And with state budget cuts, the cc I adjunct at has FT faculty teaching 18 credit hours a semester. It's especially onerous for English instructors and others who give significant feedback to students.

From here: (p63) An allergy to one tree nut does not necessarily mean an allergy to others although this is often the case. Coconut is often not thought of as a tree nut, but it shares some proteins with walnut. Nutmeg and water chestnuts are not nuts. Nut oils generally contain the nut protein. Very good resource: FARE :grouphug:

Happy anniversary!

Happy birthday! Hope it's a great day!

I expect her allergist has already discussed this, but just in case.... dh had issues with recurrent thrush with his asthma meds. When he switched inhalers and long term steroid, that seemed to make the thrush recur less. One medication seems to cause thrush for him. He thinks it was Advair. Rinsing out the mouth immediately after inhaling can help (although it didn't for dh - he had to switch meds). We also learned to read medicine labels closely. Ds takes Flovent and the aerosol is fine but the disc form contains milk powder. Very very glad we read the label before having him take that!

:grouphug: My son has had a mild reaction at Whole Foods. I think it was likely the grind your own area. I'd probably try gloves and a mask the next time he has to go in. I keep hoping the research will have some breakthroughs in the next decade or so to let the kids lead more normal lives. :grouphug: You could also talk with a manager via phone and see if they be willing to pull aside the food for you to pick up due to the allergies. Wouldn't hurt to ask....

Enjoy Life chocolate chips are dairy free.

We use Earth Balance

We didn't use the Explore this year, but ds's scores appeared in the Numats toolbox before we got the hard copy.

The Green Glass Sea is a neat fiction book that is from the pov of two girls whose parents work at Los Alamos. My son also enjoyed some of Feynman's essays.

They do. What they don't have is IP and CWP if you use them. I found them to be a strength of the program. I also found base 10 blocks to be an excellent resource.

We used NUMATS as well.

I got ds an ID card at the DMV when I renewed my license.

I've heard his vocabulary session twice and enjoyed it each time. Ds enjoyed Ed Zaccaro last year. Jim Weiss is good and so is Christopher Perrin. Enjoy!

Yup.

When we got ds's Explore scores, we did chose to get IQ testing done. We didn't think he'd qualify and that was easier to us than a portfolio. We had the IQ testing done by a grad student so it was cheaper. Again, we were testing out of curiosity and more a thousand to one shot. I recall dh expecting scores to be much lower than they were. The testing was useful to me and gave me some additional permission to let go and move faster in some areas with ds. We haven't traveled to Reno, but I've gotten good information from other parents that has been helpful. So I'd say there's definitely no harm in applying.

I also watched Kiss Me Kate recently and I have more issues with the treatment of women from the views in the 50s than I do with Shakespeare in Love. My 11 yo watched both, but he's read a number of Shakespeare plays and seen productions.

I didn't find the SCAT useful at all. The Explore is an 8th grade version of the ACT. It gives math, science, English scores. Northwestern and Duke use it for their younger talent searches. Explore is going away though as ACT makes changes. I don't know what the younger talent searches have planned to use instead.

You could also take the kids to a late movie... Lego movie? Frozen? Also agree with waiting until your husband is home and gives the all clear. Good luck! and :grouphug:

Yup.

That was good. Thanks.

I never knew one grandmother because she died when my mother was 16. Her death was directly due to a heart issue from rubella as a child. All her siblings lived a lot longer, so I grew up knowing about the dangers of diseases before vaccinations.

It is hard. It is an adjustment. I yelled at dh last night for forgetting to wash his hands when we came in the house after eating donuts. Ds has only had this allergy his whole life (eye roll). Accidents will happen. That's why you have the Epi and Benadryl on hand and practice. Stress levels will rise while you're adjusting. Be gentle with yourself. And you are seeing some positive changes. That's good!

As a heads up, any time we do some serious cleaning my allergies flare up for a while before settling back down. So it may be worse for a bit before it gets better. Hang in there!

ds took the SAT in Jan. We did some prep with the blue book. His actual reading score was higher than the practice tests. His actual math score was on the low end of his practice test (he took a couple of practice tests). I think the practice with the timed format and very similar questions was useful.