I watch my kids myself, lifeguard or no lifeguard. When my oldest were little, the lifeguard at the YMCA was treading water and kissing her boyfriend (at least I hope it was her boyfriend) in the deep end while on duty. Nice work if you can get it.

Thanks Rough collie. My 19 year old tech savvy son got up to watch the lunar eclipse and said the same thing - so it's ordered now. Only a few more to go. Now, do you know how to pick out boots for a picky teen age girl? Who never or rarely seems to think anything item of clothing I pick out is at all presentable?

I'm not sure I even know what I am asking. My 10 year old son has always wanted to be a film director. I don't even know how to use a video camera. There is a flip digital camcorder with 120 minutes and 8 gb on sale for $100. Would it be better to get this or a regular camcorder?

Mrs. Mungo - Do you know anything about the bath bombs on the Lush site you recommended. Those look really fun, but how many baths do they last?

I would like to buy some scented bar soaps for gifts. I don't know anything about soaps other than what I buy at Walmart. Online or instore - either one is okay. Any suggestions? I don't mind paying high than the regular price of course, but don't want ridiculously priced soaps.

Two out of my 4 kids that have taken it so far would have made National Merit if we lived in a different state. I couldn't talk my husband into moving to Mississippi for one week in the fall each year. Part of the irony is that my now senior son would have been given full ride scholarships if he was actually from any of the 4 out of state colleges he is applying to (in those states he would have been NM and the state schools give full rides to NM scholars). He was only three points away in our state and so will probably have a higher PSAT score than many of those getting said scholarships. But you can't tell I noticed.

My son is looking at a college in northern Louisiana. Please forgive me for being narrow minded, but my view of Louisiana is that very fun people come from there but that it is crazy cajun hard drinking country. I am also not a big fan of casinos. Driving into Shreveport, the casinos are prominent in the landscape. However, heading east on I 20 after that, the northern part of Louisiana looked much more outwardly moral than my area of the country - no strip joints everywhere, etc. Can someone fill me in please?

A friend of mine teaches that level of Cc. She allowed a boy to write the science paper one week and the literature paper the next (or something like that). Everything she told me about her CC training made me think the tutors are supposed to be flexible to work with the parents for what is best suited for each student.

I learned when my oldest were little (1st, 3rd grade) 18 years ago that if it wasn't working, drop it and move on. I stuck out to many things because I wanted to keep our commitment. Now, I did discern between "this is really not working for us" and the scenario of "this isn't the best fit but it will be a big detriment to others if we drop out and we are getting something out of it and it is not causing us big problems to stick with it until the end of the year".

I must not have read his latest stuff because I don't remember the info I read covering the topics being mentioned here in depth. I very much liked his approach of suggested consequences to misbehavior - especially for some teens. His way of quantifying irresponsible behavior and tracking it was helpful in managing such things as kids not doing chores or homework. Some of his suggested consequences were creative and spurred me to come up with specific consequences that fit our family and individual kids. For example, when my teen was rude when being dropped off at his part time job - I told him "I won't give you a ride for week because I don't like to be in the car with people who treat me poorly". For those kids who frankly don't care about the effects of their selfishness and unkindness on others and think everything is someone else's fault, this approach worked better than sincerely talking to the kid about the issue.

You might try the bargain section (or whatever they call it) of the sporting goods on Amazon.

Sounds like allergies to me too. You could also try a combination of Benadryl and ibuprofen and see if they feel better. Of course, she can't be on Benadryl all the time, but more use it more as a test or when she really needs relief. I have the same symptoms and that's what makes mine better - as well as Claritan.

That sounds good - I don't know why I didn't think of that. We were going to be short of time at the pizza parlor anyway, so that will solve two problems. I found a game they can play while waiting for the pizza, so that will get them mixing it up a bit there anyway.

I'm throwing a surprise 18th bday party for my son tomorrow. I got the idea for a photo scavenger hunt here. I need about 45 - 60 minutes of something fun for them to do while I develop the pictures before we meet at a pizza parlor to eat and look at the pictures. I'm breaking them up into 6 person teams with an adult driver for each team. The downside of that is my son will only be with 5 other kids on his team. It's not absolutely necessary but it would be nice if he had a chance to be that involved with the other kids not on his photo hunt team in a more involved way as well. Any ideas of a fun way to do that in that hour I am getting the pictures developed? Or at the pizza parlor?

I did wonder if there was racism in East Texas - that would have been my guest, but I didn't now for sure. If you re interested in the Hill Country, but want trees you might want to look at the Bastrop area - the Lost Pines. Somehow the area is home to pine trees that aren't normally found in Texas west of East Texas. Bastrop is almost but not quite a suburb of Austin.

We live in the Houston area. I definitely get the idea that things are better economy wise in Dallas. Dallas has trees as well. I would research where the economy is doing well in Texas, but I have heard good things about the DFW area, like I said. North Dallas in particular seems to be booming. I don't know about Dallas, but here in Houston, homeschooling families of mixed races are not unusual and are well accepted - really no big deal.

University of Texas has a sample of one online - probably under admissions or scholarships. I based my sons' resume on that one. Anything that is especially impressive, such as test scores, be sure and highlight. Put his strong points first.

My sil requested that we stop the gift exchange several years ago - she has no children and probably got tired of buying gifts for my many kids. Each family buys an animal out of the World Vision catalog. We do have a very fun white elephant exchange - most gifts actually something decent, but a few funny things thrown in - $10 limit. The white elephant exchange is actually more fun than the opening of so many gifts was - and a lot of those weren't the best suited for the recipients, so a waste of money. My brother and his family and my mother exchange gifts with us - but it's usually one or two bigger (not huge) gifts for the kids - last year just a Subway gift card for all of us. I didn't know what was up with that, but wasn't insulted. We enjoyed the sandwiches. Both or our extended families are very solidly middle class - I can't imagine $50 gifts except from a parent to a child or visa versa (from a grown child to a parent).

I feel for you - I have been in the same boat (read some of my past threads to get some encouragement from those who commiserated with and encouraged me) - it's maddening. Why they can't understand the importance of doing a good job on the essays, which usually involves starting at least a few days ahead of time, is beyond me. However, with your son being that smart he may be able to pull it off at the last minute. I will say that my son did more when I left him alone and did not bug him about it - drives me nuts and reduced me to tears a few times. We are not footing the bill for his college education, but I still want him to get the best scholarships he can and save himself a ton of money. He hasn't completed the instate apps here either, but I can't say as I blame him as our instate schools are very stingy with scholarships. If you are footing the bill, and have to make up financially what he doesn't get in the way of scholarships, you have a right to set up some consequences. However, it sounds as if these apps are for admissions only?

The butterfly exhibit at The Houston Museum of Natural Science is great for that age! The zoo and that museum are both in Hermann Park. If you want a nice day trip - go to Brenham (1 1/2 hours northwest of Houston) - take a tour of Blue Bell Ice Cream. If it's nice weather see and pet the miniature horses at St. Clare Monastery, and stop by Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park at the history museum and they have some type of outdoor living farm as well.

A child who was playing around (but was too rough, the act was all one sided, and the kid was at least 12) gave my son a near concussion several years ago. Although they had plenty of money (the dad was a doctor ironically) they never offered to pay for the emergency room visit or asked us if we had insurance (we didn't). Honestly, it lowered my opinion of this family. It happened at church and my son blacked out for several minutes - people were very concerned and bugged us to take him to the emergency room, which we finally did after he kept vomiting - we were not not overreacting. That their son did something foolish and caused possible harm to our son, costing us money and they could afford to reimburse us but didn't - can you tell it still bugs me? However, I have never discussed this with anyone besides my husband before now and don't wish this family any harm. My husband is not the suing type, so even if it had caused harm, we would have not pursued legal action against them. Just to give you a viewpoint of someone who has been on the other side, although the circumstances aren't exactly the same.

Radio Shack has these cool flashlight/glow light sticks in different colors that are $6.00. If you sign up for their emails you get coupons.

Her parents sound like they may be of the mindset that she is going to date someone anyway and they are glad she choose such a nice boy. If they are pushing this, you may need to make your rules clear to them. Or say something to scare them away from him, if they don't listen. Not something false, but to the effect that even nice boys have hormones.

I am trying to decide if I should include my sons's reading list with his high school transcript. This would be attached to his transcript for schools he has already been admitted to, for scholarship purposes at those schools, which are state flagship universities. Please see his list of books below. On the one hand, he has read some pretty high level books. On the other hand, there are some standard high school level books he has not read. Also, he has credit for World Lit and American Lit., and is working on British and Medieval lit his senior year. He has a few books left for American Lit. but I want to make sure the list has enough books to support the Am lit credit he has listed for 10th grade (I did not list it as honors). I did not list his textbooks, otherwise - just sending in a standard transcript. He wants to double major in accounting and English and has a high SAT score, if that makes any difference. Walden 2 The Aenid Odyssey Iliad Dante's Comedy City of God Republic by Plato Sherlock Holmes Jules Verne - 20,000 Leagues under the Sea Old Man and the Sea Animal Farm The Red Badge of Courage The Scarlet Letter To Kill a Mockingbird Uncle Tom’s Cabin Julius Caesar The Hobbit The Lion the witch and the wardrobe, other Narnia books The Christmas Carol Treasure Island Tom Sawyer Farenheit 451 Around the world in 80 days Frankenstein Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde Autobiography of Ben Franklin Robinson Crusoe The Pilgrim's Progress The Plague That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis Up From Slavery Letters from a Birmingham Jail Whose Body by Dorothy Sayers That Hideous Strength Genesis in Space and Time

Brendafromtenn How did the tour go? Also, did you know that if you go to Henderson State, you can take free courses from Ouachita?