For someone who is starting with a fair bit of tech skill it's doable, but- and I could be wrong here- I think Quill might be more of a newbie when it comes to this stuff. I just don't want her to rush and end up inadvertently wasting a bunch of money. There's a lot to learn when you're a beginner. I've been slowly learning and doing for years, and I never fail to impress myself with how much I STILL don't know. 😂

I would hang around some PC building forums for quite a while before I got started. Tom's Hardware is always a good source of info: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum-31.html Gently, at this point, you probably don't even know what you don't know irt what to buy, and if you jump right into building a computer, well, it's an expensive learning curve. I wouldn't expect to have it done or even have the components by Christmas. It isn't just a matter of buying everything and plugging it in. I mean, for some components it is, but for stuff like the CPU and the GPU you have to mess around with thermal paste, and if you don't put it on just right your computer can overheat in a matter of minutes and bye-bye, computer. Or if you buy cheap paste or fake paste, bye-bye computer. If you go too cheap on a PSU, you can fry everything and bye-bye computer. When you're assembling it, if you don't ground yourself properly you can fry the components. There's a LOT to learn. In your place, I would probably get something else for your ds for Christmas, and maybe throw in a book on PC building. There are several good books on Amazon.

I found one of these in Goodwill once: https://poshmark.com/listing/CHRISTIAN-DIOR-Washed-Calfskin-Gypsy-Ruffles-Bag-5acda4af3a112e52b756ea65 The store hadn't been operating for too long, we live in a fairly affluent area, and there were more than a few designer purses out on the floor instead of in the locked cabinet because, I'm assuming, the employees hadn't learned the different designers yet. I didn't even buy it. The ruffles were falling off and it needed some intensive repairs that I didn't feel like doing and/or paying for. Plus it's ugly. 🤣 And the quality of the materials was not what you'd expect for a $2k bag. My Coach bag was about $1600 less when it was new, but it's far more durable. And it has the added bonus of not looking like something a twelve-year-old cowgirl living in 1995 would carry around.

It isn't the job of the police to lecture children on how to behave. And many states, while they haven't made recreational marijuana use legal across the board, have decriminalized the possession of small amounts. I don't know if the penalty is different for minors or not, but from what I googled, here in MN if you have under something like forty-two grams, you get a $200 fine and have to attend drug education. More than forty-two grams and you're looking at five years in prison, increasing based on how much you have.

Embroidery is the easiest and would probably be the most fun for a first grader. Or a simple knitting loom. I've taught knitting to kids through the local library, and most first-graders are going to have a difficult time with knitting unless you spend a ridiculous amount of time on it. Crocheting is easier, but still requires a ton of fine motor skills. I was working with mostly third through fifth graders, and while they could understand what to do, they had a really hard time doing that many things with their hands at once. My advice would be to introduce whichever one he's interested in, but to back off right away if it's too difficult. My dd was around that age when I showed her how to knit for the first time, and it was way too hard for her to hold the needles, keep the yarn from slipping off, maintain the tension, follow a pattern... I didn't push it, and she tried again now that she's ten and loves it. Getting them interested in that kind of stuff is more important than making sure they can knit a Fair Isle sweater by second grade or whatever. 😉

With a low fever, a sore throat, and having apparently spent the weekend in a hospital? (I didn't see the other post.) I would assume she has some random seasonal bug unrelated to the other stuff. 'Tis the season.

This tutorial looks pretty solid: https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/13/17828092/gaming-pc-build-custom-how-to-asus-intel-geforce-cost But it's really just a matter of learning about each component as you go; no tutorial is going to cover everything. My specific advice would be, DON'T SKIMP ON THE PSU. A shitty power supply can brick your entire PC. And don't skimp on the graphics card, either. I know a lot of people who buy from newegg.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

I mean, she could just buy a PC with a Titan V and not have to worry about it for a few years, but she probably doesn't want to spend $3k on the graphics card alone. 🤣 Some of the gaming laptops aren't half bad now, actually, if you don't plan on upgrading. My dh has an Asus ROG laptop that worked decently for years. He has a really good chill mat with it, of course, but I feel like it was definitely worth what we paid, though I did have to go in and replace the thermal paste on the cpu and gpu once. We upgraded this year to a really nice gaming PC though. The difference is very noticeable when I'm playing something like Fallout with the graphics all the way up. But that also cost a nauseating amount of money. It was a good deal, though. We couldn't have built it ourselves for the same price.

Yeah, I agree that a gaming desktop plus a cheap school laptop would be the best combo. But if it absolutely must be a laptop, there are quite a few options out there. If you decide to go with the former, there are some solid prebuilt pcs out there. It doesn't have to be a custom pc.

Don't even look at tablets because they are not going to work for what he needs, full stop.

A custom-built desktop would be best because it will have more memory, improved cooling, a mobo that lets you actually replace components instead of everything being freaking soldered on or whatever it is they're doing now to screw us. But to keep it really simple, if he HAS to have a laptop, and it has to work for gaming and video editing, you're going to want to go on Amazon, search for gaming laptops, and find something with at least a GTX 1080 (a 1080ti would be better, but that's going to push up the price) at least 16gb DDR, and at least one TB of hard drive space. Solid state drives are more stable and faster, but that wouldn't be a deal-breaker for me if a laptop has everything else I need at a great price. Is gaming going to be the main thing he uses it for? And yes, any of those laptops would run any of the programs you mentioned without breaking a sweat. 😉

https://www.amazon.com/IPS-Type-Display-FireCuda-Keyboard-GL503VD/dp/B0753MSN75/ref=sr_1_11?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1543253525&sr=1-11&keywords=Asus+gaming+laptop

There are quite a few gaming laptops that should meet your requirements.

https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GV62-8RD-034-i7-8750H-Steelseries/dp/B07BWF4H3W/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1543253454&sr=1-1&refinements=p_4%3AMSI

Good to know, thanks!

Did you see they also came out with a NSFW Exploding Kittens? I'm a little afraid to find out what exactly is NSFW about it. The expansion is fun, too. It comes with a cone of shame.

I got House of Danger for older dd for Christmas. I grew up reading CYOA books and I was so excited to see it in Target. Glad to hear it's a winner.

Thank you so much for the ideas and suggestions, everyone. I have a lot to think about and to try. I'm going to get her in with her ped to have bloodwork done, so we'll see what happens with that, and in the meantime I'm going to try to work with her on making transitions easier. And I'm going to read more about SPD, because I agree she has a lot of red flags for that, at least from my limited knowledge.

I do, but I guess I was thinking more along the lines of mental illness. And there's no genetic component to my epilepsy that we're aware of. I know the risk is higher in children of epileptics, but I think that's at least partly due to being on anticonvulsants during pregnancy and/or having seizures during pregnancy, neither of which apply in her case. I'm pretty sure she's not having night seizures. She sleeps in the bed with me and I think I'd notice, plus she wears an Owlet every night and if she was having seizures, I'm pretty sure it would send either her heart rate or her blood oxygen outside the normal range. She's really easy to wake up in the morning, too, and she doesn't seem sleepy during the day.

If it's the first two-thirds of the day, I try to distract her with something else, or give her a hug, or just sit and be present until she calms down. Unless she's doing something dangerous and I have to keep removing her, which can take a while for her to give up if its something I can't put away like the entertainment center. If it's the last third of the day and I'm at the end of my quota of patience, I'm more likely to just sigh and sit there waiting for the tantrum to pass. Dd usually retreats to her room to read a book because she doesn't deal with loud noises well. She's great at playing with her when she's calm, though. She's playing with her right now while I type this. Thank all the gods younger dd wasn't born until older dd was ten. Dh reacts the same as me when he's home. We don't spank or yell. We do peaceful attachment style parenting.

Since we can do this now, here's a pic to prove she can be calm and happy when she feels like it... lol. I only get to shower about once every three days right now, so please don't judge the state of my hair. I'm out of dry shampoo. 😂 I'm such a mom cliche.

Hmm. Could be a food issue. She mostly eats whole foods, but I can't say she never has anything with artificial colors or whatnot. The tantrums are extreme, but not violent, thankfully. Like, she might kick the walls and throw her toys, but she never tries to hit or bite or kick another person. One time she did slap me, and then she stopped dead with this wide-eyed "Oh crap" look on her face, lol. So she's not trying to hurt us, and she knows it's wrong. I think I'll ask her ped to check all her levels, not just iron, and see if that sheds any light, then go from there. I told him a bit about what's been going on at her last check up and he didn't seem too concerned, but I didn't go into too much detail because he was in a hurry.

I didn't even realize toddler mania was a thing. Huh. I'll have to research it and ask her ped. My instinct is that it's not, because the tantrums/intensity can come and go so rapidly depending on the circumstance, but it's definitely something I'll look into. Thanks!

That could be. She will not under any circumstances wear a hat, a hood, or mittens. She freaks out at certain noises. She was anemic for several months because she wouldn't eat solid food at all without gagging.