Just to look at your negatives. 1- The layout just depends on getting the right people. I love huge bedrooms. It means there's lots of room for fun stuff and the playthings stay out of the public areas more. 2- This might be different, but for a family that stays at home a lot, not a problem at all. 3- If the bonus room is off a child's room, it sounds like the perfect setup for a library/playroom. 4- The long gravel drive may actually be a positive rather than a negative. If you live in the country, people like the seclusion. Part of the appeal is to be far away from the main roads.

Spring mix lettuce for me Iceberg lettuce for my husband because he is a Neanderthal :D Tomatoes (Roma and grape) Cucumber Yellow squash (but no others because even though I like them, he doesn't and they end up half wasted) Red/orange/yellow peppers (lots of these!) Green beans Sugar snap peas Edamame Broccoli Asparagus (probably my favorite veggie) Celery (just for me and my daughter though) I almost never buy artichokes, radishes, carrots (I hate them), brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, or the more exotic veggies because my husband doesn't like them and they aren't as important to me. Can you tell I have a really picky husband? Drives me nuts sometimes. :angry:

:iagree: This little incident would have me raging at her. There is no excuse for this kind of behavior from someone over about 4 years old. I would talk to her, very bluntly and firmly, probably with her own mother present. If your MIL is watching the kids, I would let her know that SIL isn't welcome until she can modify her behavior. If that doesn't work, ask your MIL to come to your house instead of bringing your kids there. No, this is obviously not the easy route, but how long do you want to be putting up with your SIL trying to usurp your role as mother? Because that is what she is trying to do.

It's really good that you guys have talked about this together. And it's good that he's going to address it with her. She is seriously overstepping though, so of course he wants to be nice, but remind him to be firm as well. If other parents have actually asked her before this not to correct their children, then it's not just a family thing, it's her thinking she knows better than anyone else, and she can think that all she wants, but it's just not right to act on it. I hope the talk goes well and you have less stress over this.

If your husband is worried about the way you handle it (and I am like you, I get mad easy, so I understand), then he really needs to be the one to talk to her. If it is important to you, and he knows that it is an issue, then he needs to man up and talk to her. If she cares about him, she will concede. Personally, I would hate to have to stop and remind her over and over and over. And honestly, that is a perfect recipe for you getting angry and being more forceful than you really intend to be in the heat of the moment. If you do get "less than diplomatic", why would he want to encourage a relationship where that is almost inevitable? That's why a calm, rational discussion away from a bad moment is such a good idea.

You can't be the only one giving and bending in a relationship, or there is no relationship to protect anyway. If she can't handle being told it's not her business/job, then she doesn't care. She may not immediately like it, but she will get over it if she values the relationship. If she doesn't get over it, does she really value the relationship with you, her own brother, or her own nephew?

I don't know if it was on my recommendation, but I'm glad some of you have tried Netvibes and are liking it. I've been using it for about 6 years, and they keep adding functionality, so I think it's still on the upswing and not dying. I hope it lasts a long time!

I use Netvibes as a start page. You can have weather, feeds from news sites, Facebook or Twitter, blogs, etc. You can make separate "pages" for different topics. I have pages for genealogy, books, video games, homeschooling, etc, where I can see the RSS feeds for various blogs/websites. On the main page I have weather, to do list, my Facebook feed, my email feed, and various post-it notes of things I need to remember.

What, exactly, did you feel was disrespectful that you needed to call out? The OP did not have a list of nasty names for her mother, or something like that. She simply said she wanted no more contact. What is disrespectful about that? If you think motherhood automatically deserves respect, are you in contact with every mother in the world? Do you have a relationship with all of them? Oh, you make decisions based on their place in your life and whether it is a healthy relationship? Well, everyone else deserves to make that choice too, even about their own mothers, without people trying to make them feel guilty about it. You admit that you were lucky and had a good mother. Maybe that means you have no ability to relate and shouldn't judge people in vastly different circumstances to you.

You really think that if Hitler had kids, they should have respected him? You think if your mom was a murderer, you'd want to have a nice small talk chat whenever she felt like it? All the position "mom" means is that she gave birth. That means nothing. That you can say this means you have absolutely NO IDEA what kind of person you might be talking about. There's a lot more going on for some people than simple disagreement, which is when your last sentence might apply. If you've never had more than that, you're a lucky person.

I agree that this is a good idea. Most hospitals are just so big that people get lost in the shuffle, and the nurses and doctors are so busy that they don't pay attention like they should. And their priorities are not always the same. Even though I repeatedly told my doctor I did not want extra people in the delivery room while I was giving birth because I am a very private person physically, the second I started to push, at least 6 interns or whatever walked right in. And since my epidural did not work, I was a little distracted. My husband (who got in trouble with me later) was also too distracted to make them leave. And of course my doctor and all the nurses just "forgot" that I made it clear I didn't want a full room of people looking at me. Of course, I had to fire that doctor anyway for calling my husband an ***hole during my delivery. Unbelievable. Then our daughter spent 2 weeks in NICU at the Children's Hospital. They do a good job for the most part, but when the put her IV in her HEAD, they didn't pay enough attention and it got inflamed. I had to yell at people to get them to move the thing. And because they had let idiots do her IV, both of her hands were already tired/overdone with the IV, and they had to put it in the other side of her head because it was the only other choice. Poor little 5 pound baby with red, inflamed hands and heads because of incompetence/too much hurry in what's supposed to be one of the best children's hospitals in the country.

When I flew with my daughter (2 at the time, less than a year ago) no one asked her anything and I carried her through the metal detector. Maybe these policies vary by airport? I guess it's possible policies change that fast, but I can't imagine what an airport worker would expect to learn from a 3 year old. My daughter would say her first name and age and "yes, that's my mommy", but then again, if she was scared, she might not say anything at all. And what would that be conclusive of?

I flew with my 3 year old daughter less than a year ago. I brought her birth certificate with me just in case. No one asked for anything but her boarding pass.

I really hope I never see comments like this here. I have only one child and I only WANT one child. I won't have any more children because I like having one child. I grew up in a family of eight kids. I don't want my child to have the experience I had, and honestly, I don't like to be surrounded by that many people. So I have one, and I'm perfectly happy that way. And she will be too, because kids get their attitude from their parents for the most part.

My biological mother sends me packages like this occasionally. Old books that belonged to my father, tax papers from the 70s, old coin purses, magazine cutouts like you got. Once she send an old eyeglass case with my father's name on it, it had to have been 40 years old. She'll take pictures and tape and glue them to paper for no discernible reason (many who I have on idea who the people even are!).

I am not the quoted poster, but as a youth group volunteer in a former church, there were most definitely parents who let their children have boyfriends/girlfriends sleep over in their rooms (and having sex). They either wanted so much to be friend instead of parent, or they didn't care enough to parent, that they allowed this. Other teens/young teens had parents who were never home, too busy sleeping around themselves, or just didn't care, so this happened in their homes as well. Obviously, most of the parents on here aren't going to be like that, and you may not associate with parents like this, but they are out there. They aren't the type to be homeschooling or going to church.

Every marriage goes through times when it's not "happy" though. Having contact with an old flame often means the effort is being put there instead of the current relationship, and that leads to breaking the marriage. If the distraction wasn't there, it's more possible for the marriage to work out.

My mother-in-law seemed perfect the first few years of our marriage, when we lived states away. Then we moved closer and she had a mid-life crisis and now I can hardly bring myself to talk to her. :glare:

My 3 year old daughter is also an only and wants a lot of attention for me. I am also an introvert and need quiet time and time to myself. When she is being difficult at a bad time, she goes to her room. If she comes out before she is supposed to, I put her back. If she throws a tantrum at any time, she goes into her room until she calms down. That is exactly what I tell her: "You can sit on your bed until you can calm down and be nice. When you calm down, you can come talk to me." Then we talk about why she got upset. If she does it again, the whole thing starts again. The main thing here is that you absolutely can't respond to the tantrums or to the boredom beyond "go to your room" until that behavior stops. My daughter has tons of stuff in her room to play with. It's not torture to be sent into her room to play. If your daughter has her toys and things in her room, don't feel bad to send her there. If she wanders out and around the house when you need some time to yourself, send her back to her room as many times as are necessary for you to feel sane and normal. I would be much more concerned that you say she is hurting you or the dog in her tantrums. That is something you can't stand for at all. My daughter went through a hitting phase at about 2 years old. If she hit, she immediately went to her room until I calmed down enough to talk to her. If she did it again, she went again. She should not have access to anyone to hurt, you or the dog, when she is having a tantrum. The minute she starts, put her in her room alone. Let her have the tantrum alone, no matter how long it takes.

The high amount of nuts and the lack of dairy are both probably hurting you. Personally, I've been doing the South Beach Diet to lose weight. It's mostly whole foods (really, other than salad dressing). However, I do like eggs and I do like meat. For the first 2 weeks of the diet, it's no fruit and no bread, potatoes, white stuff until you retrain your body. Then after those 2 weeks you add fruit and whole grains in moderation. It's a big change, but I feel alright and I lose weight quite well. But, if you don't like eggs and you don't like chicken, you would have to get most of your protein from fish and beef. Is it really chicken you don't like, or just really dry chicken? Sometimes people who don't like chicken have just never had it cooked decently. I make mine on the skillet in chicken broth, with herbs, so it's never dry and tasteless.

This is the wrong way of looking at relationships. If someone is always the one dictating whether something happens or doesn't, then they might be trying to control you. But if this is the first, or one of the few times that this friend has refused, then it's just her feelings and you're trying to change her.

What I was trying to say, and apparently expressed badly, is that the people described in that article have children helping them out of necessity, not necessarily a desire to teach them. Our modern lives don't have that kind of necessity where kids have to work so we can survive (mostly), so it's hard, and unfair to compare them. A better article would compare modern Americans to some other modern (or first-world) culture's child-rearing choices.

I think if it's someone you trust very much, like a very close friend or family, there's nothing wrong with a couple hours away from the baby. I never had anyone nearby that I trusted that much when my daughter was an infant, but I wish I did. Sometimes you (and the other kids) just need time to yourselves, and that's okay.

And that points out another difference that makes the article a little pointless. That group most likely makes their children work out of necessity, just as an American farming family would have during the Depression. The kids organize leaves (or slop pigs, milk cows, etc) because you have to have the extra hands to survive. Our modern lifestyles don't always require that. It's a little pointless to compare necessity with an abundance of choice.

I think it's an interesting article and very scary in many ways. There are a lot of parents who are too lenient with their kids and don't give them any responsibility. I know I spend a lot of time thinking about what's reasonable to expect of my 3 year old, and no I wouldn't have her cutting grass with a machete! Like melissel, this part of the article stood out to me: "Not long ago, in the hope that our sons might become a little more Matsigenka, my husband and I gave them a new job: unloading the grocery bags from the car. One evening when I came home from the store, it was raining. Carrying two or three bags, the youngest, Aaron, who is thirteen, tried to jump over a puddle. There was a loud crash. After I’d retrieved what food could be salvaged from a Molotov cocktail of broken glass and mango juice, I decided that Aaron needed another, more vigorous lesson in responsibility. Now, in addition to unloading groceries, he would also have the task of taking out the garbage. On one of his first forays, he neglected to close the lid on the pail tightly enough, and it attracted a bear. The next morning, as I was gathering up the used tissues, ant-filled raisin boxes, and slimy Saran Wrap scattered across the yard, I decided that I didn’t have time to let my kids help out around the house. (My husband informed me that I’d just been “kiddie-whipped.” " The only thing I could think after reading that is why on earth didn't she have her son clean up all trash strewn about? There is no way I would have cleaned up the mess caused by my child not paying attention to what they were doing. The crazy thing is that was written by the author of the piece, about herself, and she doesn't even really seem to grasp that it is the very problem she is writing about. It's not about the time, it's about being a parent, and teaching your children.