Is this actually the case, though? I’ve thought that perhaps some of the political divide in perceptions of covid risk is based on most of the worst hit areas being left-leaning denser population regions, and many right-leaning more rural areas generally taking a lighter toll. Even Florida, with its dense, older population, had escaped much of the worst of covid for whatever reason, a few months ago when I was still watching those stats. Are there numbers now showing republicans dying in higher numbers, now that everyone who wants to be is vaxed?

Yes, they do.

Thank you! Yes, they are all excited, but especially my youngest. He talks and sings to the baby constantly.

I’ve been feeling much better. Only one sick day this past week. This one is another boy.

Thanks

Those numbers don’t look concerning at all, but If you need it, here’s what the dietitian suggested for our son who will just eat less at the next meal if encouraged to eat more calories: Try substitutions that will get a few more calories into a meal without feeling like he is eating more or having to take any more bites. If you would cook something in a little olive oil regularly, use bacon fat. If he’s having a sandwich, spread a little butter on the bread first, before putting in whatever you normally would. Add a little cream to his whole milk. Etc. It has worked out. No big or quick changes, but his weight has crept back up where it was pre-surgery last October.

Thanks. I feel like I have to get everything done right now in this window between morning sickness and the last trimester.

Historically there was government medical experimentation on African Americans in the U.S., so there is a reasonable heightened suspicion of a new, less-proven medical intervention being pushed by the government. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2021/02/16/black-history-covid-vaccine-fears-medical-experiments/4358844001/#:~:text=In 1932%2C U.S. Public Health Service employees recruited,of the experiment made front-page news in 1972.

Anyone have suggestions for learning how to give a good haircut to a wiggly little boy that is not a buzz, and works with a big cowlick in front? I need to learn how to do a new style before cutting ds7’s again. Last time I did the same short buzzcut I normally do on the boys, I got a few comments about him looking sick/like a cancer patient/was his hair just coming back in? He hasn’t really lost hair on chemo, maybe thinned slightly, but not really. I don’t get why people should think he looks sicker with a buzz cut. He doesn’t really look sick at all, to me, except that he is very skinny. When ds9 was littler, I would sometimes give him a bowl cut, but ds7 has my cowlick right on the front right side of his head. As I learned when my dd10 (who also has our cowlick) wanted bangs, this length creates a several-inches long perfect spiral of hair sticking straight up, down, and out in all directions on that side of the forehead. Any suggestions?

We finished the refinance on our mortgage. Only a small difference in interest rate (.25% less), but it will knock off the PMI, so our total monthly payment will be about $180 less.

Among people I know, the strongest correlation I have seen with vax/anti-vax attitudes is a general mistrust of the government. Which is kind of related to politics, as there is a tendency for those who want more/larger government programs to be those who have a high level of trust in the government and to be politically liberal, and for those who want as little government involvement in individuals’ lives as possible to be those who mistrust the government and to be politically conservative. It is definitely a matter of risk assessment at our house. My husband and I got the vaccine as soon as possible, but when our 12-year-old became eligible for the vaccine, we decided to wait a couple of months with the reasoning that if there were any as-yet-unknown issues with the new vaccine, they would become apparent by then. Shortly after that we discovered through his chemo monitoring tests that our youngest has a genetic heart defect that all the other kids need to be tested for. So we are delaying the vaccine for our oldest until we know whether she also has this heart defect, so that if she does we can consult the cardiologist on her risks with the rare heart side effect with the vaccine.

A TAPP family advocate is a school employee who works with native tribes, and not applicable here. Some of my kids take online classes, but from providers like AOPS and CLRC, not from the charter school’s registered teachers. They do offer some online classes as an option, but they do not fit my kids’ academic needs. I have no problem with letting the school know what we are working on in exchange for their funding, but if the D of E is going to be requiring that the school impose daily interruptions for this, that’s going to be a problem. The state department of education has gotten way more interfering in distance education options since covid started. This school has been functioning well with great results for years, but now it’s getting lumped in with all the new public-school-on-the-computer-at-home options, which clearly do need some work.

We homeschool through a charter. So legally my kids are public school students in a different town. But essentially they give us funds, we submit semester work samples, do occasional testing, and otherwise just do our own thing. The state keeps changing virtual charters’ attendance requirements, but this past year it included me responding to a daily text that yes, we were schooling that day. Our state was previously considering a requirement that virtual students receive at least half their instruction time with a teacher by zoom lesson, which would have been catastrophic to our homeschool day. I wrote the department of education about that, and they scrapped that plan, but instead are instituting this requirement: “For remote instructional models, schools and districts must take daily attendance. Attendance should be demonstrated in a set 24 hour window that the school establishes and communicates to families prior to the school year. The 24 hour window is not required to be from 12:00 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. Attendance for all instructional models will be defined to include both participation in class activities and substantive interaction with a licensed or registered teacher during a school day or substantive interactions with educational assistants, paraprofessionals, and TAPP family advocates that support meaningful learning and/or attend to student mental health and well- being. Substantive interactions can be evidenced by any of the following or reasonable equivalents:  Active participation in a video class;  A meaningful series of two-way communications between student and teacher via chat, text message, communication app or email;  A sustained phone call between the teacher or educational assistants/paraprofessionals and the student, or, for younger students, with the parent or guardian of the student.” If I am reading this right, they want every virtual student (or their parent) to have a not-too-brief interaction with a school professional every day? What would one even talk about in “sustained” daily conversations about a young student? “Yep, taught my kid phonics again. Short a sounds.” And again the next day. And the next. And the next.

Seeing this, I find myself very glad that the cousins all have covid right now. My kid on chemo is high-risk. If things do get worse, we homeschool, so it is easy enough for us to isolate if need be (other than doctor visits). I will feel more comfortable with having some contact with the public-schooled cousins after they have all already had it.

So your officials are directly lying to the public? That is very scary.

Are things way worse in all your areas than I am seeing here? I am just surprised to see so many people so worried, compared to the situation I see in person. I have heard about numbers rising, but was under the impression that the people refilling ICUs were almost all non-vaxers, and that the vaccine is successful in mitigating breakthrough cases’ effects. So vaccinated people aren’t getting very sick. Is this incorrect?

Our county’s rate from a week ago was 36.6%. It was hard to find that info. I do know our area is higher than that, but not how much higher. And no, it doesn’t really affect our decision making. I think current disease rates are more important than vaccination rates, and those are low. However, most of what we do right now cannot really be adjusted. We have to go to doctors appointments, which is most of our outings. When we have appointments and dh cannot work from home, the other kids have to go to whoever is available to babysit. (My oldest babysits for shorter things near home, but I’m not comfortable with her babysitting yet when it will be longer or when neither parent is nearby.) That and a parent picking up groceries constitutes 90% of our outings right now. We have been attending church, dependent on how our youngest is feeling. We have also been to the splash pad, but that is outdoors and doesn’t involve needing to get close to other people. We have occasionally gotten together with our cousins, who are very careful about health issues. We often have our foster girls over, but would have contact with those germs anyways from babysitting. And our oldest has attended a small youth group with mostly the same families from church who babysit for us, and piano lessons with a teacher who is careful about health. We will drop church attendance and social activities if we need to based on youngest’s blood test results and covid numbers, but as much as possible we’d like to let the kids keep that bit of normal.

When we were using Singapore Math, and one of my kids seemed to already know or immediately get a section as we reached it, I eventually learned to just let them do the more challenging questions from the Intensive Practice books and the Challenging Word Problems books and move on. The Workbooks were great for one kid, sometimes useful for another, and a waste of time for two others. If I wasn't sure whether they needed it or not, I would give one or two IP questions and then judge from how easily they did that whether they needed the easier practice first, or whether to just assign the IP and CWP, or sometimes only the CWP if they really had it down. We never skipped topics entirely, but there was no point to making them slog through work that was too easy and meant to cement concepts that were already rock solid. Singapore is really good, but Beast Academy is our favorite. We started out just planning to use it as a supplement to Singapore and then gradually switched over. Every concept is applied in new and interesting and challenging ways, so that every topic, even ones they already understand, is full of real work and new insights. We don't skip anything in BA, and they don't mind at all (unlike before I learned to pick and choose what to assign in Singapore).

When we had eight kids last year, I got super-sized cooking pans, bowls, etc. Now we can have as many leftovers as I want!

We considered but decided against sending our older kids to school this year. I would have been fine with it, though, if none of my kids had factors to put them at higher risk. But we didn't want them bringing germs home to little brother.

I made pad thai tonight for dinner. It was amazing. About $10 for the family meal plus lots of leftovers for lunches this week.

My weight is down 15 lbs. in the last 3 1/2 months—not from working out, just from morning sickness. I’m 21 weeks pregnant and finally seem to be mostly past being sick, so I thought maybe I’d join in here in search of some motivation to go walking and keep my weight gain this pregnancy down to a healthy minimum. I started this surprise pregnancy way overweight, but there’s nothing I can do about that now.

Made our total planned contribution to the kids’ 529 accounts to get our state’s tax credit for it for the year.

Our niece is getting married and we weren’t originally invited because of COVID restrictions on numbers, but then restrictions lightened up in that state. Unfortunately, we hadn’t budgeted for the trip because of earlier restrictions. I decided to stay home with the kids, and dh is going to drive to his parents’ house and then stay/drive up and back with them. I’m proud of him for making that decision. He is not naturally frugal, and really would have preferred to fly rather than to spend hours with his legs scrunched up in their backseat, but he is really trying to work on his spending habits and our saving goals.

When I was a preschool teacher before having my own kids, we once had four sets of multiples in our class at once—three sets of twins and one set of triplets. Three of the four moms were over forty, one was over fifty.