We are about 6 lessons from finishing AAS3. My dd is young, but seems to be a very natural speller. If it wasn't for the fact of her age and the fact that she never had explicit phonics instruction when she learned to read I probably wouldn't even bother doing more than skimming the first couple of levels, but since she loves it we have gone through everything. She is a very rules-based kid, so it works well. We do a step per day, but only about three days per week when she asks for it and I have time. However, I do the new lesson and half of the sentences, then the next time do the other half of the sentences and the new lesson. It has worked well for her. So far I wouldn't say I am actually spending much time teaching. I just present it and she runs with it. We also use the Montessori wooden symbols for parts of speech to identify them in all of the dictated sentences. This is almost a game for her and is painless grammar:)

Our neighbor found their laminated world map at Hobby Lobby, and I have the same on that I bought locally at Mardel...

Hugs, that sounds rough:( I don't have a lot of suggestions, but I have a very picky eater who has serious issues with textures. I have recently found that if I dehydrate the fruits and veggies into very thin dry chips she will eat some. It isn't perfect, but at least I am getting for nutrients into her. I also think that the exposure helps her develop a taste for them in hopes that she will later be able to tolerate the textures better. Also, we are vegetarian. Our young neighbor also has sensory food issues, and we shared a meat substitute product called Quorn with him. It is NOT your typical meat substitute (and is not soy-based), and the texture throughout is homogenous. I think this makes a big difference, as well as the fact that they actually taste good. You can get them with a breading or without, and cook the unbreaded ones any way you like. My dd won't do anything with a sauce, nothing 'complex'. She has never had pizza or tomato sauce or anything similar. This can be very challenging, and it means she eats plain rice or plain pasta a lot. Good luck. I hope things get better for her...

Jenn, I really hope you get some satisfactory results from your new doctor. I am also anemic more often than not (and vegetarian, lactose intolerant) so I understand that food-wise there is only so much you can do. A couple of things: even if you are taking a B12 supplement, it is possible that your body will not be able to utilize it. My RLS issues were almost cleared up by the implementation of monthly B12 shots. It also keeps my anemia in check. I also take an iron supplement, in liquid form which my doctor swears by, first thing in the morning with a vit C supplemented smoothy. I found it was the only way as anything too acidic will make me vomit:( And of course, simple things to release the iron in foods. For example, when we cook black beans I use just a bit of lemon juice. We cook in a cast-iron skillet often. Little things like that are obviously not going to clear up severe anemia on their own, lol, but every little bit helps. We are a family of vegetarians so I am also looking out for them. I hope you get some relief. I think chronic fatigue is such a silent, miserable state that affects your whole life, in ways nobody can see or understand. Best of luck:)

Awesome food trucks in Austin! And some of the best vegetarian fare. We live 100 miles away, and many of the Austin Favorites have slowly begun to show up here. I am ecstatic! Not a single veggie restaurant in town, but the food trucks will immediately switch gloves to new ones and make fresh, amazing veggie food. Maybe because they are from Austin and just cool like that, but hey! Great stuff. My dd4 begs to go to a Greek one just because it has Hermes painted on the side:)

One thing just triggered my memory about moving to Texas. When we arrived in Texas and went to have to electricity put in our name, they wanted a huge deposit. Even though they run your credit (we have excellent credit), they still wanted a couple hundred dollars. If you get a letter from your current power company showing good standing they will waive that deposit:) We were able to have one faxed eventually but it was a lot of hassle and took three tries. Just a suggestion. Those moving expenses can be a lot:)

Oh, and after seeing my niece, who was born with a genetic disease that left her unable to feel pain in her extremeties, put her calf on a hot burner and not notice until you could smell flesh cooking, I believe we are born with a wide range of ability to feel pain. It isn't all or nothing, but rather a wide spectrum over the population.

I have had the same discussion with my painanagement team. It is really interesting to watch the people over the years in the waiting room. Some you can just tell from their move nuts, facial expressions, tone of voice, and other body language that they deal with severe pain. Others, who most definitely have serious physical issues that must result in a lot of pain it is much harder. My doctor who specializes in pain management says it is a combination of things. The number of pain receptors, what their previous exposure to pain history is and how often, and their physical and mental status. By mental status, I don't mean that the pain is 'in their head' as in imaginary...but chronic pain takes its toll on brain chemistry. This is one of the reasons that antidepressants can be very useful in controlling pain. It took me a long time to understand that. Also interesting is the pain scale. You know, the relative one where a patient says from 1-10 how much pain they are in? My doctor says they actually go more by the physiological signs that what the patient reports, but that if a patient claims their back ache is a '10' it might very well be the case for them. I have actually only experienced what I would call a 10 one time. I was attempting to pass kidney stones that ultimately required intervention, and thrashing so hard I dislocated one of my hips (previous problems). It was a bad day:)

Okay, I think this wins. I couldn't let it go without asking...you hit a PRIEST? Or his car?! And what did he say about the blessing, lol? So sorry. These really should not be amusing. I think they can be only because we all know the pain. Says the woman who once tore off the skirting on her mini-van in the drive-thru of Starbucks, with multiple witnesses. Such a cliche! Hubby though will never live down the time he decided to drive a U-haul truck under a carport that was at least a foot shorter than the top of the truck. The whole thing collapsed on 5 other cars parked there. Awful. Funny now, because he was just arrived in country on a Fiancé VISA and actually thought he might get deported when he confessed in tears:(

I started longer stories and chapter books at about 2.5 with my dd. That being said, we love picture books! We simply have different sessions. Whatever she wants to read or be read throughout the day(usually science, fairy tales, or her current love of Greek Myths), then at Quiet Time we have our chapter book read-aloud/buddy read, Life of Fred, and her own readig time...and at night we have an hour of picture books, biographies, living math books and whatever strikes her fancy:) I think it is important to continue picture books for so many reasons, and plan to continue with them for quite some time. Higher-level language, imagery, the stories they will carry with them always...not to mention it is ridiculously easy to teach literary concepts and 'advanced' topics with picture books! But at the same time, I think that in most cases starting chapter read-alouds can train them to listen more carefully and sit for longer periods of time. I think that it trains different areas of the brain than picture books in a way, and really strive for a nice balance.

That poor child. A split second. When I was growing up there was a boy a year older than me. He and his father had been through years of training, hunter's safety classes, and experience. I think he was 11 when he accidentally shot and killed his dad whilst hunting. It followed him everywhere and impacted so much of his life:(. And I am sure there was so much more that I was never aware of. And that was a regular rifle! An Uzi? I just don't get it. Really.

LOL, actually dd4 LOVED the Vermicious Knids:). We still make jokes about them. As a pp mentioned, the 'horror' parts of most Dahl stories are so utterly outrageous and absurd that dd4 is giggling hysterically. All the explaining and discussion actually arose from the back-and-forth in the White House, all the little jokes and asides there. And she kept getting irritated because she wanted the story to return to Charlie:)

Yeah, I was going to say just to watch him and check his stool if you think he might have swallowed a small object, but the pin thing scares me. They can get caught in the esophagus, stomach, pierce the guy, etc...I think I would probably head to the dr., knowing it is most likely nothing. Better peace of mind that it potentially causing problems somewhere down then line:(

Absolutely. She actually HAS a huge assortment of Montessori works at home that she has used since she was tiny. My mom is montessori-trained. We have had lots of talks as well, and she told me she did ask for lessons several times last week but was told the teacher was busy. I get that, it WAS the first week:) we shall see if that changes. And she does like to draw...I don't mind at all, except that I see it as a default. She has been told she has to wait for lessons on the challenging works, is bored by the few that are available that she has already done, and would rather write notes to the teachers or draw. Hey, I should be glad for this because I saw some of the notes she wrote! At least it demonstrated writing, sentence structure, spelling and more, lol. Monday she did take a book with her, and came home with a full chapter of it read, so I guess they won't mind that.

Thank you to everyone for your sharing your deeply-personal stories with me, and your kind words. I will update in a few weeks and hope to have a success story of my own to share:)

Thanks for this. It is exactly how I feel right now. After so many roller-coaster emotions and the eventual losses, I am just relieved to be doing everything I can. The wait is a nightmare. Every trip to the bathroom, KWIM? At least this time I will know that we have done everything humanly possible.

The good and the bad. After multiple miscarriages, seeing fertility docs and geneticist, we are pregnant. Newly so, too soon even to announce to anyone in the RW...so I am appealing here:) Everything I have read seems to fail to link a successful pregnancy to the use of them. It is obviously very difficult to analyze cause and effect here. If a woman has multiple miscarriages without the supplements, then successfully carries to term a child with them, it is still not so simple, right? At this point it may even be a placebo effect for me as I am relieved to be doing SOMETHING that seems proactive. So. Anecdotal evidence it is for now! Anybody want to chime in?

Always a huge celebration when a little one (or anyone for that matter!) learns to read! Big congrats:)

Wow, if there was anything remotely like that here for my dd, I would have signed her up in a heartbeat. That sounds wonderful. I would also give a lot to have a single language-immersion school here, as I think that would have been a great option. Alas, we seem to be in a place where preschools use a cookie-cutter to get started.

This is exactly what I am seeing:(

I agree with this. And our rationalization for sending her to preschool was exactly the same. In fact, last year we tried with a completely non-academic place to try to 'level the playing field' temporarily. It was an unmitigated disaster. So this year we are trying with the Montessori, mixed-age group. Ostensibly at a 'work at the pace of the child' idea, although I cannot see that happening. I don't expect her to be actually taught there...I just want to not to be absolutely bored as it causes SO many behavior problems, anger problems, etc. And whilst I agree with talking about much of the issues involving giftedness and society with kids, she IS still four. We are still working on the basics here, lol. You know how it goes with these kids, long division one one hand and temper tantrums because they can't get their pants because they got turned inside out!

We decided to give it a trial period. We have been given a six-week grace period. This was her first week, and I have been so-far very underwhelmed. I am REALLY hoping that we can make a good go of it. I am pregnant again, and will likely be on bed rest for the vast majority, if we are able to hold on to this one. This is honestly my most convincing argument for sending her at this point:( As I stated above, I am highly doubtful that this school (or any school at this particular age) would be able to meet her where she is academically. I am fine with that, as long as they can meet other needs. Working in groups, striving for patience, getting to play with other kids. Social courtesies. But this child NEEDS to have at least some challenges or we see huge changes in negative behaviors. I did show the teachers a portfolio of dd's work and test results, but I didn't get the impression that it was going to change much. This week she came home all three separate days with a sheet of paper with the numbers 1-9, with the corresponding number of circles next to them. The work was to simply color in the circles. The teacher mentioned that my dd only wants to draw and cut, and that their job is to follow the child. But I don't see it as a true choice when she isn't allowed to do the works she wants, and is bored after the first time she was asked to put corresponding beads into little boxes labeled 1-9. The teacher did ask if it was okay to send books home with her to read, like they do the Kindy kids in the class, and of course that is fine. But as they sent home a beginning reader with 5 words per page, it seems more a novelty to Alex that anything. It will be fun for her I guess, but... So. We are in a holding pattern to see. I have my suspicions, but I am really just hoping that things will pick up. So far dd likes going, so that is definitely something. She is a bit frustrated, but as there are still lots of hands-on we may get away with it this year. Definitely not for Kindy next year.

The first one I read with Alex was James and the Giant Peach, which she really enjoyed. We were on a weekend vacation and she insisted on reading it every time we had a spare 5- minutes. I was worried about how she would do when the Aunts got squished, but she was fine. We then did Fantastic Mr. Fox the next week:) She liked Danny, The Champion of the World, as well, but her all-time favorite was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! Absolutely went crazy for it, so much so that daddy had to be sent out to the bookstore to fetch Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (which I don't actually reccomend...she liked it almost as much, especially the grandparents being turned to babies, but it was definitely lots more explaining to a little one:) She has been asking for Matilda, but she has a list of books she has chosen and I am currently juggling three read-alouds, so I am not sure when/if we will get to that one.

My dd liked the Two Plus Two is Not Five book. She mostly did it for 'fun' on her own, but she is a workbook-loving child. That being said, even prior to that I had purchased a set of games created by a teacher based on pretty much the same 'tricks'. The company is called GiggleLearn, the set was called GiggleMath...and my dd adored them. The games are not so much just a game as it is a 26 step system for learning math facts. They do the same things (albeit different names) like Monkey in the Middle: for adding numbers like 6 + 8 you are taught to find the number in the middle and double it. We were doing RS at the time, so she also liked to use other strategies. But for her, learning several different ways just gave her a bigger toolbox. Playing the GM games and letting her work through the Two Plus Two book just helped her cement them a bit better, and gave her solving skills if she didn't immediately recall the answer.

Ah, sorry your canning didn't go as planned:( I actually had to click your thread because if I was a boy I was supposed to be named Nimrod! I cannot say just how happy I am with my XX chromosomes😄