Just knowing the basics of using an AED until EMS arrived, knowing that you call 911 1st if an adult needs CPR and after 1 minute of CPR for a child (rational discussed in the class), and choking help being different for partial vs. total obstruction/conscious vs. unconscious person/baby vs. child vs. adult would be invaluable to the general public. You won't be expected to memorize everything taught in the short time frame for the long run or expected to follow everything to a T if placed in a situation where you were the 1st responder until EMS arrived, but you will get enough from the class to have enough of it come back to you in an emergency to help tremendously....even if you don't do every thing in the exact steps with perfect efficiency. You will likely get a quick reference guide on a chart or laminated folded card to quickly refresh yourself on the basics every few months.

I would guess he is still on probation period too, just now realizing that May was just 3 months ago even though it feels like an eternity ago.

Nm

Thanks for clarifying. I checked the population stats as you were writing and edited all of my post because I was supposing incorrectly about the numbers. My heart is with everybody there. Growing up, I lived mostly in SE Houston, but short spurts in many of the outlying areas frequently mentioned on the news the past 2 days.

Edited all of my post because I checked and the population within Houston is b/n 2-3 million and the greater Houston area surrounding is 6.5. The authorities did not know which area of let's say 1-2 million people would flood out of the greater surrounding population of 6.5 million total would flood before Harvey headed Houston's direction. Maybe that is right??? I am unsure, but what I am now thinking about the numbers they put out.

Yes! I was just talking to my dh about the great attitude everyone has towards one another. The most devastated of rescued people are saying. "Thank You! I am so thankful for those helping" instead of complaining. The shelter clips are showing people keeping their cool and operating in an organized fashion even though the people have been through tragedy and their immediate future is uncertain. I am proud to be a Texan.

Nm

I completely understand your mixed feelings. Depending on the school or home environment, there are pros and cons to both B&M schools and homeschooling. I weigh the pros and cons each school year. My 11 yo wants to go to 8th grade to see what it's like and decide about high school, but that's a couple of years away. I know it can be hard and rushed to get out the door each morning, For lunch, I recommend you have the oldest 2 make their own and for them to assist the younger two the night before. For breakfast I recommend bananas, a large handful of nuts (if not allergic) or boiled eggs, and healthy-ish muffins. For clothes, I recommend the 2 oldest lay their own clothes out the night before, and you assist the younger two with the goal of them being more independent with time. My oldest only went to school 1 year, but it helped he wore 3 rotating outfits. He would set one out for the next day directly from coming out of the dryer on days I did laundry. I would guess you have to do laundry everyday with a newborn. It could be the kids wear one outfit to school, you wash the previous day's outfit while they are at school, the kids come home and choose their outfit from the laundry pile and set it by their bed, the outfit they are wearing goes into the laundry bin at night, and repeat the next day. A 3rd outfit will break up the monotony. As far as the things you feel bombarded by from the school, ignore the fundraisers unless you are interested in participating. If the kids whine, "But mom, I won't get to go to the pizza party if I don't sell x items", just tell them you can go as a family to a pizza restaurant or ice cream shop special around that time. If that's not in the budget, a special after school park day with a homemade treat. Ignore whatever you can that comes home in the folders that doesn't require a response or commitment from you or your children. And remember, next summer you can reassess and decide. If you are not happy with the education they receive this year, just know next year you can bring all or some of them home again if it works for your family. There will be up and down days while they are in school this year just like there were up and down days with homeschooling. Don't get too discouraged and think you made the wrong decision to send them there when a few down days occur. The only exception would be if you felt your kids were not in an overall safe, caring environment---then I would reassess sooner than next school year. There are overwhelming aspects to having them in school, but if you were homeschooling all 4 of them you would likely be just as overwhelmed and have days you would wonder if you made a mistake for not sending them school. Hope all goes well for the school year. ETA: just reread you have 5 in school-adjust my numbers above according to that.

Given that we didn't actually get to see the totality while it was right in front of our faces because I was ignorant and didn't know glasses needed to be removed for the totality part alone, YES! I apologized over and over to my kids for just getting glasses, watching a few videos, making pinhole viewers for old time's sake, and showing up at my mom's house thinking this was going to be a highlight of our lives as long as the glasses stayed on while looking towards the sun. Why, oh why, didn't read a more detailed chart, go to a community program, or a watch party where someone would have enlightened me on the obvious 😩😩😩? I am still grieving over it, but my kids say they loved the experience anyway and are still raving about how awesome it was. Ds will be a freshman in college if he goes to college that year. He keeps consoling me saying, "Don't worry about it mom, we will go see it in 2024."

I bought a twin platform frame off Amazon that just sits up a few inches off the ground (lower than a daybed). I backed it against the wall with a body pillow, a couple standard pillows with shams, and a few decorative pillows so I don't sit back too far and still have some back support when I sit on it. The platform bed brand name is Zinus. ETA: It cost about $100 and we already had the twin mattress.

This makes me feel so much better about my ignorance. 😎

Speaking of idiocy....WHY OH WHY did I NOT get the memo that to view the ring of fire you have to take off the glasses and look directly at the sun for the minute+ totality we had???!!! I drove 10-15 min to my mom's house for the difference of totality time being over a minute longer (totality at our house on the outer line of the path was only about 5 seconds), was religiously monitoring that my kids kept their glasses tight over their eyes as darkness came and the crickets chirped like crazy, watched patiently through the glasses for the ring of fire to appear, no ring of fire just darkness through the glasses, briefly removed the glasses to video shadows of my kids running around happy in the dark when they realized the sun was gone, and then I found out my step-dad standing right next to me was watching the ring of fire without the glasses the whole time!!! I should have went to a watch party where someone would have made the announcement it was safe to remove the glasses during totality. I feel like such a ditz!!! We watched videos ahead of time, studied about it, made pinhole viewers, was positively sure we had approved glasses, listened to the cheesy eclipse songs, and drove a tad closer into the totality zone. All I heard beforehand was how dangerous it was to look up without glasses. I don't remember any report ahead of time,"do not look up EXCEPT during the complete darkness, at which time you must remove the glasses to see the amazing a ring of fire image around the moon." I do not watch the news much, so maybe it was all over the news ahead of time to remove glasses during totality, IDK. I just heard news reports of the verified by NASA glasses with whatever ISO # were needed to safely view the eclipse, don't get scammed by getting fake glasses, take your pets inside, and don't damage your kids' vision forever. Of course after the eclipse was over I turned in the TV to see news videos of watch parties where people removed the glasses and looked up, took pics, and oohed and aahed at the site. But *I* sat in darkness with my stupid glasses on, ignored my step dad watching it without glasses and telling my son he could look up until the light reappeared, and briefly yelled at my son for asking to look up without glasses cuz Papaw said it was okay. After the fact, my son said he heard you were supposed to watch the sun without glasses during the darkness, but he never told me that ahead of time and in the quick moment it mattered, he didn't want to get in trouble for not obeying me. I am a complete idiot on this one! We did stop by the grocery store on the way home, and I was a tad relieved the cashier said the staff all went outside for the minute+ of totality. She didn't know she had to remove the glasses to see the ring of fire image either. However, it was so awesome to see the sun disappear and reappear slowly, to hear the crickets go crazy with chirping for a moment and then silence, feel a nice cool breeze for a moment when it was blazing hot the minute before and after, and watch my kids run around jumping for joy the darkest seconds of totality. The thin sliver of gold from the sun we saw (through the glasses of course!) nano seconds before and after totality was amazing.

Dp

I love watermelon sorbet made in our power blender. A little almond milk (about 1/4-1/2cup, a small handful of coconut flakes, and several chunks of frozen watermelon (about 4 cups). Blend until it is a smooth sorbet texture. Top with mini chocolate chips. Serves about 4 people.....unless you are me and can eat the whole thing if 4 people aren't around,

I wish I had this neighbor. I would just ask her to give the leftovers to me instead of dumping them and then I would have to prep 1/2 the meals I currently prep. A "No Leftovers" policy is a no go here unless the person refusing wants to pay for and cook their own fresh meal. I intentionally make double anything that is a lot of work to fix for the purpose of having leftover nights. However, I do get that some people have more sensitive tastebuds. I freeze a ton of stuff and don't notice much difference in taste when defrosted and reheated. An extended family member that is fine with eating something a day or 2 later as leftovers swears the food never tastes right after frozen and reheated.

Thanks everyone. To answer the question a few posts up about what I meant by research paper...I meant something like "pick a famous person, research about the person from multiple sources, write a paper x pages long about your research, and include a bibliography at the end." I plan to cover outlining, paragraphs, plagiarisms, formatting, rough/final draft, etc... along with the assignment. With each year of school past 6th-7th grade, the expectations would be higher and require more in depth topics and research. I made A's on English papers, but not because I was a good writer or challenged myself. I made A's because I was good at following simple instructions. My high school papers weren't that challenging, and my college papers were few (I just have an associate' s degree). The Abeka grammar we were using introduced research papers the old school way in the 4th or 5th grade book that we skimmed and discussed, but I wasn't sure if overall students still are expected to do much research from hard copy books vs. internet sources with so much available through the internet. We are switching to R&S English, which may cover research papers (IDK yet), but I am guessing R&S wouldn't teach much on internet research. Of course, I do agree that doing intense research using a combination of encyclopedias, actual books, journals, reputable web readings, and other sources is better than just googling info from 2-3 websites, papraphrasing the key points, and calling it a research paper. This thread has given me a great jumping off point for expectations regarding my kids' research papers between now and graduation. Thanks again.

I couldn't find the book with the recipe we used today, but I am quite certain it was similar to the one mentioned in the 1st link or the similar recipe from the poster below this post with a link to a recipe at food.com.

I skimmed a post recently about what age to start a research paper, but didn't have time to get a related post here till now. I did research papers starting in middle school by going to the library, checking out 2-3 spine books on the topic, looking at the encyclopedia info on the topic, and adding another resource (like a magazine article) if applicable. With everything at anyone's fingertips via the internet, how is the research paper taught or done now? A teacher told me the kids have a format to quote websites and there is a way to tell if it's legit, but isn't almost EVERYTHING a student needs to collect info on available on Wikipedia, internet video documentaries, and a couple core websites-with all the info already condensed at the student's fingertips??? We currently do written narrations that I hope increase in complexity and quality over the next few years, but I am wondering if the old school way of doing research papers is still a thing. I will likely assign a research paper with lots of handholding for my upcoming 6th grader this year and require a simple, more independent research paper the next school year. I just want to teach it the way most research papers will be expected to be done come high school.

My MIL works at Lowe's and bought them for us when they came in stock. She says they are selling fast. About $2.

I don't have the exact recipe, but ours called for the Borax washing powder along with the glue. We had whatever other ingredients the recipe called for on hand. It turned out well. I can't get to the book my dd used ATM, but if I find it in her room tomorrow I'll be back to post the recipe. ETA: my dd made it at age 8 and just needed some guidance and help with the mess from me.

I agree. The year with a baby is much less stressful than with a 1 or 2 year old that is mobile and doesn't want to stay in a stroller, car seat, or float. I would do everything this coming year and have a low key year when the baby is a young toddler. I hated going to restaurants, long car trips, staying away from home in a non-toddler proof place, or going places like theme parks or beaches with a toddler that needed watched (I mean chased by me) constantly. Before the baby was mobile was the best time to just up and go places. Dollywood has a great area that is perfect for young kids tucked in a corner behind the carnival area. The kids should love the 20 min or so train ride each trip and the rhythmic bumptity bump and chug chug of the train should soothe the baby.

For the Children's Sake

Public schools around here don't do much at all new the entire month of May. The last 2 weeks of school are programs, awards day, field day, movies to fill in time, and party day.

I imagine she would like the "Your Morning Basket" podcast and may either agree wholeheartedly or debate with Andrew Puduwa (sp?) on the Circe podcast.

Jeopardy