For once I have all the necessary responses right in the front of my mind, and I am *so* ready for this!~

Yes, Mistress.

to expect her to really trust that he's back and things are going to change. Give her time. She witnessed things that she should never have witnessed, and your husband may pay the price for that for a long time. Unfortunately, when we repent of sin, we can be relieved of it's burden, but sometimes the effects continue to last. The reality is that he didn't protect her. He didn't protect her from his own negative emotions, he spewed all that out in front of her becaue he lacked self control and concern for her feelings, and I'm sure she doesn't feel trust in him. She may trust that he's staying, but how vulnerable she must feel to see her father behave that way and to know that when he feels something strongly, she can't rely on him to behave with her best interests in mind. I think you need to stop pointing to her as the source of stress in your family. The past interactions between you and your DH are a source of stress and a few weeks of brilliance and loving will not erase that. All kids cause stress - some more than others. And she may need counseling. But I really think you both need to acknowledge to her that she's not the problem in the family - that she's been a victim of other people. Which does't make her behavior acceptable - just her feelings. Anyway, good luck to you. I'm really glad for you that your marriage is healing, and I hope that in time, that kind of healing will saturate the whole family in a renewed love and peace. Marriage and family and parenting can be SO hard.

I don't think you are crazy at all. But I have been listening to taped seminary classes recently - wanting to learn about the Gospel of John. These are from the Reformed Theological Seminary, which posts them for free. Maybe the students there aren't quite as bright as the students at Duke. But it sort of cracks me up that I am trying to hard to get everything without the help of whatever visual aids the teacher would have used, and the professor makes periodic comments like: "anyone who isn't looking out the window, please turn to ...." Or "Ummm, you migh want to focus now, nothing's really more important than understanding the Greek here" lol. These are seminary students. I just assumed that considering what it would cost to actually GO to this seminary ($395 per credit hour - I checked because it's only half a mile from here and I thought maybe ..... but no ....) they would be RIVETED.

Okay, well now we are on a very sensitive topic, my friend. Because my boys love to fish. They love. to. fish. And frankly, I hate it. I hate everything about it except being outside and not talking. I hate the worm on a hook part, I hate the hook in the mouth part, I hate the part where you are supposed to get the hook out of the mouth, but the stupid fished swallowed it. And part of me feels like I just need to learn to clean and cook the darn thing if they are going to catch them, because sometimes I know they are throwing back fish that aren't going to live anyway, and eating it seems more ethical. But when I take them camping without DH, we are in a bit of a bind that would be resolved if either they or I just learned how to clean a fish. Somehow fish seems a lot less gross that chicken because no one raised the fish for profit. I don't know why that makes it less gross, but it does. I think that thinking about the sheer number of chicken carcasses gives me the willies, and fish just seems more like a provision of mother nature. Doees that make sense?

and hours and hours and hours and hours in art museums. It's not that I don't like art. But I can only appreciate so much at a time, and after I reach saturation point, I'm mostly just trying to be accomodating. But since we only go on a major art galleries crawl 2 or 3 times a year, I manage.

I think many of what used to be "womanly arts" are now just hobbies. Really, why make soap unless you really want to for fun? You can buy lovely soap, and probably cheaper. No reason to sew either, unless you really want to. Again, clothes are very affordable. You can buy nicely made quilts for a really reasonable price, and it's hard to justify making them unless you actually enjoy it. Since I would definitely rather read and study my bible then sew, make candles or cross stitch, I think my list of things that you really must teach for life is fairly short in traditional womanly skills. Budgetting. Choosing good quality ingredients and figuring out how to find deals on those, basic cooking (I learned from books, really, and it worked fine). Organizing. Basic sewing skills like hemming and button hole mending. Ironing. I spend more of my time teaching my children what it means to do something well. How do you know when you have REALLY cleaned the bathroom well? Made a bed well? Dusted well? Most of that is teaching diligence and attention to detail. I've spent a fair amount of time teaching my children to do laundry properly, because mistakes in laundry can be far more expensive then just not getting the tub scoured right. I honestly would spend more time on the traditional "guy" jobs with daughters or sons. The chances are very good that your daughters will have a husband who travels a lot, is unwilling to do those jobs, dies or divorces her. And of course, many women don't marry until much later than they would have liked. So I would spend some time teaching daughters as well as sons how to unclog toilets, repair a lawn mower, install faucets, fix leaks, hang heavy framed items securely, etc. Sons or daughters, I honestly would spend more time on financial matters and character issue then on actual chores. I make my kids do chores because it's easier for me. But for their own benefit, I want them to learn about budgetting, investing, saving. I want them to learn how to organize paperwork. I want them to learn how to evaluate what is really a "deal" and what is a scam. I want them to wake up in the morning expecting to actually WORK and not just play. I want them to see honest work as a good thing - regardless of how our society values it.

A fruit salad with fresh strawberries, kiwi, mint (etc) and canned Lychee. Served with an Almond cookie. I'm not sure if that's really something most Chinese could find to eat, but I served it once after a Chinese meal and it was a huge hit.

Cut up my own dang chicken:) Never. Ever.

I probably forfeited the title yesterday by taking my children to Chick Filet. But I will reclaim it yet. Yes I will. This summer when I make them do daily Latin review. Victory will be MINE!

Thank you all SO SO much for the encouragement! I really appreciate it and it was just what a I needed. I tried to give you all positive rep, but it wouldn't let me give as much as I wanted - I can't give anymore for 24 hours, lol. I think part of the problem is communication with our teacher. I guess that's why I brought up her age. She often thinks she has told us things that she hasn't, and I think she assumes we know things that we don't. She's in her late 80s, so we accept this as just one of those "things" and she's worth it. But I think part of the problem is that I didn't really understand why we are working on scales, and I don't know what the goal is. On one hand, she will say that we aren't trying to memorize. On the other hand, she seems to get irritated if they haven't. I never really know when they "know" a scale. I will say "play an A minor scale" and they look at me like they have NO idea what I am talking about, even though they have played it many times with the music in front of them. I never know when to move on to another scale. I feel like we have worked on the first two pages of Hrimaly for two months, and they still have NO clue how many sharps or flats different scales have. THey can pick the scale out on the violin, but they can't really put it in context. So obviously we need to talk about this, but I doubt the teacher will really totally clear up that confusion entirely and I am frustrated. I almost feel like hiring a practicing coach to just get them through this.

You are right about that! After I posted yesterday, I realized that this is a big part of the problem. I can't really hear whether they are at perfect pitch and it's just a frustration not having a piano. I really don't know how other mothers do it! My Clavinova is 14 years old and I'm thinking that fixing it would be very expensive and not necessarily a permanent fix (not sure about that, but others have implied it). So I may have to replace it with a less expensive keyboard - not cheapo, but I really can't spend another $3000. Anyway, I am determined to do something about this issue now.

I eat meat, but I never buy meat with bones it it. I find it disgusting, and if I cut up a chicken, I would not want to eat it. I'm perfectly happy eating no meat if I every came to a point where there was somehow no boneless meat available, though I consider that unlikely. I also know how to cook a whole chicken and then get the meat off once it's cooked through. I find that somewhat less horrifying than messing with the meat, fat, veins and "stuff" on the bones of raw chicken. I guess this to me is just one of those things. Why shouldn't a whole generation of women not know how to cut up a raw chicken if they don't ever need to do so? Just like a couple of generations ago, women were probably saying, "have we come to the point there these incompetent housewives can wring a chicken's neck and pluck it?" Some of you probably can, lol, but I can't and don't want to!

I don't think so. I am not paying for anyone's "fantasy wedding" - daughter or son. Here, the tradition is that the bride's family pays for the wedding but also gets to call all the shots. Which is fine with me. I'm definitely not a control freak in this area:) But the grooms parents pay for a rehearsal dinner the night before, which often is almost as big as the wedding, since all the out of town guests are invited. And I certainly would be willing to host that for my sons. But no one gets to inform me what I spend one, including my son, including his future MIL, lol.

I should add that the problem is NOT that we are working too hard and making it not fun. We don't practice nearly enough these days, and it's because we dislike the practice time so much. Many days we practice maybe 20 minutes. We like playing beautiful music and dislike the tedious scales that never really seem to make sense. So maybe we need to just work harder doing it - commit to work work work through those scales. Or maybe I need to just say 'that's it. We are taking the summer off from anything we don't actually enjoy." I don't know. I've talked a lot here, lol. Sorry to anyone who actually labored through all this!

My boys are really in a violin rut. I don't know who to talk to about this, so I am throwing it out hoping another Suzuki mom can talk to me about this. My twins have been taking lessons for five years or so and are in book 4. They have a natural musicality. Everyone comments on how beautifully they play whatever they play. They seem to just be able to make it SOUND good - they have nice ears too. Their teacher is a very elderly lady and I believe the finest teacher available in the area. I have actually looked into a change, but the best advice I get is to stick with her for her teaching. I also love her as a person. She's kind of hard to talk to about problems, though. I'm not sure why - I feel like she gets very defensive, and I'm sure she thinks I do. But my other options are these young cute teachers without a lot of real experience. She actually seems to add value to our lives, if that makes sense, just in terms of who she is. So anyway, this is what our violin situation looks like. She wants the boys to memorize all their scales. I hate scales. I don't really understand scales and feel like it's torture trying to teach them. They don't really make SENSE to any of us. I don't understand how major and melodic scales are related. It's just like a language I don't speak. I do understand how to put the whole and half steps together to make up the scales, but it doesn't 'flow' like a language, if that makes sense. I guess I am not an audio learner. I want a BOOK that explains it all step by step, and she thinks they are just going to pick it up naturally. So she spends a LOT of class time on Rhimaly, which is just scales and I feel a lot of pressure to do the same in practice. Then she spends a lot of class time on Wolfhart's etudes which she uses for sight reading. My boys are competent sight readers. I was a very good sight reader too, and studied piano for 12 years never really learning theory but I was good at it - could play well by sight. Ironically, I wanted my boys to study violin because I felt I never had a real technical music education, and here I am HATING that part of it, lol. Maybe this is mostly my fault. Anyway, we spend time on scales and sight reading, and it's pretty much hateful to all of us. And I feel like all the joy is being sucked out of violin. None of us like it. I dread practice. And I used to be sort of a model Suzuki Mom back in the day when they were just playing more by ear. I'm not sure what to do to bring the joy back. They play the three Seitz pieces pretty well, but don't really have momentum, if that makes sense. We all just are so reluctant to practice. My Clavinova stopped working a few months ago. In a way that might be partly responsible for our slump since I can't play along with them and teach them with the use of a keyboard. On the otherhand, it's done wonders for their sightreading. They've had to learn the last Sietz by reading it themselves. It makes reviewing old pieces harder too, though we have always been pretty faithful to review the repertoire. Anyway, I just feel like we are stuck and joyless here in what used to be the MAJOR joybringer in our lives. I don't think of music lessons as entirely "elective." I really want my boys to stick with it, and part of that is figuring out how to make it tolerable again. For all of us. Is this just something everyone goes through at some point? Anyway, if anyone has any advice or direction, I'd really appreciate it.

but you know, after I am dead. And not in a bathtub.

It's great they say that in class. But I don't really trust what people will do under pressure, because I have seen people do really stupid things when they were scared, and I don't think X number of class hours will necessary change that. So for me personally, since we were asked our opinions, I personally feel safer without people being able to take a class and carry a weapon into places like libraries. I realize that the law isn't going to be based on what I want though.

My son went to public school. They could carry cell phones. They didn't even HAVE pay phones. But yes, they had to turn them off during class and if they didn't, they could be confiscated.

I haven't read them myself, my my children report that there are incidences of poor sportsmanship, taunting about other kids losing - that kind of thing.

For what it's worth. The idea of a random shooting spree is so scary and in the rare event it happened, I'd be glad someone had a gun to stop it. But the far more likely scenario, I believe, is that someone is committing a less violent crime, and a guy with a gun decides to be a "hero" and puts us all at risk. I don't want someone defending the Starbuck's tip jar with a weapon as I am in there drinking my latte. Let them have the dang tip jar! It's just too risky. Or the pair of sneakers. Let him steal the books or smack his wife or whatever - I don't want guns as the front line of defense, because I think they escalate crimes into tragedies. And I don't want the average person packing heat to "protect" patrons from crimes because most crimes I just assume happen and be done with, without the use of firearms. MOST crimes don't result in shootings, even when the perpetrator is armed.

I'm not that organized, but when I try to think through a week of meals I tend to think in terms of "one night of pasta, one soup, one Mexican, one Asian, a homemade pizza."

I'd call her on it. Or maybe I wouldn't because I am a wimp, but I think you should! I would just call her (or think you should!) and say something like, "I've been bothered for a week about something you said in church. Maybe I misunderstood you, and I just really want to talk about it. I always think these misunderstanding can be so destructive to the body of Christ. When I said I had a hard time with that girl at the tea, why did you snap "homeschooled" and walk off? I felt like you were making a point that homeschooled kids are ill behaved, but maybe I misunderstood?" And then let her explain herself. I honestly really do think that part of being part of a body of Christ is that we love one another. And when we feel hurt by one another, I think sometimes we have to let it go and model humility. But in this case, I just sense that maybe she needs to be gently confronted about the connection between her behavior and the spirit of the communion of saints.

My 20 year old college student has had one for 4 or 5 years - he had to buy it himself. DH and I call it his "electronic overlord." I swear, he has less freedom than any kid I know. His girlfriend has access to him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and is angry if she has to wait 5 minutes for a response. It's insane. I think he's the same with her - not like a stalker, but there is just an expectaiton that they can alreays reach each other. His friends expect to be able to reach him, too. It's like he's never really free of other people's expectations that he's "on call." Even I will leave a message and more or less expect to hear back. You never think "well, maybe he went away for the weekend" and give it a few days. So I am not at all sure that cell phones have added only good to our lives. I own one, but I use it maybe twice a week. I'm very glad I have it at time. I bought it for when I am camping with the kids alone, but of course, it never seems to get reception anyway when we are between mountains. But I honestly don't mind that other kids have them and use them for whatever they want. I don't care if a bunch of teens want to sit and text all the time. I don't want to interact with them anyway:) I have my house rule - and you can have yours too, of course. There's no reason you have to allow kids to use them that way in your house. As for babysitting .... I was not a motherly teen. I hated babysitting. I definitely took a book and ignored the children as much as possible (I realize that's really terrible - and actually, I adore children now). So anyway, I'm not sure I was much better with a book then a teen is with a phone. But I almost never use teen sitters anyway. So anyway, I just wanted to say that I understand why people sort of have a love/hate relationship with cell phones generally. I don't mind 9 year olds texting nearly as much, though, as adult women having long, loud, irritating conversations on them in public. Ugh.

Well, my kids aren't always with me. They go places alone. They are ten. One goes with a buddy to our tennis club (a five minute walk) and plays tennis there. The other swims year round, and I am not always at the pool with him. My mother didn't keep me by her side at all times when I was ten, and I feel comfortable letting my children have that freedom. I guess some people would feel the cell phone adds some security. I personally haven't bought (and won't buy) cell phones for my children. But I don't understand why this outrages people so much. Who cares if other people buy their kids something my kid doesn't have and isn't going to get? It doesn't really concern me.