Erin
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Posts posted by Erin
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It's not as rare as some people like to think. If we're talking about actual nursing, not pumping, I truly couldn't nurse my dd. If she had been born in an era before bottles, she probably would have died. Even with bottles and me pumping (before I started the medications and had to switch to formula) she was so weak in the hospital that she had to have IVs to get her blood sugar up to safe levels.
I did say "relatively uncommon." My oldest had a similar problem, btw. He was on an IV in the hospital, and they sent us home with those little glucose bottles until my milk was in… (and then we got thrush. :rolleyes:)
He nursed to the age of 4.
However, going back to statistics for a moment. For the sake of simplicity, lets go with that classic 2% stat. If 4 million babies are born in the US each year, that means 80,000 babies will not be able to nurse for whatever reason.
Two percent is indeed relatively uncommon, but that doesn't change the actual number of 80,000. There's always a chance someone is going to be one of those 80,000, even if the actual stat is fairly low in comparison to the total.
Or maybe that 2% IS too high. Maybe it's more like .2% Even so, that's still an actual number of 8,000.
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I just wanted to toss in that in addition to testing, meds, etc. age WILL help.
I'm raising this kid, too. Ages 10-13 were the worst. Fourteen has become a noticeable transition year, so I have high hopes for 15 and beyond… ;)
My best advice is to give him tools.
Teach him to hang his life on his planner. You'll have to experiment to decide if he needs a paper one or something he can put in an iPod or something. Alarms are handy. Not only do they keep my kid on time, but a quiet ding every 15 minutes can help drag him out of day-dreams. Make a home-base and insist that he use it. EVERYTHING comes back to home base. Ours is his "spinner" (a Desk Apprentice from Staples). And so on.
Kids like this need predictability to maintain their center.
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I'm a doodler, so I've never had an issue with it either homeschooling, or in a full classroom. (I do not, however, allow drooling lol)
I once had a second grader (now a junior) who drew these elaborate sketches while we were discussing science, or reviewing history or reading aloud. No, they never had anything whatsoever to do with the discussion.
There would be dozens of stick figures, doing fantastically exciting things like storming a castle and he could make you see the movement. Arms would be drawn back holding bows, legs would be racing down a hill. Second grade!
(I loved it when we had time at the end of the day and he'd cover all three panels of the white board. :) )
What I found particularly interesting is that when he was allowed to draw while these auditory things were going on, he gained FAR more from the discussion than when he wasn't.
I'm not full time currently, I merely sub. So when I saw him this year at the beginning of his junior year, I asked if he still drew. I know he doesn't make time for art class.
He said yep, and grabbed a notebook. There, amongst his history notes were those same stick-figures, hanging things down the margins, taking a hill and planting a flag, and crawling under a guard's wall… lol
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for thousands of years many babies DIED at a much higher rate than they do now.
actually, it's relatively uncommon that women truly can't nurse their babies.
Far more likely is that we have some sort of set-back (mastitis, tongue-tied, nipple confusion, atypical growth, etc.) and then don't have the information to over come the set-back.
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Much believed myth: pumping accurately reflects supply.
I am the world's worst pumper. Yet I managed to grow a person for about 8/9 months exclusively on bm and mostly to 10/11 months.
Here too. I vividly remember the day I managed to pump 2 entire ounces in ONE session!! It was terribly exciting. lol
I also had teeny-weinies in the 5th percentile (and a few times, just a smidge below the curve). They looked like spider monkeys. :rolleyes: But they were both well ahead of milestones and seem to be holding no ill effects as adolescents...
I nursed my kids to four and three years of age, respectively.
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yeah...
Ignorance tends to be the BIGGEST obstacle to successful breastfeeding. :( -
*shrug*
I liked the majority of my history and science textbooks.
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I'm in my fifth year of homeschooling. I have yet to see a need for a white board.
But then with very small groups of kids I've always taught from the table. I keep a notebook or three handy, taught myself to write upside down, and find it works far better than working at a board.
We DO have a small dry erase board for working math problems, though…particularly useful when using Khan.
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A problem is he also masks how bad school is because he doesn't want us to feel sad or disappointed
We had the exact same thing going on for a couple years. But by seventh he was absolutely drowning, we could see it. "How do other kids DO this, Mom??" and then he'd cry.
We also had the same issue with Dad not being on board, so I just asked that we try homeschoolong for a year and see if its any better for him.
Two years later, Dad is fully supportive.
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Yeah, I just really don't see that in my part of the rural Plains, either… Generally speaking, if a dog goes missing, there's someone who's pretty desperate to find it!
And in my experience, border collies aren't abandoned by people who train them on stock. They're the ones who are bred to be "pets."
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As much work as people put into training a decent hunting dog, I can't even imagine how anyone would willingly abandon them!
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Most common would definitely be labs, the big spaniels, and shorthairs, all of which are large breeds, for birds. And coyote dogs tend to be greyhound/wolfhound crosses, so they're a larger dog, too.
I think you definitely have a market for orange bandanas, though I'd keep them fairly narrow. Ie, not too much of a tail. Think collar-ish.
Generally speaking, guys who are hunting with dogs have an investment in them so they want to protect them by making them visible…particularly during deer season. Deer hunters aren't always as diligent as they should be.
My dad's shorthair pointer always has a blaze orange collar with his ID info on it, and also wears a blaze orange vest when they're hunting.
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My dyslexic son has gotten old enough we don't really "remediate" anymore, but he's sure not cured!
Then again, I never really did a "remediation" program in the first place. We did typical reading/spelling/grammar programs and I just adjusted as needed. When he was first starting out, we did a lot of phonics and sight-word flashcards. (Phonics never really helped, btw. He still has trouble "sounding out" words in his reading, though it does help somewhat when spelling them)My dyslexic father doesn't "remediate" either. In fact, he never did get remidiation. He just bumbled through and figured out accommodations (like a secretary! lol) Personally, I think kids get to a point beyond which we can't really remediate anymore and just work on accommodations instead.
It's a lifelong issue, though, not just a couple of semesters...
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No way could you raise hay and grain for those animals here, even on 40 acres
​Here either. Our livestock is a handful of layers and half a dozen horses. We have enough grass for summer, but that's it. We'll start feeding hay sometime this month.
We actually WANTED a full section, but 40 acres was the bottom end of what we'd consider and we're surrounded by about 100,000 acres of the neighbors' summer/fall pastures, so we're still pretty isolated...
I know some areas have bigger lot sizes than others, but I think there's also been a lot of subdividing since we grew up, especially in rural-turned-suburb areas.In the face of outmigration, it's unlikely small towns on the Plains will be having this issue any time soon. To be sure, the town I grew up in (where my folks still live on that same lot) hasn't seen anything of the sort.
I honestly don't understand how people can stand living that close to one another...
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But her spelling is atrocious
*chuckle*
On Buck's Stanford test this spring, he scored in the 7th percentile. SEVENTH!
"You mean if you put me in a room with 100 8th graders I can spell better than 6 of them?!?! Alright!! *fist pump* I'm not the worst!!"
That's good, Son. Set the bar high. lol
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This size lot (just under two acres) is perfect for us. Definitely bigger than a typical lot in town (10+ times the size in fact)
Wow. Those are really small! I grew up in town on a fairly typical lot for our community.
It was a half-acre.
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I said varied because that has indeed been my experience. The kid I'm homeschooling as a freshman is nothing like the kid I home schooled in the third grade. (Though of course that's true of ANY child. ;) )
In third grade, he was reading two grades below level. As a freshman, he's reading comfortably at grade level!
HOWEVER, that's because he's bright enough he's figured out how to read for context. He can really pull a lot of meaning out of a passage of text, but reading a single sentence set of directions will blow his mind. Not enough context. And, when he reads aloud, it's fairly obvious how much he's actually skipping over and just gleaning the big picture.
I'm glad he's gotten to this point (though frustrated because the short sentences really hang him up in tests and such), but it took a LOT of work to get here.
Writing--
He writes fairly well, actually. He organizes his thoughts well and he can tell a good story. He even understands grammar, parts of speech, etc. but that's only after you come back for revision. That rough draft is REALLY rough. lol
"What does every sentence begin with, Son?!? Yes, a capital letter." :rolleyes:
Working memory/executive function--
Is it the dyslexia? Is it ADD? Beats me, but it really handicaps him. We have tools everywhere; alarms on his iPod, checklists on the door, etc. He still forgets things, spaces assignments, zones out and loses stuff.
Weird stuff--
He can't remember his math facts. Seriously.
The kid is doing Algebra 2 but he can't pull 6x7 out of his head.
We've used a lot of videos over the years, as well as audio-books. I've had him read a lot, too. Not as much as most bright kids his age, to be sure, but still enough to really stretch him.
I won't say homeschooling a dyslexic kid is easy in the slightest, but it is probably the best approach for the kid!
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Lanny, are you speaking of Macs specifically?
Or laptops in general...
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Our place is 40 acres.
For me, anything smaller would be just like living in town, on a bigger lot. :001_unsure:
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Unfortunately, it can also bore kids into insanity. ;) See above about my daughter's 40 problems of decimal multiplication and division.
She had it nailed after the first five. She certainly didn't need 35 more.
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Oh how I remember junior high… Your daughter has my sympathy.
That said, yes, ultimately it's your decision. In the 7th grade, Buck was begging to homeschool again, but ultimately it was up to his father and I to decide what the best course of action was. We let him come home.
In 8th when he was talking about wanting to go back, we made the decision again that no, he wasn't ready.
At this age, she has every right to have input in her education and life, but you're still the mom.
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I had a Troll book order edition of The Masque of the Red Death that I got in the third grade. It was my mostest favoritest book!
As a teacher, I can't think of a single kid I've ever read it to who didn't beg for a re-read or three. ;) -
He will also be able to use the report to get accommodations in college.
Precisely what I was thinking. Most schools require a report that's less than 4 years old upon admission to consider for accommodations, so this would be perfect for that too.
And yeah, 504!, that's what I meant…circumventing the school's process, anyway. An IEP requires a student who is operating 1 or 2 grade levels below his peers. Which, with a 2E, is obviously not what's going on. :rolleyes: That's why he's never gotten services previously, of course.
But a 504 needs to be reviewed annually also, doesn't it? Does that mean I need to go back for the full process at the psych every year??
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We're looking at getting Buck tested. Mostly I need a dyslexia DX (he wants to go back to public school next year (10th) or the year following but I won't let him go back without an IEP). I also need to establish accommodations so that when he takes the ACT, he isn't hamstrung by his reading.
But, because he's most likely at least moderately gifted, I want to make sure I find someone who is experienced in seeing the two together and how one compensates the other and skews both results.
From what I'm finding, neuropsychologists do not test "normal" kids in this area(?), only kids who have been in car wrecks or had other traumatic injuries. I've called two, both of whom were baffled by the idea that I would be looking at a NP for a normal kid.
OK…
So, highly-regarded psychologist instead, who specializes in gifted and 2E. What should we be expecting to spend for this? I got the preliminary paperwork today. The initial consult/review of our questionnaires is expected to be about 2 hours at $180 an hour. Working with the big cheese, instead of underlings, is double that.
Is this about right for an initial consult? How about the actual testing and then review and implementation of results? She said we can expect to spend at least 2 hours going over test findings, educational suggestions, etc.
Has anyone else tested an older kid? What did they think of the process?
Breastfeeding myths that people BELIEVE
in The Chat Board
Posted
I'm sure it does.
But most people don't seem to lose weight quite as easily as expected when nursing. That seems to be the biggest complaint on breastfeeding boards-- why is the weight not falling off?? lol
Oh, and I have felt a let-down exactly once. My youngest was 2 and was only nursing about three times a day at that point. We were in the church nursery where a forlorn baby boy was wailing for his mama (who had had the audacity to run to the bathroom before she was going to feed him). And I let down! The one and only time I felt it and it was for someone else's kid.