bailezra

Just curious, since we spend so much time discussing names of our children and future children. Ours are:

Dog (Doberman Pinscher pup)--Sophie

Cat--Ezra

Cat--Stewie

Bird--Peri

Fish--Their names change all the time, depending on what mood my son is in.

We also had a kitty named Bailey, but we had to put her to sleep last spring.

We just brought our ten week-old Doberman Pinscher puppy home two days ago, and I was amazed the first time we fed her--she ate so quickly, it was like someone had stuck a vacuum cleaner nozzle in her food dish!

I started placing her food on a flat cookie sheet as opposed to feeding her from a dish, and this has forced her to slow down.

I understand that while she was with the breeder, she had competition from her littermates at mealtime, so it's just a habit. But I obviously don't want her getting sick from eating so fast, and I want her to develop better manners at mealtime. I suppose I could keep feeding her from the cookie sheet, but it would be nice to be able to go back and feed her from a bowl at some point.

How long did it take before your puppy stopped wolfing down its food?

I can see leaving pads or newspapers for a puppy if you are going to have to leave for an extended period of time where you wouldn't expect the pup to be able to hold it for that long.

But other than that, what is the point of pee/training pads? Isn't the goal to teach the dog to eliminate OUTSIDE?

(On an unrelated note, I just had to come back and add this because I found it funny. When I went to post my question, the first suggested category that came up was "Women's Health." Guess they thought I was asking about a different kind of pee pad--LOL!).

How many dogs and/or cats is too many? Yes, I realize there is a difference between someone having numerous pets in a small apartment vs. having a lot of animals in a large house with a big backyard for everyone to play in, but speaking just in terms of people who are getting animals purely as pets, how many is too many?

And why aren't there more laws in place nationwide to prevent animal hoarding?

We are going this weekend to pick up our new Doberman Pinscher puppy (I am so excited!), and we intend to crate train her. This is our first time using a crate with a dog, so I wanted to know if anyone had some good tips.

I know the basics, such as not using the crate for punishment, making sure she has some time in the crate when we are home, so she doesn't always associate it with our leaving, removing her collar before putting her in the crate, and praising her when she goes in there on her own, but maybe some of you with more experience can tell me sme of the things that have worked for you.

Thanks!

I know there is a lot of discussion about the trendiness of the various "-ayden" names for boys--Ayden, Brayden, Cayden, Drayden, Hayden, Jayden, Graydon, Trayden, Zayden, etc. But I am also noticing more and more people inventing names for girls with the "-lyn" suffix on the end. In addition to existing names like Caitlin, Jocelyn and Madelyn, I have also seen:

Gracelyn

Ashlyn

Jaelyn (there are at least three spellings of that name in the SSA Top 1000 list)

Brooklyn/Brooklynn

Jaslyn

Jadalyn

Adelyn

Kaylynn/Kaelyn (there are at least five or six spellings of that name in the SSA Top 1000)

Braylin/Braelyn

Breelyn

Brylynn

So, is the "-lyn" trend for girls the counterpart of the "-ayden" trend for boys? Is it the modern day "-is/-ys" trend, like from the 1930s when names like Gladys, Phyllis, Doris, and Iris were so trendy?

I'm personally not fond of either one, particularly because most of these girls names just sound made up (because they are). Your thoughts?

I'm not talking about trendy names like Jayden and Madison that you are just tired of hearing, or obvious choices, like Eunice, Gertrude, or Marvin.

I mean names that are perfectly fine, and yet for some reason, you just really, really dislike them, but you're not exactly sure why. A few that came to mind for me were:

Renee

Danielle

Gabrielle

Cassandra

Theresa

Marie

Denise

Melissa

Michelle

No offense intended to anyone with those names. Perhaps there is a negative association for me with some person in the past with those names--I don't know what it is.

Our Doberman Pinscher puppy was born today, and while we can't bring her home for another eight weeks, we were tossing around some possible names for her.

We can't use Heidi or Sasha, because I already had dogs with those names. Gretchen is also out, because it was my grandmother's name.

Any ideas?

Today was my son's first day of kindergarten, and I was both excited and nervous about it. My husband was able to come home early from a business trip in order to be here for the big day and walk him to school with me.

Anyway, before going to bed last night, my husband said he was going to get up early and get my son some pancakes from McDonald's. He set the clock, and while he did hit the snooze button, he still got up in plenty of time to go get the food, come back home, and still make sure my son had plenty of time to get ready. My husband was aware that we would have to leave the house at 8:30 in order to be there on time.

I woke up a little bit later than my husband, showered, got dressed, and came downstairs around 8:00, and I was more than a bit surprised to find my son's breakfast completely untouched, my son running around and playing, still in his pajamas, and my husband just standing there, as if he were completely oblivious to the time. I asked why our son hadn't eaten breakfast yet, and my husband just said "He didn't want to." I was more than a little annoyed, but I didn't get upset. I just told my husband where I had put our son's clothes for the day, and I asked him to go upstairs with him and make sure he got dressed while I got his breakfast out, since it was still sitting in the bag. For some reason, it took my husband ten minutes to get our son dressed.

When they came downstairs, I asked my son to sit down and start eating his breakfast. He ate, but he was chitchatting and dawdling over his food, so I reminded him that school started today, and that we were going to have to leave soon. When stalled again, I told him again in a firm voice (not yelling) that we had to get going, because we couldn't be late for school. Then my husband told me not to yell at him.

When it was getting down to the last few minutes, I said, "Okay, breakfast is over. We need to brush teeth and get going." My son went upstairs to brush his teeth, and I made another check of his backpack to make sure he had all of his things. We all headed out the door together, and my son was dawdling on the way. Once again, I had to remind him that we couldn't be late for school and he had to get moving. My husband said nothing.

Because we were rushing, and because it had rained, my son ended up slipping and falling on a paved hillside, just outside of the school building. He was okay, but he did have a little scratch on his face, and he started to cry, saying he didn't want to go to kindergarten. I made sure he was okay, and I told him we would go inside and get him cleaned up. He was still pretty upset when we got there, and because we were a couple of minutes late, it was already time for the parents to leave once we arrived, so we really didn't have a chance to sit with him for a few minutes and make sure he was settled. He was the only child in his class who was late for school today, and that wasn't how I wanted to kick things off.

My husband and I walked back home, and I was pretty ticked off by the time we got there. I told him I was upset because (as always) I ended up being the bad guy who had to crack the whip, and especially on his first day of school, which was bound to be an upsetting time for me (since I am the one who stays home and takes care of him every day). I said there was no reason for me to have come downstairs and find that our son wasn't dressed and hadn't eaten his breakfast, and that if he was dragging his feet about getting ready, it was my husband's responsibility as the parent to get him moving and let him know we needed to leave soon. Instead, he just let everything go until the last half hour before we had to leave, which left me in the position of being the one who had to get everyone's butts in gear (as is usually the case), and what was worse, he contradicted me about it in front of our son. My husband didn't understand why I was so upset.

Was I being unreasonable here? Would you have been upset to find that 1/2 before needing to leave for school, your child was nowhere near ready for school, particularly when your spouse had specifically told you the night before that he was going to get up with him and get him ready? Is anyone else always put in the position of being the "bad guy"?

These people have to be the lowest scum of the earth. I hope they lock them up and throw away the key:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26381207/

What kind of punishment would be enough for cooking up such an unthinkable scheme? Or do you think the punishment won't be severe at all, since (thank God) they were stopped before they were able to follow through?

1) Think of the names for a boy and girl you detest the most. It might be the trendier names, like Madison and Jayden. It might be a name like Nevaeh or Princess. Or, if you can't stand everyday names, a name like Michael or Emily. Maybe it's an "old person's" name, like Wilbur or Gertrude. Anyway, pick a name that when you hear it, you think, "Ugghh! I can't STAND that name!"

2) Now envision this scenario. A stranger walks up to you and offers you $1 million, if you will only name your child the name you thought of in Part 1. There are some catches to this arrangement:

a) Outside of you and your spouse, nobody can know the reason you chose that name. You couldn't just say, "Her name is Nevaeh,. but we only named her that because someone gave us $1 million if we did."

b) You could not just use a nickname or call the child by his/her middle name. You would have to call the child by the name you dislike.

Would you take the money and give your child a name you detested?

We have many young girls who post here, still in their teens, and wanting to get pregnant on purpose because "I have always loved kids and I babysit my nephew so I know how hard it is and I know I am ready to be a mom and my boyfriend wants one too." I suspect that a good number of those are troll posts, but sadly, I know not all of them are.

So I am curious--how many teens out there who thought they were ready to be parents watched "Baby Borrowers" and had their minds changed by watching the people who were going through the experiment?

For those who haven't seen the show, it's about five couples, ages 18-20, who think they are ready for marriage and parenthood, and they are put through an experiment where they become "parents."

What's with the new "helpful" pop-ups that keep appearing when you are typing up your post? Okay, I can see how it might be helpful to alert you to a spelling error, but then again, there appear to be a lot of words that don't appear in Y!A's dictionary (not to mention the number of times that pops up when you are making a post in the "Baby Names" section.

But the one that says "Hmm...it looks like you have a lot of punctuation" really irritates me. No, it isn't "a lot of punctuation;" it's called a properly-formed sentence!

Is anyone else getting annoyed by this pop-up?

I was getting my nails done today, and there was another client sitting next to me whose daughter had just had a baby. She said that the baby's name was Summer, and when I asked her what the middle name was, she replied "Eve."

I just nodded politely, but alI could think was "Is their last name 'Massengill'? Why did they name their kid after a douche, for crying out loud?"

I cannot imagine saying that name out loud a few times and not having the disposable douche connotation come to mind. Then again, I have to wonder about people who would name their daughters Serenity (like the adult diaper). Maybe it's just me....

Any other terrible first name/middle name combos or first name/last name combos that you have heard for a baby who was already born and named, and you just had to bite your tongue?

In years past, it seems like most girls were given one of a handful of middle names--Ann, Lynn, Kay, Marie, Lee, or Elizabeth. Some of them are still popular today, but Grace and Rose seem to be the most popular middle names that little girls are given today (some refer to them as "throwaway" middle names). I wish the SSA had a database where they kept track of middle names, as it would be interesting to see how frequently certain names are used.

So what do you think will be the common middle names in future years? I think Grace and Rose will continue to be popular for a while, but I also am seeing Paige, Jade, and some other names being mentioned very frequently here as middle names.

What trends do you predict?

It seems that every time someone posts a question here about spanking or problematic children, there are numerous posters who pop in and say that if you don't "whoop your child's butt," he/she will turn into a brat, be unruly, have problems later in life, and so on? They will then go on to preach the importance of disciplining your child.

Why is this presented as an either/or situation, as though spanking is the only form of discipline? It often seems that once children are at the point where their behavior seems unmanageable, it is because the parents didn't use any forms of discipline at all in order to correct the negative behavior. Or perhaps they tested their child's limits and put the child in a position where he/she was more likely to misbehave (the child was overly tired, overly hungry, didn't feel like spending three hours at the mall with Mommy, etc.).

Knowing your child's temperament, knowing their limitations, using positive discipline, time-outs, taking away...

I understand wanting to get feedback on some names you might be considering for the baby you are expecting, but what's the point of asking people's opinions on your already-born, already-named children?

A lot of people won't necessarily like the choices you made, as there is no one perfect name that everyone loves. But people are either going to lie and say "Oh, what a beautiful name," or they are going to be honest and tell you they don't like it, in which case, you risk having your feelings hurt.

So what's the point in asking?

It seems like every day, someone is posting here about a pushy mother or more often, mother in-law, feeling like she has the right to be in the delivery room when the baby is born. And yet, I would guess that not a single one had their mothers and mothers in-law demanding that they be allowed to witness their labors and deliveries when it was their time to have children.

Are these women watching too much "A Baby Story," seeing the mothers that invite 15 people into the delivery room with them, and somehow getting the idea that everyone is doing this these days? What has changed so much that so many grandmothers-to-be automatically think they have the right to be present when their daughters or daughters in-law are giving birth?

I was having a hard time deciding what to get my husband for Father's Day, and I finally decided on a GPS system for the car. When I went to Best Buy to get one today, I was stunned to see that they actually had WII systems in stock! I ahve been looking for one of those for almost a year, but I always seem to just miss them on the days they get them in stock.

So I scrapped the GPS idea and bought the WII system instead. I have played my sister's and I know it's a blast, plus it's something we can enjoy as a family. So much for Friday the 13th being unlucky!

What are you getting your husband/father this year?