Those are great ideas! I am storing them up for ideas for what to take to scrapbooking gatherings. I'm usually thinking along the lines of something gooey from "The Cake Doctor." :D

Our HP monitor is webcam-less. We don't skype or such. But recently we got wifi for the house, and DS 14 is playing online games with some of his friends. He wants to skype-while-playing to make it more social. I'm in favor of the social aspect, but I've heard scary stories about online predators, or even non-predators who are just people with much lower standards for adolescent behavior than I have. What are the pros and cons? Help me out, Hive!

Cool. Very cool. :001_wub:

A friend of mine (highly educated, well-informed, supportive family) had a homebirth (after two hospital births for her previous children) that went just fine. Baby was healthy. Mom had bleeding that didn't stop. She was taken to the hospital, where they refused to treat her, not by saying "We refuse to treat you" but by delaying treatment until she told them where to find her son. Because obviously, having a home birth meant her newborn was in danger and this woman was trying to kill him or was neglecting him (he was home with Daddy and doula and friends of the family). Where is the baby?!!! Tell us! We're going to send the police /DCFS to save him. No medicine for you until you tell us! So her choice was to have her newborn taken away by the police/DCFS or bleed to death. She lay bleeding on a gurney in the hallway and nearly died from preventable blood loss. The hospital denies any wrongdoing. She is looking into a lawsuit.

Talk to your pediatrician about it beforehand. You can assure him/her that your son's genitals are fine. That he is going to be upset at having his diaper taken off and being examined, and unless there is a health problem, you prefer to keep him covered up. However . . . An alternative might be to have your son wear an elastic waist diaper that would allow for a quick peek without the upset. Doctors have to be concerned about the potential for abuse. (I'm so sorry to bring this up, but I want to be straight with you.) Babies are targeted at the diaper area, and it might raise a red flag if a parent refused to allow a medical professional to even look. Working to calm your son's fears and still allow his ped to check for obvious problems will allay any worries. You're right. And the ped is also right to want to check his genital area. Try to figure out a win/win, because you both want the best for your son.

"Degree creep" is when the minimum requirements for jobs creep higher and higher. They do it 'cause they can.

I'm the only girl in the middle of two boys. Everyone always thought I was the oldest when we were kids. According to Kevin Leman's theory, that makes me a firstborn female. So in many ways I function in the family as a firstborn: responsible, nagger/leader, achiever.

I cut off the elastic part of a pair of old tube socks, and pulled them up over my toddlers' knees. Worked well as long as their legs were fat enough. Too thin, and the socks wouldn't stay up. :-)

We're heading into this territory with my younger son now. So I appreciate the opportunity to reflect on what would be good to read. The Iliad and The Odyssey, abridged is fine. All those guts spilling on the sand when the spear pierces the warrior through his left nipple gets to be more than enough, yk? Even though we are far from finished with modern times, I promised younger son that we would go back and study the ancients next year. I move so slowly that he doesn't remember our having studied them at all. :confused: Poor lamb. If they haven't read it before, either Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer. We read these as a family read-aloud last year. A few great adventure tales from H.G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, or Jules Verne. 1984 by George Orwell. Or maybe Animal Farm. For girls, I would add in a strong girl whose acquaintance hadn't been made before: Caddie Woodlawn, The First Four Years by L.I. Wilder, The Secret Garden, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Understood Betsy, Mara Daughter of the Nile (my own personal favorite at that age), and so on.

The one time I tried BC pills many years ago I spent six hours throwing up. So I wasn't anxious to use them again. Many years later, enter the Nuvaring, and my life has never been the same! I don't have a period, (had been heavy, very painful) don't have cramping, don't have mood swings. No need to remember pills. I just mark the date on my calendar in big letters when I need to replace the ring. Breakthrough bleeding is light and tapers off after the first few months. No biggie.

Great ideas are to be found in the three-in-one volume of The Tightwad Gazette, by Amy Dacyczyn (aka the Frugal Zealot). She tells you how to get paint either free or at very low cost, and how to have a paint store tint it for you. She tells you how to sew hard-wearing denim slipcovers for your sofa. Can you barter to have this done? Babysit, type, garden produce, etc., etc. As other posters mentioned, search online for Habitat for Humanity ReStore. If there is one near you, you will be well rewarded if you regularly go there, looking for sinks, cabinets, plumbing fixtures, light fixtures. Heck, I once bought a bunch of lightbulbs for .10 each. Other thrift stores have occasional treasures of rugs, curtains, slipcovers, pillows, lamps, armchairs, etc. to be had for a song. Do a map search to find the ones in ritzy neighborhoods. Does your area have Freecycle? Craigslist? Keep your eye on them.

Maria Montessori -- one of the first women to graduate from medical school in Italy. Studied how children learn with scientific rigor.

We have my MIL (90) living almost with us, in an apartment my DH designed and she paid to have built on to our house. She joins us for supper every evening. As her mental status declines, I have been taking her breakfast every morning and checking on her meds. She has always had home helpers take her out for shopping and hair appointments and such. Since she began having mini-strokes and falling, we have occupational therapists, physical therapists, nurses and such come several days a week. We just called for a morning helper to come daily. That's getting set up now. We used to do respite care for my own dear and beloved grandmother, when she lived with my brother and his large family after her Alzheimer's disease began apparent. My MIL was jealous of my grandma, because of how we all loved one another. Her relationship with her own son (my DH) is nothing like that, much less our own relationship, or that of her and the grandsons. As another poster said, if the underlying relationship is strong and loving before the move, it can work well. If the relationship was strained to begin with, moving in will definitely strain it further. We've been able to make it work, despite a lot of bumps, because MIL can afford to pay for in home caregivers. She would definitely be in a nursing home by now if she had stayed in the retirement home where she had been before. But her quality of life here is excellent.

Nope. Never had anyone give me any guff either. They're lucky. :lol:

Beef ragu with pasta and shaved Parmesan cheese. I cut the fat off a chuck roast, seared it, sauteed three onions, three cloves of garlic, then added a big can of chopped tomatoes, two cups of cheap red wine, a tsp. of oregano, a pinch of red pepper flakes, stirred and let come to a boil. If I had had some mushrooms, I'd have put them in too. Cover tightly, then into a 325 degree oven for four hours. It smells heavenly now at hour 2.5. No maintenance necessary. Serve over your favorite pasta, and shave some Parmesan over it. Done. :D

Cloth diapers. I'm a minimalist, so I never wanted to get into the discussions about new types of diapers. I just followed Amy Dacyczyn's advice in The Tightwad Gazette as to number and method. It worked great, I saved money, but more importantly I saved myself from late-night outings to the discount store in the Wisconsin winter to buy disposables when I had two in diapers. Onesies were useful and used almost every day. The onesie snap extenders were great to stretch that use. Goodwill and hand-me-downs were our source for my boys' clothing. Baby clothing doesn't wear out, it gets outgrown. heh heh. Get yourself into a loop of friends who have babies just before and after you, and you'll be set. Dr. Sears' The Fussy Baby Book was my bible, once I had found it. So many wonderful suggestions and ideas. You may have all the experience you'll need in this area, but I sure didn't. A birth ball a/k/a an exercise ball. Great for sitting during late pregnancy to maintain the proper position and encourage baby to maintain that upside-down position for birth. Also great for pregnancy sciatica according to friends, and for bouncing a fussy baby into sleep.

Blizzard conditions here in North-Central Illinois. Temps are 21 degrees, but the winds are blowing up to 30+mph.

Agreed. He's not just posting about "stuff that p*sses me off" or "how my day went." He's doing serious cultural criticism.

Link to Single Dad Laughing. He's always worth reading, and this time especially so. http://www.danoah.com/2010/10/worthless-women-and-men-who-make-them.html

Might be a bit too late for this one, but . . . look at your beloved's parents' marriage. That is how your beloved has been trained to think of marriage. For well or for ill, it is his default setting.

I wonder if the old trick that we use to clean the oven racks would work: set the racks out in the grass overnight. The hot to cold then back again makes the metal contract and expand, breaking the bond between the metal and the burned on food. It might be worth a try.;)

We bought a 2006 Kia Sedona new and it's been great. Our kids are young yet, so the room in the 3rd row hasn't been a problem, but if they were as large as adults, they would have had trouble fitting their friends in. Let's see: - difficult to change the one headlight that went out in 2010 (I keep them on in the daytime as running light for safety's sake). - middle row removable seats (not bench) are heavy and hard to lift. We got one accidentally installed improperly and it locked down, we had to have the dealer remove it and reinstall it correctly. One mechanic had just the right tool for that, he said it happens sometimes to this model. - sliding side door sometimes doesn't want to stay open, it sort of bumps into a hidden obstruction. But it's almost the whole way open, just doesn't *click* and stay open. Not all the time, just once in a while. And that's all the negatives. Positives: - everything else. :001_smile:

I copied a recipe that Kay in Cal posted in June of 2006. Chocolate Tofu Pie 1 crumb pie crust 21 oz of silken tofu (use 2 10.5 oz boxes, warning: not Nasoya brand, it's grainy) 3 T maple syrup, or honey, or agave nectar 12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips Roughly chop the tofu. Blend in blender or food process with the syrup until smooth. Melt chocolate in a double boiler or microwave. Add melted chocolate to tofu and re-blend, scraping sides. Pour into crust and chill a few hours. Kay suggests serving it with whipped cream. I just happened to have made this today, unfortunately I forgot the rule about not using Nasoya (it was on sale!) and the pie is grainy. Dang!

I agree you are doing exactly what he needs. Keeping yourself cool is key, and that depends -- as you noticed -- on your deciding that nothing else you could be doing is more important, so you don't resent the time you spend on him. It *is* your job for now. Bless you both.

Laura, I'm impressed that the kingdom of Fife ever gets that much sun! :D