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<p>You are dating yourself:) Nowadays the teachers would assume you doctored the photo!</p>
<p>What part of your tale didn’t the teachers believe? All of it? The part about the motorbike & you & brother? Sometimes, I am concerned about our teachers. My D’s teacher accused her of plagarizing because she used words they didn’t realize that she knew! She was highly offended and said that of course they were HER ideas and HER words. Once the teacher got to know D better, she learned that D would NEVER want to use ideas of others because she generally thought hers were better anyway & had an immense vocabulary.</p>
<p>We took our kids to many SW national parks–ended up going to one/day for a good portion of our trip when S was in 5th grade & D in 3rd. He got a 2 inch stack of homework & D got NOTHING! He came back & was about a month ahead of his class when he got back. We never pulled them out of class again. The kids were never disbelieved about travel.</p>
<p>I have NEVER let my kids ride a motorbike and was very reluctant to allow D to ride in a truckbed 1/2 a block to our house in her coach’s truck.</p>
<p>Our kids just did a roadtrip from LA to SF to Tahoe to Chicago & DC/VA – in a 20 year old car, just the two of them, their cell phones, AAA extended coverage & their credit cards. We breathed a big sigh of relief when they reached their destination with no towing or breakdowns along the way & still happy with one another. It was the longest roadtrip they’ve ever been on!</p>
<p>And probably the longest roadtrip you’ve ever followed, HImom.</p>
<p>Actually, we assumed silence was a GOOD thing, because we’ve mostly been called when things weren’t gonig as planned. Since they were so quiet & only talked when we called them, we figured all went well, which it did. Heck, kids nowadays have so many tools between the GPS, AAA extended towing, cell phones, credit cards & internet, they should be able to handle most situations, as long as they remain calm and reasonable.</p>
<p>Thinking about my parents allowing me to go with a group to Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina when I was 17; there was no communication unless I initiated it several hours ahead of time with the international operator. Yikes. They never knew what transpired and I never told them.</p>
<p>S1 called the other day. “How can I prove I have medical coverage?”</p>
<p>Turns out he was trying to figure out how to get care for what he referred to as a “swollen nose.” This, six months after his second surgery to repair a severely broken nose from a rugby game. I was initially concerned there was some very-delayed sequellae to the surgery.</p>
<p>The diagnosis from the local ER was a cyst in his nose or sinuses that was infected with staph. The ER took it very seriously, given the proximity to his brain, and treated him with IV antibiotics three days in a row, plus two varieties of oral antibiotics. </p>
<p>Sigh. S1 is 26 years old. It never ends.</p>
<p>“Mom, don’t worry I’m fine. The bombs went off 3 blocks from my office and 6 blocks from my flat, but I’m fine.” Me - “What the h*ll are you talking about?”</p>
<p>He’s in Mumbai - call came in soon after the bombings.</p>
<p>^^^Thank goodness he called you.</p>
<p>“Mom, can I use your credit card?”</p>
<p>Wow, am sure glad that my calls seem pretty tame by comparison! Glad that the med folks took the infection seriously & got it under control & glad that bombs didn’t hurt your S. So much drama out there!</p>
<p>I think he called so quickly because he knows us well…assume the worst until you know otherwise! He said it actually took him 1/2 hour to get a line through, so I suspect had I heard first I would have been crazed until I had gotten through to him. All is fine now, he’s merely traveling alone up near the Pakistani border, no worries mom!</p>
<p>I just want to give a shout-out to my daughter, who just called me very upset, said something upsetting happened and then stopped herself and said, “First of all, I’m all right.”</p>
<p>I’m back on CC as my youngest wants to transfer and I just found this thread. My uh oh phone calls are always from my middle dd, now 21. Last summer I got a call saying “mom, I’m fine but the car is totaled.” She was driving back from a concert and swears the brakes didn’t work. Went across all 3 lanes of a very busy highway, hit the guardrail and went back across the same 3 lanes. A witness told me he as no idea how the tractor trailer driver missed her. Fast forward to two weeks ago. She is at another music festival in upstate NY. Phone rings at1 AM and by caller id I knew it was her and braced myself. “mom, the car is fine and it’s nothing awful but I’m in the emergency room and they think my ankle is broken.” She wasn’t seen for 7 hours and we drove up to the Albany area early that morning. Yup, broken in 3 places and will need surgery when the swelling goes down. Had to then go pick her car and camping gear up on a farm with 30,000 kids staring at us like we were aliens. So a plate and 2 pins later she is recovering at home and is insisting that she is going to another festival this weekend. She can’t drive and can’t put any weight on that foot for another 5 weeks. She has made me old.</p>
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<p>I think we can all identify with that.</p>
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<p>That’s nothing…my MOTHER once made the same claim!!! For a long time we had to send anything we wanted to print to my mom because she had the only printer in the house. She had my sister read it and my sister said something along the lines of, “Of course she wrote it, she’s the freak with the huge vocabulary.”</p>
<p>My brother and I used to read so fast she would give my brother quizzes when he was done with a book because she didn’t believe he’d actually read it.</p>
<p>When my kids were having a fundraiser for school where they were supposed to get pledges for # of pages read, no one would sponsor my kids by the page–would only offer them flat fees because of fear of how rapidly they read (often devouring books of 200+ pages in less than an hour). They still love reading!</p>
<p>My kids still have an incredible vocabulary–can write more than pronounce because they’ve never HEARD some of these words pronounced!</p>
<p>Peg, I’d have to insist that kiddo allow you or someone you trust to be designated driver if she is to attend any more of these music events–even a cat has a limited # of lives! Wow, sounds like life is quite stressful!</p>
<p>I couldn’t blame this was on driving. She was watching a band and went to walk away. Recent rainfall had turned the ground to mud. Her body went one way while her foot remained stuck in the mud. Ouch!</p>
<p>Call this morning from S1 “Yesterday, I rode my bike back and forth across DC three times. The heat index is 130. Could that explain why I feel light headed this morning?” I told him to get a gallon jug of water and go back to bed.</p>
<p>lololu- he is lucky he did not end up in the ER yesterday.l It is terrible around here, and air quality makes it that much worse.</p>
<p>“She has made me old”</p>
<p>Change the “she has” to “they have” and I will cross stitch it and make it a
pillow!</p>