How funny that there is a no sugar group now. We were just talking about going no sugar, no dairy, no gluten at book club the other night. Is there a gluten free group here?

My dds are excellent swimmers. My youngest just started swimming about a year ago. Middle dd started almost 2 years ago. She just told me one day she wanted to join a swim team. The girls in her age groups are very good and the team has a lot of hope in this group of girls. There are a couple of girls, one in particular, who have parents who ride them hard. This one girl is always asking me and my dd her times and what are her "goals." When we tell her, honestly, we dont really track them, she is persistant. Her parents ride her hard when she doesn't make Zones, or Sectionals, or doesn't perform as expected. Last fall, a friend whose dd is in this group of girls and is not a gossip, told me there were murmurs among the parents about my dd and that some parents were upset that this girl who had not been swimming long was starting to beat their dds. Dd gets along with all the girls except for this one. She is constantly telling my dd she cheats when she switches strokes in practice for a few seconds to rest on a 500 m swim. She her parents are "watching" my dd to see how often she cheats. She is telling other team members she hates my dd. I realize that this girl and her parents are doing this to psych out my dd. I also spoke with the coach and she says it is both of them, but, knowing my dd, I can see her getting nasty as a reactions to this girl, not starting this. We also tell her that, unfortunately, this is a sad consequence of being good. I am waiting to hear if dd wants me to talk with the coach. It is not my place to step in on a swim team matter. What is so sad in all this is that the coach told me that despite the fact that these girls are fast, they are not fast when you put them on a national level. OK just doesn't have the state support for swimming and the programs, despite what our coach is doing, do not develop the swimmers that come out of other parts of the country. Also, my dd has told me she isn't aiming for a scholarship because she wants to be a Christian school teacher and the college she is looking at doesn't even have a pool.

Between the Sheets? A good friend of mine calls any decadent dessert Pure S*x. But I don't think that's what you're looking for.

We found it at a compounding pharmacy here. We were taking Mellowtonex (sp?) and it worked well. However, the pharmacy was out but they mentioned they had the enlyten. I did a google search on it and found some reviews on it, but didn't pursue it as far as where to purchase it would go as we can get it locally. I would just start calling around to local health food stores. Maybe Whole Foods. It comes in 3 plastic containers holding 14 strips each. If you want to pm me or email, I can give you the name or phone number of the pharmacy here and see if they can help you. The herbalist there is very helpful and they may be able to send you some. There is a huge difference in melatonin. It may not be a problem with the person dealing with not being able to sleep on occaision, but if you have chronic sleep issues, we have noticed a difference in brands. Ann

I want to preface this again with I am not an expert. I am just offering things from my experience you may want to try. You know your dd best, obviously, and I have not walked in your shoes. I can only share my journey with sleep issues in my family. I also tend to agree with the pharmacist. Pharmacist are there to be the gate keeper if there is a problem with prescriptions. Doctors are not. My sister, who is a nurse, told me it is her responsibility to monitor the side effects or potential drug interactions of her patients, not the doctors. A good friend of mine who is a dr. says they are constantly bombarded with drug reps and they can't keep up with it all. And I have been with doctors who just push pills to treat symptoms instead of looking for the cause. For example, did you know with IBS the doctors generally do not address the cause and treat it with dietary measurses, like eliminating gluten and dairy, but just treat the sypmtoms with drugs? After reading some of these posts, a couple of things came to mind. First, if you doubt your dr., I would try to find a doctor who treats wholistically, like a GOOD osteopath (hard to find a true on these days) or a functional doctor. You can do a search for a functionaly doctor in your area. Functional doctors are regular md's who vere off from treating just one area to start treating the body as an interdependent system. Medicine is becoming increasingly specialized and doctors who treat wholistically are hard to find. I have a good friend whose dh had sleep issues, and, depending on what type of dr. they saw, they all found a different cause. Finally they found out he was depressed and anxious and not sleeping was how his depressions manifested itself. I went through a serious bout of depression last year and could only sleep for a few hours a night and wake up at 4 am without fail. My dh said I seemed agitated the whole time I did sleep and woke up anxious. I took ambien. I had to take the extended release because regular ambien put me to sleep bu didnt keep me asleep. He said I needed an extended release sleep aid, which eliminated Lunesta and Rozeram, which was a problem for other reasons mentioned in my other post. I also had my hormones tested. Not a blood test. A spit test. I found a doctor who believed in them. She billed my insurance for it. My progesterone levels were very low. This is a very common problem with women. Progesterone is your calming hormone. It also helps you sleep. Usually, doctors will prescribe birth control pills, which have estrgoen, which you obviously don't need, and some progesterone, to give you enough progesterone. She presecribed bio-identical proseterone capsules which have to be compounded. I just read an article that again, said they have found bio-identical hormones are far superior to synthetic ones. And as for cancer, estrogen causes cancer. Since being on progesterone, I sleep like a baby, do not wake up and wake up refreshed. My dr. says the cause of most sleep issues in women is inadequate progesterone. Walgreens now compounds, at least some of them. There are 4 here in OKC that do. So they bill my insurance, which my coumpounding pharmacy would not. I would not be surprised if a 14 yo girls could have some hormone issues going on. A good spit test will also measure her cortisol levels to see if she is experiencing stress. This may not be something you see; it could just be her body not releasing stress combatting hormone when it should. Those levels should fluctuate during the day in a specific pattern. Finally, I know what it is like dealing with a child with sleep issues. I got so tired of being told "be glad you homeschool" or "that just means she's smart and can't shut her brain down." I finally found our doctor who has 8 children and homeschools and he could understand. He was willing to call OU Children's Hospital and find the right people to ask to find out if melatonin is safe. But you do finally reach the tipping point on what am I going to do. You know the ramifications of not being able to get enough sleep. It would be one thing if your dd just didn't need sleep, but if she is being effected physically she needs the sleep. Good luck. Ann

I am the first to look at people when they give me a simple answer for medical problems that have plagued me for years (the best, when I mentioned to someone that I had chronic migraines for years was being told, "you need to drink more water), but have you tried melatonin? My oldest has suffered from sleep problems for years. We finally found a dr. who said this was a serious problem. He put her on melatonin. He also checked with a pediatric endocrinologist who said it was fine. The reason I ask is that when I was on sleep medication while dealing with depression, I was told I could NOT take Rozeram because it contained a type of melatonin and it could interfere with the SSRI I was taking. DD has tried many different types of melatonin and we have just found Enlyten. It works great. Far and away the best one we've tried. Solaray also makes one with valerian in it which we found to be very effective. I know the frustration of dealing with a child who can't sleep. My dd was starting to get depressed and it can be very frustrating. Hormonal changes play a big factor in not sleeping. I would be reluctant to put my dc on a prescription sleep aid unless I absolutely had to. Anyway, the upshot is all I know about Rozeram is that it does something with melatonin production, along with other things.

We have a Eureka envirosteamer and love it.

My 9 yo is saving up for a camera. Amazon has a lot of cameras that are inexpensive, including a Polaroid that dd has been eyeing. The only downfall we see is that the camera itself holds about 4 pictures, so make sure you get a memory card. Last winter some friends were buying a Polaroid camera for their dds that was on clearance a lot of places. I am wondering if any of the ones I am seeing on Amazon is it. Amazon seems to be much cheaper than ebay.

because it is my 100th post. Do we get a toast or something like that for such an auspicious event?

Is the book huge? If I were to get the e-book would it be easy to manage and print portions, or would I be better off getting an actual book? How much memory will it eat in my computer? Thanks, Ann

Thank you, Doran. I sometimes get truly afraid about this whole thing. I feel so much better, but depression is a horrible thing to deal with and I just don't want to go there again and put my family through what they went through last year. I truly believe we have a handle on what is going on and I finally have doctors in place I trust, but I worry. Depression goes deeper than take a deep breath and s*ck it up, but you don't know if you haven't been there. For a while I couldn't leave my bedroom without having a panic attack. When my coping mechanism works, which it did for years, it works great. When it is broken, we all suffer horribly. It is "when Mama ain't happy, ain't no one happy" magnified to the nth degree. Anyway, today is better. I have a lot to do but that is good. I am sure my fear that I will fall apart with my dds being hormonal and spring fever and all is more of a contributor than any actual depression returning. My dr. has even said she would be surprised if I went through another bout, although anything is possible.

I sold several items recently. All of them did not incur a fee until today. What is really a bummer is that it was being held until it cleared. If it had cleared when the purchaser sent the money a few days ago, I wouldn't have gotten any fees. Between problems with ebay and paypal, Im going with Amazon from now on. Ann

We like TT here. But my other choice would be Chalkdust. Maybe Ask Dr. Callahan, but it is a little too silly for us. Finally, Thinkwell, but that tends to be a little more for the gifted student.

I weaned myself off Effexor and it was a nightmare. I was reduced to opening up the capsules and removing grains, 3-5 a day because I felt so awful. I also went off prozac, but since it has a long half life, I really had no problem. Wellbutrin is supposed to be one of the easier ones to come off of, but everyone is different. I could not tolerate most of the AD's I was put on except for prozac.

It goes deeper than just discipline, although that is a component. I have been struggling with depression for the last year. It has only been in the last few months that I have been able to feel like my life is back where it should be, I can trust myself, etc. I have 2 dds who are going through puberty. The hormones are about to kill me and I feel myself sliding back to where I was last year, last summer especially and it isn't a pretty place. I an still taking some medication, but it is mainly biodidentical hormone treatment, since they think that was the main cause of the problem. Since they narrowed it down to that and started treating the source and not the symptoms, I feel better. I just need to figure out if overall, it is the best thing, or if it will make things worse if I feel like I failed at homeschooling. Of course, after reading my post here, I think, things overall are getting better. I just need to stay the course and it will work out. I'm just having a bad week. I'm sure I'll be off the pity pot soon.

For the past few months I have been wrestling with whether it is time to put my kids in school. I am beyond tired listening to the girls complain, fight, pout, you name it. We are far behind in school. I just am worn out. I just ordered HOmeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit to see if it can give me any nuggets of info. I also need to make a decision by Monday because we are involved in starting a co-op and I need to tell the others if we can commit or not. We cannot affort private school. The public schools here are pretty good (doesn't everyone say that?). The two younger ones have lots of friends from swim team who attend the schools they would be going to. I'm just really in the pits right now. Ann

We finally went a couple of months ago. It was raining buckets and we didn't get to go outside. My oldest said she preferred Leonardos in Enid but my youngest loved it. We should do a WTM field trip to one of those! Classical creative play!

Is the rivalry still going on between Tulsa and OKC? When I was growing up in NC, Raleigh and Charlotte were constantly trying to outdo each other.

I bought a smart phone on ebay. I kept getting the runaround about shipping and a tracking number from the seller so I filed a dipute through paypal. They were quick to reply. When I still didn't receive the phone from the seller after she guaranteed delivery yesterday, I escalated it to a claim. When this happened, I got a tracking number, finally, and the excuse that she discovered the phone did not have sound and needed to be fixed. I then added another reason to receive a refund - item not as described. I pointed out that lack of sound is a pretty significant in a phone and I should have been made aware of this, even if it was discovered after the auction was over. I told paypal I would not open the package until the claim was resolved, and if it was resolved in my favor I would send the phone back unopened, insured, return receipt. Paypal has said it could take up to 30 days to resolve this. I know a lot depends on the seller, but how good are they about working quicker than 30 days? I would really like to get this phone. BTW, the seller now has a 92% feedback, Thanks, Ann

I am. When I am stressed I either don't eat at all or gorge. Which I am doing now, but that seems to be more hormonal than stress at the present.

We no longer play soccer, but when we did, attitudes like this were a problem. We were with a local soccer club that was awful. We switched to the YMCA and that made a world of difference. I don't know who you play with, but if you are not with the Y and there is one near you, you may want to check them out.

When I spoke with Mr. Notgrass, her recomended one of Thomas Sowell's books, but I don't remembeer which one. YOu may call and ask. I also know a lot of people who have used the Uncle Eric books.

Why oh why are most of the OK WTMers in Tulsa? Doncha wanna come to OKC?

Last time I spoke with them at Notgrass they recommend reading a book by Thomas Sowell for econ. I can't remember the name.

Jumping in here because I am wondering the same thing. Does Bennet's book set come with the materials you mentioned or is there a separate education set? I did not see a separate homeschooling set when I googled it.