I am sorry, praying that you and your children will be fine.

No matter who much you may mature... cray cray happens. I'm sorry, but there is no reason to feel stupid for being human and bumping into the limitations of personality and training. You don't have to follow up. You also don't have to do anything for your youngest if you don't want to... the French Foreign Legion might take him... (I"m not sure if the Foreign Legion is a myth or not, but it sounds so mysterious!).

I have said it before, and I will say it again, teens are why I don't have ten kids. My oldest was 13 when my youngest was 1. As much as I wanted more kids, I knew I was not going to last through more than three teens.

I am just so sorry. Please remember to be compassionate to yourself. You seem to have done more than enough, it is not your fault that it was not enough.

It's always amazing when your kid steps up!

I never charged my brother and his wife for watching my niece. My brother and his wife had watched my kids when I went on mission trips for years, so I never charged them. It did change my home schooling schedule for my oldest a little because I expected too much independent work from him. He ended up doing a lot of school in the summer that year. Good thing he loves his cousin! I would think that you will have to charge whatever the market rate is in your area for what you are providing. My SIL sent all the food for my niece everyday, I provided no meals for her, so that is something to think about. The woman I went to church with did this for three years until she remarried. She remarried someone who had plenty of money and wanted his own kids so she had another family after that.

I went to church with a woman who did this. She was a single mom and really needed the money, but due to a controlling ex who would get her fired from jobs she had to work for herself. She mostly did babies so that she could keep the baby in a sling and still home school. I did this for one year with my niece and it was exhausting, but it was super good for my kids to play with their little cousin. They loved her soooo much, it was very touching.

Alissa Burke's website has lots of fun art with kids. Doing some lettering would be fun and she has a guest who has online classes for lettering. Painting rocks for a rock garden might be up your alley. A loom for some weaving?

Today the cattle rancher who grows our grass fed beef made a delivery and he was embarrassed about being all muddy, but I told him about the Nordstrom jeans and he laughed. He said he was going home to put his jeans on ebay for $350. They'll be a steal!

Right now I can't imagine this happening to me... but time will tell. I actually do put others first quite a bit, but I always have my own opinion, lol.

As far as getting her to say what she does or doesn't want, I have BTDT with my grandmother. She was such a sweetie at 86 with mild dementia that she could not tell you if she wanted milk or juice with dinner when you were holding both pitchers and either was perfectly fine. She had training as a young person that mitigated her own desires. I wonder what the next generation will be like as elderly people...

If it helps, both of my younger children had the exact same reaction as your ds. My oldest had lived with her birth mom for four years before living with us and honestly didn't believe anyone who wasn't white was "human". Her birth mom had taught her that only white people are human beings deserving of respect. It took years to change her mind about that. It only takes four years to train a racist.

I am sorry. I too, am susceptible. I have had more special times ruined by strep than anything else. It really does suck. I wish you had a good prescription and could just go out and smile a lot during the special birthday dinner.

There is a woman in my community who makes a topical pain cream with cannabis oil and she has a waiting list for her product. I am considering getting on the waiting list for my MIL who suffers from a rare circulatory disorder and with the ACA possibly being changed she may need to do something different for pain. I have no judgement at all. Many people here have a lot of success with it.

I would soooo not be good with this. How selfish of your BIL. I would send him an email and tell him that he just burned all his relational equity and good will for LIFE with this action.

This is a real issue in the world we live in. Women are being devalued at a terrifying rate, IMO. I am really worried about the world my dd's are maturing into.

My friend has spent yesterday on the phone with various lawyers in her state and come up with two that have the best win records in this case. She is contacting both of their offices today. She only has 30 days from Monday to file an appeal. The good news is that the judge did TWO unconstitutional things in his decision, so it is constitution law and will be interesting to review, so she has a good chance of getting an appeal heard. The bad news is that the best case scenario is that this will take a year. A year. Wow.

Praying for you!

I did tell the Red Cross to put us on their Do Not Call List, because they wanted oldest dd's blood and she was never going to give again. Their calls were becoming a big headache.

Farmers and construction workers come in my restaurant every day with jeans that look like that, I never think of them being a fashion trend. What is a hoot, though is that the new cultural norm seems to be wanting to LOOK like you work rather than working.

I do believe that certain criminal acts should come with a loss of liberty and should not be free to ruin their children.

In the case of my friend the "expert" was reported to state boards that are supposed to see these people on other cases and nothing has been done. This person has been reported 17 times for unethical/ dishonest practices. Nothing has been done. The person continues to ruin lives.

My friend's ex's expert who had never met her claimed my friend has Bi Polar disorder. My friend then spent $$$ on more reputable professionals to say she does not, but the judge still believed the "expert".

He stalked her with the kids in the car and threatened them not to tell her they had been there. Again, that is not he said/ she said, that is fact. He was stalking someone for a long distance with two kids in his car. Freak.

Clearly this judge did not care about the kids at all. That is the most worrying thing. The father is clearly abusive. One of the lies he was ***CLEARLY*** caught out on was stalking my friend more than two hundred miles to try to catch her drinking at a bridal shower she was attending. He had accessed her email illegally and knew about it. When she caught in him in the parking of her hotel he reframed it that she had followed him, but it was conclusively proven that he chased her (email trails and she was with friends), but the judge didn't care that he lied about her following him and he followed her. Makes no sense at all. That was not he said/ she said. He stalked her in a very invasive way across two hundred miles and state lines. The judge did not care at all????