higginszoo
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Posts posted by higginszoo
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The Bobbsey Twins were popular at that age. I had one who got into the Redwall books at 5-6, too (there was a cartoon on PBS, now on Netflix). Beverly Cleary books -- the Ralph the Mouse and Ramona Series, especially, though Henry was popular as well. One liked the Narnia books when pretty young. My current 6 year old loves the Little House on the Prairie books, though they're not as interesting to her now that she's about halfway through, as Laura is too old to be as relevant to her right now, but the first 3 when Laura is still pretty young have been a hit.
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Yes, we always have services on Christmas. I find the concept of NOt having service on Christmas a bit confusing. What are we celebrating? (I CAN see forgoing Sunday school and other things, but not worship.)
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I grew up in a Navy family, and we always seemed to be in the middle of a move for Christmas and/or Thanksgiving, which meant that we were in temporary quarters (basically a hotel room) as often as not. Eventually, my mom got a little fake tree, but before that, I remember going through the recycling/old papers and finding old comics to make a tree . They'd get a package of Christmas bows and let us go wild sticking them to things.
My mom would usually get donuts the day before for us to have for breakfast (big treat).
I honestly don't know how they pulled off the Santa thing when we were little. When we were older (12-20), I have fun memories of hiding in the bathroom with my brothers while my parents put the gifts out (they were stashed in the back of the car). They always brought our stockings.
We did the cookie thing that some people mention, we had hot chocolate with candy canes and marshmallows.
Holiday dinners at Shoney's became a tradition all of their own -- one that we kept once or twice when we WEREN'T in the middle of moving. (either that, or we'd eat on the ship if Dad had to work).
I'll ask my brothers, too, but I don't think any of us ever felt slighted, but a lot had to do with my parents' attitude of making it into an adventure definitely rubbed off. And we also had the added benefit that if we were in the middle of moving, Dad was *usually* home and not deployed.
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I don't think it's unreasonable to have them stay home one day (though I'd have things like game night or movie night or something for there to be a reason behind it). I also don't see a problem with limiting sleepovers, though you might want to sit down with them and your dad and prearrange things -- like sleepover at Grandpa's is on Wednesday nights ... not to say that it always HAS to be on Wednesdays, if there's something on Thursday that makes it make more sense, it can be traded and they can be home on Wednesday. It seems to me that most males in general seem to do better with more concrete terms like that. It would help you planning too, knowing that on the weeks you have the boys, you can still usually get together with people on Wednesdays.
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$200 ... my mom bartered for some of the alterations, then paid $100 to have them finished after I moved. The whole wedding seemed like a lot at the time, but was under $5000, including live band and limo that dad insisted on having and paying for.
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I used it for my second for K. I was adding in (she was listening in with her brother), but it did an adequate job of covering the bases, and she seemed to enjoy it. With a complicated pregnancy/delivery/high need baby and a first grader and 3/4 year old along with my kindergartener, I needed an easy button, and this was a good option.
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:iagree:We have done a lot of stints in the hospital, surgeries, ER, etc.I think that one thing here is that this was NOT an emergency (meaning they knew well in advance the day/time) and this was not an on-going thing---family member hospitalized for days/weeks, etc. These outpatient surgery centers are like doctor's offices where they do scheduled more minor surgeries and the person goes home just a few hours later. The stay is general no more than 4-6 hours total--sometimes more, sometimes less.
In this case, I think that at least having someone bring the toddler home would have been the best thing all around.
It can be different when it is an emergency or a long term thing where family comes to visit often, etc.
I have been there when we needed stitches for a 4 year old and I no sitter so I had my other 4 year old and a 3 year old in the room while the one got stitches. Not ideal but I didn't have time to schedule the stitches for a day when I could get a sitter.
I have also been in ER with 2 4 year olds, a 3 year old and a baby------again, not ideal but I was bringing grandma up to the hospital to see grandpa (just a quick stay for the kids and I) when she started having chest pains and ended up in ER for heart attack evaluation. As soon as we could though we got me and the kids out of there.
I just see a planned couple hour long out patient surgery as vastly different than an emergency or even long term stay thing.
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One of the problems that I've seen is that because some families bring everyone, other families are left with no place to sit, stand, or otherwise wait.
This is a main reason why my dh left me for the second surgery. One or two families taking up 6-8 chairs each when about 2 per patient is budgeted, and he stood through the intake process until he could come back with me, and may have had to stand for the two hours that I was in surgery and recovery. There just wasn't room, I understand wanting to be there for someone, but sometimes when they're unconscious anyway, you're sometimes really being inconsiderate to other patients and their families by having a mob of people there. There was a pre-op appointment there the day before, we saw the situation then, and made a decision not to bring our children, mainly out of being considerate to the fact that there wasn't space for 5 people per patient.
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It must be a cultural thing or something. The last two times that I had outpatient surgery, dh stayed while I was admitted, and then left me there. It wasn't high risk (most OUTpatient procedures aren't), I was unconscious, there was no benefit to him being there. They called him when they were done, before I was awake, and he was there to pick me up not long after I woke up. The first time, he went home to be with the dc. The second we either got a sitter or maybe just left them (the older two were babysitting age).
There were times when I had to drag siblings along to specialist appointments when they were younger (my boys have multiple birth defects, as do I). Sometimes I still do (my oldest sees a specialist 3 1/2 hours away, too long to leave the littlest, if not the middles, as we're gone at least 9 hours.) These were to clinics or ER, when there was a surgery involved, even with only short notice, I've usually managed to find someone to watch the others (the exception being dh's eye surgery).
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Miquon and Singapore, followed by Life of Fred, with MEP and Zaccaro as supplements has been the best combo for us here, with 4 math and science - gifted kids.
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In addition, I'd have some concern for how the mental health issues are affecting the daughter.
Agreeing that it definitely sounds like older dn could probably already benefit from counseling, as her mother's uncontrolled mental health issues seem to be affecting her already. Something I'd bring up with b-i-l, not sis in her current state, though. My aunt is still struggling to recover from the fallout of living for 18 years with a mother who had uncontrolled mental health issues (my mom was older and got to spend the formative preschool years with relatives making excuses to take her for a week here, a month there, which they weren't available to do for my aunt -- the difference that it made between them is amazing).
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We didn't really start systematic study until my boys were in 4th and 7th grades. It came pretty easily to them then with Runkle. My now-5th grader's favorite reinforcement is an iphone app on his itouch called Stack the Countries. Their sister between them (in 7th now) and baby sister are still working on states and how to get to friends' houses who live in a mile radius without calling me, lost. :glare:
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Along the lines of a hope chest -- one thing that I used for years that my parents got me at about that age was a tool box fully stocked with tools. It was very helpful for messing around with building sets at first (also a theater geek), then for repairs around the apartment, etc. Not typical, but I was very popular with my neighbors as a young adult because none of the people around me had a hammer or screwdrivers (especially my precision screwdriver set would get borrowed/used a lot). Oh, and the little hacksaw was very useful.
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6, or almost 6. I had a serious accident in a top bunk when I was 3 or 4, that probably wouldn't have been an issue, had I been bigger.
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There's probably no way of telling, other than asking her dh and/or her dad and seeing if she vented to one of them about the presumed slight. It seems to be about her (I'm guessing that everything is about her -- dh has a sister like this, I know it can be exhausting). But yeah, sometimes with people like this (speaking from experience with s-i-l), all you can do is sit back and chill and wait until whatever has worked it way up their ... passes and they approach you again.
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One of the schools that I went to was 100% military families (served only a housing development for Navy and Coast Guard personnel). As such, 95% of us qualified for free or reduced lunch. Back then, it was always the dads on active duty, and most of the moms worked. Yes, there were people who made stupid decisions about the money that they did have. One of the best things that happened is when organizations like 4-H and Junior Achievement that taught self-reliance and money management skills came in and offered after school programs. They were optional, but they allowed some moms to be able to work some much needed extra hours at their jobs without worrying about their kids going home to an empty house that day. It was a big deal when Boys and Girls Clubs started bringing in after school tutors. These are organizations that have had some degree of success in breaking the cycle of bad choices that contributes to poverty. My parents would comment (and still comment) on how much smarter I am about money than they are after I did JA in third and fourth grades. It empowered me to make better choices and be much further along financially than they were at my age, even on one income (and my parents were probably better than those around us at managing things).
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We did ABF, too, and they were a whole lot cheaper than renting/driving a truck ourselves from Seattle to Denver. I hired some youth group kids on the Seattle end to help load (they worked for a contribution to their mission trip and pizza), and on the Denver side, we had family.
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There's an Air National Guard Base fairly close by. I wonder if they would have that kind of thing. The closet Air Force Base looks to be maybe 4 hours away. Thank you for asking. :001_smile:
Our ANG base has a PX, and it's pretty easy to get on, as long as you can present a reason to the guard, though the CAP ID helps. I'm an AEM, so I have my own card.
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No joke!! My oldest ds has 2 paper routes which he uses to finance his CAP addiction. :D My 2nd son recently joined and has zero income.
Can you say, "Dear Grandma, all I want for Christmas is a donation to my CAP fund because I am a lazy pauper."? (he used to have a paper route but quit it, so not much sympathy here)
I am very glad that a 2nd set of blues was not on our encampment list. ouch! We're still wearing the first free set. Ds is sad that he has not grown in a full year, but I'm a little happy. :001_smile:
We went to the Army/Navy Surplus and i was able to pick up a set of XS, short, BDUs for $30. Now here's hoping that Vanguard can get the tapes and patches here before next weekend. Still no luck on the blues. When I put in his initial order, the ladies at Lackland actually called me to verify. I offered to bring him down so they could measure. The smallest they had there are still too big, almost a year later. His brother is even smaller, and will be joining in a year.
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Our bank membership is actually through me (it's a bank, but functions more like a credit union in most ways, including needing to qualify to be a member). So our main savings, checking, all of our homeowners and car insurance, and 2 credit cards have me as primary. Oh, and the car loan, which is kind of funny because I'd forgotten my wallet when we went to buy the car that the loan is on -- so the title/registration is all in dh's name only, yet I'm primary on the loan. In the past, I've been primary on the mortgage, though our current one is with a different bank, and dh's work got us a better rate, so I'm secondary there. All of our accounts are joint, and our credit rating is usually about the same.
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I was in a one day gifted program in third through fifth grades. It was SO depressing for me to see what school COULD be but only have it one day a week and two weeks during the summer (enrichment program) that I apparently expressed suicidal thoughts to multiple teachers at my regular school (we were bused for the gifted program). My mom really upped the afterschooling program (I remember her starting algebra with me when I was home sick in third grade), took 2-3 days off of work a month to pull me for field trips, etc. That did help some.
My dc went to a magnet gifted program 5 days a week in 3rd and 4th grades. The third grade program was great, the fourth was awful, but at least there were 28 kids who could commiserate about how awful it was to be so bored.
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Sorry, no help. My ds is only C/A1C, and I only got to C/SrAmn 25 years ago.
But I do feel your pain on the uniform stuff. Ds came home with a packing list for encampment on the 26th ... including an absolute need for 2 more uniforms (a second set of blues and BDUs). And Vanguard doesn't have his size (not that I have $300 to drop on uniforms right now anyway).
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No, I wouldn't copy. I do/have used transparencies on books that are supposed to be consumable so that they can be erased and used again by multiple children.
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I'd do the Hep A, because like others here have said, the risk comes from pretty ordinary things. Last I checked, the #1 risk was salad bars and the #2 risk was fast food. It's very treatable with gamma globulin injections, but they are really no fun.
writing programs your kids liked?
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
My dc found IEW entertaining, too ... but not enough to really WANT to do the assignments. The only writing curriculum that they've really LIKED is Igniting your Writing, it's only a semester long, though, maybe a year at most.