Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU Susan. You and your team have handled these situations with nothing but grace, respect and diplomacy. I greatly appreciate these boards and the amount of work that you all put into keeping them running smoothly.

Thank you so much for the suggestions! Tried to rep you Abbey, but I need to spread it around some more.

Get out!! He's only 7 years younger than my grandmother. I knew he was in incredible shape, but wow!

At first I was thinking, "Wow, Bill needs a new neighborhood." Then I got to the part about the paperboy and laughed so hard I cried. That is SO funny.

We did the same thing, except we lived out of suitcases for 6 months. A very, very long 6 months. I brought ALL of our stuff and planned to keep up, but it just didn't happen. I managed to keep up at about half pace. When we finally moved into our home, we buckled down and finished about 3 months of work in a month. I dropped science completely and overall it wasn't a very dynamic year. My advice to you is to keep your plans simple and your expectations low.

My kids came home with a cd from their summer VBS and they have the whole thing totally memorized. I'm looking for suggestions on educational cds. I know of the audio memory cds, but are there any others out there? This is for my 4yo and 6yo. Thanks,

Wow, I can't believe they charged him. For all he knew, his dd was getting raped. I bet he still thinks it's money well spent ; )

ITA. She did not impress me. I'm right leaning, but nothing about her instills confidence in me. The novelty is wearing off and it's really clear to me that she is not ready for that position (at least not to my standards).

Danced to "It's Your Love," by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.

When we lived in Florida I personally knew 2 families of 12 and one family of 8. Here in California I've met 2 families of 7, but none any higher.

My 4 and 6yo are very silly. The only time that it is a problem is when they need to get ready for bed. They often ramp it up about 15 notches to avoid obeying. That's our current problem. Otherwise, I let them be silly all they want, and often join in.

As a mom of a special needs kid, I feel your pain. If I were you, I think I would write a very professional and non emotional letter. I would send it to the ST and copy it to everyone on the entire team, including the head surgeon, and ask that it be included in your son's records. In this letter, I would question how the ST came to the conclusions that she did. I would site specific lines in her eval, and then provide evidence to the contrary. I would include a letter and eval from your ST. I would, maybe in a *I'm just a mere mom, can you explain this to me* way, question whether or not she understood and took in to account your "testimony" on his abilities. I would question her as to what she heard and when she heard him make any type of hard sounds. I would then counter that with, as his mother who spends 24 hours a day with him, you have never heard him make a hard sound. I would also bring up the fact that you believe his abilities are being downplayed because of his down's. I would relay everything you experienced the day of your appointment. As I'm thinking right now, maybe this needs to be addressed to the head surgeon. He needs to know the type of comments that his team is dishing out. A few years ago, I had a coming to Jesus moment with one of my son's doctor's (his Neuro). I had been repeatedly dismissed over some medication dosage issues we were having. I finally had it. At an appointment I told him that he may have hundreds of patients, but I only had one. If he wanted an accurate evaluation of how my son was doing, he was going to have to learn to trust this child's mother to not be an idiot. He was so stunned that I called him out on it that he just about fell over his own tongue trying to apologize. While he was never one of my favorite doctors, he respected me after that day. The key was that I didn't break down crying, I just told him my evaluation of the services he was providing. In the end, these specialists are achievers. They want to be considered excellent in their field, and when you tell them that they're missing the bar, I think it makes them strive to serve you better. Ooh, I just had a thought. You need to get in contact with the doc's nurse practitioner. In my experience, all high demand specialists have one. They are usually kick-butt and much more reachable than the doctor. They also tend to be better listeners. (((HUGS)))) So sorry you're having to battle on this. Take no prisoners, show no emotion, just go out and fight!

I cannot draw a single thing. at all. However, my dd is quite the artist.

Mine is the opposite. He would LOVE to see me with one. Our problem is expendable finances more than anything.

You're not alone. I sometimes long for the quiet order that would be my house if the kids were in school.

My short answer- I think it only works if the child is ready. I don't know about it producing a resentful child (maybe if you are extremely/abusively no nonsense), but I think it could produce an exhausted mom. My grandmother always told me that if a mom claimed to have her kid potty trained super young, she considered the mom to be trained, not the kid. My kids have ranged from just turned 2 to almost 4. The almost 4 yo did take some effort to push him past his poop fear, but I don't think he was really ready before 3 1/2 anyways. Follow your mommy instinct, forget about your mom. (((HUGS)))

yes, let's respect that day. Thanks for the suggestion.

ITA, thank you!

I would return the completer set and purchase the standard set. I've never needed more blocks than what came in the starter set and we're gone all the way through Zeta. hth,

6th grader- Love- Writing Tales 2 SL Core 5, especially the new Eastern Hemisphere Explorer SL Science 5- this is our first year using SL science, Loving it! MUS Zeta Mom Loves Singapore challenging word problems and Lively Latin, but dd is just tolerating them. K/1st grader Love- HWOT- WOW this program is excellent ETC MFW K Jury is still out on Singapore Math. I may switch him over to MUS. He likes it well enough, but I'm not sure that I do. No bombs this year!

This is our 3rd year with SL. I am really loving this core. They redesigned EHE this year and it's GREAT. I think one of the big differences I see in this core vs previous ones is the research skills that are being developed. The workload is heavy. We are doing the 5 day program, but only doing 3 days a week, so this core will probably take us about a year and a half. It's a great chance for us to focus on others and get outside of our box. Love it!

Writing, reading, Math. Use audio books for history (SOTW + historical fiction) and listen to those in your car. For Science, maybe use video, discovery channel streaming? Or maybe just library books for your independent readers. In a perfect world, your 6th grader would be gearing up for more academic challenges, but I can't tell from your post if he/she is ready for that. hth,

If you are against ALL public education, then I can accept that opinion. I am not against free public education. Therefore, I believe that it is the state's responsibility to appropriately educate disabled children to their full potential. I also don't think our country will ever head in the direction of NO free education, therefore, we need to work within the reality that states will and should continue to fund education for disabled children.

I'm tearing up just thinking of your poor mom and how hurt she must have been. What an awful company!

Yep, it definitely wears on me. I have one child that is the spoon that stirs the pot. When he is not home, our house is so quiet. I'm often tempted to send him to school. At the same time, he's the most vocal about liking homeschooling, so I don't know that I could ever send him off. He just has such a STRONG personality, it's hard to manage.