This last week my DSS14 came forward and told us that before we had custody (his bio mom was on the lam with him) that he was abused. We called the police and they had the child abuse experts do a full evaluation and taped interview. It turns out it was incredibly extensive and we are all reeling. I don't know what else to say except please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

The kids had chicken hot dogs and I am having spaghetti with butter and cheese :) The Pacific NW is cold but no snow, it is actually clear and sunny! I am trying to create portfolios for the kids' old schoolwork and we just got back from the library.

I agree completely! I was a preschool teacher. I have worked in daycares that had preschool programs and then I have worked in preschools. In the former I was a daycare provider who did preschool activities and in the latter I was a teacher. The daycares had rooms for 2 year olds and then rooms for the 3 year olds. I agree that those programs should have more flexibility for children who are not yet potty trained. However at the preschools I taught, (most were attached to private K-12 schools) even more staff would not have really helped. They are schools and the preschool classes were every bit as academic as the upper grades were, with the exception of a longer recess and an extra snack time. We taught all day. I had 17 children and an aide and that was plenty. Even if I had extra staff just to change diapers the child would have missed out on crucial activities. It isn't like the children are just playing dress up. They got report cards and the Kindergarten class wouldn't allow the children to move up until they had meet certain criteria, which included knowing all the sounds to each letter, being able to write them all, basic addition and subtraction, etc. Also like has been mentioned, the school was set up as a school, I am not even sure where it would have been appropriate to set up a diaper changing area. Now, whether or not I agree with that much pressure on 3 and 4 year olds is quite another story! :glare: Let's just say my twins only came with me on field trip days! lol

:lurk5: We go through them ridiculously fast! I buy Kitchen Aid and they last a little longer but not much.

We are using CA for my 8th grader. I consider it homeschooling :) They involve the parents a LOT. We have had mostly positive experiences with it. The teachers stay in close contact with me and listen to my opinions. I don't think it is a bad decision at all!

I did :)

The twins will be doing: A Beka Math 4 A Beka Language 4 MFW ECC WS 3 ACSI Spelling 4 A Beka Poetry would LOVE to find a German program we can afford DSS14: Continuing with Connections Academy unless we move to UT for DH's job in which case i have NO idea what he will be doing

In most states either the PS or Early Intervention will do a free assessment, which one depends on the age. My twins both had major speech issues, both had tons of speech therapy from age 2 on. One is still working hard and is really far behind but the other one is doing great now. The assessments are fun and can't hurt :)

That is so hard! I am sorry :grouphug:

I like Grayson for a boy better :)

What's for lunch? We are all having various leftovers. Fun. What's grating on your nerves today? We have all been sick, Monday one twin had a 104.2 temp. Today we are getting back into school for the first time since Thurs. It is not going well. They are doing the work correctly just so, so, so slowly! We are only on subject 2 at noon!! Also the complaining of my dss14! What do you wish you had the energy to do today but the reality is you probably won't do it? Anything beyond getting through school. I am still congested and just want to go to bed! Just teaching is going to take all of the patience I have. Oh crap just remembered church tonight *sigh* so I guess I cannot go to bed early. Having desert today? I wish, we have no chocolate! Maybe it would help me stop whining lol

Here's ours: 8:30 awake make bed, shower, dressed & lotion, breakfast, meds, teeth, math flashcards, and chore (haha we have a white board with magnets to mark off that I just copied) 9:30 school starts math, language, reading, penmanship, Health, Science, History (still attempting to finish the A Beka year) Now that I am using the filing system,we are done about 1 or 1:30 daycare kids eat lunch at 12:30 my kids eat lunch at 1:30 chores and play inside or out until dinner the kids then pick up, finish their chores, meds, teeth, read until 9:30 or 10

I wish I had answers. *sigh* All of my children are highly distractable. :lurk5:

Most likely this case is nothing like my household, but just to give an idea of what *could* be the other side of the story. We have an 11 year old daughter. She was only with her birthmom for 11 months but apparently that was all it took. She steals constantly (you can be watching her, she is very good at it), lies about everything, climbs out her window at night, stays up until everyone is asleep to wreck havoc on the house, pees on things when she is mad, hurts the other kids, refuses to get dressed for days, doesn't shower for weeks unless we physically make her and I could go on. We now have security cameras, alarms on doors, alarms on the outside of windows (thieves probably think we are nuts LOL), locks on everyone else's door, etc We have seen multiple therapists and have been told by everyone that we have already done everything they would recommend. She is the "most disturbed child" they have ever seen. Nothing has worked. We can't afford long-term hospitalization, it is VERY expensive, even with our insurance. All the help we can procure has done nothing. Most people look at our situation and think we our horrible, no little tiny 60 pound girl could possibly be that bad (until they spend a few hours at our house anyway, then they are horrified). If she did something like that, I would press charges in a heartbeat, if for no other reason then a juvenile record opens up other types of help for us. But also because because children like her just don't *get it* until there are very serious consequences, they never believe it will happen to them. That all being said, most likely the parents are nuts, but just in case, i won't pass judgement :tongue_smilie:

I don't wear pajamas so I get dressed but I just put on around-the-house clothes, yoga pants or something. I usually don't get a shower until the afternoon since my daycare kids get here pretty early and I am NOT a morning person. The kids get up at 8:30 and shower, lotion, dressed, eat, meds, brush teeth and school starts at 9:30. However I don't care what they get dressed in. Many times it is the pajamas they will wear that night. We don't wear "good" clothes just staying at home so if they put on clothes it is their "play" clothes. My boys are all so wild and crazy there is no lazy days no matter what they are wearing lol. We don't wear pajamas out of the house though unless they are sick. :) We also do no shoes in the house due to the dust it adds for the asthmatics here so no one, even guests, are ever wearing shoes.

I live in the Portland Metro and let me tell you it is liberal here! The homeschooling laws are much better in OR than in WA. We don't have sales tax, people pump your gas for you (don't believe the hype, gas isn't more expensive because of it), we have few bugs, no snakes, and it is gorgeous. An hour from the mountains, an hour from the coast, the end of the Oregon Trail, we have a great children's science museum and Lewis and Clark's Fort Clatsop, the list just goes on. :) :) :) I am really selling it because we are about to be transferred to Salt Lake and all I can think of is all the stuff I am going to miss!

My twins were born at 33 weeks and pretty big for their gestational age. They both have asthma, one very severely. He spends a week or so in the hospital every year due to pneumonia. He also has a hyper-reactive immune system The other has severe speech, language, anxiety and now reading disorders. He can barely read at all at 10 y.o. but completely understands phonics, it just doesn't come together for him- partially due to his speech and language difficulties and partially due to a processing issue. They are the sweetest things ever though :) Oh wait they also both have to wear glasses I forgot that lol They are far-sighted. One needs glasses only for reading, the other has more going on so he has to wear them all the time. Okay I think that is all!

Mine probably won't be too encouraging... Sorry! Did you have to go on bedrest and why/when? I went on bedrest at about 20 weeks, I was dilating and effaced 50%. Was hospitalized at 30 weeks for a week to try to stop my labor. They were born at 33 weeks and HUGE for how early they were: 4 lb 8 oz and 5 lb 3 oz. They were in the NICU only 9 days. Were you able to nurse both babies? How did you work it out? I had to pump and use tiny bottles for the first 3 months because they didn't know how to suck but I just had them try to nurse every time before I gave a bottle and the transition went fine. I nursed the boys for 16 months and had no problems after that. Baby 1 always nursed on the left and Baby 2 on the right. That way when I was tired I knew who I had fed lol. Did you have to have a C-Section? No but my twins were 118 minutes apart and I wish I had!! LOL If you homeschool, how did you do it the first year? They were my first sorry :) I had to have an epidural at the hospital where I was, whether or not they put meds in it because of the risk of an emergency C-section. I also had to deliver in the Operating Room so they wouldn't have to move me.

I struggle with this too. We have a freezer and once every three months we go to a natural meat market and buy meat in bulk and that helps a lot. Costco (if you have it) has gone to lots of organics for reasonable prices (even their salsa). For the most part though I really have to balance whether it is worth it. Unfortunately we just can't afford to eat all-natural, organic foods like I would like to :(

I'm 29 and terrified because I am not done having children (only had twins at 18) and my mom never had a period after my little brother was born at 32! I am praying I have a little more time than that :)

We are VERY conservative- for our state anyway lol. The only co-ed sleepovers my children attend are with my little sisters (my house and my mom's house). They are 4, 7, and 13. My boys are 10, 10, and 14. They can stay up and watch movies but at a certain time (usually whenever I am going to sleep) the two older ones retire to separate rooms and the little ones make beds all over the living room. As the little ones get to ages of awareness they will be moved to separate rooms lol. We tell the older two that they are too old for sleeping around the opposite sex. When I was little our cousins always slept over and the same thing was true, as we approached puberty we had separate rooms. There was never an issue and we are all really close now. :) We would NEVER allow our kids to sleep over at a girl's house or for unrelated girls to come over for the night. Out of curiosity (not judgement at all) why do some people not allow sleepovers with the same sex? My kids have never asked so I haven't thought about it too much but I did as a child with children of my parents close friends and in high school with friends that my parents had met their parents. I am pretty strict about the houses my kids go to even for a few hours though and can't imagine who I would allow them to stay the night with besides family.

One of my twins has severe speech issues (articulation and language). He tests at the .01% in multiple areas. One thing I wish we could have done is get him private ST, he has been doing school therapy (you don't have to attend PS to get it here) for years. He did EI and then attended "communication pre-school" through afterwards, it was basically ST through play. He loved it and I think it helped a little. He is ten now and while he talks better, he has not moved up percentile-wise and now has a reading disorder. He only reads 40 wpm in DIBELS even though he has been reading for three years, his therapists think it is due to his speech problems. My experience is a lot of children with speech delays get frustrated VERY easily, often resulting in biting and fits. (Not to say there is nothing else going on though.)

:lurk5:

Little disappointed with the cheaper ones. You can't change fonts and the basic one is kind of ugly and institutional looking. Look carefully at the options on the different label makers :)

I got pregnant right before my 18th birthday and found out at 8 weeks I was having twins. This option was offered to me. I didn't take it and was upset for days they had even asked me. My twins have had multiple health issues but are ten now. Their special connection is unbelievable and of course I can't imagine life without them.