We went with the "cross your fingers and hope for the best" approach. 😂 But we only bought ours a month ago, so I can't tell you how that turned out yet. We bought a hybrid mattress from some company we've never heard of from a local unclaimed freight place. Classy, right? Lol. But a queen-sized mattress was only $500, it's super comfy right now, and if we have to buy a new one in two or three years we aren't out a small fortune. And we didn't get bedbugs from the delivery truck, so I'm counting it as a win. I can say that I have a neck and back that get messed up really easily from a bad case of whiplash in my early twenties, and I haven't had any pain whatsoever from this mattress. If it holds up even moderately well, I'll be buying all hybrid mattresses in the future.

I have OCD and misophonia. I'll email her as soon as I get on a computer that's logged in to my email.

It is if you have a toddler. *faints*

I don't know what state you're in, but my experience here is that CPS doesn't get involved until a child has actually died. I have a FB (not actual) friend who brags about doing drugs while she was pregnant and still has custody of all three kids, including the newborn. I reported another homeschool family myself because of extremely severe and long-term educational neglect (I'm talking teens who were illiterate and could barely add), untreated and dangerous mental illness in the mom while the dad was gone all the time (knives and self-harm in front of the kids was a thing, as well as paranoid delusions), and the children having no food. It was bad. So bad. CPS didn't do a thing. I think you'll be fine. Regardless of what HSLDA propaganda would have you believe, CPS is not out to get your kids. If you follow all those stories where people freak out about kids being taken away from homeschool families, every time it comes out later that the parents were on drugs and the kids were being abused. Really, with the lack of available foster homes in most places, as long as you aren't actually snorting crushed up narcotics off your children, you'll be fine. Not even joking, that's basically where the bar is set now. 😔

I don't know. I've gone through enough huge life transitions to know that the grass really is greener on the other side. Right now, I'm a sahm. If we decided to sell everything and travel the world, after a while we'd start to long for stability and friends. If I had an exciting career that I loved, I'd miss homeschooling and being home with the kids. You can drive yourself crazy always longing for something different. It's never going to be as amazing and perfect as you thought when you were dreaming about it.

I'm surprised so many people think that if a house is clean and upper class, it won't have bedbugs. The wealthier a person is, the more likely they are to travel, and traveling means hotels. I'd rather buy from someone like myself who can't afford to go anywhere. 😂

Honestly, I think you're being way too hard on the kids. If you consider that they've been cooped up in classrooms all day long, their behavior is if not appropriate, certainly not abnormal. My older dd's GS troop is that age range, and they act the same way at our evening meetings. Expecting an eight or nine year old to sit quietly and do crafts after sitting in school all day probably isn't going to happen, and isn't really developmentally appropriate. Some might be able to manage it, but not all. If I was in your place, I'd sit down with the kids and ask them what they'd like to do. Odds are they're going to want to go outside and do something that involves a lot of noise and running around. 😉 Try to remember that the program is supposed to be for them, so forcing them to do activities they don't want to do is a lose-lose situation.

Any sympathy for the parents I might have had evaporated when they got to the part where they let him sleep in their daughter's bed four nights a week for six months as part of his "therapy." No one is that naive. I think there was a lot more going on that no one ever found out about, because the situation as described in the documentary is literally unbelievable.

I had all the vaxes in Army boot camp in '02. ('03? I can't remember. It was one of the two.) I don't know for sure what they gave me, but they stuck needles everywhere a person can have needles. 😂

Probably so that you wouldn't also catch mumps or rubella, unless you were vaccinated prior to the seventies.

Not to mention that endangering ones own child, and by extension any medically-vulnerable children around him or her, because a stem cell line from the sixties used fetal stem cells seems like the opposite of pro-life.

Not even a hundred feet. Maybe twenty. And I could see my kids in the car the whole way. That woman seriously needs to unclench her butt.

Also, some kids have special needs or impulse control issues, and they really might need supervision later than is average. No big deal. But don't assume MY child is the same way. I had a lady freak out in the grocery store parking lot at me a couple weeks ago because I left the kids alone in the car to bring the cart to the cart corral. Three cars away. They were buckled in and my older dd is ten and looks fourteen. She actually clutched her nonexistent pearls and gasped. It was ridiculous.

My older dd has been staying home alone for up to around half an hour since she was eight, and she's been able to go anywhere she wants in our neighborhood with her best friend since she was nine. I don't see anything wrong with a couple kids that age walking home without a parent.

I had to walk outside for maybe a mile today because my car's tire went flat because of the cold. Aside from it being -44 with the wind chill, it's a beautiful sunny day. I actually enjoyed the walk, though my legs are stinging a little now that I'm back inside. And this kind of air isn't great for your lungs, even breathing through a scarf.

I love the name Dagny! I just wish it didn't make me think of Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand. I wish Rand had named the main character Gertrude or something.

The place where I grew up is around -50 right now with the windchill and apparently they didn't even cancel school. They did start two hours late, though. The thought of standing outside when it's -30 waiting for the school bus makes me nostalgic for my childhood. 😂

I can't speak for other states, but we stay in Minnesota for the low cost of living, relatively good job situation, and the socialism. 😁 It is a little annoying though when you can develop mild frostbite in the time it takes you to bring a cart to the cart corral at the grocery store. We get a horrific windchill on the prairie sometimes and I never remember to bring my gloves when I run errands. When it's -40 with the windchill, it feels a little bit like acid is eating away at your skin. Good times. 😂 I had to run to the hardware store yesterday and there was some guy on a street corner, naked except for a pair of athletic shorts, and he was dancing. I kid you not. I think it must have been a dare. I'm pretty sure he was doing the macarena. But to answer your question, the people who live in places like this may also be just a little bit insane.

Ahh, I think I know where you live. I spent the first twenty years of my life in the Icebox. 😉 Yes, it does get colder there than in southern Minnesota. I live in west central Minnesota now, and we're supposed to get actual temps down to -30 on Tuesday. I'm not sure how cold it will get with the windchill. I laugh a little bit when people freak out over this kind of cold. Where I grew up, they might have canceled recess at the school for that kind of cold, but only if they were feeling generous, lol. It was so weird when I first moved away for college and the cold didn't make my nostrils freeze every time I took a breath. 😂

I saw that video posted in a homeschooling FB group, and people were talking about how stupid it is and how it doesn't make any sense. I tried to explain the concepts behind it, and they STILL couldn't/wouldn't understand it. Some of them actually said things like, "My kids are never going to need much math, anyway." And these are homeschoolers! Stuff like this is why homeschooling is going to end up illegal.

My dh has bipolar II. I won't lie, it was rough until he found the right med combo. My older dd and I had to spend some time in a shelter for abused women when she was a toddler because dh was becoming violent at times. BUT, once he found the right med combo, it was like a switch was flipped and he became, for the most part, a normal person. His hypomanic episodes now are few and far between, and extremely mild compared to what he had before. He has a good job, he's now a great father, and our marriage is getting along as well as it can when you have one child going through puberty and the other one is a toddler. Lol. He's on lexapro, lithium, and trileptal. While he has to be on all three to not gradually descend back into near-constant hypomania, the trileptal was like a miracle drug. Within days of starting it he was a totally different person. Things to watch out for, based on my experience, are first and foremost, substance abuse. Dh has never used drugs while we've been together, but he's an alcoholic. Whether that's from the bipolar or would have happened either way I don't know, but when he was drinking, it was bad. So, so bad. He'd use alcohol to cope with the full-blown manic episodes, and because his mania manifested as intense rage, you can imagine how well that worked. At this point in his life, he won't even set foot in a restaurant that serves alcohol. He does say that once he started the trileptal, the urge to drink vanished. Also, bipolar people tend to want to go off their meds a lot. I don't know why, but it's a thing. It doesn't help that many of the most effective meds aside from lithium cost a bajillion dollars a month. Looking at the price we'd have to pay for dh's monthly meds without insurance gives me a panic attack. I find it helpful to put dh's pills in one of those boxes with the days labeled because it makes it harder for him skip his meds and "forget" to mention it. 🙄 See a psychiatrist, not a family doctor. Been there, done that, and a psychiatrist is well worth any extra hassle. So yeah, as you already know, things can get really bad with bipolar disorder, but it is totally possible for someone with it to live a normal, boring life with the right meds. I have a friend whose dh is also bipolar and on a good med combo, and they travel and do all kinds of fun things and generally have a great life. I know bipolar sounds really scary with some of the stories of celebrities who have it that have been in the news, but it's certainly manageable just like any other mental illness.

And I completely understand the other side, too. My dd has a rare genetic disorder that causes autism in one out of three kids. I know there are a lot of underlying conditions in the world that go undiagnosed in a lot of people. That is absolutely something that needs to change. I suppose I think we need to tread carefully when we talk about people with mental illness not REALLY being mentally ill, and needing a dietary change or a round of antibiotics to be all better. The world barely takes mental illness seriously as it is, and there's already such a push to make us think that we aren't crazy, we just need a walk in the woods! You don't need a pill, you need whole foods! No, I really, really do need my meds, lol.

I don't know if it's as many people as it seems like, tbh. I know people who have mental illnesses, tried a fad diet, swore up and down they were cured!!! and six months later were back on meds. I have no doubt that there are quite a few diseases that give the appearance of mental illness, but I think there are also a lot of people out there who are mentally ill and are so desperate to be healed they're able to convince themselves that something (gluten-free diet, new fitness regimen, supplements, essential oils, whatever) is working. I've done it myself with my OCD. Spoiler: It didn't work for very long, lol. If you're reading medical journals to get info on this, that's one thing. But I'd be hesitant to start thinking that all these people with bipolar disorder or anxiety disorders or schizophrenia actually have celiac or allergies to food dyes just because there are a lot of bloggers out there claiming they gave up dairy and it cured their depression. I wish it was that simple, but I really don't think it is. Eta: And yes, I am possibly oversensitive about this because of all the damn MLMs telling me I could be healed if I just bought their diet shakes or EOs. Lol

I'm so glad you guys found a computer he likes! Epic games has Subnautica for free right now, btw: https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/subnautica/home I've been playing it and it's AMAZING if you like open world sandbox-style games. The graphics are nuts. SO good. I think today might be the last day it's free.

You can actually get special wristbands for smart watches that have therapeutic magnets built in (not just a magnetic clasp) and can (from what people say) improve arthritis. And there are so many different kinds of wristbands out there that I'd bet you can find at least one that will be comfortable for you.