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Kay in Cal

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Posts posted by Kay in Cal

  1. OK, my 4 yo ds has a fever and is vomiting. He's been sick since Monday, but has had periods of feeling better and eating. Now he's not been able to keep anything down since last night, not even water.

     

    What is the cut-off for going to the doctor or for dehydration to become an issue? It's been 12 hours at least since he could drink (including time he was sleeping last night)... he's had sips every 20 minutes when awake, but dry heaves have brought it back up since this morning.

     

    I'm sure he has whatever virus is going around, and I don't want to trek across town to be told "keep giving him fluids, rest, a BRAT diet when he can handle it..." I know all that. Mostly, at what point do I worry he's way over dehydrated?

  2. Any ambulances that pull up around here are at my house... (well, at least 4-5 times in the past few years).

     

    I'd go watch. Doesn't bother me when neighbors come out to see what's going on, especially if they offer to help. If I'm in a panic and rude as I climb into the back of the ambulance, oh well... but personally I feel better knowing that my neighbors actually are interested enough to walk outside.

     

    However, I do have to say that our calls don't involve drugs, alcohol, domestic violence or other issues that can bring up strong feelings of shame. I'd stay out of those situations if I knew about them, otherwise I'd be right over there to see if they needed any help.

     

    I've actually had to ask my next-door neighbors (nice folks, but certainly not on the level of close friends) to watch my sleeping kids in the middle of the night as I went with dh to the ER--when life is on the line, you need all the help you can get!

  3. We've pretty much considered EVERYTHING in terms of our ds, but he doesn't seem to meet all the criteria of Aspergers or another form of autism--I think primarily because he communicates very well and is so outgoing. Yes, he's 6, but he converses easily as fluently (vocabulary and diction-wise, but not picking up on social cues) as many teens that I know. He'll strike up conversations with anyone from the cashier at the grocery store to waiters to people walking by on the street... which, of course, is part of the problem. Other kids see his very gregariousness as being odd.

  4. Ours are allowed to read (or listen to audiobooks), although the 4yo can't really "read" yet. He tends to conk out early. Our 6yo is a night owl who reads 1-2 hours every night. We very rarely enforce lights out, because he just sleeps later in the morning if he needs to. We'd rather sleep later ourselves! But if it gets to be midnight (which does occasionally happen), I may go in and confiscate the reading lamp.

  5. Haven't been around for a while (combination of too busy, and too technically overwhelmed), but sorry to hear about life being hard now.

     

    My only advice (besides all the good self-care stuff) is to thing about good counselling for both of you, or just for yourself if he won't go. Whenever Doug and I hit a rough patch we drag our unwilling behinds back into some sort of therapy, and even just the making the effort of more intense communication is good for us. If he won't--having a safe place to go and talk our your own feelings (beyond this virtual community) and get some professional perspective can be a great thing.

     

    Take care.

  6. Socialization.:(

     

    OK, so my 6yo ds is... awkward. Geeky. He comes by it naturally. He also is one of those kids with a raft of "maybe" issues--ADHD, SID, etc, etc. He's super smart, accelerated learner, and communicates and speaks beyond his years. All of which makes interaction with other kids iffy at best.

     

    So yesterday at Karate--he did well in class. Other than frustrating some of the older and more able kids with his awkwardness ("I have to be HIS partner?"), he behaved and listened well. Of course, he doesn't seem to mind or notice being the odd one out. Which is good for his self esteem, I guess, but he totally misses all the social cues, and the fact that he is a non-stop talking extrovert doesn't help.

     

    As we were leaving I overheard the following conversation:

     

    Ds: "I'm the master of fire type Pokemon!"

    Boy (maybe 9 or so): "Yeah, whatever."

    Ds: "Really! I love to play Pokemon... I enjoy the card game and the video game and I play it on my DS too. Do you play Pokemon?"

    Boy: "Yeah. I did. It was stupid."

    Ds: "No, it isn't stupid! It's the best game ever! I'm on level 49 right now with my Charizard.... (technical info about pokemon here)"

    Boy: "Who cares. I beat the whole game."

    Ds: "I'm still playing it... most recently I beat gym master (more info about game)"

    Boy: "I beat the whole game 12 times."

    Ds: "That's very impressive! Have you ever faced gym master (continuing to talk)"...

     

    at this point the boy has turned his back, and is walking out the door while ds is still talking to him (we're all leaving after class), and I have to take his hand to keep him from following the boy and continuing the "conversation". When I try to explain that responses like "whatever" and "who cares" are social cues that people are not interested and don't want to talk to you, he is shocked and almost in tears on the way home...

     

    My dh keeps saying that when he was 6 he already had lots of friends, many of whom he still knows and is in contact with. Our ds just doens't have friends--we do Karate 4 times a week, church once a week, swimming twice and homeschool playgroup once (though we've missed for a while). And while ds loves to play, there haven't been any friendships developed. Our neighborhood itself doesn't have any other homeschoolers, or really any kids who play outside at all (we live in townhomes in Los Angeles).

     

    Part of me thinks that school would just make him more socially awkward and let him realize how different he is, which he doesn't really "get" yet. He'd have the same struggles, but be unhappy. My dh believes that he needs to meet other weird little kids like himself--and that would happen in school, and he's not sure how else to make it happen.

     

    Argh! Advice! Advice!

  7. The instructions in my workbook pages assume you have the activity guide--so "do mapwork" means: turn to the activity guide, and follow the mapwork instructions there (the map page itself is included in the activity guide, but the instructions are in the teacher's section). I bind the activity guide student pages with the workbook pages, but the teacher pages as a seperate book when I put my set together. There is no reason a child couldn't read the instructions themselves and check off the boxes... I usually supervise my ds who is 6 and no where near "self motivated" yet!

     

    Speaking of which, I better get downstairs and figure out what he's up to...

  8. and apply it to SOTW right now. She enjoys the subject, you have the skills...

     

    So do your history geographically rather than chronologically this year if you want! Add even more library books and outside resources and get the most of your activity guide (play all the games, cook all the meals). There doesn't have to be a dicotomy between "unit studies" the way you have been doing them and "history". You have a teaching method that works for you and engages your daughter--even though you've moved on to a new subject matter doesn't mean you can't bring your own teaching methods right along with you!

  9. Some of you may know that I made a free set of "workbook pages" to accompany/organize the SOTW 1 and AG last year. We've used it successfully with our 1st grader this year, and I did have a bunch of people download it when I posted it to Lulu last year. It's ID # 796912 on Lulu.com if you want to check it out.

     

    What I want to know is: If you downloaded it, did you find it useful? I'm trying to decide whether I want to put in the energy to do a public SOTW 2 set of pages, and I only want to do so if some folks actually found it helpful. Otherwise, I can just update it for personal use without worrying about the public format, copyright issues, etc.... but I'm happy to share if it was really something people liked.

     

    If I do go ahead, what changes might you make for the transition to 2nd grade? Much smaller writing lines--what width do you use for 2nd grade-- or about the same?

     

    Any other suggestions (or just inspiration) would be welcome!

  10. Mostly because they all live so far away. We're in California, closest family is Chicago (my SIL), and our parents are in Virginia (parents in law, my mom & stepdad) and Florida (my dad and stepmom). We see each of them at least once a year, some of them twice a year, and that's about it... though that is usually a 2-3 week visit.

     

    I wish our kids had more extended family closer. We talk on the phone each week, and encourage close relationship, but it is a challenge.

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