My soul weeps for you. I am so sorry.

Pimples Wrinkles AND a goatee. Yay for me.

Why is saying "Shut up!" considered rude when the people who refuse to be quiet in the first place, aren't considered rude, also?

I guess I will chime in and give a little hope to some. I have two boys but they, for the most part, do not eat me out of house and home. They are 15 and 17 and their growth has been steady--not shooting up several inches at a time, although the younger one had a quicker growth curve than the older one. Both are around 6' tall now--the 17 year old is very well muscled and manly-looking and around 170#; the 15 year old is a bean pole--around 145-150#.

We have money for hobbies. But, we also cut our own hair, wear clothes from Salvation Army, shop at Aldi's, never go out to eat or to the movies, drive a 17 year old vehicle, and set the thermostat really, really low in the winter and high in the summer. Different priorities.

Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Lewellyn

Asta said: Um, DUH! You mean, if I give my kid highly demanding work every. single. day. in a methodical fashion, then I will be duplicating your highly funded research for your incredibly expensive program? Thanks for telling me that! Not to beat a dead horse or anything but this is exactly what Audiblox does and the whole program cost only around $150. I, too, demanded what I thought was methodical work every day but it seems like things did not stick regardless of how many times I went back and retaught. I know others can relate when I say I was incredibly frustrated that my son could not master simple arithmetic after several YEARS. Nothing stuck until we did Audiblox which worked on sequencing, short term and long term memory, pattern recognition, among other things. I am just throwing it out again because sometimes more $$ does not mean something will be better.

My son could not remember math facts, sequences, or hold a pattern in his head long enough to transfer it onto paper (copying from the board, etc.) Audiblox really helped with all of this and it was very inexpensive.

Mine comes from: Having a child with learning differences and being told: From the school, "He's autistic, and you're just in denial." From the hospital that tested him for autism, "He's not autistic; he's just low IQ." From my mother-in-law, "Well, if you hadn't done so much physical labor while you were pregnant with him...." And, searching for answers because I did not believe any of them. Never. Give. Up.

I bit a dog once. I am still around.

You are not the only one with a child who does not want to go to a 4 year college--I don't think my 10th grader even wants to go to a community college, let alone a 4 year one. I think, as parents, we always want our kids to be "better" than we are--smarter, more successful, wealthier, whatever. Then, they grow and start to travel their own path which perhaps isn't the one we envisioned. We hear about Johnny who is studying Latin and organic chemistry and mastered calculus at age 9 and will graduate early to start his college career and... we compare. We may compare them to ourselves--my husband has his doctorate and other degrees, I have a bachelor's--who is this child of mine who does not want to go to college? Why can't he be like Johnny? Then, we have to realize that they have their own lives and talents and we should be guiding them and helping them achieve their own goals. And, we need to quit comparing. (You realize you never really liked Johnny anyway, but you REALLY like cake).

If you still have a landline, you might check with them. We got a cell phone through our phone company to take with us when we travel--it is $7.00 per month and comes with some local minutes.

The one good thing that has come of this is that I will be changing the way I do business with him! Tap, in thinking about your scenario with the mortgage company: if I mailed them a check and it reached their institution, but the wrong department received it and it got lost when they forwarded it to another department of theirs, I would believe that they were responsible for the loss; however, I doubt that I could do anything about it. I am certain that they would contact me and insist that I send another check for the full amount and whether or not I chose to cancel the first check and incur those charges would fall to me (even though I would be thoroughly P.O'd). I have a contract with them stating that I owe them a specific amount due at a specific time. If they found the check at a later date, they should offer to reimburse me (in an ideal world), since it was their institution that made the mistake. My sister has a separate business arrangement with him than do my other 2 sisters and myself. We are separate businesses, so to speak, so it would be more like sending your mortgage check to your electric company. I am glad for all the input I have received here but there is no way I am going to blame my sister especially since he never told her he was giving her our checks, she did not discover them until a couple of days later, and she was just doing a good deed by forwarding them on.

A friend of ours' sons did this (they live in a pricey neighborhood) and the kids made tons of money--it is such a good business that one of them still owns it now that he is through college. That said, your son will probably need a business license and perhaps insurance. Seriously consider how much paperwork and expense these things will generate. My son had a cut flower business where he sold bouquets at a farmers market. It was tons of work and the growing season was rough last year. He made $2300 AFTER expenses, and had to pay $315 in self employment tax, $48 in state tax, $10 in property tax. He had to obtain a vendor's license, send in sales tax every month, fill out a 1040, Schedule F, Schedule SE, Form 4562 (for Federal taxes), an IT-40, schedules 1,3,5 and CT-40 (for Indiana), and Form 103 and 104 for our county. If your son expects to make over $400, then he has to file self-employment tax. This was not to discourage you, but help you be prepared. We had no idea how many forms etc, were involved. Have a good record system! He can have a very good business and will definately learn a lot!

See? It does get more complicated. I was trying to be brief, but I guess I should have been more clear from the beginning. My sister was not my agent. This man rents a small amount of property from her as well as from my other 2 sisters and myself. He paid her rent and included our checks in with hers unbeknownst to her. She found out later that our checks were in with hers and just mailed them on ahead. No one authorized him to submit payment to her since in the past he has mailed the checks directly to each of us separately. I guess he was just trying to save some postage and my sister was just being nice. One sister did get her check and we other two did not. I still view it as having a contract with someone for a specified amount and them not paying said amount. I did not tell him to give someone else my check nor did I direct him to cancel the first one; that was his decision. Clear as mud?

I know the check was mailed because he dropped it off at my sister's house and she put it in an envelope and mailed it. I do not know why he could not be bothered writing out an envelope and mailing it himself, but that is another question. Surprisingly, this has become a huge argument with my dh. He says that the guy paid me (because it was accepted by my sister) and therefore, I should be the one paying for him to cancel the check and send another. I don't understand his logic because if I send, say, a check to the mortgage company or utility company and they never get it and I decide to put a stop payment on it, then I don't get to deduct that amount when I send another check. If some third party intercepts a check to me and forges my name on it, who is responsible for that lost amount? The bank because they did not check ID? Or is the check writer just out that money?

Hey--Thanks everyone! You all have said pretty much what I was thinking. I have already waited over 2 weeks for the first check, giving the Post Office extra time--he lives 3 hours from here so it shouldn't have taken more than a day or two at the most. I guess a terse letter is in order! Thanks again!

Say someone owes you money and they mail you a check for it which ends up getting lost in the mail. You call them telling them that you never got the check. They say they will send another one but it is going to be minus the check cancellation fee they will incur (around $30). Do you think this is right? I can see both sides but, since it is happening to me, I do not believe that I should be the one paying his check cancellation fee. What do all of you think?

Your homeowner's insurance might be cheaper with a garage that is not attached.

We looked at wind turbines a while ago and I don't know if they have improved since then. You need to look at how many KWH the turbine can generate and what your wind speed commonly is. Some only work at a certain speed and only spin at a certain speed (it doesn't spin faster on windy days so faster wind does not mean more electricity). The one we saw typically only generated 1.5 KWH which would power a hairdryer but nothing else. We probably use more electricity than most since we have a shop out back (our last bill showed 1600 KWH used), so you can see that 1.5 kilowatts per hour does not equal much, even if it were operating 10 hours per day. Also, some utilities around here limit the amount of electricity you can sell back to them.

IUPUI offers online high school courses that are less expensive than their college courses--Spanish is offered.

Thank you for your response. My son isn't hyperactive but he does have attention problems. We tried most of the stimulants but the side effects made us quit. I've tried a host of supplements and have quit them, too, after not seeing much improvement. We eat fairly well although we are not gluten free; I do limit processed foods. Every once in a while I start looking around again for something since he is getting nearer and nearer to driving age and I worry about the consequences of inattention. Thanks again for your input! Nevergiveup

Are your twins taking medicine along with the Blue Ice? I have tried fish oil with my son and didn't see any positive results--how long were you using it before you saw results? (I am willing to try again!) Are you using other supplements as well? Thanks for the info.

I have not read the book, but 10,000 hours means doing something for 4 hours per day, 365 days per year for almost 6.9 years. No breaks. Every day. I don't think many kids have the passion at that stage of their lives to do one activity exclusively for almost 7 years at that intensity. I think my job as a parent is to expose my kids to different activities and ideas so that they might be able to find a career or hobby that would inspire such a passion, not pigeon-hole them into something exclusively at such an early age.

Yep. Probably would have eaten them on the way home. We sat by some middle aged women at the state fair and polished off the curly fries they offered us. They weren't going to finish them and our two hulking boys were drooling over them anyway.