Cover all the areas you use for walking with padding topped with carpeting. Such a remedy could be a peaceful solution to your noice problems. Don't forget that the noise is generated by you, and therefore, it would be in your own best interest to find a way to abate the noise. Like yourself, your neighbor would like peaceful enjoyment of her apartment. Floors' creaking can be eliminated by a skilled carpenter and would be your landlord's responsibility. You and your neighbor could together make requests to your landlord to have the creaking-floor problem eliminated. The landlord has to provide peaceful habitation for all. Never lodge false accusations or complaints about anybody! If you do, you open yourself to all kinds of repercussions, like eviction, lawsuits, and landlords unwilling to rent to you again, because you've become a high-risk tenant.

I have two daughters under the age of ten, and we recently did a minor remodel of their bathroom. The MOST important thing I wanted for their bath were one handled lever sinks, like that Kohler one in the commercial. Little kids will turn on the hot water knob and scald themselve-it's easier for them to adjust the one lever than to try and remember which knob is the hot water and the cold. Plus they tend to just turn on and off the lever and not move it from side to side anyway so it's always on warm. The other thing we did was put in a speckled blue corian counter top. I think it was called Mediterranean, anyway, it's EXCELLENT at hiding toothpaste. My kids are kind of messy and I was so sick of always seeing white and blue toothpaste all over the place every morning. The corian totally hides it! If you can do a deep tub, it'll keep more of the splashes in. You can sit on a stool to wash them. We've had some major water spillage when they splashed too much in the shallow tub...

Great advice, sweeby! Thanks so much for the idea. Unfortunately, like you I basically avoided the truth and did not record milestones etc. I can't accurately remember a lot of the details of her very early years. At least I kept all of the "official" documentation as well as samples of her work from age 3 on. However, it was frustrating to be asked over and over whether Alex echoed me, or used my hands to gesture, or whether there was ever a regression in skills, and on and on, with no clear memory about it. Did she reverse pronouns? Did she babble? When did she first use 2-word sentences? I had to tell them in many cases that I just didn't know. I could usually tell them when she had done something unusual and that if I hadn't noticed anything different, I thought it was probably pretty normal. Having 5 kids, I have a pretty good idea of what things were not typical. paige, how awful!! It's so sad that people can buckle under job pressure and trash their integrity. I don't see how anyone could do it. I do know, though, that it has happened to us twice in a less direct way. The playgroup teacher was simply unavailable for any documentation or official input, which I considered a breach of her contract but was obviously coming from "above." And the caseworker, who seems like such a lovely, warm person who cares about Alex when you're with her one-on-one, will turn on us in an IEP without batting an eye. DH told me to be very careful with what I say to her (I tend to trust people and will give way too much info). The district has made no secret of the fact that they want Alex off their sped rolls. Thank you for reminding me to be careful!!! A couple of days ago, I had a chance to speak briefly with Alex's new teacher (2nd grade). Alex was standing right there so I couldn't say too much. The teacher expressed amazement that Alex is on an IEP and said the usual we hear from teachers about how well she does, how smart she is, what a joy to have in class, etc. Then she went on to laugh about how much glue Alex used on her continents project that day. She marked Alex's project in red ink with words about not using so much glue and she called her "Miss Glue Girl" in front of other parents and kids after school. Alex burst into tears in the car and told me that she had had to do the project twice and still couldn't keep from getting glue all over. She said all the kids were watching. That's the kind of information I assumed would have been given to the teacher--Alex has *always* had a lot of difficulty with motor skills! Where are the reports and the people who are supposed to be working on Alex's behalf? I had requested a meeting with the teacher so that I could go over some of this stuff, but we hadn't had a chance to meet yet. Alex is left-handed, clumsy and awkward with any kind of project/art work/writing assignment, but there are easy accomodations for most of it (extra time, understanding that she *has* difficulty, left-handed scissors and perhaps a GLUE STICK????). The teacher also laughed about how serious Alex is. She told how she and another teacher were joking with her about her dress. They told her it was so pretty that they wanted it. When she just looked at them, one of them said, "What, you won't share your dress?" and Alex just looked at them and didn't laugh but frowned instead. Well, she doesn't understand that that is a joke. That remark would puzzle her because she wouldn't be sure how to take it. Again, that is something that has been noted in her records all along. This is the danger in teachers reporting that there are no problems and everything is fine!!!! Today she had a VERY hard time going to school because it's Fine Arts day. She absolutely dreads art day. In her arts class (or at least this was true last year), everyone does the same picture and they work on skills such as perspective, graphic sense, symmetry, etc. Alex is not able to do any of those things the "right" way, so her Woman or Dragon or Building looks very different from most of the other kids'. It does no good to tell her that art is what comes from the heart, because for a little girl attuned to following the rules and doing the best job, that is a moot point. Personally, I love her paintings because they are her and have a sort of Picasso-esque quality :) Luckily, we've not gotten to the age yet when these things are graded, but she knows the eyes on her person are not the same nor is the nose in quite the right spot etc so she is very unhappy with her work. Anyway, she has a little chime ball I gave her last year that hangs on a ribbon. I have had it for years. It's a little silver ball and if you shake it, will make a soft chiming noise. It's in a little basket thing so you can wear it as a pendant. I told her last year to imagine there was a little fairy inside and when she felt upset, to shake the ball and the fairy would sing to her. It worked pretty well and she told me that the fairy would sometimes tell her the right answers on her work. Today she put it on for Fine Arts. This year I gave her a small silver heart in a silk pouch for her to carry in her backpack. She gets it out when she is stressed and holds it in her hand to remind her how much Mama loves her and a piece of me is there with her to make her feel better. She made sure she had that today, too. We've not had as much trouble with meltdowns but she is very anxious and angry before and after school. She will sometimes go under her bed for a while and she likes the cupboard under the stairs. She goes in there with a little light and reads for a long time. I told her she's like Harry Potter, though I didn't mention that Harry didn't go in his cupboard out of choice.

When you ask about hardwood vs tile, you are bound to get as many strong opinions as there are posters here. :) I personally hated the tile in my last kitchen, and I'm a healthy 40-something runner who has had no foot/leg problems except for the arch & lower-back pain I'd get when working on the tile floor for more than a hour or two (when canning tomatoes, for example). Now that I have a hardwood kitchen floor, that pain is completely gone when spending long amounts of time in there. So for me, the connection is very clear and was easily solved by changing from tile to something else. I also differ from folks whose experience is one of not being able to keep a wooden kitchen floor clean -- in my experience, you sweep and mop, just as with any floor. Extremely easy for me. I found the tile floor much more difficult to keep clean since the lighter color picked up all the dirt, plus I was forever having to scrub the grout with Oxyclean bleach to remove stains from dropped liquids (espresso grinds, ack!) or scrape up bits of grunge that would stick in the grout cracks during mopping etc. Yuck. So, lol, OP -- do make your own decision based on what you know of your own lifestyle patterns and cleaning routines -- and not any of ours. :) In terms of using different woods in kitchen, family room, etc, I think it can be done very successfully and tastefully, and even accent your rooms in a desirable way. Good luck!