It's the gnomes. We have an infestation of evil, sock stealing gnomes. They take the pencils, too. And the book you were reading/working in yesterday. I hate those gnomes.

:iagree: Though I will say that I am probably suspicious of the ads because they seem dodgy, not just because they're there, if that makes sense. And, um, Justin? Where's the "requisite other" option? ;)

:grouphug: I agree. At 3 months, I was biding time until the future date I had picked to walk out the door if there wasn't marked progress. At 3 years - and a major rebuilding of our relationship, and generally happy, normal life - I can feel myself getting tense and irritable approaching the anniversary. Now, it's a slight cranky spot in the year; then it was still very much touch and go. I'm PMing you with a resource I found very helpful.

First, a disclaimer: we drink raw milk. I firmly believe in eating food in its most natural state. Second, I totally agree with the above. It is unlikely that what she's experiencing is a lactose intolerance. Breast milk has lots of lactose, and baby mammals are built to digest it. She more likely has an intolerance to cow proteins - because baby mammals are not built to digest the milk of other species, though human babies seem to generally tolerate it. I would not change her from something she is tolerating, and I would certainly not change her to homemade formula, unless I had exhausted all other choices. I survived on formula made from powdered skim milk and Karo syrup, but I have all sorts of lovely autoimmune issues as an adult that probably started there. I don't think adding things that her body rejects in other forms is the best idea for whole life health. Just my 2 cents.

Heh, heh. Yeah, I started homeschooling with two toddlers. It was an adventure, and we were just doing K! Frankly, it's still an adventure, but now that they're third graders, I'm less concerned about them eating the math manipulatives.

Last year, the boys go Lego advent calendars. For my daughter, I used a "card holder" template (like a french fry box) from The Toymaker website, cut out of Christmas patterned card stock, and added small gifts and notes.

The trend I've seen is twins after a loss. I had a molar pregnancy at 31, followed by twins at 33 (fraternal, no twins on either side of my family as far back as 4 generations, at the bottom of the curve for all factors - I was for the molar, as well). One of my dear friends had a devastating miscarriage. A year later, twins. Fraternal, no family history... I was talking to a member at work a few weeks ago about the challenges of parenting twins (hers are 2), and she mentioned that she had had a loss before conceiving hers (fraternal, no family history, no fertility treatment, etc). It's like some cosmic correction. Crazy.

That's so funny! I was just adding a bunch of them to our Discovery Streaming queue and giggling madly.

My old parish had "children's Mass". It was held in the gym of the parish school, was less formal, and the homily was more geared toward children understanding. Families with young children could choose that Mass or the one in the church proper. Ironically, the cup was only offered at the children's Mass because there were too many people in the more traditional services, and it made everything run behind schedule (and there were some serious traffic and parking issues). So, "other". The "children's church" others refer to is not part of our culture.

If I had a dime for every time I said to the children, "What? Are you new here??" :001_huh::glare:

:lol: Honestly, I just wonder what people are thinking so often...

Askew even works on my phone! :D

Wow. That is clever.

That is awful!

Psssst. Pro-FESS-or. :D

Well, you may want to share this with your husband: years ago, I had a call selling tickets to the "firemen's ball". I was surprised, since my firefighter husband hadn't mentioned it, and I was very active in the fire department as a volunteer and had heard nothing. The caller stammered something out about how we probably already had our tickets and hung up. Because it is a scam. Period. Even the calls that aren't total scams net the fire department about 20% of your donation. If he wants to donate to the local police/fire/rescue, that's great and will be very much appreciated. Add them to your planned giving and write a check to them directly. Otherwise, you're likely not really contributing to the advertised cause.

I agree. I don't think it's wrong at all to put the needs of your family ahead of random solicitors. Yes to planned giving. Big no to phone solicitations.

Make sure you dig up threads from 2008 to do it. That's fun! :D

For the second time in my life, I have encountered the term "vajazzle"... both times in relation to a WTM thread. :blink: I do often wonder what goes on in new product meetings. Do they think we don't use pens? Or we have trouble weilding the big, manly things? :001_huh:

Well done! :hurray:

I'm not Southern, and I love chess pie! Of course, I've rarely met a pie I didn't love, and I'm sure none of those rare "meh" ones has been a custard... I think the one regional thing I only have when I go home is needhams. I've never made them successfully and, to my knowledge, they're unheard of outside of Maine and Mass.

:confused: :ack2:

Double rod. One sits outside the other.

I like to iron. ;) You may now add "people who post to threads just to be contrary" to your list. :D

I still have to load history, Latin and French into HSTO, but we've been in our new school year for two weeks. So...sort of. :D