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Innisfree

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Everything posted by Innisfree

  1. I had not heard it before the gender thread, but this was the association I made. I thought maybe it was formed by analogy with liebling. To me, that sounds like a nice sort of pet name for beloved young relatives.
  2. Thinking more about this... I think many of us are diverging today not just in "thinking/choices/world views" but in our experiences. [Drat, now the italic function won't shut off! But to continue...] I think the experiences often come first. You say your sibling is gay. My guess is that their experiences have been very different from yours, and perhaps even more different from those of the relatives who won't let their girls attend college. Our society has become so fragmented in so many ways. Location, education, friends, careers, all bring such different influences. Since you're struggling with this, and since you love your sibling and their child very much, maybe it would help you bridge that divide to ask them, openly and non judgementally, about the experiences that influenced their decision about their child's gender.
  3. I am far from being really personally experienced with this. My only experience is in the case of one child who was in various extracurricular activities with my kids. The child had a gender-neutral name and wore clothes and hair which would typically be seen as very masculine or very feminine interchangeably, apparently as the child chose. I had no inside knowledge, but wondered if there was an intersex situation, because a sibling was dressed in gender-typical clothes. Instead of pronouns, people just used the child's name. The child always seemed happy and fully involved in activities as far as I could see; other kids did not appear to single that child out in any particular way, but then the situations I observed were well supervised. I've lost contact with them in recent years, but my feeling was always that the parents were handling a potentially very difficult situation with grace and respect for their child. The situation you describe is different from my guess above, but I mention it simply to show that a child may experience having an undefined gender without harm, depending on the care taken by those around them. Editing to add that I'd assume, in the case you describe, the child would probably express a preference fairly soon.
  4. Thanks for trying, Melissa, whatever happens. The link I just posted is the error message itself. I'm not sure if I can link my notification list, but I'll try. That was where I found proof the post had actually existed. Third notification from the top on this page: (Sent link by pm)
  5. https://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/679027-workload-reality-check-needed-please/?do=findComment&comment=8207793
  6. I started a thread on the High School board, I believe, in late September. The title was "Workload reality check needed, please." Today I was trying to go back to re-read answers but had great difficulty finding the post. When I look through my own notifications I can see that people responded, but I'm unable to reach the thread. Instead, a notice appears saying "You do not have permission to view this content." It lists error code 2F173/K. Is there anyway I can view the thread again? I'll be very grateful for help.
  7. Seconding all this. Even a small water garden might be possible on his balcony, using something like a whiskey barrel planter with a liner inside or various other designs. He may not have to give up having a pond entirely. https://www.amazon.com/Water-Gardening-Containers-Small-Indoors/dp/0806981989/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1540349576&sr=8-1&keywords=Water+gardening+in+containers
  8. Whatever you choose, use the same surface throughout the home, no changes which produce bumps like moving over a threshold or from smooth flooring to carpet. Those sorts of things were murder for my mother when she used a walker. I've heard cork can be good, but no personal experience with it. I'd want something with a little 'give' if possible, and like AM said, not rock hard, but not slippery either.
  9. Katie, I'm so happy for you and him. What a great success for him.
  10. In regard to the daytime barking to greet people, we've had pretty good luck training dogs to avoid that. We start by teaching the "place" command, and then practice taking turns knocking on the door while one of us is inside. As soon as the outside person knocks (you could substitute opening the door), the inside person sends the dog to his place, then rewards for sitting quietly. The idea is to repeat this ad nauseum, until the dog is completely bored by the knock at the door/person coming home, but knows good behavior means staying quietly in his spot. The person coming in needs to completely ignore the dog unless or until he is quietly sitting in his place. In your case, since you can just reach to touch the dog from your bed, I'd set up the situation like that. Train the dog to be in that spot. Reward him for going to it and staying there. And have different family members, and later guests if possible, come in and rattle the doors, etc, until that whole scenario becomes profoundly boring for the dog. You might need to keep some treats by your bed to reward late-night quiet behavior for a while.
  11. Hooray! I'm so happy for you all. Hope it's a great experience for him.
  12. So, I have one answer based on the "mixed breed" part, and another answer based on the "puppy" part. Most of the dogs I've had have been mixed breeds. Certainly there are differences between them, but the ones I've had have been fantastic dogs. Some have been harder to train than others, some more likely to be bored and get into mischief than others, but essentially they've been good-natured dogs we were all happy to live with. We've been pretty flexible too, though, and more amused than anything else to discover one had a herding dog background and another was more protective and so on. I don't think a puppy is a good choice if you don't want to be looking after it-- and almost inevitably you will. Legos and such are another good reason to go for an adult dog. I'd say you would be justified in insisting on an older puppy or adult dog whose temperament can be evaluated. But I agree that you should plan on a young lab chewing everything! Honestly, I'd look at middle-aged dogs. They can arrive already housebroken, past the chewing stage, ready to settle in easily.
  13. I'm predisposed to like the idea, because my dd with ASD is very interested in dog training, so I've looked into educational opportunities there. Having said that, though, does your ds have any actual training experience? I know you have a dog. Has he shown interest in training or taken part in it? One reason I ask is that dealing with her dog can overwhelm dd, even though he is the center of her existence. Your son is six years older and probably has way more frustration tolerance and emotional regulation than dd has, so maybe this isn't an issue for him. For dd, though, dealing with a really smart, utterly devoted, but sometimes uncomprehending and uncooperative dog can put her right at the edge of her ability to cope. She keeps coming back to try again, with lots of good moments they both enjoy. We keep signing them up for classes at the local obedience club. But-- it can be hard, and there are much lower-cost ways of seeing if this is a real interest. For dd, I will hesitate to think of this as a career option unless her frustration tolerance improves a lot in the next few years. Ymmv. I'm interested in the class, too, if you don't mind linking details. We won't be doing it now, but as I said, I've been trying to feel out the business a little. I'll try to come back and link a few other options I've seen, with the caveat that I really don't know if they're any good. We haven't gotten that far yet.
  14. Many, many hugs. I hope the new housing arrangements bring some peace for you and the younger kids.
  15. Yes! This, exactly, was my experience. Maybe from my teachers' points of view there was already teaching to the test, but from my point of view it was invisible. The classes were just like the classes from grades 9-11, and no one really thought about taking the APs until spring. Zero extra work. I graduated hs in 1984, fwiw. And *this* is like dd's experience. The AP course is taking about three times more time than the two actual college courses she's in combined. Things like peer reviews eat up a lot of time and seem like busywork to me, though I'm sure there is some learning from the process. i appreciate hearing all of your experiences.
  16. I've just seen this thread today. So glad he's home and there is a plan for moving forward. You, your son and your family will all be in my thoughts.
  17. Poor little guy. Either explanation seems plausible to me; younger dd was a runner when she was small, so like others, I know how easily a child can get in dangerous situations. I'd hoped this story would end differently. ?
  18. Talk to me about AP tests and classes. Many years ago, in the '80s, I was in a very good high school which did not have a single class labeled AP. We took four years of English, and then some of us took the AP exams, and a reasonable percentage did quite well. Same idea for other subjects, though I don't think there were as many subjects offered as now. I look at what Dd16 is doing in AP Latin, and has done in other AP classes, and I'm not delighted. The whole class seems to be teaching to the test. This seems like a fundamental shift. Am I misremembering? It seems like the philosophy used to be that a good student, in a good class, would simply have mastered this material. We were tested without all the constant practicing of particular forms; it was just a sort of summary test of our general mastery. Have the AP tests gotten so much harder that this approach is really necessary? What's up with it? I'm not entirely convinced of the pedagogical value.
  19. Given the allergies, it might be worthwhile to try fostering for a bit before adopting. You might also get a better sense of what life with a cat would be like, though I agree personality makes a huge difference. I've had cuddly lap cats and aloof energetic cats, though even the latter wanted to be near people, even if they didn't want to purr on a lap.
  20. Yes. Thank you. This is exactly what I needed to hear.
  21. Honestly, I probably just need to explain to the instructor. Writing things out and getting responses clarifies things until I feel silly not to have seen this from the start, lol. At first there were multiple reasons for me to be there. The classes require it because of dd's age and undoubtedly liability concerns; also, I know dd doesn't always do well under stress; also, a bunch of dogs in the room. At this point dd is pretty comfortable there, having taken multiple classes, but she's not always good at speaking up and explaining things if she needs to. Plus, the instructor changes with each six-week session, so they don't really have a chance to get to know her well. We have a better understanding of how her dog behaves around others now, too, but the liability issues and facility rules remain. Otherwise I'm just there for emergencies, essentially. I do need to be in the room, and there isn't much space away from the others (lots of crated dogs around the room), but I'll just have to excuse myself and then look extremely busy. The laptop is a stroke of genius, thanks!
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