lol, oh sorry. They take milk or some other kind of base (soy milk, yogurt, etc) and add some flavoring and toppings and freeze with liquid nitrogen.

There's a chain here that does it. I don't think it tastes all that great and the texture is kinda funky

What's for lunch today? Peanut butter and jelly. We're running behind What was for breakfast today? Spinach and eggs; yogurt and peaches What are you looking forward to today? We're going to the first meeting of the boys activity group. It's a meet and greet, so hopefully it goes well. What are your plans for the weekend? Saturday is our deep cleaning day. Sunday we're having friends over for dinner and I have no clear plan of what that dinner will be! Have a good weekend everyone!

:grouphug::grouphug: Try not to beat yourself up over it. Did you do the best you can? I'm sure the answer is probably yes. Would a public school teacher have been able to do any better? Probably not. Is good handwriting the most important skill ever? No. I have a feeling you're mourning the loss of something else. What coulda, shoulda been. That is normal and I'm sure will always hit you at odd times. It is ok to mourn for a bit and then move on. So, hugs to you and your daughter. :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: (and if I'm wrong you can tell me to go take a flying leap)

Thank you everyone. So many good ideas here. I'm really excited to look through some cookbooks (the one linked to Amazon had some other recommendations, of course.:))

Oh yeah, she dropped at 35 weeks and didn't show up until 40 weeks on the nose, so even if your baby is engaged, it's very likely you've got a long while.

We'll pray that it doesn't mean baby is coming soon. Only your OB will be able to tell if baby truly is engaged and what it means. :grouphug: Try not to worry (I know, easier said than done)

praying here too. :grouphug:

"mean" as in you're worried baby might be coming soon? Or "mean" as in something else? Baby girl dropped. She was the only one I ever noticed. I only noticed because her bum wasn't sticking up under my ribs anymore, but I had to pee all the freaking time. She dropped at 35 weeks.

Due to various budget concerns, we'll be needing to eat lots of rice and beans. Anyone have any good recipes? I've never made any.

Have him lay on the floor and put one hand on his chest and one on his stomach. Get him to breathe so that the hand on his stomach is the one that moves up and down. I don't know if this is of much help for the harmonica, but in choir we had to breathe deeply and keep our rib cages expanded even though all the air was leaving. When you breathe back in, the lungs can refill quicker.

Awww congratulations! What wonderful news. Praying everything works out nice and smoothly. :grouphug::grouphug: :party:

Is your son already pretty good with writing letters? We tried A Reason for Handwriting too, but it was so frustrating for me. He kept doing weird things with his hands, he wasn't tracing the letters very well and he certainly wasn't reproducing them well on his own. For us, Handwriting Without Tears was a much better choice as it starts with the foundations of the letters and builds from there. (Now, I hate to say that as ARFH might work well for him. Just because it didn't work well for my son doesn't mean it won't work well for yours. But, in general, for a boy who doesn't know his letters very well, I would recommend HWT.)

My son's favorite toy is the #10 MUS blocks. He takes one in each hand and spins them and makes his own buzzing noise. :001_smile: Sorry, not much help.

I am not an artsy-fartsy person. I like me my workbooks. I don't like the big messes. But today I decided to be "fun." :glare: We were pretty much done with school, but I told Pigby he could write his spelling words in a plate of flour. :glare: I went and took a nap because I was so tired (baby girl has been waking up multiple times a night and it's taking its toll). I woke up when Digby woke up from his nap and brought him downstairs. Pigby was playing in the flour still, of course. :glare: And Digby had to join in, of course. :glare: I knew I shouldn't have let them watch Hoodwinked Too. Granny Puckett took a handful of flour and blew on it to reveal the lasers before she flipped, twirled, and spun her way out. :glare: So of course, the boys are putting flour on the back of their hands and blowing it all over. Pigby just told me to "LOOK" at the massive pile on his hands and finished it off with a "Feel the power, Mommy!" :glare: I'll laugh about it after DH comes home and cleans it up. I might have a panic attack in the meantime.

:iagree: What she said. I also make Pigby color, alternating every day between colored pencils and crayons. In a couple of months, I could see a very big improvement.

I will apologize. I'm not very quick about it though. I need to blow off steam first. It took us awhile to figure out that I needed space and he needed to back off for awhile. Then after I think about it, I see where I erred and will apologize for my part. It took about three years into our marriage for us to figure that out (and for me to even begin saying sorry. I was raised in the house where it was better to be right than loved). DH has always been quick to apologize for his part. He always wanted to jump right in and "fix" it. It created problems in the beginning because I was feeling like a cornered badger. And whenever we got to that point, I'd stop talking and he thought I was ignoring him and oh my. I'm just glad we have it figured out now.

I think it's about on par with a kindergartners abilities. They can always do more if they want. My son will often ask to do more. He told Grammy today that math was his favorite, so I guess that's why.

Awwww....:grouphug::grouphug: Here's something. Conversation between Pigby and DH: Pigby: Our frogs are boy frogs. DH: Oh yeah? How do you know? Pigby: Because they don't have any eyelashes!:lol:

Praying for you and this new crazy adventure. How exciting! I hope it all works out. (and just so you know, I went to read your blog and I love it! It was hard to stop reading)

I've never done it, but I've been considering doing it myself.:bigear:

I had it done after I had baby girl. While I was pregnant, my back hurt so bad that it hurt to walk. After I had her, it still hurt. I was limping around everywhere. My disabled mother, who has to use a cane and has a limp, told me it hurt her just to watch me walk. My midwife is big into the energy thing, so I went twice. The therapist essentially put her hands on various parts of my body and held them there. The only bit of help she did do was when she took one of my legs and picked it up way in the air and twisted it around until my back cracked. I'm not much into the whole energy movement; I'm willing to keep an open mind. But I found much better use out of a chiropractor and a massage therapist. Definitely money well spent for me. So far as using it as a way to heal migraines? I dunno. But I tend to think the whole thing is kinda wacky. I'm not going to pay someone $50/hour just to put their hands on my neck and back and trust that the energy is working.

Thank you for the good ideas everyone. I don't have time to reply to everyone right now, but I did read them. I might be able to get back on later. Community activities would probably be a good idea. I know our city has a few, I'll have to find out what there is.

I had signed him up for a boys group. Details here. The park days are so inconsistent with who comes every week. And the boys group would be the same kids every week, so maybe he could get to know some of them better. I'm hoping it works out. I'm going to stay the first few times and see how it goes. I feel like I've failed him somehow. On a one on one play date, he does fine. In a big group activity, he just doesn't know what to do. He thinks talking to someone makes them his friend, so then he runs back to me to tell me he made a friend and then is too nervous to go back and talk to them. I had to keep telling him, "Go ask to play. Go talk to them. Go do things with them."

We went to park day today. (Local Yahoo homeschooling group meets weekly, nothing formal, just there for whoever wants to go). Pigby started out having fun. Most of the kids were little, about Digby's age. There were two other boys Pigby's age there, but every time he went up to them, they turned his back on them and walked away. Not wanting to get involved, I kept telling him, "You need to go up and ask if you can play with them. Don't just stand there." So finally he did. They both said "No," and walked away. My heart hurts every time he gets rejected like this and it makes me want to never go to park day again. The last time we went, we were the only ones for the whole time, except the last 20 minutes when another family showed up. There was a sweet little girl he got to play with for a few minutes, but then we had to leave. And the time before that, he was trying to play, but some bossy girl told him he had to go away because it was the girl tree and he wasn't allowed. Why? Why do I care? Why do I bother? Sometimes I feel like being a hermit and staying home and not letting him get hurt like that. On the way home, he asked why we keep going to homeschool park day and I told him so he could make friends. He said he's made enough now. And now I'm considering putting him in kindergarten for a crash course in making friends. Somebody slap me before I walk down to the local elementary school and register him.