do have a few boxes there. However, it's only because we just moved from 8 hrs away to 1 hr away from them, and we brought a few things to leave at their house last Christmas. Besides that, all my stuff was gone by the time I was 25ish.

My oldest is over-the-top strong willed. We weren't sure he was going to make it to 20, but here he is. ;) At this point, he is still strong-willed, but he has matured in how he handles it. His nature means he's not subject to peer pressure, and we've had absolutely no problems with anything illegal or immoral so far. For a 20yo college student, I'll take that! I asked him a few years ago what we could/should have done differently in raising him. For the record, our basic game plan was as follows: 1. Decide what behavior you want and determine appropriate consequences for behavior you don't want. Give choices whenever possible even if it's an offer of water or ice water. 2. Make it very clear to the dc what the expectations are and the consequences for making a bad choice. Make eye contact. 3. Follow through immediately with the consequences with no emotion or visible frustration. It should be matter-of-fact--dc did A, so B happened. 4. Repeat. Over and over. Our consequences with him were generally a spanking. It's what worked for him. Only the long-drawn out, go to the bathroom and have a chat afterwards kind worked. He said that we what we did probably worked as well as anything could have. Sometimes he wanted what he wanted and was willing to take the spanking to get his way. I'm not saying you should spank, only that you should find a consequence she doesn't like, use it lovingly and liberally as needed, and not be surprised that it doesn't always work. Also, don't sweat the small stuff. I wouldn't have commented on the pretend smoking. I would probably have taken another time to show what a smoker's lungs look like. If she wants to argue that black is white, I just wouldn't engage. I would crack down on the disrespect (eye rolling). With my dd, I had her do pushups. Be forewarned that you have entered a marathon!

Other. I'd wait a while for them to move to the right, but if they didn't I would pass them on the right. Ideally they should move over, but only in Canada have I seen drivers consistently stay to the right except when they were passing someone.

Yes, recently--last month. It's called a Certificate of Continuing Occupancy, and apparently each township can make up their own rules about what is required. The inspector told us that they change the rules every 4 years.

I haven't had to resort to this myself, but I've heard that cold marbles is much better. They don't make a mess in the bed, and the sleeper can't get away from them.;)

We do a special trip with our dc when they turn 13. The same gender parent goes with. I think 1-on-1 trips are great for reinforcing the idea that they are valued for themselves.

We're moving out of NJ (to SW VA), but we have mostly enjoyed our 11 yr stay here. We live in central NJ--friendly people, easy traffic, great shopping. The bad--property taxes, insurance. And, yes, government intrusion. We had to have an inspector come to see if our house is up to code to sell--not a horribly bad idea, but no place else I lived required it except for new construction. Some of the codes are good (mounted kitchen fire extinguisher), some are over the line (screens on all windows--how is that their business?). Friends went through a permitting process for building a new deck, and it was insane and way overkill (speaking as a civil engineer) what they required for the design. Love the hsing laws though! And there is way more rural NJ than most people think.

I don't know if this really fits, but I have a 'fake mom' relationship with a now-19yo who lost her mom 10 years ago. When she was about 14, she asked me to be her fake mom, mentoring her and saying the tough stuff that her mom couldn't be there to say. Mostly I've been an ear and a physical help when she couldn't drive and her dad wasn't available, but I've also had a few 'straighten up and fly right' talks with her.

I say do what works for you. My middle one never liked clothes. We joke that the 'must be dressed for school' rule was created for him. He didn't go outside naked, and he was always dressed when other people were over but besides that..... He got modest before I had to lay down the law. However, I strongly suspect he dispenses with clothes when he's home alone for more than a few hours. OTOH, I don't think my oldest is ever naked. We know it's summer when we can see his arms.

Another thing to do with the pulled pork is roll it up with some cheddar cheese in a tortilla shell. Top it with watery BBQ sauce and bake until everything is hot/melted.

It might be better to drive down 95 to 64 to VA Beach and go across the Bay Bridge tunnel. It is about 30 miles longer, but might be less subject to traffic issues. What day will you be driving? As long as you are missing Friday or Sunday after noonish, the traffic is usually not bad. Most of the way will be at or above 55-65 mph. Depending on how you feel about bridges, it might be of interest to drive across the 20-mile long bridge with 2 tunnels. My dc like stopping at the visitor center at the tunnel.

I agree with this, although we'd probably have a family meeting where we laid it all out and asked for ideas and suggestions about how to handle it.

Not appropriate, for that age group certainly. And Norfolk might not be the best place for an exercise like that at any age--too much history of negative race relations. They shut down schools in the late 50s rather than integrate. Schools were integrated in my city, just across the water from Norfolk, when I entered 3rd grade. It was no big deal for me, but many were up in arms. Years later, I worked with a black woman (yes, the fact that she was black is important to the story) who was probably 8 years older than I am. She obviously had a much different experience in school, and I was struck by how guarded that experience had made her.

Ds20, CS major, is getting help from tutoring in an calculus class because he probably falls in between #2 and #3. The biggest issue is that he has Aspergers and just asking for help is a huge hurdle for him. Going to a student tutor was way less intimidating that going to his professor. Also, he often can't articulate what exactly he is having problems with. The tutor works with him on problems. Ds does the problems, and the tutor explains if he gets hung up. Ds learns well from that method. I graduated in Civil Engineering from the same university as ds is attending. I didn't run into much gender bias then ('81-'85) other than from one or two of the older professors. And even then it was generally just an offhand comment about not being used to so many females in the classes. I don't remember any female professors in my engineering classes, but I don't recall feeling like it was an issue. The advice I would give is to start strong (spend more time on the work than you think you need to until you start getting some grades back and can adjust), do every problem, get help quickly (prof, TAs, tutors, fellow students) when you get lost, and make a goal of stopping into talk with each of your professors sometime during the first half of the course.

We give an allowance until age 13, not based on chores. That is their spending money--$1/month for every year of age. It was pretty low, but we still paid for things like birthday party gifts and necessary clothing. They do chores because they live here. My 13yo dd is expected to Unload the dishwasher daily. Clean up the kitchen after dinner. Keep her room neat. Besides that, she does what I ask her to--vacuum, dust, laundry, bathrooms, etc. I might pay for a job that was particularly unenjoyable. At 13 now, dd is babysitting and making way more $ than her allowance ever was. She still does her chores, but like with her older brothers, I do take into account how much she is working.

First of all, I'd want the real story. I'm a bit skeptical that he'd have glazed over eyes hours after drinking one bottle of beer and that he'd be vomiting the next day. Other than that, I'd probably try to get into whether he drank because he wanted to or because everyone else was doing it. Assuming it was the second, I'd help him with strategies for making his own decisions in the face of peer pressure. I'd also let him know that I'd be making more decisions for him until I felt like he was capable of making responsible ones himself. :D