DD has one of the Just Like You dolls that has medium-length hair with a nice wave to it. She also has Kirsten. The JLY's hair is easier to style, and it's long enough that she can style it while still keeping it manageable. She can do it up in the curler set too; Kirsten's is a bit long for the curlers.

I used to be really bad about letting the kids bring books, markers, toys, etc. in the car, and a good deal of the time they'd leave half of it in there. When we bought the van, I instituted a rule: whatever you bring out must come back in that day. We've largely stuck to that rule, and it's been so nice. Sometimes the 2yo packs his small backpack with cars and other treasures, and the big kids often bring a book or two and/or a drawing book and some markers/crayons. Sometimes another toy. And they're responsible for bringing their own water bottles. Often, though, they don't bring anything, but we listen to books on CDs/tapes a lot.

Kanani IS really pretty. :) If DD didn't already have a couple, she'd be asking for Kanani. I'd probably go ahead and get her the doll (or have Grandma get it for her). If she's been asking for her for that long, and Grandma is okay with the price, I'd probably err on the side of doing rather than wishing I'd done it. I hear you on the hair. DD got Kirsten right before they discontinued her, and she has a lot of hair. It's not quite as nice as it was originally, but I'd rather that than not have DD play with her. There are a lot of hints online about how to make the hair nice again, so if it gets really bad, we can try those; if it gets really, horribly messed up, I'll consider the doll hospital treatment. My only rule about the hair is that if DD takes her out of the house, the hair ought to be braided (because wind and such will mess it up so fast), and that's not been a problem. A compromise might be to get some of Kanani's accessories and have Kaya play the role. But that's not really going to work if it's the hair that your daughter likes.

I thought it made a lot of sense. I never cared for the low-fat bandwagon. From a Christian perspective, I figured that if milk was meant to be fat-free, God would have made it that way. I like how it stands up for eating real, whole foods. I haven't made a ton of the recipes, and some of them are a little weird (I have heard people say that there are better traditional foods cookbooks out there), but the basic premises are fantastic, IMO, and so are the basic directions for things like yogurt and stock. I like how it shows you how to get the most out of the food you have. I really enjoy the quotes and sidebars in the book. They're interesting and really validate a lifestyle based on whole foods. One of the coolest things that is repeated throughout the book is the premise that it didn't matter if a culture ate mostly meat, little meat, fish, mostly grains, etc.; what they all had in common was that their food was largely unprocessed, and they all had fantastic health. What I took away from it: eat what foods/food groups you enjoy, but eat them as unprocessed as possible.

I have a friend who put three in a Prius. Boosters and/or Radians instead of say, Britax Marathons would probably help; IDK what she had. I've always wanted five children (well, more, really, but five seemed realistic and has always stuck in my head as "our" number). DH wasn't sure how many he wanted -- at least two, so they could have siblings, but beyond that, he needs to think about them one at a time. Talking about four when we just had one was overwhelming to him, but by the time we had three, and the third one was turning two, four didn't sound like so many to him. Granted, #4 is still a newborn, but we can see a fifth. I felt really happy that our first two were a girl and a boy, because I felt like even if God didn't send us more, at least we'd had a chance to experience raising both. My second child is a sweet, shy little guy who really had a long babyhood; he really benefited from being the baby for several years, and even though we still hoped for a third baby, we could at least see the fun of moving into a new stage of life, with kids more than babies. We'd have been okay either way (though I might have had to tuck away a little bit of longing for a baby -- but I will probably have to do that at some point anyway!), but I really, really cannot imagine life without our third child. He adds something so special to our family and to everyone who knows him (which is silly, because what child doesn't?, but he's just. . . our Ben). And then our fourth baby -- he's even more icing on the cake! Having the two little boys has let our oldest son blossom in his nurturing abilities -- he is our second son's best buddy and such a good caregiver to our youngest son. Truly, I don't regret for a second having a third and a fourth. I knew I wanted a girl and a boy of my own, but I had no idea how much I needed a second son and then a third one, how incomplete my life was without them, until I was given them. How much I would have missed if we'd stopped with two!

My best advice: You may not be an expert in babies/children, but you will always be the best expert on *your* baby/child. You will be his/her best advocate and protector. Don't be afraid to ignore everyone else's advice if your gut is telling you otherwise. Remember that it goes sooooo fast. Write notes, take pictures, savor every minute. Even when you do, it still flies by too quickly. Cuddle that baby as much as you want. And thank God for the mountains of laundry and night wakings -- tiny baby snuggles are so worth it all!

Yes, to all of that. And even as teens, my children will reserve the right to have me (or their father, if the boys would prefer that) in the room. Any doctor who will not allow me to be in the room if my children/teens want me there isn't a doctor who will treat them, period. I do agree that sometimes someone outside of the family can have an impact that Mom or Dad might not have, so that wasn't necessarily out of line, and I can see why the doctor might have wanted to consider whether or not this was an example of an escalating issue. However, I think it was very inappropriate to send you out without them, especially since it was a new doctor. At least they were together.

Thank you! I have said that for years. I agree with the premise of the True Love Waits type programs, because I do believe that we should wait until we're married to have s*x. But there's a world of difference between a 14yo who's barely even talked to a boy and an 18yo who is off at college on her own for the first time and a 23yo who is graduated and holding a job and still waiting to find the right person to marry. In my personal opinion, none of them should be having s*x, but the 18 and 23yo's should have much better ideas as to why they're waiting for s*x. A 14yo is largely clueless. While I think it's a good idea to plant the idea in teens' heads that s*x is for marriage, I don't really care for the "sign a pledge" campaigns. Maybe they help a few kids who are feeling pressured to have s*x, though, but largely, I suspect most teens don't really take them into consideration. One year, our school did a pledge drive before prom, encouraging everyone to sign that they promised not to drink on prom night. They made a huge issue out of wanting 100% participation. I refused to sign. Not because I planned to drink, but just the opposite -- I didn't plan to drink then or any other night, and I was pretty sure that didn't apply to most of my classmates. I'm sure many of them drank anyway, pledge or not, and if they didn't on prom night, they likely did other nights in high school. I'm not sure an abstinence pledge would have meant much to them either. And fwiw, I think there ought to be more to abstinence-based education than "don't do it until you're married," like good reasons to wait, how to avoid overly tempting situations, how to enjoy someone's company/get to know someone without having s*x, how to be friends (and not merely lovers) with the person you marry, how to be yourself whether you're in a serious relationship or not, etc., etc.

We have skipped the eye ointment with all of our babies; I do not have any STDs, and if I have to worry about that, I have bigger concerns on my plate (like HIV). Sometimes that has meant signing a waiver stating that we were offered it and declined it. I'm cool with that. I didn't want anything interfering with their eyesight, and also, we have allergies to a lot of drugs in the family, including erythromycin, so I don't particularly want to take any chances there. I wanted to skip the vitamin K with DD, but the midwives were pretty firm on it. It wasn't a huge deal to me, whereas the eye ointment was. She was born sunny-side-up, so maybe it was warranted. With DS1, I wanted to wait and see if the vitamin K was warranted, and the MW was cool with that, but then she felt his birth was a little rough and that the vitamin K was a good idea. She was hands-off otherwise, so I felt okay with that. With the two little boys, we would only have done the vitamin K if the MW felt it was necessary; she did not in either case (and we have not circumcised), so we skipped the vitamin K shot. We also do delayed cord cutting, and for at least one baby, that was really, really important.

If she just wants to read all day, what about taking a few months and just letting her do that? Have her choose a variety of books -- classic literature, history, science, whatever, as long as it's a decent challenge -- and just let her focus on that for a while. Maybe she needs some time to find what is interesting to her.

My children like H. E. Marshall's This Country of Ours (available in a variety of formats -- we have an epub copy, a librivox audio copy, and a paperback copy from amazon), though it only goes up to WWI. Sometimes I have to explain stuff to my 6yo, but he gets the gist pretty well. I use a lot of supplemental picture books too. We also will use parts of SOTW4 later this year for 20th century, as well as A Child's Story of America. They also like Pioneers and Patriots, from Christian Liberty Press, but that's more historic fiction than fact.

I'm thinking that homeschooling may cultivate a more family-oriented lifestyle in general, and homeschoolers may be less likely to opt for lots of evening activities that would get in the way of family dinners, but I'm sure that's not true across the board. I do think that family-centric families are more likely to choose to homeschool, though, partly because they want their children to be more family-centric than peer-centric. My family, when I was a teen, was very family-centric. The younger two children were homeschooled, my other brother played team sports, and I was involved in a million activities and college classes. There were a lot of nights that someone wasn't at the dinner table, or that someone was eating quickly in order to get ready to leave, but darn it, there was family dinner. At the table, every night. No TV in sight. (The rare pizza picnic aside, of course.) We could count on that. We could also count on Mom being home when we came home from school, and Dad almost always being there to help with homework (if he wasn't at an away game with my brother). But lots of hanging out with friends? Not really.

I would declare a car officially dead when its combined expenses to keep it running, safe, and legal (parts and gas, especially if gas mileage was poor due to work needed) were more expensive than the cost of a replacement vehicle (ie gas and purchase cost/car payment). If it's cheaper to put money into parts than to buy a replacement vehicle, and parts are available and will keep it running, safe, and legal, then it's not dead yet. Btdt a few times -- buying a new engine for one vehicle was cheaper than replacing that vehicle, but we've gotten to the point where that was not true of other vehicles, so they were replaced.

That is made of awesomeness!

I'd just pick up the laundry, do it, and put it away. That wouldn't bug me too much, especially since I'm already picking up other stuff that the kids leave out (they do help, but I just tend to do it). For other stuff he leaves around the house, I'd just box it up and put it in his space. Even if he doesn't put it away, one, you won't be nagging him about leaving it in the communal space, and two, you won't have to see it anymore. For the wood carving, I'd spread a tarp or something too. Or maybe there's a better spot for him to do it? Somewhere that he doesn't need to clean up, or that would be easier for him to clean up? For the jacket on the back of the chair, I'd just move it to his chair.

I'd probably get orthodontic treatment for myself (DH has had it, the kids are too young for it, but I never had it and could use it). If that wasn't necessary, I'd get prescription sunglasses and prescription safety glasses for DH. If there was still money left over, I'd stock up on prescription meds as much as possible and get any bloodwork (including vitamin D tests) that insurance didn't cover. Or any specialist visits that we might have ever considered. Another option might be pre-paying for a bunch of chiropractor visits. I know one of the ones we saw had an option where you could pre-pay for a chunk of visits that anyone in the family could use, and for paying up front, you got a discount per visit.

I do have a FB account. I am not super active on it, but it seems to have its purpose. I use it to keep in touch with old friends from college, internet, my former location, etc. Not a lot of communication, but just a bit. All of us are busy and not likely to exchange a lot of calls/e-mails, but FB works well. Also, I have found that I'm closer to my sister (and my SILs) -- again, our schedules are busy and don't mesh well, and my sis isn't likely to call me for every little thing in her day, but she might post it on FB, and I'll offer a sympathetic word or cheer or something. Or I'll post something cute the kids said, but I'm not going to call everyone just to tell them that, y'know? FB lets my sis feel like she's in the loop with her niece and nephews. And for my local friends, FB has let me get to know them in ways that we don't necessarily have time for when we're hanging out at the playground or whatever, when we don't get to finish conversations because of the kids and such.

I've lived in all three (PA, MD, and DE), and I'd put MD at the bottom of my list, with DE being second, and PA being the top. Except if it meant living near Philly. I might opt for northern DE over Philly area. A lot of people do commute on 95 to Philly from DE. The area between Philly and DE is very nice, but very expensive (Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr). I'm not super familiar with northern DE, but I think it would be less expensive than the Philly suburbs, though maybe commuting cost would make up for it. Now, if you were able to move to parts of Montgomery County (PA), or even Berks or Lancaster County, I'd vote for those in a heartbeat. They make for a long commute into Philly, though. 5-6 am might still have some traffic heading into Philly. If you want open spaces, I'd opt for northern MD (Carroll County, can't remember what the one just to the east of Carroll is) or Berks/Lancaster County if the commute is doable. (We used to live out on the Montgomery/Berks line, near Pottstown, and we were an hour or so from Philly.) The HS laws in all three are just different. PA has its advantages for HS'ing too. Shrug. If you care about gun laws, PA is way better; MD is terrible. If you care about raw milk laws, PA is way better as well. And if you care about in-state tuition for college, consider that as well; PA has more options than DE. Weather is the same in all three -- four seasons, fairly equal, sometimes more winter and sometimes more summer. DE will get you closer to the beaches, PA closer to the mountains.

We keep a tight limit on screen time for our children. On the occasions when we don't, and they watch a lot in a day, they are much grumpier. Then again, if I spend a lot of time on the computer, I get grumpy too. I think the stimulation is too much, especially for some children.

Well, I will eventually have three teenage boys, but I seriously don't think I'll ever have three teenage girls, as I doubt we're likely to have three more daughters. Good question! Five boys would be a lot of food, but the single biggest surprise to me about parenting has been just how much I like having little boys of my own. Emotionally, they seem way easier than girls. But five girls -- a bunch of mini-mamas, more girls to play dress-up and dolls with. . . I sincerely hope I get another little girl some day. (I'd be happy with another son too, but DD and I still have a yearning for a live girl doll, LOL.) The teen years with five girls might be a bit much on the emotions and drama!

My 6.5yo son usually comes into the ladies' room, but occasionally he'll use the men's room. Somewhere small -- he might go for the men's room, even if DH isn't around. Large store/airport/etc. -- if DH isn't there (or one of the grandfathers), he'll use the ladies' room. The one time recently that he decided he wanted to go into the men's room was when we stopped at one of the bigger local libraries. DS really, really needed to go *now,* couldn't wait until we picked up the books waiting for us and then headed down to the children's room, which has really nice, large single-occupancy bathrooms (and they don't allow children down in the children's room without adults). I waited outside for him, and even though I knew he could take a while, I called to him a couple of times, just to be sure he was okay. He answered back that all was fine, but if he hadn't, I'd have opened the door, called, "Mom coming in," and gone in. I vote for whatever you're comfortable with. If it feels not right to you, then I don't think it's a big deal to skip the men's room.

I think you handled it very well, and I don't think you stole any big moment from your DH. I think the basics of s*x can come from either parent, whichever happens to be around when the question comes up, if either parent is comfortable. I think in general, though, the same s*x parent is more likely to be able to explain the personal issues involved. I'm sure DH could make a basic explanation of menstruation, for instance, but I feel like there's a difference in what my sons need to know about it vs. what my daughter needs to know, and I could probably address the more detailed and personal issues with DD better than DH can. Likewise, I understand the basics of why males need cups for sports and how sperm are made, but there's more to the male side that I just don't need to know, so that's all DH's thing to handle with the boys. And the moral issues should ideally come from both parents, but again, the detailed, more personal aspects of the moral issues will probably work best from the same s*x parent, at least in our house.

We bought our first house, a foreclosure, almost eleven years ago. Hadn't planned to buy right then, but rentals were expensive and not very nice at all. The house was a cute little place in a pleasant, quiet neighborhood that needed a fair amount of cosmetic repair; the family who had owned it had apparently lost the dad (to death), and the mom and kids had been unable/unwilling to keep it up, and it was eventually foreclosed. It needed all new paint, carpet, flooring, a new thermostat, new appliances, and some other things and was being sold at about 2/3 the market value for identical homes in the neighborhood. Most of it we were able to do ourselves, but we got a good inspection first (and my DH works on buildings so is able to see what needs to be done, as well) and knew there weren't any horrible structural issues or anything. It served us well, and we sold it 2 years later for a profit. Well worth it, financially, and we had no problems with the purchase details either, though ymmv.

When I was in school, it was algebra I in 8th or 9th grade, then geometry, algebra II, trig/pre-calculus/algebra III, and if you started algebra in 8th grade, calculus as a 12th grader. That meant you could take the AP calculus exam as a senior, and/or you'd have had a year of calculus to make the transition to college calculus gentler.