I insist that DH help and sometimes even my sons. If even one person can help, that takes a bit of the load off.

Another voice here that my sons did this. They didn’t grow super tall—they’ve topped out at about 5’7, but my dh and I aren’t very tall people. When my oldest was born the pediatrician was talking about anticipating how tall our son would grow, and said, “Well…LOOK at you two..it’s not like YOUR kids will be basketball players!” Anyway…back from that side story: Both of my sons have been shorter than their friends, and both of them got fluffy in the middle school years. I worried and worried that I was feeding them badly and they were unhealthy (esp because they were picky eaters and hated fruits and veggies), but over a few years, they grew (didn’t “shoot up”, but grew) and now the 16 yo is so skinny we have trouble finding pants that fit, and the 19 yo is thin. All that worry for nothing! It wasn’t diet—it was nature.

You need to post pictures and ask us questions about how to arrange the furniture so we can all live vicariously through you!!

We are not changing anything. We mask when we’re in public, though we are in a minority. We are all boosted. We will get together with family at Christmas. Everyone at Christmas except for one 26 yo nephew has been vaccinated, though I’m not sure of everyone’s booster status. I am trusting in my vaccine for myself. And I will wear my mask for others when in public, even though I’m in the minority. At the end of the day, I will know I tried to do my part.

A one-time break or vacation isn’t going to work. You need time each week, or each day, to be alone. A few years ago, I found out the movie theaters around here charged only $5.00 on Tuesday nights for newly released movies. And I love movies. So every single Tuesday night I went out to the movies…alone! (Later some friends started joining me, but no kids.) Also, I started implementing going out to lunch one-on-one with a friend every few Saturdays. And there is the old standby where I hide out in the bathroom “getting ready for bed” for an hour at night. “Getting ready for bed” means watching netflix on my ipad or reading a book propped up on the counter while I brush my teeth and stand around. Now, that doesn’t work if someone is on the other side of the door being annoying, but I have sons and once they got to middle school, the last thing they wanted was to be near mom when she was in the bathroom. So, once the bathroom door was shut, they would leave me be. I’d rather have been able to watch tv or read a book on a comfy chair rather than hanging out in the bathroom, but I needed that time by myself at the end of the day, and I took what I could get. But overall, I understand that you can’t relax until you are out of reach from each other. I do the same thing. When my house is empty, something inside of me relaxes that is always tense whenever someone is home. It’s kinda dramatic the sense of relaxation I feel when my house is empty compared to when it isn’t. So…my solution was a weekly date night with myself…and getting together with a friend over lunch every few Saturdays. It would be a different friend each time, so we could catch up. We’d go to Subway or other fast food so we could sit there for hours without a server needing the table. A one-time vacation was never enough for me. I needed to have time alone or with an adult friend, routinely. I’m not homeschooling anymore, so the need isn’t as great, but I still enjoy getting away and just being “me” and not being on call as “mom” or “wife” from time to time.

Like someone else said—you’ll be ready for next year!!

I see my card in your picture!!! Ooooo!

Only when I’ve smooshed one.

If it was me, I’d try Facebook Marketplace. If I got no bites there, I’d donate.

Aw…I think you’re a great parent! I also thought you’d been in therapy the entire time that your husband has been struggling (don’t know why I thought it—an erroneous assumption), so it seemed like a simple thing to use one session out of many to talk about the conflict with your dh with the therapist. But if you’ve only been once? Well, that’s a different story! Of COURSE you’d use the therapy session for your own issues. If your husband thinks everything will be fine by the fall…then I just don’t know what to make of that. You’d think that someone who just spent over a year dealing with his issues with the help of professionals for 35 hours a week, would know that trauma doesn’t just wink away at a scheduled time. Has anyone told him that he hurt his children? Does he not know? (This thread is the first time I have read anything about your dh issues so that might be a dumb question. I had no clue any of this was going on. In the Thanksgiving thread, I thought he was in the hosp for some sort of medical issue. I’m just now piecing things together.) In general, are conversations with him at all productive? Or does he just dig in and not really listen? When he said the things he said (like about “you promised” etc), did you answer them, or in the moment did you not find the words? Is he normally someone who will spout off something, but then after thinking about it will cool off and change his mind? Or does he just dig in and refuse to soften? How many times have you talked with him about this? Was it just one time? Or has he maintained his stance over time? Not sure those questions help, but if you discussed it only once and if the topic comes back up, he might start to soften towards your pov, if he’s the sort to do so. I was just wondering if he’s softening, or if he’s digging in. And I’m wondering if you told him your points and he’s had a chance to consider them over time.

Ah! I got unfollowing mixed up with unfriending. Ok—then unfollowing would work just fine.

If the daughters are posting on FB, you don’t have to unfollow them. You can snooze them for 30 days at a time. They’ll never know you’ve snoozed them. Unfollowing someone on SM is so dramatic. I would stay away from the drama, and just snooze. Not sure what you could do for other types of SM.

I wish I had wisdom. I think I just got so crushed down by the unrelenting idiocy of the anti-vaxxers that the emotions got crushed out of me. It just…happened. Once I got my vaccine for my family and me, I felt that we were protected from the worst of it, and if the rest of them wanted to suffer and die, then let them do it. They want to be free to make their own moronic choices? Fine, be free. The OP was about the words that describe the year, but not necessarily words that we called into being. I wish I had a magic secret I could give you. I wish I had somehow made “release” happen. I didn’t will release into being. Instead, I was just disillusioned and beaten down and oh-so-disappointed in so many of my friends, that I finally just…gave up. Then again…now that I think of it: the turning point may have been when my husband, who is someone who cares about others, finally decided to start going out again. I was like, “But you could be part of the problem, passing covid to someone,” and he said, “I protected them for over a year, and they didn’t want it. I just can’t keep protecting people who don’t want it. I’m going to live my life again and if they want to get sick and die, then I’m so sorry that they’re suffering, but I can’t control them.” And somehow that deflated all my anger. I can’t control them. I had to rely on them to protect me by wearing a mask before the vaccine was out…and they had no interest in protecting me. Once I was vaccinated, I finally had the option to protect myself. And if they want to stay unprotected…so be it. I suppose I have faith in the vaccine. I also have the luxury of working from home, so I don’t have to look into the eyes of people who don’t give a bleep about me all day long. I would probably still feel ragey if I had to go in to work and see people being flippant with my health, the way you have to.

@cintinative My son did DO and he also has slow processing speed and EF issues and anxiety. He took a solid 2 hours a day to do the course. For the anxiety, we didn’t realize he had it until he was in 12th grade and then started treating it. By then it had gotten really bad. We just didn’t realize what was going on…like a frog in water that gets hotter and hotter. It all just seemed like his “quirks” until we realized it was anxiety and he was utterly miserable and then depressed. If I could do it over, I would treat the anxiety as soon as possible. I can’t advise on whether you should change the course or not, but I would strongly advise that you sit with him and observe. Sit with him and do the lesson with him—watch the video, do the assignment with him (if you know the math for yourself.). It sounds like you’re already doing that and already seeing some issues that distract him (the nails.) He might just not be ready to work on his own. You might need to sit with him through more lessons, or even all of them. Maybe at one point you could just be in the same room, but at least for a few weeks you probably need to watch the course with him. Like others have said, you may discover he needs help making notes, etc. I read somewhere that ADHD kids are 30% behind their peers in EF. So if he’s 14, then his EF skills could be that of a 9.8 year old (14 x .70 = 9.8). 30% was the average, so his EF skills could be more or less than that. If you wouldn’t have a 10 year old do a science class alone, then don’t have your son do a science class alone. 🙂 I remind myself of this all the time with my 19 yo. I figure his EF is about that of a 13 yo. So I still scaffold for things that I would think a 13 yo would struggle with, even though he’s a grown man. He’s very aware that I’m helping and we talk all the time about how to handle life and juggle everything that needs to be juggled. But it’s slow going (because his EF skills are that of a 13 yo!)

Congratulations!

It’s gloriously hideous!

How did he ask?

Grateful: that we’re all still living under one roof. It won’t be for long as the kids are 19 and 16. I’m soaking up every moment with them that I can before they leave the nest. Transition: got a new job out of the blue. There was an ending of one way of life, and the beginning of a new one with all the upheaval that brings. Release: As soon as I was vaccinated, I got tired of being mad at the idiots who won’t take covid seriously and most of a certain political party that I used to be part of and am utterly befuddled by now. I’m mad at them mentally, but the emotions are mostly gone. They’re idiots and I am no longer willing to waste my energy of a bunch of idiots. They can go be idiots alone together. I have no time for them. I’ve released them.

Walk in closets, I assume? I don’t have a walk in and wish I did.

I’m not sure I’ll do a word of the year, but if I did, it would probably be Purge. Purge the relationships that aren’t good for me. Purge the activities that I don’t need to do. Purge some of my own bad habits. Purge the clutter in the house. Just yesterday, my dh said he’s ready to clear out the clutter in the basement/shed. He’s never wanted to do that before! So, this is a good year for the word Purge.

A mud room. Sigh. I would love a mud room.

4 hours a week for a class (1 hour instruction at co-op, 3 hours at home), works out to 48 minutes of work per day in a 5-day week. It’s a little skimpy, but depending on the class, could be ok. I would prefer a full 60 minutes per day for most classes. If it’s an elective, then 4 hours a week is perfect. If it’s a core class, 5 or more is better. I have no idea who the people are who think that’s too much. And that one person is completely goofy thinking that 4 hours a week is an AP or college level class! HAHAHAHA! What a jokester she was. 😕

My DS16. Fully vaxed. First shot in April. Second shot in May. Both Pfizer. Got sick the week of August 16th. He thought he had allergies, because he was working outside a lot on a car with DH. He took a few allergy pills that week. On Monday 8/23/21, he told me, “It feels a little difficult to breathe. Can I take one of our covid tests?” We had bought a few over-the-counter covid tests. I didn’t really think it was covid, but I indulged him. The tests work a lot like a pregnancy test. The test barely started when the second (positive) line showed up. I told him, “Son, you’re pregnant.” We called his doc to see what they thought we should do. They said, “Go to UC so they can listen to his lungs.” While in UC, they listened and said they sounded fine, and did another covid test, which also was positive. Son stayed up in his room (his room is the only bedroom on the second floor of our cape cod) for 10 days bored out of his mind. He felt mostly fine, even asking if he could go out and ride his bike. He didn’t have trouble breathing other than it felt a little more difficult to pull in air than normal. His sense of taste got a little wonky for 2 days. He had been around other vaccinated people before we knew he was sick, when we thought it was allergies. None of them caught covid from him. None of us in the house (also fully vaccinated) caught it. Or if we all caught it, we were asymptomatic. He isn’t old enough for the booster, but we sort of count his bout with covid as his “booster” for now. The rest of us got boosted last Wednesday.

My cards are all addressed and 22 of them are signed. 🙂. I got interrupted and didn’t finish. They’ll be in the mail by Thursday at the latest. I got my first today and was so excited!