Strangely enough, and probably TMI, I have had this myself with certain brands of toilet paper or also if I wipe too hard. Just a random thought....

This is why I'm cramming as much into my youngest BEFORE he gets to that age. I'm still waiting for my DS15 to get out of his "cocoon" - it's happening, just s.l.o.w.l.y. :)

One option for going through lessons quicker is to do two lessons in one day, however, don't do one of the "We Remember" sections. For example, do lesson 1, the new concept, skip the "We Remember" and then do lesson 2 in it's entirety. I only do this if I feel they aren't needing that much extra review. Just a thought for you. Good luck,

Elecare is what my 2 year old is on also. We have to be very careful about dairy because it causes complete meltdowns and just plain mean, violent behavior in him. We're still navigating this road also. Mine was born early (5 wks) but only drug exposure was what I was prescribed for blood pressure. Hope you find something that works for you. And to think I used to think Moms who avoided dairy, red dye #4, preservatives, etc. were crazy. Now here I am.

:lurk5:

That was going to be my choice too.

This may totally not help but we are in the same boat for my 2 year old. He has major behavorial issues, definitely with dairy but other foods too that we are trying to figure out. He's still on a special amino acid formula and very little food. Anyway, my first thing we are trying are Houston's TriEnza Enzymes. It may not be enough; it may not do anything, but we are going to test it. He claims on his website that he feels it may work just as well as a GFCF diet - I cannot vouch for this of course, but we are going to test it. I'm also testing it on myself as I've developed a pretty bad case of psoriatic arthritis and I need help besides prednisone. If it doesn't work for us, I'll be checking in with you to see what you are doing. :) Good luck,

Would you mind elaborating on this or pm'ing me with the info? I'm considering these too. Thanks,

I just did a search on the high school board for Saxon - I got 12 threads. I KNOW there are more than 12 threads on Saxon. :) HTH,

Another one here who doesn't totally understand why it works well, but it IS working. We were doing both A&P and Barton, but my ds just can't memorize all of the rules with Barton. So I've put Barton on hold and A&P / Fast Track is working well for him. I haven't yet decided if we'll go back to Barton in the future.

How long did you try the Prevacid for? Diclofenac didn't work much for my psoriatic arthritis, but I'm on Mobic now and have the same issues you are having. I have to take a Prevacid daily in order for it not to bother me and I've had ulcers before also from Aleve so the doctor wants me on Prevacid anyway. It can take a week or so to really kick in and work. Good luck, I know how nice it is to be able to take something that finally works.

Raising my hand to have it back too please :seeya:

:hurray: Congrats!!

It will be less busy at Thanksgiving than at Christmas, but even Thanksgiving will be swamped. I'd avoid both, but I can't stand crowds. Think 45+ minute waits for everything and some rides will be at least an hour or more. It is great to see it all decked out for Christmas though. We live here so we go at leisure during the "down" times. Good luck,

Ok, show of hands, how many checked the toilet in the middle of the night last night or at least thought of this thread? :seeya:

Ok, does anyone else think it's time to redesign toilets to avoid the situation? I'm afraid to sit down now. I know, let's give our kids a project to design a new toilet that won't let in "animals". :)

As my son keeps reminding me, he doesn't really need to do school anyway since Dec. 21st is the last day..... so they really shouldn't worry.

Melissa, Will you let us know how it's going as you go through it and let us know if it was worth it? Thanks,

I think this might be a key for me. I don't sleep well at night, both because of the 23 month old and me. I know I definitely feel better after a really good night's sleep. I also think Jean is right, I need to prevent myself from staying in "pity party" mode. Maybe Impish is right and a psychologist might help. I research remedies all the time but I get very disappointed when they don't help.

I would consider having them do two days of lessons in one day in order to move through faster. It's very easy to do and, imo, doesn't lose any of the effectiveness of the lessons. Just slow down if, or when, you see they need more time to assimilate the information.

I've used both. CLE is workbook based and the teaching is in the workbook. It is spiral in that it goes over a new concept every day and has continuous review. The new topics do not necessarily go together - for example, you may learn a step in long division today, but something about perimeter the next day and something different the next day. R&S is textbook based meaning you need to copy each problem to a piece of paper especially in the higher grades. I LOVE the oral review in the teacher's manual. It is more mastery based - for example, Chapter 1 is about addition, Chapter 2 is about subtraction, Chapter 3 something else. It does have continuous review problems though. I prefer R&S's mastery but the copying wasn't working, so we use CLE. HTH,

I'm just wondering how those who have chronic pain deal with it mentally? I have psoriatic arthritis and I'm having a hard time. I'm in pain a lot of the time. I take pain meds which help some but not completely plus they make me tired. I can hardly take care of my almost two year old lately. I woke up from the pain last night and just cried. Not only crying because it hurt, but also because I know this can get worse. I'm sad for the things I can't do especially with my little guy. Every day is different and I never know if it will be a good day or a bad day. I'm tired.... mentally and physically. So I'd love some suggestions - thanks,

Not sure if it will help, but I will tell you what we're doing and the progress. My son, like yours, has always struggled with reading and spelling. He does have learning disabilities though due to being born 10 weeks early. He's 15 now and doing better though still working hard at it. We had tried lots of different programs too. Since he's 15 and coming down to the wire, I decided to cover all bases and use Barton Reading and Spelling *AND* Dancing Bears/Apples and Pears. While we are using both and I can't say definitively which has helped the most, I feel that Dancing Bears/Apples and Pears has been the most helpful for him of the two. One of the things you do with DB is to use a cursor card to isolate the individual sounds as he goes along - this might help your son focus on the little details that he needs. It slows everything down at first, but has really helped my son and it stops guessing. For example, "meet" you would show the m then the ee then the t as he blends them together slowly. It gets faster but that's just to show you. My son just has so much trouble remembering all of the rules in Barton though I think the phonemic awareness exercises at Level 1 were fantastic. I'd recommend that to anyone just to make sure they've got it though I really like Literacy Leaders better for phonemic awareness. Hope that helps. Good luck.

Are you worried about "meaty enough" as far as content and where a 13yo "should" be or just for him in general because he wants/needs more? If it's the first, then I'd go with Apologia. If the latter, then I might try the PCI or maybe even just try beefing up Apologia as best you can (requiring additional reading, videos on youtube, vocabulary, etc.). Good luck; I'm in the same boat with my ds15.

Thank you for letting us know!! There's been so much conjecture about it since the article that it's good to hear straight from the source. SWB thank you for ALL you do!!!!!