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Alice

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Posts posted by Alice

  1. It would certainly be alright to give your card away, but you don't need to feel like you're feeling sneaky. In your thank-you note, state that someone blessed you with this gift card, and you would like to pass that blessing along to her. I'm guessing that a $50 blessing doesn't lose it's blessing just because it's been shared. :)

     

    We've done this on several occasions. It didn't seem to diminish the gift to tell them we were passing it on.

  2. The first thing I would start with is calling your pediatrican and asking them for other advice. The Meyer Clinic is with Baylor (? correct?) which is one of the top med schools and pediatric programs in the country. I'm sure they are overwhelmed with consults. There may be many other avenues like private devlopmental pediatricians in your area or other clinics. I googled "Devlopmental Pediatrics Houston" and got a bunch of hits (mostly related to the Meyer Clinic but some not.) One was this http://www.childrenslearninginstitute.org/our-programs/program-overview/children-neurodevelopmental-clinic/default.html. I know nothing about any of the clinics in Houston but your pediatrician should be able to advise you on whether there are other places that would be worth starting at.

     

    Other options in this are are some psychiatrists and neurologists do testing for autism. Your doc should know who has this as an interest and who might be good to see in your area.

     

    I would keep the Dec appt at the Meyer Clinic but talk to your doc about maybe doing an evaluation somewhere else first if you can get in somewhere else faster. Then, you can always go to the Meyer Clinic as another opinion if you still need it.

     

    Finally, sometimes if your doc calls the specialist you can get in sooner. If they have that long of a wait it's probably not going to be soon enough, but sometimes it will help. I cannot even tell you how many times we call and find that there is an opening months before the patients were given one. That's part of a general pediatrician's job though as a patient advocate.

     

    Good luck, I'm sure this is very frustrating.

  3. Sharenet is just for Northern Virginia, I'm pretty sure (although I've only newly gotten on the list myself). I just wanted to mention that the HEAV convention is in June, which might be good to go to. It's in Richmond. You can go just for the day to shop and look at vendors. There might be reps from local groups there that you could check out.

     

    The convention website is http://www.heav.org/convention/index.html.

     

    Also, I grew up in Richmond, so if you have questions about the area feel free to PM me if you have questions about the area. I've never homeschooled there though. :) My parents still live there and I grew up there and went to college in Richmond.

  4. I prefer to go to smaller, more local conferences. I'll be at the NOVA convention in July.

     

     

    I'm going to go the to the NOVA one too! I went to the HEAV one last year, although just to the book sale with a friend (who actually doesn't homeschool but was buying books for her kid's very small private school). It was fun and I think I'd like to go back but I actually thought the NOVA speakers looked better and it's easier being close to home.

  5. I think you've gotten great advice. Probably the advice of Moms who have been there done that is better than mine (I'm a pediatrician and have put plenty of catheters in but never been through it with a child of my own.)

     

    It sounds to me like she definitely needs the VCUG. That number of UTI's definitely raises concern for relux. Reflux can certaily lead to more serious complications if untreated. It certainly may be constipation but with the number she has had, I think you have to do the VCUG to be sure of what you are dealing with.

     

    As far as the procedure itself I know here the hospital will give the kids anesthesia although my patients have told me they have to fight for it. I'm not sure why they would need to have her stand up to pee, but it's been a long time since I've actually seen one of these done and I admit I don't remember all the details. They might be able to give her something like Versed that is short acting while they place the catheter and then will wear off quickly. Once it's in it shouldn't be as painful, I've had a catheter myself after C-sections and it's uncomfortable but not painful. The discomfort with urinating afterwards is probably something that can't be completly avoided. The Versed or other short acting anesthetic would be more for her if she is very very scared or anxious than it will truly relieve pain. If she isn't particularly anxious or scared you probably can do it with the kind of techniques offered by the poster above (all good thoughts).

     

    I don't know where you are but you will probably find that only a children's hospital is going to be willing or able to do any kind of sedation. There are plenty of radiology centers and outpatient hospitals here that see kids but that aren't equipped to do anesthesia or sedation. The children's hospital can do it because they are so busy they don't always make it easily accessible if it's more "optional" like this. I know I have had several patients who were told "we don't do anesthesia" for the VCUG and then the parents insisted or I called or the urologist called and then they did it. Also, sedation does have it's own set of side effects and so should only be done by someone experienced like an anesthesiologist. Hope that helps.

  6. On the science issue...I love science and took a lot of it in high school. It was fun but probably not necessary or all that helpful for when I got to college. I was told as an entering freshman in college that was planning to major in chemistry and biology that even if I had AP credits I shouldn't use them as the high-school science classes didn't really even come close to the college classes.

     

    There are some magnet science schools in this area that do very high-level work and research projects but they are rare. I want to instill an early love of science in my kids and if they love it like their Mom we'll keep exploring together. But I'm not particularly worried about getting in certain topics. If they end up studying science at a higher level, they'll learn those things then.

     

    (And as a disclaimer this is said by someone with young kids....who knows what I'll think when they actually get to high school. :))

  7. I've been told I look like Andie McDowell. However, the celebrity match has me matching Florence Henderson (who?) and James Spader (worrying).

     

    Hang on a second, it gave me only one woman and about six men. Including Bruce Willis (hmmm....) and John Goodman (hey, I'm a size 6/8!)

     

    Laura (not feeling very feminine)

     

     

    Don't worry. I just did it and got the same thing...about 6 men and 1 woman. The men included Richard Gere, Bruce Willis, Bob Marley and Rock Hudson.

     

    What???????? :confused:

     

    Oh, and the only woman was Kathy Bates.

     

    I think I'll just go get in the bed and pull my covers over my head now. :001_huh:

     

    Alice (apparently having gender issues along with Laura)

     

    ETA: Kathy Bates is a wonderful actress and I would be honored to have her play me. But not so flattering as the only woman I apparently remotely resemble. :)

  8. Silence of the Lambs.

     

    I'm a total scaredy-cat and have no idea what possessed (the correct word) me to see it. I STILL (about 18 yrs later) get creeped out about it. Just this morning I was out for an early morning walk and it was dark and I started to think about it. AAAAHHHH...will it never go away?

     

    Scream.

     

    I watched that alone in my apartment. Again, don't know what I was thinking. I think I thought it would be funny and maybe it was supposed to be but it freaked me out. That was the end of anything remotely scary for me. I learned I just don't want to put certain things in my head.

  9. I work with one full-time doctor and 4 other part-timers. Recently at work the only full-time doctor told me he appreciated my work ethic. This was especially nice as he is completly non-effusive and tends to spend much of the day cracking jokes and being very sarcastic. It just meant a lot coming from him.

     

    And at the grocery store the other day I got hit on by a man (who wasn't old or bad-looking :)) . This was nice for my self-esteem as I am about 70 pounds overweight and was in frumpy Mom clothes. Dh wasn't too happy about it though. :)

  10. I'm a pediatrician but I'm not sure what he meant by "minimal fracture". It's not a term we would use. In kids we typicall grade fractures on a scale of 1-5 depending on growth plate involvment. I would guess that it's on the lower end of the scale. Kids are more likely to fracture a bone with the same kind of injury that an adult would have a sprain. They often have small fractures (no displacement of the bone) that are important to treat because of potential growth plate issues.

     

    Not sure how much that helps. Bottom line...it's a non-medical term to say "it's not that bad but he'll need to see Ortho and likely have some kind of cast."

  11. Do I believe that only theists make good moral choices? No, of course not!

     

    Do I believe that ethics requires an appeal to a god? I'm agnostic on this one. In theory, I'm not opposed to the idea that a philosophically persuasive ethics can be built without reference to a god or some absolute truth or being, but I haven't seen it done well. (I'm talking about philosophical systems, here, not individuals.)

     

    But the way your questions are constructed seems to imply that people who appeal to their deities for their ethics are doing so because they can't think up a better excuse. It really doesn't work that way for people of faith. I don't "need a god to tell [me] what is right and wrong." I don't subscribe to a god because that god is a philosophical necessity. I've met God. I've experienced God. God is as real as the sun. Do you "appeal" to the existence of the sun to justify your choice to rise in the morning and go to bed at night? Or do you just look at it and know it's there, and live according to its rhythms?

     

    Through Holy Scripture, through other people, through creation, through the traditions that form me even without my knowing it, through my experiences of suffering and loss, and through experiences of joy and contentment, I've met God. It is not that I run across random ethical dilemmas, during which I call upon an otherwise abstract or absent deity. It's that knowing God allows me to see the world in such a way that moral decisions are possible. It's not that I go on about my daily life, and when I run across a moral dilemma I run to consult the Bible. It's that the Bible gives light such that I can see my daily life in a new way, in a way that corresponds to reality. And because of that light, I make certain moral commitments.

     

    So, yes, my "ethics" are completely and ineluctably tied to my relationship with God. I can't do ethics any other way than by relating it to God, because there is nothing that is not related to God, who is the creator of all.

     

    And, though this may be offensive to atheists, I don't, actually, believe that they can be moral without God. I just don't mean that the same way that you do. They can make moral decisions without philosophically relating them to a god, but I believe that their ability to do what is good comes from God, whether or not they can name God as the author of their goodness.

     

    I really don't know how to fit that into your poll. How do you think I should answer?

     

     

    What she said. :D

     

    ETA: I realized after I posted this that there were 20 pages of responses. I was on vacation and missed this thread until today. I realized posting a quote from page 1 may seem odd now. I didn't read the rest of the replies, so don't know if there was discussion on this point. I still love PariSarah's post though. :)

  12. Hello,

     

     

    Because a friend of mine has had a bad experience with her pediatrician regarding homeschooling, I plan to ask this dr. how he feels about homeschoolers. I also want to ask how he feels about taking my children as his patients w/o their health records from the previous dr. This is because the old doc wants to charge $45 to copy and send the records (that's $15/kid). I call this robbery and I won't pay it.

     

    TIA!

     

     

    I'm a pediatrician. We get new patients all the time without records but if the kids have any kind of medical issues it makes it more difficult to provide good care without the past records. Even with something like frequent ear infections it can be helpful to know how freqent in the past they were. If your kids have been pretty healthy it's probably not a big issue.

     

    I would ask your old doctor of they can copy only the growth chart and shot records (if you vaccinate). Those are the most important for a new doctor to have. If you vaccinate and keep your own records, then you don't need the shot records as much but if you need any form filled out ever (including for college) the new doctor is going to need those.

  13. We're using FIAR right now and loving it. I'm planning on using it as a pre-K and Kindergarten fun thing. The only other things we do are phonics and a little handwriting and Math. I plan on waiting for any other History and Science until 1st grade. I look at FIAR as being our fun extra right now. Actually, all of school right now is kind of an extra. I'd just use it and pick and choose what you want from it. It's nice becase it is so flexible. If you want to add in science and history then just drop the FIAR science and Math. Maybe you could do it as "Three in a Row" and just higlight the art, literature, languate, geography or whatever other parts you want to highlight. Plan to not do it every day.

  14. I didn't like the part at the end, either--but I knew they'd do "that." :tongue_smilie:

     

    Hopefully, the next will be better.

    And I know I'm in the minority.

     

     

    I liked it more than you did but didn't love it like I wanted to. Does that even make sense? ;)

     

    My husband commented that the end had been "Disneyfied". Especially with that awful song that kicked in.

     

    I thought they tried to capitalize on the Lord of the Rings success by adding in a whole extra battle that isn't in the book and the scene with the White Witch.

     

    I know they often have to change books since what works well in print doesn't always work well visually. But...I was still a little disappointed in some of the choices. Overall, I thought they were pretty true to the spirit of the book.

  15. I only read through the first 4 pages but I think I counted 4 or 5 Alice's..interesting as I never meet anyone of my generation with my name.

     

    My maternal grandmother was Alice (I'm named after her). Her mother was Natasha (she was Russian).

    My maternal grandfather was Julian. His mother was Ruth. Others in her generation were Estelle and Catherine.

    My Mom is Christine. Her sister is Lisa (short for Elizabeth).

     

    My paternal grandmother was Rosalie. My paternal grandfather was Julian. Others in their generation were Hazel, Mason, and Frank. f

    My Dad is Richard but goes by Dick...which is definitely a generational thing. His siblings are Ray and Alice.

  16. My kids are young like yours, so I don't have a ton of experience with this. For us, church provides our main social network. We have a small church and have several families that we've been close friends with for 10+ years. My 4 yr old has several very close friends within that group. His birthday parties for the past 2 years have been his Sunday School class which is 4-5 kids and consists of his closest friends.

     

    Sometimes, I start having Mommy guilt and wondering if I should be providing him more opportunities to make new friends...but then I remember he's only 4 and I try to talk myself down. :D

     

    As he gets older..I can't predict where his friends will come from but I would suspect he'll still have close friends within our church group. Good friends of ours who homeschool are in a co-op where they have made some close friends. I could see us doing a co-op when he is older both for the opportunity to meet new people and the opportunity to try some classes I can't do at home.

     

    Other people I know have close friends in the neighborhood. There are kids in our neighborhood that play together but he's not really at the age where I'll let him just go out and ride his bike around or go hang out with some kids playing down the street. When he's older though, I could see that being another way to meet new people.

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