The big revelation for me reading this book was to store things by where they are easier to put away, not where they are easier to take out. For example, I always stored my pens and markers at my desk because I thought that is where they 'belonged.' But I never write or draw at my desk because my computer takes up so much space. So I would take it all over to the dining room table to work, then just leave it there. Doing this book, I realized we have a ton of space in the dining room area that we don't even use, so I moved my art stuff there. Now, it is very easy to put back and I am more likely to tidy up after myself. My very old-fashioned mother was horrified---that is the pantry! You can't put art supplies in the pantry!---but it is working for me. My husband's computer broke and he has been using an old laptop we have. He sits at the table with it. I love getting out my art stuff and sitting with him while he putters :)

My husband was computer programming when he was 5 years old. He always said what if you have a kid who is destined to be the next Bill Gates and you were the one who suppressed it? It turns out he has the model of child who is not terribly interested. He'll play with it in restaurants, on the train etc. but if we are at home and there are toys, he is much more interested. His sister has a kid who is obsessed with the ipad, and if we had that kid, we would certainly restrict it. But we are not going to set up an arbitrary rule just for the sake of having one, in the absence of an issue.

I think sometimes, people tend to over-compartmentalize these things. At your daughter's age, reading lots of books (and math) really are the most important things. Science does not need to be a special subject; a science-themed book can be part of a reading program, and you'll just do a hands-on activity instead of a reading response activity. Ditto art---start with a story, and then instead of doing journal writing or a worksheet, do a craft related to the story. Just as an FY since I work in a school, here is what a typical day of full-day kindergarten looks like: 8:30- drop-off on playground on playground any time between now and 9 am. They go in at 9. 15 minutes or so of settling, unpacking bags etc. and then morning announcements. 9:15-9:45 and 9:45-10:15. This will be either a double language or math block, or a single block and a specialty period. The two classes share a classroom so there is some effort made to schedule the specialties so they get the classroom alone. This means that while I teach French to one class, the other one has gym or music. I get them four times a week, so between that and gym and music, there are usually two specialty blocks a day. They also get art once a week. 10:15-10:45. 15 minutes for recess and 15 minutes for snack. 10:45-11:15 and 11:15-11:45. Same as the morning; a double block, or a single block and a specialty. 11:45-12:00. Get ready for lunch. Read a book or have free play if you are ready early 12:00-1:00 half an hour for lunch and half for playground Afternoons, there are four more blocks but these typically do not involve specialties since there are half-day children who would miss it. So usually, they do math or language (whatever they did not do in the morning), sometimes a special subject like cultural studies or science, some free play time and that's it. The language block typically involves a read-aloud with a corresponding activity, and phonics work (spelling rules, practice with levelled readers, printing activities and so on). The math involves working through a structured program. If your child is getting specialties elsewhere and you are using a boxed math program, all you need to prep yourself is language. You could use something like Reading A-Z or Raz-Kids for levelled reading, get a tablet app to practice phonics and word blends, and then focus the rest of your language arts time on a daily story, with a journal response afterward.

My half-sister (just turned 27!) very much has this attitude. She also has a very sheltered life living with my dad, has her own room which is in an isolated part of the house so she can pretend it is an apartment, has been coddled due to 'stress issues' and so on. I hate to say it, but I think this family life is part of the problem. My SO has a cousin who is just a bit younger who grew up with a single mom on social assistance, who was told where she could live, for how long, how much money she would have to spend on food and clothing and medical, and a whole host of other things. She has had an object lesson in the kind of life options she herself will have if she doesn't make herself worth enough in the marketplace to buy her own choices. She will have her life chosen for her by others, like her mom did. So the result is a girl with an incredible work ethic who goes to school full-time and has two jobs. She has a motivation to better herself. I don't think my sister was given any such motivation, I'm afraid. And I don't think she'll go as far in life as this cousin will.

Maybe sit down with her and plan some meals before you start to plan the money? When I was that age, breakfast at home was super-easy, I would just toast something and put peanut butter on it, then have juice or milk to go. Usually once a week I ate out on the campus food court, the rest I packed and brought. I was not always good about including a fruit or vegetable :) Once you know what she plans to be buying every week, it will be easier to price out how much money she needs. Add $10-20 a week to that if you want to subsidize her eating out with friends (she may not be able to afford much else by the way of entertainment; coffee out with friends may be a small price to pay for her mental health and social life!) and you're good to go.

Maybe time to try some positive reinforcement here? Explain to them, once, that there is only so much money for these things and that people (adults, too!) have to buy their needs before their wants. Tell them you do enjoy buying them little treats sometimes, but that you can't do it when they whine and fuss. If they do want today's outing to maybe be a treat one, they have to help you get what's on the list and not whine about anything else. If they do, it's a automatic 'no buy day.' Then the first time you go out and they do follow this plan, buy them a little treat to reinforce it. After that, you can explain to them that they should not expect a treat every time they are good. But they can expect a little one sometimes (a bag of Skittles is a different thing from a toy!) And they can expect that if they ever do whine and fuss, they will absolutely be ruining their chances at getting one for that day!

I think it would depend on the situation. I lived with my mother for about four months as an adult because I had gone to graduate school overseas and had just come back. There was a lag time where I could not yet get a job because I had to get my credentials certified by a licensing board before I could work (all new graduates in my field have to do this; you file the paperwork and then have to wait). So my mother did not charge me rent or anything like that---but it was understood that as soon as my credential came through I would get a job, and leave. And I did :) I have always been very responsible with money and I read a great book on this and one of the points they make is that if you have an employed adult child living with you and you do not charge them rent, you are doing them a disservice because you are getting them accustomed to a level of disposable income that they will never have again. That can set them up for bad money habits later. What I would do in that situation is charge them rent, but then put it into a bank account and perhaps give it back to them later if they wanted to use it for a downpayment on their own home, or to start their own retirement savings account. I don't think it is 'mean' to charge them money if you are doing it to help them learn necessary adult habits.

My stepfather is named Irwin, and I do not see that one coming back. On the other hand, I know an eight-year-old Seymour, so who knows...

I have a sock plan so I never have to sort them or deal with strays. Basically, I threw away all my socks and went out and bought 20 pears of identical cheap-ish ones. They all match. I just pull them out of the laundry and bundle them in twos. If one rips, or gets lost or damaged, I keep it in the drawer to match with the next one to lose a mate. When I get to the point where I have worn out enough of them to not be able to go a full laundry cycle, I throw away whatever is left and go buy a new master set. It is a bit of an expense at first, I admit, but it is worth a $30 sock shopping trip every couple years to avoid having to sort them all after laundry.

We are vegetarian and I do all the cooking/food prep. We have been slowly moving to more healthful and less processed stuff but it's hard. We have good intentions but boxed pasta is so easy... We usually have: BREAKFAST - Rolled oats for my oatmeal, and jarred applesauce to stir in - Rice milk and frozen mixed fruit for smoothies - Muffin mix for his preferred breakfast - Rye bread in case I want toast and peanut butter LUNCH - Several flavours of peanut butter, and multigrain bread for his sandwiches - Canned or jarred soup for my lunches - I usually buy one prepared treat a week (gyoza, frozen burrito, spinach pastry) for my lunches - Apples, grapes or strawberries, baby carrots for sides - Veggie chips or crackers, sometimes hummus for snacks - I keep several varieties of canned beans frozen in single-serve amounts to use in pastas or salads DINNER - Boxed macaroni and cheese - Whole wheat pasta and tomato sauce - Boxed couscous or rice mixes - Bagels or tortillas for sandwich dinners - Daiya cheese shreds for tortilla pizzas - Minute brown rice - Frozen mixed vegetables - Fresh peppers for side dishes

Yael, thank you so much for your kind reply. This has been an interesting thread for me.

I have a question :) I am a conservative Jew and engaged to someone who grew up on the reform side. One of the things which has stopped him from going further was that he was a kidney transplant recipient and perceived some prejudice from a handful of more observant Jews on the issue of organ donation. i guess he was told by someone that he was not really a Jew anymore because he received a donor kidney from a non-Jewish person, and he was told his dad could not have a proper Jewish burial because when his first kidney failed, he got a second one from his dad, and so his dad is not 'complete' now or something... My mother's rabbi, who is a conservative rabbi, was horrified to hear this story. He said that even the Orthodox community has softened their stance on organ donation, that saving a life is such a high mitzvah that it supersedes everything else, that a rabbi would certainly accord both my guy and his dad full Jewish honours etc. But I think the incident made a huge mark on him, and he has resisted doing too much Jewish stuff. I am just wondering how prevalent an attitude you think the one he encountered is...

Okay, back after reading more :) Firstly, I can't speak for Ravin (or any others who posted) but I know that my sister has a very good radar for how people mean their questions. If you are asking because you are a nosy parker, she can tell the difference between that and someone who is asking because they genuinely do not understand and truly want to. And she will respond very warmly to that latter group, even if the question is very personal or does not use the right terminology. Similarly, she can tell the difference between people who use the wrong pronouns because they don't respect the way she wishes to identify, and those who are truly doing their best and get a little confused sometimes :) And it CAN be confusing :) It is not offensive to say so, because it is the truth. I remember the trouble my stepdad had with her partner, who did not self-identify as either gender. He just could not figure out which pronouns to use. I remember this one conversation he had with me where he used all these hypothetical situations to try and pin it down, for example, if people had a business meeting with A, would they come out and say I had a business meeting with HIM or I had a business meeting with her? I told him they would probably say 'I had a business meeting with A' and nearly drove him crazy. He was fine with using whatever the appropriate pronoun was, he just needed somebody to give him a clear answer and he could not figure out what it might be.

Hi Ravin. I hope you don't mind me interjecting here---I am not a trans person myself, but my sister is, and I thought it might be nice to not leave you all alone in here :) A few responses to some questions based on my experiences... 1) On keeping marriages. My sister wound up not keeping her marriage, but there were a few things going on there. She had already begun the transition when she met her partner, but had not had the surgery yet. It turned out her partner was not comfortable with her having the surgery, and that turned out to be a deal-breaker for them both. She also feels in hindsight like she jumped into that relationship too soon into her transition and didn't really have enough time to know herself and experience herself as a woman first. I think she will likely take some time on her own now before she goes into a different relationship. 2) On the legality of ID. This was an interesting one for her. Her partner did not self0identify as either gender, but was biologically a woman. She was biologically a man but self-identified as a woman. So their marriage, which to the world appeared to be a lesbian one, was actually a legal heterosexual marriage since one of them was technically a man and one of them was technically a woman. I think she has a few concerns about the ID issue though because the US will change her green card, but I think Canada will not change a birth certificate, so she may have trouble getting a passport once she has the surgery. But it's been awhile since we talked about this so I could be wrong. 3) Referring to gender in past events. Generally, we use the current gender to refer to generalities (e.g. I will say 'my sister and I' even if I am referring to childhood) but will refer to the male identity if it is a specific event. For example, I was looking at some old photos we found at my grandparents house and there were some pictures of both of us at our bar/bat mitzvah. So when my partner, who has never met my sister (because she lives far away) but knows the whole story, asked who the pictures were, I said those were pictures of Matthew's bar mitzvah because that's what they were :) But I will say things like 'my sister and I used to go to summer camp' even though she was technically my brother at the time. 4) How early you 'know.' This is a tricky one because often, from what my sister tells me, you know that *something* is different very early on, but you lack the emotional maturity and the vocabulary to properly make sense of and articulate what it is. I remember the parents wringing their hands and having conversations about something being 'wrong' or 'different' about my sister almost as far back as I can remember, but I don't know that anyone pinpointed what exactly it was (my sister included) until much later. I did later find out that she had been caught doing some cross-dressing a few times, and a few other things, which I did not know about because I was much younger than her. In hindsight, certain things made perfect sense but we just didn't have a way to say it or explain it then. 5) The movie Transamerica. I am really grateful for this movie. I have seen many other movies on this theme and they were all a) really depressing and b) if not from the POV of a trans person, from the POV of the lover or mate of one. I appreciate those perspectives, but Transamerica was the first movie I saw which was not gloomy and depressing, and which portrayed a little of the experience I felt as a sibling. There is this one scene where she goes to her parents house and her sister opens the door, takes one look at her and just bursts out laughing. And it turns out they have a loving and sweet relationship and her sister totally has her back, but there is also that element of 'well, it IS hard, and I can love you all I want to but it still doesn't make it NOT hard...' Speaking personally, I am very comfortable with my sister now and we have a good relationship, but I had a lot of trouble with the time period where she was in that awkward not looking like she did but not looking like a woman either. I was fine with how she looked before, and fine with how she looks now, but the in-between stage was really hard for me. Anyway, I have not read the second page yet. I may have more later...

I struggle with this too...my spouse believes that we shouldn't limit technology because if we happen to have the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs on our hands, we should not stifle that. We have not had huge issues yet because my stepson is only 3, but what we would do is have a list of things they need to do (homework, active time, whatever) and they only get the device after they've done it. If they want to spend all of their 'free' time once the other stuff is done on the device, I don't see how we could stop them given that he is against restricting that. I think the only thing we could do is limit access to the devices until the school work and active play is done.

I don't really have a personal relationship with her. He has a somewhat tricky relationship with his mother for various reasons; when we see her, the visits are usually pretty brief and I am polite and respectful with her. But I don't really speak to her on my own or have any sort of relationship with her other than seeing her at family stuff, and because of his difficulties with her, I tread carefully and try to stay out of the way.

What the Ks at my school do is a daily journal. They have the paper which is half lines and half blank and typically they have to write a one or two word answer to a prompt and then draw a picture. So, for example, the day after a field trip to the farm, they got 'At the farm, I saw...' and they had to copy it down and write an answer. Some teachers make them sound out the answer and others brainstorm possible answers first with the group and write them up on the board so the kids can pick one and copy it. Then they draw a picture to illustrate their sentence.

My older sister is transgender and came out to me when I was 17. At the time, this had never been in the media or popular culture and I had no idea what it was. What she did was take me out for lunch alone and give me a letter to read which explained everything. She sat with me while I read the letter and then answered my questions. It has not always been easy for her. There was some pretty heavy denial from my parents. They did not disown her or anything like that, but I think they felt like if she had enough therapy, they could 'cure' her out of it. There WAS some therapy, and it helped her process the transition, which is a huge adjustment for most people no matter how ready to come out they are. But the therapy was not about 'curing' her into wanting to be a boy again, and it took my parents awhile to figure that out. As for kids, what I always have been told was that they will follow your lead. If you treat it like a big deal, so will they. If you treat it like not a problem, so will they. My dad, with his at the time very young children in the house, presented it to them as strictly a medical issue i.e. that M was born with something wrong with his body which the doctors are fixing. See if you can find the books written by Jennifer Finney Boylan, they are memoirs of her transition as a parent with young kids, and with a spouse who stayed with her.

My SO has chronic kidney disease (from birth) and has been advised by his doctor to severely limit protein. We are vegetarian so that is easy to do for him---I keep flash-frozen beans of various types in the freezer to mix in at the last minute for me, and make stuff like pasta, rice bowls and sandwiches he can eat plainer. His dr is always pleased with how his tests look. But we get a lot of flack from people who find out he is vegetarian and go 'but where do you get your protein?' A lot of foods have protein anyway. Even broccoli has protein. He does get enough for his needs, but people always like to be the armchair nutrition police :-) He does get very annoyed sometimes when people who don't know his situation make judgements about if.

Only from someone I know. Our current coaches came from my SIL---they are expensive ones (she has more money than we do) and seldom used as they were in a 'spare' room in the house. So I knew they were good quality and in decent shape. She was redoing the room and offerd them to us when we moved :-)

I find that the stress it causes me to fight about this with my guy is so vastly out of proportion to the amount of effort it would take me to do it myself that it is not even comprable. We don't fight about this, period. The only one I will nag about is putting his medications away because it's a bad habit to get into with kids coming in and out. Sometimes, I do gently have a conversation---the other day, I had to spend ten of my precious getting-ready-in-the-morning minutes putting away his dishes so I could use the counter space to make our lunches. He felt bad about it when I told him because he truly had not realized it mattered. He just assumed they could stay out until he got to them and didn't realize there was a consequence---to me---if he didn't, because I physically could not use the counter unless they were put away first and since he didn't do it, I had to. As for the rest of it, the secrets have been to declutter so we have less stuff, and to give him his space to be messy. He has his own bathroom, so I don't care what happens there, and he has his own space on his side of the bed that I can't see unless I am looking right at it, so I don't care what happens there. If I am doing a big clean, I give him 24 hours notice to pick up his stuff so I can vacuum, and he complies. If he leaves stuff out in the living room (he is bad about shedding socks when he's relaxing) I will pick them up and put them on his desk, which is right there. He can leave them there if he wants to, but usually, he'll put them away before he goes on the computer. He has never commented about me leaving them there, nor have I. I think he gets the message :)

I did a review of the website for a blog I write for. I found I had some problems with the ebooks (the drop caps at the beginning of each chapter did not display correctly on any of my readers) and the website part had so many different components and areas and sections that I never did figure out how to use it...

No, because in teacher's college I remember getting a big speech about how gym, art and all the 'fun' classes are actually technically part of the curriculum, so withholding them as punishment really isn't fair. If they are supposed to be doing them as for example, their homeschool PE credit, then they are supposed to be doing them, fun or not.

We are okay, but working on it. He makes a good income, but has a chronic health condition which costs money, and is recovering from a costly divorce. In January, his payments for that will go way down, but it will probably take him the rest of the year to replenish his savings and build up a reserve fund again. I have been paying for some stuff I would not otherwise be paying for, and want to build my reserves up again too. I also am blessed to have a full-time job in a field where jobs are tight right now, but the trade-off is that my boss can get away with paying us a lot less than we should be getting because she knows we can't do better... Next year will be a recovery year, but we are in a good position---his cash flow will improve, I have become eligible via common law rules to go on his health insurance so that will save me some money, and his divorce stuff is finally taken care of. We'll be okay :)

My parents were born here. All my grandparents except one were born here, and that one died young and tragically so tends to be a bit mythologized in our family. I suppose for that reason, her ethnicity (Polish) is what I say if people ask me where my family is from 'originally.' But I don't really identify as Polish. My SO is Polish through and through though. All four grandparents were Polish, they all immigrated here as Holocaust survivors after the war, his last name is Polish and he and his cousins all identify as being of Polish ancestry even though they were born here. He is very grateful to our country for taking in his refugee grandparents and giving them a second chance at life, but he feels very strongly too that the next generation know the story of how we came to be here.