We are, sadly, between peds because of a sad incident with my other special needs kiddo and a nasty, mean nurse. :glare: Irregardless, the nurses were calling in the meds for us, after having collected basic info at tables set up in the gym. All they really wanted to know was basic allergy and illness info, age, weight and which pharmacy I needed to use. I've had whooping cough myself and it was nasty. Really, I'm not suspicious of traditional medicine at all, just trying to keep down on antibiotic use overall so traditional medicine keeps on working! ;) And, yes, the kids did sit in a room next to whooping cough kiddo for an hour, apparently. I'll probably do it. Though, if they didn't get it from living with me, they probably won't get it this time. Better safe than sorry! Thanks so much for all your thoughts!

They are pretty strong and healthy little dudes, with the exception of developmental delay (due to prenatal substance abuse...I promise, I didn't do it! ;)). The nurses were really pushing this, though, so I have to consider it.

The local health department was at our church today, recommending that everyone grades 3 and below who were in Sunday School on a particular morning receive a Z-pack treatment for exposure to whooping cough. Apparently, a child in that building had a confirmed case and the health department was following up during the "exposure window" time frame. My twins have no symptoms, but do have currently "dormant" asthma. They have special needs and as such, I am loathe to use antibiotics unless absolutely necessary. We work really hard on vitamin intake, healthy diet, etc. and I know that I'll have to get them on pro-biotics again if we go the preventative treatment route. The kids were vaccinated against pertussis early on and were exposed to it in the form of me actually getting it when they were young...no one picked it up from me out of all six family members. I am leaning towards no preventative tx. What says the Hive? Thanks!

They really can be feisty...no matter what, do not approach! I second the humane traps. There really isn't much you can do to protect the babies if there is a den of them under the shed, but chances are it is a single guy if it just showed up. You do, however, run a risk of injury if you allow it to stay. We have had two in the yard. The first showed up while my twins were out playing with the dog...you can imagine how that ended! My golden retriever went into protective mode and got into a fight with the groundhog, with the kids standing by! The little guy was up on his back legs, teeth bared, fighting like a badger. Callie grabbed him by the neck and shook him to death. The kids totally lost it. The second time one showed up, he was lucky enough to wander by on the outside of our picket fence. Callie was outside again and an epic battle ensued through the fence. I have it on video! No matter the threat of the dog and the ease of escape, that groundhog was willing to fight through the fence even while bleeding! Ferocious little guy. His feet were up on the bottom rail of the fence and got scratched by the dog...he didn't care a bit....just kept biting through the fence at her until I dragged her inside. He wandered away only after the dog was removed! Come to think of it, you might just get a big, protective dog...:D

I had one of those days this week. Being a mom of special needs kids is very tough...give yourself the space to get some good sleep and maybe have a Starbucks (or whatever floats your boat!), a good talk with a friend, something nurturing for you. Life always looks brighter when you are rested and at least somewhat relaxed. I've read somewhere recently that being the mom of special needs kids can be as stressful as having PTSD. Personally, I have to agree. Take care of you and see if it gets better. :grouphug: and prayers!

We are thinking about using Landry Academy's online classes for math in the next year or two, as we have adopted three VERY mathy boys and I am decidedly NOT so inclined! :o. One of them is a very bright sixth grader who regularly answers questions faster and more accurately than I can! (I am embarrassed to admit that sometimes even the third graders beat me!). I can easily keep up in the humanities until high school, as I have a masters in that arena, but math...:svengo: Anyway, to get to the point ;), I live in NC and as I read the homeschool regs, it appears that if I "outsource" a core subject in that way, I will no longer be considered a home schooler. Enrichment classes are just fine, but as I understand it, I have to teach all the core subjects in order to stay in compliance. Does anyone who lives in NC have experience working through Landry Academy for a core subject? If so, how does it fly with DNPE? I am sincerely hoping I have misread something somewhere! Oh, and please...reviews of Landry Academy are also welcome! :D Thanks so much!

Ah, yes...respite care! Should have mentioned that, too. I would do just about anything for good respite care and a nap at this point!

I am so sorry for your loss, Julie. You and your family will be in my thoughts and prayers.

I am so very sorry, Joanne. :grouphug:

I have a DD12.5 here...glad to help if you need it!

Honestly, insurance coverage for treatment is my biggest issue. I have been able to find all the treatment that I needed privately (ie., not through the public schools, since I homeschool) but we are going broke and not saving for retirement as a result of the bills. We have four kids with special needs and literally none of them get the coverage they need. One of the kids has a genetic disorder whose treatment has been totally disallowed by insurance...and his bills will run to 100K by the time he is 18. HTH.

Praying for Julie and her family! :grouphug:

Whew! I thought I was the only one! Somehow that shoe tying thing really got to me. So glad to hear someone else's kid learned it from someone random! ;)

Thanks for the laugh...it is nice to know someone else who has walked that path! The kid never stops philosophizing...even on the way to the orthodontist! He wears out my brain. :D

Thanks, everybody! You all are so sweet not to smack me! :D. I went and had a nap and a Starbucks and I do feel better now. I told the therapist the other day that teaching my twins has been like teaching a kid with a broken leg to play basketball. They can watch all they want from the sidelines, but until their "legs" healed, they couldn't do it themselves. Their "legs" are down to a limp now, so we are ready to learn! I need to listen more to my own advice, frankly. I just get tired, between playing all the roles I am am expected to play...you are absolutely right about that! And, if I want to be snooty about it, there is much that I do better than the therapist, a wholly excellent reading specialist (which I clearly am NOT!). I am an LCSW with about twenty years in the field of mental health and child development and I need to give myself more credit where credit is due! It's just those days when I have had to wear too many hats for two long, ya know? Genetic specialist, Socratic discussion maker and chief orthodontist transportation for 2E kid; Cogmed therapist, "second brain" and chauffeur to child with anoxic brain injury who works at an equestrian center every day and also has braces (ortho transport again); Neurotherapist (we have a rented machine at home), OT, remedial teacher and OG organizer to drug exposed, developmentally delayed twins who would REALLY rather play with the neighbor kids who are outside...and somewhere in there, I still need to be wife to a work at home dad and mother, cook and cleaning lady for the rest! Oh, and then there is trying to exercise, keep my weight down, be a friend and a daughter... You all know how it goes...just needed a moment to whine. The OG therapist quite innocently hit a nerve! I know these kids would not be where they are without my help and more importantly, without the grace of God. He is giving me a break here, and I need to appreciate it. You can smack me for not noticing that instead, K? :o Seriously, thanks for the encouragement. I needed it today.

Our twin who has APD has struggled mightily with phonetic awareness and it is holding back the development of his reading skills. I am thrilled and lucky to have found an OG therapist two doors down from me who knows me, knows DS9 and his twin and who was willing to tutor him for only $35 a hour. I should be beyond thrilled, right? Well, truthfully I am. But, there is this part of me that is feeling whiny...a part of me I'm not proud of! DS is coming home thrilled to pieces over what he is learning. He is picking up random stuff from her in mere minutes that I have been trying to teach him unsuccessfully for years (like tying his shoes). She is making inroads with his phonics in just a few sessions. I am SO happy for him, but honestly it makes me feel as if I have failed him. Yes, I know that he is probably hitting a developmental stage that makes this possible now vs. earlier, and yes, I know that I have both worked hard to teach him and have busted my behind giving him outside therapies that he needed (OT, speech, neurofeedback, etc.), but I still feel as if I should have been more successful with him earlier. She is a lovely lady, but it also doesn't help that she regularly points out how far behind he is pretty far behind NC state standards and I should have exposed him to x, y, and z by now. (She is super supportive of homeschooling, though...). Yes, I know he is behind...I have tried hard to do the most with what he had to offer, but I also have three other special needs kids to deal with, so it has been hard. It also doesn't help that DS keeps innocently pointing out my personal deficiencies as a teacher. :( So, when I should be happy that I have found this great resource that is actually getting through to him and makes him happy to learn, I am feeling sorry for myself. Slap me out of this, would ya? I am actually starting to think that putting him back in school would be better for him, if I am not enough for him. I feel like a fussy two year old! :o I really am thrilled at his progress and happy for him, just feeling fairly inadequate... Thanks for letting me get that off my chest! Moving right along now...

"Yes, we sure do know what causes that, but he is just SOO good at it!" ;) BTDT...congratulations! We also have five kiddos, one now an adult and the other four of them in 3 1/2 yrs, so snarky comments often come our way. We have a VERY good time with them, especially those who don't catch on that we adopted all the littles and accuse us of overpopulation! Those people are so easy to handle...they set themselves up! :grouphug: Yeah for you!

That is just awful. I am so sorry! Praying. :grouphug:

I see holes across the logic stage, for sure. I have a rising, moderately gifted sixth grader and have struggled with what to do for him. I voted a four year logic stage world history, but would be just as happy with a three year world history and one year of American for late logic or HS. Please, oh please, SWB?!!! Would LOVE to have one from you! Too late for DS11 (who is going to do Omnibus I), but I have two more coming behind him. We came by close to doing history as laid out in the WTM for DS11, but I need something more structured, as my younger two are special needs and get me off track easily. We LOVED SOTW and are so sad it is over! So glad you are thinking about this!

Everyone in our family was thrilled for us when we decided to adopt...nervously thrilled, but thrilled nonetheless. We did struggle a bit with the racial issue, though. We were open to adopting a child of any race, but knew that our family had some unrecognized, sometimes inappropriately spoken racial sentiments that might affect our child. Our larger community might also have been a bigger issue, but we could and did move, so that wouldn't be a problem. Ultimately, we had to make the sad decision to limit the racial background of the child we ended up adopting due not to these family members sentiments (we knew they would come around when faced with an actual, sweet little baby!) but to the fact that we have a severely mentally ill relative (my BIL) who has no verbal self control. When he isn't doing well, anything he thinks comes straight out of his mouth! He has said and done many, many inappropriate and hurtful things to us that he cannot take back, even with the many apologies that ensue when he is in his right mind. We know this about him and love him and care for him anyway, but could not imagine bringing a child of color into a home that included him. There is a very real possibility that his care will fall to us when our parents are unable to do so any longer. We did eventually adopt cross-racially...an adorable 5 day old Hispanic girl...but were unable to list ourselves as open to all races. :( Truthfully, a bigger issue for us was raised when we adopted again...the birth parents of our then 18 month old son delivered twin boys who were bathed in meth throughout the pregnancy. The close age range of the kids (DD was just 3 1/2) plus the fact that the older two already were diagnosed special needs freaked everyone out, so we didn't dare tell anyone that the twins might have disabilities as well! We took the kids and kept that little detail to ourselves until they were four years old and it was time for everyone to understand WHY they did what they did. Of course, by then everyone was in love with them and didn't care, so all was well. :D Families are tough, but you do well to consider the consequences now. Not that you shouldn't continue with your plans, but so that you can do so with eyes wide open and with shields up in whatever area your family will need to have them ready. "Love conquers all" is a nice sentiment for adults, but developing children who have already experienced a loss deserve the best environment we can provide, without adding in the judgement of misinformed relatives.

I adopted a sweet little Hispanic baby at five days old. She had a large Mongolian spot on her lower back, just above her buttocks. First time I saw it, I was horrified! Of course, being Caucasian and having never seen one, I thought she might have been abused in foster care or the like. Thankfully, the pediatrician was there to straighten me out! Now, I recognize them whenever I see one. BTW, DD's has faded over time and is now barely noticeable. I can see a brief shadow of where it was over her bathing suit bottoms, but you'd miss it if you didn't know what had been there before.

Praying, right now! :grouphug:

You are probably going to have to live with it. Or, you could try my little routine of loudly yelling, "Noise pollution!" every time my kids start randomly whistling, yelling, singing random weird stuff over and over again, "tooting" and burping at the table or humming during study time! :glare: I'm sorry. I know how irritating it can be...I live with three people who just.cannot.stop.making.random.noises! AHHHH! :grouphug:

As both an adoptive mom and as an adoption social worker, I can tell you that the adoption of older children IS tough. Tougher than you can imagine, and often the hardest thing you can ever do. It doesn't always work out. For every picture perfect moment, there are a dozen that will break your heart. However, in my humble opinion, it can also be the best thing you will ever do with your life, as well as the most rewarding. If you are even considering going down this road, read, read and read some more of all you can get your hands on about international adoption, older child adoption, attachment disorder and raising traumatized children. There is a lot of good literature out there. Talk to adoptive parents online...there are many good support groups. Research agencies that will tell you everything they can manage about the tough parts of adoption, that have good educational programs for parents, great social workers and even better aftercare programs, counseling referral lists, etc. They do exist! The worst thing you can do to a child, your family or yourself is to go into something like this blind. That said, adopting special needs children has been and will continue to be the greatest joy of my life! God can and does bless those who care for His little orphans, but He never promised it would be easy and fit into a Norman Rockwell print! He does promise to walk with you, though. ;)

You might consider checking out some of the products over at Linguisystems. I just bought a few for my APD kid to use over the summer. He is out of SLP services at the moment as well, but will go back soon.