The physical therapy that our dog had involved walking on an underwater treadmill. The water supports their weight and also adds resistance to help build muscular strength.

Another idea would be for your dh to stay home with the dog. Based on your earlier comments about friction between your family and him it might give him an excuse to not go to an event he might prefer to skip anyway. Then you and dc could leave your family's earlier than otherwise to spend a little time with dh. I totally understand about your pet being important to you. Another option would be to give your dog a vacation. Since you said that she might be showing early symptoms of dysplasia, you could try to find a pet therapy place that she could spend a few days at. Our dog( dachshund who blew his back out and is now basically a paraplegic) really enjoyed going to physikcal therapy and the place we used did offer boarding for patients. A place like that would probably not do therapy on Christmas day but she would enjoy it on the other days that she was there. The downside is that this would probably be somewhat expensive.

I would definitely refuse to enroll myself or my child in such a system and would probably become progressively more unpleasant every time someone tried to convince me to enroll.

My dd has always loved any and all of the Curious George books. She also loves Harold and the Purple Crayon.

This site has information about fetal and uterine positioning and exercises that may help: http://www.spinningbabies.com/

I took the test and scored a 41. This only confirms my suspicion that I may be an Aspie. I know that it is not a formal dianosis but I will probably never go to a doctor to get one anyway. Also, in my case it only further confirms what I have suspected since the first time I read a description of Asperger's.

I have never really been very comfortable with telling my dd5 about Santa since I do regard it as lying. On the other hand I have not told her he is not real either. She gets one or two gifts from Santa but the majority of her gifts are from Mom and Dad. Thinking about this I wonder if she has not picked up my ambiguity on the subject since she is still afraid of sitting in Santa's lap for a picture. She does know that Santa is just someone dressed up.

Actually you can weave on the equivalent of 4 harnesses with a rigid heddle loom. I have a copy of a book on the subject "The Xenakis Technique for the Construction of 4 Harness Textiles" Here is a link that I found to the book. http://www.montanalooms.com/item_detail.php?item=298&category=44 I agree that in some ways a table loom would be better, however they tend to be more expensive and I was not sure exactly what the OP's budjet is. A book that has a very wide overview of many different kinds of looms and projects is "The Weaving, Spinning, and Dying Book" by Rachel Brown

My first loom which I still sometimes use is a rigid heddle loom. Mine is a Beka but there are several on the market. If I were buying one now I would probably buy one with a built in warpin board. One thing to keep in mind is that you can always use a wide loom to make narrower cloth but not vice versa unless you are double weaving which requires at least 4 heddles. I would also buy her some tablet weaving cards. They are very inexpensive compared to most weaving equipment and can create either very simple or almost infinitely complex designs depending on how they are used. I have to go now. I will try to post more information later.

I am 5'6.5" and one of the shortest people in my family.

If there is a local Society for Creative Anachronism group you could ask if they have a girl's chemise that you could borrow.

I remember reading about a problem some chemo patients develop. They often become repulsed by whatever the last thing they ate before a treatment is. There was a study where they tried giving the patients something with no nutritional value (cherry candy I believe) just before each treatment so they would not become repulsed by anything nutritionally important. It worked. In that vein I would consider a big bag of candy in a flavor that she will not mind hating later.

My dd once had a toenail that was partially torn off and the part that was loose was hurting her when it bumped or brushed anything. She understood that the piece of nail needed to be trimmed off but would not let me do it. I waited until she was sound asleep that night and trimmed the toenail very carefully. It was much easier since she was very still. This would probably only work if your ds is a very sound sleeper like my dd.

:grouphug:

I have made and eaten mayo using the recipe in Nourishing Traditions(sounds like the one being discussed is very similar) and have not had any problems.

These two websites are by the same author and she has written extensively on this subject: http://sharonastyk.com/ http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/

Food allergies can cause arthritis symptoms. My mother has had major problems with that. Most of her issues were with her hips before she had them replaced.

I live in a rural area and we have not lived here very long so I don't know if there are problems here. I do remember some of the teens especially the boys thought harming animals was funny when I was a child and I am from a nearby area. Unfortunately there are some parents who allow their children too much freedom in some rural areas( and I am not referring to any form of free-range parenting since there is very little parenting going on at all in these situations that I am referring to) and these children often find trouble to get into. We did have an unexplained brush fire on our land before our house was built. We also had to block a secondary driveway to stop some lover's lane type activity.

We plan to go trick or treating at my mother's church for Halloween. I will definitely make sure that all the dogs and the cat are inside. Our chickens live in a chicken tractor but I will probably bring them inside and put them in the bathroom (and plan on major cleaning later). How early should I bring them in? Do I need to keep them inside all day on Halloween? I plan to catch the cat and bring her inside a few days before Halloween. We have a foundation with a large crawlspace and my mother suggested letting the chickens stay in their pen under the back porch for that day. Would that be a good idea or not? I plan to put up fencing and have a few milk goats by next year so I am also wondering what I will need to do to protect them.:confused:

I remeber reading at one point that Marfan is dominant rather than recessive so if you are unaffected it is highly unlikely that your children have it. I believe that Marfan impacts connective tissue and there is a very broad range of severity. Another interesting point is that some historians think that Lincoln may have had Marfan.

When people claim that homeschooling must be difficult to me, I point out that most of the challenges in a typical classromm arise from the number of children the teacher is trying to teach at once. Most children are much easier to teach one on one.

When we were looking for a contractor to build our house, I was the one who did the "shopping" so to speak. Until I knew that they were not inclined to be condescending there was no need for them to even meet my spouse. Needless to say I was able to eliminate a few rather quickly this way.

I was nice, I refrained from waking him up. I waited for him to wake up and finish his morning shower the day I took the test.

I am currently pg with my second dc and I was thinking about starting a thread along these lines. My dd is 5 and I think that I will be waiting as long as possible to tell her. She really wants a sibling and would be devastated if there was a loss. Also she does not like waiting for holidays, events, change of seas ons, ect. However, my primary reason is that I do not plan to tell extended family anytime soon and dd will tell. I hope to be able to wait until after Christmas to tell her and then everyone else can find out a month or two before my estimated due date. That way I won't have to listen to every silly concern(and I know from experience that they will be numerous and silly) that flits through my MIL's head. Thankfully, they live in TX now.

Lactofermented vegetables such as homemade saurkraut can be very helpful. There are numerous recipes in Nourishing Traditions.