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Insertcreativenamehere

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  1. My daughter falls into this category. She's 12 and was recently diagnosed with ADHD - inattentive. Her brothers were much easier to homeschool. I've had to adapt my teaching style and do a lot orally and in a more interactive way. I've also taken more of an interest-led approach, using her interest in animals to get her more engaged. I let her study animals in her own way as her science (she also gets some light science at our co-op.) Instead of using a curriculum where book choices are made for you, I choose books that I believe will especially interest her (mostly about animals.) I've signed her up for Outschool classes that are focused on literature about horses. 

    Trying to keep her engaged is exhausting, though, and this will be our last year of homeschooling. She wants to go to school next year and we've found a great private school that I think will be a good fit and a positive environment. I believe she will work much harder for other teachers than for me and I'm ready to just be mom rather than fighting with her as her teacher, too. 

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  2. 18 hours ago, PinkTulip said:

    I feel like I did when the US started bombing Baghdad when I was in college, listening to live reports from Wolf Blitzer, watching a war unfold on live TV. (Sorry, brain freeze and I can’t remember - Operation Desert Storm?) 

    Exactly this. My academic background is in international relations so I find this stuff absolutely fascinating but the older I get, the more it grieves me as well, to see the horrors of war and innocent people's lives horribly impacted by no fault of their own. 

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  3. 9 hours ago, Jaybee said:

    Nobody else has mentioned anything about taste and smell. I can tell mine is diminished, but not gone entirely.

    I tested positive last Friday and have had similar symptoms -- sneezing, runny nose, congestion and a mild cough. Today I just started noticing that my senses of taste/smell are diminished as well, but not entirely gone. Nothing really sounds good anyway. BTW, I'm vaccinated and boosted.

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  4. I think it works best for mathy kids. I used it for one of mine who has amazing mental math skills but struggled with the standard algorithms for multi-digit multiplication and division. It helped him quite a bit but he did need more repetition than the books provided. We used BA alongside more traditional programs. 

    I also gave it a shot for my daughter when she returned to full-time homeschooling from a homeschool hybrid program where I thought she was doing well in math. It turns out, her foundation was very shaky and BA was not a good fit for her. 

  5. Us, too! DS15 had cold symptoms the week before last -- I tested him periodically and it was always negative. So when DS 17 had the same symptoms, I thought nothing of it until he got worse and asked to be tested. He was positive a week ago yesterday. One by one, we have all tested positive over the last several days with the exception of DH. It's been quite mild for all of us, including our high-risk kiddo, and for that I'm very grateful! Our vaccines worked, helping to prevent severe disease. 🙂 

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  6. 13 minutes ago, Spryte said:

    So glad he’s feeling back to almost normal! What symptoms did he have?

    Fingers crossed for a negative test for him!

    Sore throat, cough, runny nose, nasal congestion, fatigue. 

    We initially didn't think it was Covid at all. DS 15 developed cold symptoms last week and stayed home Monday-Wednesday. I tested him with rapid tests several times and it was always negative. So when DS 17 (they share a room) developed the same symptoms, I didn't even think of testing him. He stayed home from school Thursday, felt better Friday. Even played in his basketball game Friday night. Saturday morning, he said he felt sicker and thought I should test him. I was shocked when it was positive! Now I wonder if DS 15 had it, too, but somehow never tested positive ...

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  7. We are currently isolating our 17 yo in his room as much as possible. If he has to go elsewhere in the house, he wears a mask. Tomorrow will be day 5. He's feeling basically normal now and if his RAT is negative, he can go back to school tomorrow, wearing a mask for the next 5 days.  So far, the rest of us are in the clear although I realize that can always change ....

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  8. 2 minutes ago, Brittany1116 said:

    I go by half your weight in ounces, but that coffee is a dehydrator and does not count. 

    I also do this, although it is hard in winter! I don't want to drink anything cold when it's below zero outside!

    In the summer, when I often run outside, I aim for my body weight in ounces. 

  9. 2 hours ago, sassenach said:

    Kate Farms

    Kate Farms might be a great option for her. We use it part-time along with Nourish Peptide. Too much of it causes some GI distress for my kiddo, unfortunately. I like using multiple formulas for nutritional variety (and because my son turns orange with all of the Vitamin A in Nourish! - it's not dangerous, just looks funny.) 

  10. Quote

    Honestly, I could see my mom, who is very into organic and Whole Foods diets really getting into making her own formula :). That might be something to suggest to her as an option. I think she’s seeing a stomach tube as a negative that will keep her in the hospital longer, as opposed to something that would make going home easier. 

    People definitely do that! I did myself until good commercial whole foods formulas came on the market. There is a Blenderized Food for Tubies group on Facebook that might be helpful. The thing about the j-tube is that the food has to be able to be easily digested, since it doesn't go through the entire digestive process. Also, since the feeds are so long, you'd want to be careful about how long the food is kept out of the refrigerator for food safety reasons. Also, the j-tube tube diameters can sometimes be smaller than the g-tube so clogs can be an issue so the formula has to be thinner yet high-calorie. A clogged j-tube would likely require a hospital trip. 

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  11. I have a 9 yo with a g-tube so our experience is probably somewhat different but maybe I can help somehow. He had a naso-gastric tube from birth and the g-tube was placed at 3 weeks. Over the years, he's had various GI complications that have meant he needed to have a j-tube at various times. The j-tube is more complicated in the sense that it is placed in the jejunum and so feeds have to run at a much slower rate than in the g-tube. Unlike the stomach, there is very little room for the food to go in the jejunum so you have to run the feeds basically at the rate that the body digests the food. This might mean that she would get continuous feeds up to 24 hours a day using a feeding pump. The j-tube can slip out of place, back into the stomach, and it has to be re-placed by interventional radiology. On the contrary, a g-tube is easily replaced at home. 

    One thing to seriously consider is what formula the doctors will recommend. The standard formulas for adults are highly processed, full of corn syrup and not very nutritious. I use a whole foods formula for my son -- it's basically organic pureed foods. It's also 100% covered by our private insurance and his Medicaid. This works great with his g-tube but the j-tube complicates things. You'll want to work with a dietitian to find a whole foods formula that can be given via the j-tube. This might be challenging for a few reasons. We encountered a lot of resistance to using real foods in a feeding tube years ago but I'm hopeful that things have changed for the better. 

    Look up Liquid Hope. We use the pediatric version, Nourish. Liquid Hope was originally made for a situation very similar to your mother's. You may want to ask them about using it in a j-tube. A dietitian may not be fully informed on using pureed foods in j-tubes. There are also groups on Facebook that I can recommend if you like. Just PM me. 

    Bottom line -- I love the g-tube. My son has tone issues that prevent him from eating safely. I don't know if he ever will eat orally. The g-tube has become second nature AND it allows me to feed him the healthiest diet possible. He has an immune deficiency so a healthy plant-based diet makes a big difference in keeping him healthy. 

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  12. Two weeks ago, I ordered several items and delivery was supposed to be 4-8 AM the next day. Everything arrived as scheduled, except for one item. That one item hasn't shown up at all. Every time I talk to customer service, they tell me it's in the advanced stages of shipping and can't be cancelled or changed. They have no further information but assure me that I will receive shipping information when it's available. It's been TWO WEEKS for an item that was supposed to be delivered overnight. It's not a high value item but it's something we needed and had to buy elsewhere. Annoying. 

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  13. 53 minutes ago, Baseballandhockey said:

    I would figure out about the health insurance thing first.

    I live in a similar area to you, in that there's a state line and multiple states in the same metro area.  As both the parent of a child who depended on Medicaid for enormous medical bills and as a special educator who works with kids with complex needs, I can tell you that the systems are entirely different, in terms of timelines, eligibility, and coverage.  

    I think before investing time looking at specific houses, you need to figure out whether this is a realistic option.  

    Here you'd have missed the timelines for applying to a charter.  If you haven't, missed them, could you apply as a tuition paying student and then move after a year if she likes it, and you want it for your other children?  Or would the tuition paying status not transition to free if you moved?
     

    This is true in our area as well. We have a medically complex child and we could not move across the border in any direction without losing the Medicaid system we pay to access but covers 100% of his considerable medical expenses after our private insurance -- not to mention additional state-level supports. 

    Also - I will never again buy a house that needs considerable work. We did that 13 years ago and I'm still living with a lot of the things I hated about the house when we bought it. Combine 4 kids in 7 years, a medically fragile kiddo who spent more time in hospitals than home for a few years and general unhandiness and we didn't do the work we thought we'd do in order to get the house to our taste. We may move within our general vicinity but it doesn't make sense financially anymore to make upgrades that we won't get to enjoy. 

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