Do you have dogs?

I was terrified of my dad even though never raised a hand against me and never yelled. He was just so intense, quiet and cold. As an adult I understand how much he loves me and how he did his best, but he was not cut out to be a single parent and every day was torture for both of us.

I lived on a sailboat without refrigeration for many years and even when we were in the U.S. we did not refrigerate our eggs. We never had any problems. The only thing I didn't like about non refrigerated eggs is that it is hard to keep the yoke from running when making them sunny side up.

My kids like: Los Hermanos Kratt (Youtube) El Gato en Botas (Netflix) El Autobus Magico (Youtube) Many of the feature movies on Netflix, as well as cartoons, have a Spanish language option.

I knew a psychologist who specialized in sex therapy named Dr. Cantlay. A girl I knew in high school was Laurel Anne Hardy. A friend whose last name is Shurtz told me her parents jokingly almost named her Polly Esther.

Hello lovely ladies at ITT. I am a virgin to this forum but stopped by to tell you that I admire your tenacity (231 pages!). While I am visiting your planet, I thought I would mention to Texasmama that it might be worth a visit to an Ear Nose and Throat doctor. I have a friend whose night terrors were solved by visits to an ENT and an eventual removal of her tonsils. This maybe a fluke but worth mentioning. Meanwhile ((Jean and Texasmama)). Carry on.

I just finished reading Restoration by Rose Tremain. I loved it.

I am curious about this too since we did the balloon experiment this year and it worked for us. The air filled balloon was "heavier" than our non filled balloon. As I type this I am thinking that maybe the enlarged size of the inflated balloon actually changed the balance point of the stick because it took up more space ? Not sure if I am explaining this well. Anyway, curious.

For some reason this reminds me of the many times I have heard people say that hens need roosters to make eggs. Um, no. Hens need roosters to make chicks.

My neighbor told my kids, when they were still very small, that if they lay down after eating they would die. I had to repeatedly assure my kids this was not true. When I told my neighbor to stop telling my kids these falsehoods she was adamant it was true. This is the same neighbor that had no seat belts in her car. I had to point out to her that every day there are reports on the news of people who have died in car crashes, and never once has there been a report of someone dying of an after lunch siesta. She never did believe me and my kids never again rode in her car.

This is a good question. In my case, reading from racist authors will not make my family racist. Reading from sexist authors will not make us sexist. Reading from authors who are proselytizing will not make us religious. It just wont happen. We can read books by authors with ideas we find disagree with (or even find deplorable) and it might not be enjoyable, but it wont sway our moral compass. I don't think reading about sex during the teenage years is a bad thing and would not equate this to reading from a racist or sexist author. I am generally for discussion over censorship. My kids are still fairly young, but I am hopeful that by the time they are reading books with heavy themes or uncomfortable ideas on their own, they will have the reasoning skills to navigate these waters on their own. At this point, if a song comes on the radio with misogynistic lyrics, I switch the station and explain why I don't like it. My kids still have no interest in watching movies with darker themes. When they are ready, we will talk about it.

I get what I think the OP was trying to say. It can sometimes be hard to find good literature for the younglings. However, I read a lot of trash when I was a kid. Tons of it. I had free reign over my parent's bookshelves which included some wonderful books and some serious crap. I read it all voraciously. As I got older I became more discerning and now read mostly good (and great) books. For the record, I don't do drugs. I don't sleep around. I don't kill people, suck blood, or do any of the things that quietly devastated people do. I am actually boring and could probably liven up my life a little if I just had access to my parent's 1980's bookshelf again. OP I hope you find what works for your family.

((Big hugs)) This has got to be so tough. I hope you can find some support locally. Meanwhile, you are in my thoughts.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I definitely can find something that works for me.

Do you have any suggestions about how to save or organize forum pages for future reference? There are lots of discussions I can see wanting to reference at some point but not yet. For example, I just saw a question about Logic Stage read alaouds for ancients. I am not quite ready to digest this information but will be soon. I know I will lose or forget about it without a system. Any suggestions for this disorganized mama?

FWIW I think of my parent's spouses as their spouses, not as step-parents. I like them, have had them in my life since Jr. High but somehow never made the transition to thinking of them as belonging to me in any way. My kids love them and think of them as official grandparents.

Sending more hugs. I hope you are on the road to figuring out what works best for you and your kids.

Ugh. The dreaded eggshells. So sorry you are going through this. In my case there was no final straw, only years and years of trying to fix things and getting nowhere. I finally ended it when I got brave enough to leave. That was it. I had to believe in myself and my right to happy life. I wont lie, it was painful, but my life is so much better now I can hardly believe I am the same person. ((Hugs))

I guess she could split the whopping $1.18 she will receive for being America's most beloved poet, or she could just give it all to the suppliers of her inspiration and just be satisfied with the fame. As for the citations and credits, if the spammers choose to reveal themselves, they will be shamed into silence by their universal repugnance. The whole world will be joyous that there is finally a use for all of their parasitic nonsense and they will have to be satisfied with their royalty check.

How does it feel to be the mother of a new genre of poetry? The world will be singing your praises and reciting your lines for generations to come. From the WTM to the pages of the New Yorker. Such a rapid rise to stardom.

Congratulations! This is both exciting and encouraging.

Many birds Two crickets The old dog rearranging herself for comfort on the wood floor A distant radio playing musica tipica

My sincerest apologies if my distinctions were offensive. I know that Catholics are Christians but where I live (Central America) the relationship between Catholics and other Christian denominations is often contentious, so I thought I was actually being sensitive by breaking it down further.

Is your question how do you let your child have her own beliefs while still teaching her about your own? Is there a reason you can't just let her believe in God (or not) the way she wants to and not worry too much that your beliefs might differ? My dh and I are both atheists and our kids know it, but we also have lots of people in our lives who are Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist and Muslim. I do my best to explain these religions respectfully. We read stories from different faiths and talk about how/why people believe different things. We have a dialogue about this in the same way that we do about what country people come from or what type of school they go to. It is just a discussion. I do want my kids to be respectful of the people they interact with and I want them to have a cultural understanding of religion, but other than that there is no agenda. My daughter LOVES mythology, creation stories, folklore, parables, but she has not expressed any explicit belief in a God. She does feel the awesome power of nature and comments on it daily. My son is only six, but he is a natural skeptic. He probably gets that from me.

"Let the wild rumpus start!" (Where the Wild Things Are)