There is more to this lady's lamenting than not wanting to change her grand's diaper. The child is not being taught many things and is no fun to be around. Enough of this sentimental stuff. This lady is being handed a big guilt trip. I'll bet she stopped reading these posts. As for the lady in the church thingy. I know her kind. I'll bet lots of us do. She's a wonderful person and judgemental too. She needs help in the nursery--but no one wants to be in there. Those are the sweet, sweet, wonderful church ladies. Gag me. Give me a break with all those wonderful stay-at-home mom's and all of their saintly accomplishments. Right! I'll take a lady with dishes in the sink, and a 'to-do' list that hangs around forever, has fruit gnats hanging out in her kitchen, a sprinkler hose flooding the whole back yard, not a cute outfit to her name, and the little ones telling her, 'granma, if you were my age you would be my best friend' and 'can I have some more pancakes?' This lady needs to resolve how she is going to adapt herself to the fact that her children don't think like she thinks.

I agree with labmomma. I have thought about this for the last several years since my oldest started seeing his current GF. We have a small house and there isn't much space for entertaining friends that doesn't entail sitting right in the kitchen. By the time he was 18 we were allowing him to visit with her in his room. I know that they were having sex in there but this wasn't something that bothered me. For us it was a matter of pacticing what we preach. We have told our kids that sex is part of committed relationships and is a positive and healthy activity. We have discussed with our kids the need to be able to talk to your partner about sex before having sex with him or her. "If you don't know her well enough to talk to her about sex, then you don't know her well enough to have sex with." But having said that we know that it is also something that can lead to problems (like most other areas of human activity!) so we have warned them about the risks and how to minimize these risks. We have also said that, just like any other area of your life, if you get into trouble, come and see us. I know that this would not work for many people but for us it does. We expect that our kids will have sex esp once they are in long term relationships and I would rather they feel comfortable coming to us with questions and seeking any help they need. I think "forbidding" things can sometimes lead to children being afraid to come to parents when they screw up. I know that my parents thought that by forbidding me to have boys "upstairs" they were preventing me from having sex but I still found lots of time and lots of places to have sex as a teen. I would not have ever discussed it with them, though. Nor would I have told them if I had become pregnant or ... For me it came down to asking myself why I would I forbid them from doing this. I can forsee some circumstances in which I would not allow it. For example, if I thought the kids were too young or it was a relationship I didn't approve of for other reasons, perhaps. But given a committed or long term relationship and a reasonably mature teen, I do allow it. Guess that might put us in the minority but now that the oldest is away at university with the GF I have no regrets. They are both mature 19 year olds - hell I was married at his age. Maybe it just comes down to a different situation for each parent and for each child. Do what fits with your belief system and as long as you are open about your reasons and can communicate well with your kids it will all work out.

I cloth diapered my son who is now 5 1/2, here are my thoughts. A 484 prefold (with the dark blue stitching) in a wrap will swallow a newborn, they are just too big. Did you get some of the smaller infant size prefolds too? They have dark green stitching and are the same thing, just a smaller size. You can use them when the baby gets bigger too as a doubler for nighttime. Just fold one up into thirds and put it inside the bigger prefold. Bulky, yes, but very absorbent for overnight. For the tiny newborn phase I've heard that buying a couple 24-packs of cheapie cotton washcloths and using them inside a wrap cover is great. And you can use the washcloths as diaper wipes later or just throw them away if they are too stained. I've seen them at Walmart for I think $3 a pack. We loved Prorap brand velcro wraps. Didn't much care for Bummi or Bumkin wraps but we loved the Bumkin all-in-ones. Dappi pull on covers are very good, cheap and reliable but the velcro ones run very small and IMO aren't near as reliavble as Proraps. I also have to second the recommendation for an Aristocrat wool cover. Ds used to wake up soaked from his chest to his knees in anything but a Chinese prefold (with the aforementioned infant prefold inside arrangement) and an Ari. They require special care but are well worth it if you have a heavy wetter. Fuzzibunz didn't fit my son right. A friend of mine had the same issues. And another friend tried them but her baby ended up have an allergic reaction to the fleece, something to watch out for. IMO cloth diapers, no matter what covers you end up using, are going to be more comfortable for the baby in July than disposables. Washing diapers is easy. What I did: -Cold rinse cycle with nothing added -Warm wash/cold rinse cycle with detergent -Cold rinse cycle with nothing added Occasionally I would use vinegar in this rinse, followed by another rinse with plain water. Hope this helped, drop me an email if you have any questions. I'm all too happy to talk about my CD experience. Hopefully we will have another baby next year and this one will also be cloth diapered (I already have a stash put away LOL!) Karen

OK, focusing on the hitting instead of the who shares a room. I will share my experiences in hopes that it will help you. My FDH's son is 9 (I call him A__ on here) and has some problems with hitting. When he at BM's mom's place, he is allowed to battle with his 10yo cousin without repercussions. The cousin is a dreadful bully and is AWFUL to FDH's son, but A__ should still not be responding with violence. So this carries over to school and other social situations: Just yesterday, a boy in his class was repeatedly kicking a soccer ball into his face, and after telling the other boy half-a-dozen times to stop and that he was getting mad, A__ took some swings at the other boy. While I think I probably would have felt compelled to punch the kid too, this is not an acceptable response. We discussed with him that while he shouldn't let anyone push him around and kick a ball in his face, there are better ways to respond... He had to write out 10 reasons not to hit, and 5 things to do instead of hit. He also went to bed early last night. If FDH's son started a fight out of nowhere (which he has done), there would be stiffer consequences... But when he is being deliberately provoked, by someone trying to make him angry, and he just responds poorly, we feel that it's more of a "good decision making" lesson time. We have worked long and hard on anger management, and IMO, the best way is to help him come up with alternate options (like walk away, tell them to stop, and so on) and "make" him feel remorseful about it by coming up with why it's wrong. Maybe that would help with your family? I don't mean wrack the poor kid with guilt, but coaching them to feel a little remorse it OK in my books. Like write an apology letter? Or do what another SM on here does and make kids hold hands while saying five nice things about the other?