I love it!! And now every time you use the stroller or the car seat, you get to remember what a wonderful deal you got, and the kindness of strangers!! :-)

Congratulations!! How exciting!! :)

:grouphug: and prayers!!

Prayers here!!

Ugh! Big :grouphug: and prayers!

I'm right there with you, Myra!

I don't know the backstory, but I have to say I am SO impressed with his determination!

I used to be a speech therapist (years ago, in my former life before kids) and if you are seeking speech therapy for stuttering, I just want to urge you to really look for the right therapist. Stuttering can actually be made worse by the wrong therapy, and delaying therapy can turn it into a lifelong issue. The Stuttering Foundation of America keeps a list of speech therapists who specialize in stuttering therapy. Not all SLP's are equally comfortable with it or have experience with it. In my personal opinion, a therapist without the actual experience who is really devoted to investing the time and energy into the therapy and into learning as much as possible can still do a good job. But I know when I worked in the public schools, too often the therapists' caseloads were too large for them to devote a large amount of time or energy to one student. If they didn't have the background, they didn't have much time to get it.

:party: 'Course, in my book Lands End is high couture!

:grouphug: and prayers here too.

Ok...the police got in touch with the girl through her cell number (I didn't think of that!) and were able to talk to the parents, make them aware of the situation, and make sure the girl was ok. Oh, I'm so glad they found her. I guess I may never find out if there was a real issue or not, but I do think this was a cry for help of some kind...at least the parents are aware there is some kind of problem. Thanks again everyone for your support...it helped so much!

Thank you all so much for the support. You are all making me feel much better about making that decision. I am guessing her parents just didn't recognize the numbers and figured why would someone they didn't know call late at night?

Thank you for the prayers. I'm so shaken up right now...I am physically shaking and barely able to type. The police got the details and I believe they are going to the house. They will call me back. I appreciate the support and ideas more than you know.

Well, the parents apparently answered but immediately hung up on the suicide prevention folks, so they left a message but have heard nothing back. They suggested that I call the police for them to do a "well check". So I'm on hold with the police right now.

Ok, I called the suicide hot line. They are going to try to reach the family by phone. They are concerned because she said directly that she wants to kill herself. I am so stressed out right now. I so hope they reach her family. They said they would call me back to discuss the next step if they can't get through...

I just saw this. Thank you...that is a really good suggestion.

I know, I just tried them on the phone again. Part of me thinks they will think I am a nosy meddler, mostly it is driving me crazy that they are not picking up. This certainly sounded like a plea for help of some kind!

I accidentally intercepted a chat on Skype tonight that my ds (13) was invited to with about 10 or 12 others. My son was unaware because he was asleep. I was on the ipad at the time and the skype messages kept coming up and interrupting what I was doing, and being kind of technologically backwards, I didn't know how to stop them.) Anyway, I just kept closing the messages, but then I started seeing pretty alarming messages from one girl, B. She was talking about killing herself and wanting to die. Another boy, T, seemed to be tormenting her. She mentioned cutting herself and mentioned wanting to die many times. I honestly don't know if this is just typical kind of talk for her or for kids right now, but I was alarmed. I woke up my son and asked if he had known her to talk like this before, and he groggily said no. I just tried to call her parents and no one answered. I don't know them at all, but I found an e-mail address in an old elementary school directory and e-mailed her parents. Ack! I was just talking with my dh about how the kids on facebook my son's age are always making grand proclamations on facebook, and how they are so much more open about everything. But this has really shaken and scared me. Am I overreacting? Is there anything else I should do?? I would so appreciate your thoughts!!!

Thanks for the hugs! It's funny, as I was writing the post I realized just how many changes there have been for him. I guess just because I was expecting and understanding the changes doesn't mean he was...

:iagree: This happened once to my daughter. The invitation had been lost in the mail, and fortunately the birthday girl asked us why we hadn't RSVP'd and that's when we figured out what had happened. It is SO hard though when your child feels left out and sad. Any chance you know this mom well enough to message her on facebook just to say something like you saw the pictures of the party and never got the invite, and just wanted to make sure she knew that your daughter wasn't trying to be unkind by not attending...Then the ball is in the mom's court to explain. Maybe something reasonable happened that would be a comfort to your daughter to know? ETA...I didn't realize there were so many pages of posts...sorry if I missed some important info before posting!

I'm starting to collect X-mas gifts too. My extended family does stockings so I need to find lots of "little" things before December. I am indecisive, so it really does take me many months to pull it all together. My youngest has already started asking about Legos for Christmas. More Legos to add to his impossibly large collection. Apparently you can never have too many Legos!

I started homeschooling my ds (5) one week ago. His older brother and sister attend PS and started classes the same day, and my DH is a teacher and started classes just before then. During the summer, we usually had neighborhood kids at our house. So we went from having a house full of people during the day to now having just my ds (5) and I. I thought he would love the 1-on-1, and I think there have, but there have been lots of hiccups this week that surprised me, such as daily tantrums and negativity. But the strangest thing to me is that he has become super clingy just within this past week. He has always been a bit of a "Mama's boy" but now he is getting tearful if I leave him with my DH and the other kids while I go out, and wants me to hold him constantly. He was adopted at 8 months and definitely had a tough time attaching, but he has never been this clingy. Has anyone else experienced this with the beginning of the school year? I thought having more time with me during the day would make him less needy of my time in the evenings/weekends, but it seems to be having the opposite effect...

Legos is a major component of homeschool for us! My ds (5) has very little ability to sit still for anything, but if he gets to sit and play with his legos, he will sit still while I read to him for long stretches of time, and he retains it all. I think the legos keep his hands busy and act like a fidget tool...plus I feel like just playing with legos builds math and spatial skills, among other things. I don't know what we would do without them!

:grouphug:!!!

6 months.