Many years ago, my babysitter's young grand daughter was helping her Mom clean out the aquarium. Her Mom turned her back - the child tried to climb up higher and the partially filled aquarium toppled onto this beautiful little girl. She did live, but the aquarium shattered on top of her - you get the picture. I took that as a lesson and bolted everything I could to the walls. So sorry for your friend's loss and what a difficult time to become best friends.

DS is almost 14 and one of the most organized people I know. He is now responsible for doing his own laundry and cleaning his room, not just picking it up, and does it without nagging. When we moved into our new house last spring, he asked us if he could pack & set up his things, and did an amazing job of it. He was not born with this ability, nor did it happen overnight. Yes, we know how lucky we are!! We started at toddler age with bins & shelves for his toys. It really helps to have a place for everything. We didn't do the big toy chest--it's the bottomless pit that things tend to get broken in & lost forever. We did daily pickup sessions together, but told him it was ultimately his job. If he didn't pick his toys up by the end of the day, he "lost" them for a period of time, a natural consequence. He also attended a Montessori preschool, which insists on putting one activity away before getting another. When friends come over to play, he knows that either they help him put things away, or he has to afterwards, and I give them a gentle warning of 30 minutes or so before the playdate will end. If our son made a mess, he was expected to clean it up, which was an opportunity to show him how. He then usually wouldn't do it again so he wouldn't have the chore. Occasionally he made mistakes that involved some destruction, and he had to do additional chores and/or lose privileges to correct his mistake. A daily "uniform" helps with the clothing issues. This can be either a school uniform or what you have decided your child can wear, then make it accessible and let your child choose from that. I picked tops & bottoms that I knew were comfy, sturdy, & would all go with each other. Our son loved dressing himself from an early age. One thing that really helped me is what the "Love & Logic" program teaches about expectations & consequences to guide behavior. There are Love & Logic books, tapes, & lectures available at libraries & schools. With L&L, you don't yell, threaten, or negotiate. You do let the child know what is expected, and you do what you said you'd do, NO warnings or second chances. It's hard at first, but gets easier over time, and everyone is much happier & more peaceful. The whole idea is to never do for your child what s/he can do at each age. We're there to teach them life skills and let them practice them.

Oh, trash under the sink. I forgot. So you can kind of see on the plan, I have the sink cabinet bumped out a couple of inches. That's to help deal with the shallow cabinet run and fitting a sink in. So I am thinking that a farmhouse sink will also help with that as the sink can be pulled proud an inch or two of the cabinet. And that should give us enough room to squeeze a deck mounted faucet behind the sink. But I'm not sure how much room that leaves for trash under the sink? And I'd like to fit trash, recycling, and compost because our trash service hauls all three for us. If that can all fit under the sink in some kind of pull out configuration, I'd be willing to do that. I was putting the dishwasher on the other side of the trash pull out so I could scrap then load. Also if it makes any difference the doorway between the kitchen and the breakfast nook is seldom used. The breakfast nook is used as a kid art space at the moment and eventually I'd like to get it set up as my home office with mail sorting and bill paying in there. But it is not used for eating at all. We always eat in the dining room. Thanks!

Ashleys X can dethrown my ex who certainly earned father of the year in 2007. I don't want to hijack your post, just share with you my similar experience... When I was 8 months pregnant with my son, his dad quit his job because they wouldn't give him e/o weekend off for his visitation with his then 3 yr old daughter. He didn't work for the next three years. He was a SAHD to our son..Really he had a 3yr vacation to smoke pot and play video games--After 3 years I'd had enough and left. He claimed he couldn't afford to stay and would have to move cross country to live with his parents and of course... I was the worst person in the world for taking his son away from him. So, figuring I'd been supporting us all for 3 years anyway I didn't need him to pay child support. I took the state minimum $25 mo told him to get a job, get on his feet here, and we could reevaluate in 2 years. For 3 years all I heard was how poor he was, how he couldn't afford anything when I took him back to court I found in 2006 he made $47,000 And paid $300 in support-for the whole year! All the while sending my son home in rags that were too small and keeping the clothes he arrived in to refresh his wardrobe there. Sorry, I'm a little off track here..when it came time for modification he gave the first judge a sob story about how he didn't have time to fill out any of the paperwork he'd gotten. He had the same 20 days I did but whatever the judge gave him an extension-but my ex wasn't available to come to court one month later- because he would be on vacation with the kids out of state so the judge gave him two months :) I was hot, but to pacify me the judge ordered he pay $100 for each of those months. DCS distributed it to his daughter-whatever. So 2 months later we show up in court again the judge orders him to pay around $500 and he starts running his mouth about his other children he pays support for....His 18 year old son who he no longers owes support to, and the daughter that he pays $56 month for!!!The judge didn't find that any reason to discount his support to this child so he started complaining about childcare telling the judge that he wants receipts for my daycare expenses because I leave our son with my then 12 yo daughter totally implying that I'm a bad mom. WHAT AN IDIOT!!! Child support and Daycare are two seperate issues here. In the three years we were separated I never asked him for a dime for our son for anything, not daycare, a pair of shoes, not a cough drop and for him to try to smear me infront of a judge got me so angry when the judge ordered $465 for support the state's attorney recommended an incremental increase so I'd get 1/2 for 3 months before I got a full month and I said NO and asked the judge to say NO-she did, then she ordered he pay that full amount back to the day he didn't have his paperwork ready. Then I went home and gathered all my daycare receipts and mailed them in for my 58% reimbursement, and recently DS had an ear infection requiring drops that were not covered by insurance- the cost $73. You bet I sent that receipt to DCS too. Sometimes I feel a little guilty about what I get from him now -- then I remember how hard it was for me all that time on my own, that our son wasn't worth 1% of his 2006 income and I think of him rambling on in court and I feel just fine. And my X has not once since then whined about being poor. I know it sucks to do with less for now, especially in these hard times and I'm sorry. Hopefully in a couple years he'll have a better job and you can modify and he will pay more-in my state it costs more to raise a 12yr. and support is greater.