It depends. We found mold in a bedroom and traced it all the way back to a leak in the roof in the adjoining bathroom. Patched the roof. Painted the rafters with mold killing primer. Replaced all the drywall all along where the water was running to get to the bedroom. It wasn't an easy job but it was doable by ourselves. We haven't had a problem with mold since. If you can find the place where water is getting in it is possible to DIY it but honestly, having done it ourselves, I would hire someone to do it if at all possible if we ever have a problem with mold like that again.

DFS placement does not guarantee him sole custody. Family court will take that into consideration for sure but even if she gets supervised visits, she still gets visits and he can’t just leave the country with them legally. The vast majority of the time, family court tries to keep both parents in the children’s lives no matter what else is going on. My ex-sil lost custody of her kids to DFS many, many times before she was considered unfit. It took years of losing custody and getting them back before the kids were given the chance to be adopted by family. Even then she still got to see them on a supervised basis. There are no guarantees in family court. Any lawyer who is filling your client’s head with the idea that sole custody and freedom to leave the country with the children is just a few court dates away is just after his money in my not so humble opinion.

Even if she wants to give up rights, it's possible that family court wouldn't allow it. I've seen it happen. It is exceedingly rare that one parent is given full custody with no strings attached. As long as the mother is still on the hook for child support, and some states do not let you, as the parent, decide if you want child support or not, It is considered the children's money and the custodial parent cannot refuse it in some states. But anyways as long as she is on the hook for child support, she has a right to see the children which means he cannot leave the country with them without a whole lot of red tape. And it doesn't matter if she actually pays it or not, it is as long as she is on the hook to pay it that matters. All this to say, it's not an easy process to do what he wants to do. It could take months or years of court, if it happens at all.

Before Five In A Row is a wonderful resource for eager 2 - 4 year olds. It's a guide for developmentally appropriate activities to pair with books that are perfect for that age group. Reading to children that age as often as possible from age appropriate books does so much more than trying to teach them how to read. I have two children that learned to read at age 3 - 4 and I didn't teach them. They learned on their own by intuiting phonics because they were ready. One was verbally accelerated from the time she was an infant. The other just picked up reading from being read to. If I had my children's childhoods to do over again, the biggest thing I would change is not to try and rush academics at all and just read read read TO THEM at the preschool age.

(((hugs))) The hardest part is the not knowing I think.

The only time I've had a washer leak is when the pump was going out. I've only ever had top loaders though.

I don't know if autism makes a difference or not, but I always had a cot in my room when my kids were that age. Even if it was just a sleeping bag on the floor next to my side of the bed, they were welcome to come sleep in my room whenever they wanted. By 8 - 10yo they always out grew the need to sleep with me. I have two kiddos that I suspect are somewhere on the spectrum but no diagnosis. I hope you and your little ones get some sleep soon! (((hugs)))

can I get some more information from Dr.Hive? They gave me a litre of fluids, no insulin or meds of any kind, in the ER yesterday. My blood sugar was likely high from a combination of dehydration and lacking one of my diabetes medications. All seems well in that dept. for now as my blood sugar is coming down fairly quickly now. It's in the high 200s, still high but manageable at home at this point. They did a CBC with differential on me while I was in the ER which revealed I was anemic. Again. No surprise to me, I just finished my period and I'm always a little anemic then. But when I got home and looked at the labs online, I did notice something a little different about it. Hemoglobin and Hematocrit and all the other markers that spell anemia are low-normal to low but my RBC is high. I tried looking up in all my normal places and I'm not getting any good answers for that. The ER doctor talked to me about the anemia but didn't mention the high RBC. Could dehydration cause anemia but high RBC? Like I said my normal go-to medical sites aren't giving me satisfactory answers for this. I see my PCP for an ER follow up on the 8th but I'd like an idea of what to ask her about, ya know? Here are the actual numbers if that helps. I only included the readings that were outside of normal, the rest of the CBC values were well within normal range:

Made it home. Blood sugar was in the low 300s when I left the ER and is still there now but I'm downing water like a fish so hopefully by morning when I go get my other med (trajenta) it will be even better. Thanks everyone for the push to go in. 😉 ((hugs))

Ok so labs came back. 430 on blood sugar and I'm anemic but we knew that already and are working on it. No ketoacidosis or anything else. One more blood sugar check and then they are sending me home.

Dunno yet. Still waiting on labs. The pharmacy is supposed to have them for me when I go in tomorrow. I'm the only patient here. That's how I got in so fast. Sometimes bandaid stations have their advantages. Lol

Ugh. I'm on my phone and it won't let me format right. 391 is really high still but not nearly as scary as 600. I did drive but dh is with me. He can't drive because of the meds he's on for intercrainial hypertension. The only other option was ambulance.

Blood sugar read 391 on the hospital's equipment. So better but not great. They are just putting me on fluids and then probably sending me home unless my labs come back wonky

At the hospital 45 mins away, waiting for the Dr now.

Don't have urine testing strips. Not something the Dr has told me to keep around the house. Would Walmart have it you think? Eta small town Walmart is the only thing open on a Sunday here

No urgent cares here are open on Sunday. Sigh. I'm thinking about just going to the one 45 mins away. If it's a big enough deal that I need to be admitted they will transfer me but that can take hours when it's just an extra 45 mins to drive there in the first place, kwim? Thanks for the help thinking this through. 😊

I'm type 2 diabetic, not on insulin just glipizide because I had a bad reaction to metformin and I'm out of trajenta until tomorrow. I just took my blood sugar and the first reading was over 600, the second was 565 and the third was over 600 again. Ive felt off and very thirsty for 2 days. I would honestly rather wait and talk to my doctor tomorrow but everything I'm reading says go to the hospital. If I do go to the hospital, should I go to my doctor's hospital 45 minutes away that is little more than a bandaid station or should I go to the big hospital in the city 90 minutes away? I don't feel really sick, but the internet is making it sound like I could suddenly drop dead, ya know? My doctor has never mentioned when to go to the ER and of course this would happen on a weekend. Sigh.

Dh and I are homebodies and don't require much socialization but Ds11 however is a completely different person. He truly NEEDS interactions with lots of people on a daily basis to be happy. But I'm not willing to completely give up that better education at home for him. So we made a compromise. We took his first year in public school off from teaching at home in any way because we needed to reset our relationship. This year, we started some afterschool "homework" in his weakest areas that the school isn't really touching with him. He doesn't always like it but we get it done. Just wanted to say that it doesn't have to be all or nothing with the school and education situation. We also play it year by year as someone mentioned above.

I'm remediating ELA with my DS11, so slightly younger than your friend's ds, but I'm still looking for the same things, starts from the ground up without being babyish in his opinion. I'm doing this as afterschool "homework" since his school does not assign any homework in elementary school. For handwriting, I'm using a homemade version of this paper and copywork sentences that interest him. I have to come up with the sentences myself but I use google a lot for inspiration. Lots of zombies and minecraft and Nerf facts and Lego facts and all things 11 year old boy. Right now, his focus is making sure he starts his clock letters in the right place and makes them neatly on the special paper. If he doesn't at least attempt to do it neatly, he does it over again. Only takes him about 10 minutes a day and I give him Fridays off of copywork if he doesn't have to copy anything twice the rest of the week. His regular handwriting is slowly getting better since we started copywork with a focus on his weak areas in his handwriting. If coming up with her own copywork is too daunting at first, I also considered Fix It Grammar by IEW. It covers copywork and grammar concepts without mention to grade level in the books. This summer, I plan to run my ds through Treasured Conversations for writing and paragraph formation. I can't find find a current working website for it though. I bought it back when we were still homeschooling planning on using it when he was about 11-12yo. As an alternative, I would consider the Killgallon's "Paragraphs for Middle School" which is for grades 6 - 8. If she needs to go back to the sentence level before attempting paragraphs, there is also "Getting Started with Middle School Sentence Composing" by the Killgallons which is also for grades 6 - 8.

With my divorce, there was just a point where I knew I was done with the relationship. Therapy would not have helped because part of knowing I was done was also knowing that my heart just wasn't in the relationship any longer. I just came to the realization that I didn't care anymore and had not cared for a while. Like was mentioned above, couples therapy only works if both parties are still invested in the relationship. We had done couples therapy in the past but it was only a bandaid slapped on to a much bigger problem in our relationship. My only regret in my divorce is that I didn't do it sooner, when I first felt the urge to leave not when I felt like I was out of options.

My kids enjoy Sunbutter as a peanut butter alternative. When my oldest kids were younger, their middle school was nut free and Sunbutter is what the school served as a pb alternative.

Ah, gotcha. I don't know how much those ones cost because I don't buy those ones. Ds likes the pizza lunchables best with cheese and pepperoni and the ham and cheese cracker one is his go to if they don't have the pizza one. I usually have him pick a fruit or veggie to go with it. Then a water bottle with a drink packet for the drink. He also gets to pick a dessert of some kind too usually. If he is the "food can't touch" kinda kid (I've had one of those) Bento boxes are a life saver. I really like this kind on Amazon. Make sure whatever you get it is leak proof between the compartments. Your picky kid will thank you... maybe lol.

I second the homemade lunchable. You could even get him a special bento box style lunch box to put his homemade version in. My 11yo loves lunchables too and is just as happy with the homemade version. ETA: And good grief $5 for a lunchable? They're $3.50 or so here and I still groan about the price when I do break down and buy them for him.

The great thing about homeschooling is that you can cater to each child as an individual. No cookie cutter education necessary. Each child can have a personalized end goal that takes into account their interests. I would have this child complete an A.A.S. as their end goal for high school. If your local community college has some sort of AG program A.A.S., that would be ideal. Otherwise, welding, book keeping, plumbing, electrician or auto/diesel mechanic are all skills that a cowboy could use that most schools have an A.A.S. for and offer fallback protection for your son if for any reason cowboying doesn't work out. An A.A.S. can still transfer to a 4 year school if and when that is ever needed. I have an A.A.S. that I transferred to a 4 year school. Not everything directly transferred but it did cover my first two years at the 4 year school and then some.

I wish I could like your post Rosie. I am one of those people in their houses hiding from the world too. 🤣 I've found that I don't have many people irl that I would really call a friend and I'm ok with that. I don't crave more social interaction than I already have. Just because other people are concerned that I'm not more social doesn't mean there is something wrong with me. I'm happy with my social life just the way it is and that's all that matters.