Thank you, and everyone who said kind of the same thing. You are right. Just because he seems to grasp the concept quickly doesn't mean the other parts are not hard. And they are. I need to remember that. He needs to figure out how to make it work, but I do need to have sympathy and help him strategize. For those saying a more conceptual approach might help..can you give me some suggestions? I HATE to have wasted the 80 dollars on KB, but I would hate to make him more and more frustrated even more. (argh...already did that with Spanish this year...that was almost 100 dollars down the drain, but he is doing much better wiht the more visual program we switched to.) Oh, and I went and apologized to him, and told him that I do understand that this is hard for him, and I will try to do what it takes to make it better, as long as he agrees to work hard. He did say he finds the whole subject confusing. He did Math Mammoth for 5th and 6th and did well. Maybe a switch IS what we need. Math U See isn't cheap, but we are selling my late MIL's house next week, so have some money coming in..i guess now is the time to change if we are going to change. Any other suggestions?

Agreed. The WORST fights are with two females. That "B" word that women are called...well there is a reason it is used that way. Female dogs fight viciously. Honestly, it sounds like Bella doesn't have great doggie communication skills and doesn't know when to stop. You can TRY to teach her to back off by calling her away as soon as you see Millie getting annoyed, but you would have to keep them separate whenever you are not there to supervise. If you leave them alone together you may come home to a dead dog. I'm not trying to be mean, but it is the truth. Bella SHOULD be listening to Millie's signals, and isn't and so Millie is escalating because she has no other real recourse.

I think I still have mine from my 2 year old's birth, in the garage. Not sure what kind of shape it is in after being in the hot garage for two years, but you can have it for the cost of shipping, if you want it. It was cleaned after the birth, but if you want you could buy a liner for it from one of the water birth sites.

thank you, and everyone else that replied! I was so upset I actually put him in the lottery for next year for a local charter school, then read all these replies. You are all SO right. I"m going to tell him that this year a majority of his grade is going to be based on reading the question carefully and showing his work clearly. That the important thing is to learn those skills as he will need them the rest of his schooling, so that is our focus. Thank you for reminding me that the skill and character issues are more important than the algebra!

brilliant

I think not letting her go to social events where you don't know the kids/parents is kind of cruel if you are putting her in school with all kids/parents you don't know. IN that situation I'd call the parents, talk to them a bit, then drop her off and pick her up.

You mean you aren't going to babysit them for me while i help DS13? Hmm...we might be able to swing it in the evening when DH is home, but that doesn't work every evening. The times I sit with him he seems to do just fine, other than simple mistakes. I need to crack down on him showing his work more neatly, but honestly, half the time it is that he read the question wrong...wondering how much of that is careless and how much is the learning disability.

Thought about this more, and realized this may be just him wanting me to work with him more? I've got a 1 month old, and a 2 year old, so this year I picked curriculum that he could do independently. I don't think he likes that, and that may be part of the problem. hmm..not sure how to fix that exactly.

deep breaths....I just dont know what to do. Or if I should do anything. He is 13, in 7th grade, and driving himself and me insane over math. He is doing Algebra 1, using Kinetic Books. He is very very smart. That is most of the problem. He is used to being able to kind of pay attention, figure things out himself, and get it all right immediately with no real effort. Turns out Algebra doesn't work that way. Which, in all reality, makes it really good that he is doing it, as he needed to learn how to work at something. But, he does NOT like this. He also, to be fair, has some learning disability issues. He's been tested and has coding issues, so looking at a problem then writing it down is harder for him than most people. He also has poor working memory. But, that's not going away, and his IQ more than makes up for it. As I told him, math is not going to get easier so time to realize that and just do the work. I thought he was doing better. He was getting better scores on the practice problems. Then he failed his last quiz. This is the second one he's failed. (last one he got a B). He did it at his father's house and they went over it. It was simple mistakes mostly. Plus I guess still some confusion on negative numbers. So we will go back over negatives and watch some Kahn videos. But the real problem is his attitude. I guess he told his father that he shouldn't have to do highschool work in middle school. That none of his friends at public school have to do this. Which is true..his friends in public school are average students at best and not in honors classes, not taking academic electives, etc. But my son is gifted, and has the ability to do more than they do. Plus, money wise, he needs to maximize his chances for scholarships. So he needs to be on an honors track, which in this area means Algebra in 7th grade. And again, if he would really apply himself I think he is more than capable. He just doesn't like it and doesn't want to do it. Any thoughts?

Been there, done that. Never developed into any problems. Never had protein in my urine, never had any trouble. Ended up with BIG, healthy babies. For me I think the blood pressure is a response to the added weight I'm carrying. To help you can take magnesium (Natural Calm is a great brand and easily available, you can order it on amazon, and trust me, get one of the lemonade flavors, not the cherry).

I don't like it, we were not supposed to say it growing up, and I'm in my 30s. But I don't have a better suggestion. other than what we kids called it growing up, which was to "step on a frog". NO IDEA where that came from.

my mom says "great shakes alive" instead of great SAKES alive. As in "goodness, gracious, great sakes alive!" I don't correct her becauase, really, neither makes sense anyway.

eh, let it go. My name is Katie, and I just am at the point where I spell it for everyone, and assume they will get it wrong and spell it Katy anyway. No big deal.

Inductions do tend to start on a monday and end on a tuesday. That said, in odd coincidences, my last two kids were both born on wednesdays, and both at 41 weeks 5 days. Wish I'd known they would be so predictable! (first, different father, was 38 weeks 2 days, and a Friday)

He would eat a bunch that night, then after that would need to ask before eating a piece. That way I made sure it was not right before a meal, not overly excessive. Then as he got older I relaxed control and just kept it in the cabinet. He could come get a piece, but not take the whole bag and munch. Now he just keeps it in his room. Honestly though, we generally still have a bunch left at Easter and have to throw it away. And then the Easter Candy lasts for months too.

I just choked on my stew. Awesome!

Are you paying for that school? If so, I'd say he has to stay as you don't want your money wasted. Or he has to pay you back before he can use any money towards an apartment, rent, moving, etc.

Does your community celebrate any form of Halloween? If so, how? I'm teaching a co-op on this and would love to hear about any celebrations outside the USA. I know it isn't as common other places, but still, any input would be great.

when I got Bs and Cs it was because I didn't do the homework. I just didn't, and so lost points. Or I didn't understand the concept as well as I thought I did. Or I forgot stuff once looking at the test.

I did a lot of research a few years ago. There just isn't enough evidence that it actually does anything great. It works best in people with strong immune systems, who don't really need it anyway, and barely works in people that have weak immune systems. There are articles out there by the guy that helped develop the vaccine about how there really isn't evidence that it works well.

Same here.

spoke with them earlier. because we know what is causing the fever i can treat at home and was given tylenol dosages. oh, and the 2 year old is the one that was so hot, the baby was low grade. in case that was unclear. 2 year old's fever did break, thankfully.

2 year old is burning up, not sure how high but she had the chills and was HOT. I gave her motrin (alternating with tylenol) a half hour early, and it helped some. She's in bed for now. The baby was running a mild fever a few hours ago, so he's behind her. Please, pray he doesn't get as sick. He's only 1 month old.

It's time. It is. She is in pain, wasting away, and spends her days laying in her own urine. That isn't any quality of life. If you don't euthanize her, what would be the benefit of her continuing like this? At this point she is going to go soon, and I don't see that giving her a few more weeks of laying in her own urine, in pain, is going to be a blessing to her. On the contrary, sparing her that would be the kind thing to do. A dog that isn't suffering in some way would not lay around in the crate all day, in her own waste. That is the sign of a suffering animal. She has nothing left...please let her go. Look at it this way...if you euthanize her, but it is the wrong thing, the worst that happens is you cheated her out of a few weeks, but really bad weeks. If you don't euthanize her, and it is the wrong decision, the worst that happens is she suffers greatly. Better to go to doggie heaven a few days early than to suffer needlessly.

what's funny is he didn't want pizza, so picked up a premade salad at the deli for himself! So no, that wasn't the motive. He just called...and this time clarified the medication and asked what kind of juice.