:iagree: I also think the students/fans/alumni just don't know how to reconcile it all. Nobody expects him to be perfect -- it's easy to forgive lesser offenses in light of all the good he has done -- but this is just so BIG and overshadowing.

I don't care if I get peed on, messy poopy diapers do not bother me, and I can handle baby spit up just fine. But throwing up (of anything other than breastmilk)? Nope. Can't handle it. Never have been able to. Thankfully, God has had mercy on me and has not given me children prone to stomach bugs or other vomiting. The couple of times the kids have thrown up, thankfully, DH has handled it for me. (He, otoh, does not handle poopy diapers well at all. I guess we all have our things.)

I am so sorry. It sounds like a nightmare! I hope you and your precious little guy are together and nursing happily very soon. :grouphug:

I agree with you; something seems off about it to me as well. I am impressed that the University went for swift and decisive. I don't know if I feel that that was the right move or not, but I'm impressed that they didn't dilly-dally. I hope that their willingness to take this stance will go far in restoring people's faith in Penn State as a whole. I also think that the whole Paterno (and Spanier too, but mainly Paterno) thing is detracting from the major horror -- the alleged r@pes of boys by Sandusky.

I've worn my rings every day since I received them, except for a few weeks toward the end of my first pregnancy when I took them off because my fingers started to swell a bit. I was very happy to put them back on. I take them off occasionally to have them cleaned and inspected. DH, otoh, hasn't worn his in years. :( For a while, he felt it wasn't safe, because he was doing a lot of work with machinery with his hands; he kept it on his keychain to have it with him, though, which I thought was sweet (except for the potential to lose it, I thought). Now that he's in an office job, he could wear it, but he was really thin when we got married, and it's too tight now. And it's a very wide ring, so with the price of gold lately, we can't afford to have it sized up.

I've yet to hear that McQueary has been fired as well. I don't think that Paterno did all he could, but if McQueary actually witnessed the r@pe and didn't go to the police, HOW is it that Paterno was fired and not McQueary?? If the trustees of PSU want to show that they're cleaning house of anyone who might have helped cover it up, that should mean everyone. (I sincerely hope they are not using it as a convenient way of getting rid of Paterno anyway.)

I like that idea! Henle does look good; I'm not sure if it will appeal to DD or not. Thanks to the poster who suggested Latin For Children. I forgot that I actually have the answer keys for primers A and B here, as they were given to me a while ago. They looked to be more than we wanted at first, but they might be just right for DD, and that's less I'd have to buy. I also like the looks of Latin's Not So Tough!, and we'd probably start with level 2 or 3 of that.

DD (9, going on 10, fourth grade) loves GSWL, and its approach is great for her -- just the right blend of new vs. old so that she gets a challenge plus necessary review. I like that it's teaching her how to figure out sentences systematically. We'll finish it sometime in the late spring or summer, I think. I need something else for after we finish, but I don't want something that starts back at square one again; some review is good, but if it assumes we know nothing, DD will become bored and uninterested. What would be a good program for after GSWL, and what level of that program?

I have a semi-specific plan. That is, I have the lessons I want to cover (though I'm laid-back; if we don't quite get to all of the lessons in the year, I'm okay with that), but we might spend more time on some and less on some others, so I don't plan the weeks too far in advance. I like to take some time on Saturday or Sunday to look at what's next for each subject and to plan what I want to accomplish that week. That way, I can adjust for needing longer on a topic, adjusting the plan for books that didn't come in from the library yet, work we didn't get to the previous week, unexpected company, illness, extra nice weather (so that we ditch schoolwork altogether), etc.

Oh, I don't think you can pick math up necessarily easily at all, but I've seen so many examples where I didn't know someone's math ability but was immediately turned off by that person's lack of decent writing ability. For instance, we got a letter from someone running for a local township office, in which he asked for our vote. It was terribly written -- grammatical errors and such galore -- and was an immediate turn-off for me. If this guy was applying for a job, he might have great math skills, but I'd never get the opportunity to find out, because his English skills were so bad that I wouldn't be inclined to give him an interview. Otoh, my DH is an excellent writer, and he sounds intelligent when he writes. I think he'd be more likely to get a chance at an interview than the other guy. In reality, I do think both are important, and you need a minimum proficiency in both. But I think people are more likely to consider it a bigger deal if someone's grammar is poor than if that person's arithmetic is poor.

How incredibly horrible! I had not heard of this yet, and after googling, I'm with you, NittanyJen, embarrassed to be a Penn Stater right now. :( I am glad to hear that JoePa is in the clear, but it sure sounds like someone dropped the ball somewhere. Those poor children -- utterly awful!

Writing. You can fake it if you're not great at math, but if you don't have decent writing skills, you can't fake it; you end up sounding unintelligent.

Not twaddle! My kids learned their states and capitals, and the order of the US Presidents from the Animaniacs. So they are educational, or at least educational twaddle. :)

Oh, you've been to my house? I am SO SICK of Star Wars! Bring back the Sound of Music or LOTR obessions, pleeeeeeeease! Before having children, I put my foot down and said "No Barney, no Barbie in my house." (No offense intended; those two are just my personal pet peeves.) Going on ten years, and we are still blessedly free of the annoying purple dinosaur and the blonde chick with all the shoes. Wish I'd included Star Wars in there too. (And the Rainbow Magic fairy books. So glad DD got tired of them, because the plots looked to be all the same. At least when I read Baby-Sitters Club books, the plots varied a bit.)

Great idea! (My mom did something similar to that one year for one of my boys. She bought two sleepers that matched; one, she gave to him as pj's, and the other, she turned into a backpack and a pillow for him. Zipper already inserted into the backpack!)

That is so sweet!

I personally think "twaddle" in moderation is fine. Just like junk food. There's, IMO, nothing wrong with just kicking back and indulging in something that's light and easy and just plain fun. However, I think there's a lot to be said for setting the bar high. I'm super, super picky about the foods my children eat for their first couple of years, and when we started allowing movies, I made sure the first several they watched were ones that I considered to be very good. With books too -- I have always tried to read them high-quality literature, and if they then choose to read twaddle sometimes, that's okay. :)

Okay, this, coupled with the stuff in your original post, would really make me think that she needs some counseling to help her work out her feelings. I think it's probably innocent, at this point; she's working through the "what ifs" and is dealing with some grieving about not having a boy of her own (which I do think is normal). I think all of that is probably normal, but I'd be concerned that it is crossing a line, or could in the future. She could end up having negative feelings towards her husband ("your brother makes boys; I should have ended up with him"), as well as her baby, and she could be setting herself up for severe PPD. Perhaps a counselor can help her work through the feelings safely.

My homemade yogurt normally comes out a little runny; I think that's normal. However, a few days ago, I made really lovely, thick yogurt, completely by accident. This is what I did: I dumped about 3 quarts of 2% milk in a stockpot and heated it over medium heat. I'd intended to get it to about 120 degrees, but I left the room and kind of forgot about it. When I came back, the milk was boiling a bit. Oops! I moved the pot off of the burner and waited until it had cooled to about 110 degrees; when it had, I stirred in a whole container of plain yogurt (the small, individual serving size containers) and whisked it really well. Then I poured the mixture into two half-gallon glass jars and put them in the oven, which was set to "proof." Left them there overnight and came in the next morning to absolutely wonderful yogurt.

What a tough question! I would not allow my almost 10yo DD to dye her hair. I think she's too young, and I don't want that sort of focus on her looks yet (if ever, but especially not yet). Now, in theory, I'd be okay with allowing a teen to dye her hair. It's pretty tame as far as "rebellion/experimentation" goes, will grow back, could be fun, etc. However, in practice, this is one I'm going to fight with my kids, hard. My parents never let me color, perm, etc. my hair, and while I thought them terribly unfair at the time, now I am grateful, because I'm 34 and still have really nice hair, no grey, and my hair is pretty healthy. It could be coincidental, but I can't help but wonder if keeping chemicals away has helped.

We got this one for DD last year, in the 10" size, and we found it to be a good value for the money. She can make narrow belts and such, or she can make wider things, like doll blankets. http://www.woolery.com/store/pc/Beka-Beginners-Rigid-Heddle-Loom-p6877.htm

A Babylock wasn't in my budget when I bought my serger, but I bought a Simplicity serger for a little under $200. That was eight years ago, and it's gotten pretty decent use, and it's still going strong. No problems at all, and it's done a really nice job on knits, fleece, light cottons, all sorts of stuff. I do like having a 4-thread machine. I have not really used the rolled hem feature on it, but it can do them. It takes some time to thread, but not very much, and it's really not been a big deal. I would love to have a coverlock stitch for hems, but I generally just mimic that by using a double needle in my sewing machine.

A few ideas that work for me: -Get the kids to pick up stuff. This is one area where I will freely admit to using bribes/rewards/whatever you want to call them -- extra screen time, ice cream, whatever. Don't tell them "pick up the room;" tell them, "pick up 50 things." (Or 100, 200, whatever. Actually, I tell mine, "pick up 20 tens each," and as they pick up ten items, they call it out to me, and I mark a tally mark. When they've each got 20 tally marks, 400 things have been picked up, and that's a lot. Small goals of just ten items lets them be successful quickly, which breeds more success.) -Start with one room, whichever is the biggest issue to you. Grab a basket/bag/etc., and throw everything into it. When the room is empty of stuff that was out of place, you can put the stuff in the basket/bag back wherever it goes. Then clean the room. Move on to the next one, until the house is clean. -If you need to do it all right away (like for company or something), I like to set a timer for ten minutes and see if I can do a task in that time -- empty the dishwasher, put away the groceries, wash the pots, fold a load of laundry, pick up all the books, whatever. At the end of that ten minutes, I stop that task, even if it's not finished, and I go on to another task. I'll come back to any unfinished tasks later, but changing keeps me from getting bored and never finishing the task. -If you don't have a particular deadline like company coming, get the stuff picked up, and then spend some time keeping it that way. Don't scrub more than is absolutely necessary. When you've got a good routine about putting stuff away and all going, then start scrubbing.

American Girl doll stuff equipment for sewing/knitting/weaving really nice art supplies diary with lock clothes/fun shoes Legos (my DD likes them too.) dress-up clothes/fairy wings/princess crown (I'm not sure what my 9yo DD is getting this year. I don't really have a big-ticket sort of idea for her.)

I've had all of mine out by about a week, or less. With this most recent baby, we took all of the munchkins out when DS3 was 5 days old, to get some ice cream and run an errand or two. My first solo outing (me plus all four children but no DH) was when the baby was 6 days old; the older children wanted to show off their baby at the library. :) (I have had easy births and have been at home the day of the birth each time, so I suspect that helps -- not much to recover from, and I do get a fair amount of rest. But I do tend to have DH carry the baby if we're standing for very long on that first outing, and I definitely don't do anything else that day, like cooking or laundry.)