It seems like the more recent BB books portray Papa as a better dad and husband than the ones written before Honey Bear was born. Maybe it has to do with the change in authors?

Since he likes to draw and is emotionally aware, how about having him draw the letters as comic book characters with different emotions?

Swimming sounds like a good idea, but he's just learning how to dog paddle. He's also picky about water in his face (he was 5 before I could wash his hair without him screaming and throwing a fit). It would probably take many lessons before it would be much exercise, but I will look into it.

How do you tire out very active kids? DS (age 6) has a much better attitude about school work since we upped his exercise. He was already doing Tae Kwon Do once a week. Then we added gymnastics once a week and soccer once a week. That helped a little. This week we added the two of us going running three times a week (Couch to 5k program) and he is even better. I think his ideal week would involved exercise at least twice a day. Any ideas? I am glad he is so much happier, however I'm concerned about me wearing out trying to drive him around so much. Current schedule -Mon: soccer -Tues: gymnastics (fun, but not tiring for him), running -Thurs: running, TKD -Fri: running I wish I could drop him off at gymnastics for two hours every morning!

The cost of living was 24.8% was higher in Seattle than here.

Also, is she lazy in her chores and any outside activities, too? Has she always been like this with her school work? Or is this new since becoming a teen?

All my experience is with young kids, so I don't know if this would work with older kids as well... What if you make her not just re-do her sloppy math problems, but do extra when she is careless? Then the incentive would be to do say, five right the first time, rather than have to re-do them and then do five new ones.

Do you feel hungrier around the middle of your cycle? This doesn't happen to me every month, but I have noticed it happen a couple of times over the last year. It's around ovulation time, not during the week before menstruation.

Today was day 13, and it was harder than most of the others. I didn't eat as much day 11 and exercised extra. So I wasn't surprised to be hungry yesterday - I ate about 1 lb of chicken at lunch alone. Today, I just am not feeling very satisfied. Maybe I haven't eaten enough fat. Another possibility is hormonal. I've noticed in the past that I sometimes get hungrier for a few days around ovulation time. Has this happened to anyone else?

I cut up yellow squash, zucchini, or green cabbage into tiny pieces and use them as "inert filler" in my meat dishes. They taste like whatever spices I use, and it makes the food go farther without using grains or beans. I buy most of our beef directly from the farmer. I can get grass-fed beef delivered to my door for about $4 per lb, if I buy it by the quarter or half. My parents live in the northeast and can get it even cheaper. My garden is producing all the lettuce we can eat, so that saves us about $4/day on organic lettuce. The grocery store has meat and produce on clearance after 7pm or so. Still, our food bill is now about $800-900 per month. Food prices have gone up a lot. I can't wait until the garden starts producing squash, peppers, and tomatoes. Until then, I'd rather pay extra for food now than medical bills later.

Good for you for trying to get off sugar. Make sure you get enough good fats (not vegetable oil) to help keep cravings away. Also, I, and others, have noticed that completely avoiding all grains and legumes (no corn or potatoes, either) makes avoiding sugar easier. Eating even a serving of brown rice makes me hungrier and start to want carbs again.

If you go over to the forums at Mark's Daily Apple, you can read the stories and advice of former vegans that went paleo. One suggestion is to gradually increase the amount of animal products, in order to give your body time to start making the enzymes to digest them again. For example, you could start by eating bone broth with a little meat and lots of veggies, then in a few weeks, add more meat to it.

Today is day 11 and I've made it through a relative's birthday. I was fine with a Larabar and some strawberries as my dessert. My DH, who has a sweet tooth, has decided to go paleo as well. Today was his first day. It will be much rougher for him, since he loves his ice cream. Also, I've been GFCF for years, so I'm used to all the restrictions everywhere I go.

It sounds like you've removed a lot of calories from your diet without replacing them with anything. If you are trying to do the paleo or primal diet, you probably need more fat, otherwise you may just be doing a grain-free version of a low calorie diet. What amount of meat makes you feel lousy? Have you tried digestive enzymes and betaine HCL? Perhaps you don't make enough stomach acid.

Made it through day 8.

:iagree: OpenOffice can save in MS Word formats. It's pretty much like using Word, just some of the menus are a little different, and it's free!

Visit his blog.

We don't answer the door when we see them come. I am not obligated to answer the door every time someone rings the doorbell.

One thing I've noticed is that it is much, much easier to delay or skip meals without feeling hungry or tired. This weekend, I had a late breakfast (chicken and coconut milk smoothie) then Tae Kwon Do testing in the afternoon. Even though I didn't eat lunch and had exercised, I wasn't really hungry when it was over, while the judges were starving (and they hadn't exercised). We all went to a buffet after and I stuck with salad, meat, and strawberries, while they ate all their grains.

If you want to be successful, make sure you eat enough fat. That has been a big reason for my success so far. Over and over on forums I've read that people had trouble if they didn't increase their fat after cutting out grains and legumes. I've been making smoothies with a can of coconut milk, almond extract, vanilla extract, and frozen berries. (If I had local eggs right now, I'd add in a few raw egg yolks.) We split the smoothie among all of us, so I'm drinking about 1/4 can of coconut milk per day. It's pretty thick, and I think I need to buy a better blender!

Today is day 8, so I broke my previous record of 6 days. I successfully followed my plan while at a buffet restaurant this weekend. My clothes are fitting much better in the waist. I hope that my legs start losing fat in the next week or so.

Three hours in the car, five days per week doesn't sound very appealing to me. The decent public school in the next town over sounds much more realistic for everyone's schedule and sanity. I think the vo-tech school sounds like a poor fit.

Well, I made it through day 5. I even turned down a baked potato at a friend's house!

My exercise hasn't changed and I've been big on water for many years, so I'm not drinking any extra. It sounds like other people have had this experience. I'll assume it's going along with the weight loss.

Nevermind, I looked Whole 30 up. I am not being quite that strict. I had some honey baked ham. I am not going to look through my vitamins to see if they have soy lecithin. Do you have any special strategies for making it through? Good luck!