Good points, and you are so right. I had NO idea, before they arrived, how much my children would challenge me (in a wonderful way) to grow up, think less of myself and more of others, to grow in self-control and be awed at how much love we share.

:lol: I have that bewildered and shocked look on my face frequently.

I used to believe that too, then God gave me my first child to show me my foolishness! I cannot believe how many other parents, some well-meaning and others just snotty, gave me completely unsolicited advice on how to "make" her eat. I wanted to grab some food they detested, cram it down their gullet, and see how much they liked it. :glare:

Would y'all think I'm a total idiot if I say, dang near everything I used to think about parenting, I now laugh at?!?? My child will never... act up in the grocery store/restaurant/airplane puke on me speak to me like that be allowed to have ice cream for breakfast wear shoes/clothes with holes in them (yeah try taking that favorite pair of holey camo-sweats away from Mr. Moose and see how many fingers YOU have left) and I will never... yell at my child in public let my child stay up past 9 or sleep late permit my children to waste time on computer games or mindless tv say to my child "knock that off or i will knock you into next week" lose my calm, my temper, my wise rational mind....... BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! :smilielol5:<----this guy cracks me up

There are so many books on the Bible because there's a big difference between "what does this mean?" and "what does this mean to me?" What does this mean leads us to consider context, original language and manuscript/archaelogical evidence, historical culture, pretty objective stuff. If that's all we looked at, we should all come to similar conclusions. But when one starts asking what does this mean to me then the directions are almost limitless. Hence all the books in the bookstore. Not to mention the authors and publishers out to just cash in on anything that says "Christian" on it, whether it squares with Scripture or not. I"m not mainline Protestant - we're evangelical, and honestly I'm not sure what that term means anymore - but we've got shelves full of commentaries and Bible helps. So do most of my friends at church. So I'm not sure your assumption is necessarily correct. :001_smile:

You're experiencing uterine prolapse (anatomical illustration at that link) which means your uterus, and therefore your cervix, are sitting a bit further south than they used to be. This being the case, the tube-like device can't go as far north as it used to, so it's not in the zone where it will stay in place. As you move around, it will slip down and out because of pressure from above, from your cervix/uterus. Prolapse is common, esp after childbirth. Your pelvic floor muscles and ligaments are stretched out from carrying a growing baby, birthing, and hormonal changes that make everything stretchy. Do those Kegels, mama! I mean lots of 'em. You might be able to strengthen and get things back up where they belong. In the meantime, if I may be so indelicate, use two t**pons, inserted simultaneously (you just stretched enough for a baby's head - two of these is nuttin'). Do a hard Kegel squeeze as you push them northward. They might stay in place. Been there, done that, had the hysterectomy after my stuff moved so far south there was no hope. :D

Only with white nylons and BIG shoulder pads!

Thanks!! :D

That's not a bobbypin. That's my eyebrow.

Not Elaine, but :lol: about the sunglasses! I'm not sure which is worse: the sparkle, the light-blue eyeshadow, Shawn Johnson's crayon-line eyeliner, or the skinned-back ponytails that are so tight the girls' eyebrows are up where their hairline should be. No matter. I'll be up late watching, too.

Even though her reaction was excessive, your intentions and your reaction was full of grace. I think you set a lovely example for your children. And they learned that what other folks do in response is out of our control. Well done, Mom.

Aunt Helen's Cobbler Cover bottom of 9X13 ovenproof baking dish with fresh, clean berries. (works great with peeled, sliced fresh peaches, too.) Mix together: 3/4 cup sugar 1 Tbsp baking powder 1/2 cup milk 3 Tbsp butter 1/4 tsp salt 1 cup flour and spoon over fruit. Mix together: 1 cup sugar 1 Tbsp corn starch and sprinkle evenly over top. Last, pour 2/3 cup boiling water over all. Do not stir. Bake ~45 mins at 375*.

Oh yeah. Just say no thanks to the stuff. You can probably find recipes online for the other foods I mentioned through Google. Swedish meatballs and lefse is a yummy meal!

Depending on the size of the gazelles, sometimes 3 is enough. Simmer with veggies of your choice, serve to the dog, and call dh to pick up pizza on his way home.

It's a pretty big jump from "here's where the toys go" to "clean up your room unsupervised." Make some sort of wall chart with a few steps on it. 1. make your bed. 2. put toys into bins. 3. dirty clothes into hamper. 4. shoes neatly put away. 5. ... Let them draw or cut out pictures from magazines to illustrate. Make it fun for them - let them put a sticker on the chart as they accomplish each task. Be ready to supervise, but continually steer them to the chart for their instructions. Let it take over the nagging from you. :D Set a simple reward for a week of tasks, done well.

I just signed up for Facebook this week, which seems to be sortof like "blogging light". We'll see if that opinion changes, but posts on Facebook are brief, and your circle of friends is as small/large as you allow it to be. No pressure to write some world-altering passage or get sucked into a never-ending lineup of "click for next blog", y'know?

Cheryl, I mean no offense, but I respectfully ask that you avoid generalizations such as this. Overuse of any medication leads to problems, but appropriate use of OTC pain relievers is generally considered safe. Over-the-counter NSAIDs (aspirin, ibuprofen and the like) are much more effective when they are used regularly (every 4-6 hours as labeled) rather than in a hit-or-miss manner. Tylenol, which is not in the NSAID category, can be used as needed for pain. In a condition such as the one being discussed, if it is what I suspect, an anti-inflammatory would be extremely helpful, and would be best utilized daily, if the young man's doctor so advises. We all have our own limits on what we would let our children ingest, of course. But in my 9 years of practice as an orthopedic physical therapist, I never had a single patient go into liver failure as a result of their pain meds. And most of them were on stuff a lot more hard-core than Advil! :001_smile:

That is why I closed up my blog over a year ago. I tell you - hitting that "delete" button was like lifting a ton of bricks off my shoulders.

It is likely Osgood-Schlatter's disease. Very common in adolescents after a growth spurt. A visit to a physical therapist would help you both to learn ways to relieve the pain and minimize potential knee damage until his muscles/ligaments/tendons catch up to those fast-growing bones!

Because their Tact Meter broke! BusyMom - just wanted to join the others who have said, do what is obviously working wonderfully for your mr's! What a wonderful solution all the way 'round. :001_smile:

Oh. Uh - it might be from this Rabbit, too, who just learned she's supposed to sign her name.....:001_huh:

:lurk5: hoping to hear more - dd is roughly 4th grade and we are selecting from level 2, hoping to move into level 3 later this year.

THE symbol of Sweden - the little carved and painted horse. Swedish Christmas traditions are neat, too - St Lucia and the Tomten. My mom's grandparents came to the US from Sweden and we ate quite a few Scandahoovian dishes - pepparkakor (ginger cookies), meatballs, potatis korv (sausage), thin little potato pancakes (lefse), lox and herring, crisp brown flatbread called knackebrod, lingonberries, and of course the bane of Scandahoovian cuisine, lutfisk. (Ewww. Hit that link and scroll down to "lutefisk humor" and try not to snort. My mother and grandmother actually like the stuff.) If you have an IKEA nearby, go!! Astrid Lindgren (author of Pippi Longstocking and much more) and Carl Linnaeus (scientific classification dude) are Swedes.

Scrambled eggs, cheese, and salsa wrapped up in a warm tortilla. Mmm! and this thing is absolutely amazing: David Eyre's pancake.

Use roughly equal amounts of all-purpose flour and salt, some recipes call for 2:1 flour:salt. Use a coarser salt to make a grainy dough; use more flour than salt and your dough will be smoother/softer. Stir the flour and salt together then add water and moosh (that's a technical term) it all together with your hands. The proportions are roughly 1-2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, 1/2 cup water. Knead the dough for several minutes to make it soft and squishy and pliable. You can separate chunks of dough and add food coloring, kneading till the color is incorporated. (I wonder if it would work better to add the food coloring to the water before mixing it into the dry ingreds.) I like the disposable aluminum pans for making maps. You can make anything out of salt dough - Egypt, imaginary lands to learn geographical terms, your city, your street, etc. Use a toothpick to poke holes at the spots you want to label, then when it is dry attach little flag labels to toothpicks and stand them in the holes. Tempera paints work well. Wait until the dough is completely dry (we're in a desert climate and it takes several days at room temp). You'll know when you press on the dough; if it is still squishy, it's not dry. I've seen instructions to put it in a 200* oven but haven't tried that myself. I second the cookie map recommendation. We've done ancient China and the Roman empire out of cookie dough (the old TollHouse recipe smashed out flat in a sheet pan). Bake and decorate to look like the region. Tint frosting to make land and water. Hershey kisses or choc chips for mountains, graham cracker crumbs for desert, etc. It's fun to eat an empire. :D