DD 23 is finally moving out this summer. She came home during college bc of Covid, and hasn't launched since. She is my extremely challenging one and I look forward to our relationship improving once she's gone! Unfortunately the younger two are going to be seniors next year, which includes my "mini-me". It will be a very hard transition when they leave for college! Though my younger daughter has floated the idea of community college first, so she might not leave immediately. She knows how good she has it here and figured out long ago how best to work the system! Sweetness, mild manner, and willingness to compromise are traits that are universally appreciated!

That’s so cool! I can’t wait to watch it!

My son did the Aops class and then I bought an AP review book. Physical copy was his preference to digital. He started out scoring between a 3/4 on the first practice test and had a 5 by the third. We used https://www.albert.io/blog/ap-score-calculators/ to try to get a general idea of what his score would be.

You describe my experience exactly.

I am not a good friend for people who love celebrating things, love gift giving, want appropriate sympathy when things go horribly wrong (sometime I realize they want hugs and comfort and I can be way too analytical and not expressive enough). I am a good friend for someone who values loyalty and predicability, and who doesn’t like to go out at night, or in crowds! So my friend pool is very small. I used to have various friends that I hung out with- ones that had a lot of drama and enjoyed telling me all about their fantastic or dreadful (depending on the day) lives. I enjoyed it too, even though I rarely believed much of it. I knew those friendships were not based on shared values, but on proximity. My husband loves people. Hw is sought out constantly by everyone and he brings warmth and energy and fun. He loves celebrating things, gift giving, and surprises. We are very different!

Yeah, you’re right - she does say she tried multiple times, so very different scenario.

I just had a friend spend months doing this to me - only liking texts but not responding, if I asked a question just short terse responses, and then finally when I asked what was going on a got a very cold “I am not in the same place for our friendship right now. Thanks for reaching out”. It was pretty wrenching. Differences were that I absolutely cannot recall ANYTHING I did (I really try hard to be a good friend and am relatively self aware). And I asked her I think twice if I did something wrong, and if I did can we talk about it and fix it. We had been friends ten years. I just can’t believe a friend of 10 years ghosted me. And I still don’t know why. I mean, there were absolutely things about her that I didn’t like (she was very shallow and cared greatly about appearances, and popularity, and money). But it’s so confusing when someone for years tells you you’re such a great friend, so like a sister, and then just ghosts you slowly without explanation. So I am team open communication, even if it hurts her feelings. Maybe it will help her down the road in her next friendships.

Thanks! I will keep that in mind. He will have through Diff EQ, but on the other hand they are all at our local CC which isn't incredibly rigorous. He hasn't had to study for an exam yet. 🙄 He might end up retaking some of them.

Thank you! I have no idea how next year's admissions will play out, but he really loved the campus at UCSB. His older sister went to UCLA and the sheer amount of people crammed onto such a small campus posed a lot of trouble for her, and I know it would be compounded for him. It's really hard when there is literally no place to go cry alone.

@Roadrunner @rzberrymom Did your kiddos both apply to CCS at UCSB? I was wondering if you had thoughts about the program. My oldest looked at it and rejected it for literature, but my rising senior is heavy into math/physics/computer science and I was wondering if it would be a good fit.

Congrats!!

Can someone point me to the forum rules that informs us which states we are and aren’t allowed to talk about? Apparently I missed some update.

So true. We just went to Admitted Students Day for UC Irvine Law and the Federalist Table was not visited very much. They stressed how non-partisan they are and more of their members are center-left or centrist. And then there are the ones who are just there because its close, cheaper, they got scholarships, etc. We are center-left, but are much more centrist than when we lived in a predominantly Republican community.

I am so sorry. I hate that this keeps happening. Keeping you and your community in my heart❤️.

I am so sorry😥

It was a baby carrier that I wore - this one. https://www.babybjorn.com/products/baby-carriers/baby-carrier-one-air/navy-blue-3d-mesh?gclid=CjwKCAjw_YShBhAiEiwAMomsENZvCouzbOFfw55QvsTrun3juNP-Xvaat6bf7BcjBuEMs4W9nbso9xoCo7kQAvD_BwE She needed me to hold her non stop so at least I was able to still do things with my hands.

It's really just hard. And depressing for a long time. Because it's so hard. Just having one other person there to make me feel like you're not going crazy was so wonderful. I remember when they were three months old walking through Babies R US to get diapers and an older woman stopped me and said "Twins! Oh what a blessing!" and I was totally confounded. I was so desperately tired and overwhelmed. But it really does get better. Every month they get slightly older, slightly more independent, and I got just a little bit more autonomy back -- able to run to the bathroom, make a quick lunch. All the things that were taken for granted before! Mine never slept together, so I have no advice. They were boy girl, and my son was very active and my daughter just wanted to be held constantly. So my son spent a lot of time in the bouncy seat or the car seat. I had to use the baby bjorn for my daughter (once she was big enough) almost all the time, in the house or out and about. Also I remembered that once we figured out how to juggle both doing something, they would change. So systems would never last too long.

I don't think it advocates for any particular style of parenting -- I think it just takes a look at all the advice or admonitions given by doctors and public policy experts and addresses the strength or lack of strength of the studies that they are based on. She was on Bari Weiss's podcast Honestly a little while ago talking about the book. Personally, we didn't let our twins cry it out until they were nine months old. Our first we did at five months but with the twins it was later. But I know someone who swears up and down by babywise and her children are now 18, 15, and 9, so I guess they survived it! My husband and I took shifts at first waking up, then we split the babies up (he woke with our daughter and I woke with my son). I usually could tell which one was which by their cry and by the time they were waking up. My daughter went relatively quickly (by 2 months?) to only waking up once a night, my son stuck stubbornly to 2. My mom helped out during the day when she was there. (First two months, went home for 10 days, then I called her sobbing and she came back for two more months).

“Honors courses are Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate Higher Level (IB HL) and designated Standard Level (IB SL) courses, UC-transferable college courses and UC-certified honors courses that appear on your school's course list.” when you go to this search engine and put in the school, you can see which courses will get the point bump. So a course might be honors, but only UC approved honors will show up. https://hs-articulation.ucop.edu/

Yes, but it can be confusing. We have a lot of honors classes at the high school, but only one honors class gets the 1 point UC bump - honors principles of engineering. Not every parent advising their kid knows this though.

Twins are so hard. I think that was probably the hardest period of my life. Postpartum depression absolutely happened -- I went on a low dose of Celexa for about six months and that brought my baseline up to functional. We didn't know what was going on until I realized when the twins were four weeks I was calling them "IT". Not he or she or by their names. I was so depressed and overwhelmed. Sleep is definitely the biggest problem with twins. We absolutely did everything you aren't supposed to. They didn't sleep in the crib until probably 3 months? We co slept or they slept in their car carriers (infant, not convertible, strapped in and with neck bolsters to keep their head upright as much as possible). When they had full neck control I did put them on their tummies (I would not do this now, though, but at the time I was desperate, both my sister and I were put on our tummies to sleep as babies, and so I did. Nothing in the crib obviously -- bare sheet. We used the bouncy vibrating seat a ton. My daughter stayed calm in that - otherwise she pretty much cried non-stop for about 6-7 months. Wish I knew why. This book came out recently ; https://www.amazon.com/Cribsheet-Data-Driven-Relaxed-Parenting-Preschool/dp/0525559256 by Emily Oster. "“Many parents will likely find reading it a huge relief from the scare stories that seem to pop up everywhere these days. The author, economist Emily Oster, burst into the parent-lit world with her 2013 hit Expecting Better which remains required reading for a certain set of pregnant parents. Oster repeats her ingeniously simple formula with Cribsheet: taking conventional wisdom and diving into the research behind it, often showing that “the studies” are thin or nonexistent, or their findings that have been overstated . . . Cribsheet is not another call for the end of helicopter parenting or snowplow parenting or whatever kind of parenting is lighting up social media today, and it’s not a call to overthrow medical wisdom; it’s a call for parenting with context, and it’s freeing.” —The Washington Post"

Thanks for adding. I was wondering about that and assumed it would be just as difficult a path. There is also a linguistics and computer science B.A. at UCLA. Not sure whether it's direct admit or not.

I was going to say Clover Valley, except the videos do tend to be longer. (not sure about the standard course as my son took the honors). But after taking many courses, both online and in person, Clover Valley still ranks the highest for my son in terms of quality and organization.

We feel over fortunate in many of the things that are available to us. The Calvet waiver is a huge benefit that is one of the best of its kind in the nation.

This combo seems to be the most "successful" after by the highly sought after schools - spiky in two areas (music and academic subject area, sports and academic subject area, etc). We have a student from our school headed to Caltech, and he was the president of the very large Robotics team and Captain of the Varsity tennis team (who tend to do very well). Plus he's super nice, so that's a bonus:) We are very happy for him. My son is not super spiky, but has very solid academics (will have Diff EQ in senior year, and 11-12 APs), some minor leadership in his academic extracurriculars and recreational exercise. So we are hoping that he will get into Engineering at a UC, especially as we have the Calvet waiver for free tuition.