What I find myself missing most is a child's memories of what "home" was. When I moved here, I had every intention of moving back home within 3-5 years. I miss the familiar comforts of the tropics, island food, and .... just the overall disposition of people was different. Friendlier, more welcoming. It's too hot to stay indoors so you get to know everyone around you (plus you're related in some way to 2/3 of them). Where I live now, families stay indoors a lot. Neighbors are friendly enough to wave but have little interest or need to go beyond that casual formality. Kids keep to themselves and families are sadly suspicious of everyone and everything. It's amazing how alone one can feel even when surrounded by people. Fortunately many of my siblings have moved near me, even to my same neighborhood. We have a constant parade of visitors, bringing with them goodies from home - music, food, gossip :) and even more fortunately, I have siblings who work for an airline and make frequent trips back and forth. My job requires air travel, so I earn miles at work that I can use for personal travel. So we get back more than some, I think, but we also planned our careers with this need/desire in mind.

I don't buy from Amazon very often, usually just curriculum, so this is good to know. I'll have to time my purchases to off-curriculum-season :)

I go through security several times a month since I have to travel for work. I used to wear little booties (you can buy them at Lowe's type stores but some checkpoints provide them). The kind that surgeons wear, you know those? But if not those, just bring a pair of ankle socks to slip on in the security line. Wear them for security then toss them into a small ziplock bag and throw them back into your carry-on. Wash as usual; all good. Or if that's too giant a pain, a pair of those "socks" you use at shoe stores to try on shoes ... panty hose material might be better than nothing, and you can toss them right there on the secured side.

I think this boils down to family culture. Your husband will know his family culture best, but ... his family member isn't the one who gave birth so (in my world) the default goes to any involved party who has. This means you ;) LOL. FWIW, when we give birth pretty much everyone comes to visit at the hospital. I come from a big family, and we just pile in as best we can. If the hospital has rules about who's allowed in the room, family just hangs out in the lobby and visits with the dad (and baby if the baby is brought out). In our family, this is normal and assumed. If (our) people didn't visit, we'd wonder why not. And honestly I'd rather a quick visit while I'm in the hospital to having people over with a few-weeks-old baby, but I appear to be in the minority! My husband's family is very different, and sounds much more like the majority of posters to this thread. Hospital visits tend to be reserved to grandparents and maybe a close girlfriend. Home visits after a month or so are much more the norm. Good idea to check hospital regulations and use those to bolster your argument. But also a good idea to let your DH and the new husband know that while all women are different, from your experience as a new mom you think the days in hospital should be reserved to let the new family bond. That's hard to argue against, and even someone with my cultural background would find that respectable even if we didn't agree with it ... that is, it'd seem like a caring thing, rather than a lukewarm reception to a new baby. I worry that some, men in particular since they're not totally in tune with how taxing the birth process can be, may see your delayed visit as you not being excited to share in their much-planned, hard-fought joy. Maybe this is where your DH and his brother are seeing things from? If so, that's easy enough to address by name and straighten out :)

My PO says yes!

Like redsquirrel, we cover it more in-depth in the logic stages. During the grammar stage, we do some study via unit studies. One year we do states, the next we do presidents, ... lots of history infused in those studies. And by the third year we're into SOTW3. That third year we incorporate historical fiction into our reading studies (readalouds, independent reading). It can go with the timeline in SOTW3 or (I'm not really a stickler for a timeline beyond "Early Modern Era" so ...) just any biography/topic related to the Early Modern Era. Same goes for SOTW4. We also check out books relating to government holidays, and such, so more exposure that way. My goal for the grammar stage is exposure and culture familiarity, as opposed to a more in-depth course. That I save for middle school.

Ok, this is where I confess I'm talking about my 12 year old LOL. We live in a semi-rural town and our library is less than 5 years old. We're like you, where lots of things have to be loaned from other libraries (or we drive to the neighboring city's library). But I figure it's win-win if I give him a random subject or book to fetch for me because he works on his skills and even if we never read the book ... well, the library gets credit for a book checked out! I like the idea of organizing his bookshelf :) I may see if my daughter will go for that assignment, too!

I'm under 5" and my twin (brother) is 6'3". I joke that he got the tall genes, but I got the good-lookin' ones ;) LOL. He's freakishly tall for our family.

What about a basic toolbox, filled, and some scrap wood or a plan-building book? He can learn and start to build REAL things using real tools and real materials: boxes, frames, pot rests, etc. With help, he may even be able to start work on a larger project: birdhouse, fort/clubhouse, etc. In the meanwhile he can also help "fix" things around the house. Another idea is supplies to build a marshmallow gun: PVC pipes, a cutter, and a bag of mini-marshmallows. It's a kit but it's a "real" project and far from babyish. You can include targets (we laminated pictures of the various wildlife we find around our parts as targets). My adult boy will still get out there with my younger ones to have marshmallow wars in the back yard. Happy Birthday to him! I have a nephew like this and it was a challenge to buy for him until he hit about ten, and then it just got expensive LOL.

This thread comforts me. I thought it was just my kid, and I was going nuts because he's in double digits and should've totally nailed this by now. I no longer allow him to place a book on hold unless it's already checked out (to someone else); everything else he has to search and find the old-fashioned way. This works for school books because I tell him to find a specific title or to seek out a specific topic. It doesn't work for personally-selected books and topics he can locate in the stacks by memory. About once a week we do a quick review. I have him pick a letter of the alphabet, then I let another kid pick ten words from that letter in the dictionary. Then when he's waiting for lunch, he alphabetizes them. WIth much fanfare and ado, wondering loudly why he must do this ... the smell of lunch usually keeps this to a minimum. Usually.

When I walk into a house I was to see, feel, hear the illusion that this house will offer me a clutter-free, organized life. What I like when I walk into a house is to see "the pride of ownership" - little things taken care of, leading me to believe larger things have been taken care of, as well. So, no nicks in paint or tiles, no wet telltale signs of leaking faucets, no running toilets, doors and windows open/close easily, yard is maintained, etc. Clean, yes, but more importantly, CARED FOR. I'm looking for a home, not a project. Projects elicit different emotions, and therefore different bids (from me). I can't stand to see wallpaper in a house. I'd rather not re-paint or re-floor, but I will. But I'll pass on a house rather than remove wallpaper. Or worse, lowball my bid because I've BTDT and have zero desire to remove wallpaper so I assign a higher value to what it would cost to have to deal with that. Good staging gives a house a homey feel and I can see myself living there. Some balance between totally lived-in and empty adds to the illusion that this house will meet my needs for space, will accommodate my furnishings, and is a blank enough slate to put my own mark on it. It spoon-feeds me an ideal. We are in a buyers market and I want to know what we can do for our house to stand out. Good luck! Focus on selling a dream, not a house. That's your key.

Also, when you leave it to dry after the oxy soak ... try drying outdoors in the sun, if you didn't already. The sun works wonders.

Oh, yay, I'm not alone! I'm 4'9 - 4'10" depending on my hairdid B) The only one shorter than me is the 7 year old, who is 4'6" and measures herself against me just about every day. She's obsessed with passing me up, which is weird ... but useful in getting her to eat nutritiously. But "it'll make you grow!" and she laps it up - crap and all. When my siblings and I don't want our kids to know what we're saying, we use a dialect the kids aren't familiar with. We have codenames for each kid to keep them from figuring out the context of our conversation. Drives the kids nuts, but we like to put the FUN in dysfunctional. For months the kids kept talking about "Hobbit this, hobbit that" - we had no clue who they were talking about. Turns out they were trying to give us a taste of our own medicine, and I WAS THE HOBBIT!! That was their codename for ME! Brats LOL. When talking about me to their friends, my nephews clarify: You know, the Hobbit Tita!

I think it depends on the measurements of the room, and placement of windows/closets/doors, etc Is it possible to jut bookshelves out from the wall rather than line them up flat against a wall? You can place two back-to-back and it may eat up the middle of the room somewhat, but that leaves one long wall for desks to rest side by side. No pics, I did this at another house. Or if not, line the wall with bookshelves and put two desks back-to-back jutting out from the wall. I would've done this at the other house instead of the above suggestion, but it left one person with his back to the door and I don't like that. If you don't have those kinds of issues, this may work better -- your monitors would back up into each other and the two people would face each other from their desk seats.

I voted other. We address him as Tay. I guess it could be the equivalent of the American "daddy" but I'm not sure.

I read it earlier this morning, and remember the gist of it. I'm trying to answer vaguely enough, but if you'd like me to delete this just LMK. I'm not sure which sure you belong to, but I'm Catholic. Today we celebrated Pentecost, and I think I'd take the encounter under that umbrella - like the Holy Spirit was tapping my shoulder to bring this to light. I wouldn't mention it again, except perhaps to smile knowingly at her in the weeks to come, as an unspoken but appreciative nod of thanks. Seeing changes, I'm sure she'd reply in kind. And I'd go easy on myself in the meanwhile. In the thick of things, our priorities can suffer; we tend to put the squeaky wheel (kids, day-to-day stuff) ahead of the neglected-but-quiet wheel (ourselves, beyond basic biological needs). I've BTDT and wanted to let you know that I totally get it. Talk about your lightbulb moments LOL.

The diabetics in my family wear a bracelet. Telling your friends was a good start, but what if you're just in public (like grocery shopping or something)? Maybe a medical alert bracelet or necklace would be a good idea, too.

Appetizer: salad Entree: chicken and gravy over rice Sides: green beans and stuffing Save the potatoes and bread for another meal.

I have kids your age, too. I like Jenny in Florida's phrasing of the intellectual booster shot :) as others have suggested, we do informal schooling during summer hours. Not only is it a nice booster, but it's a great time to explore interests without pressure. Plus it kills time, which is your (and my!) primary objective. What's it like where you live? From home my kids can walk to a park and library, so we do those a few times during the week. We take tennis racquets or a volleyball or soccer ball (all can be found inexpensively and are a smart "investment" for the summer season) to the park. My kids can also bike to a nearby nature center, so they do that a few times each week also. There they can walk, hike, get dirty, play in the stream, etc. We have cheap, old shoes for these jaunts so they're not wrecking their good pairs. Sometimes I give them an assignment, kind of like a scavenger hunt, and if I'm feeling nice I let them take my camera to photograph their finds. This only works once a month or so, but ... I'll take that once a month if it's all I'm getting! What about geo-caching or letterboxing? For the times you do have a car, you can hit up a few sites. On the days you don't have a car, have the boys create a box and leave it locally for someone else to find. Or turn their screen time into something productive. Have them make a YouTube channel and give them assignments. I assigned my nephew to make me a Minecraft 101 video so I'd know what in heaven's name he was talking about when he kept telling me about this Minecraft thing. I still have zero interest, but it bought me a few days and sparked an interest in him. He's since made other Minecraft related YouTube videos. I have a school rule of no electronics-for-play until after lunch. I hold to that during summer. Any computer or television related activity before lunch must be academically inclined. I'm game for proposals and being convinced, if the kids choose to try. We had one great debate about "edutainment" last year that resulted in me relenting SOME and them getting an opportunity to argue a case. With each other, towards a common enemy LOL. This rule helps moderate electronic use during school breaks, for us.

Lots of activity for you, today! I have one task today: finish planning and scheduling our next school year. That's um, ... what I'm doing right now. Research. Uh, on the chat board .... I have a child-free home for the day, which should motivate me but all it's making me do is relax and enjoy the day off!! Hopefully your day proves more productive LOL.

We do school in the formal dining room. It has a wall of mirrors, and we picked that room so we could use the mirrors as a whiteboard. But we never did, we like to stay seated LOL. So instead I had glass cut to the size of my table. Now we write directly on the table's glass top. I think a whiteboard is nice to have. Hardly necessary, though!

I'd have to read your actual words to know if your SIL was justified in her upset; your paraphrase, as presented, doesn't sound bad but ... paraphrasing it from your intentions might skew how it actually presented to your audience. The gist of your post seems harmless enough, but word choice matters. A lot. I believe your intentions were good, and that you had no desire to hurt anyone's feelings. I believe some people are very easily offended. Sometimes it's because they respect those they feel are slamming them, sometimes it's because they're struggling at a crossroads and are set off by something seemingly innocuous, sometimes they're just wussies. Only you know where your SIL is coming from on this one. I like BLA5's idea. No need to remove the post, it won't remove the waves it's caused. Better to address it heads on, apologize for any unintentionally hurt feelings and re-state your thoughts better. The key is to do this with empathy, and not come across as holier-than-thou as you did in your OP. Again, I think your intentions are good but your delivery needs work. Your words aren't coming across the way in the way you (hopefully) want them to. That's a technical issue, and is much easier to fix than is an attitude issue :) It's hard to be so gung-ho about something without getting slightly obnoxious about it. So many of us are guilty of the same, on a variety of issues. It's about learning how to temper our enthusiasm in a way that's conducive to our cause. You meant no harm, but since you know you caused some ... address it. This is your SIL and hopefully that family relationship is worth eating a little crow and owning that your delivery was off.

I tried, but the pictures aren't showing up. Maybe it's my browser. Too bad, I was looking forward to it. Social intelligence is relevant to how I earn my living :)

I have one this age, and some that are older. Our rule is that we don't play or buy it at my home. I don't mind him playing it at a friend's, though. None of my kids were/are heavy gamers, though; even at 12 they were/are still spending time outdoors or on other interests, even at friends' homes. And if they're all balancing (any) game with other interests, then exposure (to any game) doesn't bother me. Or at least it hasn't, thus far LOL. For me it's an issue less about exposure and more about the ability to moderate oneself. I feel this about any game, even non-violent ones. If exposure is limited, then specific content doesn't bother me much. If this was a friend who spent most of his time playing these types of games, I'm not sure my approach would work.

We may be a small club, but those with the most refined of taste usually are ;) Seven Samuari ... another good one ... and the inspiration behind the name of our rescue tortoise, Ronin. It's been years since I watched The Seventh Seal and I'm jealous that your son liked it. My youngest is 7 and she isn't a Bergman fan. I put on films at bedtime, and anyone who wants to stay up may do so, but only if they watch with me ... she usually stays up because anything is better than going to bed. Anything except Bergman, that is. I love that she's so adamant that she'd rather go to bed than sit through something she hates, but .... to hate Bergman? She may as well change her religion!