Having just come from central PA (Altoona) I totally understand your frustration with services available within your geographical region and price range. Everything for us was 2+ hours away or just very subpar, which was super frustrating. I'll be back later when I have time to think about possible solutions for you and to respond more fully on my computer.

Ahhh! Love My Big Fat Greek Wedding! DD and I are totally going to this. Anyone know when it's planned to come out?

We have 5 kids in a 3-bedroom rental house (we owned a 4 bedroom house when we got pregnant....ugh!) Anyway, because DD13 is so much older and still newish to the family she has the smaller bedroom alone. The new baby slept in our closet until the last week and that worked just fine. Then I got tired of dealing with the kids' laundry messes upstairs so I got a crazy idea to move all their dressers downstairs to our master closet near the laundry room, haha! This involved baby moving upstairs. So we currently successfully have 4 kids in 1 bedroom...and oddly they love it! For the bunk bed, have you considered taking off the lower rung(s) so the toddler can't get up? Our DD2 is about to turn 3 and is quite adventurous so we took off the bottom rung of the ladder so she can't climb up on the bunk bed. But DS7 can easily get up there, he enjoys the challenge ;) It's the Ikea wooden bunk bed. DS5 can get up there but he's less likely to fall off and he's old enough to usually obey the rules. Plus their bedroom is strictly a bed-room now....they sleep there and read in bed, that's it. So not much time for goofing off. Also, Ikea has a lower "bunk bed", the Ikea Kura bed. That one would be less of an issue if a kid fell off, though harder to keep them off of it in the first place IMO. I'd do that ideally, a bunk bed for the bigger kids, a crib on the opposite wall, and 2 dressers in the closet with hanging organizers if necessary. If only you get stuff out of the dressers you can Konmari them. I did that to the little kids' clothes after moving them to my closet and I fit 4 kids' worth of stuff into two dressers (Ikea Malm 4-drawer and Ikea Hemnes 3-drawer). It's amazing how much more fits comfortably that way!

Mine seems to, either that or I'm more allergic to certain types. First time (bumblebee) no reaction, second time (yellow jacket) no reaction. Third time (wasp) entire hand swelled up (I was stung on the finger). Fourth time my entire arm swelled from wrist to shoulder (I was stung on the elbow twice). I work hard to stay away from bees now because I'm afraid another time could result in breathing problems. For any trouble breathing I'd go to the ER. Also, even without an epipen a good backup is to have benadryl around, it can eliminate a minor reaction or with a more severe one at least buy you a little time to get to the hospital. When my sister was bit by some bug and swelled so badly her eyes were closed shut the hospital first gave her a double dose of benadryl. So if your DD seems to be reacting she might be wise to keep benadryl with her just in case.

Would they be willing to consider donated breastmilk? Lots of moms make more milk than their baby needs and so they happily donate the extra to other moms for free. All they'd need to do is buy the storage bags, which are super inexpensive, and meet up every couple weeks. That is a far more appropriate and MORE natural option than goat's milk since it's human milk meant for human babies. No prescription needed and they can even request a basic doctor's statement asserting that the nursing mother isn't on any meds they would disagree with or whatever. There are local Facebook groups and a local LLL person might be able to connect them with another mom who is nursing and has extra milk. I'd go with that over goat's milk for such a young infant. It'd be one thing if we were talking about a 10-12 month old, but a newborn? That worries me more. Also, ITA with a previous poster to have the mom get herself checked for low thyroid and the baby for possible tongue tie issues. I had low thyroid with my firstborn and low milk supply but have been on natural thyroid replacement with the others and have always had more than enough milk with my next 3 babies. And, I think it's good to remind her that breastfeeding doesn't have to be all-or-nothing if she has low supply. I nursed AND gave my son formula from 3-9 months old. He got about half from me, half from the formula towards the end but it was no big deal. And because I nursed him so long it set me up for a better nursing experience in the future. So maybe if you encourage her to keep breastfeeding for the relationship and extra nutrition then even if she does decide to go with goat's milk the baby will be getting actual breastmilk as well, kwim? But I'd really hope she would consider other options, especially since it's so early on, there must be a reason her supply is waning. Btw, ((hugs)) I can understand why you're worried and I hope everything works out okay and her supply comes in or they find a more suitable alternative.

Yes, or basically just denying stuff over and over until you start to wonder if maybe you are remembering things wrong. Ie. my mom once tried to choke my stepsister in full view of my father and sister. My father pulled her off. She said stuff like, "That never happened! How could you think I would do that?" when I referred to it later. When confronted about it she just kept insisting that it never happened and finally went to a condescending, "well, if did that, I'm sorry if it hurt your feelings that you think I did that." :banghead: Witnesses don't matter, irrefutable facts don't matter, her main goal is to convince me it didn't happen so I will stop mentioning it because it portrays her in an unflattering light. She used to do this so often when I was a child that I thought I was crazy. My sister thought the same. Then as older teens we talked and verified what memories we could as real and sifted out truth from her fiction. Gaslighting would also be insisting "no, your favorite color isn't yellow, it was always green" and just insisting on that over and over so consistently that the person starts to wonder if maybe one time they must have said it was green and eventually starts to wonder if maybe at one point their favorite color really was green. Or if you're old enough/aware enough to see what they're doing you know they're gas lighting you but like Miss Peregrine says it's impossible to argue with and super infuriating.

I only regulate it by telling the kids they can eat it after lunchtime each day as a lunch "dessert". They can choose to eat 1 piece a day or 20, I don't care. I just don't want to deal with sticky candy wrappers all over the house all day long or the rudeness of asking 24/7 for another piece. Honestly I'm happier if they just eat it all at once...then I can make sure they brush their teeth and be done with it ;) My parents didn't regulate ours, we self-regulated. I would parcel mine out to last through to easter. My sister would eat hers all at once. It's an interesting experiment in personality, lol! So far all of mine are of the "eat it all at once!" mentality, but they're also very young.

I've tried 3 different science curriculums with Ana (13) and neither has worked. She can't understand abstract concepts basically. She needs things super concrete. Even the concepts of Living vs Nonliving are difficult for her to truly grasp. She can sort of memorize the facts associated with each but only if it's kept very simple and she still can't apply it in any of the demonstrations or experiments or explain it back to me. So, we learned tonight that she doesn't know her food groups yet and it got me thinking. Maybe I should ditch traditional science study (i.e.: we'll study biology and then geology and then physics) in favor of just science-y/health life skills such as a whole unit on cooking: food groups, categorizing foods into their appropriate food groups, how to cook from scratch and the basic chemistry involved in that (all hands-on because she could see for example what happens if you mix up baking soda and baking powder in a recipe), and nutrition (listing the nutrients from the back of the box to show whether a day's meals are providing a balanced diet or not). And I think I could bring in some practical math as well, practicing measuring with teaspoons and cups and multiplying recipes to double or triple a batch. What do you think? Would this be just-right or too hard or too easy for a 13/14 year old in 7th grade who is mildly intellectually disabled with some language delays? If she transitioned into public school for high school would I be ruining her chances of keeping up with her peers by focusing on such a nontraditional topic or maybe helping her in the long-run? I mean, almost none of this is on basic state standardized tests, but in real life it's stuff I really think she ought to know and I worry she might not learn it intuitively when she's older.

Mainer, thanks for that detailed description! I'm about to start Lindamood Bell's LiPS program with a girl who struggles to pay attention because of severe ADHD and I can totally see a fast-paced reward system like that working for her.

I hate that the choices seem so extreme too. I'd jump at the chance to enroll my kids in a decent 4-hour a day school. It'd be just enough break and still leave the time for family culture that I want and for me tutoring in areas of need or challenging in areas of high interest. I put DD13 in school from Sept-Nov last year and while I don't like that it was a bit disruptive to do it and then switch back I'm still happy I did it.

This is interesting to me. Our daughter was so wishy washy about which name to change hers to so we ended up sticking with a nickname, just a simplification of her birth name, and kept her first name legally the same so that if she changes her mind and wants to go by her full original first name someday she can without issue since the change isn't official. I really really dislike her birth name, it kinda pegs her as "my mom had me at 17 and made up something" ;) so i've wondered if eventually we might change it legally, but I really wanted to be sure she wasn't feeling pressured to make a permanent change. Oh, and we nixed several name choices....like Emma (the name of THREE of her friends) and Gabriella (she's a big fan of High School Musical) lol! So I'm curious, did your daughter decide to be called by her original name after all or keep the original name and the new name she'd been going by as a personal nickname?

I know! My sons are 5 and 7, the same age my sister and I were when my mom described our deceased brothers' autopsy to me (he died of sids). Also, the same age at which my sister was blamed for causing my mothers' miscarriage. I cannot fathom saying such hurtful and inappropriate things to my children!

Yep, same here. We're still told often by well-intentioned family members that our daughter couldn't possibly be intellectually disabled. This is in spite of numerous professional tests outlining how her IQ fits the requirement, her language skills are less than half her age, and she has taken 3 YEARS to sort-of understand the concept of multiplication and division. She didn't realize that all people die until she was 12 years old. I think many homeschoolers pulled their kids out because they were an unconventional learner. You know the kind, bright but very right-brained creative or hyperactive or something. My son is like that, and maybe a little dyslexic thrown in there for fun ;) These kids *are* late bloomers or unconventional learners and do often just need more time or a different approach and everything works out fine. The problem comes when we (because I'm sure I've done this too) overgeneralize our experience with our kids to all our friends' kids. I try to take the cautious approach whenever giving advice to others. I let them know what our experience was, and I advise them to watch their child, take notes, and mention it to their doctor or pursue an evaluation just in case. Then the professionals can give the real advice.

Hey, we're halfway through Barton Level 4 with Ana and I have a tutoring student coming up on level 4 as well and I'm curious. What grammar instruction does Barton include in the upper levels? I know it includes some, and in Level 3-4 it's already doing things like having the student identify the Who, Did What, Where, and Add-on phrases, but I'm curious if it gets more specific than that? What kind of stuff does it teach? If it doesn't get more specific than that, what are my options for good grammar programs to coincide with Barton after we get to a certain part?

My narcissistic mother says those same things....but she's not even Christian, lol! She just brings them up because I am, except she brings it up from a strange partial-scripture-verse-secular-view-of-christianity way. Like the whole if you do something they don't like saying "that's not very Christian" even if it's actually very Christian. For example choosing to go to church instead of stay visiting her on Christmas Eve. Also, the "children honor your mother and father" and forgetting the entire verse afterwards that outlines a parent's responsibility to their children. OP, Honestly I don't know that I can give great advice but I can tell what's worked for me and my sister with our NPD mother. No Contact. That's it unfortunately. My sister tried arguing and pleasing our mother, neither worked. I tried being nice and then tried setting firm boundaries. Nice made me a doormat, boundaries made her furious. So now we're both no contact. My sister's had no contact with our mother for years, I can't even remember how long. Maybe 5? And a long time of no-contact before that too. I'm newly no-contact, just less than a year after we had a major car accident and then all contracted a stomach virus over Christmas holiday and all my mother could do was pick a fight over why we hadn't visited her more (we spent Christmas Eve with them, she's the one who said she was tired and ushered us out at 9pm). But yeah, it was a little thing, no big deal compared to worse things she's done (pushing me, swearing at us, choking my stepsister....getting drunk....kicking us all out of the house). But it just made me realize that she was not able to empathize with anyone and that I had zero time or energy for her antics. I have 5 kids and a whole household to run, they don't deserve to have my attention taken by their crazy grandmother. Luckily they have a grandma and grandpa on my DH's side who are wonderful people. One thing that did work well for me for a few years was using advice on dealing with toxic people that I got from a pastor friend of ours. Basically if for example she tried to invite herself to stay with us I'd tell her "no, I don't think that's a good idea." and if she asked "Why" I would not engage, just repeat that I didn't think it was a good idea. The advice really helped me to realize I did not owe her a justification for every thought or action of mine, that her asking for it was her way of arguing with me and wearing me down and making me feel guilty for doing something she didn't like. I'm making good progress with forgiving her right now but I will not restart contact with her. I closed down my blog so she can't stalk us anymore, I'm changing my phone number and email address, I am just making contact not a possibility. I pray that someday she comes to true repentance for what she's done. I've already forgiven her anyway, but I hope for her sake that she does someday come to realize her role in the problems in her life and make changes. Regardless I'm not morally obligated to have her a part of my life. :)

One problem with this is that like someone else said it becomes much harder to change a name at 18. That's why I didn't at 18 though it crossed my mind several times for sure. It crossed my mind again when I got married at 22. But by then everyone knew me by my hated-given name and I had a lot of paperwork obligations, bills and rents in my name, a degree from a university and a high school diploma in that name, etc. It'd have been way easier to do right before I got my drivers' license. To the OP, maybe a good tactic would be to allow her to 'try on' the new name personally as a "nickname" even though it is nowhere near her given name now at 13. Then if she's still using it and liking it and everyone's on board you could legally change it in a few years. That way you're both respecting her wishes and putting a bit of a safeguard in place to keep her from making a hasty or immature decision.

Our families insisted our son would end up called Toby (a name I really do not like) because Tobias was too wierd and he'd get bullied on the playground. So we considered changing our minds but stuck to our guns and haven't regretted it. And nobody calls him Toby and he's never been teased or bullied ;)

I have a terribly common name that also pegs me as an 80's child. I hate it, it holds zero appeal to me. I tried to change it at 13 but my family refused to use my middle name instead so it didn't work. To this day, at 30, I regret that I did not stick with it and change my name. My husband knows better than to use my name...I cringe when I hear my first name. So if any of my children wanted to change their name I would support them. If they tried to pick something ill-advised like something trendy or odd I might try to guide them in making a better choice. I'd be a bit sad sure, but I'd get over it. I carefully chose my kids' names for being less common but not too strange and having a meaning and/or family connection. But mistakes happen and you can't always predict how a baby will feel about their given name at 10 or 20 or 30. Our eldest daughter shortened her first name from her birth name upon adoption. She was named a name she cannot even pronounce because it turns out she's hard of hearing. Her birthmom couldn't have known that'd happen. So I'd totally understand if that happened to one of my bio kids. Luckily so far my oldest boy loves his name and my second boy writes his name everywhere (walls...dressers...tables) I think he likes his too, lol!

Matryoshka, you can find the materials at Ganderpublishing.com. Check out the LiPS Kit and at the bottom is a link to get the materials separately. I've heard that all you really need is the manual and a few items from around the house. Thanks so much for the personal experience guys! I was thinking 1-2 months to go through Lips so I'm glad to see my estimate was on point. I'm curious, how did you go about integrating LiPS and Barton? Like how would a lesson look and how long did you take to go through each Barton lesson since you were incorporating additional LiPS stuff?

So I gave my friends' daughter the Barton student screening and she was just barely unable to pass it (tried twice on separate days as well). Pretty typical dyslexic kid, bright, can memorize circles around anyone, but really struggles with basic reading still in 2nd grade. Friend and her husband do mission work/student ministry so budget is tight and so is time. So I've offered to learn LiPS and implement it with her daughter and then move on to Barton once she's gotten far enough through LiPS. For those of you who've done LiPS yourself how long did it take to learn it? I've got a teaching degree + Orton Gillingham training so I'm sure I'm capable but I also know from DIYing Visualizing and Verbalizing that it's going to take some time to figure it out and start implementing it. But how long? Also, how long does LiPS typically take to implement? I know O-G takes 2-3 years to go through so I'm comfortable with a wide range, I'd just like a range of some sort so i know what to expect.

Yeah I'd definitely get some testing done with that background info. That way you know if, and what things are going on with him and know exactly how to best help him learn.

Cook. I burn macaroni and cheese, forget that I'm hard-boiling eggs, burn myself on the stove, undercook pasta, and basically ruin every meal somehow. Dh cooks now :P

I am so sorry, that must have been awful! My headache is usually not that bad, it ranges from an annoyance, like a tension headache, to migraine w/ nausea to occasional exertion headaches when I sneeze or stand up too suddenly. I definitely couldn't have lasted weeks if it was worse like you're describing!

Thanks! She's a cutie, I'll take her plus a headache any day :)

Lol, yeah the reason I went natural with my first three kids (including a lovely but intense homebirth) is because the epidural always seemed more trouble than it was worth. Plus I'm stubborn, haha! It was nice this time, not sure it was worth a 3 month headache. I think I'll talk to my midwife monday and see if they think that's what it is. I'd just hate to do a blood patch and have it not work because it's something else! Needles are not my favorite and I'm immensely suspicious of doctors even when I know logically most are nice.