Thanks, this is what I spent 30 minutes searching for. It specifically says Doxycycline should be avoided as it causes permanent staining of teeth (even in infants without!) and decreased bone growth:( Yes, his pediatrician told me it was likely that passing my antibodies to him was the only reason he is not more ill:)

I spent all last week with a really miserable case of the flu (in August!) and then yesterday was diagnosed with pneumonia. Of course hubby is really busy this week with students and exams durning finals week at the uni:( Anyway, they loaded me up with antibiotics and breathing treatments, and sent me home with more antibiotics and inhalers. But in reading about the specific antibiotics I am not at all sold on the idea of passing them to my 4 month old baby! Who is on antibiotics of his own for dual ear infections:( Normally I would just pump and dump, then feed him from reserves and formula...but all the poor thing wants is to nurse because his ears hurt and he had vaccinations yesterday. Anybody ever done this? Specific antibiotics are SMZ/TMP (Bactrim) and Doxycycline ....

Oh good. We are officially starting Kindy this year, I only yesterday finally bit the bullet and let her Montessori spot go, I have not ordered things yet, and the 'school room' is a little alcove in the living room. I was feeling very disorganized and late but now I just decided to call it relaxed😎

My Buzzfeed came in with the following pictures of all those little annoyances that make you grit your teeth. Reading them made me alternately laugh and commiserate:) Which ones get you every time? http://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahjewell/things-that-will-irritate-you-more-than-they-should#.tv9GbnLp2

I just had to comment on this, partly to say kudos to you for working on eliminating physical discipline, and partly because it sounds as though you are a bit frustrated...but mostly because *I* have a child like that. We have never used physical discipline with her but I know without a doubt it wouldn't work anyway. It would just escalate the situation, anger, and cause her to hyper focus on the behavior I was trying to correct. Eventually she would turn it into a game. putting her back in her room? A game from the get-go. Hence the rewards:) when I have been consistent and focused on one behavior at a time they have been very effective. Eventually we get there and we can move on to the next behavior when the first has become automatic. I hope it works for you...

If you can get in touch with them you may be surprised. This happened to me once and they offered a one-time courtesy refund because they understand you cannot re-sell them.

Yes! I am thinking I might give her a Montessori style work plan as she quite liked them. We could spend an hour or so doing subjects she might need me to get her started on (even math she prefers me to be close enough for checking but she wants to do it herself), and then let her do the other 'subjects' as she wanted. For instance, geography could be put on and she could choose geopuzzles, or apps, or coloring maps, or reading about places or just random googling of places or landmarks, the list is endless. I am going to have to build a lot of that into the day with a new baby! Hopefully afternoons can be outings.

Update in original post!

There was a series of articles that came out in July about the sibling pair that were the youngest to be tried (and convicted) as adults being released from prison. If all of the information that has now come to light are factual, it was an even more egregious miscarriage of justice. Don't get me wrong, they murdered a woman. It was awful, and I cannot imagine the details that went into it...but I cannot see how trying them as adults 'helped' the situation. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/12/young-killer-catherine-jones-release-date-nears/21636259/ I think in these situations it becomes much more about retribution and politics than rehabilitation.

I know, right? Tonight after I get the kids in bed I am going to open each one of the old set gathering dust on the shelves in our library in the hopes that I will be bathed in the golden light of Truths I must have missed out on😄 Who knew the things were so valuable?!

Don't forget The Goonies

It isn't something I have tried, but I was in Mardel the other day shopping for a bday gift. They are very fundamentalist and don't do many traditional toys so I was looking for something fun that would fit their guidelines. I finally went with a set of Bible Dominoes that were cute and matched Biblical Characters with stories. They are more for the preK/Kindy age though. I just googled them and found them cheaper by half here: http://www.familychristian.com/catalog/product/view/id/319199/ I also noticed that there is a Bible version of many popular games: Apples to Apples, Blurt, Blink, Monopoly, and a ton more...

Today dd5 had a hard lesson. She has been saving her allowance for a larger purchase and is fairly close. This morning she found a wallet she lost a few weeks ago, which had about $14 in it. She was ecstatic...until I reminded her that she had already 'spent' that money because when I took her to the store a few weeks ago to spend it she realized it wasn't in her purse. I told her I would pay for the item and she could reimburse me upon arriving home. However, when we arrived home the wallet could not be located. So after serious tears and drama (with me feeling like a complete witch but sticking with it because I think it is an important lesson) she sat down to breakfast. Daddy came in and asked her why she was so upset. She said: "well Dad, when life kicks you in the teeth it isn't fun. I am just a little glum today." Then turned back to her breakfast. I have no idea where she picked up that expression?!

Quiet and time is a necessity! I also think it is really important for kids to learn to play by themselves, problem-solve (since they can't go running off to mom to solve it for them during this time), and patience-stretching. There are a whole plethora of skills being worked on! Plus, it was the time during which my dd learned to read for hours for pleasure:) We used to have a light up timer when she was very little. It was a sun/moon thing that was blue during rest time and turned yellow when she was allowed to get up. We now just use the clock. We have mandatory quiet time from 2-3, but she often extends it because she is caught up in a book. For your youngest I think you will have to start with short time periods and build up. And yes, bribery if necessary. If you can get away from with a sticker chart for him, here is what I did: I made a fancy character chart (I think it was Dinosaur Train back then?) and for every successful completion of quiet time she got to put on a sticker. There were five 10-minute spots, then five 15-minute spots, building up to an hour. When she got to an hour we got to celebrate with a larger reward of her choice. But since she was two, we also needed a short-term, immediate reward. I put together a little dollar-store-type trinket box she got to select something from for that. Also, and I cannot recommend these highly enough for that age (2-4), there is a book and CD called Farmyard Tales from the UK. It is one of the Usborne Spot-the-duck books, and it it a collection of 20 very sweet tales about a family on a farm with silly animals. Cute stories, illustrations, and very soothing. All of the stories start exactly the same way (a wonderful book for beginning readers as well!) and the very single child I have gifted this book to has absolutely loved it. And I gift it A LOT. At age 2, putting these audiobooks on made quiet time for my crazy- energetic toddler possible. She would beg for them, and at night would happily climb into bed with no fuss if we put them on for her to listen as she went to sleep. At 5.5 she STILL asks for them periodically. This is the book, but I got mine from The Book Depository. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0794509029/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?qid=1439046829&sr=8-4&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70&keywords=farmyard&dpPl=1&dpID=616EDPohIjL&ref=plSrch

Have you seen the 4H Veterinary Science Books? http://www.4-h.org/resource-library/curriculum/4-h-veterinary-science/

Definitely should at least get a mention as a more non-traditional program3) For us, it has been wonderful. I have a very accelerated dd5. I never planned to do grammar with her at this age. Or spelling. Or any number of things. She had other ideas and loves structure. I TRIED FLL with her. I wanted her to love it. FLL are sweet, gentle, and short. But some kids just don't need (nor are able to stand!) the repitition. And this kid was ready for a big-picture kind of approach, wanting it all *right now!* MCT allowed us to do it that, whilst still preserving the sit-on-the-couch-and-snuggle approach is that her chronological age needed.

More than likely it is nothing:) But there are issues like that out there and if you are concerned it is worth a check!

Yes, I would want to have her checked. Remember the book 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" by Oliver Sachs? He suffered from something similar, a form of visual agnosia. There are a couple of different forms, but basically there is a disconnect between what they see and their language processing.Question: if you aren't looking at the object, say asking her to put something in the microwave or fridge (or any other example of things she gets confused) but instead ask her to identify via words which one would cook food and where she would put the food to keep it cold, can she tell you correctly? If her knowledge of the object is sound, but she can't identify it reliably because she cant 'see' it correctly then it could be apperceptive agnosia. If they can 'see' the objects and have knowledge of it and its function but cannot identify it then it is called associative agnosia. Of course, she may just be preoccupied with things much more important to her and where she puts the food is the very least of her concerns😄 Still, if there is concern I think it is worth taking her to a doctor. Getting to the crux of the issue can be very complicated, but an MRI can typically tell if there is reason to suspect an issue.

I think that simple landforms book is one of my favorite purchases for geography. It is short, sweet, and well- done:)

Not sure how you might feel about it, but I can tell you what I did with my mythology-loving dd:) There are creation myths for each type of landform in abundance! We read more than a few (for example for islands we read about Pele and Hawaii, the legend of Turtle Island, and creation myths from Fiji and Japan). We compared the myths and then we read non-fiction books about how they were actually formed. The Let's Read and Find out About Science books and the True Books are awesome for that. It even turned cultural as we talked about the places the legends came from and how their specific geography might have influenced them. We also watched YouTube videos. It was Lot of fun:)

We have found the Andrew Campbell book quite helpful, and I also pull materials from the 'What Your X-Grader Needs to Know' series. I also get ideas from the Ed Hirsch book "The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy."

Yes, absolutely. Hubby teaches college chemistry and I tutor it. For some reason converting between units absolutely slays half the class. I have made a LOT of money simply showing students how to cancel units in the denominator with those in the numerator:) every professor I know or have had uses dimensional analysis (aka factor analysis).

Tea the perfect temperature The baby's toothless smiles and belly laughs Dd5 not giving up on when she can't get something perfectly the first time And the first margarita I had after a year of no adult beverages!

For young kids I *love* Montessori Minutes... http://www.amazon.com/Montessori-Minute-Melodies-Shelley-Murley/dp/B0019W16J2

Peter Weatherall. You can order the whole set of CDs/DVDs from his website for a ridiculously inexpensive price or watch some on YouTube.