We had the perceived benefits thing too. We used to make 6 flags day a family thing. Then things became split. That sort of thing. I do not feel we had a choice though. My daughter's mental health issues were too much to handle at home so she went to public school at 13 yrs old.

Our main problem was some public schoolers would give us a hard time about home schooling. It never really went the other way. I doubt I will do the split schooling thing again.

I would say "since the beginning" and leave it at that.

You are not being selfish at all. It takes a lot of work to dress everyone up to travel to someone's house and have a picture. She can take the picture on another day. Sorry..I know my answer is late. But for future reference..that is my answer.

You got yourself in a hard one. The lesson here is..never ever test other people's children! Public schools are barely teaching spelling. My son is barely on grade level for Spelling Workout, but won the spelling bee for his grade at public school. I would imagine back in 1915, kids were even more advanced.

You don't need to make the stockings expensive. All my children get the same candy in their stockings. This year, oldest child (20 yrs old) got nice socks and a few other things. I even stuck in a little Lego toy.

Not allowed here.

My niece on my husband's side preferred boy type clothes and dark colors. She liked anime and - con conventions and would never wear or have anything "girlish." She was guy characters at these -con conventions. Some people kept saying she was transgendered. Some even claimed she wanted a sex change operation. She never told me this. But these are things others assumed on the outside. She is a senior in high school now (not from my birth family I have spoken of). She has a boyfriend. She still has no interest in girly hair or manicures or pedicures or tons of makeup. Does not mean she is or ever was transgendered. Even girls can have these preferences. People should stop with the "adult" labels and let people grow up free of labels. She hasn't done anything wrong. She is just being her and there is nothing sexual or gender identity about this. Anyone remember the 80's when the style for business women was suits and ties that looked like men? Was that the 80's? Anyway..did not make all those women "transgendered." Or when men had ruffles on their clothes long ago, did not make them transgendered either. When the media publishes stories on Shiloh, they are not asking her how she feels. They do not even know her. They just want a story they can put out there that others will purchase. That is it. I wish the media would see children are hands off and leave them in peace.

I did not vote, the choices seemed confusing. But, children that young frequently experiment with other names. And "real boys" can like pink and pretty stuff and "real girls" can prefer pants and climbing in trees. I think that the big deal being made of Shiloh's phase right now is going to harm her in the end. Maybe she will be transgendered in the end. But perhaps the girl who wears pretty dresses and frills will be transgendered and Shiloh will not be. But simply wearing what Shiloh choses to wear does not make her a boy, or a different gender. Boys and girls are not defined by their interests or style of dress. I wish people would stop sexualizing it all and would let children be children, including all the different experimenting with whatever direction they want to go.

I have had to add extra blankets. And I do not usually use polyester, but adding an extra polyester comforter on top of my regular one works.

Sadly, same here. My daughter has a lot of issues, which I have posted about. Our time and days are so much happier. We are so much more relaxed. The kids who can talk have come to me on their own to tell me please don't let her back, they are way happier. The younger kids are unusually giggly and happy these days. I am now worried she will come back! In this case, I need to think about the other kids, not just her. She is an adult now. I look back over the last 18 yrs and it has been hard. I am glad her biodad still takes her! I guess he could legitimately not bother. I hope you got some sleep!

Raspberry Pi for the oldest. That was I think the best hit this year.

I actually do not eat when I am upset and I have lost weight. It has been constant drama with my daughter since August. I have been pregnant since July. I lost 20 pounds, not from throwing up, but because I can't eat when I am too upset. I should add, my stress level has gone with with daughter gone. Seriously. Might be hard to believe. But even the kids have approached me to tell them how much she always upset them and how happy they are that she is gone. I know I am not supposed to admit that I am glad we had this break. But, I am looking to make other arrangements for her when she wants to come back. I heard she is already looking to come back, but, yeah...my stress level has been extremely high for some time with her around. And now she has been gone 8 days and everyone is so much more relaxed here. Even the 20 yr old says this is the first time he has enjoyed being here in a long time. He is even talking about moving back home and attending school from here because there is so much less stress here. Believe it or not, we are fun peeps to be around! And kind of silly too. Even the youngest children laugh so much, not kidding, that I have found it hard to talk on the phone for the last two days. People who try to call here to say Merry Christmas have been asking if the kids are on a sugar high or something because the littles are laughing so much. Our family dynamics have changed, a lot, in the last 8 days. Oh, and I had to see the OB earlier this week. The OB actually asked what had changed in my life, I look the happiest they have seen me this entire pregnancy. I know some will think I am rotten for being happier, but I am. It was a pressure cooker with her here.

Usually, you do not actually pay until the house is done. You put down a deposit and have a contract. They build it. When it is done, you close just like you would with an existing home.

I wish his prof would stop saying fix all this and you will be good. I am glad he is encouraging, but this was the second semester of this. I wish he would say "you have had a second semester and did not correct this, perhaps computer science is not for you. You should consider other majors."

He imagines if he transfers to a state school, it will be easier. But I imagine it will not be.

He forwarded me the email from his prof...... There were several things you could have done to improve your performance this semester 1. Do all the homework and start it early. You got better on this at the end of the semester, but you missed/did poorly on assignments in the beginning of the semester and this didn’t help. 2. Attend all of the classes. Because the Core classes don’t have a textbook, there is no place that you can go to get resources aside from the notes and class. Moreover, in class, I often cover material that isn’t on the slides or is vaguely described in the slides, but the details or examples are presented in class. Showing up late and missing class can kill you on these things. 3. Don’t take shortcuts when answering questions on tests. The biggest thing which kills you on tests is that you’ll come up with your own shorthand for answering a question, which kind of works but it omits all of the steps to arrive at your answer. So, if your shorthand isn’t correct or if you make a mistake in one of the steps that you did in your head your answer becomes completely wrong. As a result, you get no partial credit on that question. I often write questions that are very difficult to get 100% correct; however, they are fairly easy to get 80% correct. So, if you don’t show your work and you miss the answer I have no idea if you just guessed or if you just missed a bit early on. If you can change these three behaviors, I think you’ll be good going forward.

One of the CS classes I referred to was called discrete math. He got a D or a D+ in it.

I am not certain. He had the same prof for each class he got those low grades. And when he asked the prof after the first class, the one he got the F in, the prof mentioned detail and such. But then said many struggled with it and about half the students flunked. So then, I wonder if it is the prof. I do not think half the students in a class should flunk. Does that sound right? But it did mention him not redoing one assignment where he was given the chance. That alone should not have done it. His teacher from AP computer science was a graduate from Texas A&M in computer science and he said my son was great at it and he thought my son would do well. But I also think my son perhaps thought he could skate by a little bit....or a lot bit. But I do not know. I had assumed it was just my son. Until the prof said in the email that about half flunked.

Lettuce, yes. Meat, no.

It was the day after my daughter left so I had not eaten or drank in the last 24 hrs basically. I had been crying too. My potty was orange I was so dehydrated. I wonder if that ran my numbers up.

I am unsure who the golden child in the family is because of our dynamics. My older sister is my half sister who my mom abandoned at birth. But she got her back later, lost her to foster care, got her back, etc. She graduated top of her class, National Merit, did everything right. I did all the same stuff. But there was this hate relationship from my parents (my dad would be her step dad I guess) because my sister had to be perfect for them all the time or they unleashed their anger on her. When she was living with them, she had to clean the entire house, pay for any food, take care of the younger children, she was a slave. All that while keeping things up at school. I did not realize this until we were older, but she gave up graduation with honors in high school to graduate early because my parents demanded she do so much work. In her case, she is a high strung perfectionist. She doesn't break the law or have financial problems. She earns good money in fact and is frugal. But she has extensive health problems and spends tons of time at the doctor which I suspect is more about her way of coping. And while I rarely speak to her now, she justifies the abuse with excuses like having more than one child is too hard to handle so abuse in inevitable. Things like that. She never married or had kids because she did not want to do to her kids what was done to us. It is sad. So she has this huge emotional baggage, that she has let destroy a lot of things in her life. And she never lets go of it. I do not know if she would be called the golden child, because while SHE did everything right and a lot of people saw it (I was even the little sister who imitated everything she did) my birth parents did not do right by her. But my brother, one of the favorite children, who really was not a good person when we were growing up, was very spoiled. My birth mother would brag on and on about him. My birthdad would call him "number one son." (although my birth dad seriously abused him, it was such a mixed message for him). He was a mediocre student growing up, but my birth parents bragged on and on about him all the time, even though he partied, did not do anything worth mentioning academically, and so on. My older sister and I were top of our classes and both earned National Merit (but it was the midwest, cut offs are lower there) and did a ton else. As an adult, my brother did get his degree and a masters degree. But he barely functions. He is struggling with pain med addiction. He goes to multiple doctors (mostly pain doctors, but others too) and gets a variety of drugs and takes them. I do not know anything about what is going on now, as his addiction issues were way too much in the past and we cut them off, but he was doing narcotic patches last I knew, in addition to other drugs. He has not been able to move on in life. He lives near my birth mother. I have not seen him in a long time, but back when I did, he would just sit around and say he was in pain and needed more medication. He used to call me for rides to doctors an hour away, because he did not have enough drugs from closer by ones (and he does not live close by, he lives about 20 minutes away maybe) but I refused to take him. So apparently, my birthparents falling all over him and building him up did not do him any good. But then again, being built up by toxic people and buying in to it I guess would make one...toxic? And my baby sister cannot hold a job. She could not raise her children much of the time. She is in the process of being fired again. One of her high school aged daughters moved out a while ago to live with her boyfriend. She got caught with drugs at school and got sent to DAEP (an alternative school for disciplinary issues). Now she is in a different alternative school and I do not even know if she attends there now. The other got sent to DAEP, right after 9th grade started, for selling drugs at school. Now she is in a different alternative school too. Thing is, my birthmother fawned over her too. She was always in trouble in school growing up, while birthmother would fall all over her and say it was not her fault. Now, as an adult, she is accountable for nothing. I do not know who the golden child is. I am definitely the hated one. But, my older sister, not sure what she would be. not the golden child. Being spoiled and catered to and falsely built up did not help the younger two at all. All four of us were in foster care.

Don't re open things. I did the decoy account thing too. But really, I wish I had protected my children better. I regret that I even allowed the once a year, while we were present interaction.

I would have tossed it.

Cold water Creek. But I think they were closing, but then got bought out and were going to re-open. I do not know if they re-opened.