LOL. I'll take your word for it. Like I said, I only saw it MAYBE 3 times, and the only one I can remember anything about was when he was fixing up a room for the kids, and she kept getting on his case about everything.

My daughter enjoys Girl Scouts (she was a Brownie for two years I think and now she's in her second year as a Junior) but they DO tend to do more crafty type things most of the time. I wish it was more COOL stuff! :P

Nah, Michelle would probably call the kid's "buddy" to come take care of it. I think I've seen maybe 3 episodes of Jon and Kate. I think I've seen maybe 2 episodes of the Duggars. I never got into either show. I'm not a fan of the concept of either show, parading your kids on television constantly etc. On the episodes I saw of Jon and Kate (which I saw because a visiting niece wanted to watch it), I thought, "Wow, that woman treats her husband like carp." So I wasn't all that surprised when the marriage didn't last, although I haven't really been following any of their story since. After reading a lot on parenting forums and so on about the Duggars and then reading the Duggars website, I DO agree that she tends to hand her kids off to one of her older kids to raise and that she's given her older children a LOT of responsibility- now, granted, kids should have responsibility. And kids should be able to help out NOW AND THEN with things you wouldn't expect them to have to do regularly. But I remember being surprised by the AMOUNT of responsibility they gave their kids- and thinking wow, when do they ever get to BE kids themselves? And IMHO, kids shouldn't have to become little mommies and daddies and housewives and so on because the real mom had more kids than she could POSSIBLY care for on her own on a regular basis. I realize that may not be a popular opinion with everybody here, but there it is. I don't think either one of those woman and their "show" is "better" than the others by any means. I think they're both making some bad parenting choices. I know, don't we all? But they make theirs public for cash.

Yeah I think we'll go with Harry Potter. Why not. :D (I was mainly thinking of which she should end up doing her 'writing assignment' on at the end, but I'm sure it doesn't matter much! There will be other 'assigned books' to write about).

Ha yeah we already do that, too. We'll be reading whatever the "free reading book" ends up being, we're still reading "On The Banks Of Plum Creek" together for fun (working our way through the series) and she's usually reading 1-2 books on her own, too- right now she's starting "The Adventures Of Pinocchio," and sometimes there's something assigned from her library book club, and sometimes I pick up on one of the optional/supplemental books mentioned in our syllabus and so on. So yeah we've always got a few books going anyway!

Today my daughter is really complaining about her neck hurting her. She just came over all teary saying her neck hurts and she doesn't want to go back to Judo now. I just gave her a couple of kid's tylenol tablets and told her to take it easy today, I hope nothing really got injured or anything :(

Hair thinning and more of my hair coming out when I brush it, shower etc was one of the things that was really starting to concern me lately. It just looks, I don't know, THINNER on top these days. I was starting to wonder if it had something to do with my thyroid...but now I'm wondering if it has to do with Splenda. Ugh. As well as being a bit more forgetful lately. You know, going into a room and going "uh, why am I here again?" Woke up with leg cramps a few times at night. Not sleeping so great, but feeling tired. A slight crampy feeling sometimes. And lately in the past couple of weeks this pain in my side, which I think has been coming after drinking diet soda. It was awful last night and lasted a few hours and it's been coming and going over the past couple of weeks especially. Probably a couple of other things too and every single one of them showed up on the long list of complaints about Splenda side effects. It is scary! I hope cutting it out of my diet makes a difference for me!

I've been using Splenda on and off for a few years now- whenever I'm following a weight loss plan. (Including for the past nearly three months again). A few things recently led me to look it up last night though and I found a SCARY long list of complaints of all sorts of side effects that a lot of people had from it. Like a ridiculously long list. Hair loss, memory loss, joint pain, stomach pain, sleeplessness, leg cramps, indigestion problems, bad headaches, dizziness, anxiety, skin rashes, mood swings, abdominal cramps, fatigue, heartburn, itchiness, having a hard time concentrating... and those are only the ones I remember, it went on and on. There have been a few things that have matched issues I've been having, that had me doing an Internet search to begin with, that led me to thinking oh wow maybe it's the Splenda... I'm going to cut Splenda out of my diet today (no more of the sweetener packets, no more diet sodas that use it etc) and see if I notice those particular symptoms improving. (A lot of people said a lot of their symptoms went away within a couple of days to a couple of weeks -depending on symptoms- of stopping all use of Splenda). I'm just wondering if anyone here has had any bad experiences with it though.

Thanks for the responses :)

That's great, congrats on getting started! That's the hardest step, just getting motivated to START. Even when you're at your highest weight (for me, anyway), just knowing I've STARTED makes me feel instantly better about myself. Thanks for this post- it will help inspire ME to be on track today since I sort of blew it for dinner last night (two words: Chinese buffet). :blushing: Good luck with your weight loss program!

My husband would insist that one pound would be enough, and I'd think that he was probably right, but I'd get paranoid about people wanting more and there not being enough, and I'd mutter about how I'd rather there be too much than not enough, and so I'd go with a pound and a half instead (which would be my concession to not cooking TWO pounds which would be overkill, right?) :lol:

That's wonderful! It must be a relief for you AND a relief for her! :)

Ditto. And I try not to give milk as it seems to make coughs worse, just clear liquids. And yes I agree, elevate head some at night! See if you can put something under the head of the mattress to give it a little lift, or an extra pillow or some such.

We're using Oak Meadow 5 this year and roughly every three weeks it assigns a particular book, which my just-turned-10 y/o daughter and I always read together, and at the end she writes some sort of report or does some sort of writing assignment about it. So far the books have all correlated with our social studies topics (like we're currently doing "Johnny Tremain" and before that we did "The Witch of Blackbird Pond"). Anyway for this "free reading book" I'm not sure... should I just let her pick whatever book she wants? Should I give her a choice of a few books? Should I just pick the book? Should it continue to be something on the historical side, or should we veer off and do something just for fun? What would YOU read or do? (Would it be terrible of me to just pick Harry Potter and go with that? LOL- she's never read it and I'd love to RE-read it, with her. :D)

We always put kids at a separate table when we need two tables like that. I think your way of putting the kids together and letting the teen decide where he wants to sit is fine! That's probably what I'd do. ETA: Although I'd let the 3 y/o's parents decide if the 3 y/o needs more supervision and should sit with the parents or if they'd do okay in with the kids.

Thanks for sharing your experience, Hannah!

Books that are just more 'fluff' I let the kids keep in their individual rooms however they want (my 10 y/o has a milk crate full of books in one instance). I have a bookcase in my bedroom with my reading books, other than keeping series/authors together, the rest is just random. Then I have two bookcases downstairs with a shelf for science and history type books, a shelf for poetry and my youngest's dr. seuss books, a couple shelves for books that are more like classics for my 10 y/o, and another bookshelf where I keep series together, like Little House, Narnia and so on. Some of it is just randomly placed but I try to keep it SOMEWHAT organized so that if there's anything specific I want to find, it doesn't take forever.

My 10 y/o daughter started Youth Judo today at the Y. Since it was her first class and she was the only new student, someone took her aside (a young woman with a brown belt) to work on falls and rolls on the mats while the other kids had their regular class with the sensei. From what I saw (not knowing much about Judo or any other martial art myself!) it looked like she was doing just fine. (I watched part of the class and went out into the Y gym to walk on the treadmill for part of the class, so I didn't see it all). At the end, I asked how she did for her first class, and they said fine, that she's not afraid to hit the mat, that she did well with everything, and that she just has to work more on her side falls. As we were driving home, my daughter said that the side falls hurt. I said what/where did it hurt and she said "the whole side that I was falling on, and my head." I asked if she told the instructor that, and she said yes. I asked what the instructor said, and she said "She said I have to keep practicing." She did say the instructor told her that she WAS doing them right, so it didn't seem to be a matter of falling incorrectly. My question is, is this normal? She basically worked on this for the whole hour of the class. Is it pretty common that it might hurt a bit in the beginning while she practices and gets used to doing it...? TIA!

nope!

Well, you have a lot more kids than I do so I'm sure it's harder for you anyway! Most mornings, I'm up by like 7 AM and my teen goes off to her special needs school (out the door by like 7:30). My younger two usually don't get up til later. So while my oldest is getting ready for school and out the door and while I'm waiting for my youngers to get up (or until I feel I need to wake them up), I have "free time." Usually spent at my computer desk with a cup of coffee, catching up on message board stuff, emails, my blog and so on. It's usually somewhere around 9-9:30 that the younger ones are eating breakfast and starting their day, and between 9:30-10:00 we start school (most days, we don't really have a standard start time though). Since my 10 y/o is the only one doing a formal curriculum right now, and since there are some things she can do independently, the types of things you're talking about, I might do while she's working on an independent assignment (or I might do that in the morning before they get up, or in rare cases at night when they go to bed, although by that time, usually all I want to do is watch a TV show, then lay in bed and read a few pages of my book before I fall asleep)! Errands and appointments I just do as necessary and/or as I feel like it. Sometimes I take the kids with me. Sometimes I leave them behind with their dad (who doesn't leave for work til almost 1 PM which is nice) and let them have some free time, or tell my daughter "work on this while I'm gone." I'm sure it would be a lot more stressful if I had more kids actively homeschooling and a spouse who was gone for a 9-5 type job!

No, there is no plan/formula for pregnant women to join WW. You should talk to your doctor about what you should/can eat in order to ensure you gain an appropriate amount of weight without gaining an excess amount. And don't ask that question on the WW forums, I've seen them BASH women for asking about being on a weight loss program while pregnant, even if you explain that you're not looking to lose weight lol. On the other hand, WW DOES have a good nursing mom's plan that I had success on while nursing my son back in the day. I've heard there's a "change" coming too (there always is, periodically) but don't know what it is yet!

Tomorrow morning I'm going to take my daughter to her first Youth Judo class at the Y. While she does that, I'll go walk on the treadmill. Tomorrow night, I may take the kids to a free showing of "How To Train Your Dragon" at a small local theater (even though we already saw it in the theater when it first came out). In between, I'll probably do some laundry. Sunday, nothing planned. It'll be hubby's day off so we'll spend the day together and relax. Nothing exciting!

:grouphug: I can't imagine how nerve-wracking this must be for you all. I hope it goes in your favor!

Driving verrrrry slowly...leaned forward so their noses are right over their steering wheels....

I've been having a lot of fun, but then again my daughter went to public school from K through most of 3rd grade and I didn't even pull her out of school and begin homeschooling her until toward the end of that third grade year. So of course it was a novelty for quite a while, but even so, we do lots of fun outings and field trips, we read lots together, we play games and watch shows and have fun conversations, and the curriculum we used for 4th grade (and now for 5th) is pretty creative and hands on- so while I wouldn't go so far as to say EVERY single thing we do is fun, we do have fun with a lot of it, and for the most part, I really enjoy homeschooling. My son who just turned 5 this month wasn't quite ready for K this year so we're just having another informal pre-k year, but I'm looking forward to giving K another try with him in the fall, too. K is so sweet. :)