I bought some fund-raiser cookie dough a few weeks ago. It's the type that arrives frozen in little cookie dough globs and you place it on the cookie sheet and bake it. When I picked it up from the parent of the fund-raising child, she thanked me and mentioned when she picked it up from her child's coach, it was room temperature, but that it "has so many preservatives, it should be fine!" The box says it's perishable and to keep it frozen. So, would you bake it and eat it? Half my family says throw it away and half says it's fine. If you would eat it, would you mind elaborating on why you think it's safe to do so?

The only time I had an eat-in kitchen was in a pretty small house. I had a wood shelf with our art supplies in mason jars. It was so pretty and bright to look at, and it's the most artsy thing I've ever done.

Well, just to throw out another monkey wrench...unless the doc knows about EoE or is specifically looking for it, he/she won't typically take enough biopsies to know for sure. Just FYI. EoE is still considered rare, I think, and most docs aren't really looking for it. EoE is a very 'patchy' disease and the doctor scoping has to be somewhat of an expert, or maybe just get lucky. Best wishes to you and your DH. I hope the appointment is productive and he gets better soon!

Yeah...I don't know if I'd want to do that. I really do think they are doing the best they can. Sports are what keep a lot of the kids going to school around here rather than just dropping out, so they prioritize the sports programs over anything academic. The pattern is to hire brand new teachers and pay them a pittance until they gain experience. Then they move away to a better district where they make more money as soon as they can. But! I want to update! We diagrammed a few sentences out of DS's last essay and he immediately saw they were run on sentences. I was thrilled! We will continue that practice and add in at least one of the resources suggested in the thread. Thank you to everyone for the suggestions and replies!

The GI stuff sounds like a family member's description of eosinophilic esophagitis. (or eosinophilic gastritis or eosinophilic colitis). He's already had 3 PEs? Is it possible he has one now? The super high pulse, fatigue, nausea, etc are all symptoms. Do you have a pulse ox at home? Maybe check his O2 sats.

@Lori D. Thank you for the wonderful response. I respect your advice and I was hoping you'd chime in! The book by Joyce Herzog looks very promising. It's different from anything we've done so far. DS and I are both highly concrete, straightforward thinkers and we both love a book without fluff. It's interesting you mentioned this is the same way your dyslexic wrote. It does kind of seem like my ds gets overwhelmed. I just reread his last essay and noticed that the number of errors jumps exponentially as the essay goes on. For instance, his first paragraph is about 10% correct. By his last paragraph, there's just one long run on sentence without any capitalization or punctuation at all. He will pause where the periods should be, I think, because he knows where the period goes on some level, but can't seem to put it on the paper. He reads his essay aloud and pauses where the period should be, but isn't. In that way, he has a very hard time catching his own mistakes.

Yes. He understands punctuation when reading to understand sentences. He understands what the marks mean when he sees them, and a paragraph without punctuation is as hard for him to understand as it is for a typical 15 year-old. The disconnect comes when he writes a paragraph. There's not much rhyme or reason to where his punctuation marks are. Sometimes he gets it right, but most of the time, he doesn't. Thank you for the detailed reply. DS was administered the Weschler IQ test for children and the Wescher Individual Achievement Test III. His lowest scores (below average) were on the sentence composition portion of the WIAT III, incidentally. His sentence repetition scores were superior and his other sentence-and-writing-related metrics were average. He's great with science and math. I appreciate you mentioning Shape Coding. I just bought Hands-on English Linking Blocks by John Menken for something totally unrelated. Maybe my son would benefit from a run-through? I do think he needs more intervention than he's getting. The reality is that we live in a very poor, rural school district. I was able to get DS in for testing within a month of asking for it. We have an IEP in place and DS goes for a class every day where the teacher is supposed to be using the Wilson Reading System to remediate the dyslexia. The reality is the special ed teacher is also the coach for a few sports teams and is RARELY there. Even if he were there, I'm not sure he would be doing much good since he has zero (literally-it's his very first year teaching anywhere, any class) experience working with average-intelligence kids. The rest of the class is kids with very low IQs who are working at their mental-age level. Kids with severe disabilities. Kids with TBIs, Kids with extremely serious mental health disorders. That's what I'm dealing with, so I don't think I'll be able to get him any other help unless I drive three hours one-way to a larger city. I'm just really hoping it doesn't come to that!

Yes. He can't hear it when I do it. He inserts it in his own mind, I think, because it's his own writing and he knows what he means to say. He uses LibreOffice and he ignores the red and green correction squiggly lines. Frankly, I don't sit with him when he types or writes anymore. We have baggage from when I was extremely impatient with him before we got the dyslexia dx. I did all the things you're not supposed to do, and now it stresses him out for me to sit with him while writing or for me to check his writing for his outsourced class before he turns it in. Sad, but true. I read his essays after they've been graded and returned. The instructor is exceedingly gracious with her corrections. I was hoping to do some targeted work on this skill area over the summer. He's a mix of contradictions. He seems to understand many grammar rules and their benefits to readers and writers, but for whatever reason can't/doesn't apply them to his own writing process. For instance, he wouldn't be able to easily understand someone else's sentence that was missing its punctuation. But he doesn't use it in his own. I am so excited to try diagramming his own sentence, though. Because of the dyslexia, I think diagramming his own sentences will click with him more than anything else right now.

I'm not sure how I missed those in the past. Thank you for the suggestion! The sentence book looks like it teaches exactly what he struggles with. This is a brilliant idea! He does fine diagramming sentences in textbooks and workbooks. But I wonder if it would be more meaningful for him to diagram and analyze his own sentence? Perhaps he could get a mental image as to why it doesn't make sense? I'm not sure if he can hear when his own sentence doesn't sound right. He pauses where there should be a period or comma when he reads his own essay out loud, even though there isn't one. So when he reads it, he reads it as though the punctuation is correct. But when he writes it, he writes it incorrectly. There's a connection missing. He types all of his work already.

My 15 year-old son cannot seem to tell the difference between a fragment, a complete sentence, and a run on sentence. He seems to have zero understanding of the concept of a complete sentence. His essays are thoughtful and well organized, but the punctuation is almost always 100% incorrect. Is there a tool that can help me teach him the differences? How to know when to stop a sentence? What makes a sentence complete? A run on? A little bit about him: he was dx'd as dyslexic last fall. Home school for K-7, public school for 8th, home for 9th this year. He's had numerous English teachers (public school & online & co-op) besides me, and we've all worked with him on this using different programs: First Language Lessons, Rod & Staff, Christian Light Education regular and remedial programs, MCT, whatever they used in public school, Veritas Press's Composition, and maybe some more I'm forgetting. He attends a remediation class daily at the high school that is a big fat waste of time. I'm wondering if anyone has any different ideas for me? Something simple and basic and with a ton of repetition that will help him?

I wondered if I should post on the LC board. Thanks for the response. He reads and spells below grade level. However, I had hoped there was something we could use to work on sentence structure separately. Maybe it's all too closely related to separate?

Right?! *IF* I did anything wrong? Sheesh!

My 15 year-old son cannot seem to tell the difference between a fragment, a complete sentence, and a run on sentence. He seems to have zero understanding of the concept of a complete sentence. His essays are thoughtful and well organized, but the punctuation is almost always 100% incorrect. Is there a tool that can help me teach him the differences? How to know when to stop a sentence? What makes a sentence complete? A run on? A little bit about him: he is dyslexic. Home school for K-7, public school for 8th, home for 9th this year. He's had numerous English teachers (public school & online & co-op) besides me, and we've all worked with him on this using different programs: First Language Lessons, Rod & Staff, Christian Light Education regular and remedial programs, MCT, whatever they used in public school, Veritas Press's Composition, and maybe some more I'm forgetting. I'm wondering if anyone has any different ideas for me? Something simple and basic and with a ton of repetition that will help him?

I'm also an adult that grew up with a family business. My dad was extremely high-strung about it, and it was extremely unpleasant. It doesn't have to be that way! My husband and I have both been self-employed for all but the last four years of our life together (20+ years). It was awesome. It was great having all the freedom and all the responsibilities. But after the Affordable (ahem) Health Care Act went into effect, we could no longer afford private medical insurance. DH now works for a large corporation with great heath insurance. I don't feel like our income was less secure as business owners. The money coming in was less consistent, but it always averaged out. The jobs never stopped coming even during the recession. Sometimes we had to wait for a check, but the jobs were plentiful. I actually feel slightly less secure now as an employee, like at any moment an executive can decided to change things up, and I'm out of a job or have to take a pay cut or change my job duties.

I really like John Hudson Tiner's series for this age.

Two of my children have done AofA with Mrs. Barnosky at My Fun Science in a one-semester class. Neither of them were crazy about it. She speeds though the first part of the book and then spends time on the fallacies. She knows the material and can teach fine it and is always prepared for class. There are group projects, lots of additional videos to watch and graded online discussions every week of class. The book is a little too much material for my kids to master in one semester. Did you see Schole Academy has a year-long AofA course? It seems like there's not enough material for a year-long course in that book, but it might be better than cramming it into one semester (for my kids). Also, have you done Potter's School English before? I would speculate that the grammar component will be sufficient on its own. But, of course, you know your kid! Best wishes!

The saddest of all the sad quotes in the story: If he's caused them any harm, he's sorry. Gosh. What a loving, repentant and humble apology. I can tell he's super sorry. If he did anything wrong, that is. (Edited to say I'm being sarcastic.)

In addition to some already mentioned, my kids like Sue Thomas, FB Eye and Battlebots competitions on Discovery Channel. On the BYU app, we like Studio C, Relative Race, and Random Acts.

The weather can be extreme in April. Most likely it will be warm, sunny and dry. I think April is the driest month on average. However, blizzards in April are not unheard of. Check the NOAA website as you get close to your travel dates and you'll know what to expect. There is a huge variation in elevations and weather patterns among your potential destination cities, so check each city's forecast individually. Is there something special you wanted to do in Page? To echo what others have said, the reservations are autonomous and have their own tribal laws and customs and law enforcement agencies. Some observe daylight savings time and some do not. Arizona as a state does not observe daylight savings time. The Navajo Rez inside AZ does observe daylight savings. The Hopi Rez inside the Navajo Rez does not. Cell phone reception is spotty in many places you will be traveling to. What about SLC to Moab to Canyon De Chelly to Monument Valley to Cortez/Mesa Verde and then on to Durango if there is time? Mountain biking in Moab. Cliff dwellings in Canyon De Chelly/Cortez and hiking/stargazing/Native culture in Monument Valley. If you go to Monument Valley reserve your tour ASAP, but do a tour.

Moab is the best place ever for mountain biking. Great choice. So is Flagstaff. Amazing trails. What time of year will you be doing this? Northern AZ, Bryce, Zion all experience monsoon rain storms almost daily July 4-September 1 that *might* cause flash floods and impassable roads. Are you going to Grand Canyon, as well? You'll be going right by it, if you go from Page to Flagstaff. I agree with the others that Sedona is amazing! If you take 89A South out of Flagstaff instead of I17, you''ll go right by Slide Rock State Park, which is a natural rock water slide. I love Kachina Downtown (it's not downtown) for yummy Mexican food in Flagstaff.

These both look awesome! Thank you! I'm going to research them both.

I like your list, umsami, but I tend towards compulsive and obsessive on the cleaning spectrum. My list for my kids' rooms consists of three things: Put away your clothes. Put away your toys. Throw away the trash. When they do these three things, the rooms stay somewhat tidy. Ideally they do this at some point every day, but it happens consistently right before a friend comes over to play. (ha!) We have a chore wheel. I have four kids, so the wheel has four sections. Someone takes out the trash and recycling (easiest). Someone vacuums the floors. Someone cleans the kitchen after dinner (hardest). Someone wipes down the bathrooms. We rotate once a week. We do these chores after dinner, but not more often. I worked with them until they could do the chores on their own. I still do chores with them (they are ages 10-17) to show them how to clean. If one of the kids is out of the house in the evening, I typically do his or her chore. I also had very, very low expectations when my kids were younger. Maybe something like that would simplify the process for your family, too? I have two kids who are messy and two who tend towards neatness. The neater kids end up carrying more than their fair share of the work since the messy kids don't do as good of a job. But, that's kind of a life lesson that comes with living with other people. The neater kids have other weaknesses that the messy kids don't have, so we work together and help each other out.

Ideally, none of the computers in the house would be able to go to a nonschool website. For instance, we could go the Potter's School website to access an online class, but not to craigslist or ebay or Amazon.

For 10th next year: -Finish Jacob's Geometry and begin Alg II with Lial's w/me -Earth Science w/The Potter's School -Ancient History w/History of the Ancient World and a few Great Courses w/me -English at our local PS, which will probably be lame. I'm planning to add the EIW World Literature books to be listened to on audio just for my own peace of mind. -Welding at the local PS -Dyslexia remediation at the local PS -Intro to Engineering w/The Potter's School -Spanish II w/me

For 8th grade next year: -CLE Reading with Light Units + an awesome hero-heavy literature list -Writing online via The Potter's School -Spelling ? The kid still needs spelling instruction, but I'm not sure what I'll do, yet. -Jacob's Algebra...I think. Maybe one more year of PreA? -Apologia Physical Science with labs done at a co-op -Cultural Geography with BJU Distance Learning -Spanish -ASL