I'm sure it's at least that much. I tried to get a deal for my school last year, but I would have to agree to a two year contract, and the discount was not much at all. I didn't like the interface too much when I did the trial. It was not very kid-friendly. Have you tried Epic?

This sounds pretty amazing....

Congrats! What a huge relief!

What about one of those trays you can put under wet winter boots? They have 1 inch sides. If you got a huge one (hopefully they exist?), you could put the litter box in it completely. It wouldn't solve the peeing problem, but cleanup would be easier...? My elderly cat is driving me crazy, too. Different issues, daily stress.

Yay! I'm so glad you got the classification changed, and that you can revisit services sooner than later. I hope your other stuff calms down so you have time to research more. I had no idea that CA had such good guidelines. I'm going to save that for future reference. Thank you!

I'm so sorry for your loss, and for her family and friends. She sounds like a wonderful person.

1. Mid-March 😞 2. Mid-March 😞 3. I can't wait to go to my local coffee place! 4. Take out... no. I want to sit inside somewhere and be around people. 5. Not sure... I see some bars that are still closed, and I'm not sure if they'll return. I can't imagine they've been making any money all this time.

Me either, really... but I hope I'm pleasantly surprised.

Yes - as soon as COVID is over (a bit better in the summer, even better by fall, I sincerely hope?) my social life is going to be awesome! Lol. I was a real homebody before this, but I'm ready to see people, big time. No Thanksgiving for us, unless we can be outside. It's Maine though, so unless it's 50+ degrees, it probably won't. We're doing a Thanksgiving BBQ with just my mom, if we can.

I'm sorry, this is all so stressful. I agree about having your regular vet look at everything. You can also ask your vet to call the speciality vet. I'm sure they would do it.

Definitely find out what they're going to be using for intervention. My remote kids do best when their moms sit at the same table as them during the session, maybe not close enough to distract, but just having a parent's presence is helpful.

I'm glad the school is going to remediate! How did the disability category work out? I read your original post to say that because of the anxiety, they can't rule out that anxiety is the cause of the discrepancy between his scores and his achievement, but without the anxiety, that discrepancy would be enough to qualify him for a learning disabilities diagnosis. You'll meet again in a year (or earlier if you request it). If his anxiety gets better, you can ask for a meeting to change the disability category. Or, I suppose, if his academics improve but anxiety remains the same, you could say that the anxiety isn't impeding his academics, since they're getting better. At my previous school, any score below the 16th %ile would be a red flag for being "too low to be normal." That wasn't a strict cutoff or anything, but it would certainly be in the "this is a problem" area. If the sessions are 1-1, 30 minutes could be good for a 7 year old... in my experience teaching reading remotely, 45 minutes is a good sweet spot for kids. In a 30 minute session, 5 or more minutes easily get eaten up just saying hi, how are you, showing the teacher a toy, etc, and then you're really running low on time. Three 45 minute sessions could be enough. You can always do the intervention for a few months and see if he's progressing, and if not, ask for a meeting to review services.

I have no experience with this, so my answer is just hypothetical. But I love the idea of a lego building space. Maybe have a big table in there where kids can sit and build, bookshelves to display creations, hold lego bins, etc. Framed photos of your kids on the walls, or framed kid artwork. For me, I think using a space would help me remember and feel close to the person I lost, but having a closed-off, unused space dedicated to their memory would maybe make me feel even more sad.

Aww, poor Havoc. Hope the specialty vet figures out just what to do. Hugs + pets!

I love this advice. What if you took a word problem, and then wrote it down a second time with the same wording but different numbers. You could do one word problem entirely, talking it out and drawing it out, and then do the second one together. With my students who really struggle, the anxiety of being faced with a problem to do all of their own made it impossible for them to actually do the problem. When I say, "I'm doing this problem, you watch me," they can relax. If the expectation for the second problem is to mostly watch but help you solve it a little bit, that might help. Instead of having to solve the whole problem, maybe you get her started to the point where she knows what to do next...

Sorry 😞 That's a real bummer. Hoping they have mild cases. And sorry you have to do the adulting!

Oh, I see the starred section now. Thanks! I agree it would be great if the recommend wall would go away, or just be starred items.

I love IXL, but it's a lot. There is just so much in there. My students log in, click on their level, and see 200 skills laid out in front of them. They then have to scour the list to see which items I've "starred." There's no way to restrict what kids see to only the things the teachers wants them to practice. For my kids with dyslexia, it's even worse because they can't read the names of the things they need to do. I've had this beef for a while, and I finally contacted IXL about it. I have a phone call tomorrow to talk about how IXL works to make its site accessible to kids with learning disabilities. Yay! Guess I just needed to put the word "disabilities" in there to get some action. Lol. My current ideas are: 1) Teachers/parents need a way to restrict skills to only what the the teacher wants them to practice. Dyslexic kids can't read all the titles. Kids in general are too young to independently navigate the site. 2) Video explanations rather than written explanations would be awesome. 3) A big one - The way it is now, kids see the grade level of the work the teachers suggests. You can "hide" the grade levels, but then IXL labels them A, B, C, D, etc. and kids are smart enough to associate those with grade levels. It's too depressing for my 3rd graders who need to practice decoding CVC words to go to "Level B" when really they know it's 1st grade. Anywho, if you use IXL, do you have any suggestions for how to make it more user-friendly for kids with learning disabilities? Or just kids in general? I'm tired of big edu-companies not caring about kids with disabilities. Thanks!

Oh phew! Thank you for clueing me in. I thought I was losing my mind!

I just watched this vlog. The whole family is sick with suspected flu. NONE of them wear masks to the Dr.'s office. The doctor isn't even wearing a mask! What the heck? I checked the date to make sure the vlog wasn't a year old or something. Are no masks in a Dr.'s office a thing? Also, if you think you and your entire family have the flu... PLEASE wear a mask to the Dr., even when it's not a pandemic!!

Yayyy!!!!

Holding steady is better than declining! I laughed a little at the big pee in the litter box. I'm also litter-box stalking these days.... my cat has been on and off antibiotics for a UTI for TWO months now, so I watch the litter box like a nutcase. He must be drinking some to be peeing, right? I think if they're not eating much, not much litter box-ing happens... at least in my uneducated experience. It sounds like his mouth really hurts. When my cat is sick, she'll often eat baby food in a jar - the kind that's just plain turkey or plain chicken (no weird gums added). Hoping he's just resting and letting the medication do its work. Also hoping that you're not sick! Waah. Life is so hard these days. (hugs)

@stephanier.1765, how's your cat today?

Eek! That's a scary looking wasp! Maybe email the picture to someone at the state?

I want to do this, too. I love and miss my family and friends so much. But I'm too afraid that one of them will be hospitalized, or die, from COVID that could spread at an indoor gathering. It's very hard to stay away.