Agatha
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Yes, I guess I'm a rather sedate dragon. Fire-breathing only at request or when absolutely necessary
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Post by Agatha on Feb 25, 2011 18:40:13 GMT -5
Well, going from 2 to 3 is more of a financial adjustment I think than going from 1 to 2. We will have to buy another car. We had to make sure that we had another bedroom. And that's just the beginning. A lot of times hotels won't let you have more than 4 people in the room, so you have to get another room. Those are just a few thing I can think of right now Lena As for hotels, obviously if you don't have enough money, you don't stay in hotels anyway. And, as for getting another room, you just bring the 3rd kid up the back steps and play dumb. It isn't that hard. Having traveled with children I think I can honestly say that in primarily family-centered vacation destinations most hotels will let more than 4 stay in the same double room(one room with 2 beds). You may have to rent a roll-away or crib, depending on the age of the "extra" child but you won't be turned away or forced to rent another room. Heck, I've gone to sci-fi conventions (in my misbegotten youth) where six people sharing a room was not unusual at all. As in "Man, I would love to go but they're out of rooms." "No problem. Bring your sleeping bag and you can crash in mine."
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2011 18:48:52 GMT -5
I just booked rooms for a friend and i to take the kids to the city for an overnight... it might be ok when they are little, but no one would let me put 2 adults and 4 kids in the same room... i guess if you lied...? but i'd rather have my own anyway...
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2011 19:26:34 GMT -5
I agree with the car seat thing... you might have escaped it Snerd... but three car seats on a bench is not doable... unless someone has developed an ultratrim line of seats? That seems like a good invention... but i suppose it would have to have a certain about of mass to meet safety standards....
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2011 20:46:18 GMT -5
Um, Snerdley, they basically stay in some sort of car or booster or restraint or at least the back seat until they are about 12. It wouldn't fit in my Toyota. It has changed.
I guess you parents don't have any fun deciding which kid gets to ride in the front seat any more!
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Miss Tequila
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Post by Miss Tequila on Feb 25, 2011 21:00:02 GMT -5
Dragonfly, many hugs to you
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Apple
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Post by Apple on Feb 26, 2011 1:06:49 GMT -5
Well, let's see... I wanted to play a sport but I couldn't because mom and dad were paying for my older sister's gymnastics, track, brother's baseball, 3 older sibling's 4-H, so, no money for me to play a sport. I'm hard of hearing because of so many ear infections as a kid--no tylenol, no doctor visits, but I did get to stay home from school for three days one time because I was soaking my pillowcases with blood and gunk (mom had to throw away the pillow it got so bad). One sister was taken to the doctor and they found out she had strep throat, I came down with a fever the next day at school and my mom yelled at me for faking it and I need to tough it out--what test was I trying to skip?--I was a straight-A student taking classes above my grade level. Same thing when sister had mono, doctor visits for her, I got sick and was sent to school anyway, if school sent me home I had to do chores--dishes, vacuuming, etc, etc--while sis laid on the couch and watched tv. Got my sister braces and all kinds of dental work, didn't take me to the dentist until I was 16, wouldn't pay for braces for me. My coworkers were surprised when I was back at work a week and a half after my hysterectomy--I have a physical job, no sitting at a desk for me--but to me it's the way it's always been, just tough it out.
Want something, pay for it yourself. So I get a paper route in 5th grade so I can buy my own stuff. Save up enough for roller blades that they wouldn't buy me, they took me to the store and as I was paying for mine they were sizing my brother so they could buy him a pair--that usually happened any time I bought something for myself (with my own earned money--none was ever given to me). I had to walk a couple miles home from work at almost midnight because they wouldn't let me get my license--I was 16/17--years later my parents would set their alarm to take my little brother to/from work at 10pm or 7am because it was "too dangerous" for him to walk--he worked a block from where I had, he was 21 and didn't want to get his license.
I could keep going, but I'm done. So, did my parents try? Yeah, probably, just not with me. I get along fine with them now, they tell my sister they're proud of me, but we're not close. No, I will never be fond of middle children being treated like middle children.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2011 7:48:29 GMT -5
Besides the additional food and diaper cost, each new child has been pretty cheap. However as their kids get to be school aged, I think their costs are going to go up. I know you don't have to give a child everything, but they may want to try a sport or something. There will be school supplies. Vacationing with that many would seem expensive. I haven't read all 7 of these pages but it all depends on what you "gotta have". I come from a family of 5 kids, all born within 7 years. We couldn't have done it without Mom staying at home, but it was the 1950s/1960s and that was pretty normal then. So were cloth diapers. Disposables are NOT an entitlement. Vacations were taken in the car, going someplace where we could rent a house or a cottage. Sometimes we drove overnight. I first stayed in a motel on a Girl Scout trip to Cedar Point when I was 13, and first flew on a plane at 16 (one way, on my own, one-hour flight). We never went to Disney World. Really, my parents should have been arrested for neglect on that one! They also paid for all of us to attend state universities. Maybe that's because we never went to Disney World and no one got a car as soon as they got a license. Most of us didn't have them till we got out of college and bought our own. DS is an only child- I would have liked a second but it didn't happen. He's had a lot of things I haven't had including international travel and a fully-paid education at a private university, but if I'd wanted 4 or 5 kids, I would have known where to scale back and still take good care of them.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Feb 26, 2011 7:59:55 GMT -5
Apple, you sound just like my EX and his brother, both middle children and both unwanted and made to feel that way every day of their lives. No wonder they are so troubled. There are people with larger families who make all of them feel loved but sometimes there are larger families for no good reason at all. To get the child of another sex, because they were onlies and didn't like it, cultural reasons, who knows? But cars, hotels, amusement park rides, you name it, are geared for 4 people not 5. Very few cruise ship staterooms hold 5 as well. My GF that has 3 did it because number 2 was another boy. She loves and cares for number 2 but she didn't want him, she wanted a her. To make things worse, he has special needs so that doesn't add to the family happiness. She pretty much leaves him to his dad to raise because his dad has the patience that she does not.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Feb 26, 2011 8:01:05 GMT -5
BTW, I don't know what state you are in but some states won't allow a child under 12 to ride in the front seat and now with those air bags, it could be older.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Feb 26, 2011 8:02:03 GMT -5
Sheilain cali, I'd have a heart to heart with your dad. NOW.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Feb 26, 2011 8:38:51 GMT -5
But thanks to ridiculous laws you can't put kids in the front, they have to have car then booster seats until about 5 it seems. Just nuts. I'm so glad to be out of it but poor DF has to take his Step-daughter's car to take her kids anywhere. They are 5 and 8 already. When does it end?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2011 10:34:52 GMT -5
We're lax in the US compared to some European countries where your children have to rear-face until they are 4 or 5 in a full 5 point harness.
Snerdley - Lena will have 3 children close together in age. That makes it almost impossible to have 3 kids in carseats on one row. Even with the slimline carseat (I think it's the sunshine radian) it would be hard to combine them with an infant bucket. Not to mention how much it would suck to have to bend over and try to buckle, unbuckle the kid in the middle carseat.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Feb 26, 2011 11:00:09 GMT -5
Maybe the oldest can go into a booster seat? Just as wide though probably.
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whoisjohngalt
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Post by whoisjohngalt on Feb 26, 2011 11:21:37 GMT -5
Then I am SURE you won't mind bailing me out of jail when I get dragged there bc I am riding with my 3 yr old or my 1.5 yr old or my infant in my lap
Or!!! May be all I will have to do is say to the cops "hey, you don't get it, I am just making my life simple, not buying a larger car that will fit 3 cars seat, Snerdly told me I didn't need it"
Really, it would be so nice if once in awhile you actually got the facts first before making your judgmental statements.
Just bc something wasn't a certain way in YOUR life, doesn't mean it doesn't exist in others
Lena
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2011 11:35:53 GMT -5
Do you know any middle kids? It seems like of my friends that have a middle, he or she is the "problem." My sister is the middle kid- sneaking out with her boyfirend when my parets said she was too young to date, then sneaking out with him after she WAS old enough but they forbade her from seeing him because they were getting too serious. They married. She's now a doctor and still happily married. HER middle daugter moved in with Loser Boyfriend and his mother on her 17th birthday. She eventually married Loser Boyfriend, but divorced him after a couple of years. No kids, thank heaven. She's now married to a fireman, a wondefrul husband and father who would give you the shirt off his back, and is a great mother to their 2 little girls. So don't give up on middle kids!
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Feb 26, 2011 11:50:40 GMT -5
Time helps a lot of things. My poor friend though wonders if she will ever get away from the burden of her middle child. If it weren't for his dad, she couldn't handle his issues.
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whoisjohngalt
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Post by whoisjohngalt on Feb 26, 2011 12:02:45 GMT -5
Athena,
but what you are describing in post 210 could have been a story of an only child, the oldest, the youngest, #7, etc. no?
Apple,
your story is truly heartbreaking, I gotta give you TONS of credit for even speaking to them.
Lena
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Feb 26, 2011 12:05:21 GMT -5
Apple, I agree. What some of the posters have gone through and survived is amazing.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Feb 26, 2011 15:28:17 GMT -5
Apple, your parents should never have treated you that way. Karma for you.
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Elizabeth
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"The inner mechanations of my mind are an enigma."
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Post by Elizabeth on Feb 26, 2011 17:55:36 GMT -5
I have 2 girls and everyone keeps telling me to try one more time for a boy. I love my girls, but I HATED being pregnant and have no desire to do it again. And for as much as I love newborns, I don't want to start all over with the diapers and all that. Now I just snuggle with friends' newborn babies then give them back to their mommas when I'm done. The main reason I had 2 kids was because I was an only child for 10 years until my mom remarried. I had some rough times and I had always wished I had a brother or sister to turn to back then. It's nice to know that my DDs will not be alone in the world some day when I'm gone.
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Elizabeth
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"The inner mechanations of my mind are an enigma."
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Post by Elizabeth on Feb 26, 2011 18:26:10 GMT -5
Wow, I just caught up with all the posts. Apple, I really feel for you. I get sentimental when it comes to kids being treated poorly. It just goes to show how strong you are, that you could bear that during your childhood and still be able to forgive and be successful in your adulthood.
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Apple
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Post by Apple on Feb 26, 2011 19:24:32 GMT -5
Thanks, guys. There were positives too, but every time I hear "middle child" what I posted is what it brings to mind. It did make me become a hard-working, strong, independant person, but it also makes it very hard for me to trust people or ever feel wanted. It's hard for me to understand why medical stuff (to the point of serious pain and life-long damage) was ignored with me while my sister was taken in for every little thing. But my mom and dad are wonderful grandparents so I just try to forget most of the time and strive to do much better with my own son.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Feb 26, 2011 19:26:51 GMT -5
You're a better person than I am.
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DVM gone riding
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Post by DVM gone riding on Feb 27, 2011 22:56:48 GMT -5
op-my mother would happily trade with you. but this is the general progression of things. I can't go anywhere without mom going "I only have one grandkid" My family is odd G-ma is one of six she had four only mom had kids so only 1 great grandkid. I would just count your blessings you have all those kids to take care of you in your old age
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