You know, actually I am relieved I am not the only one. My dh is ok with my mum, but she is NOT ok with him, even though the incident that happened, when he was a bit disrespectful toward her when we were first going out (because he and I were fighting) has been apologised for and supposedly dealt with 17 years ago! She just doesn't like him and wont get over it. What to do. She doesnt live close. She visited a couple of years ago, but it has meant her relationship with my kids is limited to every few years. Usually when I take them over there. She is a great grandmother- really great- she just wont forgive him. Its like the elephant in the room that nobody talks about. I have accepted it, and tried to keep her connected with my kids. Its her loss, really, but theirs too unfortunately. For a long time, in my early twenties,I would tell my marital problems to her. Not a good idea. Eventually I realised I needed to stand strong by my man and let her be a grown up, or not. Thats where it is. She and I get on well, but she just wont talk about dh. I buy air tickets to visit her every couple of years. Thats it.

I can see why you would want one for her, but I don't think I personally would want to give one to a kid that young. It's bad enough that teens get them. I understand the whole errands thing too. It sounds like she really needs you around as much as possible though.

For those who arent familiar with trolls, a few years ago, on the old boards (ancient history now), a mentally sick woman sucked up a lot of sympathy, and I think even some donated money, when she put out her story of woe over weeks and I think months, including finally her teenager daughter getting pregnant in the church toilets. In retrospect...man, we were naive, but this was a first troll experience for many of us. But...that's why some people are onto the troll thing around here pretty swiftly.

My mum did some great craft activities with my brother and I, such as baked enamel jewellery- I still have a piece I made with her. She also did things like paper flowers, and pottery with us. It was rare, but it meant a lot to me. Nowadays she is very, very creative. She is a master weaver and spinner. Mmm, makes you wonder what memories we are creating with our kids, eh? Nagging to get their work done all day? :glare: Oh ok, I guess I do do some fun things...but I am often so exhausted from homeschooling, I just want to escape into my own world and let the kids do their own thing a lot.

Mine hasnt been a big eater till recently- and he is starting to shoot up. I am having trouble finding food he will eat. I wont buy sugary cereals, but he wont eat any others. He is allergic to too much wheat- can handle some. Has developed a milk allergy. All he wants to eat is meat and carbs, and we are not a big meat eating family. He makes himself pasta with pesto every single day, because he likes it. He sits and eats 5 oranges at a time. But he wont eat cakes or biscuits- just meat, pasta, white bread, lollies, and fruit. He will eat raw vegies if I cut them up for him. Green smoothies if I insist. I want him to eat healthy- he doesnt want to. He just wants food, like a cave man.

Melatonin is a different thing- it is a hormone that your body produces. WHen you supply it, your body can get the message to produce less because of the feedback systems in your body- it senses you have plenty of melatonin in your system, and so switches down the production of melatonin. Thats why you always need to be careful with taking hormones- they can relaly mess you around. Same can happen with thyroid hormones. Iron is a mineral, and your body doesnt produce it. It can obtain it from many food sources- for many of us, we dont "extract" it very efficiently and so need more in our diets. I do think you can often train your body to obtain iron from vegetarian rather than meat sources- but I have tried not very successfully. Spirulina is a good way for me to be able to eat less meat, though.

I would prefer to re-teach a kid the dangers around the issue, set the boundaries again (musnt play with matches , especially with younger kids around, unless you ask first) and then help them light a fire in the backyard under supervision. Or, let them light candles at the dinner table at night time. Some kids have an irresistable attraction to matches and fire, and I think it needs some nurturing. I LOVED fire when I was a kid, and so did my brother. We would spend hours around a campfire just playing, putting things in it, testing what burned, cooking things. Parents looking on from a distance, trusting us to behave sensibly but still there just in case. I personally would not necessarily take the long term punishment approach. My son has played with matches for years. He makes match bombs. We live in Australia- fire is an issue! But he is sensible. He would love to light fires in the backyard with a magnifying glass when he was young. We taught him how to do it safely, and I asked him to tell me when he wanted to do it. I dont like long term punishments that have nothing to do with the actual so called crime. It is a child's natural curiosity, not a sin, to play with matches. They shouldn't feel bad about themselves. They should just learn why its dangerous and learn not to do it without supervision.

I would leave it to dh, and I do. I also leave presents for his side of the family to him too. I's one of the benefits of marrying an older man- he was quite well trained by the time I got him :) Does his own washing, keeps his things tidy and talks to his own mother :) We went and visited her. She lives locally..my mother doesnt.

I learned to critique in layers. Sometimes I would only critique one thing- the content, OR the punctuation OR the sentence structure- dependning on the purpose of the exercise. He grew to the point I could do it all but only in layers. So first, we would only work on content. And if he did what I asked, it was actually a big plus. If I didnt think he did it well, I needed to keep my big mouth shut, because just getting to answering the question was a huge step. The grammatical corrections were the last to be done. If there were too many, we would do the main ones. But this has been with my VERY fussy and perfectionistic but rather poor writer.

People have all sorts of wierd trips around food. I say if I kid is hungry, let them eat. If there is a weight issue...deal with it delicately. Dont create food trips in kids by making too many restrictions around food. My kids have never been huge eaters till lately, when my ds14 is going through a growth spurt and eats a lot. My dd15 is not very physically active though, so tis good she is not a big eater.

Not easy here either. I found I had to fight for boundaries. I found he wanted to come and chat, he wanted to take me out for lunch, he wanted to have coffee with me. And I couldnt do it- I had to focus on the kids and I had to take it seriously, or it was chaos and I would resent his interruptions. So, it was hard on him, really, as we are both blunt people..it hurt his feelings but I would tell him "not now" or "please, we are working here"...and then over time I learned to do it more gently...I would tell him I could take a break at a certain time and I would bring him a cup of tea, or lunch. Lots of conversations about boundaries, about respecting what I am doing as MY job- that sort of thing. He rarely wanted to "help"- it was more, he wanted attention! Nowadays the kids are teens and I do often take time to go out to lunch with him if they have enough work to get on with. Or, we all go out together. But it has been many years of adjustments. Yes, I have lost my cool with him. I could have been kinder at times. But I did feel it was a priority that he realise he needed to respect our space, our bubble of homeschooling concentration. So, I was pretty strong about it. But, he did get the message and it isn't an issue any more- or rarely. By the way...the advantagges are great too. It has been great to be able to call him in for discipline at times. It has been great that he is just "around" for the kids, rather than our all the time. Lots of blessings. But, tough too.

2 dogs, 4 chooks, a couple of fish, a rabbit and a snake. I love pets. I will probably have plenty of pets even when the kids have left home.

Sending you best wishes Linda.

I asked for my car to be cleaned and washed..no such luck. Its Mothers Day here today. I got flowers from dh, a car from ds14 and a painting from dd15. I always think Mothers Day is more of a token kind of present, and just an acknowledgement of the value of mothering- time, visiting mothers, phonecalls, that sort of thing. Its flower season here- our autumn rains bring the flowers out. So Mothers Day is usually just flowers.

I phoned my mum for Mothers Day- she lives on the other side of Australia- and we chatted for an hour, which is unusual. She was actually happy and feeling good, which is very unusual. She thinks her fibromyalgia is gone (after many, many years of pain). She is overjoyed that she has energy. For myself, I received a card from ds14 (it was a b'day card that he crossed out the b'day words from, but oh well, its the thought that counts!), a beautiful painting from dd15, and a basket of flowers from dh. We also just visited MIL and that was good. She wasn't feeling well and we cheered her up.

Yes, I use it for anaemia and it seems to work well for me. However, I take a lot. I cant stand thr taste, so I buy the tablets. They are small and easy to swallow- and I take 20 tablets at a time, which is 10 grams. I can usually get them all down in about 3 mouthfulls of liquid. They are very high in protein too, as well as iron.

Many Aussies dont use or own dryers. We never bought one on purpose- because we know we would use it if we had it, yet we survive well without one. In Australia it is normal to hang one's washing on a clothes line in the garden. It is traditonal Aussie culture :) We stopped doign that because the clothesline where we live is under an antenna where birds sit. Not nice. So we hang on racks in the laundry. Big laundry though.

Yes. I agree- my understanding with food is that if we are not getting correct nutrition- and that is often more than the government guidelines for minimum quantities of specific nutrients to prevent obvious disease like scurvy or rickets- our bodies will crave the nutrition and we tend to simply grab another donut because we only feel the craving and not the subtleties. We dont feel like we crave a green smoothie or a salad because we gavent trained our taste buds. So I see overweight also as a craving for nutrition that has perhaps gone on for many years, unsatiated.

I set up the Workbox system for my kids in January, with rolling carts. I decided I needed one too- It is supposedly for scrapbookers- 6 drawers large enoguh to hold those big square scrapbooks in. It is next to my desk and yes it works well.

I think it is the age to some extent. I agree to make what you consider important, part of his curriculum. Thats what I have done. Ds14 has been thrugh 2 years of disliking Scouts and wanting to quit. We made it part of his curriculum so it wasnt an extra. Now he has come through that stage and loves Scouts. We knew it was important for him to hang in there- and we realyl do consider Scouts tobe part of both kids' curricula. But I have let go of ds's music lessons this year. He just didnt want to practice, it was costing me a lot, and he had been learning for 5 years. It was actually really hard for me to let them go! But I need to pick my battles and ultimately it was a relief. Ds14 now has a part time job doing physical labour one day a week. I felt it was worth sacrificing music- and soccer for that matter- for the labour. He needs to feel useful andto find out what work really is. I do think there is a lot of stuff going on within 14yo boys. My son has shot up several inches in a few months. I did feel it was time to let go of treating him like a kid and let him take some more control over his life. Its finding that balance (he wants total control- rights to keep his room messy, stay up all night, eat crap and be rude to us. Um, were not going that far!) . I think they need lots of sleep at ths age. Your son might be in a between stage where he doesnt know what he wants to do. In a way, we are there. Ds quit gymnastics a year ago, and now suddenly wants to go again and loves it (it is casual so it was easy to do that). He has a different circle of friends lately. It might be your son is letting go of being a child but hasnt yet worked out what he wants. I find I need a lot of patience!

I was a gradual changover for my kids. They kept in contact wit their school friends for a while (playdates, sleepover parties), and at the same time, made new homeschooling friends. Eventually the schooled friends dropped off and the homeschooled friends became the primary ones. It was hardest for dd. SHe didnt want to homeschool and so held onto her school friends strongly. But at a sleepover party of her best friend from school, they were shown a horror movie, and when dd- then age9- showed fear, the other girls ridiculed her. She came home traumatised and ready to let go of them all. It cut the cord. But...we knew they werent good friends- she just needed to see that for herself. Nowadays both kids come across their old school friends now and then and its a good connection. Ds plays with kids in the street- private school kids whose school friends dont live close. Its a great situation.

I don't think it does imply that at all. It is just what it says. They didn't understand or know that there were a whole lot of studies and a slew of information linking vaccines with many health issues. That's all. They may have actually ended up vaccinating- after doing the research. But there is a difference between vaccinating because of ignorance as to the issues, as in, "we didnt know any better than to do what we were told and vaccinate", and vaccinating consciously after studying the research.

Partially vaccinated due to dh's wishes. If it was up to me- no vaccines at all. No vaccines in first two years due to immature immune system and studies from other countries relating most vaccine issues happen in the first vaccines when the baby's system cannot process them. Kids were still breastfed when vaccinated at 2 years. No noticeable reactions at all to vaccines. No follow up vaccine until age 12 when given limited vaccines and titers to check for immunity- no need for measles mumps rubella vaccine due to sufficient protection from only one dose at age 2. DH insisted on HepB- I wasn't happy about it but got it done. They got tetanus because they spend a lot of time in the bush and around boats with Scouts. Dh would like dd to get Gardisil- I am strongly against it due to the untested nature of the vaccine, and my understanding that it has been pushed by companies with vested interests, and so it isnt happening because I am the one who takes them to the doctors. He let it go.

No, I dont have time. I spend a couple of minutes on Facebook- thats about it. Besides, I have tried various other message boards over the years, on various other topics, and none have drawn me in and kept me addicted and coming back anything like these ones.

In my work with my own non healthy tendencies I came to a realisation that I need to accept and love myself first, rather than use my own self hatred and negation to motivate more healthy choices. I think thats why many diets fail- we feel really bad about ourselves and in a way, dont like ourselves for how we look- we diet to feel better about ourselves, and only feel better about ourselves if we lose weight...but we never dealt with the underlying self loathing that was our motivation. Thats why people will starve themselves or flog themselves with exercise in a way that is quite unkind to themselves, in the name of "getting healthy". Love and accept yourself no matter how you are eating or what you look like- that is the primary thing. Love yourself like you are your own child- unconditionally You are ok just as you are. Then from a self caring space, a self respectful place, you can start to make healthier decisions. Anyway, thats my goal and perspective on that issue which is so central to most women's psyches.