I wear shorts, although I mostly wear longer ones that go to just above knee length, unless I'm going to the pool or lake and wearing shorter shorts over a bathing suit. I mostly wear shorts like those or capris in the summer.

Trying to conceive. :)

Well, it took a few extra days (I had my husband's birthday and a sister-in-law's 50th birthday party this week), but this morning I saw 189.8 on the scale! I am quite happy to be in the 180's...even just barely...it "sounds" farther from 200 than the 190's did lol. So, I've gone from 247.6 to 189.8, losing 57.8 lbs! I dropped my Topamax four days ago and I'm just taking the Metformin now, and decided to start TTC again as of this month, so we're trying now, it's the time for it lol (I expect to see a positive on OPK somewhere between today and the next couple of days). We'll see what happens! Meanwhile I will of course continue with my diet and exercise and see if I can continue to lose some more weight before I get pregnant (although I do, of course, hope I get pregnant quickly, considering I will be 39 in just a couple of weeks and already feel like I've been waiting forever)!

Great pic! I'll have to show this one to her! Of course, I didn't find my daughter so "funny" today when I read her a paragraph for science, then asked her if she could tell me a single thing she'd just learned in that paragraph, and she gave me a blank stare. "Can you tell me ANYTHING I just said?" I asked her. "The?" she responded. :banghead: This afternoon I have to donate blood, have her ready to go to book club (a friend taking her, fortunately), get my son to teeball (overlaps book club), and get ready for a Mom's Night Out dinner (which I'll be late for, due to teeball). We're trying to squeeze in some schoolwork before all that this morning, and meanwhile it's sunny and 82 degrees today and her mind didn't seem to be on science reading (though she's now happily digging up soil from our garden to bury an onion and a potato in a box of soil and getting ready to put a carrot chunk in a dish of water and a piece of bread in a damp, warm place for part of a unit on cell division and sexual and asexual reproduction. We're all ready for the school year to be over and summer to be here, I think! :D

That's awesome! Congrats on the weight loss (and on the catches)! :D

I didn't vote. I think it's between a couple and their dr. As for me, I am officially ttc again as of this month. I will be 39 May 1st. I had hoped to have a last baby before I turned 39, but I had an ectopic and then focused on weight loss and getting myself healthier (down 57 lbs!), and now I'm trying again, hoping to have a last baby before I turn 40.

Good for you! Happy birthday! :)

Nahhhh. There's not even any identifying information about that house. In fact, OP, you should print out a bunch of those pictures, slap 'em up on telephone polls all over your street, and add captions to them. "Close your curtains, the people at XXX XX Lane like spy on their neighbors with video cameras!" :P

I'm MoonSnidget16984 but I haven't received any emails yet. :P

And this is definitely true! I DID send angry emails and threaten to boycott when they published the how to guide for pedophiles. I was glad to see that one pulled. But they still sell plenty of others I think are horrid. TTUAC, for one. I'd rather see the how to beat your baby book yanked than this silly mongoloid one. Just saying.

No, I didn't read that...I'm certainly not a fan of that although that is a separate issue from what everyone seems to be upset about, which is thinking this is a book meant to mock special needs/down syndrome kids and nothing more. But there is someone who read it saying it is not that at all. Yes mongoloid can be a well known derogatory term toward people with Down Syndrome. It's also a well known anthropological term though. Look, I'm not looking to defend the guy. I don't know anything about him or his book and I don't really care to. I'm not even saying no-one should be offended by it...I can definitely see why people may find it offensive. I'm just saying me personally I wouldn't start screaming at or boycotting Amazon for allowing something to be sold that bashes special needs people when I don't even know that to be true.

I haven't read it either and won't (just not interested), but I don't feel I have enough information to get all heated up and lodge a complaint with Amazon because it's feasible that the three star reviewer was correct and that the author didn't intend anything offensive regarding special needs/DS at all. I just don't know. (I agree with you that it was still probably ill chosen but not necessary hateful). And this is coming from a parent not of a DS child but one with mental retardation, so it's not that I have no empathy toward how DS parents might feel, I just think it is POSSIBLE that someone might have started a chain reaction of angry misinterpretation.

He's not preventing it. :confused: He's offering an alternative means. And he probably sees it as a childrens' safety and personal rights issue, more than a "protest" issue.

It says: "I saw the outrage from a friend over this book and IMMEDIATELY agreed that this was deplorable and beyond wrong; HOWEVER, I decided to check it out a little deeper, and came to the conclusion that it could very easily be talking about the anthropological form of the word, as opposed to the hateful one that is so wrongly used against our loved ones with DS. So, I battled with myself for a bit on whether I should buy it for the sake of research, which I obviously ended up doing (hence the review). I read through it and THANKFULLY, this book has NOTHING to do with DS. It is, indeed, in reference to the little used term used for populations that share certain traits such as an epicanthic fold - populations such as many of the Asian races, Arctic, etc. The author basically puts a completely fictional spin on the anthropological term and basically goes on to say that they were their own race (as opposed to a term that lumped several different races together, which is why it ended up being obsoleted due to advances in that science), and have lived on in hiding, did not evolve, so on and so on. It is purely a work of nonsense, however, it is not one of a hateful sort. Update: After reading a comment on, and then re-reading my review with fresh eyes, I'd like to add the following:Imagine there were still cavemen around and you could have one for your own. That's what this book is about. It's not about any human group that is on the face of the earth today. After reading the book in its entirety, I'm not sure how the term hateful can really be used when the subject matter is not linked to any group in reality. It's almost the same as saying The Zombie Survival Guide is hateful to zombies, IMO." ...So I'm not sure what to think, it seems that a lot of people are jumping to conclusions that it must be a book making fun of people with Down Syndrome and getting angry about that, though I'm assuming most of them have not read the book. Then this person says they have read it and it has nothing to do with that?

No idea what this book is actually meant to be about, but did you read the one 3 star review left on Amazon for this book? Thoughts?

:grouphug:

Haha love these ideas. And the constant sign changing ideas telling them all the painstaking details of the mundane things you did that day. (Maybe you can rotate in "Can I borrow a cup of sugar?") :D

Great videos! No idea what her goal was, but it was neat to watch!

I'm so sorry, Kari. It's not irrational, it's completely understandable. :grouphug: I hope that you can enjoy your birthdays and the others in your family, still. But I don't blame you for feeling the way you do. Maybe on special landmark ones you can do a little something with the immediate family in his honor to commemorate his. Happy birthday, Kari!

He's adorable! Congratulations! :)

I'm sorry. That would be very hurtful. :grouphug: And it was REALLY rude of them not to RSVP. RSVP means you call either way and say "yes" or "no," not just ignore the invitation! I, too, would have had somebody track them down with a "well are you coming or aren't you?" but that is not relevant now. It's a shame they even HAVE to be nannied like that. I don't get people!

My husband had no success trying to teach my daughter to ride (I think she was 8?) without training wheels. She just couldn't seem to get it, despite him trying for days. Then her neighborhood friends, kids her age, decided to teach her, and they had her literally within like 30 minutes riding as if she'd been doing it forever. What they did was have her keep her feet OFF the pedals, near the ground so she could very easily catch herself. They'd push her and she focused on nothing but steering and figuring out how to balance the bike. Trying to figure out steering, balancing AND pedaling all at once was just too much. But she could steer and balance while her legs dangled right near the ground, where she could easily put her feet down if the bike started to tip. And after a little while of doing that, she got the hang of how to balance the bike, and THEN she added in pedaling, and never looked back.

Mayo. Miracle Whip is disgusting.

I can see some people thinking that the husband is over-reacting. And maybe he is...maybe he isn't. Either way, he's making a stand against something that makes him uncomfortable on his children's behalf, and I certainly don't blame him for that. All parents do that in different ways all the time. But I'm surprised by all the "he's so selfish" comments. He's not selfish. He's protecting his children. Whether some people think it's over-reacting, over-protective, etc. is besides the point. Protecting his kids is what it is to him. He still made provisions for other ways that they can go travel and visit family. Good for him. Now if he'd said "They're not flying and sorry but no train either, it's too expensive and I'm not paying that kind of price, your family will just have to come here," well, THEN I'd maybe I'd think differently. But he's not. I'm also surprised by some of the comments insinuating the wife should do it anyway and "I'd do this and let HIM go do that" and so forth. I really doubt most of us would go do something with our children that our husbands were VERY against and uncomfortable with, and I know if there was something *I* was very against and uncomfortable with and I said "I don't want my kids doing this" and my husband blew me off and said "Too bad, I'm doing it anyway, you can't tell me what to do, I'm doing this with the kids, YOU go do that if my way makes you so uncomfortable," there would be some SERIOUS problems in this house. OP, take the train. It'll be fun. Make an adventure of it. Respect your husband's comfort level on this one because any parent who has a strong objection for reasons of safety and protection of the kids shouldn't just be brushed aside like their feelings don't matter. And it's hardly like there's NO merit to what he's saying. We've all heard some of the stories. I know some people think "it probably won't happen anyway" or "it's tolerable" but plenty of other people don't think that way, and he's one of them, and, really, how do you argue with that? If I felt strongly about something like that, I wouldn't want my spouse fighting with me about it. (As it is, we NEVER fly so I haven't had to make that choice, myself).

If it was me I wouldn't necessarily be looking for a relationship with my birth parents but would be interested in trying to meet any siblings I had. If a relationship took off after that, great, if it didn't, well, no biggie, it's not like I know them and I lived my whole life without them. But if I didn't at least try to meet them I'd expend way too much time wondering about them and if I was doing the wrong thing (by ignoring the info) etc.