I think the 4/5 year old who was fussing in the WalMart line until his mom whipped her breast out to feed him as she finished checking groceries was too old to be quite so public...

My 6yo ds has had headaches & nausea off and on for the last year or so. For a long time I thought it was just an attention-grabber; he would almost always get them in the evening, usually while eating something that he didn't particularly like, he'd always wake up the next morning completely bouncing off the wall fine, etc. Then at some point it became him actually getting an upset stomach and throwing up in the evening, along with the typical stuff, and I took him to the doctor. They couldn't find anything wrong with him! We did a blood allergy test & still nothing; the doctor told us it was probably some sort of allergy and had him take allergy meds. Anyhow, eventually we decided to do food allergy tests (by diet change) and determined that he was gluten intolerant this whole time!!! Once we cut that out, he did get significantly better. However, he is still having ongoing issues with the occasional stomach upset and headache. We are now trying to determine if he is really just THAT sensitive (to the tiny traces in other things), or if there is some other allergy also at work. It doesn't really fit with the sore throat, but maybe with persistent headaches? Also, remember that it can take 2-3 days for the effect to be seen when something is eaten, and it also can take weeks to get it out of the system when you stop eating certain things.

!!!!! OMG !!!!! Unbelievable that someone would do that!! I am seriously offended for you - and I would have been WAY meaner, so kudos to you for keeping your temper! lol I do have a lady who brings her granddaughter by once a week or so to see my horses, but she has already asked permission (and double check when she sees me!) and they never go inside the fences or in with the horses (just pet the 2 that are in an outer barn). She also made sure to ask me what they could feed him! I actually once had a group of kids out & told them they could give the horses stray hay from the ground while I was working with another few kids (siblings). When I went out to feed later, I found that they had opened a brand new bale of hay and used like half of it, then left the remainder spread out all over the barn floor. Seriously?? ARRRRRGH!

We are doing 1/2 a day, done by lunch, with a catch-up 1/2 day later this week!

More punctuation? I find it difficult to read blogs that are grammatically incorrect (lacking punctuation, run-on sentences, etc). Sorry!! Nothing against you personally at all! :). I think the information could be really interesting, but without punctuation it is hard for me to get into a good rhythm for reading.

This is 1 of the 2 main reasons that we started using ALEKS as a supplement!! I didn't want to be the reason that my math-liking kids didn't go faster, but I also didn't want to NOT have him practice certain things that he needed more work on! :) ALEKS automatically compensates for that - if you need work (shown by not answering correctly), the program continues to present those types of problems and explanations. If you know the info down-pat (shown by repeatedly answering those questions correctly), it moves you on. (The other was that I didn't want to be the reason my math-not-liking son didn't do well - he and I were tired of fighting over math & re-doing graded sheets - it works out SO much better for ALEKS to talk to him about it... lol). I teach from RightStart, but our supplement and practice is with ALEKS. Both of the 3rd graders in ALEKS are at almost 50% of the 3rd grade items learned (and we've only been going for 7 weeks now). If they get it completed, I will just knock them up to 4th grade in the program while continuing to go along with the 3rd grade teaching (although I am much more flexible about just touching subject areas and moving on if both already fully grasp the concepts).

When my desktop keeled over last year I replaced it with a laptop and I love it!! I also got dh a laptop around the same time, and it is funny how differently we use them in the house. My laptop is basically set up exactly as a desktop. I got a laptop stand, so it sits at the regular monitor height, and I got a wireless keyboard and mouse that I use over 95% of the time. I also leaved it plugged in almost all of the time. I pretty much use it just like I used to use my desktop - I'm a desk worker, and I feel lost without everything all in its place around me & my paperwork spread out. :D I love that if I absolutely need to I can carry it somewhere else, though (like when the window shades were broken & the room was SO sunny and hot that I could hardly work at my desk, or when I traveled out of town to visit family but needed to take it to do some work on the way). My husband went from using my desktop on occasion (when I wasn't on it and when he absolutely HAD to look something up - which wasn't very often back then!!) to using his laptop all over the house all the time. He uses it on the bed in the bedroom while I read next to him, then if I go to sleep before him he moves it to the couch in the living room. In the mornings, he usually uses it on the dining room table. He sometimes goes on a cooking spree, and he keeps the laptop on the island in the kitchen while he looks up recipes and cooks. It is CRAZY how much use he gets out of a computer now, looking back over the last year!! lol. He does plug it in pretty much wherever he goes, but he never bothers with a mouse or keyboard (just uses the pad & laptop keyboard).

I'll second a thundershirt! It's what we got for our giant scaredy cat lab who is scared of fireworks and thunderstorms. It isn't 100%, but it definitely helped calm him and was safer than drugs. We actually drugged him the year before we got the TS and had to do an emergency ER visit (apparently he was allergic to the drug??).

Maybe do a trial with ALEKS? Can accelerate where needed, not repetitive (if you show mastery you move on), easy to advance to more difficult concepts in areas that you excel at while still staying where needed in areas you need to work on... It is an online math thing that you get a monthly subscription for, and if you find it there is a 2 month free homeschool trial.

I'm not sure I understand how they can graduate to the next level of school if they are only there 1/2 day every day... aren't they missing significant amounts of test-specific instruction that would allow them to adequately pass tests? Unless you are just teaching them everything they need to pass the tests - which seems like it would be very difficult, since you wouldn't know exactly what they'll put on the test, right? I could see the teachers being so irritated with the very thought of such an arrangement that they pretty much blow your kids off - "xyz got an F on the test? Oh well, guess he just failed the class - his mom should have taught him that stuff!" - rather than making any attempt to help them improve. They aren't in it to be free childcare, even if that is what you see them as; why wouldn't they be upset?

:iagree: Definitely! In my school, though, we just start everything at once. I try to mix up the "fun" with the "gotta do", which gives a good balance throughout the day of heavy thinking to light enjoyment. I agree with a previous poster that to label things as "fun" or "drudgery" can give them an automatic bad flavor - we just have "school work" and see what happens! Turns out that while math is usually the "ugh" subject, this year it is the new 1st grader's absolute favorite! Also, I started incorporating more math games, which they all look forward to. To make math more enjoyable, I'd try math games (from something like RightStart Math), online math (we are using ALEKS as a supplement), and letting older check younger's math problems (good repetitive reminder of basic information without making it seem like actual practice). If you find something that they enjoy doing in particular, try to lean towards those sorts of activities. If they love art, for instance, try doing some sort of art printables for things like language (we use Salsa Spanish & I print off the funny character pictures and labeled pictures for them to color while we watch the shows). If they love dress up, do a writing project where they write their own skit type story and then act it out while people follow along with reading.

Get 'em!!! My horse's name is Patches, too - lol! :)

In his case, I'd probably do a long lazy online college experience - just do a few courses at a time over an extended number of years, most likely in an online college for convenience, for the main purpose of getting a piece of paper to show off to the people in charge so they know he's ready to move up. If he is already doing well then they KNOW that he can do the work - the people in charge know he doesn't truly need that degree to progress, they just feel a social or business obligation to require it IMO. Amusingly enough, I'm surprised at how many people actually DO seem to feel there is a whole "college experience" thing that fills some inner hole. :) I am perfectly content with my life - I have a fantastic family, a bunch of great friends, and a good job with good hours and good pay. I 100% believe that if I had not gone to college I would still have all of those things (except the job, which I firmly believe I would have had the skills for given training but would not have been allowed to do without the piece of paper). I made no worthwhile contacts or unforgettable friends while in 4 years of college - I was too busy working, dating my dh (met at a party completely unrelated to college), hanging out with my roommate/best friend (from pre-college), and passing my full load of college classes with honors. I'm sure that college CAN be a worthwhile experience for some people. Maybe if you don't know what to do with your life? Maybe if you need more time to grow up? Maybe if you have an end-goal that requires extensive educational requirements or access to high-end equipment that can't easily be obtained anywhere else? I just think you have to know exactly what you want to get out of it and then decide if it can actually meet those needs. For me - I wanted to get a degree out of it and that's what I got. Yay! Perhaps I didn't get anything else out of it because I didn't want to get anything else. :)

:iagree: Your post inspired me to pick other! lol :D

College gave me... a piece of paper that allowed me to get a job in accounting, which allowed me to actually learn accounting. Nothing more that I can think of. Waste of time and money unless you actually need that piece of paper (which I did). If I hadn't gone to college and gotten the piece of paper, I would have been fully capable of learning the job anyway (but likely wouldn't have been given the opportunity to do it as more than a glorified bookkeeper instead of a CPA). So, honestly - if your friend needs a piece of paper in order to pursue his job then he should go for it. If not, I wouldn't bother. Pick what you want to do and go get on-the-job training from someone who knows what they are doing - that will teach you far more, far quicker for most work.

I'm glad to hear you say about the notebooks working for you! I was just going to suggest that - it's what I'm doing with a 1st & 3rd grader for left-handed writing. Flip the notebook around, then it's just like regular! :D

Oh yeah! I forgot about ACs. I second that!! The very next thing we had to do after moving in (the first being fix a ton of leaks) was to deal with a big, expensive AC unit gone bad. We had 1 year homeowner's insurance that covered ridiculous quantities of repairs in the first year (on both the AC and heater portion), but it was SO hard to deal with that when I turned the heat part of the unit on the following year and it immediately pooped out (again) I told my dh that we were done and we paid thousands to get it replaced. That first year we spent over a WEEK in a house with summer temps outside of over 100 degrees and us inside with 2 80yos and 2 kids under 5 just waiting anxiously for repairs to be finished & parts to come in, etc.

We recently diagnosed my 6yo son with gluten intolerance and it has been crazy hard getting things done "our way" at some places!! We are VERY fortunate that it is only an intolerance and not a deadly allergy - but I feel your pain! We actually went to a McDs for dinner this week & I SPECIFICALLY told them at least 3 times that both of the burgers for my son shouldn't have buns. Like "plain, just meat and cheese, and I do NOT want buns" - and of course they both ended up with buns. Seriously?? How hard is it just to NOT put that on???

I'd avoid a house in the 30-40 year roof range - we have had nothing but problems with our house's roof since about 1 month after we moved in. It is a 30+ year old house and the roof was never re-done and should have been after being hit by hail the year before (we found out later). The inspector gave the roof a pass & said it had several more years in it, so we didn't look further. If we had, we would have found it was actually in critical need of immediate repair, uncovered by insurance, and a constant burden until we can scrape together over 15k to get a new one ourselves!! ugh. Additional problem (tied in to above but important to note separately) - they added on a nice bathroom to one of the bedrooms & put the roof on as a flat roof with a railing that you could go hang out on. Cool, right?? Except apparently whoever did it just... did it... without necessarily having a professional involved (or at least not a very good one). It LOOKED great - but turned out to have major leakage issues that ruined many of the walls in the bathroom below. There is very poor drainage due to bad construction, with lots of pooling around the side walls (which holds it all in to leak into the house). Also, the railing ended up needing to be taken out because it turns out the roof supports weren't reinforced under it and some of the joists broke a bit. So, I'd definitely avoid flat roofs, add-on repairs unless proven to be professionally done, and roofs needing repair any time within 5 years... :D

We start at 9am every day (although 1 day a week we have co-op and I *TRY* to start 1/2 an hour earlier that day - so far it hasn't worked out too well most of the time). I don't think an earlier start time is automatically more productive - it totally depends on you & your teaching style and the kids & their learning style. If we tried to start earlier, it wouldn't work for *me*!! lol. I hate mornings, and I already have to get out and feed horses & clean up at the barn before we start school. If the kids get to bed by 8pm, they are totally fine and ready to start working by 8/8:30. If they don't get to sleep until after 9pm, then it is a struggle to even make absolutely sure everyone is ready by 9am! :) I work twice a week and I am at the office by 7:30am. I dislike it, but I can do it. I do most of my productive work outside of the office between the hours of 7pm and 11pm. I'm more of a night person; that time is a much more productive one for me, as it is quiet and peaceful & I can focus.

Hmmm - I am teaching 2 extras part of the time, but the other part of the time she teaches my 2 as extras, so it's a different deal! No contract, just a lot of communication. If I were going to write up a contract, I would want to be clear about what costs were covered by who (extracurriculars, special lessons, co-op fees, online learning fees, etc). I would also want to discuss things like snack & meal costs, who gets to choose the curriculum, who buys curriculum (especially if you have to swap due to problems with either teacher or child learning poorly from one). Also, who owns the curriculum? Examples: My friend really wants her kids to learn piano, so mine are also taking the class (it is at her house). It is "eh" for me; I think it's a good idea & the cost is fair, but if I were the only one teaching I wouldn't be doing it. I'm willing to pay, and do, but if I didn't have the money available it would be a problem (Do they go watch a movie? Do different instruction? Participate at her cost? Does she do it on a different day? More importantly - what if after a while I no longer can pay for it? Do we drop it from the schedule? She would lose a discounted rate & that whole chunk of scheduled time, so is that fair?) Ex: Say we bought a set math program but it turns out to not be working out for one the the students (or maybe the teacher) and the cost was steep. Do we use it anyway, since it was bought? Switch, because it's better for student/teacher? Who pays for a switch? These aren't really questions for me (we're fine!), but just an example of the things that could come up.

I'm so sorry for your loss. :( This is exactly the sort of scenario we are very worried about for my 82yo mil (who lives with us), so it sends chills of worry up my spine. She has fallen 3 times in the last month, dislocating a shoulder on one of them, and we are very scared for her.

They have "breath mint" bones / chew items. There are also breath mint type tabs to give as a snack.

I make a list of the things that I plan to do during a day and separate it into "Must Do", "Should Do", and "Might Do". Then I start ticking things off as I can. I feel accomplished if I can at least through "must do".... lol ETA - my lists are pretty simple stuff, btw! Currently sitting in front of me is: - deposit at bank - pick up rx - go to Home Depot (I might or might not squeeze this in!) - Check on credit card charge

Board games! My kids are so into board games right now (boys, 6yo & 8yo) that I'm thinking of going to pick up a few more. They played board games for HOURS on Friday with friends and then for a shorter period on Saturday with me (they wanted to keep going but I had other things to do). I'm astonished! No requests for wii, computer, tv, etc - just "can we play this one now? How about this one?".