For the past couple of decades, the ratio of women vs men has not been in the women's favor. Combine that with the real need for women to be self supporting in this world - that is now pretty much fact - to live above "survival" level, to be decently self supporting, they must be well educated, build their career - they can't "take time off" and expect to come back and be on the same track they were - the business world does not accomidate planning a family and Im not sure that it even should. I feel it to be very necessary for women to build up that career because of the high divorce and financiall, child abandonment rate - the women and children end up worse off and the man ends up better off financially. So it's now simply the law of nature that a woman must be prepared to take care of herself and her children alone. NOthing is written in stone anymore. That is a very, very sad fact about our society and the world, but it's simply the fact of life. I hope that mothers today are raising their little girls not on the Cinderella story but on strong, self managing role models. I think it's now basic good mothering and leading their little girls to the best possible life for them. Everyone must learn to live on the idea to be able to financially depend upon themselves, no matter what. It's a new world. So many are building that career that the biological clock gets ignored through necessity. Unlike a man, the woman can't ignore what is happening with her body. So many are now not married yet or the clock is running down and simply can't wait, or even count on, that prince or likely decent father to show up if they want to have the healthiest chance to have a healthy child, so they are choosing to have their family alone. It's sad, but it's now how this world turns. I have no problem at all with these women - they are much more likely to make good and effective mothers who support their carefully planned family well. They have done the work, done the planning and are prepared emotionally and financially. It's the young/younger unwed mothers who have no real source of income which can decently support themselves OR child and is frankly unlikely to ever have a realistic source of income that will enable them to stand on their own two feet and be effective, loving mothers. Or, the mothers who reproduce without worrying about any of this at all because somebody, somewhere will provide the basics and they know this - our taxes at work. The world and women's expectations for their life is very, very different than it was back in the 70's when I was starting out. Adjustments must be made for the best future of these women and their children. I wonder if there will ever be a time in the future of this century where males as a whole will be having the same discussions about family and career and raising a child alone that women now must have. I doubt it, it's built into our DNA. In general, they start them, we raise them. The idea that male "hunting" for the offspring seems to have fallen off the DNA chain *sigh* Sometimes I really ponder this, I wonder if that drive is no longer there because the world is so populated now that the male natural drive to provide simply isn't necessary anymore. There are so very many that his DNA is likely to survive, regardless. Sometimes I over analyze, can you tell? ;)

Great idea to form a log for slicing. Is that 8 oz. cream cheese? Thanks.

Could it be that you feel by her calling her dad "daddy" vs. "my daddy" you feel that she is leaving you no room to fill a dad role? In other words, if SD called her dad "my dad", she could still call you dad too (ie. Thanks for the new shoes dad, the old ones my daddy bought me were getting too small."). My soon-to-be SD calls her dad and mom "my dad" and "my mom" which I find a little strange compared to my upbringing, but then again my parents have been together for over 40 years so I never dealt with step-family issues. I always called my mom and dad "mom & dad" around them, my sister and other relatives but called them "my mom & my dad" around friends and strangers. In my siutuation the strangest thing to me is when we are sitting around in the living room and SD will say something like "help, my daddy is tickling me" which seems odd to me since #1 - I can see what he is doing, and #2 - I know that he is her dad... Oh well, kids learn all types of communication and her parents refer to each other as "your mom" and "your dad" so I would imagine that is where she picked it up from.

My former MIL made that every year. Indeed YUMMO!