Yep this is my kid :( Currently working on fixing a major injury that never healed but my dd never told us it was hurting still and even ran track on it with just mild randomly placed (as in multiple days apart) my foot hurts....yep its still messed up. My dd's OT was saying that one of the issues with her is that her body and mind are going so fast and focusing on so much other things all the time that the only time she realizes pain is when she stops thus why the only time we hear complaints about pain is at bed time when she has to stop and lights are off and her body starts to relax.

This times a bazillion!!!! As a white infertile adoptive mom of brown kids we have received so many comments the whole time from dink to why did you adopt to how could you and more. Its a way to others and make people feel better about their being more "normal"

I will never own another KIA...tried to get warranty work done and they did everything in their power to not have to do it....it broke constantly....just not worth it.

I have a child who raged! It was violent it was inconsistent and it was unpredictable. We did an overnight seizure test and discovered she was having absence seizures....within a week of upping her seizure meds the violent rages ended.....she still melted like a puddle on the floor but the violence was gone....she went on within 1.5 years to get a high functioning autism diagnosis....so it is a possibility that she is having seizures in conjunction with autism....OR it could be something entirely different....at the very least if there is a suspicion of seizures have them push to do an overnight EKG....that is the only thing that found the seizures in my daughter.

Not much to add mostly because I have yet to find the right solution but I am so glad to hear I am not the only person with a kid (my almost 7 year old) who freaks about automatic toilets....and yes I curse the day anyone came up the idea of automatic flushing toilets and hand dryers (with no paper towels in the bathroom at all). Someday I hope we will be able to survive a public toilet.

Sorry I know most people think mom is crazy but I totally get it! When my kid was going to preschool the teacher decided to shorten her name without my permission just because it is easier for the teacher...as a result all for the kids who know my kid now call her the shortened name....I don't like it in any way the short name and my child (with special needs) will not correct people (she won't talk to people much less try to correct them)....I named my kid no one else gets to change that for their own convince...that said I have told my daughter that if she want a nickname there are 5 or 6 different ones for her name and there is only 1 that I REFUSE to allow her to be called. (think something like Elizabeth were she could be lizzy or betsy or beth but not Eliza)

I am very intrigued by it...I hope it is as good as it looks but it could also very much turn into a farce that lasts 2 episodes.

My 6 year old did track this year for the first time....she came in 6th place at the last meet against a bunch of 8 year olds in the 50 and 7th in the 100 against a bunch of 8 year olds....this is natural because at practice she was always coming in second to last. So now I am trying to figure out what to do with a fast 6 year old who is also autistic thus has some quirks (IE we don't say her name when racing because she turns to look at who ever is talking to her and trips over her feet) and many people don't know what to do with her.

Just finished Long Time Coming by Vanessa Miller which was interesting because it is written and features African Americans. Also its about infertility and adoption which always get me. I really liked this book. (It is a Christian book, or at least there was lots of praying and scriptures). Starting The Pemberly Chronicles by Rebecca Ann Collins which is a "sequel" to Pride and Prejudice.

I am currently working on this book and I am finding it very interesting. I agree it really creates a new way to look at the picture.

So it turns out I don't read books when I am on vacation! I only read when I am at home...that said while I have been home I have finished a couple of books...so my grand total is 84 for the year so far. I am currently working on: Fiction: The Girl with One Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier Kindle: Something that I can't remember right now Non-fiction: Childhood Leukemia by Nancy Keene Phone: Long Time Coming Computer: Well Education Mind: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Angel Girl: Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder Audiobook: Peter Pan by JM Barrie

I agree with a lot that has been said...the blatant in your face racism is very much disappearing...people know that they should not say things like that out loud and if they don't they are learning via celebs that are getting in trouble for their mouths. BUT there is inherent racism that is not going away...it is in the underpinning of so many things in our society. Its the bias' and stereotypes that abound...it is even sort of in the comment that starts this thread...he commented because of the otherness of the family and otherness is part of the problem....Its in comments like wow you much be a basketballer because my kid is black and tall...yes she may like basketball but I don't think that will be her identity and even if it is in the future how can someone say that to a child at 5 or 6....its because she is black that is a form of racism (via bias). BUT these conversations these are changing the world and the fact that people are thinking about it and talking about means that there is a hope that society can really change and that in a few generations we truly will be a post racial society in which skin color differences are celebrated! In my family we talk about skin color all the time...I will tell people my kids are the ones who are black one because it makes them easily identifiable. My kids point out all the time that we are white and they are brown and notice when others are black or white. It gives them ownership of who they are and part of who they are is their race but it does no more than determine the amount of pigment and not the rest of their lives.

Kindergarteners are expect to be reading basically and the common core increased that level and counting up to 100. The local free public school Pre-k program expects children to know all the letters and sounds and count up to 20. It's developmentally inappropriately and it doesn't take into account the fact that the kids coming in have a full 12+ month difference in ages (with the oldest being up to or more than 12 months older than the youngest child in the class). The system is patently set up to make kids fail...and when you have children who are already at risk IE english language learners or special need then they are really screwed because there is no differentiated instruction or individualized program (IEP only have about 5 goals in each area when the years curriculum has 15 to 20 yeah that will get the kid up to the rest of the class)

I have a sensitive skinned kid and he will randomly break out in hives about 4 times a year...the first time was around the same age as your child when he had cinnamon...so I would just make sure to always know the amount of benadryl to give (takes my doctor over an hour to call back so I made sure to find out when ds was little what the weight dosages were so I wasn't having to wait). I will say make sure to be careful of other things you put on your child's skin including bandaids...turns out my little dude is allergic to all bandaid adhesive. Oh and even still he lets people know he is "allergic" to cinnamon lol (he probably isn't really).

I have created a wish list that I check daily to see if a book I want has gone free. (I sort price low to high)

Hated our Carnival cruise...there was nothing to do if you don't drink and enjoy listening to really loud music near a small salt water pool. The only thing I found to do during the day was a disney trivia game which was held in the casino. We went to 1 show and it was so so. The excursions were AMAZING though (we did cozumel and yucatan) but the boat time was boring with nothing to do. It was the Truimph post reno (after the poop cruise).

Finished: Empty Nest Parenting by Richard and Linda Eyre Secrets of the Heart by JoAnn Jolley Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis Spinning Forward by Terri DuLong Working on: Fiction: Rule of Four by Ian Cadwell Kindle: Unwanted Husband by Sandra D. Bricker Non-fiction: Phone: The Anvil of the World by Kage Baker Computer: Well Education Mind: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Angel Girl: Water Babies by Charles Kingsley Audiobook: Total Read for 2014: 74

Yesterday was quite a book finishing day again lol I finished Secrets of the Heart by Joann Jolley which was interesting especially since I seem to have picked 2 books about adoption this one is about a birthmother and the one on my kindle (Spinning Forward by Terri DuLong) is about an adoptee. (although you could argue I am listening to another book about adoption since I am listening to The Blind Side) I also finished Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis...it is my first nonfiction C.S. Lewis and I found it very interesting. I really liked how he really reached for the heart of Christianity while avoiding any of the messiness...it also really fit with something I just talked to my sister about...that we seek for similarities and the way that C.S. Lewis really tried to make comparisons to things that people know in order to explain something that in many ways is very very abstract.

I have recently heard about Freedom filer which is what I think I am going get for my filing organization.

I am so loving The Blind Side!!! I am not a football person but the person who wrote the book did it in a interesting way for me at least. Finished: Empty Nest Parenting by Richard and Linda Eyre Working on: Fiction: Secrets of the Heart by JoAnn Jolley Kindle: Spinning Forward by Terri DuLong Non-fiction: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis Phone: The Anvil of the World by Kage Baker Computer: Random small pdfs Well Education Mind: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Angel Girl: Water Babies by Charles Kingsley Audiobook: The Blind Side by Micheal Walter (I think lol) Total Read for 2014: 71

I just started The Blind Side on audiobook. I get my audiobooks from the library and listen to them in my car mostly when driving small children around...but one of my worries is that if I pick a book I haven't read it would be inappropriate but I don't know what they have until I get there and once I am there I don't have internet and if I did well small children would prevent me from spending a lot of time checking content. Any thoughts on how to pick safe for small ears audiobooks? Are there any you have heard or read that I could put on a list to see if they have it? (in my world safe for small children is no f word, none or very very very occasional use of other curse words, nothing past kissing, and none or limited non descriptive violence) Bonus points if it would interest my kids and me at the same time lol.

Facial Affect is one of the tests they did with my dd and they said she actually did ok but based on information from 2 teachers and us they determined while she was able to identify in a test affect she was not able to use that information in real life thus confirming another dr diagnosis of ASD (high functioning)...I think it is one part of many and when combined with other information is accurate but is not 100% either way on its own.

So I got a bunch of books finished this week (this is what happens when lots of books are being read at the same time...some weeks only 1 book gets finished but then along comes a week when everything gets finished). Finished: Spiritual Stewardship by Richard Eyre Gulliver Travels by Johnathan Swift - coming around to this one more when I went to do the WEM outline and realized that if I just focused on a couple chapters in each section for the real meaty parts and understand the rest is more the travelogue in order to get to the more important points I was better able to see the political satire and the way he built it up starting with just a little bit of stuff in Lilliput to the huge amount of commentary in the last couple of chapters. Han Cristian Anderson Fairy Tales Dancing in the Low Country by James Villas AWFUL!!!! A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Doyle Conan Interesting and different from what I expected...this was my first experience with Sherlock Holmes and I found it interesting...it lost me a bit in the middle (right when CD 2 stopped and CD 3 started it started the story within the story and it really confused me) but once it went back to Sherlock it all made sense...I hope to get the next one from the library on Tuesday Life Before Life by Richard Eyre Working on: Fiction: Secrets of the Heart by JoAnn Jolley Kindle: Spinning Forward by Terri DuLong Non-fiction: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis Phone: The Anvil of the World by Kage Baker Computer: Empty Nest by Richard and Linda Eyre Well Education Mind: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Angel Girl: Water Babies by Charles Kingsley Audiobook: Next Sherlock Holmes hopefully Total Read for 2014: 70

So today was a very successful day I finished 2 books. Han Cristian Anderson Fairy Tales This was fun..I enjoyed reading some of the classic fairy tales and get introduced to so new ones I hadn't read or heard before. Dancing in the Low Country by James Villas AWFUL! I hated this book! It was so biased and just not my cup of tea and just awful!! I will never ever read this again. Up next: Spinning Forward by Terri DuLong and Secrets of the Heart by JoAnn Jolley

My son points out all the men who are not wearing tops by saying they are naked I am sure he would do the same with a woman lol...but we just talk about the reason why we choose to dress in the manner we do but that others may not believe what we do and thats ok. I do think maybe we should start to get over the whole breasts as a bad thing...maybe then we would have a healthier attitude towards things like breast feeding and body image.