I don't tell him that he's sensitive, and I think there's a difference between "You're over-sensitive" comments, which are dismissive, and calling a child sensitive.

I'm not sure what "actively disliking" someone is, but while I get along with my FIL most of the time, i really dislike my MIL, which is definitely a problem between my husband and me. Obviously I don't say anything, but I guess it's possible he picks up on that and transfer it to his grandfather.

My five year old doesn't like his paternal grandfather. Every once in a while, he'll call his grandfather stupid behind his back, but I admonish him when he does, so it's rare, but I know this dislike is always there. My husband really wants him to have a closer relationship with his father, but my middle child's personality just clashes with his grandfather's. For example, today he got a chess set in his Easter basket. He still hasn't learned how to make all his pieces move, but his grandfather, a chess puzzle enthusiast, invites him to play with him, no handicap, and then beats him in four moves. My five year old flips out, and his grandfather gets frustrated with his bad sportsmanship. Should my five year old throw a fit about losing? No. But, honestly, I think that was pretty mean of my FIL, and he does stuff like this a lot. I talked to my husband about it, and he talks about his fond memories of the challenge of trying to beat his father at chess and how it shows my son what can be done. I can see how that might have been the intention of my FIL, but that's certainly not how my son experienced it. Any advice on how to handle a competitive FIL and a sensitive son?

What are your favorite resources for teaching a third grader how to write a book review?

I'm in my twenties. I had my ears pierced, but I let them close. However, I do think they are still pretty popular.

I love A Mighty Girl website, and I'd love to see something like that with protagonists of color. In lieu of that, I'd love to recommendations for an eight year old (excellent reader but I'd like to shy away from mature content) with protagonists of color, especially books with protagonists of color who aren't slaves. I definitely want my kids to know about slavery, but sometimes it seems like the only books with protagonists of color are slaves. What are your recommendations?

Here's a list of mostly picture books I like for American history: American Girl series Encounter by Jane Yolan Henry's Freedom Box Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom The Yankee at Seder by Elka Weber Nurse, Soldier, Spy: The Story of Sarah Edmunds Who Say Women Can't Be Doctors? Little House Series Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike Rough, Tough Charley When Esther Morris Headed West Liberty's Voice: The Emma Lazarus Story My Uncle Emily When Harriet Met Sojourner Soujourner Truth's Step-Stomp-Stride Elizabeth Stanton Leads the Way You Forgot Your Skirt Amelia Bloomer Jazz Age Josephine Players in Pigtails Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride Eleanor, Quiet No More Coretta Scott by Shange Freedom on the Menu As Good As Anybody: Martin Luther King and Abraham Joshua Heschel's Amazing March Towards Freedom

This sounds so much like my oldest. She did go to kindy , but she did not manage to make any friends. Instead, she'd come home, crying about how no one liked her. I can remember times where I went to the school and literally see not a single other child talk to her all day. We pulled her to homeschool for first. She still really struggles socially: homeschooling isn't a magic bullet, but sending her to school didn't help, either.

We've got spring fever bad. I hadn't planned to do spring break until next week (for Passover week), but the motivation to keep schooling really petered out once the weather started to get nice. We're still limping along, but the hours just drag. How do you find your motivation again when everyone just rather play outside after such a long, awful winter cooped inside?

Books such as what? I also dislike The Rainbow Fish and The Giving Tree, but I don't have strong feelings towards The Runaway Bunny...I kind of want to read it again after this thread, though.

Totes creepaballz, even knowing the back story.

We do veggie omelets and fruit OR green smoothies for breakfast. I often have a salad for lunch, slightly obsessing about the whole salad in a mason jar thing with pinterest, but that's my own weirdness. For dinner, we often have a side salad and a cooked veggie side. Snacks are generally fruit and nuts. What are you normally eating if not fruit and veggies?

We have a reverse osmosis system, and I love it.

Drawing with Children Hanging reproductions of famous art works at the child's level (we frame quite a bit of postcards since they are cheap and then we can rotate frequently) There are so many good books about children's art A well-stocked art cabinet A membership to an art museum

I shoot for a weekly poetry tea party, too, though it happens more like a few times a month. I also encourage poetry memorization. We play audiobooks of poetry kind of in the background while the kids play, and it's amazing how much of it they absorb without me formally working on it. With my eldest, once a month we memorize a poem that gets added to our memory work.

What program did you do?

I didn't think of that. If he did, it's not there now, but I definitely will ask my big kids if they took any books out of my bag when they awake tomorrow.

Since the call, I've wondered why the nanny thought it was me, why the nanny wouldn't say something if she saw someone digging through someone else's stuff, why she believes the nanny over me, what happened between the first and second call that made her so adamant... I wish I had thought more clearly on the phone to ask the other mom. I'm not angry: anxious about the gossip, a little hurt that she so eagerly believed the nanny.

I have no clue. I wish I had asked.

I've been thinking about this. It would feel great to meet the nanny if the nanny realized that it was someone else, but how would I handle the situation if she kept insisting that it was me?

It's a popular park. I have no idea who the nanny is.

What would you do if someone accused you of stealing? I saw a mom at the park yesterday. She lives in my neighborhood. We've hung out a few times, but we aren't really friends. She called me last night and told me she had lost a couple books and wondered if I knew what had happened to them. I didn't, and I told her that. Less than half an hour later, she calls me back, telling me she knows I took the books. A nanny at the park told her that she had seen me go through her stuff, which I hadn't, and we had left abruptly, which was true: one of my kids kept getting into it with a different group of kids and had gotten aggressive and I felt it was best to leave ASAP. She told me that if I just gave them back, she wouldn't call the cops. I repeatedly told her that I didn't have the books, and eventually told her that if she felt she had to call the cops, then that's what she should do. No cops have shown up. I'm not sure how to handle the situation. She's part of a relatively close-knit group of moms in our neighborhood. I'm not really friends with any of them, but one of my kids likes to play with that group of kids. I don't want this to negatively impact his friendships or my relationship with my other neighbors. How would you handle this?

Well, that awful movie came out a few years ago... I still can't help but get my hopes up.

My house is $150,000, and nowhere near that nice. Of course, we mostly bought here for the great school district that we don't use.

You can't make anyone happy. That's not my job or responsibility. However, as a major part of his life, I can certainly make it easier to be happy, and yes, I do think that's my job.