My son in public school qualifies for special needs bussing, but they don't current have a driver, so are only able to get him there 90 minutes after school starts and pick him up 45 minutes after school ends. Plus, they have so few special needs buses that his commute time on the bus is over an hour each way even though the school is less than 2 miles from our home. I have been driving him to and from school since the start of the year. Thankfully, it only takes me about 15 minutes round trip each morning and afternoon.

I'm not very fussy about laundry...I also have very few guests, and am rarely an overnight guest at anyone's house except my parents' or aunt's. My mom and I know each other's systems and just tend to do laundry at each other's houses. It would be no big deal to me if my mom noticed the kids' hamper getting full and threw it in the washer. And it is very common at both houses for us to sit together and fold clean laundry. My aunt lives in Florida, so when I take a couple kids down there to visit there is a lot of wet, sandy laundry. I throw a load in whenever I need to (with her blessing), and always ask if she wants to me to add whatever is in her dirty laundry basket. She normally takes me up on it, and when the load is clean whoever is available folds it.

Do you absolutely have to move to change him to a different school? Where I live, if I wanted to move my DS out of his current middle school, my first option would be transferring him to a different middle school in the district. And if I didn't like those options, there is a School of Choice option that would allow me to enroll him in many surrounding school districts. In all those cases I would have to provide transportation, but if homeschooling is a viable option, then maybe transporting to a neighboring district would be as well.

I don't think it is a series. I think it is just a stand alone book. In your shoes, I might see if your library has The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading or Phonics Pathways or something similar. Those cover all of phonics in one book, and are pretty easy to skim through and only do lessons that the child needs. I used The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading with my youngest that way - we would spend our 15 minutes of reading time just reading the sentences at the end of a bunch of lessons until we hit on one that had words she didn't know. Then we would start there and work through as many lessons as she needed (over the next few days) until we were back into concepts she knew and could breeze through.

At that level, I really like WISE OWL Polysyllables: Advanced Skills for Young Readers. It targets words that are longer and more advanced, but still fully phonetic. For example, it might have the word diplomacy. Then it will have a couple sentences using the word in such a way that the student can infer its meaning. When it first presents each word, it inserts dashes between the syllables and bolds the stressed syllable to help the kiddo sound it out. And then in the sentences the words are written normally so the kids can try to segment it on their own. Each page is just filled with six to ten or so words with their sentences. I have my kids read one page out loud to me each day - short and painless. It allows me to evaluate if there are any phonics skills that need review. It offers great practice with fluency and decoding multi-syllable words, and is also a fabulous vocabulary resource.

I want to be clear that in this thread I am not defending any particular poster. I have tried to do that through the years in specific threads when I thought Number was browbeating someone, but in this thread my comments were meant to be much more overarching and address her posting style in general and how it impacts others. And I certainly am not part of any intricate, below ground back channels. I only have a few dozen PMs sent or received in the last decade, and a not insignificant portion of them are to or from Number. But in the last day I have received quite a few simple messages of support and/or thanks. I don't find this unusual or underhanded. If we had been in an in-person book club, and I had spoken out publicly about how I felt Number's discussion style was hurting other members, I would not be surprised if others who agreed (especially those who had been hurt by Number in the past) found a private moment to thank me for taking that (social) risk. That is all that happened here.

Point 1: As several people, including a moderator, have pointed out is that people have been addressing Number directly in threads at the time of objections for years. In general she does not take it well and does not change her behavior. Talk is cheap - it is really easy to say that you want people to confront you differently, at a different time, in a different way, and that you will happily accept it then. But there are plenty of others who actually remember how those situations have gone down in the past and therefore don't accept that at face value. Point 2: I certainly wasn't aiming at gleeful...I was trying to give Number a way to judge the situation objectively. She brought up the idea that the whole problem was just a mismatch between her and my personalities, and I was trying to offer her concrete evidence that it was a bigger problem that that. Bigger both in the number of people being hurt and in the depth of the hurt they are feeling. I wasn't unaware that that could hurt feelings...but I was trying the tactic of communicating with Number in the way she communicates with others on the premise that maybe that is her preferred form, and that maybe that would allow her to hear my message. She has told us repeatedly that hurt feelings are sometimes the unavoidable result of her telling other posters painful truths that they don't want to hear.

So after reading this whole thread, are you coming away with the impression that I’m the only one who has any issue with your posting style, and therefore it is probably just a compatibility issue? I’ve had you on ignore for 6 months. I’ve long since given up trying to engage with you about things of interest. But just because you are on ignore does not mean I don’t see the ramifications of your posts. I see the posters torn down by your replies on their threads. I see conversations derailed by your badgering. I see confidence shattered because you imply that you know exactly the right answer for someone living in an unendurable situation that has no right answers. Obviously you can think whatever you want…and history suggests that you definitely will despite any offering an alternate viewpoint. But I think I am speaking for a silent majority. People are liking my comments. People are reaching out to me in PMs to thank me for standing up against your bullying. There are a lot of people feeling hurt, shut down, steamrolled, unheard and offended by your posts. And that is absolutely fine; you’re right that you are perfectly within your rights to say what you want. I just thought it might help you in your quest to interact more positively on the forum if someone spoke up plainly about how your posts make some people feel.

Can you not see the double standard that you are setting up here? It sounds a lot like you are saying that your opinions are so important to you that you can't help being pushy about them. That as long as you are making true statements about how something made you feel that you can't help if it bothers others. That if you think something will help someone else then it doesn't matter if your posts offend others just because they "don't want to hear". You told us repeatedly in your post about your birthday gift that you could not just thank the giver for thinking of you because it wouldn't be authentic, and you felt very strongly that you had the right to express your authentic feelings. And yet you extend none of that leeway to me. My posts did not have the goal of offending, and were attempting to communicate something that I thought would be of help. They were full of true statements about how something made me feel. They were my opinions which are very important to me and very authentic. Why should I censor my opinions to save your feelings about something that effects our whole community when you have set the standard that getting people to share your opinion is a hill to die on and worth hurt feelings?

I feel people have been upfront with Not_a_Number for a long time about how her posts come across negatively in this environment. And I feel that she has frequently written it off as her just fundamentally being "mouthy" or "pushy" or just plain right to the point she had no choice but to (appear) to look down on others.

And you are absolutely allowed to feel that way. I am not arguing that my post didn't hurt your feelings. Or that it didn't feel aggressive. I will maintain that it was civil and did not break any board rules. In fact, speaking of board rules, the first is "Be Humble" and the fourth is "Don't Insist on the Last Word"...and I didn't think I am the one who tends to stumble over the edge of those.

That is an accurate representation of how her posts often read to me. In fact, someone else called her on exactly that sentiment in this thread already. And the "spiky" came directly from her own quote...where she used it to justify why she was allowed to be mouthy about bring right because she (unlike others?) knows things and posts about things she has thought about a lot. 🙄

You're calling out "off-putting" in an "I statement"? It just means "unpleasant, disconcerting, or repellent". I do, and am allowed to, find her posts unpleasant. I'm not trying to constrain her right to post. I'm not reporting her posts. I'm simply reporting how they make me feel: disconcerted and repelled. Let's remember, she is the one who just a few posts up said (perhaps even boasted reading between the lines) that, "I have to say, I do have trouble in real life with how mouthy I am, too 😂." I don't have a reputation for being mouthy or mean in real life, and after a decade on this forum I don't think I have that reputation here either.

But can you ever just think you are right for you? I think that is what I find most off-putting about your posts. Your black and white insistence that if something is "right" then it must be right for everyone...in every situation...with every kid. While on the other hand, nothing the rest of us morons suggest could possibly be useful or relevant to the question you asked, because we clearly are not "spiky" like you.

See, and I was very carefully to word my comment as a statement of how your posts make me, and perhaps others, feel. I'm also confused how writing posts that your posts are "my way or the highway" or seem to lack humbleness are "immutable personal characteristics". They seem pretty mutable to me...if those around you are willing to honestly tell you how your words make them feel. You are certainly under no obligation to change how you communicate, but you seemed to want to, and I was trying to give you information from another point of view. In any case, you are obviously welcome to write me off as "mean", it won't hurt my feelings. Mostly because I am fairly certain that I am not a mean person. For example, I remember sewing masks for your whole family and mailing them to you during the pandemic...twice.

I really, really like discussing education/homeschooling methods and pedagogy...but, frankly, not with you. From many, many of your posts I get a strong "my way or the highway" vibe which reads as belittling and off-putting. It often seems that you lack any humbleness; that you truly think that you are qualified enough to know the right answers for every situation...even those that you have no experience with and could not possibly appreciate the complexity of. It is ironic, because you repeatedly tell people that your kids are "hard" and expect others to accept it without questions or suggestions. But others come along and say that their kid needs X or that in their complicated situation Y is required, and your answers almost always feel very patronizing to me, along the lines of "Well, it is okay if you want to be wrong. Maybe someday you will see the light and realize that I am right." Just food for thought.

One of my front teeth got broken in half diagonally during a roller skating accident when I was 6. We had the broken piece of tooth, and went to the dentist immediately, but there was never any talk of reattaching it. I got a cap put on at the time...which fell off periodically throughout my elementary years. I got a crown put on when I was 10ish. The biggest issue I had with the tooth over the years was root damage. I had my first root canal on the tooth (due to pain and inflection) shortly after getting the first crown. I got a second root canal a few years later. And then, as a young adult, I got both a new crown and a surgical root canal. That carried me over from age ~20 to ~40. But over the years the crown got wigglier and wigglier since there was very little root holding it in. Last year I went through the long, expensive process of getting the tooth remnant removed and replaced with an implant. Theoretically this should last for the rest of my life.

I'm not commenting on what choices I would necessarily make in these situations. Not having been in this type of situation, I could not possibly know for sure what I would or would not do. However, I was simply answering the (somewhat ridiculous, I feel) question of why a 16 month old's mother would not know where he was. I mean, in the greater scheme of things, I always knew where my toddlers were, but sometimes it was as vague as "in the care of Nana and Papa, probably in the general vicinity of their house, but possibly an hour away at their cottage if they wanted or needed to go there". And then there was the even more frequent case of me not knowing exactly where my kids were because they were with their father...clearly not the case in the original post, but another very common scenario of a mother not knowing the whereabouts of her toddler. I certainly did not grill DH when he left the house with the children as to which exact gas station or hardware store he was going to. So I would have been surprised, though certainly not upset, if I later learned they made unplanned stops while out.

I assume because another trusted adult was caring for the child and not (knowingly) reporting minute to minute location details. At times when my mom was watching one of my toddlers, I certainly did not expect her to get my pre-approval of their every move. I fully expected that they would walk to the park, go to the grocery store, stop at the post office, etc. I guess it would have been within my rights to put a tracker on my child, but it would also be very weird to then interrogate my mom, or allow someone else to interrogate her, about an innocuous choice like taking the toddler to a library or something...which is, I'm betting, closer to BaseballandHockey's situation, rather than, say, being caught taking the child sky diving or to a strip club.

I find it annoyingly ironic in my family currently. Growing up we always had Thanksgiving with my father's family, and they always served the meal around 3pm. This was a very inconvenient meal time when my brother and I were young (and the only children on that side of the family) and also having to travel 1.5 hours each way. But tradition was tradition. Fast forward to when my kids were young. My aunt on my father's side always hosted Thanksgiving (an in, would not hear of anyone else hosting it), and she still always served the meal around 3pm. And now we live 2.5 hours away, and have special needs kids (who are the only grandchildren on that side of the family), and the meal time was horrible for us. But tradition was tradition. Fast forward to now. My grandfather is in a nursing home, and my aunt worries about him getting off his routine if he doesn't eat meals at standard times. So miraculously tradition is flexible enough to serve the meal at 12:30. 🙄

I've done cookie decorating. Have a supply of cookies, frosting, sprinkles, and sandwich bags to take cookies home in.

My oldest is only in 8th, but is taking a full load of high school courses this year and my favorite part about homeschooling him is how much time it gives him. My middle schooler is in public school, and it takes them sooooo much time to accomplish sooooo little. My 8th grader, on the other hand, can efficiently complete a full load of rigorous, advanced classes while participating in 14 hours of electives/extracurriculars a week including nature class, board game club, escape room class, comic book drawing, adventure sports, and being a teaching assistant in a Spanish class. We don't have to choose between academic rigor and a healthy, balanced lifestyle. As a corollary, I also think our activity-rich homeschooling is preparing him very well for the logistics of college. Every day doesn't look the same, so he has to learn how to schedule and balance his responsibilities. He doesn't have a class schedule forcing him to work on each subject for its designated hour each day, and instead is learning to schedule flexibly and creatively...a skill that will come in handy when he is trying to juggle classes, recitations, study groups, individual study time, language labs, clubs, office hours, chores, etc.

The big change has not hit my Duolingo yet. They did change the icons on my bottom bar a few days ago...but I still have both stories and leagues at this point. And they haven't done anything to the order of my Spanish levels. I've been pretty unmotivated lately anyway. I had been in diamond league forever, but then it started making me compete in semi-finals and finals just to stay in my current level. Plus, my family has had a miserable month, and feeling beaten down, I decided to just do as little as possible to maintain my streak, but allow myself to just freefall down through the leagues. My current streak is 2321 days, and I feel Duolingo doesn't do much to encourage those of us with long streaks. It gave me the little +365 badge, but I'm over six times that now. They didn't even throw confetti or anything when I hit the 2000 mark!

A play tent (which does not necessarily require sewing) A ball ramp similar to this one Homemade instruments A toy shopping cart A sandbox Sit and Spin Big wooden beads with a wooden "needle" like this Magnetic fishing A ball pounding toy like this one

hats, swords, flowers