The only way I think any of that could be appropriate for a food/nutrition class is if they did a brief segment on prenatal nutrition, in which they discussed the differences between a well-nourished placenta and a poorly-nourished one, with an emphasis on starting one's baby off correctly in life. But even then, I think it's in very poor form to have brought a placenta, especially without consulting parents first.

Take a full day or two off and do nothing, at least nothing school-related. Then take a day to clean up the house, work on a project that's been hanging over my head, etc. Removing the mental and physical clutter really seems to help energize me. Also, getting a break helps -- having DH cook dinner, taking a nap, etc.

I voted "apply if your budget will be stretched" but with a few qualifications. One, you should be very certain that this is just the right thing for you, which it sounds like you are. And two, you should explain the situation like a PP said. Sometimes scholarship funds go unused because everyone assumes there is someone else who needs help more, so nobody applies. Also, I would base it on whether or not I can do anything for the organization. For instance, I do a lot to benefit a particular group, so I would feel less uncomfortable asking for help from them than I would from a different group.

I would add it to a bracelet...

DD broke out in hives the one time she was given amoxicillin as well. I do list it on any health reports, but it hasn't been an issue. The time she broke out in hives, they switched her to Zithromax, which was fine (more expensive, but the taste was better anyway, and it was fewer doses).

Yes, by modeling, and discussion/direct instruction as it comes up. Like, we didn't do a specific lesson on writing thank-you notes, just as a random thing, but when the kids needed to write notes for gifts, we talked about how to write them.

It depends on the Aldi. At our Giant, they're $1 on sale, but Aldi had a good sale -- not $.39 each, but $.59, still a bargain.

You probably can't buy it at the local grocery (man, lucky you if you can!), and even a local butcher shop may or may not have grass-fed beef, unfortunately. Your best bet is to contact the farm directly. Eatwild is a great site for finding someone in your area. Of the couple of places where we get grass-fed beef, they sell it either by the 1/4 (or half) or by individual cuts/pounds. (Some places might give you a discount for buying like 5 pounds at a time.) If you have a local health food store (or possibly the health food aisle of your local grocery store), they may have grass-fed beef; it will probably be cheapest directly from the farm, though.

Except for a couple of years in Boston, I've lived my entire life in the mid-Atlantic area, but not every one of the places there feels like home. Some are too busy or crowded, some don't feel like they have like-minded people. We'd never lived in south-central PA before we moved here (just the center and southeastern parts of the state), but moving here was a dream come true -- it truly feels like home. There are other places we'd probably enjoy as well, but here is the first place we'd really be sad about leaving. Maybe, OP, you just haven't found the right home for you yet.

Free range, pastured, organic, grass-fed beef from a local farmer. The good cuts, especially steaks for my husband. Pastured organic chicken. Wild caught fish. Lots of shellfish. Steamed crabs often in the summer! Organic local vegetables. Fruit with every meal -- preferably organic, preferably local when possible. Grass-fed raw local milk and eggs, lots and lots of local raw artisan cheese. Oh, and good mushrooms, olives, and artichoke hearts multiple times a week. And paneer. Or any Indian food, really. And really good fancy pizza at least once a week. (While we're making money issues disappear, why not carb issues too?)

My kids are still pretty young, and they're best friends with each other, but they do enjoy hanging out with kids from other families too. They get along particularly well with a family whose kids are similar in age to ours; DD, in particular, being the only girl in our house of boys, seems to appreciate hanging out with another girl her own age. And my 4yo has a couple of 4yo boys that are particular buddies of his, and I think he really enjoys playing with them because they like the same little-boy-but-not-baby things that he likes.

Any chance big sister would be willing/able to help DH supervise? Maybe if it was phrased as "doing this is a gift for your brother?"

The Tom Tierney coloring books by Dover are wonderful for this -- lots of different eras. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=tom+tierney+coloring+books This book is DD's favorite; it's pricey but absolutely stunning: http://www.amazon.com/What-Clothes-Reveal-Language-Clothing/dp/0300181078/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362589136&sr=8-1&keywords=what+clothes+reveal

I vote that it's just your turn -- ugh! You might try dosing everyone with extra vitamin D3, cod liver oil, and probiotics, but I do think some of it just the luck of the draw. How old are your littlest kids? Last year, I had a 3yo and a 6-month-old, and we got a lot of little colds. I think a large part of that was the small kids putting their hands all over nursery toys at co-op, probably mostly the 3yo, since the baby wasn't quite mobile, so I could generally give him our toys rather than the communal ones. This year, we've had nothing. I attribute that to a few things (aside from extra vitamins, which I'm bad about remembering to give): no winter co-op session, and I got super strict about going out in public -- no public water fountains at all, very limited trips to the library and other places with communal toys for small kids, and I actually wiped the grocery carts every time I used them (especially if I was putting the baby in them or having the preschooler holding the cart), which I normally don't do. I do believe in letting their immune systems strengthen by encountering small germs, but this year, being pregnant, especially, I really, really did not want the flu. But I think the biggest thing was no co-op -- last year, we'd have co-op on Friday every two weeks, and around Monday, someone would start sniffling. By the time it worked through all four kids, we'd be back to a co-op week, and it would start again. That's really the one thing that was very different this year for us, because we don't tend to go out a lot in public during the winter anyway.

Praying for you and your baby, Imp!

Yes, this. If the oven will be on for less than 2-3 hours before I'll be home, I'll use the timer and do that. I also will run the washer while I'm gone. Not usually the dryer, though.

I have not read all of the replies, but I would highly recommend a wrap, a mei tai (like a Kozy), or Ergo -- they'll work well for back carrying as well as front. Also, my best tip for homeschooling with a baby is this: don't waste time. If my baby was sleeping (and I wasn't napping myself), I did stuff that was hard to do while he was awake. I didn't do math then. I saved math or read alouds or other easy stuff that didn't require two hands for when the baby was awake in my lap or nursing.

First, I am so sorry that your DH was laid off. So lousy! I would immediately look into CHIP insurance for your kids. In my state, kids normally have to be uninsured for six months to get CHIP, but I'm not sure if that applies if you lost insurance because of a job loss. Look into Medicaid for your pregnancy costs. Even if that's not normally an option, being pregnant may qualify you for a special program, and it won't count as a pre-existing condition. If you can't find other insurance, you may need to purchase COBRA, at least for you, for the pregnancy, but if you're low-risk, you might also look into midwifery care, as it's often less expensive than OB care/hospital.

Great site! I *have* repaired some of my store-bought grocery bags, but they don't last forever. I love some of these ideas, though! Hmmm, I have some old towels that are sturdy but not very useful; I wonder if I could make some bags from those. (I made changing pad covers from some; they're nice and absorbent and might work well for meat.) If you use t-shirts, do they stretch oddly?

I braid it if I need to have a hat on; if I don't need a hat (I prefer a beach umbrella), I put my hair in a bun.

Oh, names. Ugh. This is going to take forever. (Our third child took us five days; the others were all faster.) We've exhausted the boy names we like, and we never did agree on a girl name after DD. I have lots of lovely ideas; DH vetoes them all, LOL. Abigail is probably our top contender right now for a girl; DH hasn't vetoed that one yet. For a girl, I'm very set on using my middle name (DD has my grandmother's middle name), Joy, but we really haven't discussed names yet. I think we'll just wait until the baby gets here and then decide. It's not like we're going to discover some new name that we haven't considered in the past decade; of the eight names we've used for first and middle so far, the least traditional is Avery, which is one son's middle name because it was DH's grandfather's name. (Although, last time, I put in my three older children's very traditional names, one of Latin origin, one of Greek origin, and one of Hebrew origin, at Nymbler, and the first set of names for a boy included Dexter, and I have no idea what made the site think that it "matched.")

LOL, we have the middle name of Luke for one of ours, which was a bit of a compromise over Skywalker or Anakin. (I like it and it fits well with his first name too.) I'm 17 weeks with baby #5. So far, not much going on. Maybe have felt the baby a few times. I feel generally pretty okay. Sometimes too okay. I don't get sick, but I had a few woozy days in the first trimester, none really recently. Showing? Maybe a little. Maternity pants are way more comfortable now, though, even if a lot of the tops are still big on me. Last appointment -- couldn't hear the baby a few weeks ago, but he/she was moving and looked happy and healthy on an ultrasound, so I assume all is well. I'm still working on finding the right midwife and will see about another appointment when I do. We're planning our fourth homebirth. Buying things? I shouldn't need to buy much, especially if this one is a fourth boy. (We aren't planning to find out ahead of time.) I bought a few newborn cloth diapers and some flannel to make a few more diapers and wipes to round out my stash, since my toddler still uses the newborn prefolds as nighttime doublers. I'm knitting/sewing a few more smaller-sized wool covers, and I did buy some shirts. I didn't have any neutral short-sleeved shorts for a newborn that weren't onesies, which don't work well with wool covers, so I bought a few white side-snap shirts. I always forget how tiny newborn clothes are! If the baby is a boy, I should be good on clothing, since DS3 was born in July and needed some small summer items. If the baby is a girl, I'm relatively certain that there will be a small explosion of pink from relatives, but I have all of DD's clothes in the attic still and should be pretty good on that front. We don't do a nursery, but I probably need to get some drawers for baby clothes or something.

Another inexpensive meal: -Ham -- bought a couple of months ago when they were $.99 a pound and frozen. Let's say it was a 10-pound ham, and we maybe ate a third of it for one meal. I'm cooking down the bone for soup, and I have plenty of ham left over for another dinner, a lunch or two for DH, AND ham for either lunch or breakfast for the kids. DH and all four kids ate good-sized portions; I'm not a big ham fan and wasn't terribly hungry anyway, so I just nibbled. So, $3 for dinner tonight. -Mashed potatoes -- a rare treat, but DD requested them. I think the 5-pound bag was $4 (our store offered a coupon), and I cooked half of it, but it made a big batch with leftovers for another meal. So, $2 for tonight (and that's a generous estimate, which includes the milk and butter I put into it). -16-ounce bag of frozen lima beans -- let's say $1.25 because I don't remember if they were on sale or not. Those got gobbled up entirely (it's DD's birthday; all of those things were her requests). So, all total, about $6.25, about a dollar per person. (But about as importantly, cook once, eat twice with the leftovers!) If we do tacos (er, burrito bowls, since we may or may not have taco shells/tortillas with them): -$1 bag of dried black beans -$2 jar of salsa -$2? for shredded cheese -$1? for sour cream -$1-$2 for lettuce and tomato when I remember to buy them/when they look good -$1-$2 for jalepenos, taco sauce, spices, etc. -$2-3 for taco shells/tortillas So, at most $13, and we'll have leftover beans, salsa, and shells/tortillas (plus shredded cheese and sour cream left in the containers that weren't included with the estimate). If I hit a good deal, I might add a pound or two of ground beef, which might add up to $6, but which will definitely leave leftovers for lunch for the next day or two.

Wow, thanks for the heads-up about Kenmore appliances -- I am glad to know that it's not just sheer dumb luck for us, that the quality really may have plummeted in recent years. It does sound hit or miss, though, on most of the usual brands.

We bought six Kenmore appliances twelve years ago when we bought our first house. Never had a problem with any of them. (One of them, the chest freezer, is still going strong.) Didn't buy the extended warranties on any of them. Two or three of them were seconds -- small nicks that did not affect functionality in any way but which saved a lot of money. Except for the chest freezer, we left all of them behind when we moved six years ago, none of them having given us a bit of trouble, ever. Then we bought a mix of appliances for this house, various brands, depending on what the Sears Outlet store happened to have. We have had so much trouble with all of them. Within the first 18 months, we had to have the computer parts on the dryer replaced twice and the compressor on the fridge replaced once. We did have the extended warranties on those, and it was definitely worth it -- computer parts are expensive! (The dryer is a Kenmore, and it's worked fine ever since. The fridge is an Amana bottom-freezer model, and the track for the freezer drawer has not held up.) We've been through two dishwashers in this house, but part of that is our very hard water. Our washer (Maytag, a highly rated model) is not quite three years old, and it works fine, but the timer goes funky every so often (so it agitates while it's filling); eventually, we may need to replace/fix it. We've had to replace a stove burner (but it also gets used 2-3 times a day, every single day, so that may be normal; it lasted 5 years). One of the repair guys told me that they don't make things like they used to, because people want something new every few years and would rather replace than repair. So yeah, for expensive electronic parts, I think the 3-year warranties are probably worth buying. Do check out a Sears Outlet store if you have one near you. (I got a super fancy GE Profile stove for 50% off the usual price because it had a couple of cosmetic dings.) ETA: If I have to buy again in the near future, I'll probably look at Kenmores.