If my family was hosting my son's girlfriend overnight, I'd be very careful to speak to the girl's parents, the girl, and my son beforehand and lay out our expectations. If he still lives in your house, you are responsible for ensuring that your family's behavioral standards are being met. The fact that my son is 19 would not matter one bit to me.

I'm liberal. We're the majority here in coffee country.

I will not criticize some people's decision to spank, and I would like the same courtesy extended to my personal parenting decisions. That being said, your comments are not completely relevant to the situation of a stranger hitting a child perceived to be misbehaving.

If anybody hit my child I would call the police and press charges. I believe physical violence is wrong no matter the size or age of the victim. Poor baby!

These are cracking me up!

Your son wants to walk his new puppy past the neighborhood elementary school..... coincidentally at recess time. And maybe eat a candy bar while he does it.

I'm really sorry for you, but look what this situation has allowed you to see in your DDs character. They sound like wonderful people. That's the silver lining.

I think that turning a speech by the president directed at children into partisan politics is outrageous. I think that schools should allow the children to watch it and talk about the message afterwards. For pity's sake, he's not going to try to sell them healthcare reform or the repealment of the Defense Of Marriage Act.

One cheap addition is sidewalk chalk for the fence (if it is wood and makes a suitable canvas). My kids make art as well as homeschool diagrams on our fence, and the rain washes it away.

This is hard for me too. I really wish I could mind my own business and not step in to confront big problems. I do not confront people over grocery carts, kids without coats, etc., but as a former teacher I have called CPS a bunch of times, called animal control after being attacked by a crazy neighbor's dogs, etc. Here's a dilemma I am currently wrestling with: neighborhood gossip says that a couple that we know through activities are having major marital problems and are about to split up. My dear friend, who lives a few houses down from them, reports that the wife says it is because he smokes too much pot. He is a school bus driver for preschoolers. WWYD? It is hearsay. I have never seen him look or act impaired. OTOH, little kids are at risk.

I am the leader of our Brownie troop of 11 girls. It is based in our neighborhood ps. We are the only HS family, but we knew a few kids from preschool, and now the others are turning up on sports teams, in summer day camps, and such. Since I am the leader, I am very careful to emphasize being a sister to every girl scout and we draw names randomly to form groups for troop activities so within scouts, the girls cannot be cliquish. Outside scouts is another matter, of course, but I can't control that. : ) We do play dates with the girls who are interested. Most of them start out thinking HS is weird, and then get jealous when they hear the details. LOL!

I would stick with your plan and fade from this family's life. I would not send a gift card if I was convinced my child had not taken the toys.

I have had this vacuum for a couple of years, and except for the fiasco that we experienced while paying online, have had very little trouble with it. My biggest problem is that sometimes it sucks so powerfully it is difficult to push it across the rug.

The gifts are not a focus for me, so it disturbs me that people might think we are grubbing for gifts. I really don't care if kids bring gifts or not, but since almost every party we attend is a traditional party, gifts are part of it. Yes, we keep the gifts. Because we usually have multiple kids from one family, there are not 40 gifts on the table. My children write thank you notes for what they receive. Kids usually like to come over for a play date and see the gift they gave, and have a chance to play with it. I use impending birthdays and Christmas as a way to motivate my kids to give older, outgrown toys to Goodwill. Maybe this has something to do with extended family experiences? We have no extended family in town, so there is no "family party" vs. ""kid party". There are zero cousins to play with or invite. Our friends are our family.

I will admit that this thread has hurt my feelings a little bit. We tend to have large parties, and it never occurred to me that people would judge us as greedy because we included everyone. In fact, because we include siblings, I've had several parties go to 40. My 4yo had a birthday party at Pump It Up this year, which includes the inflatable throne in the party room, but it's not an item we chose to put there. We also try to accept invitations from kids we know only superficially, if it works for our schedule. Knowing my own kids, just because they haven't mentioned a child by name doesn't mean they might not really like a child and have a relationship with them that I don't participate inside drop off preschool or soccer class. Birthday parties of any size or type seem to be very important in my children's emotional world; they are honored and excited every time they are invited. I do understand that more introverted or busy families don't see this the same way we do.

School hours are the best time to be out and about! Blissfully empty museums, libraries, parks, zoos........

You are living the dream for sure. I loved college and grad school. Sigh......

That is hilarious considering the large controversy aroud reform math and whole/word phonics. The new methods are just rehashed versions of ideas that are about 60 years old. There's nothing new under the sun. I guess your sister does not know much educational theory. Maybe SHE needs to go back to school. Yes, she is just torturing you with modern ed theory. Ignore it! I will eat my hat if your sister's district continues to buy all new books every 5 years in this current economic crisis. As a matter of fact, California is going to all ebooks. Can anyone predict how that will play out? LOL

I am especially grumpy about one organization for whom our youth group at our former church did a petfood drive. The kids worked hard at gathering and delivering donations, and later we found out that none of their families would have actually been able to adopt a pet there, due to the ages of the kids. They're old enough to donate pet food, but not old enough live in the same house as a dog or cat??

We are planning to adopt a new dog in September. Our old family dog died last winter, and we wanted to finish summer travel so we would not have to leave a new dog at a kennel. I already know that several local organizations will not give us an animal because of our the age of our youngest child - 4yo. The face that she's grown up with a dog doesn't matter; I'll be home all day, we have a 6 ft privacy fence, we plan to do obedience school, we want an older dog, medium size (no tiny breeds that might get hurt, or puppies) - that doesn't matter. The 4yo kills the deal. It's so aggravating. I'm hesitant to just get a dog from animal control, because I'd like to know how the dog will do with cats and kids, and many rescues do behavior tests to determine this. We are going to keep looking - I'm sure there's some place that will finally give us the dog we're looking for. And there's Craigslist - there's dozens of dogs listed there everyday. On a positive note, I did see a sheepdog listed on Petfinder and they were asking for a farm with sheep on it for the dog. I thought that was pretty cool - this dog knew her job and wanted to keep working. LOL

Bumping for an answer - which age or grade leve would use this? It looked young to me, but I haven't followed the language arts recommendations previously, so I don't really know. Anyone know the answer?

What age/grade level would use WWE 3?

See now, we didn't have lunch rules like that when DS went to first grade. The kids had to eat in the classrooms, so the teacher just flipped on Cartoon Network for half an hour before recess, while they ate. This behavior was so ingrained in her, and she clearly had no idea that it might be problematic, that she immediately turned on the TV during the Family BBQ lunch day so we could all enjoy the PowerPuff Girls. This answered the question of why DS never felt he had enough time to eat. He was mesmerized by the TV. I have NO idea why they would even have cable tv.

I completely agree with abbeyej. I think you are prepared to handle it well. That poor woman. What stress she must be under! It's a great reminder for the rest of us, who don't know the back story, not to judge others who are losing it in public.

DD7 is a huge American Girl fan. Now I have to take her there!