By the way, I absolutely love this! That is how I attempt to function as well.

Thanks so much to you all for all your replies! I really appreciate it! Regarding what I quoted...this is exactly the conclusion I came to yesterday as I was milling all this over. I would really like the testing just for my benefit and for the extra knowledge it would give me, but really, we're overall doing okay and plugging along and I think it could wait another year or two. The speech is an issue we need to be proactive about and as we have limited funds, should be where our focus goes to. It's hard because he's a smart kid, but the ways that people normally might express that (speech and written word) are his most challenging areas. Oh Elizabeth, I looked up the PROMPT therapy. There is one about an hour away. Farther than I'd like to go, but not awful. I looked around on their website some and might call them later. I'm not totally sure that is what he needs from reading on there, but would like to talk to them more and see. When he has worked on sounds before (and now when we remind him), he can correctly say his "l" and "r" sounds alone and in words when he is focused on it. But it hasn't stuck or carried into everyday speech in general most of the time and again, he just tends to slur and not be crisp. If we ask him to repeat, he can do it clearly almost all of the time. But again, not seeming to stick in day to day without reminders. There are two pediatric therapy places in our area that have both speech and OT at them so they would be ideal that we could do them both at the same place. One seemed very pricey to me ($90 for a half hour). Waiting to hear from the other but believe they are more reasonable. Oh Elizabeth, also fascinating all you said about low tone. I don't think my husband or I are. He's fairly athletic (course I guess Michael Phelps is too :laugh: ) I was not at all athletic as a child (I mean, not at all) but am fairly active now. When I did some reading online, it talked about fine motor control too. I will say my husband has the worse fine motor skills ever. He still asks me to cut stuff out for him and actually my other son (8) used to be in OT for fine motor when he was smaller (4) and improved a lot. That one still can't tie his shoes. So there may be some genetic stuff there. It hasn't been a huge issue in our everyday life (he rides a bike well, swims well...but is clumsy and such), so I think in order of importance, speech comes first. Then low tone stuff. Then later re-testing. Definitely before high school. Thanks for letting me think about some of this. Also it was super encouraging to me that several of you mentioned a success story. This was my first thought: :confused1: as it wouldn't be the initial way I think of us. I think it can be easy to focus on the current issues and forget how far he has really come. I really wouldn't have thought a few years ago that he would be reading Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and that I'd be yelling at him to turn off his light at night and go to bed! We worked REALLY hard his first grade year at the vision therapy and OG stuff. Well, actually, and speech too that year. The vision therapy made a tremendous difference for him...really huge. And then the OG kind of went slowly and surely from there to where he is now. But after that it's just been slow plugging away at spelling, writing, memorizing math facts, and again, SLOW speeds of doing them. So I can forget all the good. So thank you! I'll be back to investigating speech and OT this coming week and going from there.

Hi all, Hoping you can help me think through some things with my oldest son (almost 10). About four years ago, when he was struggling terribly with learning to read and school in general, we had some testing done by an educational psychologist. He was diagnosed as dyslexic. His IQ was above average, working memory average, processing speed low. We started Orton Gillingham based tutoring (and I was eventually certified in OG so that I could teach him that way). He also had vision therapy for tracking/convergence issues and the VT worked on his primitive reflexes. Anyway, fast forward 4 years and he is an incredible reader with amazing comprehension. Would read all day if he could. Understands math very well, does well with mental math, he just works slowly. Struggles greatly with spelling and writing although I feel they are slowly improving. The great thing about homeschooling is I can accommodate him so our school days are fairly smooth most of the time (although there are days where his slow speed drives me loony...although I hope I don't show it!). We are required to do standardized testing in my state and we do the Stanford Achievement Tests. Other than spelling, he does very well on the tests. Of course, it requires no writing. But I am wondering if it's time to do another evaluation with an educational psychologist since it's been four years. I guess I just wonder what an outside observer would say, but on the other hand, school is overall going well so I wonder if I'm overthinking it? But I wonder if I am so used to accommodating him that I don't have a great handle on how hard some things are for him? Not sure if that makes sense. He's just so different from four years ago I wonder if retesting would be valuable or just a repeat of before. I guess I'm wondering how often people do that sort of testing with kids with LDs. The bigger issue is his speech. He's much better than he used to be but he continues to struggle with "r" and "l". He is definitely understandable most of the time, but just not totally clear. Kind of like the beginning/ending of words are not "crisp" if that makes sense. He has had therapy on and off but not a lot lately. It was very traditional therapy and I'm wondering if I need to look at OT as well. He has never been diagnosed with low muscle tone, but I'm pretty sure he has it. Probably not to a huge degree...maybe low end of normal? Or just lower than that? He could not do a sit up or push up to save his life. :) He's just kind of...floppy. Running is not fluid. So I guess I'm wondering how much the low muscle tone is also affecting his speech. So I don't know if that would mean looking at OT and Speech at the same time? Or a different kind of speech therapy? Or if I should definitely do OT for low muscle tone? We've mainly just thought of him as not an athletic kid (although he has done soccer and basketball with our town), but maybe we should be looking at it? All this is influenced by the fact that we will pay for everything out of pocket. We have some savings we can use but it's not a ton. And it's just so expensive to do all of this. So I'm just trying to think through it all and feeling a bit overwhelmed. I guess I don't want to look back and realize I should have done something and didn't. Thanks for any thoughts!! Oh and I just picked up Dianne Craft's Brain Integration book at convention last weekend. Was thinking about doing that with him coming up.

Two things...I would go into the setup on the phone and make it where it can't be used without entering in a password. Make sure it's one he won't figure out or change them periodically. Second, we're there games/apps already on it? If so I would delete them for now. Was he downloading them? Do you already have internet service on it? Trying to figure out what he was doing on there. I know these don't address the deception which definitely needs to be punished but also trying to think through some practical things to do.

It's actually sped up for me. I have prime but more often than not it comes in one day instead of two.

Some of my favorites that are minus gluten and regular sugar (well and dairy and eggs too cause I can't have those either): 1. Avocado chocolate pudding. Just mix ripe avocado, unsweetened cocoa, and maple syrup. Tastes like a dark chocolate pudding. 2. Banana ice cream. Freeze a few bananas in your freezer (unpeeled in a ziplock). Put in blender with a tiny amount of milk (I use coconut milk since I can't have dairy), Cocoa powder and maple syrup. Sometimes also add a nut butter. Or if you like fruity desserts blend with milk and fruit instead. 3. Coconut date rolls. Just made of coconuts and dates. A couple of my local health stores sell them. I'm obsessed.

As a former English teacher, I found having them memorized to be quite helpful (I taught middle school and we actually learned them very early in the year). So my kids are memorizing them using the list found in FLL. OP, it is quite similar to your list.

I can't have any of those. Haven't been able to for a long time. It's tempting at first to find "subs" for anything. It's expensive and ultimately I just don't do it. Or not much. I eat lots of veggies, fruit, meat...and that's about it. Some nuts, olives, different oils, rice, hummus, etc... If you look up paleo recipes, you'll get great recipes because they leave all those out (some leave in dairy but that's easy to take out). I use almond milk, coconut milk, or rice milk. So Delicious makes a coconut milk ice cream. I usually make frozen banana ice cream I really like. I use Earth Balance (make sure to get the soy free one). As far as tortillas go, the health food store in our area sells rice based ones. Not sure of the brand...haven't bought them in a long time.

On Netflix from BBC we love Sherlock and Mi5. Not sure about Mi5 with kids. Also love parenthood and Friday Night Lights. Also The Unit (we had this on DVD so not sure where it is online). All have been ones we "binge watched".

We did this too. Bought an awesome disney Cinderella gown off ebay that was like new and brought tiara, make up, glitter spray for hair, and fun earrings. She loved it...and did it multiple days of our trip. Worked great and didn't cost much at all.

Thanks! That's all helpful to know. No commute is always better than having one but just looking at houses and like what I see better there. But I have been stuck on I-4 many a time in life and would love to avoid that if possible! Now if we could only afford a house in the beach..... I think it would also depend on where most of the kids activities were. Like if there were more homeschoolers/kids stuff in Deland we would go that way or vice versa.

Not normal. Never happened here. (Kids usually want to tell them something they've learned...don't think grandparents have ever asked once).

There is a possibility of us moving to Daytona area for a job in the next few months. Nothing definite at all, but I'd like to be thinking it through ahead of time. I have lived on the west coast of Florida in the past so I am familiar with the state/homeschooling laws in general. But I really don't know the Daytona area. Here are things I am wondering: --What activities/groups/etc are there for homeschool families? Classes, co-ops, field trips? Are there many people who homeschool here? --What about other kid activities--sports, gymnastics, swim teams? --Looking at realtor.com, I feel like we'd get more house for the money in an area like Deland. Is that true? How far away is that? (my husband would be working in Daytona Beach itself) Or where would you look for housing if working there? (would want to stay under about 200,000) --I'm curious how it, in general, compares to other parts of Florida for cost of living. We'd be on one salary and probably not a super big one. I don't know what else to ask...anything you can think of that is worth knowing about the area? I'm all ears! Thanks for any help!!

Much has already been said...st. Augustine is great. We love the space center for sure. We prefer west coast gulf beaches. If you went across 1-4 to the gulf side, Clearwater and Sarasota beaches are great. Off I-4 past Orlando is Lego Land. They typically have great discounts for homeschoolers. Last year was on Mondays...don't know for this year. If you ended up on the west coast, Lowry park zoo in Tampa is also great. I would rather take the time to drive to the west coast than the time to drive to the keys, particularly with kids. Just my opinion.

I have only heard it for boys.

Totally agree!!!! 3rd year here.

So sorry!! Honestly? When I hear your symptoms I think Lyme disease. Certainly hope not and I might think of it too much cause I have it, but it is possible. Always best to be caught sooner than later. Treating a recent case is so much easier than a chronic one. Hope it's not but felt like I needed to mention it.

We recently did a birthday party for my 8 year old ds at a local park. It's huge, tons of equipment, tons of tables. We didn't have bounce houses or anything, just food and the kids played on the equipment just like everyone else. We took up 2 out of maybe 8 tables (no one was sitting at any other tables). I was shocked by the behavior of other parents (kids I get). While we ate we had one mom and her daughter sit on a nearby bench thing a couple feet away and just watch us. They had a huge lunch box they were eating out of when we first got there so I really don't think it was a hunger issue...just weird and creepy. I think she was hoping we'd invite her to join in...but it was a boy's party with mostly boys 3 or 4 years older than her daughter. When I handed out party favors at the end (kids were taking them home, not playing with them there), I heard 3 different parents, say "Go ask her for some. She'll give you one." Total strangers. One told them to get a cupcake too. I'm really not stingy, but while I had a little food leftover, I didn't have enough for the whole park! And I had gotten "nicer" party favors and really didn't want to hand them to random strange children. Overall, it just shocked me. We were outside of the main play area, so it wasn't like handing them out while everyone was watching at all...the tables are decently far away from the main play area. Can't fathom telling my kids to go do that. And then keep asking. And then stare at me angrily when I tell their child no (one dad). Or keep waving and smiling at me (one mom).

We always struggle with this for my in-laws. This year I made them a movie box...they love movies and anything relaxing but need nothing. So the box contains a gift card to our local movie theater, a gift card to a local older theater that shows older movies, a redbox gift card, a DVD set of a tv show they like but started after the first season (so i got them season 1), couple boxes of "movie candy", and some gourmet popcorn. Oh and some plastic popcorn holders from targets dollar spot. Hope they like it!

Whole30 was huge for me in those last 5-10 pounds. I did it at the beginning of the year and have done a modified version of it since the 30 days were up. Love not counting calories. Book that goes with this is It Starts With Food. Or their website is whole9. While it wasn't that different from how I already ate, it was different enough to make a difference.

I vote for a second dog now. Since your other is so much older, I would just go with what you know you will eventually get. We have had a guinea pig. It was okay, but really, compared to a dog, there is just so much less interaction. Even though we did hold her a lot and try to play with her. And we did have some allergy issues with the hay so once ours died, we did not choose to get another one. So I would make sure if you have cat allergy issues, that the guinea pig (ours shed a TON) and the hay would not bother you. But for the ultimate question...would I get her one? Yeah, I would. If she has asked for this long and it is possible for you to have something in the house, I would do it.

I am originally from Florida...you don't want to spend your whole time driving. I am thinking to maximize the time and not drive too far, I would do the mountains in Western NC. The rest of NC would not give you the snow you would want, but if you went more towards say Grandfather mountain, you could find skiing and such around there. There is also tubing over there which is a blast if you don't want to ski. You could also go a little south of Grandfather Mountain towards Asheville and go to Biltmore Estate for a day. It's not like Colorado or the Northeast, but if you want to drive less and see snow, that would be my choice.

I have lived in both NC and FL. Both offer it. Moved from FL before we used it though. In NC while they do offer it, they did not deem my son as severe enough so we still had to go with private therapy. The ST at the school totally sympathized with me and said she agreed he needed it but he did not meet the criteria established by the state.

I didn't have those effects, but basically...it makes me feel pregnant...major bloating, sore breasts, nausea, etc... It has really messed with my head when I've been on it constantly questioning if I could be pregnant. And honestly, my symptoms when actually pregnant were not that bad.

For handwriting, handwriting without tears was fantastic for my boys with fine motor issues. Teachers guide is very helpful. My oldest is dyslexic and was helped a bunch by all about spelling (yes it is spelling but it is Orton gillingham based which is a program geared towards dyslexics). Or look at their all about reading program...we did not use it so I can't say one way or the other about it. We used hooked on phonics as a supplement (mainly the readers) but we needed more systemic full phonics approach than they offered. A great cheap option is Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. I really like it paired with AAS.