And some muscle relaxants have long term effects that require monitoring! Not as an addiction issue, but rather as a neurological one. Ask me how I know...

Lol, I once asked my dd if she knew she could read silently instead of aloud. She said "oh, I know momma!i guess I am like Mrs. X...remember, you told daddy she liked the sound of her own voice?" 😧 Oops!

Lol, this reminds me of the time I bribed Alex to do her schoolwork in the doctor's office with a trip to Peter Piper Pizza for lunch...and made her do all the spending of tickets on random bits of shiny plastic mentally and called it math:)

Just a bit off topic, although my newly 6 yo has listened to all of the SOTW discs multiple times. We just wouldn't use all of the reading materials suggested. There are plenty of alternate materials for littles. I just want to say, should anyone decide to study the Holocaust with littles (even olders!) that we recently visited the National Holocaust museum in Washington DC. We were a bit reluctant as we were t really interested in a huge barrage of horrifying visuals for her. The lovely lady at the visitors center suggested we first try the special exhibit they have for kids, called Daniel's Story. It was incredibly well done and poignant. I highly recommend it, and it is available as a virtual tour: http://www.ushmm.org/mobile/exhibitions-and-events/museum-exhibitions/remember-the-children

I totally um, misdirected, and told my kid her shipment of new math books would most probably be delayed even though the Amazon alert she read said they would be delivered. I just could.not.do.it. And then, so she wouldn't ask any more suspicious questions I suggested a trip to the museum where she could run around and I could read my book whilst baby slept:)

I took a cake decorating class based on Wilton's recommendations: Add a small package of Jello pudding mix, an extra egg, and 2-3 tsps extra water. Bake a few minutes longer at 325 degrees instead of 350 degrees. Super moist. Everybody raved about it...but I haven't actually eaten it myself:(

Hhm, new meaning to upping or adjusting my caffeine intake!

Ugh😠It sounds like some frat boy joke: "one time in college, I had to stay awake studying for 3 days so I...."

Is there a university near there? If they have an ecology/biology/toxicology section they may well have ongoing research on the lake. You might check as it can be a great resource. For example, The uni here has multiple researchers studying anything from water quality to invasive species of plants and animals to engineering projects and how they might affect the ecology. They even are studying the effects of drugs such as heart meds and BC meds that are commonly found in the lake on smaller organisms. Very cool. And very frightening:(

Hope all is well today and you are all just getting some needed rest. Fervently sending thoughts and well wishes your way...

Wegivebooks.org has a lot of great books for kids, both fiction and nonfiction. It is a charity set of as a collaboration between Penguin and Pearrson. You create an account (free!) and every time you read a book there they also donate a copy of it to charity. Great books, including some of the most popular kids books. The only downside is that they must be read online-you can't download them. Still, a really great resource!

I do believe you are talking about the Touchstone trilogy by Steve Augarde! Girl is called Midge, and she goes to stay at her uncle's farm where she encounters the tiny Various people...and helps an injured winged horse named Pegs? ETA: Book 1 is The Various, Book 2 is called Celandine, and book 3 is Winter Wind. http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/68923163

We love books by UK author Julia Donaldson and NZ author Lynley Dodd. The stories are fantastic, but the language and word choices are superior to lots of other kids picture books. Also, have you seen the Wegivebooks.org website? I recommend it to everybody, but especially friends abroad. It is a collaboration between Penguin books and Pearson. Many, many popular kids books are on there available to read for FREE (you do need to register for an account, no CC or anything needed). The best bit is that every time you or you kiddo reads one, Wegivebooks.org donates one to a charity!

Oh wow, sending the best of well wishes to your entire family. Dd6 heard my 'oh no!' Exclamation when I read the OP and is now in her room drawing him a 'Get Better NOW!' card (her words😊). Hugs to you as you wait it out...

Sorry, my little princess is partial to a bevy of beauties!

When socks are absolutely necessary I can get my super sensitive dd to wear the Smartknitkids version. We have tried tons of different ones, including turning them inside out. That worked for me as a kid, but she still insists the shoe pushes the 'bulging seam' back to her foot:( http://www.smartknitkids.com Mostly I let her wear what she wants but carry weather appropriate items and socks in my bag so that she can ask if her feet get too cold.

My experience with my precocious reader and ASL was similar. I am not sure we would have recognized just how much she could read if we hadn't been signing with her. She signed complete 'sentences' over a year before she was speaking even rudimentary sentences...not to mention it cut back tremendously on the frustration. Could you imagine being able to read but not properly ask for things? Yikes. Interestingly enough, she learned to finger spell before age 2, and she still uses it when spelling more challenging words (she wants to do Scripps at some point!). Also, her fine motor control for things like art and handwriting are exceptional. Both the neuropsych and BT/OT teams remarked on it and suggested that it is most likely due to all that signing:)

Awesome, thanks. I just had her quickly do it and suprisingly she answered only 2 (the African myths) incorrect. I was quite surprised as we haven't really done Native American or others. She informed me that she read the Native American stories when we visited the Native American museum in DC over Christmas😊 I guess I missed it!

Awesome, I think she will do well. This is the kid who has Popsicle stick puppets of every Greek mythology character you can imagine and puts on elaborate shows for us:)She did the Memorial Press d'Aulaires book for fun last year. A perfect introduction to contests and exams...

Anybody taken this one 'out of level?' As in, it starts for 3rd grade but how strict are they about this? Alex has been fascinated with Greek mythology for quite a while, and listens to d'Aulaires at bedtime. She can recite much of it by heart:) I think she would love to do the test! But she is technically Kindy this year. That is a pretty big gap.

Have you seen the free Japanese video lessons put together by Georgia Public Broadcasting? Really awesome resource! The program is called Irasshai. http://www.gpb.org/irasshai

I agree:) Moreso, so does my kid today! I started a bit of play today, with the Combinatorics PDF. After a few minutes she drew on our huge dry erase board and was so excited. She had noticed that on our street there are three families with kids: one family has 2 girls, one family has 2 boys, and we have 1 girl/one boy. She is now extremely excited by the possibilities for calculations of all manner of combinations of things! I should have thought about it before, as she has always loved trying out ways to sort and classify things. However, something tells me I am going to have to have more than a few late nights to stay ahead of her. Oh, we do use the verbal problems book for HOE. We have actually gone through so much, and have done the fractions kit as well. Dr. Borenson is amazing and has even done Skype sessions with Alex in a mentoring capacity. There is a video of her on his YouTube channel, I think when she was 4? Can't say enough great things about HOE:)

I am totally willing to try anything at this point:). Dietary deficiencies and issues are at the top of my list to check when we see her doctor next week. We are vegetarian (although we consider her to be just the child of vegetarian parents-we can and will do meat for her if she chose or needed it.) she is also incredibly picky with sensory issues, so bloodwork is routinely done by her ped nutritionist...still, it has been more than 6 months.

I just taught a coop class about Archimedes to a mixed class of 6-11 year olds. One of the fun projects we did was to build an Archimedes screw that would pick up cereal bits. I think maybe EndofOrdinary recommended it? Regardless, it was fun! There are YouTube videos with irrigation versions, as well as instructables for the cereal version made with common household items:)

See, I like the way you think! Fridays are fun math Fridays here and we do something just like these ideas. Origami, math games, tesselations, just exploring a fun math concept. Did I mention that I am *not* a mathematician?! I am learning right alongside of her. I did a traditional math path through college Cal III and differential equations-but freely admit it was a grind and only a means to my chemistry/biology degrees:) it took a child's love of numbers to open my eyes to the fun of it. Now I plan to go back for a Maths degree just for fun when the kiddos are a bit bigger. But in the meantime I am playing right along with the kid! That Combinatorics activity looks really good. I think that is the sort of thing that she would enjoy:)