Yeah, I agree, and I always feel sorry for Larry - obviously his Dad is abusive when he is there which is not very often, and his Mom is an older, nervous and very ineffective parent. I wish Ms. Lander's would have a heart to heart with that awful Judy or better yet, send her to Mrs. Rayburn's once in a while for being such a prig.

I'm in the middle of watching the whole series on Netflix - loving it too btw - and she sure does. They all do actually, even Wally. Once in a while they even have a story line based around Eddies "antics" where one or the other parent with the boys or the boys with each other have a conversation where they try to understand where Eddie is coming from and end up either being sadly sympathetic that he's so messed up, or at least kind of realizing "he's, well, Eddie".

When my three who are age stair-steps were very little, I began purposefully dividing the day to give them time to learn how to spend time NOT needing me. From get up to lunch, I focused my day around them, we played, we learned, we did all kinds of fun activities together. After lunch and naps, was mom time. I expected them to entertain themselves until dinner. I honestly worked at this, and it worked. They became very self entertaining! I was not mean about it, but I was firm. I'd go about my business, cleaning, or cooking, or whatever and if I needed to shop or visit, of course they went with, but I was NOT on "tap" unless it was a serious need, like getting a boo-boo, or being ill. I was present but not at beck and call, if that makes sense. When Daddy got home, he was all pretty much "all their's" until bedtime, at which time I was able to take over without feeling so overwhelmed. I also did the bulk of bedtime, but that was by mutual agreement, because I'm the singer, reader-out-louder. After I had them settled, he'd come do tuck in and chat and pray. Another thing that helped? Upon the sound advise of a veteran mom, I lovingly let dh know, very, very soon after we first become parents, that I needed some "me" time on a regular basis to stay sane and to be a good role model of healthy self care to our daughter. He was glad to help, so (at first once a week) he would take over for an evening and send me out with a girlfriend, or to walk or go to the library, or whatever I wanted to do. It was one of the smartest things I ever did as a young parent. As time went by and our family increased, I didn't get to go off so often, but he was always very good to see when I was nearing melt down, and shoo me out, or to make it possible for me to get the down time. HTH

First day of 9th for ds. middle dd started last week (ps) and oldest is half started LOL. She's a senior and is doing electives at the ps, but finishing her life guarding job up, and won't start her hs classes until next Monday. Guess we're all over the board. Ds and I had a very good day and I celebrated his high school launch with a mini blizzard (picked up when I dropped oldest at school) which made him extra happy LOL.

I'd start with the very basic staples for cooking and baking (if you bake) stock or make sure those are stocked. Start thinking in terms of ingredients instead of whole dishes. It's kind of like building a good wardrobe, think in terms of single items that can be used many ways. After that I'd start just replacing as you go. Whenever you need to replace something pre-packaged, or a convenience food of any kind, look at what you would need to make that from scratch, and add those ingredients to the pantry.

:iagree: Used this for two students with great success and both quickly were able to move through it almost independently without dvds.

DS will be doing Algebra using this text this year. We considered using the Callahan dvds, but the cost is kind of steep for us. DS likes using videos for learning, so I'm wondering if any one has used this text in conjunction with Khan Academy and how that worked out? Also, do I need the teacher's guide, or will just the Solution Book and the free Callahan's syllabus be enough? Thanks

Well it's been a dozen years since I bought a diaper, but we learned the hard way, we could pay for cheaper diapers and spend more in laundry. We found that Huggies worked best for us, though Pampers was an ok second choice.

Yes, I would because in our family the operating rule is "everyone gets what they need". We don't do "fair", as in trying to make everything equal. Of course there are situations for that, handing out cookies for example, but just because one child is ready for a certain movie, or needs a new pair of shoes, or one on one time with Dad, or is invited to a birthday party, doesn't mean the others are automatically included. :)

That most of us pronounce her name wrong. That she had a baby with her on the trip and that she was a huge help to the Corp, in fact helped save their collective bacon at least once. :)

Either because I want them to lead their own lives, but I definitely HOPE they have babies because I want grandchildren :tongue_smilie: If they do have children and choose to homeschool that would be awesome, but I'll love 'em anyway. :001_smile:

Current kiddo - turned 14 in February and will be starting 9th grade work in September. Next oldest , fwiw, was an Oct baby and just finished 9th (ps) so she was 14 at the beginning but most of the 9th was 15. :)

Yes it's typical, at least to set it up before launching the "get parental-unit permission" campaign. LOL. Perfectly normal teen behavior. In our family, we have two basic rules regarding this, the first is, Kidlet must not ask for permission in front of the friend or put PU's on the spot in any way. The second is, yes all PU's to be in the loop and be comfortable with ALL the variables including communication of some sort PU to PU, everyone knowing who is going to be in charge/supervising, what if any risk involving activities are planned, etc. It's just the way it is. So yes I would insist on talking to the hosting parent. Mortification is temporary, grief is not.

I cook from scratch and the reason it saves me a bunch of money is that each ingredient I buy can be used many different ways. Using the humble potato as an example I can paying $2.00 for a box of au gratin potatoes that makes a side dish for one meal or I can pay $2.50 for 10 lbs of potatoes, $5.00 for 2 lbs of cheese, $3.00 for a gallon of milk, $2.00 for 1 lb of butter. all totaling $12.50 and from which I can make, au gratin potatoes, baked potatoes, fried potatoes, mashed potatoes and potato soup. That's 4 side dishes and a meal plus I can usually make at least one of those side dishes twice. In addition, I won't use all that cheese, butter and milk on those dishes, so I have those for other meals. That's not bad for $12.50 BTW: I'm feeding 5 people, including 3 teenagers one of whom is a 6'1" growing boy. :)

Considering that the guy himself may only be 30, I would bet he just needs to be whacked upside the head with a cluebyfour. Was in youth ministry of one kind or another for over 20 years and yes, youngish parents can be very, very clueless. Icky.

My kids are teens now and I guess we had 3 distinct phases in this area. Ages 0-6 (ish) we taught one main over-riding rule. We still call it "The Big Family Safety Rule". "You never go anywhere, with anyone, for any reason without Mom or Dad's permission." Aside from that, we made sure they were in sight and/or hand/arms reach at ALL times when out and about - including church! We had a very few trusted adults who were allowed to help us with this. When they were old enough to be "out of sight" in any way, some where around 6 or so we taught them some common sense safety rules, like staying together, (we never let them play away from us alone, and only out of sight for short periods to start with) not giving out personal info, being polite yet keeping out of reach of adults who might stop to talk, quickly coming and getting a parent (or trusted adult) if any adult interaction felt uncomfortable in any way. Taught them that "good" (unknown/unfamiliar/un-directly introduced to you by parents) adults do not ask children for help and to always, always follow the BFSR anyway. Since 12 or so it's been mostly the BFSR & its companion rule - "Mom/Dad must know where you are and with whom at all times. We did NOT ever teach them "stranger danger" for a variety of reasons, the most important one being that we felt/feel very strongly that introducing the idea of "scary" grownups in an attempt to help children be safe robs them of a precious and innocent belief that the world is a good and safe place.

We're approaching our 29th anniversary and I say YES! Doesn't have to be an evening, doesn't have to cost, but it must be time it's just the two of us. In our relational value system, our marriage comes first. Of course we love our children, of course we spend as much time as we can with them, but...in just a few short years they will go on to live their own lives and we will still have (Lord willing) 30-50 more years together. That's a lot of life still to go that doesn't revolve directly around the children. We don't want to wave bye-bye to the last child as he heads off into his future only to turn to each other and suddenly realize we are strangers IYKWIM. Relationships thrive on intimacy and that's pretty hard to accomplish without focused alone time. :) Side note: I think when we make taking care of "us" as a couple a priority we also modal a healthy marriage to the children.

:lol: Had to keep taking my glasses off because the tears of laughter were steaming them up..tooo funny!!!

Grrr...I'd be livid as well and I'm not an anti-sugar gal. 8 months old is way, way to young for that and even if it wasn't, the Mom get's to call this one, and that is what would make me most angry.

I can't say Arnold Palmer without getting my tongue twisted. It's a popular drink around here, ice tea and lemonade, but I have to say it like I'm talking in slow mo. LOL

Ok, addressing the OP's intent for this thread, I honestly don't believe it is nearly as easy to lose ones' children as is it's popular to think. I have three kiddos who came out of the foster system, they have two sibs, also adopted into another family, and one brother whom California gave back to bm, even though the State of Oregon had, finally, after a long time, and a LOT of work by the case managers involved, deemed unfit to parent. So having been "inside" the process I have seen how hard caseworkers have to work to prove their case, how overwhelmed the system is and how few foster homes there are in relationship to kids that really do need a safe place. By and large CPS is not looking for petty reasons to remove kids, they have enough to do to prove that the obvious reasons they find get followed up on. I'm much more worried about how many abused and neglected children DON'T get help, then that some over zealous case manager makes a mistake. Does it happen, I'm sure, DHS is huge and very bureaucratic system and it's management varies widely, too much so, imho, from state to state. I'd better stop before I get really wound up. This is a subject very close to my heart.

Oh, that is so sad that you experienced this despicable treatment on top of fighting a nasty battle against the lice. Ugh - I had a similar struggle when oldest was 2. She has the thickest, tightly curled hair, think de-lousing a sheep and you'll know what I was up against. We did every single thing we could and still I struggled for 2 years to get rid of the critters. We moved and when they showed up AGAIN I told the ped - "give me the biggest gun in your arsenal! Malathion had just been brought back into circulation for prescription and we treated with that. Never have seen another to this day!!! Lice are NOT indicative of cleanliness, in fact, they prefer squeaky clean hair.

:iagree:Well, said - this is exactly how I've handled the issue. Your blog post was spot on! Thanks for sharing ETA: My perspective is also that when you keep a historical perspective it helps. Literature,art, music and other creative expressions are a product of the time and culture in which they were created, which is why reading the stories as they were written can be a wonderful jumping off place for talking about how and why things have changed, or not depending on your point of view.

Well said! I have a "tough" kid, and yes she has done stuff that embarrassed us and/or was illegal and I would consider us pretty decent parents. She has a ton of issues and is at times h**l to raise, but we love her and we keep at it. It's easy to forget that kids are people too and can and do make poor choices independent of the way they've been raised.

Ahh...love that book. When I was 14 I was reading it for the first time and was in the dr's office waiting for an appointment and well...the receptionist actually came over to see if I was all right after observing me sobbing quietly. :)