I am usually awake by 9am. :) I am a night owl too, so I do not get up early. My dd went part time to a school this last year, and I had to be out of the house by 7:30, not fun. It is 10 before I feel ready to go. Even in high school when I had to be up by 5:30 to catch the bus clear across the city I was still a night owl at heart, but I had more energy to stay up late and get up early, because I did not have little people needing me all day.

I am a towel hoarder too lol. There are 6 of us right now, and I wash towels every day. We each use a clean towel after a shower, and we only use beach towels once as well. It is 100 degrees here, so we only need one towel for the pool no matter how much we use it, because they dry very quickly. I have no idea how many towels I have, but there are at least 36 bath towels (my cabinet fits 9 in a stack and I have four stacks, plus I have some extras), and we each have a beach towel plus a couple of extras for friends who forget their towels.

We sold back an iPod, and it worked out well. It is not a book obviously, but it is the process.

We used tea tree oil and duct tape. I really wish my kids would not take their shoes off in public, eeewwww.

What a beautiful story, espeically after all that has happened with your ds. You are an amazing mom!

I would talk to the doc. There are some new meds out there that can help with symptoms if indeed she has some memory decline. My grandfather had a few good years after taking the meds, but he is declining in other ways now.

Dh was called for jury duty twice, and he wears business casual clothing, and brings money for lunch (our court house does not allow any food or drinks in the building, so they have to go out to get something). He read books on his phone, and caught up on emails. The selection process can take most of the day. His first case was an easy, slam dunk case with plenty of evidence including video and audio, so it was a day and a half from start to finish. His second case the lady pled guilty, but she went with the jury to sentence, and that was hard, because the crime was very bad judgement but not on purpose, so it was a distressing for dh to make his decision. It wa also a case that made the news and the sentencing was discussed on the news, so that was hard too. That case took 3 days, and dh was emotionally done by the end, so we rested and stayed home that weekend.

Our pedi has been the kids' pedi for 14 years, and he has been through some scary stuff with our family. When my ds had cancer we had to see whatever oncologist was available, and that was a terrible experience at times. Having the same doc allows him to catch small changes in my kids, and that means a lot to me, we are currently dealing with something that even I missed but the doc picked up on right away at a visit, because he knows my kids. We do not see eye to eye on everything, but I know he cares about my kids and is looking out for them.

Right now I kinda want to move to Mexico where kids can run around and people seem less annoyed. :) Can I be your neighbor?

We have pallets of formula just sitting out at the first of the month around here, and there are still many choices here. It must vary by area. WIC will allow the addition of new children to the program. In the mean time I would sign up for Similac and enfamil to get free coupons and samples. Some kids can take any formula, and some need certain ones, usually those kids have reflux, so if they do not tolerate several formulas have them checked, we learned this the hard way.

My dh would not do that unless we could either not find a house closer to work or he had to take a job that far or we would not eat. We have 4 kids at the moment, and as it is he can run home to help if I need him (one kid needs to go to the ER, that kind of thing), and so many concerts and performances around here start at 6, so he would miss the beginning of the kiddo's performance or whatever they were doing.

I agree, there is a big difference between trying something on for a while at home and using it all season and returning it. My sister used to work at a sporting store, and people would buy summer stuff, use it and then return it for hunting stuff in the fall, same with shoes. The store had to change their policy and punish people who were not abusing the policy by not accepting much of anything that was not in its original package and returned within 14 days.

My ds remembers breaking his foot at 2.

That has been common around here for at least 14 years, and I only answer what I choose to answer. We do not do physicals for this very reason. I get lectured on how to parent my kids, and I have no need to pay a doc $75 for him to tell me how to parent. :) Do not get me wrong, docs literally saved my son's life, and I respect docs a lot, but this type of thing is overstepping.

Let go of the guilt and switch to formula. My formula fed baby is healthier than my two BFed babies, and now that I am fostering and have only formula to offer I am seeing that there is simply no difference in growth and development or bonding. I am just as bonded to my soon to be adopted son as I was to my BFed biological sons. The key is the closeness and snuggles, not where the milk comes from. Hugs to you. You have been through more than most of us can even imagine, and you do not need this added stress when there are perfectly good alternatives to make sure your baby thrives.

My youngest ds did that, and I forget what it is called. It is not stuttering, but it sounds silimar. It lasted a few months and then went away. If it persists I would look into it, but the brain changes so much around 5 that odd things do happen sometimes.

I do not like that formula has many terrible ingredients in it, however my formula fed child is healthy as a teen, and my exclusively BF children are an asthmatic and a cancer survivor. We ate organic and never ate out prior to the cancer diagnosis, so I really do not think food has as big of an impact as we want to believe. We still eat organic, but I do not feel guilty about feeding my foster kiddos formula (not that I have a choice), because in the grand scheme of things I do not think we are looking at a life of chronic illness or anything. My opinions on what caused my sons' illnesses are even more controversial than this topic, so I will stop there. :) As for your question, no, I have not found formula that is reasonably priced that has good ingredients in it. Even organic formulas just have organic corn solids.

No, I take pix and either give it to another family memeber or sell/donate it. I am not a very sentimental person when it comes to furniture and trinkets though, so if you are, then it might be a regret for you. I regret pix I missed, so it is not that have no regrets. :)

Nope, we live in our house, and some days I lounge around in shorts and tshirts (we foster, so no pjs all day in case a caseworker stops by lol). I try to straighten up my house each night and clean it well a couple of times a month, but most any time during the day there are toys on the floor, dishes in the sink, and laundry in various stages of clean and folded in my living room. It is what it is, and I no longer make excuses for it. :)

I got very nauseous the day after taking it every week. At first I thought I was coming down with she thing, but it happened every week, so I stopped taking it after 4 weeks. Obviously my numbers did not go up much.

I am a terrible about overbuying, so all of my kids probably have as much or more than your dd, so feel free to ignore me here. I would keep all of the pjs, because when kiddos get sick they tend to need to change their clothes often. Just an observation.

I have heard about a few of these, and it seems to be the answer for second and beyond babies who do not get a shower, because some people think baby showers are for gifts rather than to celebrate babies. That is another soap box all together, but I would not think gifts are expected. I took gifts, but I love to buy baby gifts. :) Your party seems different, but hey, I would totally go, because again I love babies. :) If I had brought a gift to a shower, then I would not bring another, but then I am also not rolling in money. If I was I would totally bring another gift. ;)

PP is right. You are not obligated to help her pay for her apartment, and she is not doing the job she was hired to do. It is hard to fire someone, and that is why I still do not have a housekeeper, but it is business. Work, get paid, do not work, do not get paid, simple.

We got SIL some towels embroidered with their initials. They were in their mid thirties and combining households, so most traditional stuff was not needed.

I agree pools are gross. Every summer pools close due to some deadly bacteria, and a few people die from those bacteria every year in my state despite close monitoring of the water (chemicals do not kill everything), but so far we have only had a few GI bugs that clear up in a few days. Kids still need to learn to swim though, and I would ask my orders to help some with the littles and then sit out with the little while the bigs have fun. Maybe bring games or something to play with the littles while you wait. We can use life jackets here, because they are approved by the coast guard, so I use those for my non-swimmers. Many pools allow other types of floaties too which is helpful. Good luck figuring it out, because I agree swimming is important to learn.