dublinbay (kate), you are actually the forum member who enabled me into this rose, with your glowing recommendations. I'm trying it for the first time this Spring and I'm excited. From what I hear, it is a fairly compact rose although not tiny, and fairly hardy as well. Deep yellow blooms (not as light a yellow as many others). A shorter rose, fragrant and reblooms. I'm really looking forward to it and it sounds like a great gift to celebrate a new baby in the family :) What a nice idea!

I'm an only child too, and my mom is 94 years old. Do you have Power of Attorney for both financial and health care? If not, I think that's the first thing you need to tackle. Also, your parents should have a will. These documents need to be drawn up by a competent elder care attorney. You bring up moving them to an assisted living facility. If they actually make the move, how will they finance it? If it's going to be a private pay sort of situation, have you considered hiring in-home aids to help them and also relieve you of some of the responsibilities? There are various agencies that provide in-home care using qualified and screened individuals. Even if your folks eventually have to move into an AL, this option will give you some breathing room. Time to gradually get them adjusted to others caring for them. Time for you to research the best AL facility in your area. Time to take some much needed breaks and see to your own health. Also, check out your community adult day care programs and/or lunch program. Even if they gripe, get them dressed and take them to the day care and lunches a couple of times a week. That way they'll be out of your hair, so to speak, for a couple of hours and they'll get used to a group environment. Sort of what pre-school does for young children. Do you have any help or assistance at all right now? You may need to have an honest and blunt conversation with your parents about your physical & health difficulties. Tell them that's why you absolutely MUST have help. And be sure to never promise that any measure is temporary or that you'll keep caring for them in their home or anything else. No one knows for certain what the future holds, so promises are pretty useless and can be very troublesome. Legally, unless you've been given guardianship, you cannot force a parent into an AL or a NH. However, by bringing in help and taking them to adult day care and lunches, you'll be weaning them from that over dependence on you for everything. They'll learn little by little to accept help from others. That may help them feel better about the situation. Also, you could try something sort of drastic. Take a short vacation or tell them that your doctor has prescribed a weekend health retreat for you. So you'll be gone for three days and someone will come over to stay with them, or better yet, enroll them in a respite program at a local AL. Most assisted living facilities have a couple of bedrooms set aside for respite care when the caregiver must be out of town, etc. They would get acquainted with life at an AL. Maybe, once they participate in some of these types of activities, they'd be less hesitant. Of course, they could prove very stubborn. If that's the case, then use their private resources to get yourself some relief. Or apply to your county & state for government aid to get some in-home caregivers. Some charities have helpful program too.

I don't know of any. This site has some information and a yellow box with a couple good links-- the first two work. http://www.myprimetime.com/misc/press/press_cinenquirer_763000.shtml This one has some factoids and is a more kid-friendly article in terms of reading and the syle of writing. (The first article is a good one, it's just not as breezy.) http://pbskids.org/itsmylife/family/birthorder/article5.html This address is to a book on the subject that might or might not be helpful or worth having. http://www.familyresource.com/parenting/r/19/ Mostly, for support purposes it might be better to find some other 'unifying' factor that affects your family or parenting style, or which refers to your child's strengths. Parents of more than one child are usually concerned about similar parenting issues in general. Side issues can be addressed with or without the issue of parenting an 'only child.' Without siblings, for example parents and children can feel inadvertently pressured to acheive whatever passes for 'perfection.' Children who have lots of siblings can also experience loneliness, or socialization problems (not that this is normal for 'only children' just that it's one of the concerns people will usually mention). Birth order or the number of siblings a person has or doesn't have doesn't automatically control or predict how self-centered they will be as an adult. those articles and the book give a good overview of the positives-- and there are many-- most of which you may already know or have thought about

I was one of 5, all born in Dec. so one present for birthdays and one for Christmas. My son is an only child born in Aug. and he has always received tons of presents. (I always got a laugh out of the show Mr. Bean.)