This is just my own opinion, based on my experience and a seminar I went to once about striking and rooting cuttings, LOL. Your mileage may vary. Water rooting is "supposedly" a waste of time. Its an "extra" step, and supposedly "unnecessary". According to the "expert" at the seminar, (and according to other things I have read on this subject, LOL) the "type" of roots grown in water are actually DIFFERENT from the type of roots that a plant will manufacture if rooting directly into soil. They are much more fragile and have some basic difference to them, and are usually aborted once the plant hits the soil anyway. Epipremnum and philodendron are among the easiest plants to root in soil, because they readily produce aerial roots in nature. A little rooting hormone (like Root One or whatever) can help too.

"...cindylou, imagine if you can what it would be like after all you and your husband have experienced with your MIL if your own children grew up and estranged you..." If I had a child who estranged me, I would not think it had anything to do or not to do with my MIL. I would not think that they owed me a relationship because I tolerated my MIL (maybe I misunderstood what you meant by connecting my MIL into that idea). If my child estranged me suddenly and with no warning and if I asked and they said, "You know", and I truly didn't, I would make the assumption they didn't quite didn't know themselves. That they have feelings and upsets they don't quite understand themselves and that they needed time away from me to work them out. (This is assuming there's no mental illness or addiction. If there is mental illness or addiction, then I do know and frankly, maybe I'm just getting too old, but I've seen the hopelessness and heartache of addiction and mental illness, and I think I'd just be grateful for being cut out). More likely, I would have been told the answer. And I'd accept it, even if it didn't make sense. "Because you wore blue to my kindergaren graduation." Huh? Ok. I don't think I'd argue. I can't imagine arguing with an adult child. They are an adult. I barely argue with them now. My parents didn't argue with me, I never saw them argue with their parents. My aunts and uncles on both sides didn't argue with either their adult children or their parents. It's just not done. I can't imagine it. There are differences of opinion and hurt feelings and misunderstandings and on rare occasions, conflict between adult members of my extended family. Of course there is. But everyone seems to understand a basic rule. I live my life and you live yours, and I can offer my opinion and it's fair if you don't follow it. The person who's business it is, gets the final say. The person who has the most responsibility gets to decide. The person who takes the biggest risk chooses. We are none of us perfect people; but we don't squabble and manipulate and gang up on each other and form one alliance and then another to force family members to do what we want. And we don't stab each other in the back. That's such a bizarre concept to me. And we are very close--without melodrama. There's not a lot of conflict. So if a child told me, "I don't want contact from you because you wouldn't let me go to Aruba on spring break." I'd respect that. I'd figure sooner or later they'd understand. Or if not, sooner or later it wouldn't matter any more. I would absolutely believe that eventually they'd come back. Not the way they were, it wouldn't be the same relationship, but had we stayed close, it wouldn't be the same relationship at 30 as it was at 20 or 10. Would I miss them and be hurt. You bet. But I'd be comforted that I would see them again and focus on the other blessings of my life while I waited. I truly believe that if you love something you let it go, and if it loves you, it will come back. And if it doesn't come back, you never had it to begin with. If after 10 or 20 years there was still no contact, I'd have to face the fact that it's probably for the best. We didn't have the relationship I thought we had; I didn't know them, and we obviously weren't a match even if they have half my DNA. Do I hope to have close, intimate relationships with the families of my adult children? Of course. But I will be happy with any non exploitive relationship my children feel comfortable with. I may want more contact or less, depending on the personalities, but perfection doesn't happen in relationships; it's like tension between togetherness and individuality that has to be worked out in a marriage. When your children are adults with families, you renegotiate your relationship, and if it REALLY doesn't work for someone, you might have to walk away. Sad, painful, but realistic. I have a coworker who is retiring and moving to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren. They are delighted to have her. On a recent house hunting trip she was dismayed that her daughter seemed to expect/demand a lot of babysitting from her. She's not moving there to take on the responsibility of babysitting her grandchildren, altho she does hope to see a lot of them and participate in their lives. Things were tense as she attempted to come to understanding with her daughter. She came back and asked if things don't work out in the other state, can she have her job back. I sometimes in the past had wondered if she's a meddling MIL so much does she talk about her grandchildren. But I see now she's got a life outside them and is not exploiting her daughter's family to fill the emptiness (if any) in her own life. And she's not going to allow herself to be exploited by her daughter however much she loves her family. She sees her standing up for herself may result in a cut off; and I respect her handling of this delicate situation. I'm sure it will all work out, but I can see myself in her place; in any relationship, there's always the possibility that you or the other person will walk away for whatever reason. You may think, oh yeah, you are so philosophical, just wait until it happens to you. Well, like anything, what choices do you have: you either accept with grace or you don't. How does not accepting with grace help anything? The ends don't justify the means. Bullying, manipulating, harassing, yelling...none of that is going to help. If you accept with grace, while you are waiting for the problem to resolve itself enough so the child talks to you again with a willingness to compromise, at least you can still have meaning and pleasure in your life. It also gives you time to reflect as well. It might not be that you did something WRONG, it's just that you don't mesh well. And you can measure in the absence how you and your adult child's family don't mesh and what you are willing to compromise to make the relationship more pleasant for EVERYONE. "Mom, you can never be unsupervised with my kids." "Why?" "Because you are a taurus". Huh? Well, that makes no sense to me. But why jeopardize my supervised visits with my grandchildren which can be wonderful by arguing if being a taurus prevents one from being a good grandma or not. Why fill that time with strife and anger and posturing and demands and righteousness and counter accusations when I can be on the floor playing Candyland and angling for the chocolate swamp or coloring in Barbie coloring books or stacking Lincoln logs as high as the sky. Who cares if DIL is glaring at me when my darling grandson and I are holding our breathes to see if we can make a Pixie Stix teepee? I believe letting them go gracefully gets them back eventually, and if it doesn't, the relationship would have just caused heartache all around anyway, estranged or not.

I had misunderstood your post--I didn't realize you were talking about what the children themselves would think. And I hope it didn't seem like I was suggesting that OP and her husband discuss their strategy in front of the kids! No way. The goal would be for the children to witness everyone being very civil, so, no speakerphone in front of the kids, of course, if BM is going to be verbally abusive. OP and her DH should model civility and not respond to or be reactive to rudeness. Our counselor emphasized over and over that children are NOT served by thinking their parents might reunite when there is no chance that they will. Instead, the new couple should present a good role model of a good marriage. And in a good marriage, it is a no brainer that one does not permit belittling or insulting of one's spouse. And that includes someone who treats one like a romantic partner, regardless of the past. The counselor said that children in a blended family feel the most secure with two conditions: the new couple is stable and loving; and, the new couple and their other bioparent have a good working relationship. It's important for the married couple to work together on a system where all the parents cooperate. Otherwise the kids sense a polygamy kind of arrangement.

I would probably order it and hope for the best. I'm willing to bet that my malfunctioning model was a rare event - perhaps occurring 5 out of 100 or even less. Up to that point, the sale was great. Helpful sales staff, quick order processing, quick shipping straight from Kobe to me, and the unit was built in September 2014 so it wasn't sitting in a warehouse for a long time or shipped to multiple locations before it got to me. The unit is beautiful. The SS shell looks impeccably crafted. If you live in or near a city, a warranty issue would hopefully be dealt with well. I think Kobe's resistance to service my unit was because I'm somewhat rural, and thus the service call would have been higher. Still doesn't justify their resistance; I'm just saying you may get an adequate response to a warranty issue if you are in/near a city. Haven't been able to get to trying to fix mine yet. I hope I can and get to use it. Will report back when I can.