(Deleting!) Double post

This was (and continually is) greatly enjoyed in my house! https://riflepaperco.com/alices-adventures-in-wonderland-lewis-caroll/

Agreed, I used a quick calculator that indicated that for my cousins (Louisiana, Mississippi) the cost of the venue, catering, and rentals was less than HALF what it is on average where I am in the Northeast. Everything costs more in some areas. However, some of that is really cultural. I typically haven't had a full course meal at weddings in the South, for instance.

I have to set it up per week (usually I do this on Sunday) during the summer or it doesn't get done. I'm thinking of switching to a file box approach for the summer.

This sounds fine to me. I outright tell my kids, "fewer than half, or everyone." So by that arbitrary rule you are good not inviting the girl scout troop as a whole. I know it's a very made up rule, but so far it's worked for us. The bathroom is a HUGE issue... kids will ARRIVE needing to use the bathroom even if they know there's not one there. Although honestly, a lot of kids will just go behind a bush, it doesn't seem like you should encourage it.

I'm about the same as my parents. But a lot of it is that I thought they were amazing parents and I have a great relationship with them. There's a little bit of a chicken and the egg scenario here... what came first, that there was a good relationship or that the other parenting aspects were good, is hard to say. My husband is way more "straight laced" in his every day life than his parents were. The example of you being able to watch every kind of movie, etc. early was true of him too. His parents said they gave him a lot of "freedom," but he saw it as neglect. Being more strict (and I don't even see it as strict, more like "don't let a 6 year old watch NC-17 rated movies") seems also to have come out of being exposed to other "stricter" people growing up.

My MIL engages in this sort of behavior. I've come to the conclusion that they just don't know, or don't hear the whole thing. One year I said, "I don't really like scrapbooking, I could never get into it." For Christmas, I got a huge box of scrapbooking supplies. I mean, I guess it's good that they remembered there was some connection between me and scrapbooking?!

We finished already.. Christmas turkey leftovers went 4 days. Now we are living on salad in the delusion that this will allow us to lose the holiday weight!

Wow, provided this is well-managed it is very cool!

I think it makes sense to read Black Beauty... it's preachy but I think it's supposed to be.. the history of the book itself is interesting. Peter Pan and Treasure Island I could take or leave, but personally I never get too old for children's books...

A really awesome planner with frivolous planner stickers.

Belief does strike me as odd here, but I know many people who don't "believe" in many things I consider to be fact, so... I "believe" the climate is changing and human actions are part of the reason, based on reading the scientific evidence. Maybe some things are classified (I'm not a climate scientist for sure, so I don't really know about these details), but what is publicly available in respected journals is enough to convince me. I also believe -- unless we find a political or technological "miracle" that helps us out of this box -- the toll (both in terms of individual humans and in terms of entire other species) is likely to be enormous. But that some humans will profit enormously on resulting misery. I didn't need to read a scientific journal to "believe" that -- I think that's pretty much just history.

Interesting... many years ago I heard a job talk from a woman who did her dissertation on this topic. She identified as black because that was how the world treated her based on her appearance. But another interesting part of her talk was that some people identify themselves as "above" race, or beyond it. My kids are from such mixed ancestry that it's easier to say what they aren't ("we're definitely not Swedish")... I think they might be those who say they are above race, or don't have a race, when they are older.

My approach at that age was to screen some, but fill in the huge gaps I had no time to screen with books designed to be read aloud to about k but with a higher reading level.

Having rented in Boston as a student, and then moved out to a commuter town (and sort of regretted it)... It looks kind of nice for that price to me. It's kind of like a dorm room with it's own toilet. I'd for sure put up a moveable wall or something there, though.