mockingbird

I have a question about my family.

There's this five year old that, every time he gets a bath from his primary caregiver, always ends up with a screaming + crying match. The kid cries when soap gets in his eyes or the water gets hot suddenly or something random like that, and refuses to follow instructions like "wash the soap out of your hair ... no like this .. watch me ....".

This is a well behaved, lucky kid in most ways and the primary caregiver mostly does a very good job, but things seem to go south during bathtime. I think the adult should just quit making bathing so hard for the poor kid and if the kid can't get the soap out of his hair, just pour some water over the kid's head instead of making bathing a screaming match every time. the adult in question says i have never given a kid a bath so i don't know what i'm talking about, and it's important to him the kid learns to bath himself and that most kids hate baths.

from my own childhood, I do remember crying in the shower when soap got in my eyes, but that's it. I never had grown-ups yelling at me. Is this the exception or the rule? Is it true that most every kid has a hard time getting a bath?

I've offered to have a go bathing the with the kid and make it fun but my offer isn't taken up on it.

Also what ways can bath time actually get the kid clean and not turn into a screaming match?

My husband went out with his friendly last night, and they both told him how lucky he is to have me. I'm 33 and my husband, 34, is a stay-at-home dad with a 5yr old child. I'm a strong, argumentative person most men wouldn't date, much less marry, because as one of his friends said, i have an "ego". I know science and history and it's hard for me to shut up and pretend to agree with men just save their "ego". Also, while i make less money than other men in my field - computer science -- i make more money than most men. So I'm not a desirable female to date by any stretch of the imagination, and feel lucky to have a husband that can take me as I am and likes me because i'm not stupid and weak -- not despite of that fact -- and who's career was already screwed up so he didn't mind quitting his job to stay home while i work.

But apparently, now that i'm married, I'm the envy of the other men and "proof the universe still makes sense". Why? because i told my husband he needed to go out with his friends (I can't be his only source of adult conversation! I'd go nuts if I was the only adult he ever talked to! He needs to go out!) and then when he was out, i didn't text him even once.

One of the other guy's girlfriend kept texting him with "why aren't you not responding to my texts" all night. Now i know that girl and she's a Spanish-American (they text a lot as a culture) who's own friends tell her "stop texting when you're hanging out with your friends." She needs to be told by her boyfriend "I'm not replying because I'm having a guys night out, I'll reply to all your texts when it's over." But of course, men being men, he doesn't say a word, just assumes that's all part of the dating experience and probably thinks less of "girls" due to her behavior and his inability to speak up about it.

The other one's girlfriend thought he was cheating on her the whole night and emo-raged at him over text. Now, there is a reason for this: he had caught her cheating on him. So having cheated, it's natural she's jealous and afraid he will cheat back.

But do you really need to *text* to check up on a boyfriend? if you really thought he was cheating, wouldn't you pick up the phone and call? What does a text tell you, really? A guy can text in any position or place, like from a bed. And what cheating man was ever rehabilitated by a endless stream of emo-texts?

But given how everyone is texting all the time these days, i began to wonder: is this normal now? Do adult women really text / call their men non-stop? Do they really think this creates "closeness" and leads to a happy marriage -- or any marriage at all? Or anything positive at all? is this just what women do to "keep in touch" with men these days?

So if you're dating and you're not in high school or college -- do you text (female) or receive texts (male) during a guy's night out with other guys? Is this normal behavior you observe with your friends? Or is it just that one of my husband's friends is dating a texting addict and the other a stupid cheating crazy-woman and i shouldn't pay attention to those two?

Given that i managed with great luck to live life my own way -- with a stay-at-home-dad and all that -- i find it hard to tell what's normal these days so I'm asking here -- is it now normal for a adult female (not a 12yr old or a college student) to constantly text her boyfriend and demand instant replies from him? is this really the way most people do it these days?

How do men cope with that?

It looks like a warbler, but i'm not putting it past this bird to be a finch of even a sparrow of some sort. (probably not a sparrow).

black and white wings. tan back. very sharp line between the back and wings... no shading/streaking on the back and no tan color on the wings.

lighter tan (no streaking... probably) belly. maybe some white under the tail or yellow under the throat, but mostly just lighter tan.

The head is very distinctive if you look closely at it. It looks brown from far, but if you look close, you see the head is actually yellow but the bird has a brown/tan cap on the head and brown/tan cheek spots leaving very little yellow on the head.

Seed-eating wide beak. Large beutiful liquid eyes, they look larger than they should be for the bird's size.

I looked at warblers on google and i did several searches on WhatBird.come and can't find it.

the closes i can find is "pine warbler" but that one is too yellow and too streaky to be this one. and besides, those don't really come to bird-feeders, do they?

It is seen right now, dec, on a bird-feeder in CT. it does not feed there but visits from time to time.

I wonder if it's a female or juvenile of some kind of common warbler which is why it's no-where to be found...

I really want to be a full-time consultant working 2-month and 3-month contracts even if i have to travel all over to do it, but i'm hesitant to work with Robert Half because there is so much bad stuff said about them on Google.

There are many people who are happy with RH, but they all seem to be of the "I was unemployed for a year and found my permanent job through RH" variety. I have a permanent job already! I don't need to quit my job for a "temporary-to-permanent" opportunity that is just like the one I have!

I'm not interested in hearing how RH wasted your time in the office, or if they were rude to you and never called you back, etc. If they don't hire you, they don't hire you!

I do want to know if they DO hire you, is it is possible to work as a full-time consultant through them? Or do they find you a 2-month job in another state and then they abandon you and you end up posting your resume on Monster and moving back in with your parents or something because now you have no job at all.

I don't expect year-round employment (that's what their on-line classes are for, lol) and i do expect to travel all over for anything they have available. That's part of the reason i want to be a consultant. I don't expect them to find jobs *only* where i actually live!

But I do expect a living wage, baring an economic depression where even people with permanent jobs are out of work, of course.

so that's my question: anyone worked or tried to work as a full-time consultant for RH? was it or is it possible to do so? or did they dump you after your first temporary job forcing you to post your resume on Monster again on your own?

i like seeing bird-eating hawks because that means there are enough birds living around to *feed* the hawks. i was thinking they eat one bird a day, so each coopers hawk i see means therea re enough for 365 *extra* birds in that area all year. and i see a LOT of coopers hawks these days. but do they really eat a bird every day? or one every other day? do they eat mice? i know red-tailed hawks eat mice, not birds, but do coopers hawks also eat mice and fish adn stuff? or just birds? i hardly ever see sharp-shinned hawks. i see coopers hawks often (could be the same ones).

I had a bird-feeder up with finch seed and holes for finch seed, and i hardly ever got any birds, but half the seed sprouted and turned mouldy. is there any way besides taking the feeder down when it rains (since if it starts when i go to work or at night i can never be sure). Is this just a bad feeder for finch seed? should i screw on the larger holes for regular seed and put regular seed into it (tho i don't wanna feed the sparrows and cardinals... i wanna feed the singing house finches!)? it is a bad place for a feeder hanging off apartement wall but i saw 2 finches on it today, which is why i took it down just not cuz it was filled 1/2 way with mould. it was only up for 1 month! can i use this feeder at all or should i get another one? do they all do that and i should just waste seed? annoying...

I'm a programmer. I got a copy-paste boring job where my brain cells have died and my skills have atrophied from dis-use. Java is up to 6.0 now and we are still using 1.3!!! I'm *not* desperate for a job, any job, so i want to include a career objective on my resume to indicate what i want out of my next job.

Please tell me if this looks right at the top of my resume or if it would turn people off, and what i can do to make it more professional or effective.

(professional! ha! a way of saying "help my brain is dying" while making it look like i'm not saying anything with any meaning at all, while making it clear to people who read between the lines that what i really mean is "help, my brain is dying!")

CAREER OBJECTIVE

To find someplace where I need to learn new skills, keep up with modern technology, solve problems creatively, or grow in any other direction.

(should i say "to learn new skills, keep..." instead? or that makes it less clear that my brain is dying?)

i ask because all the idealism here sounds like the stuff i believed with i was 16. also i find it hard to believe a married adult "femminist" is really femminist. i'm 100% sure that all the married femminist believe in their ideals 100% -- but in reality act like any other married couple with the woman working all day and sacrificing everything to drive the kid to soccer, etc,. i did that too, at 16. i was a "femminist" but dated an abuser who "agreed" with me that women are strong and equal but then abused me and manipulated me. i dont' think anyone here is like that, but i find lots of people preach ideals they themselves only *believe* but in the real world they act just like everyone else. so how many ofyou hard-core femminists who thumbs-down me every time i tell you the real truth about my life are over the age of 25? How many married ones actually arrange things more equally than "traditional" career-women in REALITY and not in your minds?

Been looking for anime since i saw Ghost in the Shell (wow!) a year ago, but all i can find is anime about high school, anime where teenagers are the main characters, or stuff where samuri jump around from tree to tree with no laws of physics applied to slash monsters with swords. I'm too old for that suff. I realise most anime is probably like that, but I know there is more stuff out there like Ghost in the Shell and adults who won't reject a good movie just because it is animated, and i like the anime style. I'm looking for anime where the main characters are adults and the story has some more depth to it. Sci-fi, vampire, and horror preferred, but other generes ok too. I remember liking Akira but that was a long time ago, and that was about a child.

I saw a hawk munching on a robin or maybe starling this AM. the hawk was significantly bigger than it's pray making me think it was a cooper. i think prey was a robin, it was hanging vertically beak-down belly toward me off a branch. hawk has his beak to me. prey didn't look totally black to me, and i think it could have red, but i won't rule out starling. 300 robins everywhere here, few starlings. hawk had a solid grey back. white-looking belly with few streaks. solid yellow throat under the beak fading downward, but grey head. barred black-n-white tail. not sure if curved or pointy tail. i came to the conclusion that the size difference is the biggest clue, and it points to cooper's because sharpies are so TINY. but it still looks like a sharpie to me :( for no reason, or possibly the coloring of the solid grey back and the sharp barring on the tail. so what is it that is at least 2 times as long beak-to-vent than a robin(starling?) beak-to-vent? can it be a sharpshinned after all?

small bird, finch-looking (tho i could be wrong, maybe warbler or such). greyish brownish, but with redish head like a house finch (only not as bright as a house finch) and yellowish belly. Most distinctive feature is the thin stripe of yellow on the very tip of the tail, alsmot lie someone took the bird in their fist and dipped the very end of the tail in yellow paint for use as a paint brush! Not that anyone did this, just what the tail looked like. also looked like had 2 streaks on the back of a lighteter grey/brown between the wings.

seen hopping about on a roof among starlings and robins in a park-like area. pretty bird :)

I'm too old for my current red-n-black look i created right out of college. I need to give it up.

I can think of the following colors that are acceptable to me, and should be acceptable to people my age (29). I'm done with expressing myself, i'm ready to live like a normal person, but actually picking a color i don't like (but can accept) over my current look is too depressing. Pick one for me please. I can live happily with the following colors:

1) green (medium colored, not too light or dark. Probably lots of leaf patterns i guess.).

2) mostly lavender (with maybe some purple)

3) pastel orange, like a really light orange or burnt orange. with browns i suppose.

4) aqua / blue-green

i don't think i can handle any shades pink, yellow, grey, or most pastels (decorating with them would be too depressing), but if there is another color you thing belongs in a 29yrold female's apartment, please suggest.

I only want answers from people who think birds are better than all other animals, including humans! I will only pick "best answer" from someone who agrees with me that birds are the best! (haha!)

this is sort of a joke question, because i'm not thinking or getting a bird right just now.. but theoretically...

say i have 2 alarm clocks and manage to sleep through them cuz i'm a lazy bum and i turn them off and go back to sleep, but i really love birds and i know i wouldn't shut a bird up or be mean to it, what kind of bird should i get (say from a rescue facility) that will wake me up in the AM... and how do i keep the bird from adjusting it's sleep schedule to mine too much.

i'm asking this after reading the question about the noisy sun conure. I'm not willing to get a cocatoo, lol, or mccaw, but i'm wondering if there are other noisy pet birds that will get me off my tush in the morning.

doves, maybe?

don't say rooster, cuz i'm not moving to a farm anytime soon. and no cocatoos. i'd like something that screems in the morning, not all day, lol.

I know they carry food in their crops to feed their babies, but i wonder if my pet cockatiel might stuff pellets in her crop in the PM to save for when i'm at work and she doesn't want to eat because she is alone. usually she eats normally, but sometimes she makes swallowing motions with her head and eats much more than normal. I'm assuming she is putting food in her crop for no reason, but i'd like to be sure i'm interpreting this correctly.

(i interpreted one bird's behavior this way while answering a question, now i'm wondering if i'm even close to being right)

There is a TV writer's strike, forcing TV to go "reality"

There is a strike on Broadway closing down all the shows.

Now, consider this: a presidential ( and presidential candidate) speech-writer's strike! (The words "axis of evil" and "wmd" were not invented by bush but by his speech writer, and hilary is no better)

What would the world be like if 1 month before the election, the candidates lost all their writers!