Cerina

Oh and did I mention that Travis's dad, Tim, has been missing for a year presumed dead? My MIL has a host of mental health issues, but she's so much better off than her parents deserve. They fucked her up, and she has a real difficult time with setting boundaries and let's people, men especially, treat her like shit. Trevor and his sister have their own minor issues, but they honestly have right to be as well-adjusted and mentally healthy as they are.

5 minutes into Willow I was thinking "oh boy is the internet going to LOVE these two!", but then...yeah.

Try living it! To be fair, we have a lot of perfectly normal people as well. But they're outside of the scope of this thread.

We really enjoyed this show. It's like Addams Family fan fiction for people who like Harry Potter and The Vampire Diaries. It's just one of those shows that you can't devote too much thought to because it will hurt your brain and the questions and holes won't stop (just like everything Tank said). You have to enjoy it for what it is in isolation and nothing more. That said, I felt like the parts with the rest of the Addamses and the love "triangle" were really shoehorned in. It was so forced that it really pulled me out of the narrative and reminded me of everything that the show was not. On the other hand though, I LOVED Enid and the actor who played her. She could have been so one-dimensional and tropey, but the actor made her just loveable. She was honestly like a puppy. And despite what the internet thinks, I caught no lesbian vibes from the Wednesday-Enid relationship.

Ever since her parents died, my mother-in-law has been spiraling. She won't go to therapy. She's been stuck in the "angry" part of grief for almost a year. Damn near everything pisses her off these days. My sister-in-law and her fiance split up for about a month back in Sept/Oct, and my MIL acted like she was going through a divorce of her own. She was angry that my SIL didn't take all of her "advice". She was angry that she didn't see my nephew as often (she used to get him from school 3-4 days a week) during the split. She was angry that SIL and her fiance don't ask her to babysit and just assume she will. She was angry that SIL did and didn't invite her to Thanksgiving (I still don't understand that one tbh). She's so angry that she's decided to "disappear" in December and leave the state for Christmas. She almost didn't tell us where she was going, and she still hasn't told SIL that she's even leaving! We had a hiccup trying to buy this house from her. The taxes increased so much from last year to this year that it priced us out of it. We can afford the insurance and P&I, but not the taxes anymore. When we told her that and tried to talk to her about our plans, she flipped her shit. Literally, we just wanted to tell her that Trevor is looking for a full-time job now and Luke is going to be going to public school for the foreseeable future, both of which we're pretty much on the horizon anyway because the rising costs of everything is putting a major strain on my salary and I haven't been with my boss long enough to really request a raise just yet. We're not happy about the lifestyle change, but oh well, life and all that. But anyway, she LOST. HER. SHIT. She accused us of trying to sell the house out from under her, threw a fit because she "just knows" that we blame her for not doing what we told her (homesteading the house and protesting the taxes)(and yeah, we kinda do blame her for that part a bit but whatevs, we didn't bring it up), and basically told us that she can't trust us because we're family and you can't trust family when dealing with money. THEN she tried to explain to us that it's not that she doesn't trust us, just that she has to verify all of our real estate knowledge with an outside source because that's what you do when you're on opposite sides of a transaction. But at least she admitted that my real estate knowledge is more robust and complete than hers and nothing we've told her so far has been false or misleading in any way. So it's like, it's not that she doesn't trust us just that we can't be trusted... So 2 nights ago she came over so we could discuss this all in person to avoid any "confusion". Mostly the convo went well. But then she started telling us that SIL's fiance told her that our nephew is not allowed to spend the night at her house if she allows Trevor's currently incarcerated and estranged brother move in with her once he's released. She's angry about that too. Had a whole rant about how they don't trust her. And then we had to interrupt to tell her that our kids aren't allowed around Uncle Travis either. She lost custody of Travis when he was a toddler because she married a new guy who was in the army and got sent to Germany. Travis's dad (grandmother really) took her to court to keep her from taking Travis overseas for a year and won. Travis's dad is complete white trash - meth addict, conman, thief, in-and-out of jail, domestic abuser, etc. So Travis came out the same. Travis is 40, and two years ago when Trevor tried to reunite Travis and their mother, he brought his 15 year-old "stepdaughter" with him. After a few visits, it became apparent to pretty much everyone that he was actually sleeping with this girl. Trevor called the girl's mom who basically admitted that it was true and strongly hinted that she was pimping out the girl for meth from Travis. Travis's one and only sane blood relative, Aunt Theresa, also confirmed that her brother caught Travis and the girl in the act and beat the hell out of Travis for it. So Trevor called the police and Travis's PO (because he's pretty much in and out of jail all the time, he always has a PO), but neither could do anything without a complaining victim or solid evidence. Then Travis got popped with meth and wound up back in jail and is now in some work program. But he's been buttering up to my MIL, getting money from her, convincing her to send money to his fellow inmates ("it's so sad, he doesn't have anyone on the outside to send him money for commissary"), and now has nearly convinced her to let him move in with her when he's released. Basically, he has nowhere else to go, even his bat-shit insane blood relatives on his dad's side won't help him anymore, and he has to have an address to put on his parole papers to get out. So the other night my increasingly disproportionally angrier and angrier mother-in-law told us, "you're saying if I help out my son, I lose my entire family". Not even sure how she made that leap. We kept telling her that that wasn't the case. She's a grown-ass woman and if she wants to help the son she didn't get to raise, that's commendable. We think she should proceed with caution, but it's admirable to want to help. We're all just saying that our underage children aren't going to be allowed around their meth-addicted pedo uncle until we see some serious changes in him. Still, she thinks that means that she has to choose between him or the rest of us. She's always welcome at our house (she still owns it!!), and is conditionally welcome at SIL's (the split did a number on their weird 3-way relationship), and we could always meet somewhere in public. But oh no! We're making her choose - her son or her grandsons (and yes, she specifically left off her daughter, her other son (Trevor), and me). So shoot me now! At least *I* know that she won't be in town for Christmas, so we won't have to deal with this bullshit then. It's rare that my side of the family is the least drama-filled.

Dude. Keep an eye on your bank account. Might want to cancel that card and get a new one JUST IN CASE.

Halloween - my little kid was Siren Head. Feel free to Google it and then question my parenting. My oldest didn't really want to dress up, so he went with his 3 younger cousins and brother (3, 4, 6, and 6) in plain clothes and told everyone that he was an "underpaid babysitter begging for sympathy candy". Apparently that was a big hit. My mom, sister, and I stayed behind to give out candy and such. This year we had 3 bowls set out - chocolate candies (Reese's, Milky Way, Snickers, etc.), fruity candies (Baby Bottle Pops, Laffy Taffy rope, Nerds rope, and something else I don't remember), and Rice Krispie Treats. We also had small individual things of scented Play-doh. Kids of all ages went nuts for the Play-doh. The Rice Krispie Treats were the first to empty. The chocolate didn't even get halfway empty. Next year I told my sister I want to have a potato as an option. Kids are wild. Thanksgiving - we're going to my sister's house, and I'm going to help with the cooking so I don't have to be on the clean-up crew. We were all going to see my grandparents in Houston since my grandpa had open heart surgery 2 months ago, but instead, my dad decided to import them to Austin so he can take them out house shopping over the weekend because they need to move up here to be closer to the rest of us. We moved my mom's parents last year, and I swear it added 3-5 years to their lives, so now it's my dad's parents' turn.

Dude, eff that! Boys need to be beaten by girls more often. My kid gets smoked by girls on the regular, and it's fine. Now granted, he's not super competitive by nature (whose kid is this...seriously?!) and he's also like the complete opposite of athletic. But this is one reason I love having him in the linked troop in scouts. He sees the girls achieve at a high level all the time, and he sees them blow the boys out of the water constantly. Our girls troop has won the overall competition at camporee (a scouting skills competition) 3 years in a row beating out boys troops that have been around for DECADES. Also, Luke has turned out to be quite a cusser, but he doesn't like it when we say "bad" words. We're not allowed to say "dammit", "what the hell", or "crap", but he has no issue calling his dad, AND I QUOTE, "a fuck". Parenting fail.

That's fucking rude! And congrats for sticking it to them!

I'd definitely be happy with Buttegieg. He's just so even keeled and almost unruffleable.

No. DeSantis would be horrible. But with Trump running 3rd party it would split the vote. I don't really think DeSantis would do too terribly well outside of FL either. Of course the reds will vote red, but undecideds and independents likely aren't amused by his bullshit.

Despite the overall success of this election nationwide, the mood in Texas is grim, y'all. So many people in my FB groups are overly worried that Trump is about to announce that's he's running again in 2024. Honestly, I think that's awesome. After this election, I think that it's obvious he won't win and the right knows this now. Best case scenario, they run DeSantis instead and Trump's ego forces him to start his own party to run anyway.

Did you check on telehealth? At this point, it might be worth it to find someone out-of-network and pay the difference. Going on antidepressants is life changing!

We should start a defense fund for that man.

Our country is fucked.

I love reading your insights on education from an institutional perspective. I generally speak from a more personal level on these things, both from my experience and because homeschooling lends itself to being able to teach and learn on a personal and individual level. With homeschooling, we're not typically dealing with the same level of inequity as school systems as a whole, as most homeschooling families also tend to be fairly affluent and white, so my sample pool of anecdotes are similarly fairly homogenous. There aren't too many statistics available surrounding homeschooling (because of our general avoidance of things like benchmark testing, I'm sure), so I unfortunately only really have anecdotal evidence to offer. But it's anecdotal evidence collected over 8ish years and many different online groups, so I feel mostly justified in making the assertions that I do. That said, it's not uncommon for kids to fall into homeschooling after being considered "behind" in public schools only to have them "catch up" either fairly quickly or eventually. Most of the parents I see worried about their students being behind are still imbued with a public school mindset where, unfortunately, being behind can compound rather quickly without intervention because of teachers' limited ability to differentiate. That's simply not how things work in our homeschooling world. We have the luxury of a super-tight student to teacher ratio, the ability to slow down or speed up at will, and also the ability to switch gears at the drop of a hat if need be. So we as a group spend a lot of time assuaging these fears. But I have some uhh...thoughts...about this sentence: "When we talk about educational equity and social justice--whether that be racial, economic status, gender, etc--a key component is students having the skills necessary to access in demand and higher paying jobs." What other key components are there in assessing educational equity? How is it determined that students have these skills should they choose not to pursue in demand and higher paying jobs? Does encouraging natural aptitudes and interests play any part in assessing this equity? I know several homeschooling parents who've been reamed by family members because their kiddos chose not to go to college or bother with the SAT or ACT. Most of these kids discovered a passion and were allowed the latitude to dive right in. Now many of them are in blue collar careers that suit their personalities and passions. To me, I'd consider an informed and happily productive young adult a greater educational success than one who's been forced into a more "desirable" or "high-achieving" path. But this kind of thing is hard to get qualitative data on, so I'm just wondering what other criteria there might be to assessing educational quality or equity. Also, I really hope your district does a better job with phonics than either of my nephews' districts. (And I'm sure it does. Texas education sucks balls in general.) Other than learning a few letter sounds and some CVC word families, their phonics instruction is well...limited at best. And I never would have known this or noticed this had I not researched and implemented phonics instruction for my own kiddos - phonics and history have been the two most eye-opening subjects that I've taught my kids so far. There was SO MUCH left out of my own learning in each of those, and so much I don't see being taught to students now still. Just think, most students are only taught one phonogram for ch. /Ch/ - chair, cheese, chicken, chocolate. But rarely are also taught that ch also says /k/ and /sh/. Many times these are taught as exceptions, but there are so many words that utilitize these sounds! Christmas, school, schedule, chef, machine, crochet. English doesn't have nearly as many exceptions to phonics rules as people think. We're just not taught all of the rules properly.

Stickers. I own so many stickers.

I should not have clicked on that spoiler...

Being "behind" is a concept that only exists in schools and has little to do with learning in general. All educational benchmarks are essentially made up by people and some of those are even arbitrary. Whenever someone pulls their kiddos to homeschool and starts panicking on the FB groups, the first thing we have to make them understand is that homeschool doesn't have to (and shouldn't) look like public school. The second thing we have to make them understand is that there is no such thing as being "behind". Kiddos always learn best on their own timeline, and regardless of the intention and effort of individual teachers, public school simply cannot accommodate each student on their own timeline. Inevitably, this leaves some students "behind". It also leaves gifted and advanced learners "behind" in their potential because they too cannot learn on their own (accelerated) timeline. This is possibly my least favorite thing about our educational system as a whole, and one of the main reasons we homeschool. If we judge solely by state or national standards, both of my kids are "behind" in various subjects. My kiddos are both very smart (though only one has been officially labeled gifted, I'm pretty sure they both are), but they still have a natural learning timeline that doesn't match up with state or national standards. At this point, and I'm not even joking here, Luke's handwriting is better than Noah's. I'm not sure Noah's ever going to have "good" handwriting. Both kiddos use the same math program (very conceptual for exceptionally gifted math-y people) - Luke is flying through Level 1 and will likely be starting Level 2 well before summer, and Noah is FINALLY (OMG FINALLY) on the last section of Level 5. Age-wise, these kids are in 1st and 9th grade. There's a very real possibility that they'll be working on the same math in the next 3-4 years. But the only real advantage Luke has over Noah is that Noah has very low processing speed and working memory. And also, from what I've seen and read, many public schools barely even teach phonics anymore. They rely on other reading methods. Check this out, you might find it enlightening.

I'd be lying if I said I've never done anything similar.

At this point, I'm just hoping for something karmic, like getting struck by lightning while golfing or just a good old heart attack during a rally.

No clue. We still bathe Luke (6) with his little cousins (boys 4 & 5 and girl 3). Nobody seems to care. Noah went through a weird "don't see me naked!" thing when he was 8/9 and then got over it until he was 12ish, and now he's solidly in teenage privacy zone (and he takes 30 minute showers but doesn't seem to come out completely clean...somebody help me here!!). Looking forward to this with Noah. I get it.

I signed up for Stitch Fix a couple of months ago. And so far, I kinda love it. The clothes are high quality, reasonably priced, and it's simple. Most of the brands have been things I've never heard of, but that's fine with me. About 80% of my wardrobe was from Lane Bryant because they're the only brand I know that stays consistent in their sizes so I can shop online more than in store. I like it so much, I signed my husband up as well. So if you want a referral (with a discount I believe) let me know. But I recently decided that I need to just dump all the crap in my closet and basically start over with only clothing that looks good on me. So I had my judgy bitch of a sister come watch me try on my entire wardrobe and tell me honestly what looked good and what didn't. Then I started filling in holes, but first I did a LOT of research (it's what I do) about my body type and coloring and what would look good on me. Turns out, 99% of what I'd kept actually followed exactly what all these stylists online recommended for someone my shape and coloring, so go me for accidentally buying the right things sometimes.

Psychologically speaking, what makes kids "tough" is security. The confidence that grows from a secure home with healthy attachments to caring adults is what develops into mentally healthy adults.

I don't think any amount of exposure to toxic environments is good when they're that young. If it's something that definitely isn't improving, don't hesitate. Just do it. You might just find that you're kicking yourself for not doing it sooner.