you've had some good suggestions. the book "peaceful parents, peaceful kids" by naomi drew is one of those books i think should be on every parent's bookshelf. she offers concrete suggestions for how to deal with conflict in a productive way. we love, love, love it. she also offers concrete examples that parents can use when speaking to children/teens about things that they have done that are not acceptable. it is a secular book, although she is a person of faith. she designed the program initially to use with her two boys, then expanded it for use in new york city classrooms. there are classroom versions of the book, but peaceful parents is for home use. like another poster, we also use the mantra "i am sorry. i was wrong. please forgive me". depending on the personalities, we each find a different part of it harder to say than the rest. but in order to say it honestly, it means we have to stop fooling ourselves or defending ourselves and admit to ourselves and then to the other that maybe, just maybe, we might be wrong. its a great question to be asking at this juncture! ann

we have a 60" square table in our dining room. we love it.... a lot. it fits two people to a side. for two sides, we bought bench seats, and for two sides we bought individual chairs. 3 younger than teenager children will fit on a bench seat for gatherings. a cardtable chair will add an extra person to each side, albeit without elbow room. we often just tuck a cardtable or three off one end when we need room for more than 8 or 9. the bench seats are the favourites! we love to cuddle our children at the table. and it is great for conversation, and for "lazy susan" style meals, too; everyone can reach the large lazy susan we put in the middle sometimes! ours is made of rubber wood, from a plantation that was being taken out, and is fabulous. we bought it at a costco road show, believe it or not, and i can't remember which shop it was : (. have fun! ann

:grouphug: this too shall pass.... remember the diaper years. how many DID you have in diapers at once?! and then one day, the last one was out of diapers (just when you thought you could not stand to see another diaper ever!) remember when they got up in the middle of the night and you never got to sleep? remember when they wouldn't eat their food if anything on the plate touched anything else and sauce contaminated everything? this too shall pass.... (and thinking ahead to what you might like to do when they've fledged is a healthy and great thing to do!) some wise person once said that the reason people weren't born as teenagers was because no one would have one! and in defence of my two who have been teens and are now in their twenties, some days are diamonds... (some days are coal...). with that many all at once you're bound to have mixed days each and every day. relish the diamond moments as they come, wash off the coal dust... i have two tweens just moments away from teenagehood, and i keep saying to dh... i remember this part.... i HATE this part.... sort of like being in labour and hitting transition.... which this is, of a different sort. :grouphug: you can do this, for today. ann

if it were just a saturday night, this would be cool http://www.bostonislands.org/camping_gen.html i found this writeup from someone who went on the same search, and this is how it unfolded. http://boards.bootsnall.com/good-campgrounds-near-boston-t27845.html they ended up at the minuteman campground in littleton. http://www.minutemancampground.com/ rates look to be $34 for two adults + $4 for each child 6-18. that seems like just about the best cost you may find.... i didn't check availability though.... have fun! ann

what worked for our two olders (now 23 and 25) was to have an hour of outdoor time each and every day. it had to involve at least 20 minutes of aerobic exercise. i can't state it strongly enough. all those happy little endorphins just make all the difference in the world. if you have a dog, running the dog is a great one. if not, would your ds like the responsibility and love of a dog? we also got a pool for the teenage years. what our children called swimming we called water therapy, and it was amazing, too. when i was a teen, we lived where there was snow, a lot of snow. my dad bought a pingpong table and we had family matches after dinner most nights. it was a stroke of genius. the youngers are now 9 and 11, and we've just always had outdoor time with them, so hopefully that will just seem normal ; ). good luck! ann editing to add: a little bit of drama just comes with the age, as they push their boundaries to find themselves. sometimes our job is to just laugh and shake our heads (checkerboard laces); other times its to nip it in the bud (inappropriate language, music, etc). its sort of like tightrope walking... and it feels great when you get to the other side. you can do this!

he will be a gift to some lucky woman some day! what a beautiful answer to an awkward situation! give him a big thank you from a mom with 4 daughters! still smiling, ann

sorry about your car. :grouphug: maybe call the folks you're carpooling with, ask if they can drive both ways next week, and say you'll pick up both ways another week as soon as you have a car that can handle it.... i know if someone called me in your situation, i would understand completely. good luck! ann

:grouphug: it IS quite unbelievable. you are a braver woman than i. (i've driven on all continents EXCEPT south asia. you couldn't pay me enough.... ) :auto: hire a driver. :auto: truly. notice the person in the car is smiling... the embassy may have good suggestions. (ie. all drivers are not created equal. in egypt our rule was to look for a middle aged man with children and a nice car. the driver in egypt from the embassy was head and shoulders the best we've ever had!) in india, dh has been known to hail a taxi to cross the street. seriously... we alter our lifestyle, too. we simply don't go out the same way we do other places. part of that is air quality, part of that is a great desire to live ; ). we hired a driver in egypt, and took the metro a lot. but we found israel and jordan quite driveable. by comparison, rome and paris are cake walks. (never, ever thought i'd say that, but there you have it!) you can do this (just maybe not the way you thought initially ; ). ann

you really need this weekend together. go. if she shows up and makes an announcement about staying with you, just calmly tell her that that won't work this weekend, how about next weekend. if she has no other place to stay, you can decide whether its okay for her to stay there when you're not there. make sure you and dh are on the same page about it now... and then you can help one another stay firm. conversely, in my more mature moments, i wouldn't answer the door or the phone on friday ; ). good luck! ann

wow, i just typed a lot and hit delete. i would maintain distance. lots of distance. if they ask for help, then you can decide what help you can offer. but they denied their (other) son. the "evil asian eyes" comment would be enough for me to do precisely what you've done.... and to keep it that way. you are maintaining contact but in a controlled fashion. they may need to get ready to leave the farm as they age, and helping them stay there may not be a kindness. your MIL may be safer in a more populated setting. :grouphug:

wow. a job offer would be great! one way to approach it would be to figure out the short term solution, and then look for a long term solution. so for the first week, maybe a hotel room is the way to go. but for us, being family together is hugely important, so we'd be looking for together options. here in socal, folks routinely commute two hours each way, each and every day. its nuts, but better than being apart. in the long term, maybe you could look at carpooling options, or buying a "new to you" commute car. (a reliable one could be had for less than $5000-, but it might be cheaper to fix the transmission). moving IS an option, but i'm thinking i'd want to see how the job worked out before making that commitment. (and every month the housing market improves). good luck!

whether or not there is a "legal" solution, i think there are several available "moral" solutions, that have more to do with showing grace and less to do with guilt. i think the bike rider can simply pay for the repairs and apologize to the driver for giving her heart failure ; ). i think the driver can offer to pay for part off the repairs and apologize to the bike rider for not having looked behind her car. there is such a thing as second chances... the bike rider now has a second chance to learn to think about what might happen and to leave his things in safer places. the driver now has a second chance each time she gets in her car to think about what might happen and make certain it can't happen again.... ...and so do each of us! because we are rural and i hate changing flat tires, i actually look at each of my tires before i get in my car. at least once a month, it means someone at home can help me put on the donut.... it takes maybe 4 seconds to check the tires. its a small amount of time to save me a lot of trouble.... so i'm thinking physically walking behind our car/truck/minivan/SUV before backing up (or backing in - i like this idea!) is not such a deal (the same 4 seconds)... and could save a lot of heartache... but i'm liking the backing in idea a lot. off to learn a new habit that will take me no more time at all, and make for safer moments each day.... thanks to the RCMP person whose wife developed the habit and the poster who mentioned it :001_smile:. ann

:grouphug: what hard news (even if you could see it coming, its still a shock when it does!). let us know what we can do to help.... some of us may have curriculum sitting on our shelves just longing to come to your house :001_smile: ann

hi heather - its very fun to "hear" you so excited about it all. :001_smile: it is exciting stuff. you asked about daily things. initially, we made changes gradually, over a few years, only eating 4 ounces of meat at a time, adding more veggies, reducing the fat to under 30%, gradually adding in whole grains, eliminating high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners... one of the things that happened is that we began to feel ill if we ate out anywhere where the fat content was high. so one fast food outlet after another became undesireable. then last winter we joined a CSA, and went cold turkey on anything not "real" that still was part of our diet. it is much easier for us than the gradual approach was. each week we get a basket of fruit and veggies from our CSA (abundantharvestorganics.com). they also now carry meat, cheese, raw milk, etc. that we can order each week. we use our breadmaker a lot. we have almost no boxes or cans of anything anywhere. its all quite amazing. and quite delicious. and a bit of work, too ; ). the kids can now taste chemicals in artificially preserved food. and we rarely eat out, because its hard to find somewhere that has food that tastes better than what we have at home! and we don't darken the door of a grocery store. once a week we go to trader joe's for things that our CSA doesn't carry. and that's it. and if i ever have a question, i ask my farmer ; ). its very cool. the funnest thing was watching my dear mom over christmas as she kept discovering how tasty everything was. have fun! :party: ann

go!go!go! fast.... before puberty.... you can do it :001_smile:. so can she :001_smile:

hi lynn - i'm glad its a brighter day :001_smile: sorry i didn't get back to you; i just saw your question now. each dog is different. ours likes to eat at night, sleep and then go out to do her thing in the morning. so that's what we do. i'd never have guessed that routine, but after days and days of putting her out after feeding her, to no avail, i decided to do it her way ; ). ann

wow. my heart goes out to you. the manipulation works because people give in to it. a way of dissecting this decision is to ask yourselves if anyone else had invited you to a barbecue this weekend, would you change your plans? if not, then don't. if so, then figure out what motivates that. for the future, try reading "people of the lie" by scott peck. there are some truly toxic folks in the world, and sometimes the only boundary that works is an excluding one... decide together what kind of relationship you would like to have with each member of his family. then, intentionally, start building that kind of relationship. it will work, or not, in some measure. eg. if you all decide you want a visiting relationship with his folks, invite them to dinner at your house. your ground, your rules, no triangulation. another approach is to ask what dh what he thinks is best for the children and the two of you as a couple. then do that thing. but after this weekend i would decide together how you want to proceed, so that the next time, you've decided before the manipulation starts. good luck!

hi tammy - as an adult, i've lived in Germany (4.5 yrs), England (1yr), Canada (14 years.... and 18 before becoming an adult ; ), and USA (12 years).... how long have you been in germany? ann

we're apparently taking the other path to immunity; the last of us came down with it yesterday. it is truly lousy. the young ones became better at day 5. i'm still waiting....

i'm smiling here. a new puppy! congratulations. with our standard poodle, we solved the "accidents in crate" issue by feeding her in her crate. she was more than willing to piddle where she slept, contrary to all expert opinions, but definitely not where she ate. she may be piddling in the least unfamiliar place to her (ie crate). hopefully, after being outside a bit, she will feel that's familiar, too. maybe dumping her pee outside where you want her to go might help.... good luck, ann

in the WWJD department, i am sticking with the Samaritan's imperative. at the end of the story of the good samaritan providing health care for his injured enemy, Jesus asks who was is neighbour? and the answer is "the one who helped him". and then Jesus says: "Go then and do likewise" as to the social justice in the bible, my favourite quote is "What does the lord require of you?" and the answer? "to seek justice, and love kindness and walk humbly with your God".

have you looked at Five in a Row? the stories are simply beautiful, they use picture books, and you read the same story five days in a row, drawing ONE different thing out of it each day. i've been thinking of all the different things your dd may be dealing with, and this would work with many of them. we curled up in bed to read some days, in the hammock or family room other days. we all loved it. for one of our four, it helped her to have a picture to colour or a simple puzzle to do while i read aloud. good luck!

my older dds responded well to flylady in their teenage years. it was fun, and it wasn't mom telling them what to do. we developed our evening and morning routines together. that took a while. then we began to add in other things. 5-minute room rescues are still easier than other things for all of us, because they have a set time limit, and playing "beat the clock" can actually be fun : ) good luck!

hi sarah - the fire news looks grim. how are you? ann

from a different angle, we're trying to support our local economy, so are trying really hard to buy things "from here" rather than "from away". folks need jobs....