This. I think the parent-child relationship needs to be considered here. I would want, as a parent, my child to feel free to talk to me about what is going on in their lives, including what is going on with their friends. And if one of their friends is doing something that I know their parents wouldn't approve of but that isn't clearly dangerous or self-destructive, and my child tells me that in conversation, if I turn around and inform that parent, I feel like I'd be shutting down an important line of communication with my child. If my child is censoring himself or herself because they are afraid that, if they say something, I'm going to turn around and tell on their friend, then that's a problem. And, IMO, it's not a problem with my child, since their role in their friend's life is that of friend, not informant for the parent. It's a problem with me. I'd expect my children to know that there are exceptions. If they told me a friend was abusing drugs, being physically or sexually abused, struggling with seriously problem like an eating disorder or self-injury, or otherwise behaving in ways or dealing with situations that were an immediate, serious threat to their physical well-being, we would have to take action, whether that meant alerting the parents or a counselor or something along those lines. But, I also feel like, before I have any responsibility to inform other parents of their teen child's misbehavior, I have a responsibility to be a safe, trustworthy person for my own children to talk to. And, I think I'd be making that incredibly difficult if I were going to relay information they shared with me to other parents, with the exception of the kind of examples I provided. I don't think this is about being overly worried about one's "reputation." It's about being a friend, not an informant. And it's about being able to talk freely with one's parents--which is a great thing!--without having to worry about whether or not your parent is going to turn around and tell another adult something you told them in confidence (because I think most parent-child conversations are held in some degree of confidence). Maybe I'm just hot and hormonal, but this idea that it's not only fine, but necessary, to turn around and tell a parent something your child told you about their kid, that you didn't witness and that isn't clearly dangerous, and that if your child resists that, that means something bad about them, is just really rubbing me the wrong way.

Would I want to know? Sure. There are all kinds of things I'd want to know as a parent. I don't think, though, that means that other parents or other people are obligated to provide me with that information or that they necessarily should. For me, my relationship with my own children would supercede making sure another parent knew that their child had broken their rules, especially if I hadn't personally witnessed it and the information about it came second- or third-hand. If my child didn't want me to tell, and it wasn't a matter of physical safety--drug abuse, abusive relationship, suicidal statements, etc.--I wouldn't say anything.

Same here. I rarely felt this one move during the day. And, between maybe 20-30 weeks, how much movement I felt really seemed to depend on the baby's position. If he was in certain positions, I could go days without feeling much if any movement. In general, cold sugary drinks, as mentioned, got him going. I'd suggest having a sugary snack or drink, and then laying down for a while, to see if that works.

Made a good dinner (for once!). Took my son to a friend's house. Got through about 1/3 of Harry Potter 7.

I think it really depends on the kid. My DS, who's 7, has a friend his age who is super into pop culture stuff. They listen to music at her house that I wouldn't be okay with him listening at home. Honestly, for him, it doesn't seem to be an issue or influence him in any way, and he has no desire to listen to that kind of music at home.

Put me in the "you have more patience than me" boat. ;) I hate being pregnant, especially at the end. I have big babies and have had sciatica the last two pregnancies, so the last few weeks are just misery. I'm in my 36th week right now and already feeling about ready to be done. My OB and I have both agreed that I'll go to 41 weeks before we talk induction if the baby doesn't come on his own--although I think he will, because DS came on his due date, and DD a week early--but I'm hoping it doesn't come to that, because it's quite possible I'd spend the last week crying.

This. I would assume that the invitations are about their daughter, not yours. I'd probably take things on a case-by-case basis, and accept invitations that are appropriate while declining those that aren't. Personally, I wouldn't allow another family to take my child to get her ears pierced, especially if I didn't think she was old enough to. I don't think I'd be comfortable with another family taking my child clothes shopping; I wouldn't want my child to be in a position where they'd have to either accept or decline an offer on that family's part to buy clothing. Personally, the nail salon, I'd allow at that age. But, since you want to take your daughter yourself, I'd just say that. Maybe, after you take your daughter, if they want to go at a later date, they can.

I wish that was the case. Reading this SoF, though, it's really hard to imagine that they had any other intention. The first section, in particular, seems like it is there almost entirely to exclude Catholics.

Nope. We use it to keep in touch with family. And, it's pretty much essential for my DH's career.

I got and still get a lot of comments on DD's size, although not as many now as when she was a baby. It didn't put me out, because she WAS a remarkably fat baby. She was 22 lbs. at 4 months (exclusively breastfeeding). She was HUGE. I've had--I'm not kidding--older women call their friends over in the grocery store or library on several occasions so they could all marvel at how fat her legs were. It really only bothered me if they were critical about it. She's a baby, for goodness sake. It's not like I was feeding her ice cream and Oreos. She was just a big, big girl. Now, at almost 16 months, she's still chubby but not as remarkably fat, but she's also REALLY tall. She's wearing 3T clothes. I have had people ask why she's not doing X or Y, and then when I say, "Because she's 15 months old!" they usually apologize. However, I would not be so okay with people making comments about the size of an older child. For me, that would be unacceptable, and I'd say something, probably out of earshot of my child. And I'd probably sit my child down and talk to them about how people can be rude and obnoxious, and they're just the size they are supposed to be and so ignore those people.

It would exclude most, unless they were very theologically conservative. • I believe that the Bible (the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments) as originally written is the only Word of God, and is truth without any mixture of error. "Truth without any mixture of error" is not something that many mainline Protestants, who do not equate inspired with inerrant, would be able to affirm in good faith. • I believe that the new birth Jesus provides is instantaneous and not a process. This isn't something that all or even most mainline Protestants would affirm. Many--Anglicans and Lutherans are the ones I'm most familiar with--would see salvation as much the way others have described it, as both an event and a process.

I think she meant "Bible above the Trinity."

I'd say the entire SOF seems designed to exclude Catholics, and would also exclude Orthodox Christians, Anglicans, and many mainline Protestants. If a co-op is looking for an inclusive statement of faith, why not use one of the historic creeds? But, in this case, it doesn't seem like they are looking for something inclusive. I don't know why you'd mention the "66 books" of the Bible unless you were specifically setting out to exclude non-Protestants.

Lots of people work hard and make wise financial decisions. Sometimes they end up doing really well, sometimes they don't. Sometimes taking on debt is a wise financial decision. I just don't like how dogmatic people are about their debt-free life being ideal.

My son was an early reader, but I don't see DD going in that direction, at least right now. DS was super, super verbal from a really young age; DD is really going at her own pace, language-wise. She's not behind, but she's at the later end of normal development so far (and has been with most things). I do not plan on pushing her. I wouldn't have introduced phonics to DS until he was 5 or 6 if he hadn't expressed interest in learning to read earlier. And I wouldn't have continued if it had seemed too frustrating or difficult. I just don't see my DD being the type to come crying to me at 3 because she doesn't know how to read (like my son did--he's always been a pretty driven kid), and that's fine with me. My son always wants to buy her the "My Baby Can Read" set, though. And he tells me, "But, Mom, our baby *can't* read!" I've tried to explain that babies are not supposed to read, so it's really okay. ;)

I'm not sure why people get upset about the Duggars being judged. They're on TV: that's opening yourself up for judgment. I certainly wouldn't go around judging the parenting choices or lifestyles of people I know or people I see around, but if you are going to make money by going on TV, then the viewers aren't, IMO, overstepping bounds by forming opinions on the family, even really negative ones. I've seen a few episodes of the show, and I wasn't impressed. My main issue is how everybody thinks they are so wonderful for living debt-free, without realizing that that lifestyle simply isn't available to everybody, and that if you had 18 kids (and all the celebrity that goes with that for them), a reality show, and the kind of business the family has, you'd probably be debt-free, too. I don't know, it just seems like a silly thing to applaud them for. I don't care how they choose to live or how many children they choose to have, but I think the idea is that we're supposed to think "Wow, if they can be debt-free with 18 kids, I must be an irresponsible idiot for not living debt-free when I've only got 2/3/4," instead of noticing that a huge reason why they can live debt free is because of how many kids they have and the way they've marketed their family.

Bell's Oberon. I'm not sure if Bell's is just in Michigan or if it's national, but pretty much the only beer I like is their Oberon Ale. It is sooooooo good. I don't drink it often, but it's really nice on a hot summer night. In fact, after I have this baby, I want DH to get me a Bell's Oberon to enjoy with my first dinner at home.

Wow. The cheaper private schools here are around $350-400/month. I'd say that that's what I spend total on homeschooling materials each year. So I'd say I spend about a month's private school tuition for a year of homeschooling.

To *lower* the birth weight of your baby? Unless you are diabetic, in which case watching your diet will affect birth weight significantly, I just don't think that's true and I'd really question that advice. AFAIK eating too much during a pregnancy might make you gain too much weight, but not your baby (again, unless there's an issues with GD). And I've never heard of exercise being linked to low birth weights unless the mother was malnourished. My DS was 9 lbs. 3 oz. and my DD was 8 lbs. 3 oz. She looked teeny tiny to us. My DH is 6'5" and was 10-1/2 lbs. at birth, and my dad is 6'4" and was 10 lbs. when he was born, so I feel like I've gotten off pretty easy with the sizes my kids have been. FWIW, I'm not sure there's any link between pregnancy weight gain and baby size, either. I've known women who've gained tons of weight during a pregnancy and have had very small babies. I gained 12 lbs. total with DD, and she was on the larger side. A friend of mine who has terrible HG throughout her entire pregnancies and doesn't gain much at all has big, chubby babies.

More than any other churches I've attended, Methodist churches vary wildly in where they fall on the liberal-to-conservative spectrum. There are some very liberal Methodist churches and some that are as conservative as any conservative church in a conservative denomination. So much depends on the individual pastor and church. I think part of it is that Methodists aren't as divided up as some other denominations. If you're a Presbyterian, you'll head for the PCUSA if your liberal, and the PCA or OPC if you're conservative. If you're a Lutheran, you'll probably pick an ELCA church if you're liberal, and a LCMS or WELS church if you're conservative. But if you're a Methodist, you'll probably pick a UMC church whether you are very liberal or very conservative.

You know, I think this is part of the reason why I'm a fan of having a day with a short but serious period of formal schoolwork, rather than a long school day. I am NOT the type to enjoy organizing tons of hands-on activities, but if I was doing hours and hours of formal schooling, I'd feel like I had to, especially in the early elementary years. As it stands, I have DS do maybe one to one-and-a-half hours of seatwork for school. And, most of it isn't fun. It's worksheets and workbooks and drill and copywork, and he would rather be doing other things. We usually end the time with some reading aloud and art or music, which he does enjoy more, but most of our seatwork isn't fun or exciting. But, then he's free to spend the day doing whatever hands-on activities, games, or play he wants. For us, that works.

This. I have a home BP machine that I inflate manually but that does the reading automatically. I got it because I get really, really nervous in the doctor's office, and this caused all sorts of problems in my first pregnancy. With my second pregnancy, I asked my OB if I could track my BP at home. She wanted me to bring my cuff in so that we could make sure it was reading accurately, and once we did that, she was fine with that. For the first few months I was seeing her, my BP in her office would be much, much higher than my BP at home. I'd have readings of 160 or 170 systolic (my bottom number never went past the 80s), while at home it would be in the 110s or 120s or lower. She accepted my home readings, especially since we did a 24-hour urine catch that was fine, and within a few months, I'd gotten used to her and the office, and my BP readings were always below 120/80 in her office. I'm seeing her for another pregnancy now, and I've had no BP issues at all. If you can get your own machine, or have a friend you know who's a nurse or doctor take your BP, or otherwise get some calm, accurate readings, that would probably help a lot.

I'm one of those people who did manage to do first grade work in an hour or an hour and a half. I don't count, in that, the time DS spends doing educational play--doing experiments, writing/reading for fun, art and music for fun, etc.--or the time we spend reading together at night. That's for sit-down work. I don't think more time = more rigorous or more challenging. Part of the problem with a traditional classroom setting, IMO, is that for more advanced kids, they are stuck spending long periods of time filling in worksheets that are easy for them. I know this was my DS's experience in kindy. He would be doing worksheet after worksheet on topics that he already fully understood, because many students in the class hadn't grasped those concepts and needed the extra practice. He was putting in lots of hours, but it wasn't challenging for him. A lot of it, I think, depends on what you want your child to get out of their education. For me, personally, I feel like there is certainly a value in learning to sit down and work hard for long periods of time, but that early elementary school is not the time for that. At the age my DS is, my interest is in making sure he has a solid foundations in the basics--language arts and math--and then giving him space to play, explore topics that interest him, and spend time with his family and friends. When he's older (later elementary school and up), we'll shift to spending more of our day on formal academics. In my case, though, I've got a kid who is really, really solid academically but a real challenge behaviorally. So much of my focus is on his behavior and attitude. To me, putting that time in now--learning how to play well with others, to be respectful to family and friends, to contribute to the household by doing chores, to have a good attitude--is really important, especially since he's already working well above grade level. So, really, I see my main focus until about fourth grade or so being on laying foundations for later academics through a couple of hours of formal schooling a day and then really working hard to build family relationships and positive peer relationships and nurturing good attitudes, so that when it is time to buckle down and spend more time on formal academics, we're not constantly distracted by behavioral issues. We'll see how that goes, I guess.

Darks, lights, and diapers.

I'd love to meet the people who's families had no dysfunction! I wouldn't say my family was dysfunctional, but I also couldn't say that there was no dysfunction at all. All of my family members are human beings, after all. I had wonderful, loving, attentive parents, and a really good childhood, but I couldn't say my family had no dysfunction. To me, that would imply that nobody ever acted in a way that they shouldn't have, and I don't know any person capable of that. I think there has to be some middle ground between the idea that any degree of family dysfunction is going to scar somebody for life and leave them unable to control their behavior, and the idea that no matter how dysfunctional a family was the children should be able to rise above it and live happy, healthy, exemplary lives by their own strength of will and character.