Of course. My point was I don't know that people necessarily always know when someone comes down with cancer. If you live in a big neighborhood and chat with your neighbors at the mailbox or whatever, you may not know that so and so was just diagnosed with cancer. I mean, they might offer that info. But they might not.

Did you interview all your neighbors to ask if they have cancer? lol. It's one of those things where it's hard to prove or disprove where people's cancer came from, but I'm pretty leery myself.

I wanted to buy one (fellow nerd lol) but I didn't know what to get. When we talked about ds going to the public school I thought about bringing it with me to the school.

No. In college we watched some video about this town that had them and a lot of kids had leukemia. It's actually one of the reasons I'm not too eager to send ds to the nearest public school. I did get some comfort reading some comments here on the board because there was some space between the school and substation, but it really isn't ideal for me. Also, I am the type of person that will go batty hearing a certain noise. If the power lines make a humming sound or something I would slowly go mad. When dh and I were dating he lived in a duplex where you could hear these noises from a plant in the distance at night. I'm sure he didn't notice when he toured the place because of the time of day. It might have happened during the day, too, but I wasn't usually near that window when it happened. It drove me crazy.

I will eat a few of these things in my own home, but not order them (like butter beans). If you eat somewhere with "Southern style" food then imo the veggies are overdone, soggy, and cooked in too much butter and/or meat. Maybe you just want veggies but they come with bits of bacon. It just doesn't seem to resemble veggies to me anymore lol It was a while before I had decent okra. At first it was just some slimy mess. Ick. I enjoy some grits but many places cannot make them taste good at all. Guess you have to have them homemade or go to the right place. When I first moved to the South I liked the grits at the local McDonald's, but I tried ordering them a few months ago and they were horrible. I don't think they even gave me butter in the drive thru. Waffle House and Church's Chicken had pretty horrible ones, too. Now at our church potluck a woman makes them and they are good. She adds cheese, but it's not an overwhelming cheese flavor. As for the person asking about squirrel. I don't think I've ever seen it/been offered it. I do remember them eating it on Duck Dynasty and I think the mom was cooking the brains. :ack2:

Yeah, he should have kept you updated via text if possible. But sometimes that doesn't solve things because you can't get home right away. Check out the Dunstan language and share it with your dh. Might help a little. Glad you like the carrier. I have one of those (all seasons). You actually don't need to upgrade nipple flows. I learned that from the LLL facebook page I think. Moms nipples don't change sizes so bottle nipples don't need to, either. They also recommend paced bottle feeding. I guess the main thing is to notice when the baby is showing first signs of hunger so they don't get ravenous/impatient at the bottle lol. Easier said than done sometimes. Also maybe the baby has a preference for milk temp and it wasn't to her liking.

I'm still scared to try crawfish. People here have crawfish boils. All I think is they look disgusting and like way too much work. I can't try them when they boil them with all those cajun spices, anyway. Can't handle that.

They are having a human trafficking talk coming up later this month about an hour from me. I am really curious what they have to say there (to discuss our area specifically). But I doubt I will make it because it's an area I don't know well and will be at night. If anyone here has seen the show American Housewife there's an episode where they have a discussion similar to what I see on the boards. One parent says, "statistically kids are safer now" and the other parent says, "but statistics don't mean anything if your kid is affected" or something to that effect. They go on to use a drone to try to watch their child walk to the library lol.

I'd have him spend more time with her while you are home and leave for shorter periods maybe? Mine is/was like that. But once I'm out of the house she does fine with Dad. Except one time he said she refused to go to sleep til I got home.

*drops jaw* I don't like fruit pies which seem to be very popular so I guess I kinda get it.

I'm sure this wasn't meant to be funny but it amused me. I wouldn't worry too much. If a nut was drinking water it doesn't mean you chose a bad drink :)

Oh yeah and we have a million Walmarts in my state so when I go anywhere I know I can *usually* find a Family bathroom inside a Walmart. I will lug ds and dd in there if necessary and just have him look the other direction lol. I have been known to awkwardly pull my whole shopping cart into the family restroom with dd in the front seat and ds standing next to her to make sure she doesn't try to tip it or anything. My father has the same type of issue because he has to assist my mother in the restroom. So they generally just go to places like Walmart and Target to use family bathrooms.

Haven't read all the responses. I have a 9 yr old boy. I have this problem everytime we go out in public. Sometimes I let him stand outside and sometimes I make him come inside. When he comes inside I try to get him to stay out of the way and if there's room to stand away from the stalls. Yesterday we went to a restroom in the mall. He came inside the restroom with me which was empty. I was in the stall and then a whole family came in. Boys and girls, younger children. I thought I heard a girl comment on a boy being in the bathroom (ds). When I came out of the stall I saw that one of the moms was using the changing table to change a girl (older than I would use a changing table for). I instructed ds to leave the restroom and wait outside while I washed my hands. I discussed it with him when we left. To be honest I might have made them more uncomfortable than ds did because I peered around the corner to see if the girl was strapped to the changing table when her mom walked away to grab a paper towel or something. I wasn't trying to leer, but I was worried about a child being left on the table. So yeah, we deal with this often and I never know what the "right" thing to do is. I guess I just try to follow my gut. Sometimes that means choosing a different place. Like we were in the mall but instead of using the overcrowded food court restroom where ds would be standing there and having people maybe wonder what he's doing alone or potentially being approached I chose a restroom in a different part of the mall inside a dept. store.

I'm all over the place. I haven't tried everything. No box set. I am happy with our Math Mammoth but I don't doubt that the others are good. We use secular materials in the Bible belt so I think a lot of homeschoolers here don't use the same stuff as me. Some items I never tried simply because of price.

My dad will only eat beef ribs. If I have a choice I ask for beef. I like some pork, but don't care for pork roast. Gotta be beef for me.

For the books maybe there is a learning center or poor public school or somewhere that would appreciate donations. I know in my state some of the public school libraries are pitiful. As for hospital, last time we took dd to a doctor (pediatric ophthalmologist) the waiting room was pretty sparse. We wondered if that was intentional or not. I don't know if they would appreciate donations for a waiting room.

wings I don't like meat on the bone. Plus it looks like so much work for so little lol

Alexa can get really loud (imo) but I wouldn't get it just for that. The price has gone up since we got ours and we don't plan to replace it right now (dd broke it after enough throws). If you do get an echo, it's probably better to operate with the remote than the way I did it... "Alexa! Alexa! Alexa! Volume 3!" when I wanted to turn it down. :lol:

I might just be practical about it and just pick the main food as whatever the guest of honor and/or friends would eat. If this is a child's party I don't think a lot of veggies may go over well as a main dish. Well, even as an adult I don't think it would exactly curb my appetite. I'd just use decorations and dessert to help with the colors/theme. I did go to a party for a little girl once with that theme. The kids played pin the tail (or horn?) on the unicorn. There might have been a colorful piñata, too? I think fruit and veggies are good colorful items. I just think of them more as sides.

I feel behind because maybe I'm wanting to do X and we don't finish it and then I want to start it later, but now we've "outgrown" that grade level. Like, we didn't finish Elementary History. It's geared for K-2 or something. I still want us to finish it. I don't even think I care anymore what grade level it has on it. But I also want ds to do something with world history this year. So I don't know how that'll work. I just know that at some point I want us to finish it. It's not like he remembered everything we did when we were on schedule. He went to brick & mortar last year (3rd) and learned about some of the same people but didn't remember that it was something we had covered. Sigh. Off and on I've felt "behind" because my family doesn't do the read alouds. I tried. I really did. But ds would be right there next to me and I'd have to summarize or repeat what I said every few minutes. It was torture. He'll be tested soon for APD. So I'm just like okay, whatever, this is my kid and my family and we'll just have to go with the flow. What works for some just doesn't apply to everyone. If I did everything just right and on time and he didn't retain it, what's the point? I try so hard to get a jump start in the summer, but dh is like, "he doesn't need to do school today" or ds is like, "I need a break" and I don't even ask much! Get on board, people. I'm trying to enjoy our winter vacation later, not make us do school work while visiting family. :glare: I just wish my family was more in sync. I'm debating when to reactivate our time4learning.com account. They added a summer program! But we have other things we can do this summer (we were given a summer book, we have math we're reviewing and ds is finishing up his summer reading for the library program). All this to say yeah, I get it. I think I need to spread our schooling out over a longer period of time, closer to a year round schedule maybe? I don't know. Once fall is here we'll be trying to participate in events and things that will definitely throw us off. It's like pulling teeth to get anyone to do school when we visit family "oh the cousins are here" "but it's vacation" etc. etc. I did buy two planners (recommended in the planner thread) so I can more easily see how much we're covering in each subject. That might help me to see where we are lacking. Mostly I tell myself if we're doing well in Language Arts and Math we're not too bad off. I do feel badly when I neglect other subjects, though.

not at middle school level yet. This year will be our first year trying Wordly Wise 3000. I think it looks good.

This is the most active group I'm in. I have posted a few times on a time4learning forum and secular homeschooler forum. I'm in a few facebook groups as well.

Today Siri heard me correctly because it spelled my address (different place) correctly as I spoke, but when Siri repeated it back to me it was all wrong!! Right on the screen you could see it typed right and wrong. How do you teach Siri??

We have to make conscious choices in the grocery store. Once it gets in the house all bets are off. I don't do much cooking. I can eat healthish without prep, but healthy is relative. Is it organic? Often not. Is it from my own yard? Nope. I will make parfaits for myself (plain Greek yogurt or a mix of plain yogurts), fruit, possibly a little granola, some sliced almonds. The fruit can be sliced myself or come from those Dole containers with presliced peaches, pineapples and/or tropical mix. We try to buy strawberries when they are cheaper (compare stores). We might eat frozen stir fry with riced cauliflower (also from the freezer section). Is it great? No. But I feel a bit better about eating that than some meals. If it's not full of veggies I add my own. If it is, I still might add more. I started eating bread from Sam's of all places that is multi-grain, organic, GMO-free. It's affordable. It's thick so it's more filling. I struggle with salads. Bagged salad goes bad too fast most of the time. The huge bags from Sam's can't be eaten fast enough. But when dh buys romaine lettuce and we wrap it up separately and cut when ready to eat it seems to last. I'm lazy so I hate the extra work but we should do it again because it does stretch. Keeping less drinks in the house is one of the only ways I drink more water. We have a ways to go with our eating habits. There's always the rotisserie chicken you buy and add to something to make a meal. I like to do that with the bagged soups sometimes and then toss in extra veggies.

For K we did time4learning.com math. You can do it at your own pace. It's a pay per month program so if you don't want to keep it you could just use it long enough to get through their math section. They have online lessons and printables (optional). For first grade we did MM. Back then I think I would scribe for ds a lot.