Thank you! I will be measuring these out tomorrow. I can't remember what they told me the difference was, in inches, between the head and where it is plumbed. Need to ask them again. I think they said standard for the head was 71" or 73" which I know I will hate. They keep adding raise shower head in guest bath too and I keep saying NO! MIL is short, and I have a 10 year old who is not going to be as tall as me. While their shower will have a hose that can be detached, I need it low enough for MIL.

We are placing a new mobile home on our property so we can move my MIL in with us. One thing I asked for is that the shower head in the master bath be raised and they want to know how high. I am not good about picking numbers out of my head and I need to ask around to find a measuring tape (currently out of state taking care of my MIL while we get the house placed). To top things off I did not think about having my husband measure the shower head we just raised before he demolished our previous home last week. So, if you have a higher shower head (extra points if you have someone 6'+ using it and they are happy), what height is the head and what height does it exit the wall? I always feel cramped when using the standard height showers.

Time and time again we were told that if MIL did not want to do something, she was fine to stay where she was at. Even Senior Protecitve Services said that as well. We (with help of friends) equiped her the best we could. Lifeline (which has been used many, many times. She loves when the firemen 'those boys' show up), a family friend to set out meds (3 weeks at a time) and doctors visits. The county provided free of charge a housekeeper (2 hrs a week). And another program provided a senior companion 1x week. If nothing else, they were eyes on MIL each week. She would 'fire' them too if they weren't to her liking (in other words if they did their job and did not socialize with her, she did not like them). I have been searching for solutions for 3-5 years and the hardest thing I was told is sometimes it takes a bad fall to get them the help they need, especially the stubborn, independent ones. I mean, come on, isn't that why we are fighting to get more resources, to be able to allow them to thrive on their own and be safe, but if they won't accept help, there was not much we could do. This has been one of the toughest battles we have had to fight. It is so hard to sit back and not be able to do a thing. Yet at the same time have people telling you that something needs to be done, or how they would do things. I don't know what we would do if she was not willing to finally move. I think my husband was ready to move back here, which I don't think would have been the best decision for our family. Laura, forgive me if this has been asked/answered... Have you talked to her doctor? Seen if you can get a home evaluation done? Maybe they would catch the broken stair and find a way to get it fixed. This has helped us in the past with creating ways to make her home and her routines safer.

We have been through this with my MIL (84, lots of health issues) but she has allowed some help into the house but without her going on medicaid, she could not afford enough help. And then by going on medicaid, she would not have enough money to support herself. I can't say we are In a position where she won't move, but It took 3+ years before she reluctantly agreed move in with us last fall. It has taken this long to work out the details, but I am currently here packing her up to move her in September. She is just now saying (by having me around) that she is happy she is moving, that she realizes the benefits of what we can offer. Up to this point she was stubborn and saying she would die in her home before going anywhere. She was at risk of loosing a toe last year, and in turn possibly her foot. When asked what she would do if that happened, she said "go home and take care of myself, by myself." I have been in constant contacted th Adult/Senior Protective Services over the last few years and have learned there is not much you can do if they don't want to go. My MIL has been very stubborn in the past, but not so much now.

I am the team photographer for my daughter's softball team, although I did not do individual or team photos. Those were done by a hired photo studio. Thankfully, no one said not to post photos or names online so I don't have to worry about that. (I did do the team/individual photos for my daughter's hockey team a few years back.) Did she take the team photo with your daughter in it, and then photoshop her out? Or was she not included in the photo at all? Personally, I would have taken a team photo to be printed and then either remove/blur faces or take a second photo for online for those who do not wish for photos to be posted online.

Here the tooth fairy has done a dollar coin for most teeth, $2 bills for the front two. Just something fun she did not see in normal circulation. She lost her last one the day after she noticed it was barely loose but was on the way out to a Girl Scout sleep over, so she stuck it in a tea cup on her dresser. She forgot to put it under her pillow last night so the TF made the exchange there and we will wait to see how long til she notices.

That is why I am starting to lean toward a cap for the week and let her manage it. If she wants to blow it all in 2 meetings, she will have to wait. It also allows to to spend it with her friend(s) when they are available and not just play because she gets 'an hour' to play today.

That is kind of what I am thinking. We have quite a few things that have guidelines to be put in place if needed and she knows the limits there. I mean she already knows the basic rules if and when she gets a cell phone (many years away), I just did not see this coming and am having the pedal fast to catch up.

I am not so sure that my limits on MC will apply to screen time in general with her unless she goes overboard one day and has a multi hour MC play date..... She does research stuff and will ask to watch educational videos (along with MC), so it might be a limit of screen time for stuff like MC but not educational or even skype/FaceTime as long as she is doing something productive. I am hoping the novelty of the server will wear off, but wanted guidelines in place in case it doesn't. She has not even asked today to play (not sure if that is because of yesterday, or because her friend has not texted to see if she can play/Skype).

Sorry, it took a while to get to most of the posters. Wanted to get school done first. I am seeing a wide range from 30mins/1hr a day to unlimited as long as school work/chores are done and it does not interfer with behavior. I don't want it to become an obsession, but I want to allow especially if she is playing with friends. I am not sure I want to use a program to manage time... Yet... Unless she shows she is unreliable. I do like the idea of being able to track her time playing, so I want to look into that program. Since this is starting a conversation with others, I am wavering between a set time each day she can play or a set amount of time each week, with the ability to lose or gain time based on behavior and completion of school work. In other words to earn the full amount for the week, school work/chores still need to be done on time and before playing. This allows her to play longer when her friends can play but still not go over board. Permission before playing and if there is a time limit set by parent, it needs to followed or MC will not be allowed for a period of time. Now just to figure out what that time limit should be... And I think that come nicer weather (PNW here) and longer days, she may get less time.

I see what you are saying to some extent.... But at the same time don't agree 100%. I do agree I was not nice in how I handled it. The time taken away is equal to the time she played over. It would be probably part of what I would allow today since it is Friday. We have been working on her taking on some responsibility and the consequences if she does not. Part of it is she knows she can ask me for a reminder. 5 mins before playing, she said she would set her alarm. I am betting next time she won't forget. And I am betting when she is asked to set an alarm for playing with at the neighbors, she won't forget easily. We will talk about it today. I know with her, it will be easy to get into a set routine than be after her to remind her each and every time.

I like that idea if I could only get my laptop to work... But it is so old it does not have enough RAM... Plus it needs to be plugged in due to lasting only 10mins on the battery... I think she would have an issue with that.

10 year old dd has been playing Minecraft for a while here and there. Lately, she and a friend have been Skyping and playing Minecraft together. In fact, the friend just set up a server a couple days ago so now they can play on that. We have never needed to impose screen time limits, but I feel something needs to now be set. At first, I was treating the Skype calls as a play date since we live out of town and she does not get together with other kids more than once or twice a week, and may only see this friend once or twice a month in person. For those whose kids are playing, what age is the child and what time restrictions do you have? Daily... Weekly... Are they supposed to keep track of the time or do you? If they go over, any consequences? We have a major melt down tonight when I did not remind her that her time was up. I had suggested she set the timer on her ipod and she suggested that instead she set it on her watch. I went about my business and when I came inside, it occurred to me that she had not set anything. I let her play and an hour after her time was up, I asked if she had been keeping track of time. Once off, I told her the extra time would be taken of what she would be allowed to play over the next few days, if she had to a chance to play. (I waited that long out of curiosity to see if she would realize she went over time.) I think my issue is more with Minecraft than Skype too. She Facetimes with a friend in another state as well but they usually end up making stuff on the Rainbow Loom, American Girl stuff, or playdough. So I guess that feels more productive...

So today we reached lesson 10 in FLL 4. Introduced conjugating verbs... She has covered this in LFC-A, so when I quizzed her on what 1st person, 2nd person and so referred to, I see her panic and then I hear her quietly chanting "amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant.... Amo, I love, amas, you love, amat, he she it loves..." Then she answered correctly.

We went through a flea infestation right before the holidays. The vet said that this year she has pet owners coming in with flea issues and their pets have been on Frontline. It just has been a real bad flea year for Washington. We had never used anything, but with her recommendation, we did a treatment of Capstar with the two animals (dogs) that should fleas and are using Comfortis for monthly treatment. The cat did not show fleas, but we started him on a monthly treatment.

That's actually helpful... I know each student moves at his or her own pace (beauty of homeschooling) but I know I was not rushing too much... I am thinking it will be about 2-3 weeks on chapter one if I feel comfortable with where she is at after we revisit the exercises.

My fear of snakes is not that bed... I don't think. I grew up with my sister having a snake, that did escape at at least once when it was at home, and a couple times when it was with her at college... the last time, she never found him... I remembering finding him (when looking) at home, but I also remember running off and making some one else handle him. My daughter has mentioned wanting a snake or a rat or a... So far I have put a stop to that lol...

We are using it as review right now. She works 20-30 mins first thing in the morning. Right now, with the change they made, her goal is to master the 4th grade and then continue on. She is a couple days from that goal. Because it is review, she does not use the videos too often, but as needed if she does not remember something (for instance, geometry is not strong). If she needs more direction in her main math, we have pulled up KA to watch the videos.

How long did chapters 1 and 2 take? When I was doing research, I remember reading somewhere else on this board that the first two chapters are tough to get through so I am feeling some success lol. But the again we still have chapter 2 to go.

Oh wow, this seems to sum up what we are going through, thank you! I would not say math is easy, easy for her... She worked through Singapore at a decent pace and in addition to AOPS I am having her work through Khan Academy to review and I am catching small areas that need work there but they mainly seem to be in geometry.... In AOPS, she has been figuring out some of the problems on her own and others with simple prods..."do you see a pattern? What was the rule for division?" At the orthodontist yesterday we had a 10-15 mins wait and I opened the pre- alg book up and copied the problem and told her to tell me what to write. We got through the addition and most of the multiplication exercises with a lot more ease. I think some of the struggle I am seeing was not enough practice combined with just not clicking with the concept (reciprocals need a little more help). I started working through the exponents chapter on my own yesterday given some of the comments and will to stay a chapter ahead if I can. The other issue I need to figure out how to deal with is what I call her "making assumptions". She works too fast and makes silly mistakes... I guess it is a matter of slowing down... That is one reason I want all her work shown right now, so she slows down, also so if there is a mistake I can see where it is made. I told her that if she thinks she knows the answer, write it down somewhere and compare after she does the work.

Thank you for the replies... I had a semi decent reply typed out yesterday in response to wapiti, but walked away for a couple minutes and my iPad decided to refresh the page when I came back. We just finished chapter 1 of pre-alg (well, we will today or tomorrow once she finishes the challenging problems), so I am still trying to figure this all out. After reading the first response I did tell her that I think we will go back through the exercises for the first chapter and she can me how to solve them. She hasn't had trouble doing the work, it is a matter of switching her mind to do them in a new way and to see the connections the chapter is teaching. As we are both realizing, if she has to doing any math on paper (aside from writing the problem steps out) she probably missed a connection somewhere. I think I know the couple sections that she could use a little more practice in so I need to find some problems for her to do. She (10 years old btw) appears to be math inclined but figuring out the her drive is another problem. If it looks hard she will complain, but then after a couple problems, "oh this is not so bad." (should have heard the sigh when she realized yesterday was the challenging section and she did better on some of those than the review). It's been this way all along. That being said, after meeting up with a new homeschool friend at the library the other day, we were talking about favorite subjects and she pops upwi th "mine is math!" Oh really, never would know that some days lol, but that also reassured me to keep moving forward with this because she does seem to enjoy it once it clicks.

In the 'Math Woes' thread there were a few comments about AOPS being designed so that the student does not get all the problems correct... If they do, they are in the wrong level. A question... Is this for the summary section where they work through the problems, or for the actual exercise once they are working on the concepts they have been taught? Trying to figure out how to judge how she is doing, since there are times I have to grab the solutions manual to make sure she is on the correct track. We sit together to read through the chapter and then work through the exercises. Have read that the first 3-4 chapters have brought some kids to tears so we are taking it nice and slow.

We just went in last month and had fleas on both our dogs.. I can't complain that a product was not working because we were not currently using one, and this was our first time with fleas. That being said when discussing options with the vet, they mentioned fleas this year (we are in Washington State) have been horrible and they are seeing dogs who have been on Frontline even becoming infected. They started us with Capstar and then them Confortis as the monthly protection.

We started out roasting them, still do... One day we were low on food, but had brussel sprouts and eggs, so I was searching for a breakfast type dish and found one. That has been our go to brussel sprout dish for a month or so now. I can't remember times or anything but cook up some bacon, remove the bacon, add sliced up brussel sprout and cook. Can't remember if the original recipe had onion and garlic but added those, once everything is cooked add bacon back in (chopped up) and enjoy. I usually serve with a couple sunny side or over easy eggs. I also made it with sweet potato once (adding the. Sweet potato before the brussel sprouts to cook longer). I prefer it better, but neither my husband or my daughter likes sweet potato. If you search Brussels sprouts and breakfast, other recipe, or a similar one should pop up.

I keep seeing mention of buying extra bands... So far I have bought the Rainbow Loom, a storage box, an a bag of glow in the dark bands... How many bracelets can be made with what comes with the loom?