As long as Mom isn't endangering the baby, the preference is for Mom & baby to be placed together in a foster home. It's a tense situation, because the foster parents are supposed to teach Mom how to care for baby, but at the same time, they're ultimately charged with the baby's protection, so they have to pick up…

In my state, I can get a foster child emergency medical care and routine medical care (well child visits, shots, etc.). For anything else, I go to the caseworker, who then (pre-termination of parental rights) asks Mom. If Mom refuses, caseworker asks the judge for an order directing me to take the appropriate medical…

Good! Depression gives us shit-colored glasses, good for her for getting a copy and reading it closely. Glad she has you for encouragement and support.

I don't like the reporting requirement and I think it's bullshit, but, say she gets help & dutifully reports that she's seeing a mental health professional. What then? I say this as a lawyer with a whole bunch of shrink appointments in my calendar. She needs help. She's using this reporting requirement as an excuse…

We adopted one of my dogs well into his adulthood. Apparently his previous owner let him sit on the shelf behind their back seat. Imagine his surprise when he tried to hop up there in the Fit, only to land in the trunk. We heard a thunk, turned around, and only saw a leash hanging over the back seats.

If he's convicted or takes a plea to anything near the original charges, he's being deported. He would be deported after serving his sentence.

Perhaps I'm overreacting to think that maybe, just maybe, this person Dad has imported for a future marriage, who has arrived just this month, whose English is limited, isn't the best person to be left to care for his 6 year old daughter, whose mother (according to the article) died sometime in the past few years. …

If you need to say it, say it. Know that he might never get it. There is nothing you can say to make him get it. It's not your job to make him get it.

Seriously. My kid is still in elementary school, but has PTSD, complete with flashbacks. We've spent years trying to teach him that the world is a mostly safe place and that he can trust adults. Something like this would set us back, in terms of healing, at least 6 months. You'd better believe I would be ready to…

I had a professor in undergrad who would bring a hunk of chocolate from Trader Joe's and a hammer and let us go to town. 9 am class. She figured we needed the caffeine.

Find one that interests you, ask the prof if you can audit it. Show up, listen & don't take exams. I don't know if your Seven Sister will do it, but Wellesley profs (particularly the kickass Susan Reverby in the Women's Studies Dept) would go for that, particularly if you explain that you don't want to miss the chance…

Wellesley alum here, chiming in to say that 'girls' threw me, but there are always a few women who insist on using it because they're all about not letting a women's college change them. As if the point of college is to be exactly the same at graduation as you were when you began.

Wellesley alum, saying it loud & proud: Fuck Mona Lisa Smile.

Another Wendy, chiming in to say that Wellesley is super LGBTQ friendly. I don't have experience at Smith & Mt. Holyoke for a comparison, but Wellesley is not particularly 'straight'. Nevertheless, this straight woman who loves Lilly Pulitzer (that's right Email Author, you spelled it wrong) never felt like she…

The part of that story that stuck with me is how the hospital staff would refer to the ward where women with botched abortions were treated for sepsis as 'the septic tank'. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Those poor women.

I won't let a mere mortal interfere with my relationship with Lenny Briscoe.

Seven Sisters, woo! Rock on, lady, tearing apart the social fabric, piece by piece.

Anything I want? How am I ever going to meet Mr. Right & Godly if I'm sitting on the couch, eating Fritos & watching reruns of Law & Order?

I wish I were wearing that right now. It would be vastly preferable to the monkey suit I am wearing.

I'm a big fan of Land's End and Hanna Anderson, preferably 2nd hand via children's resale shops or ebay. They are gender neutral (but come in lots of pinks & purples and flowers, which I have to resist buying because I have a little boy) and they wear like iron, so there's lots of life in them even when you buy them…