I'm so sorry. Praying for your daughter as she grieves and processes so much and for both families.

One of my sons does not like foreign language learning and he's not particularly good at retaining it either. He pushed through two years of Spanish and then he moved to taking business related electives (his area of interest career wise) for his final two years of high school. He's had no foreign language at all his junior year. It turns out he's a really good SAT test taker. Is only two years of foreign language on a transcript going to hurt him if he might otherwise qualifiy for scholarships through his SAT scores (1500's) and grades? I don't anticipate him applying to highly selective schools, but I am hoping he might qualify for merit based aid. I don't know what we would or could do at this point, but I'm concerned we may have messed up.

Thank you for updating this. I may need to repeat on a different machine as well. If you don't mind sharing, did you do something to improve your scores?

Maybe consider a nasal steroid along with an oral antihistamine. (I had one who does fine with Singulair and another who couldn't take it)

I woke up Friday with a painful, swollen lymph node in the back of neck. Last night I noticed that a spot at the base of my skull above that lymph node now hurts somewhat (not as much as the node and with no swelling that I can tell) and today I noticed that I now have another swollen, panful node behind my ear on the same side. The the thing is..I have no symptoms of infection otherwise--no fever, sore throat, ear pain, etc to explain this. I'm kind of puzzled. I was likely exposed to something teaching a class on Sunday--a student told me at the end that her throat was "soooo sore" and she had been "so tired" the last couple of days. I was not masked. But I also have no symptoms. Is this something to be concerned about/that needs to be seen at some point (after what point)? I have a $6000 deductible..so I'd like to avoid being seen unless necessary.

I have one teen who has taken it since toddlerhood without issues. It helps his allergies immensely. I have another who couldn't tolerate it-It's been a long time ago, but I recall the mood issues starting quickly. I'd say within that first week.

It's sounding like he can't get around standardized tests either way. I didn't realize that. I'm now wishing I would have tried to pursue accomodations (he has ADHD and autism). It seemed so difficult for a homeschooler to do that, and he hasn't had recent evals. It looks like I need to pursue new evaluations. I'll call his pediatrician tomorrow to see if there are options for that. I imagine it's going to be hard given his age and our rural location. Ugh.

I have one child who likely wouldn't do well with standardized testing. I can't imagine that test prep for him is worth the time it would take. I know most colleges here are test optional. I am thinking community college to start is a better route for him anyway, but I don't want to close doors. Are we ok to just not test?

I found out this past year that my DEXA (pre-menopause) would be in osteoperosis score if I were in menopause. Probably I never had good bone density form when young. So I've changed everything I can to do whatever I can to try to improve my bones/slow decrease in density. Some is supplements in addition to exercise. Exerice wise impact and weight, particularly sudden impact and weight that really pressures bone, is what builds bone. That means jumping is great, but running isn't particularly. Even with jumping, surprising or changing up somehow is better it seems. I added a weighted vest for my jumps (based on a study, I do 1 jump every 30 seconds for 10 minutes each morning. The study I saw did another set at night...but I can't seem to get myself to consistently do that). I also wear a weighted vest while I do body groove HIIT 2 workouts. Two of the routines in that program--particularly, 4 and 2, have lots of different kinds of jumping. And it's enjoyable enough. My teens actually join me some with that (I purchased the digital copy) and sometimes do it on their own. Great for their bones too. Beyond that, I use mostly 3 youtube videos (plus body weight things and my dumbells/leg/arm wrap weights) to target arms, back, legs, and core. I generally do that stuff every other day--about 3 days a week. I picked the videos I did because they don't involve any forward curves in the back (like sit ups or hundreds or toe touch)--which is really horrible for spine health and leads to fractures. Heavy weight--the sort that you can only do 10 reps--is great for bones. I feel scared to try much beyond my dumbells and ankle/wrists weight though, especially given I know my bones are not good.

Praying for him and your family.

I'd like to give my junior a set amount of time I expect him to spend on school work each day. He has a pretty time consuming extra-curricular. On top of that, he's, by his choices, likely over-loaded in course work right now. Things are slipping and he's feeling overwhelmed..but, he's also wasting a lot of time. I think I can help him make this work, and hopefully manage his time better, if we decide what amount of time spent is reasonable and then prioritize based on that number. What is a standard amount of time you would expect a junior to spend on school work each day? A minimum?

He's adorable! Maxwell really fits him! Love it.

I'm so sorry.

We're going to be in the Old Town Alexandria area for about a week in May. I think we'll do metro to DC, but I'm wondering the best way to get around to the various points in DC and what we should see with our 17 year old teens. Are there other good things to see in that Alexandria area generally? None of us have been in the area before.

That sounds so painful. It must have been a big impact to your whole system. I'm sorry.

Is this new? I am the oldest of my siblings and I have memories none of them have and even more that my youngest sister doesn't share. My youngest sister very often remembers things differently than myself and my siblings. She likely did experience different things and even processed shared things differently due to age and, in her case, surely personality. Her memories are so different that it has been puzzling to us at times. But she's always done this.

I think there was miscomunication early on and a general misunderstanding of what makes a vaccine effective. These vaccines, like previous infection, don't completely prevent infection. There is a lot of difference between Omicron and the vaccine and antibodies are going to wane with time regardless. The antibodies, if matched well, are the ones that are protective for infection. FWIW, I don't know that a recent booster is entirely ineffective. We had a ton of close exposure to someone contagious without infection recently. My sister also avoided infection after everyone else in her family got it. She had a recent booster. Several friend's family had the same experience. But, if there is any booster protection, it's waning and not entirely effective. However, the vaccines and boosters, like natural infection, do give you T and B cell (and memory...not sure what else exactly) protection from severe disease and long covid. Not 100%, but a significant reduction. I'd rather get that protection from a vaccine than an infection, though both appear to work well. Anyway, they work. I wish they provided long term, sterilizing immunity. But almost no vaccines for any disease do that--even the more stable viruses. We're fortunate these are so effective. Think about flu vaccine effectiveness--I'm so glad COVID vaxes do better than that.

Delta, if Delta was still in the area at that time, doesn't seem to provide Omicron immunity. My understanding is that Omicron, though, does provide immunity from Delta (which is pretty useless now, but maybe will result in immunity to the coming drift in the virus). I'm sorry. I hope you guys avoid infection. We had heavy exposure this past week, and seem to have avoided it. I don't think it's our boosters. I just think they must not have been transmitting heavily and we got lucky.

Sometimes I have 1.5-2 hours to myself on Sunday afternoons. Lately I exercise, then read. I used to meditate and need to get back to that. Sometimes I have, instead, tried to "get things done." Especially recently. I'm trying to move away from that.

I am so glad I asked this. The replies--both the practical ideas and reframing and rethinking--all have been helpful. Unfortunately, this isn't a space we can block off. The mud room and back door is on the back side of it and our laundry is near there, too. It's also been a family hang out and media area, though some of that has already shifted. We don't have alternative space for him, unfortunately, except an unfinished storage room with the deep freeze and no natural light--I don't think that's fair to him. (I know I titled this thread my house--but I certainly see this as our home...and the problem is the best space for him also needs to be used by all of us.) My husband will, I think, be open to ways to make it look better--he's relatively open and flexible and doesn't offend easily. He would say this is a weak area of his. But he doesn't have the exective function (or personality) to upkeep anything. At least that's how I think he will respond. I am going to use the thoughts on this thread to see if he and I can come up with ideas that might work. If he's clearly not open to it, I will have to reframe in ways some of you have suggested for my own peace. Given our history in this area, I'm pretty sure I will, likely, need to do acceptance and reframing work no matter his response. He's just not wired to keep things in order, and I can't mess with his work materials. But maybe we can at least make it a little more functional and presentable. Maybe we can figure out some ways to make it easy for him. And I'll work on letting go of the frustration.

When the pandemic started and my husband's work shifted to home, he set up a workstation in what was the family room. It's the best place for him--lots of natural light, his own entrance, a half bathroom. My husband has lots of good traits, but he is also messy. He has piles of stuff--work materials and papers, snacks, cords everywhere, electronics, random stuff. It's way past my happiness point for chaos. He has always been this way, but his mess was in his office (and his car), and not in our house. It seems to be hard for him to get rid of things. At times I've been frustrated because we were to have visitors staying over and he has "cleaned" by shoving things in boxes--which he then later pulls out to the space. So now he has multiple boxes of junk plus the same new mess everywhere. Obviously it has gotten worse as time has gone on. Every time I am in there I feel some level of stressed and irritated. His employer has now said that he will be permenantly working from home 3 days a week. His in office time is now not in a dedicated space. So his home set up is not going away (I kept telling myself this was temporary). He is incapable of clutter control. I don't want to battle over it. I also don't want my blood pressure to spike looking at what had been a nice space. Does anyone have ideas or systems to organize his junk enough for me to be ok? I'm wondering if I could get some pretty (and large and opaque) containers and label them--papers, snacks, etc...I don't know. I good at organizing my own stuff, but not his.

That was a fun to watch--thank you!

My son and I both have dry skin on our hands and he tends toward eczema as well. (Lanolin irritates his eczema) We both do well with CeraVe--he uses the moisturizing cream. I use that during the day and use the CeraVe healing ointment at night (with cotton gloves on top). His eczema does better with just the cream.

I definitely think ortho is a good call. But I think it's better to go after a few days--give swelling time to subside a bit. It's easy to miss those small fractures just after an accident (I have unfortunate experience).

I think this is the thing that feels weird to people. All but one of the 3 cases I mentioned were taking precautions (limited interactions generally prior to infection and always masked) that you would think would limit the spread of "ordinary" viruses. But, I agree, we're all hyper-vigilent and out of practice with run of the mill stuff right now.