:lol:

I just want to concur with everybody else. If you are on track with reading and math, then I wouldn't worry about the rest. My son is about the same age as your son. Honestly, I don't stress at all about science and history at this point. If we do it, we do it. If we're having a rough day, we stop after math and language arts. If we're having a rough week or month (and we've got a one year old and I'm pregnant, so those happen), then DS checks a bunch of science books out of the library each week and reads them on his own, and we read history books together at bedtime. But formal history and science are the things that get dropped, and honestly my DS seems no worse for the wear. He's a naturally science-y kid, so he pretty much takes care of science on his own--doing experiments on his own, reading science books for fun, dad taking him to the science center on the weekend, watching science shows, etc.--and I think even if I didn't do anything at all formally with science, he'd still be learning significantly more science that I did at his age and than many of his friends in school are. History is a bit tougher because he's not as inclined to read historical books for fun and there aren't as many natural opportunities to learn it as there are for science. But, I figure that anything we miss, he'll cover later.

We don't have uniforms. I do try to have us all showered and dressed before we start school, though, at least most days. I completely agree. I feel like that often, too, and I work part-time during the academic year and live in a neighborhood where being a SAH or part-time working parent is very normal. It's very, very easy for me to feel like I'm not contributing anything worthwhile to my family because I'm not bringing in a decent amount of money. And, I know how stupid that is. I know that our value and contributions aren't determined by our income. But, we are just bombarded by so many messages that our worth is determined by how much money we make that I think it's really difficult to not fall into feeling like you aren't contributing if you don't have paid employment.

Very interesting. I completely agree about our tendency to compare the realities of today with an idealized past.

I think this is probably way more widespread than we think. And, I think it's only going to get worse. By the 2013-2014 school year, NCLB requires that every school have 100% of their students testing proficient (at or above grade level) in math and reading. If they don't, there will be loss of funding and possible school closures. That is an impossible goal, and I think if the requirements don't change, we're going to see much more widespread cheating.

I'm not sure how airport security violates your rights. The airplane *isn't* your home, so it's not the same thing as a police officer searching your home without a warrant. We have a right to travel, but the government also has the right to regulate how fast we drive and who can operate a vehicle. Our freedom to travel doesn't mean that various regulations can't be put in place for safety reasons. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with all of the security measures being taken, but I don't see where or how they are violating constitutional rights.

I do know people who've dropped weight really, really quickly while nursing. I don't think it's necessarily a myth, but I do think they make it sound like it happens for everybody. That's not the case. I know several women, myself included, who do not lose weight while nursing, then drop it all pretty quickly without any changes in diet/exercise after weaning (so, it's not poor habits that prevent the loss). I assume they don't tell you that can happen because they don't want to discourage women from nursing, but I do think it can lead women who just can't lose while nursing to assume they must be doing something wrong.

The ESV is available in a free Kindle edition. It's got a linked table of contents, and is searchable. IMO, they did an excellent job formatting it for the Kindle.

Which segues into one of my favorite descriptions of the Episcopal Church: "There are two kinds of Episcopalians: Catholics who hate the Pope, and UUs who like a parade." And then there's my favorite UU joke: "You might be a UU if you call construction paper, 'paper of color.'" :D

I was taking a nutrition course at the time I was nursing DS. One of the exercises we had to do was calculating our calorie intake and how many calories our bodies were using. According to the calculations, I should have been burning something like 3200 calories a day, and I was eating much less than that (around 1800-2000 calories). My weight still didn't budge, until I weaned. Sometimes weight loss isn't as simple as we like to think it is. It seems to me that some people's bodies will do whatever it takes to hold onto weight when breastfeeding. I seem to be one of those people. You may just need to hang in there, because your child will wean one day and the weight will come off.

I don't lose weight while nursing (at least not with my first two), other than what I lose immediately after delivery. I nursed DS for 26 months and didn't lose a pound. After I weaned him, I dropped almost 30 pounds (all the weight I'd gained during pregnancy that I didn't lose immediately upon delivery) within two months without changing anything about my eating or exercise habits. I didn't lose anything while nursing DD, either. I got pregnant while I was still nursing her, and I didn't lose the 10 pounds I usually lose in the first trimester. I agree that, assuming there's no underlying medical issues, the best idea is just to keep up with healthy habits--regular exercise, balanced diet, plenty of rest--and when you wean, the weight will come off. But even if you don't lose weight right now, the healthy habits will still make you feel better and improve your health.

Right. I mean, the doctor is going to touch my children in ways that it wouldn't be okay for other people to touch them. That doesn't mean I can't take them to the doctor, for fear they won't understand what a bad touch is. I've been patted down at the airport. It was extremely professional. Nothing about it felt invasive or inappropriate. I would not have any issue with one of my children having that kind of security pat down, and no fear that it would confuse them about appropriate boundaries. I'm not going to assume that the TSA employee doing the patdown (in a public area, with me present and my child clothed) has more of a chance of being a "pervert" than my child's doctor. I mean, seriously: do we think people are now going into airport security because they relish the chance of getting to pat down a fully clothed child in the presence of their parents? Now, if they were talking about hauling children off to private rooms, away from their parents, and doing security searches there, I'd see the concern. But I would not have a single qualm about my child being patted down while clothed in my presence.

There have always been some within the Anglican Communion who've hoped to reunite with Rome. That's a minority position, though, particularly within the Episcopal Church (the American wing of the AC). And, it's not something that I can see happening in anything approaching the foreseeable future. Right now, the RCC is allowing Episcopal congregations who are unhappy with the Episcopal Church's stance on the full inclusion of GLBT people in church life to switch their affiliation to the RCC, while maintaining their own liturgy. AFAIK not many churches have taken them up on the offer.

Denominational. I'm an Episcopalian, but I'm not necessarily tied to going to an Episcopal church, if there isn't one in the area that is a good fit. (For example, where we live now, none of the Episcopal churches have anything approaching a good children's program. You can't find one with a nursery, a Sunday School, or even an area where you can take a fussy kid.) But non-denominational churches tend to be conservative, and I'm not conservative, so for me it's going to be a better chance of a good fit if I look into a mainline denominational church.

On a side note, are we actually getting more diverse? I know that I've read things indicating that many parts of the country are becoming increasingly segregated.

If it's low, it's very likely you'll qualify for a good amount of aid. It's an option to choose private school, but I'd be really, really careful about taking on student loan debt, and would try to take on as little as possible. I'd be very reluctant to choose a private school over a public school unless the private school offered enough in grants and scholarships to be cheaper than the public school. However, there might be good reasons to choose an in-state public school with online offerings over a CC, like convenience and course offerings. I'd say online classes are generally academically easier. But, you get a lot less interaction from the instructor and the class. I think the reason they'd advise younger students against online classes is that you really need to be self-motivated to get the work done. Crazy? No. But, without being a huge party pooper, if you don't have a specific career path in mind AND would be financing your education with loans, I'd think really hard about whether this is the right time. It's just really easy to get bogged down in student loan debt, because it adds up. If you can afford to go, then going for personal enrichment is great. But, honestly I'd probably advise against going to school for personal enrichment if you can't pay for it out of pocket. There will always be the opportunity to go back to school to prepare for a career when your kids are older, and then, if you do need to take out loans, you'll at least be headed in a direction where you'll have a career and earn money to pay them back. In the meantime, you might find things like book clubs, classes offered through your town/city's rec or adult ed program (usually really cheap), and online study groups good, free ways to have some accountability and structure without committing to the time and money of a formal college education.

I think that real, active efforts to unify the community are important. Your neighborhood seems to have the right idea. There are a lot of people in my neighborhood who are interested in building up the community. We have neighborhood-wide events several times a year: pancake breakfasts, street fairs, holiday parties. We have a newsletter and an e-mail list. And people just generally make a conscious effort to get to know their neighbors.

Waist definition, would be my guess. I look thinner in a swimsuit or underwear, too (when I'm not pregnant, that is!). I am very hourglass shaped. I don't wear very form-fitting clothes, so in clothes my midsection tends to look bigger than it is. In a bathing suit, there's a lot more waist definition. I wouldn't say I look better in a swimsuit or underwear, but I do look slimmer.

Not at all. I live in the most close-knit community I've ever lived in, and it's a very diverse (racially, economically, and age-wise) inner-city community. I grew up in an extremely homogenous suburb (nearly everybody was white--Italian, Irish, or Polish--and Catholic), and it wasn't close at all. We didn't know most of the people living on our street, where my parents lived for over 20 years. I think people becoming very transient due to job insecurity, the move to the suburbs (where people often don't seem to worry too much about getting to know neighbors), and the loss of common spaces (people today are far more likely to take their own cars than use public transportation, to watch a DVD at home than go to a movie theater, to play in the home or yard than at the park, to buy a book off the internet rather than go to the library, etc.) is probably responsible for whatever breakdown in community we're sensing, not diverse communities.

If she's reading for pleasure, I wouldn't make an issue of the book-hopping. Is she willing to finish books you assign her (if you assign her books)? My DS tends to series-hop. He'll get super into a series, but then get bored of it maybe half or even three-quarters of the way through. I would stick to library books if she does a lot of book-hopping. Maybe let her take out a big stack, and then she can hop until she hopefully finds one that she likes?

It really depends on the UU church. We attend a UU church for years. I started identifying as a Christian again while in the UU church. The particular church we were in was not a very good fit for Christians. There was a poll done at one point, and out of the 300 members, less than 5 identified as Christian. I think this was largely because the community it was located in had a number of liberal Christian churches. So, there were plenty of other places for liberal-leaning Christians to go, and most UU Christians ended up leaving for one of those. A number, like I eventually did, left for one of the Episcopal churches. (I was raised Catholic, so the Episcopal Church is a very comfortable fit for me.) There were also liberal Presbyterian, Methodist, UCC, and Lutheran churches in the area. You could probably find a dozen liberal Christian churches within the town (it was a large-ish college town), and so I'm assuming the issue wasn't that the UU church was unwelcoming to Christians, but most liberal Christians could find a comfortable church community elsewhere, and so there just wasn't much of a Christian presence in the church. I'd definitely give it a try, though. At the very least, even if the worship doesn't suit you or you don't feel spiritually "fed" there, you'll find loving, tolerant people. :)

I think most cultural references can be found in the movie, though.

It's a fast read for a long book. I read it one summer when I was in high school. It didn't take me very long. That said, it's not a book I'd force myself to get through if I didn't enjoy it. I'd say check it out of the library, read a couple of chapters, and see if you want to go on. If you don't, I would feel no guilt about putting it aside, or fear that you're missing an essential book.

Would the alternative be her re-taking coop classes she took this year?

Especially given that this was a capital case. If it hadn't been a matter of a verdict that could end the life of a young woman (especially given her parents' presence throughout the trial), I wonder if we'd have seen a different outcome. As it stands, I'm glad the verdict is what it is. I do not feel the state provided sufficient evidence for putting somebody to death for murder. I think it would have been a travesty of justice if she had been convicted of capital murder, given what the state provided as evidence.