Oh, oh! Me, me! I'm in Hickory, an hour northwest of Charlotte and 1 hr, 15 minutes from Asheville. I'll take either location!!! Emailing you my contact information now. Can't wait! :party:

Oh, that's just awful! I have four adopted children with special needs...I cannot imagine! Things haven't been going well with Russian adoptions for a while, though, so I guess it's not completely unexpected. I'll be praying!

We have an angel of a golden who was given to us after surviving an abusive situation. She's almost 3 now and has only one bad habit...barking when people are right next to the fence. Other than that, completely the perfect dog! Doesn't need nearly 30 miles a day (loves her walks but just as happy to chase the ball in the fenced yard!), great with my special needs kids, would be a total lap dog if I allowed her on the furniture! Yes, she sheds. However, I second (or third!) the furminator! A good brushing with that little sucker every couple of weeks and she's fine. We have hardwood floors, so the fur balls are noticeable when they happen. However, I rarely have to clean the floors more than 2x a week. Frankly, my kids are far dirtier than the dog and they are the reason I clean twice! The little bit of fur balls I have to remove is well worth the price for having such an awesome and gorgeous dog!

Yes! Now that is a talk I need to hear, pronto! I'm waiting with baited breath! :bigear: Thanks so much!!! :grouphug:

My DS has CAPD and we have him working extensively with a speech/language pathologist at the place where he also does OT for SPD. My SLP tells me that the degree to which therapy will help a kid with CAPD depends on the individual child's specific areas of deficit but that there is usually work that can be done. I'd suggest taking him to an SLP for an evaluation, armed with your CAPD report. You can probably get some good answers regarding therapy for your specific child by doing so! She also suggested Earobics and/or FastForward for my kiddo, who has auditory decoding problems, but again, that was specific to his type of CAPD.

What a lovely article! Sums up so well the way I believe God means for us to raise our children and was an encouraging way to start the home school morning! Such a good reminder of what where I need my focus to remain, particularly after a rough parenting week with 4 special needs kiddos! ;) I'd not heard of the author before...I'll be sure to check out the rest of her blog. ETA: Just realized her DH is the author of the devotional book we are using with our kiddos...Our 24 Family Ways! So good...love that family! Going to have to look at more of their materials. Thanks for posting!

Good to hear, Nature...thanks!

Just talked to our speech therapist about the curriculum and she says she loves it! For kids like DD, who have a deficit in understanding the intent behind communication and who thus communicate awkwardly in return, she thinks it is awesome. Don't know what parts we are going to try first, but I'll post back someday and see if it works out.

Another related question: Anyone purchase her DVDs? Are they worth the money? If you aren't familiar with this material, it was written for Aspies and others who have deficits in social skills, many due to prosodic deficits related to APD or otherwise. Looks really good to me...I've ordered the parent/professional book but haven't used the materials yet. Seen a bit of Marcia Winner's online training videos on Youtube and they look right on target. If the book is good enough, I may buy the curriculum and training DVDs for my DD.

Does anyone have experience using Winner's "Social Thinking" curriculum and/or books to help a child with prosodic deficits? If so, how did you like it? What worked best and how did you use it? TIA!

Hormones! My 11 yr old DD has been very emotional, grumpy and downright nasty since around age 9.5. She started her period at 10 and hasn't quite stabilized into a regular schedule yet. My hope is that she'll calm down in the next year or two! She also has an anxiety disorder, so she's been on medication for around 2 years. This does help moderate the behavior/emotions, but it doesn't get all the way there. My guess is that time will help! :grouphug:

Yeah! Congratulations! I'd hoped you'd say yes! :D

Oh, and one more thing to add to my post! After the twins, many people said things like, "So what are you going to do if she gets pregnant again? Take the babies and keep enabling her? Or, what if she has a friend? Or, what if her sister gets pregnant again? You going to take those, too?" It was either that, or "You need to stop at what you can reasonably afford," (as if they knew what that number would be!). This may happen to you as well if you go ahead with this adoption. It's not much different than folks who comment on larger bio families saying, "Don't you know what causes that?" or "The world is overpopulated enough, hon!" Pretty much, I decided to believe that at heart, they meant, "I care about you and don't want to see you stressed or taken advantage of." A few perhaps meant, "You can't take all the cast-offs of the world, you know!" (horrid, but true...there were a couple of folks who meant that!). In any case, my response was (and still is!), "We will do God's will, no matter what that turns out to be." No one but you and God knows what you can handle, and no one's opinion counts but yours and His! :D Oh, and btw...the adoption of the twins was the thing that finally changed our birth mom's life around and turned her back to Christ!

Heather, only you know what God is calling you to do. If you don't know now, pray until you do! You may never feel "sure," so feelings are only a part of this. Ask God what role He wants you to play in this child's life and go through open doors where they are presented. Rest assured...if this child is not meant to be a part of your family, she won't be! God has a plan for her and He will accomplish that plan. All He asks is that you be open to His leading. Having been there myself, I can't say that I have any pat answers. However, I will tell you our little story! Perhaps that will help. We married when my DSS was 12, then began to look at adoption when he turned 18. DH was 39 and I was 31 at the time we placed our profile at the agency, hoping to adopt an infant. We welcomed our DD home nine months later, then 20 months after that, we welcomed a DS. Just about the time we figured out that both of our children had special medical needs (one significant!), the birth parents of our son contacted us and explained that they were pregnant with twins. They wanted to know if we would adopt them, even though the birth mother had since become a meth addict and the boys had been significantly exposed. These boys could also carry the same genetic disorder that our DS had, not to mention the fact that our two younger children would be only 3 1/2 and 20 months when the twins would be born. Oh, and DH was now 43 (and had been parenting since he was 21!) and I was now 35. We were not financially prepared for the adoption, nor were we sure of what to do. We prayed, we met with our pastor, we considered all the special needs we'd be dealing with...and we decided that we wanted the children. There were too many balls still in the air to know if this was truly God's will, but we decided that we would go through the open door acting in faith that God would shut it if it were not His will. To make a long story a bit shorter ;), as we proceeded through the adoption process God miraculously cleared every hurdle necessary for us to adopt the twins. Financial burdens went away, emotional hurdles were crossed, legal problems disappeared almost as fast as they appeared. The twins were born testing positive for meth, but the genetic disorder was clearly not present! The door never closed, the path became more clear by the day and today, the twins are ours. It was a challenging process from a faith perspective, but we knew God to be faithful and that He would accomplish His will through us. All He asked us to do was to show up and make ourselves available. Is He asking you the same? :D Best of luck with your decision. I'll be praying for you.

I think I've read through the whole Bible bit by bit, throughout my high school and college days. However, since I'm not 100% sure I read the WHOLE thing ;), I put that I've read a significant amount! Ask me again on Dec. 31, 2011...I'm currently reading through the whole Bible in a year with a chronological version! :auto:

I went cold turkey two months ago and never looked back. The first week or two was HARD, but I actually found that I felt better without the hefty caffeine dose 2x a day! One small cup in the morning is all I allow myself now. It was a good 10 years that Starbucks and I had regular dates, but I really don't miss 'em all that bad now! Also, and not unsignificantly, I started losing weight when I lost the lattes...and my budget is happy, too. Give yourself time and you'll be okay! Also, check out DaVinci sugar free/carb free syrups (you can order online). You can make some tasty coffee with their stuff without hurting your waistline! :grouphug:

Very cool! We love LOF over here!!

I'm in NC and iced in, but I'll be there with you in spirit! Best of luck!

I'm on Medifast and am thrilled with the program! In 5 weeks, I lost 10% of my body weight and continue to lose 3-4 pounds a week. I am hoping to lose 60 lbs, so fast progress is great for me. Honestly, I feel fantastic as well. After the first week (which was HARD!), I found that I had lots of energy, felt more steady (my blood sugar tends to go haywire...not on Medifast!) and had motivation to continue. DH says my skin, hair and the brightness in my eyes look better...and that I look younger. :D He's going on the program with me this week, even though he has far less to lose than I do. I love knowing that the program has been studied through Johns Hopkins and found to be very healthy, even for those with a variety of medical conditions. The food generally tastes really good to me. You eat 5 of their meals a day and cook one for yourself. The balance of that for me is that I have both the convenience of the "packaged" meals for the bulk of the day and am assured to have balanced nutrition, but I am still required to learn to cook healthier for my family while I prepare the dinner "Lean and Green" meal. They have great support, a terrific message board staffed with nutritionists, folks to help with exercise and even some counseling and an active community of users. There are lots of online tools to help you track not only calories but actual nutritional content of what you are eating. I feel very in control and can see myself making major changes to my whole lifestyle as a result of what I am learning on Medifast. Downside: price. With an online coupon, I still pay around $290-$300 a month for food. However, that is the bulk of my food costs...the "lean and green" is only slightly more on top of that. My large family still has a higher food budget on top of that, but my involvement with Medifast has changed our eating habits to healthier across the board so I'm good with that. If you can afford it for a period of time, this is a great program! If not, you may want to look elsewhere. Good luck!!

Oh, thanks so much!! That thread looks great. You'd think I'd try the search feature once in a while...;)

Thanks, Ottakee! I know both of their birth parents well (as in, we talk weekly and they visit our home for holidays!) and there are no known mental health issues. One 1/2 sib has been diagnosed ADHD. I agree with you on the meds front...I have a DD who has an anxiety disorder (who knows about her background...other than SPD and no reported drugs/mh issues, we've not a clue) and I have her on medication in the hopes of training her brain early. Still have the caffeine question...

Ok, I need some experienced ADHD moms to help me out here! I have 7 yr old twins who are about to drive me completely batty. They were drug exposed in utero and have a definitive diagnosis of SPD (sensory seeking type!!). We've been in OT for almost a year and do have some improvement. However...they are still extremely easy to distract, very, very hyper and often disorganized. I know that SPD and ADHD are lookalike disorders and I am also aware that it is entirely possible to have both. I don't know for sure but am beginning to suspect my kids have both disorders. The OTs are not sure but certainly see what I am seeing. So, to my questions: First, I'm considering giving them caffeine prior to school, just as an experiment to see if it helps any possible ADHD. I've done a little bit of looking into it and I've read that 2.5 mg per kilo is a safe amount for children...this would work out to a max of 60 mg daily per kid. Does this sound right? Safe? Would I try it in one single morning dose or spread out over the day? Second, if I wanted to try to get my kids screened for ADHD with someone who also recognizes/understands SPD, where would I start? I don't want to end up with someone who just rubber stamps every busy kid that comes in as ADHD, IYKWIM. I really need someone who understands the subtle difference between SPD and ADHD and doesn't just stick my kids on meds automatically. I start out each day vowing to be positive but ending the day wringing my hands and feeling bad for yelling all day. We do lots of heavy work and it helps for a time, but it isn't enough. I'm tired of feeling like a bad mom and fearing that my kids will get behind in school. I'm not a great believer in meds but I am willing to use them if they will help my kids. Thoughts?

Not an atheist or pantheist here, but I still have a suggestion! My favorite version of the Bible is the One Year Chronological Bible in the NIV. For the purposes of studying from a cultural perspective, I'd think this version would be terrific. You need not concern yourself with the "read it in a year" format (there for convenience), as it reads just as well straight through in your own time frame. I recommend it because it rearranges Bible passages based on when they actually occurred or are believed to have occurred, so you are reading in essentially chronological order. It is also in modern language, which I personally prefer to the KJV. The chronological order may make it easier to understand as a whole and understand in terms of the cultures of the time periods. Good luck!

We put our DD11 in school this year after homeschooling her for three years and we had her placed in a combo 4th-5th grade class as she really wasn't ready for 5th grade work. In the combo class, she doesn't feel behind even though she is somewhat delayed right now. We did the same sort of thing the whole time we had her at home, and just explained to her that she was working across a couple of grade levels since mastery mattered...not your technical grade level. So far, she's been good with it all.

Well, I can say that on the opposite side of the spectrum, I have a strongly visual learner (with weak auditory skills) who had a visual processing disorder! Poor thing...nothing was getting through until we did VT, but she's okay now. So, based on that I'd say it is possible to be an auditory learner and possibly have an auditory processing disorder or the like. Good luck figuring him out! ;)