:iagree:

I once read an article about the signs of a person drowning, and one of the things that struck me about it, was that it emphasized that drowning is a very 'silent' act. The person is in a state of panic and despite what we see on t.v., screaming and splashing about are not part of the process. At best, the victim usually starts clawing at the water as if they're trying to climb a 'invisible ladder' and will go under without a sound. At worst, especially in children, the simply go face down and don't fight at all. My own story: When the boys were about 15 months (it was early spring) we were in Virginia at a park. I had gone to the car while my husband had walked the boys toward a dock next to a boat launch. They were throwing rocks in and there was no barrier or railing on the dock. I was about 5 yards away thinking to myself as I rushed toward them 'That's not safe, that's not safe, that's not safe!". When I was about 3 yards away, one of the boys went to throw a rock and lost his balance and fell in. My eyes were totally focused on the ring of circles in the water where is head went under and I jumped in right next to it. My husband was standing in shock looking at the water, and I was already in! :glare: I was counting in my head and just about to go under to feel for him (water was dark, cold, and had a current) when his little face broke the water just enough for his nose and eyes to break the surface about 3 feet away. I grabbed him and hauled him over to my DH who was still on the dock. There were at least four grown men fishing and watching the whole thing, and yet I was the only one in the water! I know with my whole heart if he had gone under again, I would've lost him. My DH and I were both silent and in total shock on the way home. We knew how close we had come to losing him... They've been in swim lessons ever since, and can now both swim like fish. Still, I'm always nervous around the water with them... can't shake that image!

Thanks for the insight everyone... :001_smile: So as the afternoon is progressing, the fever has now turned into a fever and headache with sensitivity to light. He is now in his dark bedroom, trying to sleep off the headache with another dose of meds. Unfortunately for him, he has inheirited the migraines that my family is prone to. Typically he'll get a headache and seek out darkness when he isn't feeling well. No way he's able to do schoolwork. Because I have them on the same lesson plan daily, it's not really possible to continue on with my other boy without creating a bit of a mess schedule wise. So I'm going to take your advice and head upstairs to do a bit more reading with my well kiddo, and some workbook work in lieu of our normal workload. Thankfully I have plenty of workbooks laying around to give a nice overall 'review' for the day. Hopefully tomorrow goes better than today!!:glare:

So I obviously with twin boys use the same curriculum and lesson plan for each day. I'm wondering what the rest of you do when one child is sick (in this case running a fever of 102.1). Do you continue on with the lessons for the well child (ren) or do you halt the lesson plan for the day, and hope for the best tomorrow? I guess I'm just curious... here's my plan for the rest of the day, but I'm just wondering what you would do? This a.m. one of my guys woke up "feeling funny/dizzy" and by the time we headed in to do schoolwork I could tell he was teetering on the edge of heading 'downhill'. He managed to get 45 minutes of math in before I felt his head and realized he was running a temp. I gave him ibuprofen and put him in his bed for a bit, and then returned and finished up the lesson with my other kiddo as he was 3/4's of the way thru anyway. Then I read from our read-aloud with him ('well' kiddo) and started our first break. 10 minutes in to our break, 'sick' kiddo comes downstairs feeling a bit better, but temp not entirely gone. I have him resting and taking fluids and at this point we are 30 minutes from lunch and then have soccer scheduled at 1pm. I plan on sitting him out of soccer and letting my well kiddo play and then heading back home to *hopefully* get more/the rest of our work in for the afternoon. So, what would you do in this scenario?

I knew quite early from an early ultrasound that it was twins due to my high-risk history... I was told at that appointment to expect extreme nausea. I never felt nauseated and never became sick. My *girls* never changed size or became sensitive. I didn't start showing until after 18 weeks and only gained a total of 37 lbs the whole pregnancy. Pretty much I was sure I had lost the pregnancy or that something was extremely wrong the entire time! I'm a big believer in trusting your instincts though, so if you're hoping for twins I hope it happens! Either way, Congratulations!!!!

Finishing Week 5 as well! Link in my signature :001_smile: Cheers!

Me too!

:iagree: I think the above is fantastic advice... and a great big :grouphug: to you!

:iagree: This is pretty much how it works out here as well... I do the read-aloud before bed at night, and they read out loud (to me) as part of the 2-3 hours/day. I think it will be closer to 3 hours/day starting next week as I'll be starting up AAS2 3x/week.

I love this!! And I agree with someone else that I need to print this out and put it up in our workroom. I am so guilty of #3 and #4... When I really need to focus on the rest! Thank You!!

I'm going to make a real effort to keep up with this ... I want to be able to look back on this time later!:001_smile: www.ourparticularharbour.blogspot.com

:iagree: Keep up the good work!

Our day 1 is in the bag... I'm not a daily blogger, but I'm trying to be much better about doing a weekly entry this year. Last year was a total wash, and now looking back I wish I had spent more time writing out my thoughts on everything. Especially while DH was deployed. *sigh* Hopefully learned my lesson! I went ahead and made a first day of 2nd grade post. Enjoy :) http://ourparticularharbour.blogspot.com/

Tomorrow is our first day of 2nd grade. The boys are... not excited, but not upset either. (resigned?) We also start up swim again, so at least there is excitement happening on some level! I'm very ready. I need more structure to our days, and this should take care of at least some of the "Can I play the Wii?" questions I've been getting every 10 minutes or so since June. :glare:

I just went thru what I'm finding to be my annual 'Freak Out & Start Researching Local Public Schools Online' session last week. I know that my boys are doing more than fine academically, but I will admit to wondering about the 'social' side. I worry that maybe somehow I'm not seeing how or where they may need improvement in this area... and then a friend of mine moved here with her son (who is just two weeks younger) and who has been in PS from the very beginning... and I see my boys interacting with him... and they are just fine. There is no difference, not even a little, in their interaction with one another. They are not awkward. They are not introverted. They are just seven year old boys. So I took my annual 'Deep Breath After Annual Freak Out' and I've moved forward. Bring on 2nd grade!

Hi, I'm Dana! My husband is active duty Navy... We move often (another move is just 5 months away!), and I've been homeschooling our boys since the very beginning! They are now seven yrs. old (fraternal twins), and I call our school 'Harbour Lights' as a play on our way of life and being 'a ship at sea' most of the time. I view homeschooling as a safe harbour where my boys can count on some aspect of their lives being consistent. My main reason for homeschooling is academic, but I love it for so many more reasons!!

Me! Twin boys (7) and they have stayed really on track with one another so far... They aren't too competitive, but they do have their moments. Currently, I have them at seperate desks facing away from one another during their workbook assignments because they do tend to 'race' one another to be the first one to finish. They are using the same curriculum across the board however, which does make my life much easier! :001_smile: Just realized I need to update my signature! We start second grade next week!!!

In the past I've been hospitalized three times for migraines that resulted in debilitating pain/vomiting. I also experience auras/light sensitivity/smell sensitivity etc. My migraines and I do a bit of a dance. They tend to build over a period of hours. If I pay attention to them I can manage to function to the end of the day before I crawl into the dark LOL. If I push I may end up in the hospital...so yes, I do think one can 'function' thru the pain...but my definition of function would be bare minimum. No date nights for sure!

There are many protein (whey) powders out there, but it sounds like you are looking for a meal replacement option rather than a protein powder. Most protein powders are used in a smoothie combo or as a stand alone supplement usually post-workout. I have not personally tried it but Shakeology comes to mind as a possibility though I think most people use a blender for it...there are a few beachbody coaches here that could give you more information on it. You could also try meal replacement bars rather than going for a powder option. There are so many out there and you can typically find them in the same area as the slim-fast shakes/weightloss area of your grocery store. Personally I would go with a clean approach and rather than doing a bar/powder think of having a crockpot oatmeal (you can use protein powder mixed in with this) ready in the a.m. or maybe keeping hard boiled eggs on hand along with some whole grain bread and a natural pb spread. Greek yogurt is also a great option. Try to get a bit of protein and carbs together so you're satisfied longer :-) Just my amateur two cents! Hope it helps!

Granted... it's the holidays and our schedule is out the window, but here goes a sampling! 6am-7am: Up, dog, breakfast, coffee 7:15-7:30: clean up breakfast, make beds, into workout gear, pull boys clothes out 7:30-8:45: workout, boys are allowed to watch some disney or play in playroom. (They usually split their time between the two as the toys are upstairs and the t.v. downstairs.) 8:45-9:30: shower, breakfast for me, get dressed 9:30-10:30'ish: School Time starts, usually get Math, Language, Handwriting, Phonics/Reading lessons done 11am-1:30- Classes at our local Parent Participation Program...art, science, music, math, geography tae kwon do etc. depending on the day of the week. 2:00-3:15'ish- Finish up school work at home... usually history, science, geography, spelling and anything that didn't happen in the a.m. (This can extend as long as it takes to get it all done for the day!) 4:00-5:30 Boys have free play/relax time but not t.v. or videos during this time! I cook dinner, do laundry, pay bills, vacuum etc. during this time (but not all of these each day!). 5:30: Dinner 6:15-7:30 p.m.: Free time again and this time they can choose to play the Wii or watch a movie. 7:30-8pm: Get ready for bed, read a chapter from a chapter book. Currently 'Treasure Island'. 8Pm-10pm: More bill paying, possibly work on my photography biz, and watch some t.v. for myself than off to bed! Also, our enrichment classes are at varied times, so our times adjust around those class times. Tuesday and Thursday are chaos... Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are less so. Hope that helps!

I haven't read any other responses, but my initial reaction was not just 'creepy' but 'RED ALERT'.... What makes my 'Mom Radar' ping the most is how quickly he established not only a rapport with your son, but engaged him in an activity without parental consent. Maybe it's all the news about Sandusky lately, but I think any grown man would know in the world we live in this is unacceptable, if not for any other reason but to protect himself from potential accusations! So there's my initial 'Gut Reaction'. Off to go read other points of view! :lurk5:

Today was week 12, day 3 of my current round of p90x... Almost time to put another round in the books! I have p90x2 on pre-order as well. Not sure what I'll do before it gets here. Most likely I'll do a 'cardo intense' recovery period (all cardio/running, plus ab ripper for two weeks) and start a 'mini-round' while of X while I wait for X2 to show up on my doorstep :)

Love my 'Fascinate' thru Verizon:001_smile:

We're using WWE1 and it's working really well for us. I have twin boys and this morning we read an excerpt from "Peter Rabbit". The first narration was "Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail were good little bunnies, but Peter was a naughty bunny." and the second narration was "Peter went down to Mr. McGregor's garden and he ate some lettuce, beans, radishes, and parsley because he felt sick." We narrate for several different subjects each day and I think that the extra practice has helped quite a bit. In math (we are using Horizons I) we are still reviewing quite a bit from what they finished up in Horizons K. They struggle with counting by 3's and 6's, but can count by 2's, 5's, 10's and 20's to 100 easily. The rest (shapes, colors, bigger, smaller, days, month, time to the hour and half hour, word problems, vert. and horiz. addition and subtraction etc.) come easily as it was all covered in K last year. They are getting much more confident with handwriting and it's now more of a practice thing vs. learning the correct stroke pattern thing. I have a leftie and a rightie and surprisingly it's the leftie who has the better writing! We do copywork, HWOT lesson, spell test, and math work daily so they get quite a bit of practice on their penmanship. Level 2 & Level 3 readers are read easily and Level 4 readers take a bit more time. One needs me to use my finger or pencil to keep his place as he reads and the other does not. One struggles more with the flow of his read alouds and the other has a very natural flow that comes easily for him. We are on lesson 198 for OPGTR and read aloud a chapter a day for 'school time' as well as reading aloud to them each night from an adapted classic (i.e. just finished Call of the Wild... they loved this one.) So all this sounds great right? Well, full disclosure makes me admit that there are good days and bad days. On good days we go full steam ahead... on bad I ease up a bit. I would say for every 4 good days in the week there's 1 not so great day. It's all good... slow and steady is my motto! :001_smile:

We are facing another deployment of 6 months mid-November. This time will be the most 'aware' of the length due to their age. Last summer he had to train in Florida for four months (we are in Washington state) and they skyped with him each evening. This may not be available to us in the upcoming deployment. We did do the 'candy countdown jar' last summer near the end. (I filled it with peanut m&m's because it was easy to add a few in as the dates of DH's return vascillated back and forth.) I'm also a believer of the first day being a good time for a pity party. The emotions are there and they're valid... it's okay to feel sad as long as you pick yourself up and move on from it at some point! Last year we had a pizza party, I picked a favorite movie out to watch and we snuggled together on the couch. I think you have the right idea... Basically I don't think I can protect them from missing Daddy. They need him and it hurts when he's not near. They feel more vulnerable and often want to watch our wedding video or hear me talk about how we met and how much I love him. When they ask for these things I make it a point to stop and talk about Daddy and how funny he is and how much he misses them and how we're a family no matter how many miles are between us. Sometimes it helps, and sometimes they just need a good cry... we all do sometimes. I know none of this helps, but I just wanted to say "Good job Mom" and I'm right there with ya...