Interesting! I have always had really low BP, and have been vegetarian (very nearly vegan) since before my 5th bday. I have had periodic episodes of dizziness or passing out, but did find a minor heart issue. When I was pregnant it was much more pronounced. I drink a V8 or have a bit of pickle juice (no comments, lol, it helps with the muscle spasms from my injury!), and my bp is typically fairly stable now...

I have a math-loving dd6 who has suddenly decided that she isn't good at math because she couldn't do the math that the high school kids one day at the library (pre-cal) were doing. It turns out that pushing the problem solving side (when all she sees is number-crunching normally) has a down side. Good for her, but she REALLY needs kids/friends who are willing to play math with her:( I have tried to drum up interest locally for a math circle or even math games group and get a whole lot of nothing. Or rather, a group of homeschooled teenage boys that want nothing to do with a 6 yo girl:) We are considering driving her to the Russian School that just opened 100 miles from us...

Dd read a Who Was Sacagawea? Book that I thought was pretty decent!

Black...and I had a sleek black case for it until DH went out and bought the brightest, sparkliest red case he could find so that I would stop needing him to call my phone to find it☺ï¸

Have you seen the book The Unwritten Rules of Friendship? It isn't a young kids book, more of a guide for parents, but at 14 would be fantastic. It is also set up so that you could do it together. I actually recommend it for anyone with kids. It has helped me tremendously in how to talk to/teach/understand my very quirky child who has the same types of issues. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316917303?keywords=the%20unwritten%20rules%20of%20friendship&qid=1454937467&ref_=sr_1_cc_1&s=aps&sr=1-1-catcorr

I have one like that. The seemingly random things that set her off have me utterly confused. She is six now, and we still can't really watch movies. Documentaries, real things, history? Zero problem. She can discuss thoughtfully very deep topics- yet still freaks out in the mildest of kids movies or cartoons. When we would try to read classic fairy tales she would literally slam the book shut on my fingers. We still haven't managed The Three Little Pigs or Little Red Riding Hood because she is terrified of the wolf. The first movie we tried to do was Cinderella. Nope, she sobbed hysterically because Cinderella was treated horribly--and then even harder because poor Cinders lost her SHOE😳

When we went looking we found one via Hoagies as Wapiti suggested....I asked him specifically about this question! His answer was that since he has been on the list, he gets many more referrals for specifically gifted children. This translates into more experience and becomes almost a self- fulfilling prophesy

We are reading Finn Family Moomintroll right now! Totally weird...yet still well-written with gorgeous descriptive language:)

Was it the name of another one of your children, lol?

I don't think that the younger girls are more likely to get picked on...but maybe that they will be less ready to deal with it? Again, I think there will always be cases where it was or wasn't a problem for individuals. But their point was that so many boys were being red-shirted and not girls that the majority of boys in the class were much older than their female classmates, which developed a certain culture and expectations. I can see this happening, I still believe that every parent has to do what is best for THEIR child. I just hate that this has so many consequences for the bigger picture:(

This was also a consideration with us. I graduated at 15 and had all manner of similar experiences--as well as feeling pressured at a very young age (by girls) to deal with issues I clearly wasn't ready for. Two of my friends are elementary school teachers. They say that it is a very real problem. Boys tend to be redshirted much for often than girls, and girls tend to apply to start early Kindy. It is evident even in the K classrooms where the boys are just bigger, rougher, louder. The girls tend to get pushed around, and lose confidence physically and academically. They told me that it continues and becomes even more problematic when the kids hit puberty:( When we investigated the school options for Alex (Kindy), I actually had one principal ask me if I was prepared to have her in a class with boys 2-3 years older than her in school...and that was before the discussion of sending her to upper level classes for various subjects.

Awesome, thank you for the link:) Dd6 has an American Girl doll and wheelchair just like her mommy's. When she earned her AG, she laboriously poured over which doll to get, as part of the Truly Me customization. When we got to the store she had chos me to take a friend with DS. Alex was extremely, extremely upset on her friend's behalf that there was not a doll that 'looked like her friend.' She has always had a very pronounced sense of right and wrong and this has continued to upset her. I can't wait to show her your link:)

I bought Top Secret, the Martin Gardiner book, and one called Cryptanalysis. You can totally get started with the workbook just to tantalize him. The problems are the same, the book just has text to go with it. The introduction is just alphabet shifts. If you haven't done it, one of my favorite days with Alex was when we introduced primes with a free activity sheet from Mathgoodies on the Sieve of Erasthenes. Super fun and really teaches them well. Since we are goofy like that, we made up a song to memorize primes through 99:)

With Arcadia's link to the workbook I gave Alex the Cryptoclub book for math this week. And just a little happy me dance here, because I got an.entire.week. of math happiness where I lay on the sofa during math time researching more ideas, lol. AND she got up quietly and worked on it in her room and his morning so mom and dad actually got to sleep past 7 am! So much fun. As far as the math goes, I think there may be some new stuff he may or may not have seen, depending on how much you guys play with outside of your math spine. For example, prime factorization...but as long as he is solid on multiplication I think the chapter teaching it is pretty solid. We have been doing them for a long time for 'fun' so my memory may be skewed, but everything in there is taught as you go! I just ordered a couple more books so we shall see:)

For Halal food- We are vegetarian, very nearly vegan. We ate some really great food in DC! Most vegetarian food and all vegan food should be fine in addition to the other suggestions For a quick lunch we ate at a place called Sweetgreen, and even vegan food trucks. We ate at the Mellow Mushroom after the zoo as well. We have one in Austin, so knew that one would be good.

I have a dd6 who is Kindy (homeschooled) this year. She just turned 6, with a December bday. Kindy was a very hard choice to make for her. She is radically advanced in a very global way. The Montessori preschool she attended part time attempted to piece together a potential make-shift K program where she would have been shuffled back and forth between 3 different programs...And yet socially, emotionally she lagged behind her grade-peers, even though with a Dec bday she was older. There was NO way she could have handled full days, and would have been a serious disruption for the entire classroom. There are so many reasons, but I can see how the desire to try to give them the extra year of maturity might prevail. Unfortunately, I typically think this fails. Kids that are advanced can learn to skate by. Mine did not a lot besides draw:( And she learned that people would rave and praise when she put in minimal effort at everything else so that she could get back to whatever she wanted to do. THIS was what I couldn't get past. My challenge-loving kid went to saying 'why should I bother?' Bringing her home was the best thing I could do. Immediately I got my kid back! I could live with one more year of her not really learning a ton at school...I couldn't live with the paradigm shift and unwillingness to even bother herself:(

I always swore I would let my kids read whatever they wanted for free reading... Until I read the first Junie B. Jones book. Dreadful, stilted, simply awful!

We went for a week atChristmas and had an amazing time! We actually chose a hotel based upon location because with my wheelchair we were worried about the Metro and Taxis (unnecessarily!). I was skeptical as it was a Holiday Inn (Washington Capitol) but it was quite nice. I think it was around $100 per night? It was literally a couple minutes walk (or roll, in this case!) from the Air and Space Museum, American Indian museum, and lots of others. Perfect location. It had a Starbucks attached, a CVS three doors down, and a big Taxi stand out front. Really, it couldn't have worked out better.Chinatown was within walking distance with loads of restaurants, as were the Mall and monuments. Really, you could walk to just about everything although you could also do public transport if you wanted. The hotel gave us daily lists of happenings and times from all the major attractions/sites. Also, the concierge deal would happily phone for a van taxi as the ones out front usually were not large enough for my chair (or a larger family) if necessary. We did this to the airport (Reagan was only about $10 to go!) and to the zoo one day as we were in a hurry:) Metro was easily accessible too.

See, if I *really*just had to have my pencil back I would probably do something a bit silly (providing I knew this person reasonably well). Take another one of the pencils you don't care about from the pack. Tie a bow on it. Take it and present it to her, saying something like 'I was thinking you might have discovered the awesomeness that is my lucky pencil and thought you might enjoy one of your own!' And then be prepared to be perfectly gracious if she has misplaced yours. More than likely she just has forgotten. If she did, then this is a fun way to remind her. If she lost it, as it was probably just a pencil to her, you can at least get closure for your lost pencil😊

Thank you!

I just asked my hubby what he thought, and he added an interesting point. I would have zero problem sending my dd6 into get changed or use a restroom on her own. He said, "yeah, BUT...when he takes dd6 to the restroom/locker room and sends her in whilst waiting outside, he knows that if she runs into trouble almost any day woman will help her. He has run into this several times with things like not being able to reach the soap or dry her suit. He said he would NOT, nor would any guy he knows, be comfortable helping a boy in the bathroom or locker room. That hadn't really occurred to me, but I can totally see that.

Yep. As a mom in a wheelchair who HAS to wait for the family/special needs room I have to say it drives me nuts to wait for the mom with a girl/boy combos of kiddos who could obviously us the regular with no issues. I am not talking about a short wait...but 30-40 minutes because it MIGHT offend an older lady to have a young boy in the changing room? I have actually spoken to other moms waiting...and it turns out many of them were run out of the regular bathrooms by older women who were bothered by their presence:( Seriously. It is a body. Little boys couldn't care less about it. Unless they are openly staring/commenting/acting inappropriately I don't see an issue. That being said, if he really IS ten and neuro typical I would feel badly for the poor kid being dragged in there! ETA: because apparently autocorrect liked gulag bathrooms instead of regular bathroomsðŸ˜

Today when Alex was doing her mental math practice,I erroneously corrected her 'trick math'. She was doing a 2 digit times 11 problem of 74 X 11, and quickly arrived at 814, obviously the correct answer....mom, not so muchâ˜ºï¸ She insisted her answer was correct, and showed me why. She then said, "mom, maybe you need more tea!" Of course, this is WTM, so after I choked on my laughter at the insider joke, I did indeed imbibe more caffeine!

I hope you don't mind me quoting part of your post! I just wanted to add, we went to DC right after Christmas with my dd6 and the baby. It was awesome! She is a bit of a history lover, so everything was amazing to her. I will put together a post with our faves as well, but the Smithsonian book you linked above was one of the best purchases and investments. I ordered it off Amazin in advance and it was a scavenger hunt like no other:) I highly recommend doing this. Also, each of the Smithsonian museums has a coin you can get in the gift shops to collect. I wish we had known that in advance:) One thing. I hadn't realized that was awesome with kids- all of the Smithsonians and monuments were free--so it was perfect for wandering in and out if the kids needed a break, or to have lunch elsewhere. Amazing. Skating in the sculpture garden was an unexpected hit! One thing I wish I had known was that tickets were timed. Plan on having to wait:) The American Indian museum was so much fun, and had awesome food! Eat there:) We also really enjoyed eating in the National Art museum. And the children's store is SO cool! Speaking of eating. Can I just suggest eating at Carmine's?! Italian style family dining, so huge proportions. It was expensive for us as dd6 and baby didn't eat anything (Alex will only eat plain pasta?!) but still well worth it. Make a reservation:)

Obviously, I have no idea what type of spasms or location, so this may be way off base. I was on muscle relaxants for years. They caused quite a bit of damage...neurologically, gastric-wise and, I believe, cognitively. I finally have found relief by means of an intrathecal pump. It delivers a tiny fraction of what was needed orally via a catheter in my spine. Orders of magnitude less. This provides me with control over spasms, which means less pain as well, and without many of the issues of muscle relaxants. Just a thought, if it ever gets to that point.