Hey lovely friend ? Just popping in to say that Dad's surgery to replace his bone flap was last Friday. He did spectacularly and was home by Sunday!! The doctors were amazed at how quickly he recovered from the surgery. YAY!! Hopefully soon, my days will slow down a little bit and I can chat more than I have been lately.

Morning all - lots of sickie cuddles yesterday and today. I feel like we've cancelled more than we've school so far this year. ?? Dad's surgery is Friday. Praying the kid is well by tomorrow night.

Moved On, Have you read the book Healing Without Hurting? We're following a lot of her suggestions for my daughter's ADHD, but her story started because of her son's autism. I know she had a lot of success with her son and with others. Also, have you looked into the Nemecheck Protocol? I ran across this with one of the parents in this group, but have seen it a lot in my FB groups as well.

MAN!! Now, I want chocolate milk! HAHA I just told her - God let them become extinct, so that probably means He just wanted them in Heaven with him. Besides, if you had the only pegacorn on the earth, everyone would want to come and study it. They'd be in our way and we wouldn't have any fun. She replies, "I'd just tell them to get their own! They can study mine when it dies one day." lol

Also, last night I dreamed SWB was my teacher/boss. Professor maybe? The context was weird. But, she heard it was my birthday and slipped me $10. lol "I don't want you upset about this. I know it's unconventional and some people get mad, but here's a little birthday treat." ?

Good morning, all. I was trying to sleep a bit this morning (after my teaching was done) and the kid walked in wailing. "What's wrong?" "WHY?! Why didn't Jesus answer my prayers?!" "Umm...what did you pray for?" "A chocolate milk pegacorn. That's ALL I wanted and asked for! I don't understand!" ?? It's too early for discussions on why God didn't provide her with a flying unicorn.

Good morning ? I've been up since 3:45 to teach. I'm tired. Might need another pot of coffee today.

Y'all - my sister is a massage therapist. She just did a couples massage for a 9 year old and 5 year old so they could relax before school. ?? I mean, I love me a good massage, but I didn't get one until I could pay for it with my own money! lol *mind blown*

My daughter should be a saint, then. lol

Morning all! Public schools started today - a very rainy morning (nothing like having indoor recess on your first day ?). Meanwhile, my daughter is taking a bubble bath. lol We take learning very seriously in our home.

My friend just texted me this convo between her and her daughter: Ella: What school work do I do? Me: Whatever your assignment page tells you to do. Go do Monday's work. Ella: *deer in headlights* Monday? Me: Yes..today is Monday. Ella: But, Monday was LAST week?! I feel ya, girl.

WOW! A girl goes out of town for a few days and you go through a million pages!! There's not enough time for me to ketchup!

You know I was teasing right? Also, I tried to message you this, but it says you can't receive messages. Has this been a forum problem or ?? I tried messaging someone else a few weeks ago and I got the same message.

Fine! See if I offer any more suggestions. ? ?

I know of a great mermaid movie....

Someone save me. The child has decided to watch a mermaid movie...except it's not even a D-list kind of movie. Nope. It's like a bunch of high school kids decided to write an awful screenplay and got mixed up with a subpar videography course and made a movie. AWFUL ??

Today, my name is Cap'n and my car is the Jolly Roger because I am apparently taking a pirate to speech and OT.

I read recently that in San Francisco, $117K is poverty level, but $70-80K is what the typical "below poverty" family brings in. Where I live, $117K is pretty darn cushy and upper middle class. Even $70-80K is feeling like you're rolling in the dough (teachers here start at $33K with a max of $39K for a Bachelors). COL is baffling to me.

It's treasure hunt night at church on Wednesday. She's been tracking it on the summer church "map" for Wednesdays and when they said to dress like a pirate, she was frantic because she didn't have a costume. So, thank God for Amazon Prime! I still had to pay a bit to get it here today, but she's the cutest darn pirate I've ever seen! (Also, I'm really glad I ordered the size 4-6, because this dress fits like an 8! ) ARRRGGH!

Fun fact - my friend and I went to see that because of AB...we had no idea it was based on Beowulf until we were well into the movie. lol

I don't know...Everyone, can she handle my kid? lol Trust me, there are plenty of days we don't want to do school. ha But, we really only do it 3x a week due to traveling for therapy and such. (Those technically count as school hours, so I don't worry too much, though.) She's a little spitfire, though, and crazy hyperactive. You might give her back after 30 minutes.

Should I tell you that we have already started our curriculum? We actually started July 5, per the kid's request. lol I mean, it felt weird to say "NO! YOU MAY NOT DO SCHOOL!" haha So, we started way earlier than intended.

We used to watch that when I was younger. I think Nick at Nite or something "back in the day". Loved it.

You ignore it and name your kid what you want to name them... or use those names for your dogs...but that might be petty. ?‍♀️ Seriously, though, you don't reserve names for "whenever". That's just straight up entitlement. (Are you expecting? If so, she REALLY doesn't get a say on what name you use!)

She is really good. Making a lot of progress in speech and OT and sassy as ever. We'll be doing a co-op this year (art/drama/music/pe - all things she likes), so she's excited to actually see new people make some friends instead of just seeing mom. lol So, dad is doing really well. He is almost done with his physical therapy (he's gone from 28% strength to 98%!) Speech is really good as well. He still has some word retrieval problems, but for the most part, in talking to him, he's back to "normal". There are still some memory issues. They live on the school/church property and he went looking for mom during a thunderstorm the other day. He was worried she got lost and he forgot she was working in her office. Mom usually leaves notes around the house reminding him of what she is doing, where she is, etc. But, I think she forgot that day. He's also very nervous with the grandkids - everything is a death trap to him. lol He is a lot more grumpy with them because he's always worried about them getting hurt. It also doesn't help that the noise from them overstimulates him. There are still things that pop up and we're like "Ahhh, there's the brain injury." But, a good 90% of the time, we have dad back. Which is a full-on miracle. People can't believe how well he is doing and that he didn't go to a therapy facility. Per the doctors, he's doing better than some that come back from there. It's honestly due to Mom, God, and Dad's stubbornness to get better. He will have one final surgery on Aug 31. The doctor will replace his bone flap that day. (It's been in the freezer at the hospital.) After the first surgery, there was so much swelling that his skin did not heal properly. So, after the bone flap is in place, a plastic surgeon will work on some skin grafts and will close up the site. All in all, it should take 4 hours. He should be in ICU just a day and then should be home in 2 days. Mom will continue to care for the drainage tube and stuff until it's time to remove that. So, fun story and listening to your gut (I fully believe it was the Holy Spirit guiding me) Back in April, my friend got engaged and asked me to be in her wedding. I said no problem. I was excited for that. It's been a long time coming. However, I started looking at flights to DC...over Labor Day weekend. Everything was over $500!!! Perks of living in the Midwest, I guess. ? (At that same time, you could fly DC to LA for $200! lol) I kept putting off the flights because it honestly made me sick to think of paying that for a flight. Add in travel time, lost work time, buying a dress, getting my hair done, etc...it was going to be around $900! blah. I kept putting it off and putting it off and couldn't shake an uneasy feeling. I asked John to pray about it with me and that night I had a dream about telling my friend that I couldn't go. I talked to John some more and talked to some friends and we all agreed that I needed to back down. That for whatever reason, I needed to stay home and not be in the wedding. The friend called me that same day and asked if I was ok. I explained the situation and she said "That's wild. I had a dream about you last night and I woke up knowing that you wouldn't be in my wedding, but that it was all ok." So, we called it good and she found another bridesmaid. Meanwhile, we're both trying to figure out WHY I wasn't at peace to be in her wedding. Well, her wedding is Sept 1. I would have flown out to DC on Aug 30 to be there in time for the rehearsal on Aug 31...which would occur at the same time as Dad's surgery! I get chills just thinking about it now. Had I not listened to that urging, I would have lost a lot of money AND had to back out 3 weeks before the wedding!