Okay Lucy, I'll bring you a pink and a purple hydrangea for a bluish green/yellow hosta. I have just begun to appreciate the blue leaf varieties. My property used to be a pig farm and my hydrangea colors are very often different than they are supposed to be. My 'Forever Pink' is a deep, clear rose when fresh and turns red-purple as it ages. And my purples are deep purple. I can't say the strong colors will last more than a year or two in another soil. Farmerpickle, I have several iris--'Beverly Sills', 'Harvest of Memories', 'Spiced Custard' 'Swingtown' an unnamed very deep purple, and a very tall white, unnamed also. Are you listing three separate iris or one that is lavender, burgundy and yellow? E-mail me to finalize this trade. Everybody---I need a few folding tables. Please e-mail me if you can bring one. Linda

You are all more than welcome. You are appreciated as well. Thank you to Debbie for organizing the details of the food. You did a great job and there was a wonderful variety of food. I don't think I have ever seen a cake as large as the carrot cake go so quickly!!! There were too few slips of the recipe for the rice salad and Kathlin did not get one. Can the person who brought that please send me the recipe? And finally, thanks to all the people who helped set up, carry stuff to and from autos, and clean up at the end. Can't wait til Spring. Linda Gail

imamommy, I have four birth sons, 24, 23, 19, and 14. I have three foster kids who are still part of my family, two boys and one girl. The boys i got when they were sixteen, they are now in their early 20's. THe girl i got when she was fourteen, she is now 21, and married with a baby of her own. They lived under my care until they were adults. My step kids are a daughter , 12 ( almost 13), and a stepson 8. We have my stepkids pretty well half time, in a joint physical custody situation. Originally, mom had full physical custody, but lost it a few years ago when she was reported to the CPS by stepdaughters school, for biting stepdaughter all over her arms leaving huge bruises. Mom was given a conditional discharge and placed on the child abuse registry and we were given joint physical custody. Both my husband and I are on the same page as far as parenting style. We are not authoritarian parents, but we arent particularly permissive either. Our list of rules is fairly short, but those rules we do have, are to be obeyed without exception, and there are consequences for disobeying.The older they get, the fewer rules there are. We have family meetings, informally called in the kitchen, and our family slogan is that everyone gets to have a say. We get the final say but in our kitchen meetings, every child can feel safe to say what they think, what they want to do about it, and know that their opinion carries weight. We have a baton ( a plastic spoon) that the person speaking holds when they are speaking, and when you are holding the spoon no one can interupt you. Family rule. WE also go out to eat or have everyone over as an extended family once every two weeks, at which time a lot of issues are brought up. With the exception of the youngest stepson, every one of my kids, foster kids and stepkids have told both my husband and I that they think we are the wisest people on the planet and know that we will give them good advice, even if they dont want to hear it. I take that as a tremendous compliment. In fact, when we moved a few years back so that we could maintain the joint custody, ALL of my children and foster children also picked up roots and moved close to us, across country. They didnt want to be away from us, or their brothers and sisters. We are extremely close knit. Of course every family has to develop its own way of communicating, I just really really oppose the sneaking into peoples private things. I think that if you are going to read someones diary, you should tell them, then at least they can modulate their opinions. Both hubby and I still keep a journal, and all of our kids do as well, as a way to put thoughts in order and to express emotion. Most therapists s uggest it as a great tool to help you understand what you are really feeling, since emotions can be so overwhelming at t imes. But to invade that of someone elses.....it really hits me wrong. One of my sons, the one who is now 19, had adjustment problems for about a year, when he entered his early teens. I had the attitude thing with him, the lack of ambition, the wanting not to go to school etc. One thing we did do , was talk and communicate without anger or judgement even when I wanted to pull my hair out. We had a great therapist who helped us both to understand how to do that. He is doing fine now, and has been for the last few years. My foster daughter, when she came to me, was promiscuous and using drugs. Within six months, we turned that around as well, again with the help of a godsend of a therapist. Now my stepdaughter is disinterested in school, lying about her homework, and hiding things from her mother and stepfather, although she is being open with her dad and I. It upsets her biomom when stepdaughter hides things from her that she freely talks about with us, but some of the things that biomom, or more particularly her husband are doing , are bound to cause mistrust. For instance her mom DOES search her room regularly. Her mom and stepfather both openly compare her to her stepsisters, who are on the honour roll. Her stepdad reads her mail. She isnt allowed to have unmonitored phone conversations. She has been told nothing about periods , or sex, and didnt even know how babies are made until I broke down and told her. My stepdaughter has done nothing to cause her parents mistrust, other than to lie about grades and homework (which she does because she gets grounded indefinitely for not getting a good grade). Her biomom and stepdad unfortunately dont deal well with frustration , and thinks cracking down harder is the answer to a problem. Its making it worse, although we dont have any problems with stepdaughter when she is with us. Mom resents the fact that daughter is so easy with us and so secretive and withdrawn with them. Its not mom, its stepdad, according to stepdaughter. But biomom will have to see that for herself. I try to stay out of it as much as possible, because its not my place to critisize how mom raises her own daughter. YES, i think she is making big mistakes, but they are mistakes common to a lot of parents. Parents tend to forget that when kids are young, I SAID SO is a valid way to deal with them but as teens, you are dealing with young adults who are their own person, and rules without relationship lead to rebellion. A lot of people are totally in shock when their youngster stops being intimidated into doing exactly what they are told. The teen years do get easier with each child, because you have experience with it, as of course you know since soem of your kids are grown. BUt for someone dealing with a teen for the first time, it can be very bewildering. Your young cub grows teeth :) As I have said before, Praise works better than punishment, and if you want them to trust you, be trustworthy.

"What about child actors? They are "marketed" too." My sister was going to get my nephew involved but when she saw how it was, changed her mind. Have you seen how many child actors end up burnt out and depressed, on drugs or dead by the time they should be starting out their lives? I'm not 'harassing' you because I have a different opinion about something. Aren't I entitled to my opinion as well as you are? We aren't questioning her falling off her bike. My DH just called her to see if she was okay. It's BM & SD's behavior that are weird. I can see that she may be defensive. When we pulled up to pick SD up, they were standing in the driveway. SD said she had to show DH the scratches on the back of her leg to dad before she could get in the car. I didn't see anything on her hands or knees but I guess that doesn't matter, it's been a couple of days. So we leave & stop for dinner. As we are eating, SD mentions that her leg & head hurt. DH says out loud that he wonders if it's a concussion and I mention the hospital. SD's face gets a terrified look on it and she says it only hurts a little bit. She starts to minimize how much it hurts. So, DH is trying to assess if she has a head injury that needs to be looked at and asks what the pain feels like. SD starts to tell him the story of how it happened and we stop her and tell her we don't need the story on HOW she fell off her bike (which is what she was telling us) but how it feels now. She starts to tell us about her leg pain but he's only concerned with her head. She starts out saying it's throbbing but concussion & hospital are mentioned, she says it doesn't really hurt much at all. and finedreams, since your daughter had a concussion, did she go to the hospital? and what did they do for it? and it isn't 300 miles away. I don't know where theotherside came up with THAT. It's about 3 hours away. It's about 150 miles each way but we live up in the mountains and she lives up in a different set of mountains so there are a lot of slower curvy two lane roads to drive on. And yes, my DH would drive it. We drive it every week to pick her up. They would do the EXACT SAME amount of driving if she came to pick up SD instead of sending her mom. But they are both equally responsible for transporting the same time/distance. I don't know why you would doubt he would do it. When she goes over there for the summer, he will get SD the same 1st three weekends of each month. And when they had 50/50, DH drove her 45 minutes every morning to school on his weeks and I drove 45 minutes (each way) to go pick her up. BM didn't have to drive because she lived a few blocks from the school. Again, that's not a complaint, that's just the arrangement they had and DH never had a problem with it. We also never had a problem driving SD to her taekwondo classes (she took with her mom) which were almost an hour from where we live, when it was her dad's week. We also would go to her events whether she was with us or not. If her mom had her for her week and she had a taekwondo testing or tournament, we would go watch her. We sometimes drove a couple of hours. DH's parents would also go to those things too. I would have a problem with any father that doesn't see his children the way he should. I don't see different standards. Parents should see their children on a regular basis. I'm not saying what that should be but if they agree to one thing, put it in writing (or a judge orders it) and then they don't show up and the kids are upset & disappointed (or worse, sitting there waiting/canceling other plans) then there is NO EXCUSE for a parent to do that to their child. NONE. If you don't want to have that much time, then don't make that agreement. If you don't want to be tied down to it, then leave it open and say "I'll call when I have time to see them" but it's is SO WRONG to have a child that is excited they are going to see their other parent and then when the other parent cancels or doesn't show up, it breaks their hearts. That's only my opinion and it's not directed at any specific situation, not even mine. I think that is how it should be in general with ALL parents.