Calmly tell him he is a big boy and if he has accidents he is responsible for cleaning up the mess. You help him clean himself, then hand him the soiled underpants. He must dump the contents into the toilet. Then stand him at the sink or a bucket of warm water, hand him some soap and tell him to clean his underpants. He scrubs until you are satisfied with the results. Repeat each time he soils himself until he decides he would rather use the toilet than spend the time scrubbing soiled underpants.

We use totes and bins to sort toys. Larger collections are in rubbermaid totes - trains, lincoln logs, stuffed animals, balls, etc. Smaller items go into bins on a little wooden rack - small cars, gadgets, fisher-price people and animals. If a toy is put into the wrong bin or tote, it stays "lost" until one of the boys finds it or I do my seasonal sorting of toys.

Some public libraries have collections of beginning readers. If your library has such a collection, you could browse to see which of the many series seems most suitable.

If they are all boys - 20. :001_smile: Seriously, 8 extra large would probably be enough.

Would this work? Let him write his stories, narrations, etc. without worrying about aesthetics. Call this his rough draft. Then have his copy his work using his best handwriting. You could spread the assignment over several days. Day 1 - write it down. Day 2 - check grammar and spelling. Day 3 - prepare final copy.

As long as the middle names are different, Seth would be fine. They could also use their selected middle name as the first name and Seth as the middle name. I don't think anyone mentioned Paul.

If you don't want to print the recipe, form, etc. save it as a pdf. It will be on your hard-drive when you need it.

I would not cut the activities. Your son's OT is likely to tell you that he NEEDS those activities, and may even suggest more. Contact your Internet provider and see if you can get a lower rate. If there are multiple providers in your area, you can sometimes get your current provider to match specials offered by another provider. Lower your grocery bills. Find acceptable substitutes for the more expensive items. You do not need to eat pasta, have rice, potatoes, or polenta instead. Make your own breads or don't eat it. Encourage grandparents to give gifts of lessons instead of other gifts. This works best if the children mention lessons when asked what they would like. There may be other areas of your budget that you could tweak to free up a few more dollars a month. You said you are reducing the debt without cutting the activities, just more slowly. Slow and steady reduction of debt is okay.

I think it is a reflection of changing ideas about childhood. A lot of kids are discouraged or at least not encouraged from doing spontaneous play. How many times have you seen parents chide children for getting dirty? Some children only see the outdoors from a moving car. Many children are enrolled in organized sports by age two. They learn the movements needed to play that sport, but not more general gross motor skills.

:iagree: Sale prices are now last year's regular price. Coupons for the items I buy are rare. I spend about 100 a week to feed 4.

At our Y, classes are a month at time. She could rotate through several classes to see which sport clicks. I recommend trying gymnastics. It improves flexibility, balance, and coordination. Swimming is another whole body sport.

I stock up on the ingredients to make the meals we eat most often. I buy extras of non-perishables when they go on sale. I buy extras of perishables if they can be frozen. For example, I always cruise the mushroom section looking for marked down packages. When available, I'll scoop up all the packages that don't look slimy. At home I wash, chop, and freeze in meal-sized quantities. For planning, prior to shopping, I ask my family if there is anything special they would like to eat that week. I also think about what I would like. I check our supplies and then make a list of necessary and desired items. I shop weekly, we always need bread, milk, and fresh produce.

One mistake many new vegetarians make is that they do not consume enough calories. If he feels tired, shaky, or starts losing weight, he is not eating enough. Nuts, nut butters, and avocado are good calorie dense foods. Eggs and whole milk dairy products are also calorie dense. You don't need to buy fake meats. You can find many homemade veggie burger recipes online. One of the simplest is to mash cooked chickpeas, add garlic and spices, then form into patties. Bake on a greased cookie sheet or pan fry. (If you make the patties small, you have falafel.)

:iagree: My children's elaborate train setups would never fit on a train table. It sprawls through the family room and incorporates lincoln log and/or duplo block train stations, matchbox cars, plastic dinosaurs, and other toys. They pick it all up every week so I can vacuum then set it up in a new pattern.

Thanks for the suggestions. The unit from Homeschool Share looks good for this year. I'll have to see if there is a DVD or online version of the Allstate movie. The web games may be too advanced for this year, if so, I'll save them for next year. Our fire station's open house was last weekend. We looked at some of the equipment and watched the med-evac helicopter take off.

Does not want to color or is unable to hold the crayon? My son's pediatrician referred us to OT after son's 4 yr. well check. After evaluation and OT, it turns out son is double-jointed. Also turns out that his father and grandfather had the same issues. They outgrew the problem. Nice of MIL to share that info after several months of OT. :confused:

If you live in a state that requires you to teach fire safety, how do you do it? Do you read and discuss a few library books? Tour the firehouse? Watch a movie or film clip? Something else? Also, do I really need to do this every year?

I think having several schedules would work. You want to plan to do quiet activities or to be away from the house when daddy must sleep during the day. Perhaps you could plan field trips or park days for some of those days. Plan play-dates at your house and boisterous activities for days when your husband is at work.

We bought from a local company. The service was great. About a year after the windows were installed, one of the windows had moisture between the two panes. We called the company, they came and replaced the window. No charge, not even a service charge. We chose double hung vinyl. Easy to clean and maintain. We saw a massive drop in heating costs after replacing the windows. Our old windows were installed in the 1940s or 50s - single pane, aluminum frames.

We eat a vegetarian diet in our home. That alone puts us out of the mainstream. We avoid HFCS, hydrogenated oil, and red dye 40. Some combination of those three ingredients appear in most processed foods. I usually cook from scratch, but do buy fake meats and bread. My goal is for 80-90% of our food to be nutritionally sound - whole grains, fruits, veg., etc. The other 10-20% allows us to share meals and holidays with friends and extended family.

Government subsidies keep the costs of some foods artificially low. Corn syrup is very cheap and a little bit goes a long way in sweetening foods. Spoilage is also a factor. Processed foods have long shelf-lives. Most fresh produce will keep for a few days to a month at best. What does not sell in that time is a loss for the grocer. My husband has asked me to try to reduce our grocery budget. The first thing cut was organic milk. I can't justify paying twice as much for store brand organic milk as for the store brand regular milk. I also am limiting fresh fruits to in-season products. Melons and apples are good buys right now. Strawberries are not.

Does ... on a shingle help? Chipped beef is finely chopped or shredded cooked beef. If you don't have beef, you can get the same effect by pouring cream of mushroom soup over a slice of toast. Spam - you slice and fry it or you cube it and add it to bean soup. Boxed mixes have gone down in price since I was a child. My mother's reasons for not making HH were that 1) it was expensive and 2) it was too spicy to suit my father. She made plenty of spam and scrapple. If you have never had scrapple -- if you put enough syrup on it, you can ALMOST not taste it.

I don't have Hamburger Helper until I went to college. Then I thought, what's the point? A box of macaroni, a jar of spaghetti sauce, and some hamburger and your have the same thing. My mother frequently made that mixture. She called it goulash. My husband was raised on HH. He still eats it at his mother's house.

Godparents are back-ups in case the parents fail to meet the spiritual needs of their children. They are typically named at baptism and serve until the child is confirmed in the faith. The godparents are supposed to step in if the parents are unable or unwilling to educate their children in their faith. Many godparents are involved in other aspects of the child's life. Some send birthday and holiday cards and gifts. They are under no obligation to do so.

I attempted to insert my suggestions in color.