Welcome back! I'm happy to see you here again. Yours is a voice I have missed.

I don't think that I would recognize people by writing style, but by backstory and pet topics. I have recognized posters across platforms, though, and that was a little weird. I guess I don't expect an overlap between WTM and reddit?

But coffee is basically bean soup!

Your meal was great. If a parent has strict rules for what their children eat, they can be responsible for enforcing those rules. My kids haven’t ever had trouble understanding that different parents have different rules, and my kids aren’t neurotypical. Your family has been through a lot, and I wonder if your BIL is micromanaging food because it’s one of the few things that can be controlled at this point? It’s not fair of him to put that on you, though.

I've been making Froebel stars. After watching the video about ten times I can usually make them on my own. lol

I still sing this to my kids. Source

I’m with you. Turkey is boring. We’re having steaks and shrimp. 🙂

My ds13, who has many of the same difficulties as your kiddo, made a huge leap between 11 and 13. At 11 we still buddy-read, paragraph by paragraph, and it was difficult and slow going. This year he has devoured the Hunger Games books, Percy Jackson, some random Sci-Fi...I'm kind of amazed. Assigned reading is still another story. lol. His ability to process nonfiction about WW2? Excellent, it's his special interest. His ability to process info from assigned readings? Eh. I find that if I ask him to complete a short outline while he reads it's much better.

No Moxy Fruvous? 😄

How did she sterilize it? When I pierced my college boyfriend's ear, I soaked the (sewing) needle in alcohol, then burned it with a lighter. I thought I was being responsible. lol.

This is true. My parents have two giant oak china cabinets that nobody wants, and a friend of mind recently hauled one to the dump because even the thrift stores don’t want them.

I have my grandparents’ midcentury modern china hutch. I don’t have china, but it’s full of knickknacks, doodads, fossils, rocks that the kids collected, etc. I’m just about ready to switch out the random stuff for Christmas decorations. 🙂

I haven't read The Story of Mankind, but my son started it at the beginning of the year, got a few chapters in, and hated it. We're subbing in readings from the series The World in Ancient Times from Oxford University Press. I found most of the volumes used on eBay at a substantial discount. It does require a little extra work from me, but I've found it pretty simple to look at the HO guide and correlate appropriate readings.

I thought so when I was a teen. I'm really a wimp though. lol. My parents were happy that piercing my ears was the extent of my "rebellion."

First set of holes, in lobes, with a gun at a jewelry shop at age 9: still open, despite not wearing earrings regularly since having kids. Second set of holes, in lobes, with a needle in my bathroom at 15: also still open, despite wearing earrings in these holes even less often. Random holes in lobes done at random times with a needle in the bathroom: all closed up. Cartilage piercings done with a gun at age 18 or so: closed up. Cartilage (tragus) piercing done with a needle at around 20 or so: still open, because it's the only piercing I wear a ring in all the time. Navel piercing closed almo