I agree; there's some truth to what her MIL said. As a few others have said, the materials used and amount of storage matter more than size. Also, what's on the outside matters, as dirt, mud, sand, etc. gets tracked inside. A house (big or small) with a muddy field right outside the front door will be much harder to keep clean than a house (big or small) with grass and sidewalks. When we moved into a home that was newly constructed, it was nearly impossible to keep our beautiful new floors clean until we had the yard in, and cleaning got easier once all the rest of the homes on our street were all built and had their yards. Since her MIL's plans for a "family compound" would likely involve at least some new construction, op should be aware that construction stirs up dirt and things can stay quite dirty until the landscape and hardscape is in. (And remember: care of a large property involves more than just housekeeping--it also involves yard work.) Also relating to the idea of a family compound, if the house had to accommodate people MIL, FIL and BIL anytime they wanted to come over, then their habits and lifestyle would also affect the cleaning in the gathering space. I wonder if the op and her husband don't want to move, if the in-laws might instead look for a smaller home in the op's neighborhood, then build an apartment over the garage there for BIL. It might not be the "family compound" that her MIL's imagining, but since they're thinking several years down the line, that idea may just be in the realm of fantasy right now. MIL and her husband are thinking about retirement and may just be starting to come up with ideas. If they have a few years to plan and the op and her husband like the idea of his family living nearer, the op and her husband could keep their eye out for properties in their neighborhood that might accommodate a modified plan.

I just saw the update, and it's great to know you're feeling better about the decision to pull her out and homeschool. Some level of mourning may be appropriate when things don't turn out the way we'd hoped and expected. I pulled my a child from private school earlier this year. On the last day as I watched him pack up his things and say goodbye to friends, I felt bad. Since then, several things have happened to convince us that homeschooling him is the right thing. My feelings about pulling him from school come and go. I wish things had been different, but we work with what is. Yet, I still get some emails from the school every now and then. Like you, those emails usually leave me feeling great about our decision to homeschool him.

We used the Franklin Spellchecker as part of Barton Reading and Spelling, (which is a program for tutoring persons with dyslexia). How to find words with a spellchecker is part of Barton. For our purposes of remediating dyslexia, it helps to have the Franklin model designed for crossword puzzles--that's the specific one we've been told to use, but I imagine the crossword puzzle feature could get in the way. If a word is spelling phonetically but uses the wrong number of letters, the crossword puzzle feature wouldn't find it. If a _ (blank space expressed as an underline sign) is filled in at the spot where the user is unsure of how the sound is spelled, the Franklin should be able to find the word. We haven't had much trouble finding words as long as they have either the right number of letters or the blank sign.

Large families often need two rooms at hotels, which gets expensive. Places like Staybridge or Courtyard Residence Inn by Marriot are often far more cost-effective. If it has at least a small kitchen and , you won't have to pay for every meal in restaurants. Many places also serve breakfast, which keeps your meals costs down too. Since you are thinking about Universal, I checked prices for you: 1 day adult ticket costs $147; 4 day adult ticket costs $214.99. The first day costs the most--and after that it's not much to add more days. Your whole family could spend 4 days at Universal for around $1500, (not counting food or hotels). That would leave $3500 in your budget for travel, lodging and food. Wherever you decide to stay, a pool would be on my "must have" list. (Beaches are great, but watching kids at a pool is usually easier--and therefore I find pools more relaxing.) Bring life jackets for any of your kids that can't swim. Some of my fondest memories of family vacations, both as a child and as an adult, are of the times spent by hotel/motel pools. If you decide to drive, make the trip there part of your vacation by stopping off at things to see along the way and staying at motels that have nice pools.

We use a Franklin Spelling Corrector. It's like a small calculator (even has a small calculator on it.).

Perhaps it's time their vocabulary lesson focusses on the word "gift". Look up the definition of the word and highlight for them some key points that contrast with their current understanding. noun 1. something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward someone, honor an occasion, or make a gesture of assistance; present. 2. the act of giving. 3. something bestowed or acquired without any particular effort by the recipient or without its being earned: Those extra points he got in the game were a total gift. 4. a special ability or capacity; natural endowment; talent: the gift of saying the right thing at the right time.

Hi Michele- :seeya: I saw your user name before I opened this thread, and I hoped it was really you. Like Tiramisu, I've also wondered how things were with you and was just thinking about you the other day. I'm glad you came back to share. How exciting! I'll add that all those activities sound exhausting to me, but it sounds like you're all doing what you love.

It may help to "internalize" the number line if he first "externalizes" it. As the weather turns warmer, I suggest using a modified form of something like hopscotch with sidewalk chalk on the driveway. Draw 10 big boxes in a line, numbering the boxes from 1-10. Show him first, by hopping on one foot, from box to box, saying the numbers as you land on them. Turn around at ten, then count backwards. Have him try. If he can do in on the right leg, switch next to the left leg. If he can't hop on one foot, then have him jump with both feet. The point isn't so much to hop or jump, but to give him an activity that uses the number line with his whole body. Once he has the jumping down, the game could be played more an old-fashioned game of hopscotch with a stone as a marker thrown, with each of you taking turns and having to throw the marker in each box from 1-10. The sidewalk chalk game could be modified in all kinds of ways. You could practice skip counting by landing just on even. You could count by tens, (with boxes marked, 10, 20, 30....). If your driveway or sidewalk area is big enough, you could write the number line from 1-100+ and hop around counting.

Deer usually leave herbs alone, as the strong smells of herb leaves prevents the deer from smelling predators. I've planted various herbs throughout my landscape to help deter deer. If you want to fence out deer, you need a very tall fence because deer jump high.

Paint them a neutral color that's found in the rest of the house, then paint the soffits the same color as the cabinets. Kitchen cabinets can look great but make the rest of the house look in need of updates to all the woodwork and paint if they don't blend with what's already there. If your house has white woodwork, paint them the same shade white. If your house has outdated wood trim that you don't plan on changing, I'd go with a cream that blends. If the rest of the house has gray carpet, light gray cabinets that matches could modernize the kitchen while still leaving a cohesive look with the rest of the house. I wouldn't go with espresso or dark gray, as then you'd need to examine your kitchen's lighting to make sure the room wasn't too dark. We painted the outside of our kitchen cabinets years ago and then just a used wall paper boarder against the walls in the interior cabinets. It added a nice finished look to the inside.

Laughing Cat, again I relate to what you are writing. If left to their own devices without correction, our children could develop their own marble language. We could call it "Marblish"; derived from English, yet different from just a regional accent. Oh E (or others interested)--to explain what we mean, think about songs. Sometimes while the melody is beautiful, many of the words to songs are unclear or misunderstood. Singing requires consonants to be over-articulated, otherwise the words just all blend. For some people, their words tends to just all run together, leaving the listeners to wonder what they said. Although they can make all the right sounds in isolation, they don't articulate all of them and sometimes they take some "artistic licence" to replace one sound with another. Singing lessons are far cheaper than speech therapy, and may help with the kind of problems I described. Vowels are of special importance when singing too, because those are what should hold the notrs, while consonants close them off....

Are you sure you skipped school? Horseback riding sounds like a P.E. class. ;)

Regarding the title of your thread: Some days I think I'd like to just curl up in a ball. It hit me yesterday as our bulbs (daffodils, tulips, etc.) begin to bloom that flower bulbs spend most of the year just all curled up in a ball. No leaves, no blossoms, just funny, small, brown, roundish object that looks like nothing special. They spend most of their life buried in a dirt hole. Last fall as I was planting some bulbs, a family emergency happened. The next couple of days, a family member spent at the hospital and life hasn't been the same since. As the leaves to the bulbs have now emerged and they prepare to bloom, I'm reflecting a lot about how they spent their winter all curled up in a ball, placed in the dirt. I look forward to their bloom; it represents triumph over adversity. If we have to curl up in ball and crawl into a hole for a while, it doesn't have to mean we're quitting; we might just be resting through a winter, awaiting for our time to bloom.

It would make me really sad to see that a friend who presented as a devout Christian for years had never experienced God in a personal way.

Not to brag, but yesterday I got up and took a shower. Then, I put on some make-up. The make-up was the new eye shadow and mascara I had picked up while grocery shopping the previous day. That left me feeling so good that I was even inspired to fix my hair. I'd been thinking I was long overdue for a haircut, but as it turned out, all my hair really needed was a blow drier and curling iron instead of being thrown into the usual "I need a haircut but I'm just going to tie it back" ponytail. Throughout the day, when passing a mirror or saw it while in the bathroom, I felt a little better than I'd been feeling in a long while. I'd been feeling run-down and old. Turns out, I look better and feel when I shower and do my hair and make-up.

Laughing Cat and I must live in the same world. I've been to see the school district's speech therapist 3 times for 3 different children and none of mine ever qualified for help. We've also been to private speech therapists, which our insurance didn't cover past the evaluation. The first time we went, the slp was listening for speech issues (as is her job) but I now know my son had going on was early warning signs of dyslexia with sound substitutions. He could make all the age-appropriate sounds according to their charts, (so he didn't qualify) but he was difficult to understand because he often substituted in the wrong sound for the right one. His sound substitutions included some of his own made-up non-English vowel sounds. I still hear some non-English vowels sounds out of one of mine, particularly with r's and l's. Making the r and l sounds require the tongue to lift and curl, and those sounds have a peculiar influence on vowels. Nevertheless, despite not qualifying for service, it was well worth our going to see speech therapists. For one thing, it started some documentation. Better still--the last time we saw the school district's slp, she gave me a tremendous amount of encouragement and support for how I'm parenting and with our homeschooling. I came home that day feeling good about how we are doing.

I don't have much to contribute here except to add a few thoughts from my perspective as another mother with a large family who's had to deal with dyslexia and minor speech issues. It strikes me that if your daughter is easily embarrassed about her speech, she is very, very blessed to be surrounded by so many people who love her. She feels comfortable enough to communicate with the people she loves in all those creative ways. Plus after all those babies, I bet you're pretty good at your end of communication with her so that you recognize what she's trying to say with those creative attempts and grunts. You are able to see her as "intellectually normal" in spite of her speech difficulties--and if you couldn't see that, she'd have more problems beyond her speech. I hope you find the help you need. I sense that while the right therapists could help your daughter, YOU are ultimately the expert here who is going to help them help your daughter.

:grouphug: Hugs and prayers for you.

Different pencils have different feels as they drag across the paper. If you haven't already done it, try a variety of pencils. Maybe mechanical pencils or artist's pencils would feel better to him. There are even "liquid pencils" now. Also--a very sharp pencil barely drags at all. We have an electric pencil sharpener that creates the perfect point.

There's a story out today (4/22/15) in the Huffington Post Science section called "Have We Taken the Wrong Approach to Treating Kids with ADHD?" It starts with:

Thank you 8 fill the♡ and Snow belt mom! That helps to know.

Can you explain the highlighted part further? Does the ACT have significantly more reading that the SAT???

Thanks everyone! My son took the ACT recently and wasn't able to finish the reading section. I wasn't sure how "normal" that was. He might qualify for extra time if we filled out all the paperwork, but we didn't request it this time.

Did you finish all the sections? Did it seem like enough time--or were you pressed for time? I'd to get an idea of what's "normal". :bigear: Thank you in advance.

No formal diagnosis oh adhd here, but I have my suspicions so I'm going to pipe in with my suggestions: #1 Exercise--preferably outdoors. Outside play is a regular part of our day, and if it's missed for any reason the behaviors change. On bad days, I sometimes make ds run around the yard just to burn off his energy and he comes back in with better focus. We also have a mini trampoline in his room which gets a lot of use in winter. #2 Coffee/caffeine. My husband and I both drink coffee in the mornings. Sometimes when I go to work with my son and notice he's having more trouble focussing, I'll pour him a cup. He likes it. Unlike many of the other supplements people try, coffee is well researched and found to have very few negative side effects. #3 Consistency. Parenting is hard work. We recently watched Mary Poppins and the phrase "firm but gentle" comes to mind. There are certain behavior modification techniques often recommended to parents of children for managing adhd, and a lot of those techniques look like good, old-fasioned parenting to me. Maybe you're already doing that, but I thought it worth mentioning. #4 Treat/remediate whatever else may need to be treated or remediated. It may be eyes, ears, small muscles in the hands, memory, eyc. It may involve Orton - Gillingham , Linda mood - Bell or some other special materials for dyslexia or dysgraphia or dyscalcula. Use materials appropriate for whatever other learning disabilities may be on top of the adhd.