So you use a plastic cover underneath this mattress protector?

We have at least a couple children's twin mattresses that desperately need to be replaced. Every single mattress has a waterproof mattress protector on it, but leaks still happen. I don't know if I am just buying cheap mattress protectors, or if I expect to last through more washes than they are intended to, but between potty leaks and midnight pukes I find my mattresses aren't nearly as protected as I thought they were and moisture still makes it through to the mattress. Before I buy new mattresses, I need serious protection. Is wrapping them in plastic a realistic long term option? I seriously need to know.

I don't mean what chores they are capable of doing at certain ages, though that is part of it. What are their daily chores? And how do you keep track of it or keep them accountable? Do you use incentives? If so, what? I just had baby #7 and I am feeling pretty overwhelmed. We have a pretty good evening "dinner chore" routine where we divide and conquer and clean up dinner and the main areas of the house. And we do Saturday chores. But we are lacking other daily maintenance routines. I am coming out of my postpartum fog and wanting to get routines established when school starts. (I will have 3 kids in B&M school, 2 in homeschool, a preschooler and an infant permanently attached to my boob. 😜 )

I think we're lacking context for this tweet. I don't think it means what you think it does.

Sometimes you can see potential. I fell in love with DH because he was a genuinely nice guy. We'd had enough shared experiences that I knew that about him, but not much else. He hadn't started college yet and when we started dating he didn't have a job. He was everything my brother and SIL advised against. Lol. But he did go to college and has been a fantastic provider for our family and he is still such a nice guy that I couldn't be happier with. 🙂

I was talking to a recently divorced male relative who was telling me that "all the hot girls on tinder" got so much attention from guys that they basically wouldn't respond to any guy. It was obvious that he was not interested in any woman who was less than "hot." I was pretty stunned by how shallow he sounded. This relative, while a hobby body builder, I wouldn't consider super attractive either. He's a nice enough guy. But you would think that just having divorced a very attractive woman he'd realize that maybe the qualities that make for a good marriage are a little less superficial. Or not....

That's why a stick shift is called a millenial anti-theft device. 😉

I agree with others about only keeping basic items. Denim or khaki shorts that match with all the shirts is so much easier than sets of clothing that only match each other. Especially when kids dress themselves. 😅

We have gotten a lot of hand me downs over the years and I am so grateful for all of it. Thankfully storage space is not an issue right now. But like others, when hand me downs come in, I immediately sort and get rid of anything that I know we will not use. I don't feel bad about tossing worn out items because we have plenty. We get mostly boy HMDs which is fantastic because I have 5 boys. In some sizes I have a ton of stuff and i hesitate to get rid of any of it because I know how hard boys are on clothes. Only so much survives after each boy has worn it. As soon as the youngest boy or girl outgrows a size, I quickly donate it so I don't have to store it. Our budget isn't as tight as it once was, but it is still worth it to me to spend the time sorting and storing HMDs. I feel like very little of our budget goes to clothing, which is no small thing with 7 kids!

No. He's military. Ny dad and brothers have had full beards off and on over the years, before it was trendy to do so.

Can you build some walls? Seriously. Some people take walls out to make open floor plans in houses that previously weren't. Maybe you could add a couple to redefine the rooms?

One thing that still upsets me about my mom's oncologist's optimism is that none of us were willing to be the Debbie Downer and ask, "well, what if you die?" Nobody wanted to be the one to say out loud that she might not get better, even though many of us were thinking it. I wish we had spent those years helping her tell her life story or explaining to us the stories and sentiments behind jewelry and her ancestors' artifacts. There are so many things I wish I could have asked her, but I didn't have the heart to let on that I thought she would die. By the time my sister sat down with her with a tape recorder to ask her stories about her life, she was in a lot of pain and it was difficult for her to remember things. But I am so glad we have at least those few recordings. I just wish the doctor had been honest with her because I felt like he let her believe that every next treatment would be the one to cure her. She battled for years. And when he finally admitted that it was over, she only had a few pain-filled weeks to live.

I absolutely believe that cancer treatments killed my mother faster than the cancer would have killed her.

I have mentioned it before in this forum, and don't have time for all the details-- my mom had cancer and in hindsight we realized her cancer had already mestastized (sp?) before she began her original chemo treatment. She never had a chance, really. I am so jaded by her experience, the misguided optimism of her oncologist, endless treatments that aggravated her cancer and made it come back worse, and her ultimate death that if *I* am ever diagnosed with cancer, but gut reaction would be to leave it alone. But that's just me.

I came to commiserate and swap stories, but you definitely have it worse than I do. I had a baby 3 weeks ago and since then my potty trained 3 year old has decided to start pooping and peeing all over the floor. So we're back to handing out potty treats. Then my 6 year old decided she wasn't a big girl and pooped and peed all over a towel in her room. At least it was on a towel. But ugh. Why is it always poop? Why?

Thank you! And your example is probably a pretty close to the kind of interactions I am referring to. I tend to let emotional words fall out and then after the fact realize there was much more level headed way of handling things that would have been more productive and not done damage to the relationship. In our most recent real-life incident, we did sit down and talk about it a day later. Emotions were still pretty raw, but DH shared how it makes him feel when I react the way I do and I realized I have hurt his feelings in ways I did not intend or expect. I am sure that being 10 days postpartum isn't helping me at all. But nevertheless, I would like to learn to temper my emotions rather than letting them control the words that come out of my mouth.

No, but this would probably be helpful.

Well, that may be a small part of it. But in hindsight I almost always can look back and recognize that there would have been a much better way of approaching the situation had I been more level-headed. In the most recent situation, I definitely handled it poorly

Well, actually, I am 10 days postpartum. But this isn't new. 😆

I am going to try to not overshare the details here because my feelings are pretty raw at the moment, but I need help communicating. DH and I get along really well 99% of the time. He is much more even tempered than I am, and very easy to be married to. He is practically perfect in every way, honestly. One thing that has always bothered me about ME, is that when I am bothered by something, I can't bring it up without getting emotional and then making a bigger mess of the situation. So usually I do one of two things-- I either dwell on it until I realize it's really not a big deal and get over it and let it pass, or I bring it up in a way that puts DH on the defensive and makes him feel like I don't trust his opinions or abilities in our marriage. I know my feelings are often valid, I just have a poor way of communicating them. I don't yell and I'm not one to make cutting remarks. It's really just a matter of not being able to let my emotions get the better of me. Sometimes giving myself time helps. Sometimes not. Sometimes I can form the dialogue in my head of much better ways to say what I need to, but when I open my mouth it comes out as emotional vomit that results in hurt feelings, or I react without thinking at all. I am trying not to give personal examples here. Are there self-help books for something like this? I don't want my emotions to make the decisions. I want to be able to understand my emotions and the reasons behind them. I want to be able to separate my emotions from the things that need to be communicated so that things can be resolved without making a bigger mess first. Does this even make sense?

I find it annoying when people send texts late at night, but not necessarily rude because they may assume it's on silent or whatever. I can't put my phone on silent though because I am the first contact for my dad's life alert.

DH's nephew has had a pretty rough childhood in general so his current dysfunction is probably a reflection of all of it. But his stepmom used to tell him that when he was 18 he was expected to move out. It broke my heart to think how his 8 or 10 year old mind interpreted that. Little kids don't know how to be independent, and that's a scary thought. Right now I have an 8 year who openly worries about how to be a grown up because he doesn't know how to drive and he doesn't know where everything is in the grocery store, etc. I know that constantly reminding him he was moving out at 18 (not my expectation) would send him into a panic. So we talk about how much time he has to learn those things and he gets lots of reassurance about the things he's already learned, etc. I don't imagine any of my kids will want to live at home forever, but I tell them right now that they can because grown up life looks scary. In the meantime we're teaching them to work hard and be independent in age appropriate ways so that someday, leaving the house is a natural next step.

We sold our house to some friends. A few months later the wife sheepishly admitted she cut down the mature apricot tree to plant a couple shade trees. I promised her I didn't care and that it was her house now, but I was a little heartbroken. They hadn't lived there long enough to even get a crop of apricots and to know how amazing and delicious they were.

I have also had really good luck with D-mannose. There was one time that the D-mannose was not working for me at all and I had to go through a couple different abx to find something to clear the UTI. From what I had read, I assumed I had something other than e. coli as well. But usually D-mannose works fast and works well. You can buy otc strips to test for utis as well.

I'd be annoyed enough that I would track down the vendor and insist they replace all the thawed out cookie dough they gave to their coaches to pass out. If I thought the team was making good money on their fundraiser I would let it slide. But you know they only get a small portion of what people spend on that over-priced cookie dough. ETA: I just realized it was the coach and not the vendor who passed it out thawed. I definitely wouldn't buy the cookie dough again and just opt to send a check in so the team gets all the money. And probably hint very strongly to the coach that they do away with fundraisers like that. The school my kids attended last year has a "required" donation that each family is supposed to give at the beginning of each school year in lieu of fundraisers that schools do each year. BEST. TRADITION. EVER.