ok, I'll answer this one as my oldest dd is a senior engineering major at a state uni, and gets straight a's. Here's my list: logical abilities - good at puzzles, likes mental challenge, very logical; good at math - this is a no brainer really, there is loads of math and physics in the undergad program. loads and loads. If you kid is not good with upper math, or doesn't like it, don't go down that road. ; persistent - engineering classes are hard. very hard. and a lot of work. ok, peripheral things would be creativity, inventiveness etc... but there are a lot of creative inventive kids that don't have love of logic & math, and aren't particularly persistent, so there you go. My oldest was an over the top difficult child - hyperactive and incredibly intense. I now am reasonably sure that she is probably borderline aspie because of having to deal with my youngest son, who would be classified as 2e I suppose. She was intensely creative, loved puzzles/nancy drew/mystery interactive computer games etc. Logical in the extreme. Struggled with self control. About age 13/14 she turned her corner and became very focused academically, and very self controlled. She's always been purposeful in the sense that if she knew it would be good for her to do or learn something, she would embrace that challenge & conquer it. She's still that way at age 22 ha! Right now she is purposely working on eating more kinds of veggies and being open to more varieties of foods. Anyway, she was good at math...she had her hang ups, but because she was persistent and had that "rage to master" instinct she worked through it. I knew by the time she was 16 that she would be engineering material, but she had to see that for herself, and she loves working with children, so toyed with the idea of doing Early Childhood Development also. She took both and EC class and an intro to engineering class at CC and that sealed it for her. Too many annoying hoops to jump through in the EC field, and she loved the engineering class. So off she went. She does very well, gets mostly a's, and is a member of the Engineering Honor Society, and can't imagine doing anything other than what she's doing. She's frequently the only girl in many of her classes, but she's cool with that.

ok, I'll answer this one as my oldest dd is a senior engineering major at a state uni, and gets straight a's. Here's my list: logical abilities - good at puzzles, likes mental challenge, very logical; good at math - this is a no brainer really, there is loads of math and physics in the undergad program. loads and loads. If you kid is not good with upper math, or doesn't like it, don't go down that road. ; persistent - engineering classes are hard. very hard. and a lot of work. ok, peripheral things would be creativity, inventiveness etc... but there are a lot of creative inventive kids that don't have love of logic & math, and aren't particularly persistent, so there you go. My oldest was an over the top difficult child - hyperactive and incredibly intense. I now am reasonably sure that she is probably borderline aspie because of having to deal with my youngest son, who would be classified as 2e I suppose. She was intensely creative, loved puzzles/nancy drew/mystery interactive computer games etc. Logical in the extreme. Struggled with self control. About age 13/14 she turned her corner and became very focused academically, and very self controlled. She's always been purposeful in the sense that if she knew it would be good for her to do or learn something, she would embrace that challenge & conquer it. She's still that way at age 22 ha! Right now she is purposely working on eating more kinds of veggies and being open to more varieties of foods. Anyway, she was good at math...she had her hang ups, but because she was persistent and had that "rage to master" instinct she worked through it. I knew by the time she was 16 that she would be engineering material, but she had to see that for herself, and she loves working with children, so toyed with the idea of doing Early Childhood Development also. She took both and EC class and an intro to engineering class at CC and that sealed it for her. Too many annoying hoops to jump through in the EC field, and she loved the engineering class. So off she went. She does very well, gets mostly a's, and is a member of the Engineering Honor Society, and can't imagine doing anything other than what she's doing. She's frequently the only girl in many of her classes, but she's cool with that.

Maybe start with having her learn to put one hand on your arm and the other over her mouth? That way, she's not talking, and she has a way to gently let you know she has something to say. So, say when she starts talking really loud, don't say anything, just go physically lead her to where you were, place one of her hands on your arm, and place her other hand over her mouth. Something physical to replace the habit with. I have just found that giving my kids something they can DO as opposed to trying to get them to STOP DOING something works better in the long run. ymmv. Once she has done that, you can pause, then, "Did you want to tell me something?" etc etc...

Hi, I am mktkcb's daughter. Zork is a genius adventure puzzle game series. Nobody knows what a grue looks like because it devours you in completely dark rooms. Started a few of the text interactive games, but got really annoyed with the "tunnel" mapping system. Favorite one is probably Zork Grand Inquisitor. Love the humor and wit of these games, wish they would make more like them. **note from mktkcb: My dd is 21, and an adventure puzzle game fanatic. Most of the Zorks and Mysts are ones my dh had, but she has loved all of them. It would seem that Grues are creatures of some sort that you never see, as she said. Zork was among the first games to make the great leap from text interactive to video interactive. Lately she's been trying out the older text int. games.

Hi, I am mktkcb's daughter. Zork is a genius adventure puzzle game series. Nobody knows what a grue looks like because it devours you in completely dark rooms. Started a few of the text interactive games, but got really annoyed with the "tunnel" mapping system. Favorite one is probably Zork Grand Inquisitor. Love the humor and wit of these games, wish they would make more like them.

esv MacArthur on kindle. love it, and it doesn't weigh 10 million pounds. can access all the notes etc. with one touch :o).

We've had rats for quite awhile. My dd loves her rats. We had a pair of females first, from the pet store, but they both got tumors and died. After this dd decided she would only get males from a breeder next time. We got 2 baby males, both agouti color, one with dumbo ears and one with regular, which makes it easy to tell them apart. The breeder breeds for temperament as well as color, so she told us they would be big and sweet natured, and they are. DD 21 looooooves her ratties. They are great big fellows, but so sweet and smart. They are like little doggies, and they lick you all over. We inherited a big tall cage from a friend, so I'm not sure what to tell you about that. Boy rats pee and spray in their cage, so stay on top of the smell by cleaning often. I think if you keep things clean, and supervise when the rats are out, that a landlord shouldn't have much to say about it. So, male, get them from a breeder, not incredibly expensive.

It sounds similar to a game we played when I was a missionary kid at boarding school, in high school. We had a large campus, and all the adults would fan out with flashlights to hunt down the students who were trying to get some stated thing...sorta like capture the flag, but in the dark being hunted. If you had the flashlight turned on you, you were caught and had to be out. We thought it was great fun, fwiw, sneaking around in the dark hiding behind buildings etc. Appeals to your inner criminal ;o).

awww..so cute!! My dd 21 is totally in love with her ratties. They are agouti littermates, and big fat males LOL. One has dumbo ears, one regular, so she can easily tell them apart. She loves those rats to death, so I totally understand rattie love :o). They *are* very sweet...like little dogs ;o).

shoot.....I say to heck with moderators. Give them both a list of questions, and let them go at it. It would be far more entertaining, and you'd learn a lot more about their true colors. They need far more unscriptedness, imo.

Well, my oldest dd is a jr/sr engineering major, and your dd better learn to at least tolerate writing if she wants to go that direction. They constantly have projects/group projects, and they ALL require detailed write ups. I'm just sayin. Going stem is not a way to avoid writing.

oh..and she always gets comments from people when we walk cuz she's so cute ;o)

I have a good friend with one, and they love her to death. She's got lots of energy, but she's been great with their kids. They probably could have trained her more than they did LOL, but overall she's a great doggy. I walk with this friend & dog 3x a week. She's a sweetie & she loooves me in particular. Gets all hyper when I come, and runs up & sits right by me and leans her head on my leg. Anyway, she's very friendly in general, and has been a good dog for them. They got her from a reputable breeder, btw, and have bred her once.

layers, fleece, hat/gloves, poncho

Today, nutella for sure. Sigh. It's so good.

Stop overthinking everything. Just stop. Go to WW. Is it superior to the others? No, but it will give you the food choices you want, and help you to sort out your portions, and provide accountability. Move forward for pete's sake. As for specific concerns you mentioned, no reason you can't eat your meat with yummy sauce. You don't have to eat eggs. Work on portion control with whole grain bread and whole grain pasta. Cook up the pasta, put it in individual half cup baggies in the freezer, then you can easily grab it, and throw it together with your meat, veggies, and whatever yummy sauce. If you aren't opposed to artificial sweeteners (you drink diet coke..), then you can certainly indulge a tiny bit of that sweet tooth without doing much damage. My go to right now is sugar free fudgsicles :o). Ditch the chips....why not substitute low fat versions of microwave popcorn. you can munch a whole bag or 2 and not do much damage at all. Stop worrying about the diet coke. Deal with that later. Just do it. There is no reason you can't enjoy eating what you want to eat. Good grief...I still eat Costco pizza about once a week...I just count it on sparkpeople, and balance it with what I eat the rest of the day.

You know, you always have to take the personality of the child into consideration. What are their strengths. What is *worth* making them stick with, for them...not you. My kids are so totally different. I mean totally. So I've gone completely different ways with each of them. Oldest (now 21) did a lot of stuff casually. She could have been a great athlete, but we aren't a real sports oriented family, and she does NOT like intense competition in those arenas, so I never pushed it with her. But she did PE classes, gymnastics classes, Volleyball, Jr. Lifeguards, swim team all at different times. She really did love volleyball, but wishes there were a venue where she could continue to gain skills, but in a less competitive environment. She was musical, but not overly so, and really didn't want to do lessons. In high school she decided to self teach piano, and has made good progress over the years. But she's my intense logical mathematical one. Very much her own self, and now an engineering major in college. She always pushed herself, and made herself do things because she knew they were good for her. DD #2 - totally different animal. Emotional, artistic, musical, etc. She did similar things as older dd, but begged for violin lessons, which she has now taken since age 13 (she is now 19). She has owned that pretty much, and I don't make her practice. I made her do choir in hs even though she said she didn't want to blah blah. She loved it of course. She is VERY competitive. She is in taekwondo still, going for her black belt. Much more adventurous than dd1. I regret she never got to do ballet. It was/is very expensive where we live, and I just couldn't afford that when she was little. Her cousin does ballet with a much more affordable studio too far away for us. DD would have been fabulous at it. Then there is ds (15.5). Borderline aspie/adhd, and extremely musically gifted from day 1. He's been taking piano since age 8, but I do have to *make* him practice sometimes. He'd have quit umpteen times over if I'd have let him. Not happening. He needs to learn to persevere, and finish stuff, iykwim. He's a fabulous musician. He's in scouts also, interestingly enough, but don't know if he'll make Eagle or not. His troupe tries to get the boys through Eagle, but we'll see. Not a hill I'm going to die on, even though Dad was an Eagle. Anyway.....regrets? Sure, we all have some, but I feel like I've treated my kids like individuals, and haven't lived vicariously through any of them for the most part. They have all tried LOTS of different things, loved some, hated others. I hope my kids each got pushed where they needed it, and not where they didn't.

We also have no way to pay for college, BUT, for us that has meant first community college, then transferring to a school in commuting distance, and my 2 oldest both have had jobs since right out of hs. Apply for financial aid even in cc. Get all the grants you can get. My oldest transferred to a state school. She's an engineering major and lives at home. Commuting is a 30 min drive there and back most days through SoCal traffic, but she does it. We make it work. If it takes longer to get through college because you have to work, then ok. She only took about 1000 in loans last year, and plans to pay what grants don't cover out of pocket this year. My middle one is still finding herself in cc LOL. She will be something artsy (yeah...don't get me started on employability, it's just who she is kwim?), probably a design major of some kind. Fashion, textile arts, who knows. She got a fee waiver that mostly covers her costs this year, so I'm really happy about that. All this to say that there are ways. Maybe not ideal, perfect, IV league type ways, but ways. If you and they are committed to doing it.

well, I'm a California native & I consider the South to be S. Carolina to Louisiana linearly, with Arkansas, Tennessee, and N. Carolina in the iffy category. Texas is sort of iffy too, but I lean Southwest with it, and it doesn't come immediately to mind when I hear The South.

Yep, that's me. I can enjoy a book much more when there are no surprises. Strange, I know. I'm one of those that can enjoy a good book many times over as well. I've read books backwards before as well...not like word for word backwards, but starting at the end & working my way back a chapter at a time. Not purposely, but realized what I'd done after the fact. I'm a really fast reader & frequently I'll skim read a book really fast & then when I have the gist, I'll go back and read it at a more leisurely pace. But I'm a very global thinker as opposed to sequential, so I like having the complete big picture and working to the details from there :o). It makes me a lousy housekeeper though...when things get really cluttered I can't make sense of the "whole" iykwim, so have a hard time focusing on the smaller cleaning steps. Frustrating.

check out platinum tel. They are frankly the lowest priced cell phone of any I have seen anywhere period. http://platinumtel.com/

OK, that is scary....that is the first name I thought of. huh.

http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/packages/prepaid-packages.html this should give you the info on it. I only see a 25 dollar card for sale, not a 15. 10c a minute. You should look at platinumtel. They are 5c a min., 2c a text, 10c per mg of data for their prepaid, and they have $10 cards that are good for 90 days. Basically you can get 800 min for $40 and a year of service. Best deal out there period. They use the sprint network. Right now my phone is tmobile where I can get 1000 min for 100 dollars and a year of service, but I just got my husband a platinum tel. It works great, and I'm switching when my minutes expire. I can get an android phone with the prepaid plan as well if I want to. http://platinumtel.com/pages/compare-prepaid-wireless

yeah...I'd call it "generation whiners". Honestly, EVERY generation has difficulties to contend with. It's called survival. You do what you need to do, pursue excellence in every way possible, find joy in it where you can, and suck it up. Thats called life. You can read all the articles, wring your hands & go "Oh NOOOOOO it's horrible, it's terrible, it's not faaaaaiiiiirrrrrr!" "waaaaaaahhhhhh". Anyway, the alcoholics anon serenity prayer seems particularly applicable to this generation.... ok, rant over :o)

http://platinumtel.com/