Sounds like we have the same skin! I am renowned for using half a bottle of something, usually billed as natural or great for sensitive skin, and then getting a rash. My mum is the happy recipient of lots of my experiments. I struggle most with sunscreen and hair conditioner, and I can't used anything perfumed. Because I live in Australia, most of my product recommendations will be useless for you. I wash myself with Sunlight laundry soap. I think Velvet or Ivory soap is the same. It has the bonus of having no palm oil content. Sometimes I make my own. I wash clothes in sunlight soap and washing soda ( grate a cake of soap, dissolve in boiling water, add a cup of washing soda. Make up to 5 litres. Use 1/4 cup per wash (front loader). Skip the borax used in most recipes). I have washed my hair with soap and used a vinegar rinse, but I prefer conditioner. I use coconut oil and olive oil as moisturisers. A 50/50 mix of both works well for me. You can use this as a cleanser as well: slather on, massage gently, remove with a warm cloth. Try different oils till you find one you like. Also works as an overnight hair treatment or as an anti-frizz. Good luck! D

GO TO THE DOCTOR! Kidneys are not to be taken for granted. D

We have home visits in New South Wales, Australia. The person who comes out checks the room for space and light (lots of people use the kitchen or dining table which is fine) and chats to the kids. It's no big deal. D

Mom in high heels, you could send all your Amazon purchase to me here in Sydney and I could forward them on. One look at the postage fees to Australia and I promise you'll never buy anything again! D

If your kids aren't keen on cutting back get them involved. I had DS monitor our daily power use for a month. After the first week, we established a baseline average, then each week we tried to cut it back. Our goal was to use only the amount of power our photovoltaic system produces (5kw in winter). Because he was involved, he got really keen and started to turn off lights, etc. Which makes me think I should probably do it again! Easy things I recommend to students (I teach permaculture): Switch all globes to LEDs Turn everything off at the wall Stop using the dryer. I can't understand why you pay to heat a room and strip all the humidity out of it, and then stick your clothes in another heating appliance to do the same job. Just put the clothes on a rack, or dry them outdoors. It's much better for your clothes, too. Run one fridge. If you have to run two you have too many half used condiments in them! Put a timer in the shower. Stand on the other side of the door and yell once 3mins is up. Bang loudly and yell some more at 5 mins. At 7 mins, turn the water off at the mains. Don't light rooms, garages, pathways, verandahs, etc, that nobody is in, Same same for heating. Make a heating and cooling rule. Eg at our house you can't turn on the air con unless its 37 degrees C. We heat with wood, which warms you three times, once when you cut, then when you cart it and finally when you burn it. Insulate! Get good curtains with pelmets Shade windows if its hot outside If you live in a hot climate, stay well hydrated and resist the temptation to hang out in other people's air conditioning. Not drinking enough and lack of aclimatising make you feel much hotter. D

Pretty normal for my mum. She cried her way through lots of read-alouds (What Katy Did, Pollyanna, The Velveteen Rabbit (this was a biggy and I could never bring myself to read it to my son)). By day, she was a palliative care nurse and not prone to tears. She's mortified if I ever mention the Bambi incident! D

My Labrador often eats the chook food - its full of whole grains. Doesn't seem to do her any harm, but the grains are obviously indigestible! She's a beautiful dog, but she's a stomach on legs. D

Bambi - we had to leave because my mother got so upset (she's a nurse and usually quite tough;) ) D

We usually have seafood, but this year we've opted for prawns and salad for lunch, and pork roast for dinner (I hope its not going to be 37 degrees like it was today). We eat lots of fabulous fruit: mangoes, peaches, berries, and cherries bought by the box from stalls and car boots on the side of the road. If its hot we'll swim in the river. Most of the afternoon will be spent lying around digesting and hiding from the heat. We have a traditional tree in front of the fireplace, and we put lights on the house outside. We walk around the neighbourhood looking at the lights, which is great on a hot night while we wait for it cool down enough to go to sleep. Christmas begins our summer holiday period. We run around like loonies until Christmas Eve, knock off early, then spend January on a go-slow before waking up after Australia Day on the 26th January. I've never had a cold Christmas. It would be very strange. I can't imagine Christmas without cherries and mangoes! D

I agree with Melissa: I don't see his lies as petty. They look petty because he's seven and life at seven is largely mundane, so there isn't much big stuff to lie about. If he's dobbing his siblings in and trying to get them into trouble, that's not petty, that's mean and there should be consequences. Why is he watching a video after mucking up and lying? He should be outdoors shovelling up dog nuggets (or something else unfun) not kicking back in front of the TV. Makes me wonder if your son is quite smart. Smart kids, especially cunning smart kids, are really exhausting to parent! How good is your follow through? Do you give adequate consequences and do you check repeatedly that your requirements have been met? Teeth cleaning is one example here: DS has dyspraxia, so sometimes he just can't be bothered cleaning his teeth properly because this sort of fine motor work requires quite a bit of energy and concentration. If I don't ask and do random checks, he ends up with breath like the gates of hell. I find following through really boring and draining, especially if I've had to do it all day for school work already, but its essential to build good habits. As for punishments, I would explain that lying is a trust issue. Because you can't trust him, he loses some freedom and must stay closer to you. He also needs to prove that he can be responsible so he needs to do chores, including chores that help his younger siblings (this is a requirement of all functioning humans, not a punishment and I would make that very clear). I wouldn't be angry with him, just the behaviour. And I would make a big deal of his position as the oldest. But you choose the punishments, not him. This is not a negotiation. BTW, I think the hacksaw story is hilarious. I'll share it with DS in the morning.

I think gravity is squashing me and pushing bits out sideways;)

I have the same problem with DS13. How about we swap? With the change in time zone between Sydney and the US they might end up awake at the right end of the day!

All milk is tainted by the animals' diet. I used to be part of a cow share. The cow's owner used to get scraps from a local fruit and veg shop. Suzy the cow loooved leeks. The milk was revolting - like an onion milkshake! He tried to make up for it by feeding her loads of strawberries, but unfortunately, that had no effect. Fresh goats milk is sweet. Older goats milk is goaty..... D

MEP is an outstanding maths program. It teaches mathematic thinking, not formulaic problem solving. We started it in 6th grade. I am kicking myself that we didn't start in way back in 2nd when we started homeschooling. I have a science degree and used to work in epidemiology. I have a mathematical brain. My son does not. The turnaround in his ability after we switched to MEP was dramatic. Don't worry about being "behind". MEP moves very quickly. Because it tackles mental maths, problem solving and mathematic concepts all at once, you cover and review a lot of material with a minimum of busy work. If you worked your way through to year 6, you could spend year 7 reviewing previous work and teaching solid individual work skills by working through the years 7 and 8 interactive tutorials in one year, then pull apart year 9 and see what is review that you can do via the tutorials, and what is new and needs the printouts for proper learning. You may be able to cover all three years in one (we are doing them over 2 because DS has gaps and we have to fit in some extras from the Australian curriculum). Keep in mind that MEP finishes at year 13. I have never used the black line masters. I just write on a blackboard. I use the ipad for the teachers notes. I don't do a lot of teacher prep (cos I am both lazy and busy) but maths is my forte. If maths isn't your thing you may have to do more prep. Try a scientists trick and make a flow chart for each lesson. MEP lessons usually have good flow. And don't be scared of admitting you don't get it. Some of MEP is really challenging. It does kids good to see Mum working hard to nut something out (it may not have done DS good to see me losing it over co-ordinate geometry on one of the days when I really should have done some lesson prep!) Buy some A4 paper and a nice folder. Honestly, its what most of the world uses. it's just you Americans thinking you're special again 😈 A4 is lovely stuff. We Aussies are used to having to put up with everyone else's money and dodgy spelling. Our kids don't bat an eye at UK or US money. Put it down to cultural exposure and embrace being a bit of a weirdo. The payoff will be a child with outstanding mathematical literacy. D

To answer an earlier post, the study type required to disprove the link between ASD and vaccination is not a randomised controlled trial. RCTs test for treatment efficacy, and generally do a poor job of determining adverse events (this is largely an issue of sample size, determined by the clinically significant difference of the treatment under investigation). RCTs are usually not large enough, nor do they run for long enough, to determine rare, long term adverse events. What is needed is a large, long term cohort study, where a group of children is monitored for many years and data about adverse events are collected. The researchers don't determine who gets vaccinated, they just collect and analyse the data. Such cohort studies have been conducted in Denmark and Japan and they found NO LINK between MMR and ASD. They were not funded by vaccine manufacturers (scientists take a very dim view of industry funded research). I have to say I resent the inference that science is corrupt or just generally vaguely incompetent. We know that we make recommendations that affect people's lives. We take our work very seriously. The peer review process is very exacting. We work long hours for fairly ordinary pay, we have very high stress jobs, there is never enough funding, and most work on very short contracts spending at least a third of the year writing grants in the hope of having a job next year. We do the work because we want to make a difference, not because we want to hide the truth and stuff up people's kids. If you know a kid with autism, I can promise you we are all on the same side. D

I'm not going to spend much time on this thread because I've gone through all this lots of times before and I know a brick wall when I see one, but I feel compelled to share a few truths. I am a scientist by trade, I worked in evidence based medicine for more than a decade and much of my work was in Autism research. There is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. A high quality, large cohort study has shown that there is no correlation between vaccination and the incidence of autism (I will find the reference but not now cos its midnight in Sydney). For those with no experence in how scientific research works, only large, long term cohort studies can prove that there is no link. It's very expensive and time consuming. Showing that there is no link is not the same as not showing there is a link. The first is deliberate, the second is usually due to poor design. The incidence of autism is rising, largely because the diagnostic criteria has changed. Autism has only been recognised as a disorder since the 1960's. diagnosis has greatly improved in the last ten years with increasing awareness. There is some evidence of over diagnosis as ASD allows families to obtain some support funding which disorders like DCD do not. Many children with Asperger Syndrome would never have been diagnosed 20 years ago. They just would have been considered weird or quirky and gone on to be IT boffins, doctors, accountants, etc. I haven't read all the posts and I'm not sure if he's been mentioned but do beware of anyone quoting Andrew Wakefield. His "research" into MMR, leaky gut and ASD has been completely discredited (its scientifically flawed and fraudulent). He is a charlatan who has caused the loss of herd immunity in the UK, made families sick with guilt, and caused endless confusion and pain. D

I've had the same experience here in Australia. I've felt like a bit of a freak in our homeschool group where most mums are from more "creative" professions (music, dance) than me (I'm a scientist). Only two of us were schooly families, with the rest natural learners. We now have a few more families where the parents are pushing academics. The natural learners are quite free with their criticism: boring, not creative, not social, blah, blah. I'm a bit shocked at their naivety. While you may be able to do some make up courses, enter uni as a mature age student, etc, its VERY hard to make up for a lack of general knowledge, catch up on poor maths, or amend a lack of critical thinking. Yes, creativity is important, but so is academic rigour. D

Thank you, Laura - giving extra punctuation to quotes annoys me (I clearly have too little to do!). I am an Evans by birth. The plural is still Evans and the possessive is Evans'. While I adore Strunk and White (the book was THE style guide at Sydney Uni), I'm afraid if either gentleman had an "s" ending name, they might have felt differently. "Evans's" sounds like something out of a bad comedy skit! And I can clearly recall the 4th grade grammar lesson in which we studied this rule. I was very excited: my surname was in the book! D

I'm an ex-army medic. I have treated a lot of truly awful feet, including lots of ingrown toenails. You've been given all the best methods already, just not all at once. this is what I would do. 1. Clean the offending toe, then saturate the infected area with hydrogen pyroxide. It will bubble all the pus out (too much info, I know, but you have to get your fun where you can) 2. Cut a V into the nail about 3mm from the edge. This looks silly but stops the nail pushing into the flesh at the side of the nail. If the nail is too short, skip this step but consider doing it as the nail grows to allow the nail to be cut straight across eventually. Avoid the perfectly natural urge to hack the nail away from the sore flesh- you're only delaying the inevitable. 3. Take a really small bit of cotton wool, soak it in iodine or ti-tree oil, and place it under the corner of the nail as discussed above. Change the cotton daily! 4. Air the offending feet often, and get him out of shoes. Wear socks made only of natural fibres and give him a long and boring lecture if you think he is smoking, cos he'll have a lifetime of dodgy feet if he is. Hope this helps D

Ok, I'll be the one - I really like doing the washing! We are a family of three, sometimes 4. I wash every day. We have a 6kg front loader and I line dry ( we live in Australia, the weather is good and line drying is the norm). I HATE using the dryer. It sucks electricity and makes the clothes all soft and squishy. Everyone puts their dirty stuff in the laundry basket or a basket in the bathroom, I do a quick scout through the house for extras, then put on a dark load first thing almost every day. The washing machine takes 45mins. I hang the clothes out on the line during a spare 5mins, they flap around till I bring them in (afternoon usually, but about an hour after hanging them out on some of our blistering summer days). I fold them when I bring them in, or if I'm too busy, later in front of the TV. Everyone gets a pile of their stuff put on their bed and I put away the household linen. I stockpile the ironing and do it in batches. I do whites with the sheets (2 loads a week) or sometimes on their own if I have enough. I never run the machine unless its full. Australians do tend to wash themselves and their clothes a lot. It's hot and sweaty here in summer. It's very unusual for an Aussie to wear the same clothes two days in a row, with the exception of men's work trousers and occasionally jeans. For me, this is the easiest way to keep up. If I am working, I put a load on the night before. I've used this system for 20 years, even when I worked full time with long commutes. It's the same system my mum has always used and I never stop to question it. I get jumpy if there is dirty washing hanging around. D

I think I need a remedial curriculum for my husband....... D

I just really, really, really want a WWS version of the Complete Writer!!!! Please, SWB? D

The short answer to your daughter's question is that they don't, given only the phenotype (the expressed characteristic eg flower colour). It takes repeated controlled crosses (breeding), selecting for particular phenotypes each time, or mapping of characteristics back through generations, to determine genotype (which combination of recessive and dominant genes) you have. And it gets complicated as soon as you move on from single gene traits. I have a degree in genetics. I found Mendel and his peas excruciatingly boring, but loved the genetics of diseases like sickle cell anemia, Duchenne MD, cystic fibrosis, etc. My advice is to read a bit about Mendel because of his historical importance, then move on to something most 12 year olds are interested in: themselves. Talk about the genetics of hair colour, eye colour, attached ear lobes, tongue rolling, whatever. This will be really useful if you have a mix of phenotypes in the family, like brown and blue eyes (btw, eye colour isn't determined by a single gene, but if you don't have hazel or green eyes in the family, you can simplify it down to one to get the point across). HTH D

One of the most 'pain free' ways of reducing population is to educate women, to high school level at a minimum. Educated women tend to have less children and start having them later. If a woman delays having children until she is thirty, she is unlike to have as many children. But the big difference is in the number of generations born in a century. If a woman has her first child at thirty, and her daughter follows this pattern, only 3 generations are possible in a century. If the woman has her first child a 20 and her daughter follows this pattern, 4 generations are possible. This has major implications for population growth (and I wish I could find the excellent article I read with the figures on this). Two analogies I really like: Imagine the world is a big buffet lunch. There are 100 people at the buffet. If the first 20 people to line up took 80% of the food, the remaining 80 people would have to share the left over 20%. So what do you think of the first 20? Bit selfish? That's us: the "developed world" has scoffed 80% of the worlds resources, leaving 80% of the people on the planet to live on our scraps. And that's just the people. There is little regard for the resources of the millions of animals who also rely on this planet. Population works like bacteria in a Petrie dish. The growth starts small, increases almost imperceptibly, until it reaches a noticeable level, then all of a sudden it covers half the dish. It takes one more growth cycle and the dish is full. The next step is complete death because all the resources are gone. Fabulous posts, Cammie! Danielle

I took periactin as an antihistamine from aged 4 till I was 24. I stopped when I found out they gave it to little old ladies in nursing homes to fatten them up. I need an appetite stimulant like a hole in the head! As an antihistamine it was fantastic. Even now, if I have really bad allergies (rhinitis, eczema, and cough variant asthma), I long for the super relief of periactin. It was a life changer for me as a very young child. But it also saw me standing at the fridge in the wee small hours, half asleep, stuffing food into my mouth as a teenager. My weight was always normal, though. If I take one now, I can't stop eating for days. It's like I have a complete oral fixation, only soothed by buckets of chocolate! So yeah, it's a great appetite stimulant. But I can also attest to the heart palpitations and dizziness. It's also quite dehydrating, particularly the mouth and throat. Honestly, some days I just felt like a dried out chip, albeit a really hungry one! D