He's working at a 4 to 5th grade level in math.

Reframing it that way does help a bit with the mom guilt lol. Thank you for this.

So, Dh and I have used Discord while gaming online. But it was in association with a certain game that we played. I feel alright letting him try out Discord this summer maybe. How do you or your kiddos find appropriate for kids Discord groups? I'm familiar with using voice chat in Discord but not super savvy with it otherwise.

He has a chromebook that the school provides for use at school and he has his own desktop computer, locked down quite tight, for use at home. Right now it is broken though and we are waiting on parts to fix it. Just old hand-me-down parts that finally reached their limit. He does like to game, I've thought about setting him up on discord but so far I've just been thinking about it and not really moving toward doing it. I feel bad for him not having lots of kids to play with around here because he is such an extrovert but I don't want to over indulge based on mom guilt, kwim? So it sounds like his pleas that he's one of the few without a cell phone might be more truth than exaggeration. Sigh.

I missed that thread about alternative math. Google is not being helpful at all in finding it. Do you have a link or is it pinned somewhere?

but what kind of electronics privileges/social media/electronic communication with friends do your 10 year olds have? Ds is 10.5 years old this summer. He is going to be in some summer activities where he will see his school friends but the rest of the time he won't be in contact with anyone but us, his parents and his grandparent next door. He's asked about a cell phone to talk to his friends but so far the answer has been a hard no. His (much) older brothers and sisters had to wait until they were 13 to have a phone and then it was a Tracphone type phone they paid for themselves. But I'm starting to think that maybe they grew up in a different time because most of youngest ds's friends have cell phones now at 9 - 11yo. My older kids lived in suburbia most of their childhood so there were kids on the block to play with. We now live rurally and none of our somewhat near (across a several acre field) neighbors have kids or even grandkids that visit very often. Playdates with other kids aren't a big thing around here either as lots of people go on multiple week vacations in the summer. So I'm thinking that alone, not having kids nearby to play with, is enough to change the rules a bit for youngest ds. But I'm not sure. I'm torn on it really. So what are other 10 year old/.pre-teen kids up to these days with keeping up with their friends?

I'm looking for some things to keep ds learning and keep skill areas sharp this summer. I would like to get him to move up a bit on reading this summer if possible as well. I've found a series of books that are at the learning level for him and I plan to buddy read them with him this summer. I had also planned on having him do Night Zookeeper. He's an animal lover so it seems like a good fit for him plus he can work at his reading level instead of his age level if that makes sense. It doesn't seem to be very popular at all on these boards though. Would anyone consider Night Zookeeper just for the summer as a fun way to keep learning? Is there something else I should consider? He uses Zearn for some of his math right now and I had planned on just having him continue with it. He doesn't need a lot of math work. He easily completes his lessons and is working ahead of grade level for the most part in math. Really, I just want to combat summer slide in math with him. Should I consider anything else for math? He's not really excited about doing Zearn during the summer so he would love a change of pace but I just haven't come across anything that fits. Beast Academy frustrates him more often than not. He's good at calculations but math puzzles don't seem to be his thing. Prodigy just seems too gamified and last time we tried to use it, it was really weird on the placement. Like it was giving him long division problems to solve when he was just learning about multiplication. It doesn't have to be online stuff that we are looking for and I don't mind (in fact I prefer) printing at home. He's already signed up for lots of summer EC so I'm hoping for something we can spend 60 - 90 a day working on ELA(with a focus on reading instruction) and math skills. Any suggestions?

@wisdomandtreasures I totally get being the "wrong denomination" to join local groups. We are not religious at all so we never fit in even general Christian groups. I did get one group to bend the rules for us but I had to sign a paper they made up saying that we would not discuss our beliefs while we were with the group. 🙄 My oldest was in K-1 and the younger ones were preschoolers. We got to go on some nice field trips with them and a couple of community helpers demonstrations (like the fire department and police department) but there certainly weren't any lifelong friends for us there. @Mrs Tiggywinkle Again I remember my older kids who were homeschoolers in the 2000 - 2010 years having all sorts of homeschool activities and homeschooler inclusive activities. Now it's all hybrid schools like you said. I've thought about opening a homeschool resource center in our area but I don't know if it would make it with the way parents are choosing to "homeschool" these days. We gave up homeschooling our youngest for several reasons but one was lack of homeschool community in our area. I was able to get my youngest in a great alternative education program that kinda mixes the best parts of homeschooling and public school. It's extremely flexible and he learns at his own pace. Right now, he's 2 grade levels behind in reading but slowly catching up and 1 grade ahead in math and they let him work at his level in both subjects. It's a multi-age class with kids from 1-6 grade in the class and the class size is capped at 12 students with 2 teachers in the class. They do content subjects like science and social studies as a whole group. He still gets to do PE and music and such with kids his own age. We live in a very rural area too and we had to use school choice to go to the school district in the next town to find a program like this. What's funny is the district that has this program is in a smaller district (less the 800 kids in the entire district) than the one we live in. He gets to take the bus to and from school but the bus stop is in town, about a 3 mile drive from our house.

I missed this thread when it was originally posted but we've done lunch as our big meal at times as well. I liked to bulk prep on the weekends so my prep for lunch on weekdays was minimal. Cutting up veggies, cooking ahead what could be frozen and then just heated when ready to eat. Things like that made it much easier and faster to get dinner style lunches on the table while juggling homeschooled kiddos.

We live two hours from both places. I imagine the town near us will put on a festival on Main Street for the eclipse. It's a small town (around 5,000 people) in the country, but we have the headquarters for the Christian Motorcycle Association just outside the city limits. I bet we will be hearing lots of motorcycles the week leading up to the eclipse just like when they do the Run for the Colors in the fall every year. Thanks for reminding me that I need to stock up on everything so we don't have to leave the house all week while it's going on. 😄

I remember going outside to watch an eclipse when I was in 9th grade but that was in the 90s. He goes to a small, but well funded public school that does all kinds of neat things. Plus he's in the alternative education classroom and his teacher is wonderful and really takes advantage of things in the real world for the kids to learn about. He will be in the same classroom next year so I told him I'd talk to his teacher when it's closer to time and see what their plans are for the eclipse. If they don't plan to make a school activity out of it in the outdoor classroom (which I imagine they will, they did in 2017 for the eclipse), I told him he could stay home to watch it that day. 🙂

Just checked the website above, we are as in the middle of the path of totality as you can get lol. And we live out in the country with little light pollution. Ds is asking already if he can stay home from school that day to see it. Lol. He doesn't remember the partial eclipse of 2017. He was 4yo for that one. He was only really interested in the cool sun glasses for that one lol.

I'm glad to hear that she tried cosleeping and it's helping. I'd definitely be napping with those babies every chance I got. Number one, they are only this small for a blink of an eye. Number two, she only has them for now (assuming she may have more). Take advantage of not having to care for older siblings! Number three, my babies always slept longer and better if I napped at least part of the time with them. Number four, did I mention they are only this small for a short time? 😄

Mine always screamed when they hit the crib. That's a part of the reason why we co-slept until they were ready for the crib. It usually happened around 6 months. Even my 36 weeker was in her crib at night around 6 months, chronological age, not adjusted age. Only one of my kiddos slept in the crib from a young age. I had him in the bed cosleeping from birth but every time someone so much as yawned, he'd wake up. Even in a bassinet near my bed he would wake up at every little movement or noise. Put him in the crib in his room at 2 weeks old out of desperation for more than an 1 - 2 hours of sleep and woke up in a panic the next morning because he slept through the night! Youngest ds had to sleep in his carseat or a swing. It was the only position that kept him from refluxing and aspirating it. He would wake up choking if he was laid on a flat surface, even a crib mattress with a wedge didn't stop his horrible reflux. The doctor actually told me to try putting him to sleep in a car seat because obviously laying flat anywhere wasn't working for him. Even now at 10yo he sleeps at an incline on pillows of his own choosing. Every kiddo is different. Those bows are adorable. 🙂

We live in the path of totality. We'll probably be hanging out in the backyard.

I take meloxicam daily along with Effexor. No problems here. The same doctor prescribes both for me and I can't recall her ever saying there would be an issue. I've taken both for years now and it's never been a problem.

Chicken bacon ranch pasta is a favorite here. I make it in the instant pot, it can be made with raw or cooked chicken. We call it chicken mac n cheese. Chicken wraps - Cooked chicken, salad mix, shredded cheese, bacon bits if you want and your choice of salad dressing wrapped in a tortilla. Mix some cut up chicken with some raw veggies and cold pasta salad for a nice cold lunch or dinner. Chicken and rice bake (or instant pot).

Around here, the fire trucks and police cars sometimes park outside of WM and solicit donations. They also let any kids who come by climb in/on the vehicles and honk the horns and sirens and flash the lights. It's quite the noisy day when they do donation drives. I wonder if that neighbor would be panicked about that too. We also live in a high elderly population area. I see people being taken by ambulance out of WM here more than anywhere else I've been. 9 times out of 10, it's an elderly person who collapsed while shopping. So seeing an ambulance around here with it's lights on isn't an uncommon sight. Without telling him anything else, I asked dh what his first thought would be if he saw fire trucks and police cars with the lights and sirens going at the preschool and he said he would figure it was show and tell day and it was someone's parent who worked for emergency services.

I had a just turned 3 year old and a 13 month old when oldest dd was born. Their father was military and on his first deployment when she was born. I had no family nearby, the only help I had from his unit was one of his buddies came and cut the grass for me because we lived in base housing. No one brought meals, no one came over to help. It was just me and 3 kids 3yo and under. Oh and dd turned 6 weeks old exactly on September 11, 2001. Ex was still deployed and I was still at home with 3 under 3 now with no end in sight because his deployment was extended indefinitely when 9/11 happened. I never drugged any of my kids, not even benedryl. I probably needed antidepressants but I didn't have them at the time. I just did what had to be done each day. If everyone was clean, fed and tucked into bed (or all piled in my bed) at the end of the day, that was enough because it had to be. The days were long but the years were oh so short. My oldest, the 3yo in this post, turns 25 tomorrow. My younger three kids came when the older three were old enough to be a big help around the house. So even though I was still often completely on my own, just me and the (homeschooled) kids (ex was deployed or otherwise not around), I had help then. Like @Melissa in Australia said, they helped with laundry, cooking, entertaining little ones, picking up, vacuuming. It made having the younger three a breeze by comparison. I really miss those days of reading a read aloud while the baby nursed. Everyone either snuggled on the couch or playing nearby. My yard wasn't perfect, the house was kid cleaned, laundry wasn't always neatly folded and put away, meals were often kid fare and sometimes kid made kid fare lol but we all survived none worse for the wear. Your dd has been extremely lucky in having so much help, able and willing, but she can and will make it on her own too. The days will be long but the years are so short. She kinda got thrown into the deep end of the pool with having twins as her first but she can get a teen or preteen to be a mother's helper especially with summer just around the corner or hired help cleaning the house if she needs to. As someone else said, if she has less time to look things up on tiktok, maybe she will be less stressed and realize that she can and will make the best decisions for her family without it.

I don't weigh myself at home either for the same reasons. I only know my weight from doctor visits which I go every 3 - 6 months. I fought tooth and nail to take my meds at first. I hate having to take meds daily but somewhere along the way I have accepted that this is what I have to do to be healthy and here for my husband and kids. My husband is the one who keeps me accountable for taking my meds. He reminds me and/or asks me if I took them today and if not, he playfully bugs me until I do lol. If I miss a day, he doesn't get on to me or anything, he just makes sure I take it ASAP. I don't know your circumstances, and you do NOT have to share them, but I know mine will never change. What's done is done. They nearly destroyed me as a person. Like I said before, meds are the only thing between me and the edge of suicide sometimes. And I hate it. I really do. I don't have to like it, but I have accepted that meds are probably going to be lifelong for me. Not because I want to be, but because I have to be. My circumstances have altered my brain chemistry so much that made it so. And I've slowly accepted that that's ok. Effexor does have some pretty rough withdrawl symptoms but if I'm being honest, that is what keeps me taking them some days, knowing that I will have to deal with withdrawls if I don't take them. The first med prescribe to me was Zoloft. I worked for while and then we had to change a few times before we landed on Effexor. I would ask you doctor if you could start out on that. I'm glad that nurse was so encouraging for you. Perhaps you can contact her and she can help convince the dr to try a different med for you?

Effexor xl is what I take daily right now and have for several years now. It works very well for my depression and well enough for my everyday anxiety. My weight, though overweight for my height, hasn't gone up up on the Effexor. It has remained steady but I was already overweight from other antidepressants and other factors when I started. Please try the Effexor. Everyone is different. Just because others gained weight doesn't mean you will. If you start it and start to see the scale going up you can always stop. I am so proud of you for going to one of your old pcps and getting something going. I know that was hard for you. (((Hugs)))

Six weeks for intake is about the norm everywhere I've been. I figured it was because we live rurally and there just aren't as many options out here. I would go ahead and make the appointment at the clinic, you can always cancel if you find something better/sooner. Can you get in with a family practice or clinic sooner? They could get you going on meds while you wait for the appointment. I was thinking about you this morning while we were at my dh's PCP appointment. I wish you were near enough that I could refer you to her. She has completely changed my mind about what a doctor can be. She could tell dh was miserable and got him hooked up with specialists and gave him some medicine samples to try and help with his pain. We had planned to talk about it with her but we didn't even have to ask. There are good doctors out there still, unfortunately you usually have to go through a few bad ones to find the good ones.

I would repair the Rogue to get by for as long as I need to save up and buy another vehicle with cash. But I'm the type that refuses to have a car payment over my head. We just put a new transmission in my vehicle. It came with a 3 year warranty and just made more financial sense for us than a used or rebuilt one. If your ds only needs it to get by for a year or two while he saves up for a new vehicle, a used or rebuilt transmission might make more sense for his situation. I encourage my children to stay away from car payments. One I know for sure didn't take my advice and learned what it means to be a slave to debt. She got in over her head, had to have her father co-sign for her, and it's just made a mess. I don't know if the other kids have car payments or not. She's the only one who has told me about her car payments. I'll listen, give advice if she asks but I will not bail her out. I've given her a few options to get out from under that car payment but so far she hasn't taken them. Shrug. Her life. Her decisions. Even if they are bad ones in my opinion sometimes.

Yes, anxiety can cause depression and vice versa. Like @Pawz4me said, two sides of the same coin. Sometimes you can treat one and the other resolves itself and sometimes you have to treat both. I'm one of the unlucky ones who has to treat both lest the one we didn't treat takes over. Hence the reason I need three meds to help keep it all in check. I'm sorry you are feeling overwhelmed from all the advice given here. You really don't have to follow all of it. Just pick what sounds easiest to access for you and go from there.

I used to have a 42 cup size Thatsa Bowl from Tupperware. That thing got so much use with our large family from cooking to cleaning. I have no idea where it disappeared to. I imagine I lent it to someone who has yet to return it. LOL! I definitely never regretted that impulse purchase. 😉