Sounds like you have clothes under control. Those excercise pants with snaps up both legs really are incredibly useful for dressing after things like surgeries (and falls!). What about bathing? Do you already have a bench in the shower? Things to keep him comfortable and safe such as the bench and possibly a riser for the toilet seat, and a safety bar might make a big difference. I have had several surgeries and procedures of hips and pelvis and those always were in invaluable later when I was moving a bit better:)

Always! But, not because I care about the table:) there are just so many cool placemats that teach a multitude of information effortlessly, lol. Alex has learned presidents, the Preamble to the Constitution, measurements, and a host of other mostly random info from them so I don't mind the extra effort of wiping them down:)

Ah! I love our program as well. Before I forget, we have a word of the day calendar as well! But more than that, we have an idiom of the day by the same folks and it has done amazing things for Alexandria's reading! When we read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the. the Great Glass Elevator, I was shocked by the sheer number of idioms, similes, and metaphors a we had already encountered. A perfect study, truly. Just a note: Someone in this forum advised me to give Red Hot Roots a miss when I was looking for a roots study, and I am so glad I did! I had a chance to look at it in person, and it is SO lame compared to other programs. A big disappointment! We went with Rummy roots, and Rummy Roots + More Rummy Roots has about 50 more total...and is so much less dry!

Oh, Demmeter, I think you have hit it out of the park! Alex is going to love the grammar cop materials. She has self-styled herself as the family grammar police, so I truly think she will enjoy these:) We do have LOTS of Basher books, and she does like the Martin Terban books too:). In fact, living books of just about any description! I guess I should also mention that she has the Life of Fred LA books that she reads independently for fun. She has learned a suprisingly significant amount of material from these! Not a complete curriculum by far, but lots of fun and a great supplement:) AND! Just an advert! Ordered (or preordered!) LoF Chemistry today:) so excited!

I *do* think Music of the Hemispheres is a perfect level re poetry...and think she would enjoy it. I am just having a lot of trouble relating it to other MCT levels. How do you think Killgallon's levels match up to MCT, if at all? She does not have any trouble narrating a unique sentence, nor writing it, but writing full paragraphs would definitely elicit moans! That is changing a bit...she BEGGED to learn cursive, so after her manuscript arrived at a reasonable point I bought HWT cursive in Spanish. It took her all of one full morning to learn cursive. And she rejected HWT as 'not fancy enough' so we looked at D'Nealian online. That was it, so writing in cursive has definitely increased her desire to write..

Thanks for the vote of confidence! I agree...I don't think I actually NEED anything specific. I love our LA 'curriculum-as-you-go'! My bedroom has a host of labels all over the walls...every literary term imaginable so that I can specifically point them out (or dd can!) as we read them. Honestly, this is a pretty solid basis. But dd wants more time devoted in our 'official school time.' Not sure what exactly this will entail, but am thrilled that it may involve something other than math and science! I just had a look at Word Within a Word and think dd will LOVE it! I think it may be a challenge (yay!) but we certainly don't care about schedules around here so it doesn't really matter how long it takes, right? This is my problem with MCT...I just can't seem to make the Indy levels work for dd4. It is supposed to be perfect for gifted kids, but I can't seem to find the correct levels...and don't want to spend the money to guess!

I am having a ridiculously hard time trying to find a LA program for this year. I had thought just to continue free-styling it, but dd4 has other ideas. Honestly, I am just thrilled that she wants to devote some time to something other than math and science, so am more than willing to try to fulfill the request. The problem (as usual) is that we have covered so much informally that I cannot find anything that fits the bill. Hopefully, you guys will have some ideas. I will try to give you guys an idea of the things we have 'played with' and hopefully that will help. When I asked her to clarify what she meant as to 'doing reading things' she said, "you know, new words, learning about writing stuff, making up stories, and fun things like couplets and Rummy Roots." By which I think she just wants to spend some time on LA:) 1. Reading- no issues there! Recently tested at post HS level, comprehension at grade 5.6. 2. Spelling- we tend to do AAS3 a few times per week, and are working through supplements as she wants to pursue spelling bees. 3. We have covered all sorts of topics informally, from literary devices such as similes, metaphors, everything from onomantopeia to portmanteau to anthropomorphism and so on. We have covered things like point of view, plot, setting, etc. 4. Grammar- we did FLL1, but condensed it as the repetition was mind boggling. I finally went with the Brian Cleary books and Scholastic sets (awesome!) with little booklets on each part of speech, punctuation, and so on. We also have Montessori parts of speech symbols that we use when we do WWE. After finishing the copy work she simply places the appropriate symbol for each part of speech on the words. 5. WWE- we are about 3/4 of the way through level 1 6. Vocabulary- this kid LOVES vocabulary! I actually bought her Marie's Words awhile back. We have a piece of fishing line strung across the room, with clothespins. She chooses 15-20 words and hangs them up. During the week it has become a family game to try to use as many of the words, in the appropriate context/usage as possible. A lot of fun:) She also has started an informal Greek/Latin root study through a workbook and Rummy Roots game. 7. We do poetry, once a week. She likes the memorization of them, and has memorized something like 40 different poems. She chooses them. Sometimes it is short little nonsense poems, and sometimes she will choose something like 'The Night Before Christmas'. I think she would like something that incorporates more poetry and knowledge of poetry. We have covered some pentameter but not a lot. This kid will not go for lots of repetition. We learn it, and she wants to point out examples as we go. I am specifically looking at MCT. We have Sentence Island, but have covered it. Is it worth buying the other materials in level 1? Is is crazy to think that CE seems like a better all around fit, that I could maybe use it for just a bit longer? So tired of buying materials that get vaguely used!

That is a pretty poor display, unfortunately! With the far superior labeling system in the UK I wonder how they managed to allow it all:) did they add new labels or just put up a sign: WARNING this is all from the US! We cannot guarantee exactly what is in each package! We were exceptionally pleased when our new grocery store started stocking a large selection of UK based products. I almost cried for joy over vegetarian Bisto! Do you know how hard it is to find a decent veggie quick sauce/gravy in the US?! And hubby was thrilled to find Heinz vegetarian beans:) he bought an entire case of te things because he was worries they would sell out...and almost fell over when he realized they sell for nearly $5.00 a can here. Lets see, other things in the aisle here...lot of seasoning packets like Coleman's, Marmite, jellies, mustard, powder mixes for things like Bird's Custard, tinned 'delicacies' like treacle and sticky toffee pudding. Iron Bru, which is hysterical. Even Yorkshire pudding mix in a package. Digestive biscuits, Jammy Dodgers, Fox's, Plus a lot of various bits and a ton of candy. All in all, quite a reasonable representation. Of course, not the most healthy representation, but most are at least standard:) And lest I forget, QUORN!!!!! Well, a handful of Quorn products anyway. But still.

That is what we did. I cleared off some low shelves in the walk-in closet and set up a shop, with prices written on little round stickers. She even has a cash register and a shopping cart. We added a little inexpensive scale for her to weigh plastic fruits and veggies. It is a lot of fun and highly effective! Another thing that was hugely effective. I started carrying a small amount of cash to use when she was with me. When the cashier gives me the change, if she counts the coins correctly she gets to keep it:). In the beginning we let her spend it at the dollar store once per month after adding it all up, but now she prefers to save it for trips and larger items. She has gotten so good at the game that she tries to 'beat the clerk' by figuring out how much change she will get before they hand it back:)

Just at bedtime? My dd has been listening to audiobooks every night for over 2 years. She will listen to all sorts of other stories, but right at bedtime she likes the comfort of the same stories:) Charlotte's Web is one of her favorites! One thing I did when she seemed to want to listen again and again was to choose a book for a read aloud...and then read it aloud only until she was captivated before telling her we could continue to read together or that she could listen on her IPod at bedtime:) guess which one she almost always chooses?!

Just out of curiousity, if they have upped the clothing and gear requirements, but moved from a footlocker to a backpack, what is the total weight? Too much weight for kids not used to packing it doesn't sound like a great idea to me. Even if they aren't officially backpacking.

If you are on a mobile device, scroll to the bottom of the page and select 'full version'. THEN the stars will be at the top of the first page of the thread:) ETA: Fraidycat was faster!

I did it the other day by total accident:( On mobile devices if you accidentally touch apparently NEAR the stars..say when you are scrolling. BAM! Locked in. The experience made me doubt the whole star system. I have a feeling his happens way too often! And apologies to whomever, if anyone, my twitchy thumb may have offended yesterday at around 7 pm, lol😄

Ha! Many moons ago when I was stationed in the middle of nowhere, Germany, the soldiers would routinely drive an hour each way to get to McDonalds. Even in the middle of winter on horrible back roads. Even I rode along a couple of times as they were actually civilized enough to have completely vegetarian options...as well as decent beer! Whilst I was stationed there a Taco Bell and Subway both opened up on post. I kid you not, the line would be hours long those first few weeks, and soldiers would drive from other posts to get there.

I have a dd4 so I just had to consider this. If by 'start Kindy' you mean begin teaching her using Kindy (or whatever appropriate level) materials, the answer is absolutely. As long as your child is enjoying the process, have fun and don't worry about what level it is. We started this way, just teaching 'the next thing.' If you are considering teaching her Kindy officially early with the hope of enrolling her in school somewhere later a year younger than her age peers, there are many more things to consider. I have chosen to keep my dd4 with her age group according to our local cutoffs, at least until there exists a reason to change that. She has a Dec bday so this year will be her 'official' pre-K year. Are we doing a traditional pre-K program? Lol, no! Much of what we do is listed in my signature, but suffice to say she is well beyond any Kindy curriculum. Today she made a math video for Fred...in which she taught her dolls three ways to do a 3 digit multiplication problem. She gleefully demonstrated Partial Products, Soroban, and checked it using "the standurd algorithm". Just for fun, during play time. Extremely cute:) Which brings me to the why...as a pp mentioned, skipping a grade would have made no sense. Even in the school system it would still have not met her needs academically and would have put her at a disadvantage in other ways. We will simply continue learning, trying new ways to adapt to her constantly changing and evolving needs. If at some point in the future it becomes necessary to grade skip we can consider it then. I do understand the temptation to officially start Kindy early...for me, all of the fun coop classes and activities for the kids require them to be 'in Kindy.' It doesn't matter what level a child is when you are first joining, only that they are Kindy. Other than this board and a couple of online friends, I have no support to discuss homeschooling as dd is 'only preK.' And so on. Disappointing and very frustrating, but I do understand that they have been inundated with requests to start early only to have the parents enroll the children in public school the following year. The coops got tired of being a catch-all for pre-k only homeschoolers. Whatever you decide, best of luck. I think teaching the early years is so much fun!

Hope you get the rest that you need and that your baby is soon healthy in your arms:) One thought: others have recommended great sites for free books to download classics and older books, but whenever whenever I hear that people with young children do not have access to decent libraries I always think of Wegivebooks.org It is a website run by Pearson and the Penguin group. Thousands of children's books available to be read, for free, online. You set up a free account, but just about any new or popular children's book can be found there. Both fiction and non-fiction. The coolest thing (besides free books!) is that everytime your child reads one on the site, or you read one to them, a copy of that book is donated to charity. Very cool. If you have a laptop in bed you would have enough books to keep busy for months:) http://www.wegivebooks.org/

Can you call Adult Protective Services? They have lists of resources and can assign a case worker to determine what sort of help is needed.

Hugs. I grew up in a house where I began to doubt what was actually true and what was not, even I I had experienced it for myself. My mom was treated on and off for what was diagnosed as Bipolar/BPD. I knew she was ill, and the drugs do make memory worse...But she would regularly create different/alternate versions of reality. We would have a regular experience, but when she recreated it later to tell someone it would only vaguely resemble the truth. I never knew how it would play out. She would read books and absolutely insist that the scenarios had occurred in our house. To this day, she still loves to tell this story about me running away which is right out of Ramona Quimby, straight down to the way her mother helped her pack, what was packed, and in what order. I was twice greeted by the police at a friends house down the street because after she gave permission to spend the night (on the phone with friends mother!) she changed reality and reported me missing. Obviously, incidents like this meant that I did not get many invites to hang out with other kids! She is estranged from her siblings because she truly did NOT grow up in the same household...or so it seems. She accused an uncle of sexual abuse when he did not even live in the same city nor visit within the 7 year span she claims the abuse occurred. And so on. It was awful growing up and it is still awful. I can't ask about anything because I don't ever know if it is the truth. I would rather trust my own memories, even those about my grandparents. The biggest problem is that she absolutely, positively believes her version. There is no convincing her. My grandparents and aunts/uncles staged an intervention when I was a young teen and she was almost hysterical that everyone was making up lies about her. She makes a wonderful victim and I have learned to just let it go. Yes, truly exhausting. I can't even have a conversation about nothing with her as it is just too loaded. She know has a husband who chooses, purposefully chooses, to go with her version of things because he says she needs him to and he loves her. He knows things are off, but is willing to deal with it. I am just so grateful someone is. I think the biggest slap in the face is that people like this have 'normal' times and you start to feel like a reasonable relationship is possible. I want and need my mom...but it is just too exhausting and I do not want my child near all of that! I hope you can work out a better solution than I have.

In addition to the sale on Thursday at Mardel (the 20% off), Educents set round an email offering a coupon for an additional $5 off any purchase of $30 or more. Here is a link to the printable coupon: http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=bc78330191e5404537872d041&id=9bce3ea358&e=2466b02ca4 Speaking of Educents they recently had a deal on LoF elementary, although right now it seems to be limited to later levels. I you subscribe to their mailing list, it seems like it has been happening fairly regularly at about %15 off.

I don't think anybody is saying that, or making assumptions about what a young 7-year old girl is like RIGHT now. Of course this isn't her fault! It is about the horrible message something like this sends the girl, a horribly problematic (at best!) parenting style, and the ultimate repercussions the mentality of the parents can have on that young girl. Even if you give the father the benefit of the doubt...just a man motivated to do something special for his sweet girl, it was sooo poorly executed. And I just don't see it in that innocent and naive of a light. The cynic in me sees this as a narcissistic 'keeping up with the Jones', very public show the world I am the best dad in the world kind of thing. And giving the guy attention for it just plays into the whole debacle. But then again, maybe I just don't love my dd enough😄When we took her to Disney this summer we waited in sweltering lines for hours to meet princesses (after paying ridiculous amounts of money for the priveledge!). She only got to buy ONE dress at the BB boutique so had to make a choice, and I drew the line at paying an additional $175 to have her hair and makeup done. Although I did relent on the tiara to crown her as princess for the day, now I guess I will always have to wonder if she will doubt my love for her! Counseling. I had better start saving now, I guessðŸ˜

"No Thanks." Said with a pleasant smile. I have found, in an area with a huge number of churches and meme ers who want to share their experiences, that short and sweet is best. People expect you to expand on this, to come up with some sort of excuse. When you do not, it really puts the emphasis where you want it...and not on the excuse. We get A LOT less repeat invitations this way!

I recently bought one similar at the bookstore. It is brief, but has a nice collection and has a nice layout with real pictures. It is bright and cheerful, and has piqued the interest of my kiddo, so hey! http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1405391456?pc_redir=1405209931&robot_redir=1

Mazes and Lollipop Logic pages. I made a 3-ring binder full of plastic page protectors and slipped the Kumon mazes, LL, and other fun pages like one of those find the hidden picture things. At 2-3 this was one of dd''s favorite things. Just adjust for each kid according to ability, hand them dry erase markers and an eraser. Another thing that kept her busy and was excellent fine motor practice: a small box of various bolts and nuts. Matching the size, and screwing it on combines all sorts of work. Latches and locks work well too! The early Kumon books for cutting, folding, etc would work well.

This is one of the biggest problems I have with the town where we currently reside. It really IS a bubble. In fact, the people actually call it the 'X Bubble' and most like it that way. It is a Uni town, so not so much by ethnicity as by education and socioeconomic status, as well as having a primarily consistent religious/social/education philosophy. I just want so much more for my kid!

I honestly think it is in many areas. As long as parents mostly stay out of their children's way in this area, don't contaminate them with their outdated and biased ways of thought, that is! When I know families and hear a questionable comment coming from a child, I can only hear them parroting their parents:( Of course, this works both ways:) Your experience reminds me of one of my own: from age 15 mo my dd had a part-time nanny. The girl was a young college student, fair-skinned and blond-haired. When my dd was almost 4 we were at a large science museum and she saw a girl almost exactly the same build, same style of dress, and long hair in an identical style. The only difference was that this young lady had black skin and black hair! My dd seriously thought it was her nanny from the side view! This truly gives me hope. In fact, when we did our lesson on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day it was the first holiday I considered NOT doing...not because it isn't important, but because it almost seemed like I was robbing her of that innocence and TEACHING the difference in skin color:( Unfortunately, the world isn't perfect and I finally decided I would rather her learn from me in a respectful manner than out and about. How wonderful that your children found the encounter strange:)