Prom Dress Shopping

Within a couple of months of seeing my stepdaughter, she had a quick weight loss and lost 20 pounds. When she emailed pictures to us of her trying on prom dresses last week, you could tell in a couple of the pictures that she was thin. Her shoulders looked bony.  I guess they are calling it stress.  She was only eating one meal a day.  I don't know if she meant to lose all that weight or really didn't have an appetite.  One meal a day and nobody notices?  I just hope she doesn't have an eating disorder. 

I wonder if they bought the prom dress a size larger because the ex plans to get her to eat to gain some of that weight back in the next 2-1/2 months or if the ex just bought it to fit as she is now. 

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Whose religion do the kids practice?

When one parent is a different religion than the other parent, how do you decide which religion will be practiced by the children?

In our case, dad didn't disagree or raise a stink at all when the ex wanted to put the kids in parochial school or take them to her church even though it wasn't his religion. He left that up to her during her time since she acted ultra-religious (with two kids out of wedlock when the ultra-religious ex acted like the Virgin Mary, I found that a bit ironic but oh well). When she handed out first communion invitations, that was fine too. Her time, her choice as long as she didn't expect him to pay for the school or activities.  When we had my stepkids, he didn't take the kids to the ex's church on Sunday. The ex had to respect that as well.

It was too bad a family member of the ex's couldn't show a little respect. This person insulted my religious beliefs (not hubby's even though we share the same beliefs...she singled me out) and told my stepdaughter that I was going to hell because of them. Nice topic for a child.  If you are raising a child to believe in the fiery inferno of hell, you don't tell them somebody they love is going there (which means by extension so is their dad and siblings since we're all the same religion).

All these years later, the ex doesn't take the children to church anymore and parochial school didn't last long.  It seems the ex only felt strongly about her religion when her parents lived nearby and expected her to go.  When they moved a couple hours away, the ex stopped going to church.  Glad it was never a big deal like it can become in other families. It was a non-issue most of the time and a running joke at other times on the hypocrisy of some.

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YouTube's Safety Filter

YouTube now has a safety filter to filter out smut before your kids can see it.  Watch this very short video on how to turn it on and how it works.

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My Dream House Found!

I found our dream house in our same school district that would be big enough for all of our kids and animals.  It has four bedrooms, a family room, living room, kitchen, breakfast room, dining room, and a rec room.  Oh yeah, it has barns, stalls, riding arena, and ten acres  (with automatic waterers).  It is surrounded by a couple hundred acres of somebody else's land so lots of privacy.  This is a house we wouldn't outgrow. 

Did I mention we can't afford it until child support is done in three years?   :)

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Contact from Stepdaughter

My stepdaughter texted me the other day and continued to text me for four hours!  We had a "texting" conversation for that long.  That has NEVER happened - 192 messages between us.  I said something to hubby and he said she's been texting him a lot in the past week too.  He thinks that maybe sd and her mom aren't getting along or something because this is not like sd.

We talked about future college plans, future driver's license, high school, band concerts, etc. Her initial text was talking about a video we sent of two of our kids dancing with my husband that sd says cracks her up because my giggle in the background is like squeaks. Surprise!

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