Jenamarie

Also, I'm kind of bothered by the amount of judgement against parents that has come out in this thread. I admit that my kids aren't the best behaved kids in Sacrament meeting, and more often than not one of us ends up out in the foyer with one of them for being unruly, but it is NOT for a lack of trying. Little kids have agency too, and I can teach and teach and teach, and enforce the rules, and try to make Sacrament as entertaining as possible for a 2 and 4 year old as I can (and for myself! I've sat through more than one mind-numbingly boring Sacrament meeting), but in the end it's up to them to use their little minds to CHOOSE to listen to those lessons and obey those rules that my husband and I have set up, and, being so young, and being in such a not-kid-friendly place, it's a difficult choice for them to have to make. Especially when the far more entertaining options of Primary and Nursey appear to be just outside those double doors.

You ought to come to my ward. It's quite the opposite.

Are you sure they "should" be? I know my current Bishop doesn't allow Testimonies to be borne in the auxiaries (when I was in the YW's presidency we used to allow 5 minutes at the end for Testimonies, and RS did the same thing, then the Bishop asked us to stop, because he wanted to encourage more people to get up during the main meeting). If mostly kids went up to the pulpit then that's not the Primary Presidency's fault. Unless the kids were beating down any adult who tried to approach the pulpit, it's only the adults' fault that there weren't more of them up there.

This is the method we use. In the chapel they have a coloring book and crayons, a few choice toys (usually something quiet like a soft doll or a rubbery dinosaur), and a sippy of water. In the foyer they sit on our laps. With nothing. It took my daughter about 3 years to figure out that the chapel was preferable to the foyer, and it's looking like my son is going to take about as long to "get it".

Do they really sit in the front on purpose? or because by the time they get to church all the back pews are taken? We have one family of 8 children in our ward who come usually with just their mom (dad is in the picture, but rarely comes to church) and by the time they get to Sacrament meeting (which starts at 9am) the only pew left with enough seats for them is the very front one. Our previous Bishop tried on many occasions to encourage members (particularly the older, childless ones) to fill the front pews first, before the back ones, for the sake of the young families with kids who are still learning reverence, but nothing ever changed. And those older members are usually the ones I hear most often grumbling about how often the kids in that family are being marched in and out of the chapel when they're being disrupted, and then being brought back in when they're quieter. If they were able to sit in the back, it wouldn't be such a distraction.

I thought the letter was refering to the "mommy whispering in Junior's ear" type testimonies. That learning how to give a Testimony should be done in the home until the child is able to independently give a Testimony, and then they are more than welcome at the pulpit. I know in my parents' ward there's two kids that go up for every one adult, and I wish more of the adults' testimonies were modeled after the kids', because they get straight to the point!

I agree with the first one, not so much with the last one. If a child under the age of 8 can independently give their Testimony (don't require mommy and daddy whispering in their ear) then I'd love to hear it! I've actually never heard of Testimonies being borne in Primary unless the child was giving a talk (my ward doesn't do it, at least) so I'd hate to discourage a child from going up there if they feel prompted to and have the capacity to.

It IS the land of fruits and nuts.

I should clarify: the white layer was just as jell-o-y as the other two layers, and it was usually in the middle. The whole concoction was usually made in a bread pan and flipped over onto a platter so you could slice it. Sound delish?

I grew up in California and there was ALWAYS multiple varieties of Jell-O at the ward Chistmas parties. Green with marshmellows, green with shredded cellery, orange with shredded carrots, orange with shredded carrots, mayonaise, and diced olives (BLECH!!!), red with crushed pineapple, and the red, green, and white layered kind (I never did ask what they used to make the white layer. I was probably better off not knowing) And I have no answer to the actual topic.

I find it disturbing that limiting what religion a PARENT can teach his/her child about is allowed to be included in a divorce decree.

One tradition I'm thinking of starting this year is one I read in this month's Ensign. On Christmas Eve everyone presents their "gift to Jesus" which is a promise to Jesus, written down and sealed in an envelope, to be kinder during the next year, or to read their scriptures more often, or something like that, and the envelopes are placed next to the Baby Jesus in the manger scene. I thought that was an awesome idea.

I just gave the Teaching for our Times lesson in our ward last month on his "Come what may... and love it!" talk. SUCH a great talk for these difficult times. I'm not usually one to just read a lesson straight from the manual (or magazine, as the case may be) but man, I just couldn't edit this one down! His talks were always so great! He will be missed.

It could be french.

Top 5 Monty Python sketches: 1. Spanish Inquisition 2. Spam 3. Ministry of silly walks 4. Fish license 5. How not to be seen

And I could post some YouTube videos of McCain ralleys where people spout out "Obama's a terrorist! It's in his bloodlines!" "Obama's a Muslim!" "You have to touch him with gloves!" etc. etc. Ignorance is no respecter of party lines. I'm really getting tired of the threads that have been posted lately where, in leiu of ragging of Obama, ragging on his supporters is the focus.

Oh I love me some Monty Python! I can never look at spam or shrubbery without laughing to myself.

You know every piece of music you put in the player eventually turns into "Queen's Greatest Hits"? (Brownie Poitns to anyone who gets that ) NPR if we're listening to the radio, if we're listening to CD's it's a grab-bag. Erasure, Mika (who's songs might as well be on a kids' CD! My kids love the Lollipop song!), Enya, Sting, LOTR's soundtracks, CARS sound track, and a variety of Christmas music.

Ya, I'd be laughing at this story no matter WHO was being interviewed.

But when these people decide that their children are "problems", it's the children who suffer. You can't force people to "deal with it". In my DH's extended family, there is most deffinately one example of someone who wishes her parents had just abdoned her. They did not want a daughter (they raised three older sons just fine, with no issues) and took out their dislike of her by keeping food from her and sexually assaulting her for years. As an adult she spent months as an in-patient at a mental institution, and several years as an out-patient to work through the baggage they left her with. The parents didn't WANT to deal with their disdain of having a daughter (at least not in a positive way), and back when this happened there weren't the social services there are now to help protect children in these kinds of situations. Sure, she's an absolutely wonderful person now, and lives a wonderful life, but that's IN SPITE of what she had to overcome, not because of it. (but then I'm also not one to believe that everything happens for a reason. sometimes things happen because people make horrible decisions)

And an interesting example from our own soon-to-be-President (who is bi-racial). Here he is as a child with his maternal (white) grandfather: He may not have the same eye or hair color, but I'd still say there's an extremely strong family resemblance! (and I'm not meaning to pick on you SoJ, just pointing out that it IS possible to have kids that "look like you" even if they have different racial make-up :) )

I dunno, I'm a white person married to another white person, and I sometimes really question whether I'm actually my children's mother. Niether of my already-born children looks ANYTHING like me! Infact, my daughter is the spitting image of her grandmother, and my son's newborn pictures looked *exactly* like my DH's (so much so that it freaked my MIL out a little ) So marrying within my race didn't give me that benefit. :) On the other hand, we had a bi-racial family in our ward a few years ago (dad was white, mom was black from Trinidad. beautiful accent!) and the oldest son looked like the spitting image of his dad, if dad were to get a deep tan.

How in the world is this attacking her?? I would be shocked if this didn't make the news if it happened after Obama, or Schwartzeneger or anyone else pardoned a turkey and then gave an interview with turkeys being butchered in the background. It's irony at it's finest! I think it's the camera people and the butcher guy are the ones that come out looking like dolts in all this, ESPECIALLY the butcher guy, because he was looking at the camera the whole time! (it could be that the camera man was too focused on Palin to notice the background action) He had to know that what he was doing wasn't fit for the news!

I just got finished reading Twilight, and I really don't see what the big freakin' deal about them is?? It took almost *400 pages* for any sort of real "conflict" to start, and then by page 455 it was over. I kept reading chapter after chapter waiting for some sort of actual plot line to start, and all I got was 50 pages near the end of anything remotely captivating. Ya, needless to say I was *very* disappointed in the books. Although I *might* go and see the movie, just because it seems like they actually put a plot line into it. And Viva la Queen of the Damned!

I think women only shoot themselves in the foot when they think that, since they can now do most everything for themselves, that means they HAVE to. Also, some men are still a bit "behind" and still expect women to do the majority of the child rearing and house keeping, even if she's also working full-time. It's all about moderation and balance, and finding the right division of labor that fits your family.