I have a friend who adopted a child from Russia when he was 10-12 yrs old. He's ACING his High School English classes; reading, grammar and writing.

Cheap: A bag of Jelly Beans. White turtleneck, White leggings. LARGE clear plastic bag with leg & arm holes. Lots of small balloons blown up inside the bag. A cute 'twist tie' closing the bag at the neck. There's a picture on pinterest, I believe. It's on this page.

Having been diagnosed with infertility of unknown origin, I would never ask a person with one child why they aren't having more. I know people with 1 child,who, for various reasons, are mourning the loss of their fertility just as much as I was mourning my infertility, with no children. I have 2 adopted girls, both from Asia. I am about as Caucasian as they come. And I get looks and questions about our family. Why did I adopt? What a wonderful, selfless act it is to adopt (yeah, right. I did it for me, not for them!) And my favorite: strangers asking me if I couldn't have children. Um, my womb is NOT up for discussion anymore than your hemorrhoids are. What? You don't have hemorrhoids? Surprising, since you seem like a real pain the a$$! I especially like this conversation in front of my children. Yeah, you guys were choice 3 & 4. :rolleyes:

Read Todd Wilson's cartoons. Tim Hawkins has a great video on youtube, 'A Homeschool Family'. Those could give you some great starting points. Just remember: 99% of all homeschoolers do NOT abuse their kids, are NOT murderers, and the kids do NOT grow up to become serial killers. We do not keep our kids isolated for bizarre reasons. Heck, we don't keep our kids isolated! And you MUST have a cameo appearance by Susan Wise Bauer!!!!!!!!!!!

for me, the microwave, stand mixer and a rice cooker. But we use the rice cooker 3x/wk at least. And the kids can operate it, whereas boiling the rice on the stove, I would not yet allow.

This sounds like my oldest and me.

My daughter loses the checklist. :glare:

That brught to mind car seat laws, seat belts, texting while driving laws, etc. I don't necessarily agree with it, but like they said, desperate times call for desperate measures. If nothing else has worked, do you worry about civil rights, or do you just throw up your hands and walk away? Tough situation. And I'm glad I'm not the one making the decisions!

While I agree with your statement, I would have to wonder WHY someone would be wearing gang colors in that city. If things have gotten this much out of control, and someone was walking down the street wearing royal blue, it would cause me to think 'gang member'. Maybe the police are claiming probable cause too.

B-12 is the biggest concern, medically, I believe. I would do a bit of research and then just make sure she gets a multi-vitamin (vegan, of course ;) ) that has whatever she *MIGHT* be missing.

My friend has a son who is anaphylatic to dairy. Our house is dairy central. Milk, yogurt and cheese are taken in at LEAST once a day per person, usually more. But she KNOWS that I am fearful to have him in my home. I have told her, and she's FINE with it. It would be easier if they would just TELL you....

First we put DD (now 11) on a large dose of omega 3s. She takes 4 tablets a day. Second we removed ALL red and yellow artificial coloring from her diet. This made an incredible difference. But there were still problems. Third, we had her evaluated/tested. She has depression, anxiety, MILD Asperger's, and Executive Skills Dysfunction, and probably ADD. (Female ADD). We too, didn't want her labeled, but it helped us deal with and eventually medicate her. Prozac is INCREDIBLE! Between the oils, lack of coloring, and prozac, we can live with her 85% of the time. There are just some Aspie traits that are difficult to deal with.

OH yeah. They would hear this. And hopefully, your children will be able to let Gma and Gpa know how much they appreciate being slighted. This just makes my blood boil, so I will do everything I can to NOT say much of anything else.

I haven't figure it out, so if someone DOES know, could you let me know? I'd like to be able to avoid them.

I agree, but it's beyond ignorant to offer someone with a dairy allergy ice cream. Or to sit a box of dunkin donuts in front of a person with a gluten intolerance. Citric acid, I can go along with. That's a bit unusual and you have to search for it, and like the PP said, if you can eat french fries from McDonald's but not from Burger King (or the other way around) I can give a person a little leeway on not comprehending. But some people are just so beyond ignorant, you just have to wonder WHY THEY ARE TRYING TO KILL SOMEONE. Because that is what it appears they are doing.

We are low-cost, in an area with a low COL. We do a LOT of produce, and do organics on whatever we can at the local grocer. I do farm markets in the summer. next year, I hope to have a nice sized garden.

:eek:

That woman would not come within 1,000 feet of my child. And we would NOT be eating anything at her house or that she brought into MY house. :glare:

DH says it sounds like the starter cellenoid. (I know I spelled that second word wrong).

:iagree: My husband hangs out at the Toyota Hybrid boards (we have a prius and a Highlander Hybrid).

We watched it. And we bought a juicer. We have a fruit juice in the morning (with a handful of spinach or kale) and a veggie juice in the evening (with an apple or two). :D

I might not have been clear. they knew grandma was dying, we just didn't tell them the actual time that she died. We felt that the wait for the service (6 days) would have been too difficult on my oldest, who has anxiety and depression. So it wasn't a complete shock. And we did tell them the day before. They knew everything but the exact TOD and the time of the service. Now that she's on medication (prozac) we might well be able to tell them WHEN it happened. But before meds, No Way. I'm so sorry. I didn't read the whole thread. We had someone to take care of the girls during the visitation and then to take them home afterwards, so they wouldn't have to stay during the lunch (oldest wouldn't have eaten most of it anyway). While we didn't have a viewing, we felt the visitation would be hard on the girls. DH is an only child, so the girls were the only grandchildren, and EVERYBODY knew about her precious granddaughters! We felt that everyone wanting to talk to them would be too much. And afterwards, same thing. So we had an 18 yr old friend take care of the them. She took them home, after stopping at their favorite restaurant for lunch, and let them play. <BRAG ALERT> This 18 yr old 'child' would take no pay for that day. Watching her grow up, using her as our sitter for several occasions, that still brings tears to my eyes. She has grown into a fabulous young woman. (Sorry, I just HAD to brag there). I will be praying for your family, and especially for wisdom in working with the kids. It is not easy.

Went through this in February. We continued with school. MIL died on Sunday Evening and we schooled the whole next week, not telling the girls until that Friday. Her service was Saturday and we took that next week off. My oldest has some anxiety issues, so we just kept it as low key as possible. In hind sight, I"m not sure that taking a week off was a good idea. I probably should have done school lite for them, but honestly, *I* needed the break. Our 2 girls are the only grandchildren. You cannot imagine the broken hearts when I had to escort 2 little girls who were sobbing, from the memorial service. 7 & 10 yrs old. Some of my friends told me later that it was heart wrenching.

For me, this is dropping some of the logic puzzles and games that my oldest loves to do. She is so good at them though, that she really doesn't need the training. We might do some of those over Christmas break. My youngest is still doing them, because she just doesn't have the common sense God gave a rock. If it says, in bolded caps, that the bike was not blue, she'll guess blue. :001_huh: we've cut out all but the science lapbook. They really enjoy that one and it seems to help them remember the details. In MFW history, we do just the history & Bible. I don't do all the extra stuff. Both my girls take art classes through our local co-op, and they are taking piano lessons. I have ripped the CDs onto my phone so we do listen to the classical music in the car. But it's not an integral part of school. (it usually just keeps them quiet in the car, so they aren't arguing!) We don't even do most of the workbook pages for MFW unless it is mapwork. The girls each have nooks, and we have downloaded many books for them to read. that cuts out TONS of clutter and fines from the library. Somehow, with all that, our school area is STILL an absolute mess! Go figure.

DH has some weird food sensitivities. If he eats certain foods after 6:00ish, he wakes up with a KILLER headache. These include fruits, brown sugar, and honey. (Those are the ones off the top of my head). So I plan to have dinner ready by 5:30 so he can eat it without having to worry about what's in it. He leaves for work around 7:00 (if he gets up when his alarm goes off :glare:) so he puts in a full day, working 9 hours, at least.