I thought it sounded a little nutty to me LOL :D My 5 year old DD still sleeps in our room in her own bed....and in our bed occasionally. My 2 year old still sleeps in the bed with us. I told MIL that if I could get in trouble for letting my 5 year old sleep with us, then they would really freak when they found out I was still nursing my almost 3 year old LOL. :lol:

My MIL (who I don't totally trust with everything she says) told me that someone who allows their older child (say 4 years and up) to sleep in the bed with them can get in trouble with the law? Or childrens services? Or something like that. Is this really true??? If so, that's absolutely absurd. She said it is to stop all the weirdos from sleeping with their children. Huh????? I can guarantee that if any weirdo wants to do something to a child, they are going to do it whether they are sleeping in the bed with them or not. The whole conversation kind of made me go :confused::confused::confused:.

I dont like things that I cannot keep up with. I have the Biggest Loser one and I like that.

The only real issue I see here is the lack of sense that they used when using the same needle on each child, plus the whole home-made tattoo gun. I can easily see the children all watching while mom and dad gave themselves tattoos and then asked for one themselves, so the parents declined, the children begged, and then the parents said "okay, just a little tiny one." Smart idea? Not so sure, but I don't think the children should be taken away from them or anything (unless there are other factors at play that we do not know about). I do think there was stupidity using a home made tattoo gun. I mean, seriously, a sharpened guitar string? That sounds freaky to me. And the risk of infection sounds pretty high in a home-made setting. I understand the other parent being upset, but we do not know what sort of relationship they have. Are the mother and father always at each others throats? Would she have cared if the children got their ears pierced? Would she have cared if the father fed the kids pizza for dinner instead of some vegetables? Is she just looking for reasons to attack the father or is she genuinely concerned about the tattoo itself. And just to let you know, I'm not coming at this from the perspective of a pro-tattooing family. I do not believe tattoos are right, DH does not either, and we also do not pierce our daughters ears.

I am a dog magnet when jogging, walking, or bike riding. I have no idea why. When I used to jog every morning (pre-kids) I would carry mace with me. I never had to use it but I came very close several times. I have been approached by many mean dogs. Now I am scared to go out alone because of dogs. I am not scared of dogs in general, only ones outside without their owners. I won't even take my children around the block. I hate that people let their dogs run loose (and yes, we do have a leash law).

DD5 has taken speech through the public school system this year and last year when she was four. Eh, it's so-so. Her teacher is really nice and my DD likes her. She's had the same teacher both years. DD attends two days a week for 30 minutes each time. I guess I just don't see the point. We arrive at 1 PM and the teacher is waiting for us. They have about a 5 minute walk to the portable at the very back of the school. By the time they actually get started on therapy it is probably 1:10. And then they arrive back at the front office, where I am waiting, at 1:30. So they probably only do about 15 minutes of real speech therapy. She communicates with me well and always sends home a notebook of things for us to work on during the week. I have seen some improvement but nothing drastic. I really wish we could do private therapy. However, it would cost us a pretty penny (through the school it is free) and it would be less convenient as the drive would be much further (the local PS is only about 2 miles away).

My 5 year old DD has just begun scrapbooking. She absolutely loves it. Yesterday afternoon we all sat down and scrapbooked together (me, DD5, and my MIL). I got her an 8x8 album, some papers, some stickers, scrapbooking tape, printed some photos at WalGreens (50 pics for $4.50 until the 9th) etc. She loves doing it and enjoys showing off her albums. She can do it alone or with me whenever I scrapbook. My DD5 is very crafty as well. For Christmas she got tons of craft stuff.....lots of various things like tape, string, an art kit, papers of different colors.....she creates various things with this stuff all the time.

I wouldnt say that I yearn for it.....but it would be nice to have one. I'm very quiet and reserved. I don't know how to talk to "strangers". I have no friends, not even aquaintinces. I'm very close to my family but no one is in the same stage of life as I am (small children, etc). I'm not unhappy having no friends, but sometimes it would be nice to get together with one.

Lost makes my head hurt LOL! Of course they post a photo like this to make people's heads start spinning. It's so hard to delve in and find all of the clues, but I love to try to do it! I can't wait till the seasons begins, but then again I cannot wait until it is over too.....then my head can stop hurting. :001_huh:

I find music to be such a fine line to walk. I listen to Christian and country music. I do not want my children (or me) hearing music that talks about things that are dishonoring to God. Occasionally, a song will come on the country music station that I find displeasing to God, and I will change the station immediately. On the pop/top 100/rock stations, I find that majority of the songs hold some questionable lyrisc, so we steer clear of these stations. I am appalled at some of the songs that my Christian 16 year old sister listens to....and my mom allows it. It really baffles me because I have no idea how that can by pleasing to God. Okay, I went off on a tangent LOL. It is hard to monitor music unless you listen to every single song that your child does. If you allow them to listen to the music on Pandora, I would also allow them to purchase it. I would look up the lyrics online and see if they are okay.

The girls each got an iPod Touch and that was a big hit. The Fisher Price Trio blocks that my Nana gave them are awesome! Even I love building with those. The Ant Works gel ant farm that I got for DD5 is incredible. We watch that thing daily, as does everyone who steps foot into our house. We got the one that lights up on the bottom so you can see it better. I highly recommend this ant farm....it is so neat to watch the ants working and working. I also bought an ant book to learn about them too. The game Zingo is great. Even my two year old loves it and can play it. And it is entertaining enough for DH and I as well. My 2 year old loves her Fisher Price Animalville set that she got.

Oh my gosh! I am so sorry that happened to your little one! I am terrified of choking. My kids are 5 and 2 and I do not let them eat unless I'm sitting with them. If I have to walk into the next room, I hollar back every so often "Are you okay?" People may think I'm a freak but choking scares me. My DD (then 3) choked on one of those little balls of Reese Puffs cereal. I did the Heimlich on her and thankfully it came out. There have been MANY times where I've had to do a finger sweep down the back of my DD2's throat to get something out. Thankfully for the past six months, I haven't had to do it. She seemed to choke on chicken nuggets and apples the most. I am SOOOO glad that your baby is okay!!

I always wonder where I should reply as well....and I've been on FB a while LOL. Usually I just reply to the comment on my own wall. As far as status updates go, sometimes I won't update my status at all, sometimes once...but no more than about three times a day. Usually about once or twice though. I think excessive is like 8 or more times a day.

Thanks for all of your suggestions and ideas! I decided that we're going to take a "sort-of" break with Horizons. We're still going to work through some of the stuff. She enjoys learning about measuring, adding, etc. So we'll continue working through the book with those things, but as for the number recognition, we are going to go back and work on it more. This week I'm taking numbers 11-20 and we will work on those until she knows them. Even if it takes a month. We'll just find some fun ways to do it.

That's a great idea! I think I may try that. Except it will be a bit more challenging since DD2 does not nap anymore. DD2 likes to play with us when we do imaginative play. It's hard to set aside one on one time for older DD, which I know she would love.

Thanks so much for assuring me that it is completely normal. Just frustrating for mommy LOL. We'll have to find a different way to approach it for a while. :D

I agree! After ten, the numbers should be tenty-one, tenty-two, tenty-three....and so on! And don't get me started on the English language LOL. How in the world can close mean two different things? Why is herd and heard pronounced the same but mean different things? And why is the plural of dog dogs, yet the plural of mouse is mice? LOL

Thanks!! :D

Oh my gosh, you sound exactly like me LOL!! When we play, I'm always the troublemaker as well. For some reason, it's easier to play when I'm the "bad guy" LOL! And like you said, having a sibling does help. My younger DD is 2 years old and they are the best of friends....and they do play together a ton. But she still seeks me out to play as well.

Oops...I meant to post this on the general board. Does anyone know how to move it?

My 5 year old cannot entertain herself....she loves for me to play, play, play. To her, playing means making people/animals walk and talk, pretending that I'm a dog catcher and she's a dog, etc. Lots of imaginative play, which is excellent. However, I think I lost my imaginative play ability a few years ago LOL. I really do not enjoy it. I'd rather play catch, play a board game, read books to her, play hide and seek, play the Wii together, make crafts, etc. But she absolutely LOVES for me to play imaginative stuff with her. I just dread it. I find myself putting her off over and over or trying to get her to do something different with me.....and I feel so bad about that. I do try to indulge her a couple of times a week. But I do not enjoy it at all. Of course she does not know this because I play enthusiastically with her, despite disliking it LOL. How do you spend time with your kids? Do you participate in imaginative play? Do you spend time daily playing with them? In what ways do you play?

My DD is 5 years old. When should they be able to recognize numbers? She is doing well in math....simple adding, simple subtracting, patterns, counting to 100, counting by 10's to 100, counting by 2's to 20, learning odd/even numbers, etc. But as far as recognizing numbers go, she's just not getting it! We are doing Horizons Math for Kindergarten. I'll point to a number (23 for example) and say "what number is this?" She'll reply with something like "fourty-two". We have gone over and over and over this. As for the teen numbers, I'll ask her "what comes after 13?" She's say "14." I'll ask her to write it....she will say that she has no idea how. I'll say "look at the number 13 in the book." She looks at it and I'll remind her that the teen numbers always start with a 1. She is still confused. I'll tell her to listen as I say it. I'll say "FOURteen" with emphasis on the four. Hear that? FOURteen...what number do you think is in FOURteen? She still has no idea. I am sprouting gray hairs because of this back and forth that we do during math time LOL. She can recognize numbers up to ten, but after that she seems to be just guessing. I'm not continuing in math until she can recognize numbers because in the Horizons book, they do a lot of number recognition. Is this normal for her age? Should I be doing something differently?

I guess I'd consider myself pretty tech savvy. I can pick up any of the gadgets that you mentioned and work them with no problem. I have an iPod, an iPhone, the kids have an iTouch.....I got a laptop for Christmas. I'm a photographer so I work a lot with computer editing programs and slideshow movies, etc.

That's what I was thinking. Just add "ed" to it. As for lose and loose, a teacher once told me that if it has two "o"'s then it would fit less snug than the other, therefore, it would be loose. Same for dessert and desert. We'd want two helpings of dessert, therefore, it has two "s"'s in it.

Must haves? 3 or 4 remotes same number of nunchucks Super Mario Wii (we just got this a few days ago and we are having an absolute blast playing it each evening....it causes quite an uproar between my hubby, myself, and our five year old LOL....we can get quite loud while playing it) Carnival Games and Mario Kart (love these! We've had them for about a year now). Get two or three wheels for Mario Kart. It is MUCH easier than playing with just the remote. We also just got the Sports Resort, and we are loving it as well.