I voted other because in Australia we just don't get thanksgiving. Why not just hang on a few more weeks and have Christmas. WHY WHY would you do it twice? But for Christmas definately china. All the nice stuff. It's a special meal, why would you want it to look disposable?

My first was an oops. Her father didn't really come around. His life had been ruined because after 'getting myself pregnant' I was going to have and keep it.. She adored him and he still didn't appreciate how wonderful that was. More fool him. The next three we had were planned. Of the four I only have the last. I would have loved some more oops babies. That boat has sailed and I'm loving the company of the one I have. I've always figured we are given our babies and our timing is not what counts. Congatulations. You know you've got a good man, he will come around.

Congratulations! I had wondered how you were going with it. I dropped the bundle and may leave it dropped. Too hard with never ending legal. At least I can feel pride vicariously through you Melissa.

I remembered hearing it may be a sign of cerebral palsy. Following is a quote from this site... http://orthopedics.about.com/od/pediatricorthopedics/p/Toe-Walking-In-Children.htm It does say most toe walkers have no reason to do so. "Children who toe walk beyond age two may be evaluated to ensure they do not have any other condition that may cause toe walking. Toe walking beyond this age is not considered normal. Conditions That Cause Toe Walking:There are several conditions that can be first diagnosed by persistent toe walking. This is not to say that children who toe walk beyond the age of two definitely have one of these conditions. In fact, most toe walkers are considered idiopathic, meaning no underlying condition can be identified. But children who do continue to toe walk should be evaluated for developmental or neurologic disorders.Some conditions that can cause toe walking include cerebral palsy, Duschenne muscular dystrophy, and autism." Probaly worth an evaluation given the rest that you've noticed. I'll let others with real experience chime in.

I think we spent around $40 for a set with three arrows and forearm guard for dd at about that age. It's a great little bow and the man at the shop spent over 1/2 an hour showing her how to string it, hold it and shoot it. He even had a target in the shop. Well worth it. I found it on line for a few dollars less, but we were very happy with the service at the sports store.

This year I watched It's Kind of A Funny Story about a depressed and distressed teenager who books himself into a mental health facility. It was a good film and I thought dealt with the issues well. He has asked for and is getting help. That is major. Well done. Adding prayers for your family.

Depends on what the goats have been eating. When we lived on a station the goats ate bush weeds. Strong herbage taints the milk. We kids hated the milk, prefered powdered cows milk (yuk!). But later I milked a goat that ate mostly grass and the milk was fine. I can taste the difference but quite like it.

I am that kid and I'm grown. Some people can walk through and get things all ordered. I walk through and get things all disordered. I am the one that has to come through and try and pick up after me though.

Hello Bocky, I googled Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood curriculum and found these: http://www.hectv.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Pre%20Raphaelites%20Curriculum.pdf ...This is a 22pg printout with pictures, history and background. http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/pdf/historical_paintings.pdf ...This one has a chapter on William Holemen Hunt and the Pre Raphaelite technique. (Also lots on other historical techniques, we will be using this one too.) http://www.planbee.com/cross-curricular-topics/120/ ...This one offers a full Victorians course (has cost) or you can buy just the Pre Raphaelite section for a few dollars. http://preraphaelitesisterhood.com/about/ ....And this one is a long standing blog on the topic. Anyway, here is a start. It is a style and period I enjoy too and I've enjoyed the rabbit trail you've led me on. I'll be watching the other responses too. Good luck.

Being more that a bit dyslexic, I first read this as, Inappropriate simile. And I heard the best ever in an interview Robbie Williams gave. He was talking about the birth of his child, and one of the other guests, Emma Thompson, asked, "Was he there?" And, "Head or business end?" He answered business end and then said....."It was like watching my favourite pub burn down." I think this would win at most inappropriate simile and funniest. By the way, I'm really enjoying the inappropriate smilie game too.

Well I feel satisaction at having just written, filed and served more legal papers. These include a large demand that I've not had the intestinal fortitude (guts) to demand many years ago. I have no legal training and find the whole proccess difficult and traumatic, but we are doing it anyway. (yet. a-bloody-gain.) so time to fight for the way it should be. I also organised a history day last week, that nearly 70 kids and parents came to and after umpteen emails and phone calls, it was great and flowed beautifully. I'm also going through all our belongings (with help) and managing to hand many carloads of boxes and bags on to others or out.

I peeked. It was gruesome. I peeked again it had grewsome more! Sorry, just had to.

You ran over your dd's cat? :thumbup1:

I hope your son recovers from his traumatic head injury. :banghead:

I empathise with your hatred of being touched by others. :grouphug:

I am sorry about your upper and downer medication addiction. :chillpill:

I was checking out books (as you do) and found the website for Unbored and this was in the out-takes. So the published book does not warn our little darlings of just why they should not provoke mum. http://unbored.net/is-your-mom-sweaty-and-angry/ I don't think I'll show this to my dear, I'd prefer to go on pretending I hide it well than be told, "It's okay Mum, I understand why you are being unreasonable. Again."

Hey I just had a thought, going back to the first Christmas gifts. Mary didn't really get gifts she would have chosen. Instead of swaddling cloths etc, she was given expensive oils etc for burial rituals.

I'm another who both appreciates, gives and appreciates this type of gift. I'm from a large family and the cost of gifts, both recieved and given has become large. Big gifts of 'stuff' we really don't need. We like to give a small, preferably home-made something and a donation card, relevant to the receiver. One year my brother gave us all a card saying that instead of giving gifts that year, his family were funding a neccessary operation for a young nephew in another country. He let us become part of their generosity. As others have so eloquently said, I find receiving expensive, unwanted gifts burdensome. I know they are given with love, but then there is the guilt involved with, "Have you used it yet?", "Where is it?", etc with an expensive, carefully chosen item I really don't want in the first place.

I'm Australian. We "bring a plate". (By the way, it has shared food on it and goes on the table.)

Sadly this is far from uncommon. Even being very vigilant, many boys that age have much more hormones than compassion. There's possibly also an element of protecting her parents. Young kids don't want to hurt their loved parents. They may be worried that telling mum and dad will not only get them into trouble, but also hurt them deeply. And disapoint them. Your friend's daughter is still young, very much still molding who she is in turbulent adolescent years, so there is time for her to recast what happened and realise she was an innocent in the situation. As for your friend, well, no matter how vigilant we are, some of these cracks can be devastating. We still get in a car, that is much more dangerous. Brain knowledge doesn't stop heart-ache though does it?

I also had a screamer. From baby on. But when she was older it became rarer. I learned to 'give' her 10 yells when she started yelling and I would encourage her to make them really big ones. So instead of trying to get her to stop I would be counting and "Come o n you've still got 4 more, make them big ones...good, 3 more" etc. I think it helped. She would normally have to be encouraged to get the the end of the list and then she would just stop. Spent. Rather than just going on and on and on. Unless things were really beyond a joke.Some years were bad. Then she just got put outside, door locked for as long as it took to stop sceaming. If I couldn't do anything to stop it then I didn't need to be the focus of it. I can relate going into the dissassociative state to cope. Some kids take no prisoners. It does get better.

I remember my baby sister thought it was cool when I came home and nabbed her hand me-down-shoes. She was tall early. So at some point your handee may become a hander.

Another here who had a child with a heritiory disease. Cystic Fibrosis. 17 years ago, when she was 2, we were offered pre-implantation diagnosis. I turned it down and none of those who took up the offer ended up with a babe. However there were a lot of embryos and heartache. This sort of playing around does frighten me. Consequenses take too long to show up. This dd is a carrier. Being a carrier (like most or all of her cousins and all of my siblings) means that there are possible benefits. Scientists are stil learning about the benefits some recessive, 'bad' genes may have. Some come to the fore in extreme circumstances. They believe carriers of the CF gene may help you survive during typhiod or cholera type outbreaks. Even going back to Mendel, there were some of his computations that refused to follow the rules. Would I liked my eldest to have lived without that devastating condition? Unbelievably so. But I do think that you get a package deal with your new babe. It is not ordering a new car.

I've been lucky enough to have our house-sitters help me go through our house and de-stuff it. I haven't kept tooo many children's clothes due to the rotating 'cousins boxes'. However I did hold a few specials back and some I'd made for dd the elder that now fit dd the younger. What suprised me was that this dd had no interest in keeping any specials. So I added them to the donations. The one garment that gave me grief, I was able to retrieve as that bag hadn't yet gone. However finding out that she does not suffer from stuff-attachment like her mother and older sister helps me let go. Will your children feel the same attachment to these quilts and garments as you, or will they be 'stuff that's important to mum that I need to keep'? What did give me pause was that I've done almost no sewing for this dd. So I've retrieved my patterns and we'll make her some specials of her own. (Which she will happily hand on, which is fine.)