Ok..this is so embarrassing..but...my doctor will not be in until Monday. Basically, we got a pass to the state parks this year. 2 weekends in a row, we took the children there and let them play on the beach and swim and then washed off in the showers, had picnics and then hiked a short bit and went home. Last weekend, we swam at my brother's house. 2 days ago, we swam at my sister's neighborhood pool. When we were swimming at the lake, I kept thinking how dirty and gross it was. I am a bit OCD when it comes to the water I swim in and when you cannot see the bottom..just yuck. I grew up with my family taking us to the lake because, well, I grew up in the midwest, smallish town areas. So the question is...can swimming in a lake cause an infection in the part of the body used to exit babies in to the world?

I have 1 large rubbermade container of stuff from my childhood..largely photo albums and baby books. I also have 1 more box that has a few things. Maybe you could set a limit at how much to keep as long as you have space.

Saxons best years are 54-76. It gets worse after that. Sorry.

Hhe wants to know, but it is very hard to pull him back to the actual math problem at hand. Since this is our first week with this particular book (we did Early Bird series previously) I am thinking it MIGHT just be because it is all new. He is pulling a lot of "can't handle it." Realize, he did take the placement exam and tested out of 1A and got most of the problems right on 1B but was very slow and it was hard for him so I decided we would start with 1B.

I have been having an issue this week. I did purchase the Singapore Math, but everytime I open the book, my high stress accelerated child (he has anxiety disorder bad enough to have a diagnosis) my incoming 2nd grader has to ask why this persons name is pronounced like this and why...all entailing things in the pictures and such. Juan is pronounced like wahn...not Jon. Why? What country is he from? What language do they speak there? Why is the book in English then? uugghhh You get the idea. Should I just keep plugging away figuring he will get over this? Or is he perhaps one of those kids who simply gets too distracted by these sorts of things and I need to move on? He is very quick at math. The only program I have on my list that has no distracting pictures and such is Math U See. The blocks may be distracting, but fortunately, due to the nature of the blocks, they are at least mathematical and he will learn something doing them. He is a very smart child, his anxiety/stress problems just get in the way of so much.

It took pretty much the entire day. But, a child from our church gave him a pen pal packet that she put together for each child in the class. It has a peice of stationary with Dear <girls name>, and then lines paper..that looked like handwriting paper. At the bottom it said "from, ____" and space for the child sending to sign. She also included a self address envelope, a pencil, and 2 dumdum suckers. There was a note..it was actually written in rhyming poem form..that said something about you write me and then watch your mailbox as I will surely write you back..but it is a cute poem. So...being that we are half way through the summer, I told DS that we need to do this letter. He says he does not know what to say so I wrote out on the board what to say. He complains a few more times that he does not know what to say, I point to the board a few more times and read it. It was 3 sentences basically. "Hi! How are you? I like to swim and hike. Hope to hear from you soon." Then he complained it was too long. (he is going in to 2nd grade). This went on and on and on. But, we said we would go swimming as soon as he was done. He was done around 2:30-3pm. It was such a momentus gain!!!! I got the feeling that if each day, I have him copy 1 sentence of some sort, first thing in the day, before he gets other things on his mind, maybe, just maybe, we will get through this. Next is math...............

Here is what I would do in this case..... Easy Grammar Plus...it covers all the basics, it is Jr High level and above but it is very comprehensive and does not require that you already know a bunch. (I actually have a Grammar Key set. I am not happy with it for us, but you might like it for your nephew as it is all self grading). Is he ready for MUS Gamma? If so, the instructing is done by someone else on that. If he gets a topic, he can move on to the next lesson. Each lesson is supposed to take a week but the glory of this is it gets to the point and teaches the basics and then you can move on and not do the rest of the worksheets for the week. It says this right in the instructions. He may very well be able to get through 2-3 levels in this program at his age in a year. For vocab, I would just do Calvery spelling CD (no correcting for teacher) or Word Roots by Critical Thinking press..use the CDs so it is corrected by the computer. I use Word Roots. Also, he needs to work on KeyBoarding. I have been told Mavis Beacon is the best and am planning on purchasing it soon myself. I would leave his curriculum at this. I would set a rule of no TV except educational TV during the day and he will get so much out of this. I have this rule and do not teach any social studies or science and my DD just scored 99th percentile in both science and social studies in both these areas on the ITBS. I would also give him access to books to read all he wants. My DD had a reading learning disability and came so far with all her reading the year I had a baby, because I left her to read and didn't have the time to teach much. Alll that free reading caused a 20 percentile point increase in her ITBS score in reading.

We have had to basically go without. I really would like to see all of us band together and do something. I think most people in this country, especially as they head to Mexico for missionary work and raise tons of money for 3rd world countries, really truely believe that all of the US is provided for and just a bunch of spoiled people. Reality is, children with disabilities cannot get services unless, as you put it, they are seriously poor or seriously rich.

Ok..about the algebra issue..the older child just needs to learn to deal with it. It is not ok to hold back the younger child just because he has an older brother. The younger child should not do anything to make the older feel bad, but it goes both ways. All through their lives, there will be someone who is better and so on. I would not use Life of Fred. It would be very unfair to give the younger one a lessor curriculum just to make the older one feel better. What is the older one going to do if they are adults and the younger one makes more? Gets married sooner? Goes to grad school when the other does not? This will always be an issue and it is time to take care of it now. Have both kids do Jacobs algebra. Do not allow either child to make the other feel bad. My 12 yr old is doing Jacobs algebra this fall and my 13 yr old (who is 17 months older) is also in Algebra this fall. They know better than to pull the ole "it makes me feel dumb" act. No way will I hold my 12 yr old back in the name of stroking the ego of the older one.

There is a character issue on both levels. While it is ok for the younger one to excell, it is not ok for him to do it just to crush his brother. He should not flaunt it or use it in a ha-ha sort of way. He should excell because HE wants to excell, not the other way around.

I do not get the spending on adult ed. If they are paying to educate adults..then why do I have student loans?

My son is in PT/OT and speech.

I have a very big master bedroom closet. Problem is, it clearly is not being used to its potential. I would like to make the most use of it and keep the clutter out of the rest of the house. Pitifully so, my DH's pants and shorts are being kept in a rubber made container right now! I have seen these closet units at Target and was wondering of others opinions of them. Anyone have experience or opinions or know others who have used them? Right now, we have a dresser in there, but the dresser is quite impractical as it is not tall but is long so it takes up a fair amount of space.

There are lots and lots of new car seats, for way less and at least as safe as the Britax starriser..like the Graco Turbo booster. You might want to just look in to those instead of buying a new cover. I thought carseats expire after 5 years. Do they still expire after 5 years when it is a booster?

I would never hire her again, ever. I would not recommend her to anyone. I would also call the church and speak to the woman she supposedly spoke to who supposedly diagnosed your children and find out what really happened. My bet is, your sitter laid in with claims of all this bad behavior and the teacher/OT said if this is all true, it could be SID. Not that she told the sitter all this. I am betting it has all pretty much come from the sitter. (((hugs)))

Too bad you cannot boil the humans and make them turn out fine. Maybe everyone will be fine. Sorry you have to do all this work.

We are in Lewisville ISD. They are awful!

I have been a huge squeaky wheel and it has basically given the local schools a huge sense of power. They got away with it even after I filed complaints with the state. They know they can do whatever they want, they are in complete control and above the law.

Welcome back! Thanks for sharing the pictures.

Sometimes, they just get better as they get older. Maybe he just needs to get a little older and then his scores will improve.

I gave him some rep points, LOL

LOL..yes, I remember a bunch of the words too.

I just started reading your blog. It looks great so far! I am going to keep reading. Thanks! This is something I have always wanted to do.

My dh's count was low oncce. We took him to a urologist who put him on antibiotics under the idea that he could have prostatitis. Then his count went way up. Another thing that matters..give at the actual facility. My dh's counts are way higher when done at the facility than when done at home and transported.

I am so sorry! (((hugs)))