dsmith, thanks for letting me know about another wonderful company. I love it's name, nonPareil. And I love that there's at least 5 years for them to grow and expand before my son may need them. :-)

Hi all! I haven't been on the boards here for quite a while as my homeschooling days are mostly over (although I still do some teaching of my youngest asperger's son in the summer to augment his schooling). I get anxious regularly about what to do about high school and even more so about what he will be able to do and to maintain himself in a job. As I was researching high schools for him, I ran into a very interesting site for a business that claims its mission is to train and provide IT jobs for ASD folks. It doesn't sound wide spread just yet, but they say their mission is in the next 3 years to be a sustainable business in 10-12 regions in the US. Right now it's in 3 regions: Mid Atlantic, Midwest, and Southwest. The company's name is Specialisterne USA. If you go there, read about their logo of the Dandelion seed. It blew me away. (no pun intended :-) I would link to it, but I wasn't sure if that violated Susan's "nothing copied from other internet sites" rules. A google search of Specialisterne will get you there. You gotta know that it understands ASD kids/adults when it includes LEGO Mindstorms as a part of its training protocol. I cannot tell you how uplifted I feel knowing there is such a company out there, even if my son never is part of it. Jacqui in MO

When someone pays you through Paypal, where exactly does the money go? Is Paypal able to take money from your bank account if there is a dispute from the buyer? I've seen some people write about how they take the money out of their paypal account asap to avoid Paypal taking those funds out if there is a dispute. How does that work? Does it work the same whether you use it here or on Ebay? I'm nervous about taking the plunge and selling some used homeschool items, and I have given away many, but there are a few nicer sets I feel I could recoup some of the cost and want to try to sell them. I just don't know if I understand Paypal well enough to do it though. Thanks for any input! Jacqui

Hello, I have a son that is going on 11 years old who is possibly on the ASD spectrum/asperger. My pediatrician recommended the Neurologist Garrett Burris 2 years ago and he took a wait and see attitude, with perhaps trials of intuniv later on. I have only seen him 2xs and now he has moved away. We are very leery about starting meds anyway. We have since tried Dr. Amy Davis, a DAN doctor for about 6 months with all sorts of supplements, and tried MIND with a chiropractic neurologist Dr. Matthew Worth which did a comprehensive program with him including interactive metronome type things, and although they showed improvement on their scales of attention and concentration, etc, I have not seen any functional carry over to home or schooling. I am going to probably engage a speech therapist, Jan Butler, to look at social and organizational skills during school. So far, I feel like the "help" I've gotten has not been helpful at all except to empty my HSA and I am somewhat afraid of continuing to spend time and money on things that also won't help. I was wondering if any folks in the St. Louis region have found professionals who have been helpful to them. When I try online searches, it seems like offerings for Aspergers treatment are surprisingly sparse, but maybe I'm just missing something. Thanks for any help or suggestions.

Books by Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias are great. He also has a monthly magazine called "Just Thinking".

Thanks Strider and Alessandra!

What paint finish do I use? Most of the information on color washing I've read suggest using eggshell, but for just regular painting in the kitchen it's suggested to use satin or semi gloss for easier cleaning. Will the higher gloss ruin the soft effect of the color wash? I've practiced with some sample paints that come in eggshell finish. It looks very nice that way, but I've noticed it can be easily wiped off with a Magic eraser sponge. I'm reluctant to go ahead and buy paint. (I'm good at procrastinating that way:glare:)

Is the Failsafe diet that is linked to any different than the Feingold diet?

Andy Griffith reminds me so much of my dad. Sheriff Taylor's looks and mannerisms were so similar.

If You Give a Mom a Muffin By Beth Brubaker If you give a mom a muffin, she'll want a cup of coffee to go with it. She'll pour herself some. Her three year-old will come and spill the coffee. Mom will wipe it up. Wiping the floor, she will find dirty socks. She'll remember she has to do laundry. When she puts the laundry into the washer, she'll trip over shoes and bump into the freezer. Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan supper. She will get out a pound of hamburger. She'll look for her cookbook (How to Make 101 Things With a Pound of Hamburger.) The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail. She will see the phone bill, which is due tomorrow. She will look for her checkbook. The checkbook is in her purse, which is being dumped out by her two year-old. Then she'll smell something funny. She'll change the two year-old. While she is changing the two year-old, the phone will ring. Her five year-old will answer and hang up. She'll remember she was supposed to phone a friend to come over for coffee. Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup. She will pour herself some more. And chances are, if she has a cup a coffee, her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it. Author's blog:http://footprintsinthemudblog.blogspot.com/search?q=muffin

Bumping up hoping Unicorn will see my question.

Do you have to subscribe to the website to get the daily exercises?

Unicorn, what kind of dramatic results have you seen? Is your dd diagnosed with Aspergers? Are you/have you been dairy free too? This diet is such a pain with only one family member on it and though I might be willing to try it for a bit longer, my dh isn't. Is there some empirical evidence other than here on the WTM that says it can take up to a year to see results?

Bump, for afternoon crowd.

I've tried a gfcf diet just over 2 months with my 10 yo ds because of his aspergers like symptoms. We don't see any tangible changes from it whatsoever so I plan to go back to a regular diet. I'm planning on allowing him to go back on dairy first for a week, then gluten. Does that sound like a reasonable plan? Someone said in a recent post that when you haven't been eating a food group for a while your stomach quits producing the enzyme to digest it until you're back on it. Is this something I have to watch for? Would there be tummy ache issues going back on a regular diet? Thanks, Jacqui

Judy, can you share what probiotics you take?

I started my 10 yo ds on a GFCF diet on April 23 (trying to help his Asperger's symptoms). As far as staying on the diet, we'd been doing fairly well but I wasn't sure if I saw differences in behavior. Yesterday I discovered that ds had eaten several Nutrigrain snack bars which have gluten over the past week. (they were leftovers from a trip my dh and dd had just returned from, otherwise I wouldn't normally have those around). Now I don't know what to do about the diet. I'm trying to school him over the summer to try and help him with basic math facts speed and consistency. He had been doing somewhat better at speed and focusing on drills for 2-3 minutes at a time. This week though he wasn't able to even beat the 3 minute timer on drills that are still pretty simple. Could this be a possible result of the GFCF diet? (i.e. that he had seemed to be doing a little better on speed drills, then after an unintended gluten challenge, he isn't doing as well?) I wonder b/c I could also attribute it to not having practiced consistently over the past 4 days, or that inconsistency is normal for him, or the fact that the newness of earning a reward token for beating the timer has worn off (although he was upset today that he couldn't seem to beat it.) Other than this math possibility, my dh and I haven't seen much that stands out and says GFCF helps ds. My dh would really like us to stop the diet. So: Do I just stop the diet now and attribute the math to the inconsistency in academic performance my ds has almost always shown? Do I plug on with the diet because it hasn't even been 2 months yet and see if the change in math skills comes back consistently or not? If I do continue the diet, do I have to consider it as starting all over again to clear the system of gluten? I had been thinking of trying a dairy challenge to see if we needed to keep that out, but now should I wait on that too? If you feel like you've had success with a GFCF diet for an ASD child, how long was it before you saw any changes? I've heard anywhere from needing to stay on gfcf from a month to a year. After a longer period of time though, how would you know improvements are attributed to the diet, and not something else like maturity or therapies being done simultaneously? Thanks for reading all this and any information you can share.

I have a book suggestion while you wait on getting in to see a therapist. "What to Do When you Worry Too Much. A Kid's Guide to Overcoming Anxiety" by Dawn Huebner. I just encountered these books (I'm reading one on temper) and they seem very promising. http://www.amazon.com/What-When-You-Worry-Much/dp/1591473144/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339587165&sr=8-1&keywords=what+to+do+when+you+worry+too+much

Another bump ;o)

bump

Our heat pump is constantly leaking and we have probably have to replace it and the interior unit as well (even though they are only 7 years old! :glare: We are considering replacing with geothermal and are getting quotes from both WaterFurnace and Bosch contractors. We would have to put in vertical wells. We are being told we need either a 4 ton or 5 ton system. I've seen people raving about such systems, but I've also heard a couple of failure stories too. After having a conventional system fail on us after only 7 years, I'd sure hate to spend this much money and have it fail just after its warranty. Do they give consistent heating in the winter? Thanks Jacqui

You can get coconut milk in a can in the baking aisle (I think) of the grocery store. After the can has been sitting still for a while (perhaps in the fridge for a while if it's hot in the room), you can scoop off coconut cream out of the top of the can, leaving coconut water in the bottom of the can. Then you whip it with sugar and vanilla to substitute for whipped cream. You can also buy cans of "cream of coconut" but I'm not sure if that is the same stuff exactly as I bought a can to try and now looking at the ingredients on it, it has more added ingredients that I realized. It does have a recipe on the label to use in pina coladas. I imagine it's yummy too.

Coconut cream. I used it to make a substitute for whipped cream with strawberry shortcake. Delicious.

How do I know when or if it is helping? Is it too soon yet to see any results? I started this diet for my 10 yo son on about April 23rd. He doesn't have a formal diagnosis, but he is very ADHD and has Aspergers characteristics, along with tics and bed wetting. Does a child's behaviors sometimes get worse before they get better on this? What changes would I likely see first? What if I'm not seeing results because I'm not as completely as gluten free (caisen free too) as I think we're doing? Any insights would be appreciated. Thanks Jacqui

I'm new to this diet and wondering if bags of just plain (white or brown) rice are okay, or do I have to make sure they were not in a facility that also processes wheat. The bags at Wal-Mart or my grocery stores do not specify. (yes, I do know rice is gluten free, just unsure if I have to know where it is packaged) Thanks!