This is my feeling exactly! I'm little biased towards research being a librarian, but you'd be amazed at how little the Jr. High kids know about research, or even using the library, when the come in for help on their local history projects. My husband and I are always encouraging our 8 year old son to look things up,…

Stick with the classic ones and you're good. Some of the newer ones are ok too. You just have to read them first.

My husband and I did this when we got married almost 10 years ago. I am an only child with an unusual Slovenian last name who was very close to my dad. My husband has a very common last name and 2 siblings and was estranged from his dad. Both of our children have the same hyphenated last name, although our oldest is…

Nails are not very expensive at all if you get them done at a beauty school by students. That's how I manage to get mine done occasionally.

This is Awesome! Too funny.

What if the age difference is only 2 or 3 years and they are in the same grade due to one party skipping or repeating a grade?

FWIW my son hates sports. The only ones he enjoys are dance and tumbling. Skill and coordination matter more in those than size.

Thank you. See my other replies in this thread.

We live in a small rural district with only 1 k-5 building and no gifted program. At the beginning of this year, my son was coming home from school in tears every day because he was so bored in math class. He has been a MUCH happier child since the school allowed him to take math with a 4th grade class. Through scouts…

Thank you for this. This is exactly how my husband and I feel. We live in a small rural district with only 1 k-5 building and no gifted program. At the beginning of this year, my son was coming home from school in tears every day because he was so bored in math class. He has been a MUCH happier child since the school…

I live in a state where the age of consent is 17 and the cut-off date turning 5 to enter kindergarten is September 1. My son has a late summer birthday, and will most likely be skipping 4th grade and starting 5th grade next year. That will mean that he will only be 16 when he graduates high school and all of the other…

Actually the God part is now optional. Girls may substitute another word or phrase to indicate their own beliefs.

I just want to remind some Jezzies that the Hospital/Homebirth argument is a moot point in some states. I live in Illinois and it is illegal to have a homebirth, attended or not, except in emergency situations(precipitous delivery, snowstorm closing all roads making transport to hospital impossible). There are however…

It's real. I witnessed from the family in front of me at my KMart's lay-away counter. KMart may have leaked the story for the publicity, bu, it has also probably spurred other people into giving in a similar way. KMart is also the only store that has practically no restrictions on what you can put on lay-away. At…

I witnessed a family doing this today at my local KMart while waiting to make a payment on my own lay-away. The employee disclosed in general that there were a lot of children's clothes and some toys on the account they were paying on, and that it was delinquent(close to being put back on the shelf).

I was making a payment on my lay-away and a family in front of me was paying off 2 families lay-aways anonymously. The employee found them lay-aways that were delinquent and that had both children's clothes and toys. The family paid in cash and refused to leave a name.

After 2 and a half years of my husband being unemployed with only substitute teaching for income, we don't have much, but my mom has been able to help with things like winter coats and dress clothes for special occasions. Some of my son's friends have even less. I do have a good sewing machine(hand-me-down from my…

Actually, most toy drives are only eligible for families who are "officially" poor, meaning that they have to qualify for free or reduced price lunch at school. These programs rarely catch kids too young to be in school, or whose parents make as little as $10 a month too much to qualify for $200 worth of food stamps…

I wholeheartedly agree with you. I was raised Catholic, but I believed in Santa for longer than I believed in God. After all, there was proof of Santa every Christmas morning under the tree. I remember telling my dad(a 7th grade science teacher) that I didn't believe when I was 11. Confirmation classes were at the…

It really isn't that meager for where I live. It's low, but not ridiculously so. Starting teachers salaries(with Bachelor's degree and no experience) are around $2800. But that just show's how high the minister's salary really is. To put it in a bit more context, my mortgage payment(not including property taxes or…