I second the silk long johns. Their lightweight and comfy and still manage to shake the chills away. Wool socks and slippers help me too, I like the thick cushiony kinds for around the house. Also, taking a small fleece blanket, folding it and wrapping it around your waist by tucking it into your clothes keeps me amazingly warm. This is something I learned from some Tibetans I once knew. I have the same problem, but it's with my right wrist and fingers instead. Unfortunately, there's not much (short of wearing gloves all day), that I can do about that.

We say Legos too.

My dh just finished up his fellowship this past July. It's been a really hard 6+ years of residency/fellowship. We were only dating towards the latter part of his medical school, so I can't really comment on how that part of coping with family life is. Although, he did have a lot of free time that last year of med school. We got married right before he started residency. He's finished up now, but he's still not available to us though, b/c now he is studying for another set of boards. There is always another exam! (Step 1, step 2, step 3, written boards, oral boards, etc!) During residency, between studying, working for less than min. wage, in-service time, long hours, little sleep, and hardly time to eat, they are pretty burnt out during the small amounts of time they are home. It's especially stressful when they are just learning and the life or death of other people rests in their hands. We are only just beginning to homeschool now, but the kids have been in my care with no help from relatives and no money for an occasional babysitter. That said, it has its unique challenges as does a lot of other situations. Depending on what field he goes into and where he does his residency, it might not be as bad as I described. My sister's dh had an really 'easy' residency and there home life was not very much disturbed. He had regular hours, not a lot of call, etc.. My advice would be to try and find other young families that share the common bond of medical school/residency life. You guys will be spending most of your time together on those weekends when your home alone or they're studying. Try and make the most of time you have together. I say 'try' because I recognize that's not always possible, like the KJB said, they may often be there physically, but not mentally or emotionally. I would constantly tell myself that although times were tough, it would get better.

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: Healing thoughts coming your way.

Welcome!! I'm just starting out and am just learning how to try an balance home life, etc with homeschooling. I'm not going back to school right now though. For me so far, it's been a challenge to even get to the grocery store. Both of my boys just act wild once we step out the front door, so I'm really working on behavior right now the most. Dh is studying for his board exam, so I basically haven't seen him in a month and won't until the 3rd week of October. I used to go grocery shopping either on the weekend when dh could watch them or last year, during preschool. But, it is getting better, slowly but I see definite improvements. I felt like throwing in the towel the first for a little bit, but that changes. Coming to these boards really does help. We all go through some struggles but as long as your confident that homeschooling is the best choice for your fam, then it's easier to keep those wavering feelings at bay. I'm even attempting a grocery run this afternoon!

I have BFSU, I haven't started using it yet but I've read through a lot of it and so far am very impressed. Ds1 will also be taking a K-2 science co-op class that does a lot of experiments and such, since I'm not motivated enough to do a lot of the 'hands-on' stuff at home.

This does make me feel a bit better. I just have awful memories of us all coming down with the flu year before last and am dreading a recurrence. See I kind of feel the same, but have to talk myself out of getting too stressed. Initially, I didn't see the point of skipping a week because we see a few other kids during the week who go there too. But I just remembered one get together was cancelled so now I think I will just skip a week. I don't know if it will actually do any good, but I'll give myself a little peace of mind that I at least tried to avoid it. Knockin on wood for ya!

Wow, that's pretty neat, never knew they could preserve like that. I'm going to have to put mineral oil on my shopping list now:001_smile: I'd be interested to know if they could be heat laminated too.

:grouphug: Hope you feel better soon! I make a saline type solution (salt and water) and use a neti pot.

we're supposed to start Tuesday, along with the schedule came a message that several kids had come down with swine flu last week. I guess they were going to get exposed to it some time. But I was just praying that maybe we'd slide by.

I've also seen them at walmart, if you happen to being going that way.

Yes, the wet erase markers, like vis-a-vis, are the best thing to use on markable maps. I bought a set (forgot which dealer, not sonlight) and he also said to be certain to use the wet erase kind. He also said that if you leave the dry erase on for too long it could stain the map. Not sure if that would happen with yours though.

Charlies playhouse makes a great one. http://www.charliesplayhouse.com We splurged on the book/floor timeline when they had a sale. :)

I'd start first with diet. Specifically eliminate gluten, dairy, soy and egg. See if you notice any changes. Meanwhile, make an appt with a developmental Ped. Make sure they order a full blood workup, if possible and if funds allow, look into nonconventional companies that do additional testing. Doctors Data, Genova and Enterolabs comes to mind. We still don't have an official diagnosis of anything for the many issues we have with Ds1, but we do know that certain foods cause a large majority of his problems. Good luck to you. :grouphug:

My *wish* list: Egypt, Greece, India, China and the Mayan ruins- when started learning about ancient civilizations.

Amazing! Thank you so much for sharing.

We have a couple of spray bottles of hydrogen peroxide on hand. There's also neosporin and bandages next to if needed.

I visit because I'm a new homeschooler and learn a lot from reading many of the posts. I've also been able to ask questions and get wonderful responses. I try to be helpful whenever I can to other people's posts too. I'm mostly in the curriculum forum, reading, reading, and more reading. I like to visit the general boards too. It's a nice break away from education talk. I don't have a whole lot of friends irl, so being able to discuss something non-kid or school related with other adults is refreshing.

My ds1 is actually the opposite, since he was a baby. He is okay at home, but as soon as we step foot outside the door he turns into another child altogether. He is defiant, won't listen at all, runs away from me at every chance, will cause a scene and be loud and obnoxious. My sisters ds1 is troublesome to her at home, but great out in public. I wish I had it that way. I feel like for the past 5 years, I've been hiding out in my home because going out with ds1 is just such a challenge and always ends up leaving me feeling burnt out with a throbbing headache.

No way, I couldn't be paid to do it.

I didn't see your original post about your issues with dh and homeschooling. I'd like to just share what finally worked for me on getting dh onboard. On a road trip, I read aloud to him John Taylor Gatto's "Dumbing us Down". It's an easy read. I emphasized how it was written by the NY state teacher of the year. After reading it, we had an in-depth conversation about our personal experiences in public school. His was much better, educationally speaking, than the one I went to but they still had some striking similarities. Good luck:grouphug:

I would get a fleece one piece with flip covers for the hands and feet for everyday use. For snow, I'd get a two piece bib and jacket set, but only if I could find it for cheap. If your planning on more it's worth the investment to pass down, otherwise I'd skip it or get it used/sale/cheap. Otherwise, lots and lots of layers would do, along with wind pants to keep them dry. In my experience, at 1 yr they don't like to be in the snow for very long-5-10 min. If they are a little older though, and walking well they may spend a little more time out in it.

Could you use something else as a room divider instead? I would be so nervous about one of my little ones knocking it over. But then again, mine are little monkeys and like to climb everything, I don't think brackets or the like would be secure enough for them.

We just started officially do school work last Friday. But so far, we are very loosely structured. He "writes" a sentence that he read the night before with a moveable alphabet. He'll then go and play for a bit or have a snack. Then we might move onto math, we'll do one lesson. Then he goes and plays a bit again. Or we go to one of his outside school activities, park, playdates, etc. In the evening after dinner and cleaning up, we'll sit down together and practice reading and phonics.

This happened to me as a kid. The two front bottom teeth came in behind the originals. I had to go to the dentist and have them pulled. I don't have any bad memories of it though.