It is my older daughter - she turns 7 in a month. I will talk to my ped. about FTT on Friday at our appointment, but I'm pretty sure it's directly related to the meds for the ADHD. I am a bit frustrated that they waited until she lost weight to tell me this was a problem, because they also chose this time to tell me that she had stalled growth at 50 lbs for the first several months, and then lost 2 lbs. and that even not gaining is a problem, while losing is a bigger problem. If I had known months ago that she was not gaining and needed to, then I would have made diet changes then and been more on top of it. Now I feel like I'm behind the 8 ball, trying to play catch up. She doesn't have trouble eating, just doesn't have appetite to eat a lot at once.

The thing is, it took her a long time to adjust to the meds - during that adjustment period she would be very clingy and whiny. Then we had a great honeymoon period where I was so glad we stuck it out and was so glad we had the technology that enabled us to have her ADHD symptoms curbed so well, and now we're fighting this "tired" and bla sort of thing... part of me wonders if it's just a need for Spring to come, we've been cooped up with bad weather a lot this winter. At the same time, if it's a newer issue, that might be her body's reaction to just slowly eating away her reserves and needing the increased nutrition, right? I hate the circular nature of this issue!

My daughter was diagnosed with ADHD in September and we have had her on Vyvance and seen great improvement in her ability to focus on her school work and control her impulses - she gets along much better with her siblings and is able to complete her work were as before, she was struggling to complete anything and literally bounced off of walls all day long. She says she likes the medicine because it "makes math easier" and helps her focus. But - she's not gaining weight the way she is supposed to. So we were told to increase her healthy fats/calories for a month to see if that helped and if not, we were going to have to put her on ensure or some other type of calorie supplement. Our month is up on Friday and based on my scale, she's put on about a pound but she had lost 2 pounds since the beginning of December so she's still down too low. I have noticed over the past 2 months that she is often tired, and will ask to go lay down and some days she will complain of a headache/stomach ache/not feeling well. I've started trying to treat those moments with food instead of just rest, and while sometimes that helps, other times, like today, she was complaining not long after eating something and she wasn't interested in eating again already and so I sent her to her room to rest. I have a call in to the pediatrician, but I am just frustrated and tired. Does this sound like she is just not getting enough calories and I need to buy ensure or something else? Or do I need to take her off the meds and just deal with the crazy life that happens when she is bouncing off the walls all day long? I am sure I'm not the only one who has walked this path, is there any advice that might help?

Dh is a teacher and recently lost his second job so our budget is approximately $400 short each month starting in April unless he can find another part time job (once the severance pay ends). And we just found out that our van has a bad hub bearing and brakes - DH can replace the brakes, but not the hub bearing so we're pulling money out of our emergency fund to cover it. We owe more on the van than it's worth to sell it and it is really not ideal for pulling the camper that we were given a year ago because it maxes out the weight limit on the vehicle, which could have contributed to the hub going bad. So I feel like we're stuck with a vehicle that "it is not unusual to replace hubs at the 50,000 mile point" and "goes through brakes" according to what we've been told and we don't have the money to do anything about it. Is it bad to have buyers remorse 2 years after purchasing a car?? *sigh*

I tried setting up the SCM system once and it never got completed... Maybe that'll be my goal this time - to give it a chance. We've successfully memorized lots of scripture and poems in the past, I think part of my problem right now is that I was sick for all of December so I got out of the habits we had been working on and so I feel like I'm failing when in fact I just need to get focused on it again. Thanks :)

:lol:

It is Presbyterian, but it's not the actual "adult" catechism... I will look into these resources, though... Maybe memorizing scripture at home to support the questions would be a good compromise. I think that the perspective in this thread has helped me... and I think that part of me might be overreacting to the whole thing... I'll blame it on pregnancy hormones. :)

The bottom line issue is that the focus is on memorizing catechism questions and answers to the point where my daughter believes that the catechism is more important than memorizing scripture because "we never memorize the bible, so it's obviously not as important". I was sick for the past month and in survival mode so I need to get back into bible memory at home, but most of the parents who would be concerned about the issue put their kids in AWANA, and that's not an option for us because of schedules. It just comes across as a bit legalistic, and the kids have no idea how to back up the answers with Scripture, which bugs me too.

Ok, say you are really plugged into your church and there is a big, vibrant children's program that your kids love attending, but there is one aspect of the curriculum used that bothers you. It's not "wrong": there are no theological errors, etc., but there is just an aspect of it that seems wrong in that the focus is on theology instead of scripture. It's based on scripture, scripture is read, etc., but the focus is on the theology. The stated objective of this curriculum choice is to give children a foundation into which all future biblical knowledge can fit, whether the kids really understand everything right now or not. Now say going through the "proper channels" to voice a concern changes nothing. Rationale for the current choice is defended, your concerns about the focus is minimized. Kids have friends, have fun, etc. but this issue bothers you as the parent. Would you ignore the issue and just make sure the focus is on Scripture in other aspects of life? Or would you look for a new church?

That's odd - maybe someone else with more experience with OneNote can help, but I've never had that problem!

I use text boxes/tables and check boxes directly in One Note as well. I tried inserting an excel spreadsheet once and it only drove me nuts because I couldn't edit it on my tablet.

Hit me with all your best options for memorizing scripture... I seem to fail miserably at this and I need that to change!

I love the look of grammar land, it's just out of our reach financially right now unless something changes (And DH is working hard to make things change, so maybe there's a chance!). Thanks for the input!!

I have trouble wrapping my head around the asynchronous-ness of my child, (is that a word?) and could use some input on next year's language arts. I'm trying to think about it now because we lost a chunk of our income and I need to watch for used stuff to pull down the cost of next year's curriculum. So her strengths and weaknesses right now: She is a strong reader - at around a 5th grade level with comprehension - but it's not her favorite thing to do. She is very strong verbally and remembers everything she hears if she is paying attention. She is not a natural speller but loves grammar. She has good handwriting for her age if she writes in cursive, average if she writes in print. She can copy 2 sentences easy (that's all I've asked of her, I've not had a reason to push her copywork based on what we're doing this year). She is able to retell a story, narrate something she's learned and is a perfectionist so she has trouble putting a sentence down on paper without copying because of wanting to ensure her spelling is correct. She wants to write well - she will eagerly make my grocery list, and plays restaurant by making her own menu and taking orders. This year we are working through LOE, at her pace. The grammar she eats up like candy, the spelling she struggles some with. We are not doing a lot with reading, I've incorporated readers with her American history studies when I can. We do copywork with Apologia science and with our Presidents study to focus on handwriting and mechanics. My desire for LA next year: To push her some in her strengths and to provide more scaffolding and support her in her weak areas. My thoughts: since she loves grammar so much, I was thinking that Treasured Conversations would be a jumping off point for teaching her writing. I thought I would do the first section at her pace, then switch to Writing and Rhetoric Fables and play things by ear. Is there something else that might fit better? I need something easy to teach as I will have a baby, toddler and preschooler running about as well but I am not afraid of teacher intensive.

I hadn't started planning the birthday party yet... lol, I was thinking something to do with cars or transportation though, because he loves driving cars, trucks, and trains around the house. The biggest reveal priority for me is my two daughters, too, so something showy for pictures to show our girls' reaction to finding out is important. I just figured the grandparents/great grandmother would enjoy it too.

So, pregnant with our fourth (and hopefully last) baby, we are going to have our ultrasound in a couple weeks, just a few days before our son's second birthday party. I had the great thought today that we should figure out a way to keep the gender a secret from the kids and surprise them, and of course that great idea made me think that a greater idea would be to incorporate the gender reveal into our son's birthday party somehow. Only close family will be invited to the party, and to make things simpler DH and I will know before the reveal so that we can save money by prepping everything ourselves. But I don't want it to be weird, and have the gender reveal overshadow the birthday, like "oh yay, he's two! ok what are we having?!?" I feel like there's gotta be a way to incorporate the fun all together into one party. Or, we can do a birthday party and then a rather quick gender reveal - maybe just balloons for the pictures, or something like that. At least with him turning 2, he's just excited about people being excited, so it's not like he would care either way, I just don't want it to seem weird. Any ideas?

so my husband is a music teacher in the public school system - it's stressful and getting worse but that's not the issue... the problem is they don't pay enough and he's had so many years of no raises that he's had a second job for years so that I could stay home and still help ends meet. (Ironically it was his public school job that convinced him that homeschooling was the way to go for us!) Anyway, we found out yesterday that his part time job of 4 years is going away at the end of the month. Thankfully we will get a severance package which will pay through the end of February but then our budget will be short again. So he is going to start trying to pick up private music students and see if he can make up the supplemental income needed that way. Please pray he gets 4-5 students in January, that's the minimum he needs in order to be able to make a go of music lessons. I've got the word out in all my local homeschool contacts, and he's going to put the word out through our Church too. Thanks for your prayers/thoughts!!!

Ok, so I called my mom and told her we can't use it... she told me that it was all my dad and that she told him over and over that we don't have apple stuff but he was convinced that we could use it on any device we had. Anyway, they had us send it back to them and they are going to use it and send us cash instead on the promise that we will use the cash for "something fun". big sigh of relief here, I hate seeming to be ungrateful for gifts but they were very gracious and my mom was very much in the "I told you so" to my dad.

My parents, who are on the all Apple bandwagon, emailed me an iTunes gift card for Christmas. I do not own an apple anything - ipad, ipod, iphone, icomputer, I don't even have an itunes account... I'm an android user all the way with android on my smart phone, android on my tablet, and a non-apple PC. But, my dad hates google and loves apple, so I'm sure he thought nothing past "I love apple, I'll give an apple type gift card for Christmas!" I don't listen to music or watch tv on my computer so I can't see a point in signing up for an itunes account, and I have a kindle, so I have no need for ebooks on my computer (unless they are curriculum related... but even then I usually put them off on my tablet to use in school). I don't really care to purchase an apple product, that I don't need, to use the gift card on, so I'm at a loss for what to do with the thing. Do I have any options?

thanks :) I am feeling much better - my fever broke on Monday night after another round of everything in the bathroom. I'm almost back to completely normal today. Feels good to be healthy again! My bet is that in the end, I never had an infection - I just had a stomach bug I couldn't get rid of, my body mounted a secondary defense against it and in the end I was finally able to purge it out of my system.

I plan on calling again tomorrow to let her know that I'm still fighting it.

the thing about the fever is that it comes and goes - it'll start to creep up early afternoon and responds to tylanol, like, it goes away completely within a couple hours of taking the tylanol... but within an hour or so of the tylanol wearing off, it starts creeping up again. Then by morning, it's gone until early afternoon again. Then I thought I was better over the weekend because I didn't get a fever at all on Saturday, through Sunday afternoon.

I got a stomach virus just over a week ago, lasted about 2 days. My midwife (I'm 16 weeks pregnant) told me it could take a while to get back to myself, and to take it easy because I got hit pretty hard by the virus. several days later, the diarrhea didn't clear up all the way yet but I started experiencing a low grade fever that would come on in the early afternoon. It responds to tylanol and yet I have to treat it every 6-8 hours to keep it under 100 (per midwife's instructions) from early afternoon until the next morning. Then I'm fever free all morning. I'm on day 6 of this. I spoke with my midwife on day 4 and she told me to call back Wed. if I'm still not better. She thinks it's just a secondary infection that I'm fighting from the gastrointestional bug and that it will just take a few more days to recover. I have had little appetite the whole time and have lost 5-8 pounds. And I really can't afford to lose much more. I've started drinking ensure but those things are expensive! They pack a huge nutritional punch for the small 8 ounces, though, and it started me thinking that perhaps the reason I'm not better yet is because I just haven't got the nutritional reserves to grow and protect this baby and to heal myself at the same time. So what else can I do to increase my nutrition while still being gentle on my stomach? I am eating apple sauce, toast, taking probiotics, drinking lots of water, I eat eggs whenever I can, usually at least once a day. I'm out of broth. I can tolerate small amounts of dairy - today I had pizza toast and it settled fine. Help me kick this before Christmas!!!

We found a new speech therapist for my son, and I am so excited. She is a PROMPT certified therapist and within 10 minutes had him attempting communication and identifying his specific strengths and weaknesses. I have more homework to do with him from that single session than I got from all four combined sessions with the EI therapist. She works privately from her home and literally only works with kids like my son (and she said that she is really excited to work with him because he only has one issue, whereas many of her kids have additional issues to work through as well, so he should be an "easy" case for her). She was confident, my son fell in love with her and I saw him do more for her in the time we were there than I have ever seen him do for the EI therapist. Now tell me why I need to keep the EI therapist? The new therapist said that if we could put off EI for a couple months, she could be someone else to "practice" with. BUT: I'm not thrilled with having someone from the school system (even if it is just EI) come into my home - she always asks tons of questions about the homeschooling and peers around the house, even though she tries to hide it. She may just be curious, but I'd rather not end up with a problem. Second, I've had a rather negative experience from day one with EI - when I called to get the process started I was treated extremely rudely on the phone (I was in tears by the time I hung up). I called another therapist I knew personally in EI with some specific questions and he promised that they would recommend outside therapy if they couldn't help. Now I know this to be a big lie. I disagreed with the evaluation given my son - They knocked points off his cognitive score because he wouldn't nest more then 2 cups together. BUT those nesting cups had a lip so they could be stacked without falling over and that fascinated my son and he refused to nest them because he wanted to stack them. They also told me that he had no vocabulary, and the sounds he made were just babbling. This is something that I know to be untrue and the private therapist agrees with me 100%. Finally, the EI therapist not only has never seen a child present the way mine does, but sat on my floor shaking her head, saying "I don't know what to do!" over and over (if you remember my last thread, I went into that in more detail). She is clueless and had to talk to another therapist to get any ideas. Which means it would literally be just to practice what the other therapist assigns... why do I need another therapist to do that? Seems like a waste of tax payer money. What EI diagnosed as an expressive speech delay, is actually a motor speech disorder (all the classic signs of apraxia but he's too young to officially diagnose with apraxia). THIS diagnosis makes sense for my son, even from my perspective, which makes me doubt the ability of EI to service anything outside the realm of "typical delays". Also, based on how the IFSP is written, I don't know how I would be able to get her to cancel sessions from now until March. She would legally be in breech of the IFSP and she refuses to break any other "rules" (like suggest any outside therapy). I will not use EI for any other services - and at this point I would almost rather use private therapy through my insurance if something else did come up, simply because the EI program in my area is at the very least so steeped in politics that they cannot even do what is in the best interest of a child (which is what happened in my situation). So am I crazy to ditch EI?

I don't avoid places - especially church - but I also take baby in a sling or wrap everywhere I go - and I will turn away from people if they try to peak at baby too closely. Except for after my c-section, I always felt so much better physically, that I just loved getting out and walking around pain free! In our community, we have a mix of people who stay home and those who don't.