Hi Lara...I'm back too, now that the board's free...a super easy craft is embellished burp cloths. Buy the PREFOLDED cloth diapers. Buy 1 yard of ribbon per diaper. Sew the ribbon across the (short) bottom & top of the diaper. You're done! Instead of ribbon, I've also seen people add maybe a 2"-2.5" piece of fabric to one end. I've never done this, but I'm assuming you fold the fabric over so the front & back are both finished. To carry it further, (and make the end product worth more $), you could cover the entire back in teh same fabric. Hmmm. is that clear as mud?

Twisties to tie up produce bags are totally unknown here. I wouldn't use them anyway (I cleaned out a drawer a few months ago that was literally an inch deep in unused twisties from packages of freezer bags, accumulated over 15 years!). I tie a slipknot with a loop in my bags so they can easily be opened again and if I haven't a trolley handy I can carry several bags with a finger slipped through the loop. Misbehaving children I have no compunction against telling off. Miss Manners suggests the line, "Don't do that, you might get hurt!", accompanied by the Look that says "And I will be doing the hurting". Works for me :-D Takes a village to raise a child and I am part of the village. My shopping-related pet peeve is our local grocery store (I live in a small town 37 km from the nearest other town) that either orders ridiculously small amounts of perishables, so they run out two days before the next delivery, or so much that you can't buy anything except what's right on the expiry date because they're not going to put fresher stuff out until all the old stuff is gone. And you can't buy the good brand of icecream in vanilla- lots of other flavours, but choc-mint doesn't go so well with apple cobbler :-P Why doesn't the person who orders consider that??? No one wants to eat a whole bowl of icecream in winter! (This is Australia, in case you hadn't guessed :-) .)

My ss has some (not all but some) of these tendencies.. Some of them have changed or evolved over the years but are still there in some form He often doesn't know where a sound is coming from (I had put this to that he had ear infections as a kid and has tubes, but then I found out tubes shouldn't do that) *** Not one that he has has problems with He often doesn't realize someone is speaking - he says he just hears a sound, but doesn't realize it's talking. I had thought he was just hyper-focused on something else, but he's getting WAY better about hyper-focus and it's still happening. ***ditto but I am guessing not as bad... I will be talking to SS and unless I have grabbed his attention and make sure he makes eye contact with me ... it's like it was all just a buzzing in the backround. He forgets the meaning of everyday words frequently. Poor little guy cried the other day because he was so frustrated that he couldn't remember the word "armpit" :( ***had some difficulty with this when he was younger... sometimes still has this issue. It's like a little roadblock just popped into his head. I know he had used the word before and I know he knows what it means but it just isnt there and he will get himself frustrated. I usually just use it in several sentences and he'll catch on. His speech therapy is going very well, but our big struggle is that he doesn't hear the difference between phonemes. *** not a big problem with him right now... mostly I am sick of the 'ghetto talk' (or at least that is what I call it) He babbles a lot, much like how a baby or toddler babbles. Random, meaningless phonemes strung together... Last week, just out of curiousity, I popped my head into his room and asked "Hey, whatcha talking about, kiddo?" and his reply was "Huh? I wasn't making any noise." *** he did used to do this and it would confuse me because I would have no clue what he is talking about. Usually telling him to calm it down and sometimes take a break would solve it. It was like he was so excited about what was going on or what he was doing he just didnt take the time to form full words. Now he (quite frequently) will be moving his mouth. No sound will come out but he is definately 'talking'. I asked him the other day if he realized that he was doing that and he said 'doing what?' I have no clue how to fix that... right now I am taking a no harm no foul approach to this one. We have so many other things to work on. He can repeat your words back verbatim, but has no clue what they mean when questioned on it. For example "Put on your shoes, A__" and he looks right at you while you say it, but then he walks away... When we ask "What did I just tell you?" he can say "Put on your shoes, A__"... but when we ask what he should do with that instruction he is puzzled and has to think about it before he cheerfully exclaims "I should put on my shoes!!" and promptly does it. So I don't think it's just attitude or not listening. ***Big Big problem with SS right now. I ask what did I say... he repeats it... I ask what does that mean or what should you do... he is clueless. I mostly just make a point of asking more questions... like so what should you do... what do you think would be the next step... that way I can be sure he understood what I said in the first place. I keep telling him listening is active that means he needs to think about what is being said. Hearing is inactive ... thats just hearing words bee bop around in your head. I want you to listen to what I am saying... so I want you to think about it and repeat it in your own words (big deal) usually if he can word it in his own words he has got it. If not we know to take a step back and try again. He often doesn't know if the TV is loud or quiet. He'll be STRAINING to hear it, or covering his ears because it's blaring, but when asked "Why not turn it up/down?" he says he doesn't notice it was quiet/loud. I would chalk it up to lazy or just being a kid, but he will get up to change the lighting or get a blanket and so on. It seems like he has a physical reaction to the volume, but he doesn't have any clue how to affect change to it. Does that even makes sense? ***this could be a bigger problem ... but it could be nothing .. I have had similar situation with all of my kids not just ss with adhd... it's like it just doesnt click that oh yeah that would fix the problem. I guess it would really depend on how often it happens. Sometimes when listening to a simple instruction, he cannot carry out the task - like folding a towel "Now bring the bottom up to the top" - and he says "I was listening, but I didn't get it" He genuinely appears to be listening - he is watching, is being quiet, has attentive body language, and so on, but he just doesn't hear it. ***another big one with SS... sometimes it is like I am speaking a foreign language to him and sometimes I do find myself getting frustrated with thinking "How in the hell do I say put the lid on the tupperware container a different way..." I dont really know what the key is here ... I do know I just keep trying to think of different ways to phrase things... and often time I physically put the lid of the container while I am saying it and then he says "Oh! I thought..." and then I take it off and say here you go. I feel like it defeated the purpose of asking him do it for me in the first place but I would rather get him to understand directions than get upset over having to put the 'lid on the container' myself I honestly dont know anything about auditory processing disorder so I dont know the answer there. But, my ss with adhd has some of these problems/concerns. It is mostly just a day to day thing for us. We know what it takes to get certain things across... ie eye contact or he isnt listening and we make sure other know this. Since he is getting older I am more and more pointing out things like SS, you know you will forget these things if you dont write them down, so you need to write them down... and ss you know you are not listening if you arent making eye contact so make eye contact... take the initiative. My theory is that we are not always going to be able to tell teachers and coaches what his deal is. He needs to realize it and take control of it in order to benefit his life in the long run.

Ghoghunter - Men can only pass the Y on to their sons so on the 23rd Chromosome it is not carried. On other chromosomes it is passed on. So a Female will no have any DNA on her 23rd Chromosome that was from her Paternal Grandfather's family. She will have it from her Paternal Grandmother's side but only some of it, same with only some of her maternal side. If you look at the chart in the link that will show you more clearly than I can likely explain it. If you were a man, you would get your Y from your father and only the father's line of males passed on from one generation to the next since females cannot carry the way. The male's X would be a combo from his mother's side.