I had a long sleeved dress :) It was beautiful and I still look pretty in it :p We ended up getting patterns for Ren. halloween costumes. The cut of those is much kinder to the curvy ladies in my family. I was bothered by the lack of variety in ready made dresses too. It DOES seem like, unless your thin, or happy showing off your body, a good dress is hard to find.

when are you changing your name to smiley or smiles or something of that sort? LOL, I love your emoticons!

They're just jealous anyway ;)

< Not on the math problem, but if you highlight U (underline), then you can make lesser than or equal too.

I've had some truly wonderful teachers in my life. They never had to resort to violence, but they did have to remove problem students. What I've noticed is that the bullies (teachers) tend to encourage their problem students, egg them on, iykwIm. It is terribly that sad that "good" leaders are scared to lead, because they understand the weight and responsibility it entails, but monsters are so quick to take up the slack.

I'm sure it will for some, but I don't care either way :p Let the bride wear what she will. My godmother was married in '85. She had the puffy Cinderella dress, the giant hair, the tiara, the whole nine yards. I look and still think she looks beautiful, really, just like a storybook princess. She cringes, but I really think it's more to do with the follies of youth somehow. I don't know if this will come across, but it seems to me that when I see pictures of me from years ago, I only cringe because of the memories it envokes. The style gets blamed, but my thought is 'I was so young and empty headed, if I only knew then...'

We've done that on some days and as long as the morning activity isn't too fun, then schooling in the afternoon works out better than any other day. The only problem comes if we have too much fun in a.m. :p, then ds just wants to go over all the fun we had and 'forget' to get to work ;) I will say this, though. Younger ds takes some good naps those afternoons :)

Only if they'll point and laugh.

Thank you.

Great! We had an incredible pack master when ds first joined Scouts. The only problem was... he was really closed to outside input, iykwIm. It took a year before he finally figured out that I really meant it when I said I would help. :grouphug: It's worth the effort, really.

Sometimes it seems like they don't want help or input, but the problem is (ime) that people are plenty willing to make suggestions, and much less willing to implement them. Our pack stagnated for awhile, because no one was willing to take an actual position. This year I sort of gave up my den leader position, in name anyway, to become chair. We had to have a chair and no one else would take it. Our chair had to move up to pack master. Now, how crazy is it that big positions that should, imo, have all the pack's adults taking part in choosing the right person, are being sloughed off onto the people that are willing to take them in order to keep the pack going?!? So far I have "nominated," that is to say signed up and helped them fill out their paper work, people for lots of the seats that were left "open" (iow, in the laps of the three adults that were trying to do ev.er.y.thing.). Here, it's almost like you have to force people to just sign the paper already! Oh, and I'm barraged with all sorts of helpful suggestions and (as usual) expected to run with them while I juggle everything else, including my den. All that to say, attending the leader and committee meetings while offering to do the things you think need to be done, will probably mean you'll be given plenty of permission to do them. If you wanted to take over planning the pack meetings, for instance, the p master and c chair will most likely be glad to dump the lot in your lap ;)

We have a pretty small pack, about 20 kids that show regularly. That being said, the majority of our pack meeting is spent recognizing awards. Even when the pack leader reads through the awards as fast as she can, it still takes awhile :) That doesn't bother me, though. The kids absolutely adore it when they have to stand up there "for.ev.er" while their accomplishments are recognized.

Why even single me out? Why even ask? What, exactly, was your intention? It seems rather apparent it was not curiousity, and it appears it was just to point and scoff.

Precisely. I had to take my training to volunteer at our new church. I was stunned and disheartened that a great deal of it concerned abusers seeking out Christian churches, because of the niavete of the congregations :( Abusers can add that to their looong list of reasons society considers chucking them into gas chambers. Places that should be safe, places where adults and children, both, should be able to relax, have become targets.

LOL, we ran out of tape and I've come to the same conclusion ;)

I've found that the BBC (being the name under which I find most of my resources) and England (Britain, which one?), in general, is very generous is giving free access to really spectacular educational resources. Free language courses, free preschool classes, free nearly everything I've had to run searches for recently. I'm starting to believe that England is just more concerned with their children's education than lining their pockets.

:grouphug: Like the other posters have said, these tests can be wrong. They thought my second ds was going to be over 13lbs and he was 9, the mistakes run both ways. :grouphug:

Maybe dh and I are the only ones on earth that think that sort of physical connection between an adult and child could be abused?

Because it's a position of power with little oversight and "subjects" that are easy to manipulate and used to having authority exerted over them. Not to mention the "who are they going to believe" factor.:glare:

Just wanted to make sure. Even stating it as what someone else could/may think can get one in hot water. It's so disturbing that what is most little girls' favorite feature would be used to punish her and in such a (semi, I know, but it doesn't seem that way at the time) permanent way!

:iagree: It's almost embarrassing to say we're having a difficult year, not because difficulty is embarrassing, but because I now know what difficulty really means and it's not only having a handful of things to give the kids.

We've always been a little borderline. Never utter poverty or homeless, but never really "comfortable," iykwIm. This year, a friend that is usually comfortable is having a hard time. Not to say that misery loves company, but... well... it's nice to be able to shoulder it together. I've gotten more help from her understanding than I have with the delightful gifts in years past. Also, we still volunteer! We've stuffed stockings and (dare I admit it) dropped a few dollars here and there for the locals living in poverty. Sure, I could've used that ten or that fourteen dollars to fill out Christmas dinner, or buy more cheap junk to put into their stockings, but this year, it is more important to me to insure that the local homeless have blankets and dinner. It's crazy, as bad as it's been lately, I'm more aware of how bad it COULD BE and I give more freely for those that are in that situation.

I was almost scared to admit that. I know how strongly you support bfing, thank you for making it okay to be a little wierded out :grouphug: