My husband is required to get the flu immunization every year because he works at a hospital. My kids and I have never gotten it. It wasn't a job requirement back when I worked in nursing. I've never had the flu as far as I know, though I'm convinced I'm at least partially immune to many common respiratory illnesses as a result of several winters of working with inpatient pediatric patients (holding nebulizers for babies, can't imagine what all ended up in my lungs.) My older two were day care kids for a time, and definitely had a sicklier course as small children, but not so much as they got older. My youngest, who did not do daycare and was homeschooled through fourth grade, is the one who has frequent illnesses now. She has had confirmed flu twice in the last three years (interestingly, the last bout was late February, just before the big Covid shutdown. I had a memorable conversation with the military pediatrician that day about the large number of unexplained viral infections with fevers he had been seeing over the winter) Relatively mild illness for her though. We only tested to rule out strep. Neither her vaccinated dad or unvaccinated mom got it either time. I'm not an anti-vaxxer, but certainly a selective vaxxer. I dislike the intense load of vaccinations to which our babies are subjected in such a short period of time, and wonder about the relationship to the vax schedule and the seeming rise of autoimmune dysfunction in the population. I'm not anti-intevention, but do recognize there will typically be some sort of health tradeoff for the times we choose to interfere with natural processes. So I want to pick my battles carefully, so to speak. My kids have ended up mostly vaccinated, albeit on a slower schedule and with a couple of exceptions. I'll continue to pass on the flu vaccine unless I see a compelling reason to add it to my healthcare routine.

I've homeschooled three girls now. Youngest is 16 and the older two are college grads. All probably gifted, one highly gifted and always significantly advanced in academics. IME, age 8 is when things start changing for girls in the brain in preparation for puberty. In all three of mine, there were definitely changes in attitude, though presented in various ways according to personality and other factors. I thought I was the most awesome mom up to that point, haha. One thing with gifted kids...the rate of progression in academics can be significantly faster in the early years when they are more compliant and it's all a bit of a novelty. That does change with the brain taking on new tasks, and that's okay. If the kids are way ahead at this point, you've got some room to step back and relax and let other growing occur. You sound like an awesome teacher. That said, it may play out that your daughter responds better to other input. Maybe not, but that's my experience, and I've learned not to take the rejection personally, because it's developmentally appropriate. An example from our life: I am a pro photographer. Yesterday, my daughter started a photography class with another local photographer. She will learn more from him because she will be more receptive, though I can reinforce lessons at home. Good luck. I always say that by the time we figure all of this out, the kids are grown and gone and we have all this useless knowledge about child rearing.

I’ve watched an embarrassing number of episodes of the Catfish show. It seems like there’s often not really a purpose other than it feels good to have this stranger fall in love with the persons you created. It’s fascinating and sad.

OMG, yes, this Puberty is the great equalizer. Sometimes though the drama will last through high school if both moms are on their first kids.

STAMPS opportunities are amazing! Hoping for great things for her.

Oh man, I know that is so frustrating. Hopefully the readers will see past the parts that don't quite fit to get her closer to the awards. There were a couple of scholarships where my daughter seemed a slam dunk, at least for the early rounds. I'm convinced that some of the oddities of her background knocked her out of the ones where a computer did the initial culling based on specific stats.

Check out Alaska Air. Pretty sure you can go from LAX to Boston with them and they have been very vocal about their Covid procedures.