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Maplecat

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Posts posted by Maplecat

  1. I nursed almost twelve years and stopped this summer.  I lost a bit of weight and my appetite went down a lot.  Aside from the cup changes I expected, I also lost weight in my upper arms and around my shoulders.  My body now looks sharper.  Congratulations on your run and I hope the transition is easy for you both.

     

  2. I wish I'd known that homeschooling would mean I wasn't quite a SAHM anymore. Kindergarten was easy to integrate into our routine. Every year adds more work to my plate and I've had to stretch to integrate siblings. Cleaning and shopping don't get done during the school day. Meals are prepared at night when my husband gets home. A lot of perks my family got used to by having me at home were gone. I'm sure other people figured it out ahead of time, but it was a shock to me.

    • Like 18
  3. You've gotten some great advice. I found having multiple sets of pumping parts was very important. When you are pumping for a preemie, they don't want you to refrigerate and reuse one set. By having four or five sets, I could wash twice a day instead of after every pumping session. The hospital will provide you with your first kit and you can buy more from them, but I found them cheaper on line. Since there are only three companies that make hospital grade pumps, I'd call the NICU or Labor and Delivery ahead of time and find out. Buying a hands-free pumping bra will also be a game changer. Wishing you and your little one all of the best. I hope your NICU time is short and uneventful.

    • Like 2
  4. I used OPGTR with my first son and am using Phonics Pathways with my second. The font size in OPGTR was small and my son often got overwhelmed with how it looked on the page. My son also had a hard time with the uppercase "i" looking exactly like a lowercase "L."

     

    Phonics Parhways is easy to use, the font is large and not confusing, and we do a page a day. There is enough white space on the page that it doesn't look crowded. The pacing is working well for us and I'm seeing smooth progress. We just started Reading Pathways for first grade and it is reinforcing concepts he has already learned. Two pages a day in that book seems to be just enough.

    • Like 1
  5. I'm still in diaper bag days, but I recently figured out that I don't need to carry everything with me all the time. Back-up items and just-in-case things can live in a bag in my car. Hand lotion, Chapstick, extra baby-wipes, and a brush live in my car. Turns out, I don't really need them very often.

    • Like 3
  6. I wore my mom's dress and it is currently upstairs in a cedar chest. She married in the 70's and our dress is a polyester special. I machine washed it before having the neckline altered. I'm also saving the veil that my MIL and I both wore. I really like the idea upthread of letting my girls play dress-up in a few years.

    • Like 1
  7. I really liked Lentil Science and my oldest got through ten or so lessons. It ended up not working for us because my younger kids kept getting into the materials and the resulting mess made my head feel like it was going to explode. I bit the bullet and finally threw out all the toilet paper rings, beans, and other 10 million choking hazards. I kept the books and will probably recreate everything when my youngest is six.

    • Like 1
  8. I feel like I could homeschool several children just fine if I didn't have preschoolers and babies to contend with. That's really the part that makes homeschooling so difficult for me, to be honest.

    I couldn't like this enough times. The actual teaching I do is not very complicated. Teaching while nursing, keeping the toddler from drawing on the walls, supervising potty training, changing diapers, keeping up with the laundry, monitoring what the kid I'm not actively teaching is doing, and getting out of the house regularly so my big guys can play with others is what makes homeschooling hard for me. Working in schools was much easier for me because there were no tiny people dependent on me while I was also teaching. Homeschooling really stretches my ability to multitask.

    • Like 1
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