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funschooler5

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Everything posted by funschooler5

  1. Mine was my way of being optimistic the way we homeschool. Needless to say, there are days I look it at and :glare:. ;) The 5 was the number of people in our family, but now we have 6. :001_smile:
  2. Well, since Jean is reading every response....;) I'm Funschooler5, but should probably change my name to Funschooler6 (2 adults and 4 kids at home now). I've been around since the old boards, but I can't remember what my username was on there. I lurked more than I posted anyway. :001_smile: We've been homeschooling since 2002, when oldest DD was a kindergartner. I never thought that ten years later I'd have 4 kids! We are now officially odd-balls among our public-school friends, but are about average kid-wise with the homeschoolers we know. :lol: This fall I'll have high-schooler, middle-schooler, grade-schooler and the baby at home, which is a little daunting to me. Gulp!! DH and I both work from home now, which has been great with our new baby.
  3. DD6 was eating a chicken leg when she was 3, and a huge piece of meat lodged in her throat. She couldn't breathe at all, and was turning purple. DH ran over and pulled it out of her throat with his fingers...I know you aren't supposed to do that, but he could see it and he got it right out. I was just paralyzed. I know what you're supposed to do in these situations, but I always seem to freeze when something like this happens. I am SO thankful DH was there to save her. I'm hoping I just froze because I knew DH would take care of it?? :confused: Knock on wood....
  4. A lot of you have probably heard about something like this happening, but it was a first for me: When DD6 was a baby (probably 3 or 4 months old), I pulled off one of her socks and her pinky toe was purple and bulging...the whole toe looked like a huge blister. I started freaking out, but DH noticed that there was a long hair (one of mine of course :glare:) wrapped tightly around her toe. He took it off and her toe was back to normal in an hour. During that hour I was googling like crazy and it turns out that it's a fairly common occurrence called "toe hair tourniquet." Needless to say that the new baby gets her toes checked regularly!
  5. Oh, I'm so glad to hear that!! I've been thinking about him and his mother. So happy for them both! :grouphug:
  6. :lurk5: I'm using this with my DS next year...he'll be in 7th grade. Oldest DD used HO 2&3 the past two years, and we love the text but I missed having a reading list for her.
  7. :grouphug: I have trouble shaking off stuff like this too. You're not alone!
  8. Mad Men (yes, awesome season!) An Idiot Abroad MST3K The Office (UK) Extras (the Ricky Gervais HBO show, not the TV tabloid :tongue_smilie:) Arrested Development 3rd Rock From the Sun Malcolm in the Middle Deadwood Boardwalk Empire Sopranos Seinfeld Curb Your Enthusiasm The Middle The King of Queens The IT Crowd Little Britain ETA my guilty pleasures (AKA "reality" TV): Survivor Hell's Kitchen Master Chef Storage Wars/Pawn Stars
  9. Poor baby...and mom!! :grouphug: I just can't imagine...I hope he makes a full recovery.
  10. :iagree: This is totally me. My 3rd is 6yrs, so I'm still getting used to bringing a diaper bag around! Our transitions haven't been too bad because of the big age gaps between #2 and #3 and #3 and #4. My main problem since our fourth was born is having little panic attacks here and there when I'm out and about with only 2 or 3 kids: "Where's DD1? Oh, at her friend's house...what time do I pick her up again? Did DS come with me to Walmart? Yes, he's looking at the video games," etc. One thing is for sure...#4 is in the baby sling whenever we are outside of the car, so I always know where she is! :lol:
  11. I sent a request to join too. I'm not totally sure how much time I'll be able to devote to this with a new baby at home, but I'd love to try. This fall my oldest will be a high-schooler, and I want to be prepared!
  12. You sound like me. I was an only child, and my mom did all of the cleaning around the house. The only thing I ever had to do was clean my room and empty the dishwasher. I didn't learn how to do laundry until after I moved out. When DH and I started living together, he had to explain to me that you have to wash dishes in *hot* water...I thought it didn't matter (we actually called the 1-800 number on the back of the Dawn bottle to settle the argument :lol:) So, yes, I've had a heck of a time keeping the house clean. Some might say it's an easy skill to learn, but really it's a whole different way of thinking for me. I've gone through phases where I've been able to keep up on it, but if something out of the ordinary happens (say, a time-consuming curriculum or a new baby) it throws me off-kilter. Now that my kids are getting older, DH has insisted they help out. I'll admit, I felt--still feel--sometimes some guilt over the amount of housework that they do. From listening to friends and reading the WTM boards I know they don't do a huge amount, but because I never had to do *anything,* as a kid, it sometimes seems like a "punishment" to me. Deep down though I know that they are learning valuable skills, and it really makes our lives so much easier, especially with the new baby. If everyone keeps up on their tasks, everyone has to do less. For instance, DS gets up, takes a shower, feeds the dog and cats, walks the dogs, and empties the garbage before starting on his schoolwork. I am still amazed that he does all that without being asked (he as ADHD and can get a bit scatterbrained at times). Every once in awhile he'll forget something, but for the most part, he's right on top of it. I honestly got tears in my eyes the day that we forgot to bring the garbage cans to the curb and DS noticed that it was garbage day and did it himself before the garbage truck got there. :lol: And he notices if the garbage can is getting full and empties it without being asked. Not a big deal in some families, but here it was a major breakthrough. DD14 is different in that she needs to be told to do things. She'll try to avoid her chore (cleaning the kitchen, which is just doing the dishes and the counters and table). Even though she knows she needs to do it every night, we still have to remind her. Sometimes she'll cook dinner, and my rule is if you cook dinner you don't have to do the dishes, so I'll do them. Either way, it's a major load off me. DD6 is in charge of picking up the living room, which is usually littered with her stuff anyway. Oh, and DS is in charge of the upstairs bathroom, because he's the one that makes the biggest mess. He doesn't do the greatest job, but he keeps the clothes off the floor and the counters clear. I just go in periodically and sanitize stuff. That pretty much just leaves me with sweeping, mopping, downstairs bathroom, laundry (though DD14 will wash her own...I'm still folding it for her, but I plan on getting her on that soon :tongue_smilie:). I was doing pretty well keeping up on all of this when I was pregnant, but now that the baby is here, I do it in bits and pieces and it doesn't always get done. Okay, that's an understatement. :tongue_smilie:
  13. We use only Crayola crayons and Ticonderoga pencils in this house. :001_smile:
  14. I've used MFP and Lose It. to me, it seems like MFP has very low calorie limits...it said 1400 for me, and Lose It was 1600. I did lose 20lbs on Lose It (before my last pregnancy), so it did work with the higher calorie limit. I know I can't go as low as 1400, as I'm breastfeeding DD. For me, walking a few days a week and doing this workout 2-3 days a week did wonders for me. Now that DD is a month old I am starting to exercise again. I tend to start exercising before I start dieting...I find that feeling more "fit" motivates me to eat well.
  15. I hate getting my picture taken too. Something happens to my face whenever the flash goes off...one of my eyelids closes halfway, and I always look like I just woke up. DH even joked the other day that if I looked the same in real life as I do in photos he never would have married me! :lol: What's weird is that my old driver's license photo was one of the few pictures I actually liked! It was the one I had taken the first time I renewed my license. I was extremely disappointed when I found out I had to take a new photo the next time I renewed it...I wanted to ask for that old photo to take home! My new photo was take right after I'd given birth to DS, so my face is nice and fat in that picture. :glare:
  16. I probably would have reacted the same way.:grouphug: This is why we don't do studio pictures anymore....we quit when my oldest two were 4 yrs and 2 yrs old. It was just a stressful experience every time. I know the photographers have a tough job, but I got tired of their insincere attempts at trying to get my kids to smile. It seems like every photographer we had hated kids (we went to J.C. Penney's). My DS could never smile at the right time, I would get frustrated, and DH would get annoyed. Now we take our Christmas pictures at home. I can take 30 different photos (and I always have to), yell at the kids :tongue_smilie:, and make inappropriate jokes to get them to laugh. I usually get 2 out of 3 kids smiling in the same photo. Then I just cut out a good photo of the third kid (DS usually) from another picture and Photoshop it in.:lol: Yikes, this year I'll have four kids to deal with! :svengo:
  17. When I was a kid I tried making peanut butter by smashing up peanuts and mixing them with butter. Yeah...that didn't work out. :001_smile:
  18. I did that same thing when I was a newlywed! I was on the phone with DH when I was trying to boil the oil to make some fish.:lol: I mentioned that to him on the phone, and that the room was getting awfully smokey. He told me to shut off the burner. I don't want to think about what would've happened if I hadn't been talking to him. Hopefully I would have been smart enough to figure it out.:lol::lol:
  19. I'm so sorry! We're all thinking of you right now. Hope you're able to get some rest.:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:
  20. My oldest will be starting 9th grade in the fall, and I plan on continuing with HST+. Yes, it took awhile to get the hang of it, but it's a very comprehensive program. My favorite feature is being able to add resources by ISBN number...you type in the number and it automatically downloads the book info (author, publication date, etc) including a thumbnail of the cover. I like that will be able to use these resource lists with my younger kids. We don't have to keep records in our state, but I've been using HST+ for the past 3 years to help me with planning and scheduling, and also to have in case my kids want to look back on what they accomplished. I like that you can print out transcripts specifically...I don't want to worry about typing things up in a specific format.
  21. DS was a normal baby and toddler, a rambunctious preschooler, very active, but we attributed it to just being a boy. It wasn't until we had to put our oldest two in school temporarily (3 mths) that we found out he was "different." He was in the 1st grade. His teacher told us her concerns: He had no sense of personal space, and would "get into kids' faces" when he talked to them, not in an aggressive way, but just overly-excited. He would bang his head with his hands or other objects (which we found out later was part of his sensory-seeking issues). He had trouble with certain motor skills like cutting with scissors and handwriting (later diagnosed with dysgraphia). When he ate lunch, he would get food all over his face and not notice (no sense of body awareness). He had difficulty in PE (no hand-eye coordination and low-muscle tone). At home he would take scalding hot showers without noticing. He was excellent at math but couldn't complete the timed tests because of his handwriting issues. It wasn't until the end of the school year (my kids were enrolled April-June) that the teacher noticed how well DS could read. :glare: His teacher thought he might have Asperger's. We had him tested, and he was dx'd with ADHD combined, with sensory-seeking behaviors. He went to occupational therapy for a year, and I worked with him at home on his handwriting using Handwriting Without Tears (which really worked for him). He's 12 now. I think the OT did help him some, and made me aware of what to work on with him, but I honestly think he's outgrown most of the behaviors (personal space awareness, handwriting, etc). He still has concentration issues, and has trouble controlling himself at times, but diet seems to help (whole grains, protein, lots of fruit and vegetables) and exercise. He's never been on medication, but I've had to modify our curriculum to suit his needs. Lots of verbal lessons, typing anything that has to be written, etc.
  22. :lurk5: San Diego is on our list of possible places to move, but it seems out of our price range. We also have a family of 6 with pets. :001_smile:
  23. Okay, this one isn't really a *need* but... A Kindle. This has really made my life easier this year. I have several teacher's editions on mine, which is so much more convenient than dealing with big bulky books. Also, many of the classics from the kids' reading lists are free to download. My next step is getting my oldest two kids Kindles of their own. Right now my DD borrows mine when she needs it. We still love books, but for certain texts it really makes homeschooling a lot easier.
  24. It's so great to hear from you! I've missed your posts too...so glad to hear that you're doing well. :001_smile:
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