Before doing a contrasting color for an accent wall, go to goodwill or another thrift store and get some cheap plates and platters in different shapes. The dollar stores work good for this, too. You can spray paint them in a blue that you like and hang them in a grouping with some blue plates you may have with a pattern already. It makes a really nice focal point in a dining room, and is a more up-to-date look than having an accent wall. You still get that blue "feel," and it is much easier to move things around and change them. It may seem strange to spray paint plates, but it worked surprisingly well. If you would like an example of what I am talking about, I could find it for you :)

I have a color that I use for accents call Buxton Blue by Benjamin Moore. If you have a Home Depot, they can mix samples for their new Behr Premium Plus Ultra primer+paint, and they can mix Ben Moore colors.

I don't think you could go wrong with Sherwin Williams Blonde. It is one shade below Restrained Gold. It would look good in both rooms. The blue would look fabulous as an accent color against it in the dining room, and the reds in the kitchen. It is a very neutral golden color. Your landlord will thank you for choosing it ;) The best thing, is that if you have a Home Depot nearby, they can mix it in their new Behr paint+primer Premium Plus Ultra. Definitely a win/win. They can mix a sample pint, also, if you want to try it out. I honestly don't think you'd regret this color.

I'm single with an adopted child, who is now a preschooler. There is no dad, just us. My family is very supportive. I'm an RN, and we live rather modestly, as I'd rather work less and spend more time at home. Plus, my child has lot's of medical needs. I don't get much time to myself, but that is mostly my choice. I don't much to offer in the way of nitty gritty details. My plan is to do most of our core learning in about 3-4 days. The other 1-2 days will be review/practice problems/reading etc that I can to auntie or grandma's house with her to do. It seems pretty reasonable, so I hope it will work out. I plan to follow the recs in The Latin Centered Curriculum to help keep us thorough, yet concise.

I haven't had one attack me. What I know you can do is take a pair of pliers and pop off the spur nail. You give it a pull and a twist. It will be red and sore for a day or so for him, but he won't be able to flog you with those spurs. They grow back, just like nails, so you have to keep watching for it every few months. In my flock, *I* am the lead rooster, and if any other roo becomes a bit uppity, then they get picked up and carried around at my convenience, because *I* am in charge. If they are especially bratty, they may be carried upside down until they feel a bit more compliant. Of course, a good rooster is a dime a dozen. If they aren't wining and dining the girls, as well as protecting them, plus respecting my authority, they can be replaced.

Ok, gotcha. Well, I don't think allowing a few dvd's to help with certain concepts is necessarily an inconsistency. I think we, as parental educators, help our children learn in the ways we find the most helpful to them. We seek to acquire the tools to give them a really good, well rounded education. A dvd with catchy songs and cute characters can be one of those tools. You can't fix everything in your house with a hammer, and often find that you need more than one tool to get a job done. I think the same is often true when helping children learn. You need a few different tools, sometimes, to get the job done.

Well, this is confusing because you were asking for reviews on a specific video series. It wasn't like you were asking for books to teach letters/numbers, and we were recommending videos instead :001_huh: Ideally, yes, books would be the way to go. Realistically, well, your mileage may vary.

Heh, my daughter's name is Lily, so she *loves* that one of the characters has the same name as her.

http://www.amazon.com/Young-Minds-Numbers-Counting-Tutor/dp/B002H5HYVE/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_t This video sounds pretty good for number recognition and counting. I may get it, as my daughter is not yet able to recognize numbers, although she can count to 20. It would meet your criteria for avoiding TV program-like videos, but sounds much more engaging than the Meet the...series.

Well, the characters may *look* less obnoxious, but the videos themselves consist of saying the name of the color over and over, while showing different pictures of said color. Same with the Sight Words. Just repetition. Leap Frog goes through a story line with the characters, and offers explanations for some of the "why's" of putting letters together to make words, etc. My daughter had the alphabet and sounds nailed after watching Letter Factory a few times. I don't think the same would have happened if I had used Meet the Alphabet. The videos just aren't as engaging, and my daughter frequently won't even finish watching a Meet the... video. I think maybe for younger kiddos, like 1-3, they may be more interesting, along the lines of Baby Einstein, when they can't follow as much dialog. Another video I liked, but this goes back to insipid TV shows perhaps, is the Sesame Street Alphabet video. I had one on VHS, and it was old school Sesame Street, from the 70's. It had fun songs and stories about the alphabet and helped with letter recognition. We unfortunately lost it during a hospital stay, and searched high and low daily for that thing. I should just bite the bullet and buy the DVD. For learning letter sounds, though, I don't think you can beat Leap Frog. Sorry.

We have Meet the Sight Words and Meet the Colors. My dd4 likes to watch them, mostly the color one. She is finally learning her colors. The Leap Frog DVD's are great. At least Talking Letter Factory and Talking Word Factory are good. My daughter caught on to letters and sounds really quickly with the Letter Factory. The other ones in the series aren't as good, but she still will watch them. The "plot" gets a bit more complicated, and I think it interferes with what they are trying to teach. They are all annoying from a parental perspective, but I have more tolerance for the Leap Frog ones than I do for the Meet the...series.

Yes, honey and botulism are a risk. However, Karo syrup has also been a suspected source. I could post some linky linkies, but I'm sure anyone who thinks I'm crazy can google just as easily :) And if/when they do, they can find out all the reasons not to blanket recommend it to someone to use for a baby.

If you don't understand why, for any reason, you are taking a certain med, then you should absolutely question it. Ideally, doctors and pharmacists would never make mistakes. Unfortunately, it can and does happen. Part of being a good healthcare consumer (us!) is knowing what we are taking, what it is for, how much we are to take, and what times to take it. So, call the office tomorrow. No one will be offended by you asking for clarification :)

Talk to your doctor about what you posted here. You both can decide if antidepressants might be something appropriate to try for you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with needing them, no more so than needing steroids to treat your arthritis. There are also advantages for some people with chronic pain issues, in that antidepressants can help with chronic pain, as well. Having your serotonin/dopamine/norepinephrine balanced does remarkable things for your ability to sleep, as well as enabling you to help yourself out of a funk. If you have peri/menopausal issues happening, there is a good chance that there are other chemical imbalances at play. I am not a psych doc, nor do I play one on the interwebz ;) I just urge you to speak to your primary care provider about these issues.

Even if it is a hospital, it is still a healthy, normal event occurring, and many families find it important and a "big deal" to introduce the siblings there. I can still remember "meeting" my sister and my brother in the hospital. The OP clearly feels this is also a "big deal". BTW, when was the last time you were pregnant? I couldn't ever imagine asking a very pregnant (aka hormonal, emotional) woman "what is the big deal?" At least she can't slug you through the computer screen, lol:tongue_smilie:

I will ditto this. I swear, mine keeps drops of urine in reserve in case he might come across something to mark, because he can always squeeze something out, regardless of how many times he just went before.

:lol: I'm dying over this comment. Karo syrup has been associated with botulism, if I remember correctly. This could be debatable, I'm sure. "My doctor told me to give it my baby and he/she is fine!" is all well and good, but let the doctor be the one losing sleep at night for recommending that one. Prune juice is a pretty tried and true "remedy", but there is a reason it works so well, and it is not very comfortable for a baby. The gas and cramping it can cause may be worse than the not pooping discomfort. Sometimes babies that young still don't have the best muscle strength or know where to focus their efforts in order to poop. They get more uncomfortable, and instead of pushing to relieve the discomfort, they hold it in because it hurts. Much like many women in the pushing stage of labor, lol. Helping the baby by holding the legs up so they can push against them a bit can help, as well as gentle pressure on the rectum with a baby wipe. That pressure helps them "remember" where to push their efforts. Often why babies poop again as soon you just change their diaper :tongue_smilie:

I'm sorry that it has to be that way :( I work in healthcare, so I know how these things go, from the other side. It is too bad your other children won't be able to see the baby after birth. Unfortunately, there are just too many people who, um, do not exercise good common sense. If you saw the thread about the mother who brought her febrile 6 year old to play soccer and infect his team mates, you know how this might play out in a hospital setting. If I go into a room to care for a postpartum mom/baby, and dad or grandma has brought the febrile child to visit, (because people really do these things) I have now been exposed to whatever that child has. Good hand hygiene can't stop droplet infection if the child is coughing, or breathing, their germs into the air. I then go into the next room and bring those airborne germs with me, potentially infecting that mom/baby who otherwise would have not been exposed to the sick child. Could you call the hospital mother/baby unit and find out if they have a nursery with a viewing window that the siblings could see the baby through? That is what we do in our neonatal ICU when the babies are stable enough to "travel" a bit off of a monitor system.

As the mother of an immuno-compromised child, I have no intentions of talking you out of your anger. A fever = STAY HOME AND AWAY FROM OTHERS. People are dying from the flu going around. Pregnant women who contract H1N1 are getting quite sick from it, and not only risking their lives but their unborn children as well. A soccer team of 6 years is very likely to have women of childbearing age with kids on the team that have been potentially exposed. I'm not an alarmist by any means, but some common sense needs to be exercised here. Motrin doesn't give you a magical fairy bubble that surrounds you and protects others from your germies, fer cryin' out loud.

How soon did you remove the tape? Sometimes, if you don't pull it down right away and the paint is allowed to dry on the tape, then it will pull off chunks of paint with the tape. Also, make sure you stick with the blue tape or the green tape. Also, if you have any of your ceiling paint left, and you want to be super anal/ocd about a perfect line, try this: tape off your ceiling area, then go over the edge of the tape, on the side that you'll be painting (in your case fuschia) with your ceiling paint. This will seal the edge of the tape and prevent any of the (fuschia) from leaking under and ruining your nice paint line. This method also works well when trying to transition paint colors for those of us with rounded wall corners.

Many of the guidelines given for postpartum are pretty general and a "your mileage may vary" type of thing. Maybe start with spinning, then gradually add in the elliptical, with the jogging last. You will bleed more and longer if you over do it, so keep an eye on that. Plus, your hormones are super wonky still, so you might need to set a timer or something to limit how long you exercise at first, instead of going by how you "feel". It is very common for women to overdo it postpartum, and not feel the effects until afterward. You may feel great, but your body is still very much compromised, with very large uterine arteries that were wide open just a week and a half ago. Drink lots of water, continue taking your prenatal, blah, blah, blah ;)

Another option to the cornish cross that is less disgusting, and can actually forage for some of its own food, are the Freedom Rangers from jmhatchery.com . They may be a bit more expensive, but you will have less losses than with the cornish-crosses, and may stand a decent chance of raising them much easier naturally or organically, since they aren't prone to disease and organ failure like the cornish-cross. They do take a few more weeks to grow out, but apparently their ability to forage helps cut the feed costs incurred from that extra time. They are also very attractive birds. Backyardchickens.com has a ton of info on them, and someone recently had a grow-out journal of their experience with them. I haven't branched out into raising meat birds yet, but when I do, this is definitely the breed I will use. Debra

I can't believe I'm asking this, but could you elaborate more on the, er, technique you use to snap their neck? I am always so afraid that I won't do it right and cause unnecessary trauma. That probably sounds really silly in light of the fact that I actually want to KILL it, but I want to be as gentle/humane as possible in the process. I'm a nurse, so my first instinct is to give it a little morphine first, lol :tongue_smilie:, but the hospital frowns on us taking that stuff home, even if we promise to only use it for chicken processing :glare:. Feel free to PM the details if you feel it might be to graphic. Thanks, Debra

The thing I didn't mention in my first post is that maybe divorcing enables them to qualify for a chapter 7 bankruptcy instead of a chapter 13, by lowering their income to fit within the guidelines for a 7. I am, of course, not taking into account the numerous factors that may contribute to a couple seeking both a divorce and bankruptcy, just offering a few ideas about why it may make more sense to approach it that way from a financial standpoint. It would be very unfortunate if their marriage fell apart after everything they have been through. As a single parent to a child with chronic, potentially life-threatening, medical issues, I can certainly see how a marriage could be stretched beyond the breaking point. Debra

If they are in one of the community property states, it may make more sense in that their assets are divided by divorce, and would give them each the exemptions allowed for bankruptcy. So if they jointly owned two vehicles, and the normal exemption allowed for one vehicle, by divorcing and each taking a vehicle, they each have a vehicle exemption. This is a very simplified explanation, of course, and in all likelihood these people have much larger assets to shelter by filing bankruptcy in this manner, such as owning two homes. In non-community property states, usually both spouses don't have to file, that is why I'm assuming it's a community property state. Debra