Reinforcing it sounds like a good plan. I'm sorry for all the anxiety this has caused. Who could have predicted all the issues here? All the play set posts lately have convinced me not to buy a backyard play set, yikes.

I can see it! You look great! I just did the same thing. How liberating! Of course, maybe no one else can see me and it's all imaginary!

Practice with the epipen trainers. Practice as if you were injecting your DD, and have her practice too. Have her practice on herself. And get some cute shoes. :) No ideas on the shots - our allergy shot experience (for other allergens) was not good. Don't forget: if you use an epipen, it's a 911 call. Don't try to drive her to the er yourself!

This is my only concern. No regrets otherwise, and I wouldn't call this a regret as much as a concern. We are doing our best to plan for it.

Magic Eraser? We had an incident involving our table and a sharpie recently, and magic eraser helped.

Our DSs sound similar: no dairy, no wheat, but here we have no peanuts, nuts or seeds, plus nothing raw. No eggs in our house due to my allergies. Ugh. When we stopped dairy, DS did initially loose weight but he's normalized again. Is your guy no longer snacking? Would altering his snacking help? Sunbutter (you said peanut butter's ok so sub that as appropriate) and gf bread or veggies or apples, meats, seeds and nuts for your guy, other safe snack foods. Olives ok? You can sub Earth Balance for butter, and there are some good coconut milk ice creams out there. He will always snack on leftover burgers, oddly. My kiddo here really began snacking differently - mini meals, really. There are always leftover cooked meats and veggies. This afternoon he made garlic toast with Rudi's gluten free bread and Earth Balance butter. Not sure any of the above is helpful, but I wanted to let you know that the initial weight loss slowed down as we adjusted to the new diet. ETA: if your DS likes yogurt, there's a coconut milk yogurt that's not too bad. Might be good in smoothies. :)

Creepy. I'd have left, too. There's no point wasting your time feeling creeped out, and exchanging the ticket times wasn't a big deal. Let the creepy guy watch the movie alone. Ick.

:grouphug: How stressful. Beaming good work/pay vibes your way!

Yay! Congratulations!!!!!

DS's asthma improved after we found his wheat and dairy allergies (IgE but not enough to cause anaphylaxis, thankfully), and he removed those. When he's in a flare up, we give him Liposomal Glutathione supplements, to reduce inflammation. While not a diet specifically, you might consider supplements, too. When things were very bad, years ago, we did the glutathione in IV form, at the doc's office. A diet sounds like a good idea, and I'll be watching this thread, too.

So sorry! Glad she is ok, though. I don't know of any recourse, just wanted to say that I'm glad your DD is ok.

I'm sorry this has happened to you. This is a community you've been part of since you were 4. That's rough, and choosing to leave would involve a lot of emotions, on top of an already emotional experience. I didn't mean for any of my post to add to your distress, and hope that it didn't. Since the all caps post from you came right after mine... I wanted to apologize in case what I said hurt your feelings or added to the pain. I truly feel for you here. What a rough week you've had, and what a tough, vulnerable position you've been put into.

Why on earth would one want to continue attending church there? I don't attend a church, so may be wrong in supposing it to be a safe, welcoming, peaceful place for the members. I would not feel safe, welcome, or peaceful there. And certainly, I'd feel judged, if not targeted as others have suggested. If this were a different scenario, a co-op or school maybe, would the responses be different? Would removing one's family from the situation be easier? I cannot imagine seeing my children having nightmares as a result of an ill founded report and continuing to socialize or regularly interact with the people who called and told lies (2 black eyes that weren't there) to purposely disrupt my family. It seems to me that not protecting my family in that situation would be letting evil win. Not knowing which church member did this would make it worse. I would never relax. Maybe I simply don't understand the concept of being married to a particular church. I would think that you can worship the same god wherever you are, so why not make an effort to find that safe, welcoming, peaceful, non-judgmental home?

Has this been said already? ...Where is the laundry room?? If it is not next to the bedrooms or in some other *very* convenient place, can it be moved closer? Moving into a 3 story house with bedrooms on 3rd floor, laundry room in (finished) basement didn't seem like a big deal to me when there were just two of us. Multiply that laundry a few times, and that equals a lot of treks up and down the stairs with toddlers, or dashing up or down while kiddos entertain themselves. Never again. Nope. Not happening. Laundry convenience is at the top of my list. :D

I, too, understand the criticisms here, but most of my concerns are on the board here anyway, and it's public. I agree with many of the concerns above, but haven't seen the one that most often impacts our family. Homeschooling in our area is primarily religious. There are many homeschoolers, but for the most part they are connected into a religious group, and have a distinct flavor as a result. Our family is completely secular - we are atheist - and I find that when we introduce ourselves as homeschoolers there is an immediate assumption that we are religious, and that we do not teach certain subjects (think science) the way that we do. I often fight the urge to qualify the statement that we homeschool with a follow up like, "We're not religious! We do it for health reasons. DS has severe allergies." But it's really none of anyone's business why we homeschool, and DS's health situation is his to share, so I try not to do that. It bothers me, though, that people automatically lump us into a group to which we do not belong, and make decisions about us accordingly. I wonder if we miss opportunities to meet people who think the way we do, because they make this assumption about us.

I had never heard of this option till you posted. Thanks. DH works for a German company, and the opportunity to move there is always with us. We generally put it off, knowing that homeschooling is not just illegal there, but probably viewed with ... misunderstanding or suspicion. :) But it is nice to hear that there is a possibility of making it work. OP, please keep us posted on what you decide and how it works.

The EB has visited here, and gone. Baskets filled, eggs hidden. No jelly bean trails here - wow, that would be fun but our dogs would gobble up the trails and maybe the goodies! I left the baskets on the kitchen table this year. :) No nuts, no wheat, no dairy and no food dyes. Kiddos are getting a lot of chocolate (special free-of-everything chocolate), and toys. I am seriously disappointed at not having a bag of Robin's Eggs to steal!!!

Sending you warmth and strength. You're in our thoughts often here, too, and DH often asks after you.

Disgusting. Sick. We have a friend married to a Ukrainian, and she calls Putin "Putler." I didn't realize how apt that name would be.

Yum. No recipe help for you but just ... Yum!

We love our VW passat wagon. Love, love , love it. Get the rubber floor mats - awesome!!!! And the dogs just pile in the back. :)

I don't see how this is helpful to the OP, or her question. Sharing how one parents as an athiest does seem applicable. And whether our kids practice or might practice a religion seems beside the point. My son may or may not be an athiest. It doesn't change how I parent him.

How dreadfully sad. I am an athiest, and I don't choose evil. In fact, I'd have to say that overall, I have a much brighter, positive view of humanity. I don't need the threat of hell to convince me that there are rights and wrongs, that treating others with kindness is the right thing to do, that living ethically is a good choice, that the golden rule applies to everyone. My child does not watch inappropriate shows (for his age) or use foul language. He is kind to other children and has a finely honed sense of right and wrong that has nothing to do with fear. In fact, I think that teaching our children to be kind, to be ethical *without* a sense of fear is a gift that we give to them. Part of living ethically is respecting that others may choose differently, so we don't make fun of people who choose religion, nor do we say that they are [insert insult of choice, including that they are evil, or choosing evil].

We have a weekly service. They do the bathrooms (we have 4, it's ridiculous, really), kitchen, floors, vacuum furniture (under cushions, etc), change linens, dust, spot clean walls, inside of windows where the dogs noses make streaks, clean all glass (windows/sliding doors, etc). I didn't list out everything they do to clean the bath or kitchen but when they leave - both sparkle. They will do extras as I request if they are small, or for a fee I can schedule ahead for bigger extra jobs (cleaning out the fridge, cleaning the oven, all the windows, etc). We do the pick up routine before they arrive. Sometimes it is stressful if we're in a hurry, but the pay off is worth it. It is not a big deal for me to ask the kids to pick up their rooms and help make sure that random stuff in the common areas is put away, and this means we absolutely get to it, and don't let it pile up. Our service charges a flat fee per house - $80 a week. Our house is small (despite having 4 baths! We only have 1300 feet!) but my friends with very large McMansions pay the same fee. I tip the cleaners each week, because I know they are working on a fairly low hourly wage, and they work hard. Very hard. Is it worth it? Yes. It is to us. We have allergies and asthma here, and this means that I am free to do other essential cleaning each week that other people might not do weekly (we remove all curtains, etc and wash in hot weekly; I wash all bedding materials, pillows and stuffies in hot weekly, and there is more). It helps cut down on the indoor allergens. DH feels that if the DC were in school, they would have a salaried teacher, full time. So he views homeschooling as a full time job. He wants me to be able to focus on that, completely. He's a sweetie, because I could do both - but it's a gift from him. I should add, too, that I have had chronic health issues for ... hmmm, 15 years now ... and having a cleaning service means that when my energy is limited, and I only have so many "spoons" per day ... that energy is spent on the kids, or DH, or something else that matters. Rather than, say, the bathroom. :) ETA: We found this service via word of mouth. We've tried others, some much more expensive, but this one's the best by far. Asking around and finding good recommendations from happy clients is definitely the way to go.

Ask your dr. Personally, I'd go to an allergist and get tested. I recently developed a shellfish allergy. And the first reactions I had sound like yours. Reactions are now more severe.