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mybluesky

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Everything posted by mybluesky

  1. Welcome!! I'm in PA too...in the State College area. Where are you?
  2. I'm so happy for you that you found a doctor who is really listening and taking your concerns seriously. That's a huge blessing. I hope he gets back to you soon with helpful information. Prayers for you!
  3. My son has severe Sensory Processing Disorder. I've just started homeschooling him, and already I can tell that I can just throw all my carefully-laid plans out the window. Last night we went to his favorite restaurant and ended up leaving mid-meal with him screaming and kicking and gagging (extreme sensitivity to odors) and getting plenty of unsympathetic stares. The SPD interferes in almost every area of his life. It's why we are homeschooling. I've had such up and down emotions as I've tried to help him in every way possible. Honestly, sometimes I really just feel so sorry for him. Sometimes for the family. Sometimes just for myself. But sometimes I really do see blessings in his special needs. And I really need to concentrate on that right now, and thought it might be uplifting to hear how others have been blessed or find the positive in their children's special needs. (I don't mean to belittle the difficulties or challenges of special needs at all, but just to focus on the amazing positives that are present too.) Anyone game? I'll start: 1) My son's SN has helped me to see the amazing courage and patience he has on a daily basis. 2) I have been able to witness compassion and understanding in my older children that I didn't know they possessed. 3) I've discovered patience in myself I didn't know I possessed. 4) I've started learning so much about SPD and ASD and I feel like I now know enough to be helpful to parents just starting out down this trail. 5) I wouldn't have looked into homeschooling if it hadn't been for my son's SPD, and I am truly so excited to be able to do this with my son!
  4. I saw the title of this thread and thought, "This is why I love this forum...it's full of people who ponder the same things I do!" And for me it would be the education/parenting book section. Not romantic, but in our library it is pretty, and that is where I feel happy, that sense of possibility, of hope for the future...
  5. We just tried peanut butter and nutella paninis...they were ridiculously delicious. Seriously.
  6. I love the Seinfeld episode when he couldn't get off the phone with an insistent telephone marketer, so he tried to sell her something instead. I was once hung up on mid-sentence as I was explaining why I wasn't interested in some Disney books that were being offered. I was so offended because I thought I was being quite nice to the telemarketer. I can't imagine getting sworn at! I have trouble letting stuff like that go. But the OP is absolutely right that the thing that probably pushes the telemarketer to that point is how bad a day they have had. I imagine they end up hearing a lot of ugly things in their jobs. No excuse, but it helps me to think about that.
  7. I think a PDF reader app like CloudReader on the iPad might work.
  8. All my kids were adopted too! I would have loved to have adopted more, if only I had more money and more energy, lol!
  9. :grouphug: and prayers here for you and your DD!
  10. Ok, so kind of a dumb question, but how do you get the books onto your e-reader? I have both a kindle and an ipad, and I have no idea how to do it, and I would LOVE to read them that way!!
  11. I just ordered...the first time, after I signed in, shopped, and went through the ordering screens, my entire order disappeared and I was told my cart was empty. Ack! All that time shopping wasted! Fortunately, I found that if I went backwards through the screens, I could see what I had ordered. I reloaded the cart, and everything worked fine from there, including downloading. Phew!
  12. Oh, I had this exact scenario happen to me, many times, over the course of a couple years with one family. This friend had asked me to watch her 10-year-old son for her before and after school, and I had declined because my kids were little (2 and 4) and the 10-year-old was bored at my house and took a lot of my attention away from my own kids. So I told her no, but that I would be happy to help in an emergency. Well, everything turned out to be an emergency. As in, "What are you doing next Thursday?" "Not much." "Oh good, M has no school, can you watch him?" And I would always feel caught. I tried dropping serious hints, as in, "Can't he go to the after-school program at his school?" She always had a comeback, or ignored the hint. So this is what I finally had to do. I had to write out a kind but assertive paragraph explaining very clearly that it had become difficult for me to give my own kids attention when hers was there, and that I would be unable to watch him in the future. And I taped that paragraph next to the phone and read it to her the next time she called. Sadly, she ended our friendship based on this, but I still feel it was the right thing for my family. And if I hadn't written it down, I never would have had the guts to say it. I need help in the backbone department too, lol!
  13. Prayers to you and your whole family!! I'm so glad she is getting him help, and that she has you to support her. Please do update us and let us know how things are going. I hope he gets to go to the mental facility soon...waiting must be so hard. Huge hugs.
  14. I LOVE the idea of reinventing myself. At 44, it is probably about time! I've often kicked myself for being too flexible to the detriment of my own family. That has to change. Reinventing myself seems to be what the 40's are about for me anyway. I've honestly loved being in my 40's because I do feel more free of caring what other people think. Obviously I have a way to go though!
  15. Yup, thinking here that I have to get a backbone! These suggestions have been really helpful. I especially love the ideas for a phone message and a sign on the door. It's these common sense things that I often just don't think about ahead of time...until I'm already annoyed, lol! Thank you everyone!
  16. A bit of a vent first...I feel like some of my working friends have little respect for my time because I am "only" staying home. I tend to be a flexible person and I love helping my friends out, because I feel really, really fortunate to be able to stay home with my kids right now. So I have a few friends who regularly call me to have their kids over if they need to work and they can't make other arrangements for their kids. I don't mind at all, usually. But on occasion I feel VERY taken for granted. For example, earlier in the week, a friend asked if her 3 children could come over this morning for a few hours. I had to rearrange my own schedule a bit, but it worked fine, and my kids were excited because they enjoy these 3 children...they are very sweet. So we set our alarms and got up early to be ready when they would arrive...and they didn't. I called the mom, and she said that one of her appointments had been cancelled so she didn't need me anymore, so she forgot she had even asked. :001_huh: I asked if her kids would still like to come, since we had carved the time out of our day, and my kids were anxiously awaiting her kids. She said her kids were likely to sleep in until 10, but that when they were awake if they were "interested" in coming down, then maybe they would. GRRRR! I know I am mostly to blame for making myself so flexible and available that it seems like no big thing to my friends. I will be starting homeschooling with my DS5 when the big kids return to PS in the fall, and I know I need to make some changes so that others don't assume that I'm "just" homeschooling and can't I just accommodate their needs since my schedule is flexible, etc. I think I need to have a script or something in mind, or even warn people ahead of time that homeschool hours are off-limits. How have you all handled this? Has it been a problem at all? Any advice is greatly appreciated!!
  17. Yikes! This board is costing me a lot of money! :-) Seriously, what a fun offer...thanks for letting us know!
  18. I was just talking with someone about this very subject yesterday! I used to really struggle with home-envy and sometimes still do, and I struggle all the time to focus on the truly amazing things I've been blessed with. The thing that has slowly sunk in over time is that having more really has no correlation with happiness. The families in the McMansions are not any happier, they just have more STUFF.
  19. Ecclecticmum, I think we have the same child! I'm going to be following this post to see what others suggest. I've ordered the starter kit for Right Start A (because games work wonders with my DS) but haven't started it with him yet. I have a feeling we are going to have a lot of trial and errors with him. (My guy has been diagnosed with SPD, but I believe he might be ASD also.) My DS learns SO much from the TV too. His vocabulary constantly astounds me, and then when I ask where he learned his words, he almost always responds with the name of a TV show. I never thought about the TV component of Math-U-See...that seems like it might make a lot of sense.
  20. If you do go to the Hershey Zoo, just be aware that a lot of the animals there "hide" during the hottest part of the day. Because of the way the zoo is laid out, it is possible to go and not see much outside (although there are some animals in indoor exhbits). So in the summer I would plan to do the zoo early in the day if possible in order to see the most. It's a nice little zoo!
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