In 2004, when we sold the house and hit the road, i disposed of 3. One from 1996, one from 1999 and the last from 2001. If the eldest hadn't been born in a hospital, I would have had one from 1994. Sigh.

No clue who he is ether. I'm thinking the kid from Home Alone but thinking I'm probably wrong. Closest I can come though...

(holds her head in her hands and sobs) No underlines?????

Ok, I got rid of the dancing men and put up a photo from the zoo in Merida from last week.

I would say yes as I've gone from sensitivity to dairy to full blown allergy. All my life I've had diarrhea and excema from dairy and had cut down to just cheese and yogurt. For some reason I'd dropped both for a while then had something with dairy and I had a HUGE hive reaction. Now I will always get hives from simple trace dairy. I've been off all dairy (even trace) since May and recently tried a week of trace dairy (no cheese, no overt dairy) and I'm back to diarrhea, excema and hives. so, I'd say yes.

I didn't know sites like that existed! I thought people culled avatars from their pictures (like me)! Well, now I'm tempted to get rid of my dancing Cubans from this year's Carnaval on Cozumel and replace them with this guy

I see where you're coming from now. I don't think we agree on what constitutes "value" in our kids' respective education, but I was understanding a sweeping generalization of all families where kids watch TV much of the day or have the freedom to play video games "all day". That is my family but I assure you I take my kids development VERY seriously. :)

Rhonda - I can't even begin to imagine and I have absolutely NO IDEA what to say and can't even fathom an answer to your question. I just wanted to let you know that I'm thinking of you and will be sending positive energy your way on a daily basis. I know it sounds all woo woo :) but I don't pray so this is what I do to try and affect change. Please continue to keep us all updated on what is happening and allow us to bathe you in our sensless prattle. :)

Rhonda - I can't even begin to imagine and I have absolutely NO IDEA what to say and can't even fathom an answer to your question. I just wanted to let you know that I'm thinking of you and will be sending positive energy your way on a daily basis. I know it sounds all woo woo :) but I don't pray so this is what I do to try and affect change. Please continue to keep us all updated on what is happening and allow us to bathe you in our sensless prattle. :)

For me, relaxed homeschooling and unschooling are nothing alike. Unschooling has nothing to do with academics; it is a way of life.

You are free to be angry but unless you spend your time with those kids or the kids are complaining you really cannot judge those homes. I imagine you'd feel the same anger WRT my kids, but I assure you I take their development (because I don't separate education from their development) very seriously.

There are also those who take the development of their children VERY seriously, to the point of constantly evaluating materials and constantly looking to provide academic opportunity, and also see the value of gaming and television play. There are those who would be (and probably are) horrified at my kids' "schedule". I am CONSTANTLY evaluating and re-evaluating and looking for opportunity to expose them to something new and interesting but there is very little book learning and no testing going on in our house.

She is a talk show host - real talk show - on radio. NPR usually - that's who carries her show on Sirius.

I'll make a point to listen today (we get it via Sirius).

Well all I can say is you ladies are so incredibly smart to know all that amazing stuff. Shur do wish i coud be so smart.

Um, purposely, no other fats other than olive oil. No butter, sometimes peanut butter. I've read I should start with avocados too and continue the peanut butter. Not sure how that will go with the losing weight though...The brand in Nature Made (the ONLY capsules I've ever seen anywhere here) from Costco. We actually bought these in Merida, Yucatan state, as I haven't seen them anywhere in Quintana Roo. Very little, if any, of our diet is processed - even beans are not from a can - so I don't worry about the corn syrup or fat issues - and here in Mexico, corn syrup is still pretty rare. I can start eating coconuts (the kids love to harvest and machete them down) but even though we're on the Caribbean, fish is not local so it will have to be capsules. I'll look into flax also.

As a raving atheist i would simply throw the garbage where it belongs. I can't imagine getting all that upset because someone decided to try to preach to my kid when my kid was on THEIR property, yk? And if they verbally began preaching I'd simply chalk it up as a consequence of interacting with strangers. I don't see how their preaching is going to hurt me or my kids - we don't believe in any of their stuff so we shrug it off and head to the next candy-laden house. :)

This made me LOL. Well, rest assured it isn't us. If my kids were in that frigid weather, they'd look like the Michellin man all bundled up. :)

I recently had my cholesterol tested and while the bad stuff was 159 (low) the good stuff (HDL, right?) was 38. Should be 40-60 and even better above 60. According to the lab I used (down here you just show up at a lab, get the test, pick up the results and you're done - usually all the same day) those are the numbers. Dr. Google pretty much agrees. I've been "dieting" (watching caloric intake, serving sizes and just eating healthy foods) and exercising (60-70 minutes a day, 6-7 days a week) since May and have lost 11 kilos. I eat oatmeal almost each and every morning for breakfast. I don't eat transfats as very little to none of our food is processed. So I'm not sure how to bring my HDL up. Continue the exercise and losing weight, obviously, and maybe once I've lost another 10 kilos (that is about my goal) it will naturally increase. I've also read that red medicine (wine) nightly can help so I've (TWIST MY ARM!! :)) started doing that. Any other ideas? I'm happy with the bad cholesterol number but really need to increase the good cholesterol. I also read about fish oil capsules and have added one a day. I'll test again in a month or so and see if I've made any strides towards increasing the HDL - does anyone have other ideas?

Unless someone is keeping you from dressing *yourself* I can't imagine HOW it impacts you. I would NEVER presume to know what clothing is best for my child or anyone else's child unless i was inside that body, which is impossible. My kids know what suits them best. As a mom, I will bring along short sleeved shirts or shorts or jackets or whatever, but invariably the kids are just fine in whatever they have picked out. sometimes they are glad i bring stuff along to add or subtract to/from what they've picked but almost always they know best. Here is my (then) 3yo who thought a sundress (completely nekkid underneath) was GREAT for a sudden snowstorm (she'd never seen snow). I tried to talk her out of it, then decided she'd figure things out on her own. She did. She also lasted a LOT longer than I thought she would in just the sundress. Edited to add that you will find us in sweatshirts and jeans once the thermometer dips below 80F. We're used to HOT and it is HOT here almost all year long. Winter means 80F, severe winter in 60F. :) We don't even own shoes or socks so when we go back to the US the thriftstore for jeans, shoes, socks, etc., is our first stop.

We live in the land of GIGANTIC cockroaches. It is said that for every one you see thre are 20 you don't see. I have woken to cockroaches crawling on my at night. That was the absolute WORST. We now use diatomaceous earth and as soon as we can find it (we have read thate is a place in Merida we can get it) we'll put out boric acid as well. Spraying only gets the ones you see - the boric acid and DE gets the ones in the nests. After we did the big DE attack we went from 8 in one night to none. Ocassionally we'll still get one or two that we see but they are literally all around us, so we count on the geckos and iguanas and the DE to keep them off us at night. Ever since our big DE push we haven't had any crawing on us and that, I've decided, is good enough for me.

Done (did an online one) but it said it was adjusted for age. WHAAAA? Did they give me pity points cause I'm geriatric?

I have a tipped uterus and LURVE my Diva cup. It has taken a few cycles to get in a groove (as it were) and the first day of my cycle will find me swearing at the cup as I try to insert it, but I'll never go back to pads again. I absolutely adore my cup.

Yup, Tricky Dick here too.

Am I understanding correctly that *you* found bully behaviour unacceptable but bullied a child into doing your bidding? It wasn't ok for the child to bully your child but it was ok for you to bully the "bully"? I wonder what the child learned from that experience...