I drink unsweet Tea and Crystal Light with caffeine!

It's basically where you order knockoffs straight from China, Thailand, etc. It usually takes 3-4 weeks for the items to come in, but so far, we've had to no issues with anything I have ordered. Shipping is usually super cheap too.

We bought knock offs from Wish for $2 and haven't had any issues with them at all. Our spinners and another cube are on the way for $6.56 shipped. I'm all about well made products but when they are small enough to be misplaced and lost in bedrooms for months, cheap is better for me because I want to be able to order multiple.

Yes, I "know" the family. A maternal aunt or grandma (I believe, I know it was a family member) ended up taking all the kids in and at last I heard, they were doing pretty well, all things considered. It was actually the Grandma from the Sonya McCaul case (another basically trafficked child who's babysitter gave her to a cousin who in turn got DHS involved to keep child from Dad and filed for illegal adoption behind DHS's back and Dad spent 8 years fighting to get her back and won).

I used to keep mine in a bank envelope taped to the underside of the hermit crab aquarium tank.

Give up. NONE of us eat breakfast in our house. I am not even remotely hungry until about 10 a.m. You can't force a person to be hungry.

We opted to switch to cloth pads and cup and do Aleve continuously through the period. She went from being in bed for 7 days with a heavy period for 10 days to 5-7 days of moderate period with very little cramping. It took a couple of cycles for the Aleve to really start making a difference.

It sounds like her state is probably going after child support if she is receiving medical coverage for the baby. It's pretty much a requirement to allow them to do it. It's also a pretty common tactic among jerkwads to go after full custody in an attempt to avoid child support. Tell her to dig out any documentation (text messages, Facebook, etc) if she has them that he wanted her to abort the baby. That will significantly help her case. Most legal aid systems won't get involved in child custody cases. She NEEDS to find an attorney. Tell her to call around and find one that will take payments for the retainer. I don't think her being a student, etc will hurt her. She is attempting to better her life and currently has a stable environment for the baby. Feel free to pm me what state she lives in and I can help hunt for resources.

RE: the height issue......you should be able to find men's jeans online with a 26 inch inseam. If you have a The Buckle, they can do alterations I believe and also carry speciality lengths.

Make his pants disappear

Another tactic I have used is to not tell DS we are going shopping. Plan another outing and build in time to go shop. Then just pull up at the mall, etc and say we're gonna run by here real quick and try on some jeans. If he doesn't cooperate, then the other outing doesn't happen.

I have one of those also. The current argument is about how highwater his athletic pants are and how he refuses to give up those few pairs for new pairs that will fit right. For mine, he absolutely detests shopping. It is made even worse by the fact that he's a difficult fit because he has braces that have to go under his pants. I have resorted to buying cheap clothes 2nd hand off the Facebook yard sale sites in approximate sizes and forcing him to try them on once I have them at home. What doesn't fit gets handed down to younger cousins. I try to keep it around paying $5-10 for a pair of pants so I don't cry if they don't fit and I gotta just give them away (for some reason, it seems like I can't resell them when I try). A pair of jeans retail that he likes are usually around $40ish so I figure if I spend $10-20 buying a couple of pairs to find one that fits, I still get out cheaper.

I will be honest, we don't limit video games at all for my gamer kid. I have found, the more I try to place limits, the more he wants to play because it's a forbidden fruit. Now, he is 14 and has free access to the computer. Some days he may be on there all day. Yesterday he spent the day reading. Monday after he finishes schoolwork, he'll ride his bike down to return his books at the library. A week or two ago, he informed me he intends on spending time outside every day. These are all things he does of his own volition because we don't force him to do any of them. Now, when he buys a new game (he supports his own habits), I won't see him for weeks and that's fine. It's a new toy. When I get new fabric, patterns, etc. I go through phases where all I want to do is sew also. I don't split up my days doing different hobbies. I typically spend a weekend gardening, a weekend sewing, a weekend reading, etc as I have time. ETA: Regardless of how he spends his time, it's rarely with me. LOL. He does game with his Dad some and get in long intellectual discussions with his Dad, but typically our time together is when we go to the movies, etc. My 16 yr old is the same way. There isn't a lot of "family" time going on but I try to maintain connections with them as teens by meeting them on their territory (Pokemon hunting with the 16 yr old, video game stores, Pokemon League with the 14 yr old)

I like to stock the Blessing Boxes (community pantries). I usually hit the Dollar Tree and buy peanut butter, jelly, Pasta sides, canned chicken, beans, rice mixes, shelf stable milk (they have dairy and soy), Ramen (disgusting I know but tell my teens that, they love them), oatmeal, pancake mix and syrup, biscuit mixes with gravy packets....... At Aldi I like to pick up soups, tuna, canned ham, pasta and sauces, cereal, and crackers (peanut butter, cheese, etc).

I have seen 2 different families struggle through childhood cancers in our local community. One family has had a few thousand dollars raised for them. The other, a mere $500.............the family who has raised more has several family members throwing yard sales, etc. the 2nd family has had very little support. through 2 years of fundraising. Fortunately we live in a state that expanded Medicaid and has CHIP so their kids haven't died from lack of treatment. Kids. with Cancer. and their families can barely afford the expenses to drive the 3 hours to the children's hospital for treatment with the funds that have been raised. ETA: I don't live in poor community either. The local high school has a freaking jumbotron on the football field and a mini brand new college campus as the high school.

Best casino to stay in? Good spa? Best places to eat? We're looking at being there 2-3 nights.

If you belong to a homeschool organization, sports club, Girl Scouts, etc.... what sites do they use to disseminate information, especially if it's a high volume communication type group? By high volume, I mean information that needs to be relayed at least 2-3 times a week regarding various events like field trips, co-op, etc. Does it allow for signing up for events, paying fees online, etc? And do you feel that mode of delivery is efficient?

I totally feel you. Our sole source of communication for our HS group is Facebook, primarily because it's free and we are a small group. If someone inquires about joining, I tell them up front that is how we disseminate information. If they want info, they have to join. I don't care if they use a dummy account to do so, but the group leaders don't have time to send out communication 6000 ways. I am very much a believer in personal responsibility and I don't hold people's hands. I will post 1 or 2 mass reminders of events on our FB Group, beyond that, I won't do anything. The event is posted, a reminder goes out, it's on you to show up. I won't send out a text reminder the day before, etc. Every adult in our group has the capability of writing things down on a calendar. I expect adults to be adults and manage their own time if they want to participate in events. We also don't wait on late comers for events. We start at the allotted start time. To ask field trip sponsors (businesses, etc) to wait on people to show up is just rude.

A huge timesaver for me is buying our groceries online and picking up at the store. The only place it's available in our area is Walmart, but with our crazy life, it is well worth it. You might look into your local Lions Club, Masonic Lodge, or Biker Clubs that do charitable work or contact local youth groups.

This is the way we work with 2 low carbers, 1 extremely picky sensory eater, and a Vegetarian......we are all adults or teenagers. Tonight 3 of us ate what I cooked. One is cooking his own.

My senior dog needs grain free food so we use 4Health Grain Free from Tractor Supply Company. It's a price point that doesn't hurt our budget and gets 4 stars from dogfoodadvisor.com We buy it at Tractor Supply Company. Since we switched to it I have seen her go from fairly loose stools 3x a day to a good solid stool 1-2 times a day so it's definitely made a good difference for her.

There is a good app called The Multiplier that was developed by Ortho specialists at Sinai Hospital that is pretty accurate with height prediction. DS14 was only about 5'2 this time last year. He's now 5'9. He's been growing an average of an inch a month lately. He didn't start puberty until recently. At his 13 yr check up, his Ped said the longer puberty was delayed the taller he would be. The app was predicting his adult height to be 5'10 at that time. It's now bumped him to almost 6'2

What the above posters said. Talking about appropriate behaviors and responses is what obtained the best results for us. We still used consequences, but use logical consequences rather than punitive, ie...if fighting is happening over a toy, toys get thrown, etc then the toy needs to be removed from the situation since they cannot use it appropriately and we practiced working through interactions and how it could be handled better the next time. We also allowed them to "talk back" respectfully. Into the teenager years it morphs into things like...schoolwork isn't being finished in a timely manner because we spend too much time texting our friends, therefore the phone needs to be put away during school hours. Chores haven't been completed because someone was too busy running off to play video games, therefore teen gets reminded that if video games are becoming a priority over responsibilities that we may need to remove the video games for a few days to help reinforce that responsibilities come before leisure time. We really noticed a pattern when the kids were young that punitive consequences really just caused a lot of resentment and whining. When we moved to consequences that were a direct result of their actions, most of that stopped and they started understanding and making strides to change the behaviors. As teens go, I pretty much have 2 of the best I could have ever asked for and now, as teens, if something is going on, we can usually ask THEM what they think should occur and they typically will say that the distraction needs to go, etc....DD received a fairly stern discussion today about a behavior last night and she said she completely understood my perspective and concern and would make all attempts for that behavior not to occur again.

Oh, and I will say, it IS the same from their point of view, when they see their parents with their phones, computers, etc all the time. If they don't see parents picking up books and reading, committing time to other hobbies, etc besides just their household duties of cleaning, parenting, etc....it does appear that all the parent is doing is spending their time on the internet too. My other suggestion would be that the whole HOUSE make an effort to start limiting screen time also. Set times of the day to do research, emails, etc and spend the rest of the time pursuing other activities.