I am praying for you and your family!

...the most expensive in the whole wide (North-) American World, maybe... Check out Switzerland... 'nough said...

Thank you for your advice! I mentioned all your suggestions this morning when we went to the pediatrician. She agrees that ds seems "off"/ tired/exhausted and ordered very complete blood work. We'll see what comes out of this, I am really impatient at this point...

Let me start this off by saying that we have not been a "Supplement Family" at all...until now... No daily Multivitamins, nothing else, either. We eat reasonably healthy, I suppose. Our older kids (dd9, dd10, ds13) are very active physically, each swimming about 3h a day Mo-Sa. I have recently (last week or two) become worried about ds, in particular. He looks increasingly pale, dark shadows under his eyes, general lack of energy,... He is seems overworked and physically exhausted. I put him on a 10-day holiday from school, and his coach eased his swim training until the end of March (much to ds' despair!). Still, I cannot shake the feeling that more is going on, and that a good rest with lots of sleep is not going to fix the problem. I will call the pediatrician tomorrow, first thing in the morning, to ask for blood work. What should we look for specifically? Iron and Vitamin D are my first bet. Anything else? We live in Europe and much less emphasis is put on the vitamin and mineral status of a person, with generally much greater margins considered acceptable and not worthy of consideration / treatment. As much as I believe they will do the blood analysis if I insist, I don't expect to gain much information, apart of being reassured that no "serious illness" is present - which, while very reassuring, is not something I am really worried about. All three kids, with ds certainly much more so, just seem to slowly but steadily "decline", for lack of a better term. On a side-note, I just ordered a bucket-load of different multivitamins / Omega 3s in the US, and the parcel should arrive in the next couple of days. Shopping for these was not easy, as I really don't have a clue and feel like I am shooting blind. Could you please share some insights about vitamin / mineral deficiencies. Any good internet sites à la "Supplementing for Dummies"... I am particularly uneasy about treating one thing, without knowing about the impact / interaction this could have. Thank you so much for your help! P.S. Actually there is one supplement, which is very present in our family: The kids each take about 1000-1200mg of Magnesium daily (after swim-training).

Yes, but the other way 'round... My family of origin is what I would describe as "highly intellectual". I grew up with literally hours of "socratic discussions"...daily, and about every aspect of life! No TV, no popular culture. Tons of books and lots, lots of discussions. Nothing, but the power of the mind was valued, and my mother took pride (and still does) in repeating: "nice is not enough" (talking about a person's character). While I always was (and still am!) very close to my parents and have the memory of an amazingly rich childhood/youth, the way I was brought up is not something I wanted to replicate with my own children.. I felt like a rebel when I popped in that very first Disney DVD...and am still recuperating from the embarassment of having them involved in competitive sports (gasp!)

We eat all three meals at the table, everybody. My husbands has his office close (in our backyard, really). Obviously he misses some meals (mostly lunch) due to work. Apart of that we work around schedules - and that is not an easy thing, given that the older three each swim between 15-18hours, all in the afternoons/evenings. We usually have to wait for dinner until after 8:45...ðŸ˜

My little guy (3) seems ready to get serious. :tongue_smilie: He is spending his morning sitting next to me doing colouring pages... What else is there to do? I am thinking of the most basic Kumon-like exercises (link-the-dots, etc.) Is there a site (even paying) that has a nice collection? For the time being I am not really interested in letter recognition or anything academic... We would really need the most basic material...drawing lines, shapes... I can't imagine it's this time, yet! My second youngest just turned nine and it seems like yesterday that I scratched my head wondering about how to keep her busy during school! :crying: Thank you!

All of the news, that we consider "news-worthy". We intentionally do not shield the kids from anything. I feel much more comfortable explaining it my way, than have them stumble around being exposed to other people's version of "news"...

We have always done quite time, for which the kids have a total of three choices: study, sleep, or read! Quite time last from 2-4, but I won't wake a sleeping child...

No...! ...and I would pretty much have to eat at home if it did bother me, as one would be hard-pressed to find a restaurant WITHOUT a dog (Europe)...

I am hesitating between option a.) getting about a year's worth of work done and option b.) sleeping through until Friday...

:iagree: I had those same thoughts when first answering. It's certainly not me (or anyone else!) who "makes them" swim, or go to scouts. That's what they choose to do with the time at their disposal. Still, I wish they truly had some "free" (unstructured) time... But, then, again, if I forbid them to swim that much, their time wouldn't truly be "free" either!!:tongue_smilie:

None. None at all. Ds swims competitively, which takes about 25h a week (including transport). Most week-ends are eaten up by competitions or scouts. I am a strong believer in the value of free unstructured time for both, kids and teens. In my opinion, learning how to best/smartly/intelligently use free time is an essential life skill. This absolutely includes playing in any form, just hanging out, and, yes, also (maybe most importantly) learning how to deal with boredom. Needless to say that I am feeling very uneasy about the lack of unstructured time in ds' life (and to an extent in all our kids' lives). The only way to change the current situation would be to step down from academic expectations, which I am not willing to do. We have streamlined a lot (even since the beginning of the year), but I don't see my priorities concerning a high academic standard change... On the other hand the kids are passionate about their swimming it is "their love, their life", and I certainly see the value in this! So what am I to do? I guess every good thing comes with its disadvantages, too...and we'll just deal with them when they show up.:) P.S. I forgot to mention that ds is fully homeschooled, but taking six online classes this year. Ironically, the main reason for our starting to homeschool was our unhappiness about the lack of free time for even young kids in this educational system (French). I am German, and long, free afternoons are very much part of my childhood memories...

I laboured in the water for three of my births, with the intention / possibility of a water birth. Each time there was a distinct point at which I wanted to get out NOW. Being in the water during much of labour was a great relief, though!

I find it difficult to decide without more infos. First of all, I'm generally not comfortable with my kids being among the younger ones. They should be at least in the middle segment, and honestly, unless there were "special circumstances" I would want them to be among the older kids in the group. Those special situations might be having an older sibling in the group, or having some adult supervise with whom my child is VERY intimate. The ease with which my child could reach me does play a minor role for me - we have found that any exchange during camp is not very representative about what REALLY goes on (our kids can have an amazingly diverting perception about what is significant:lol:) Camps have their very own dynamic, and A LOT can happen in four days... Btw, this comes from a very relaxed mother...at least by American standards! (I am comparing with what I have learned here on the boards...):)

I spent most of my last pregnancy in the hospital on strict bed rest (Hyperemesis). What really kept me going was...planning!:tongue_smilie: I planned EVERYTHING for the after-pregnancy time. Homeschooling, menus, structure of our days, field-trips, grocery-shopping,... lists, lists, and more lists... It gave me the impression of doing something useful and not "loosing control" completely, at a time when I was stripped of almost everything. And, really, my planning was successful! Even today (three years later) I regularly use things I worked on during those long months... :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

That's crazy! Yes, it is!!! And almost six years down the road I still can't shake that feeling!:lol:

Our kids were/are good at skiing and it was a given that they would head into competitve skiing (we live in the Alps, skiing is very much part of daily life). After a scary accident (we literally spent 15min. wondering whether our 9-year-old son was dying while we were helpless bystanders!), we decided that we would need to find another sport. We weren't ready to take those kind of risks for an extracurricular activity! I was very systematic in my research and spoke to the pediatrition, an orthopedic surgeon, and even worked my way through to the head of the sport medicine department of the local university hospital. (Yes, I was still a bit shaken...:001_huh:) The verdict was unanimous: swimming! Nordic walking was the other option, but I don't think the kids would have swallowed that pill:lol:. I do know about the risk of back/shoulder problems...but that is a risk I'm willing to take. A broken back/hip/head...not really!!!

I am really lost about how to help dds (almost 9 and 10.5.) learn to deal with the "ordinary meanness" that seems to be so much part of (today's) girls' culture. I am not talking about huge issues, but little, stupid, mean, hurtful, useless remarks that seem to get shot almost randomly. My girls are not without fault, and I can imagine many ways in which they could be un-nerving to the kid next to them, but one thing they lack is meanness! They are so genuinely "nice" (and, yes, that's the perfect word:)), I hurt for them been constantly exposed to disappointing reactions. It is so difficult to explain that! Really, I can't explain it!:confused: I am proud of them being different, but am aware that homeschooling "robs" them of the opportunity to getting used to this weird behaviour... They are both in a camp this week and every evening it's one or the other crying... How do you help your girls (kids) deal with this??? BTW, I addressed girls more specifically, because I can't shake the feeling that there is something very particular about pre-teens / young teen girls that drives this kind of interaction.:001_huh:

An "official" high-school diploma is a starting point...in combination with a MINIMUM of 3-5 AP exams... Otherwise he would be expected to have (successfully) completed two years of a 4-year college (not CC) to enter a German university... You probably won't get very far questioning his wish for change (which doesn't really seem unreasonable). I would try to show him that you take him seriously, that you understand, but that you expect him to present a project/plan. That is the difference between a mature decision process and an "IwantthelollipopNOW-attitude". :grouphug:

So sorry you have to deal with this situation.:grouphug: I don't have much advice (mine are a bit young for those kind of stunts), but maybe reasearching admisssion to German universities might cool your son down - a homeschool transcript with some community college is not going to get him far... Good luck to you!:grouphug:

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

Yes, this is very much the same in Germany. And, just for the record, I have never heard of anybody's "official exit" being publicly announced... Last but not least, I think the whole issue is a very theoretical one. Why would one want to officially leave the church...to come back next Sunday?!? And, certainly no priest will check whether taxes have been payed before distributing the sacraments!

Ds3 was induced at exactly 35w and was just fine. Tiny, of course, but fine. He was rooming in with me (after five hours of observation in an incubator) and left the hospital when I was discharged. He needed to be "motivated" to nurse: I talked to him constantly telling him how important it was! As soon as I would stop talking he would fall asleep...:lol: This lasted about 10days, afterwards he was a vigorous nurser.

I am! I also started the World History Course this week - loving it so far!:)