Two of my kiddos have reversed b and d when reading. I always say "Line first is b" as a reminder, and at first would add that if it isn't a line first, but a curve, it's not a b. My older is now reminding the youngest of that. It took about 6-9 months for it to really sink in, but the same reminder given over and over again meant that they started catching it themselves and fixing it, even though it took awhile to completell disappear when reading.

I was just scrolling through this thread, and thought you said "Math Tranquilizers"...

My kindergartener has been taught a number of "sight words" that "can't be sounded out", including "am," "can," and "and". Fortunately, we're still doing reading and math at home, and she is far beyond identifying the first letter of a word. When she's coloring and says, "Hey! This crayon isn't yellow, it's called dandelion!", I think she can handle kindergarten sight words.

Math In Focus...though they just sent home the first book they "finished", and less than half of the pages are done, probably closer to a quarter of them. So, why do they send home so many worksheets printed off of Pinterest, and not use the workbook???

Yeah, I could smell "spicy" the whole time too. My husband listens to Moose Butter, who has a song with the lyrics, "I got squirrels in my nose...cuz they are friends with the chickens who are in there too." My children now sing this every time I get anything caught up there. They laugh at me often.

I probably shouldn't share this... I get food caught up my nose on a regular basis. Sometimes I swallow, and instead of going down, it goes up. Raw carrots, pasta, and Twizzlers are very common, for some reason. Usually it's only up there a little while (under an hour), but I had jalapeño up there for two weeks straight once. And I have to hold my nose when I throw up, to make sure it comes out my mouth. On a related note, I also cannot go underwater without plugging my nose - whatever is in there that helps other people go under water, I must not have it because I simply cannot do it. All this to say, if it *is* some kind of food that got up there, it probably won't do any harm. I haven't died of rotten carrot in my nasap cavity yet!

I tried it for about six months, eight years ago. I didn't deactivate my account; I completely deleted it (which I heard there may have been a policy change and they no longer allow that?). Anyways, I seem to be the only one in my circle not on Facebook. I do miss out on some stuff, but if something's really important, people let me know. Now texting, on the other hand, has provided a great means for drawing closer to my long-distance siblings. We have talked more in the past year than we had since we each moved away from home.

My son used to have really big feet, and was off-the-chart tall for his age. Then he started heavy asthma meds that have slowed (almost stopped) his growth. But the kid's gotta breathe, ya know? I became concerned one fall when I pulled out his sneakers from storage and realized they weren't from the previous year...they were from the year before that, and they still fit him. His feet didn't grow at all from age 7 to age 10. He actually just went through a growth spurt, growing a whole inch, which is more than he's grown in the previous year and a half. So, my poor boy who used to be super tall is now about the same height as his sister who is three years younger. Her feet are the same size as his, which she thinks is hilarious.

We have a five-foot jungle gym and a tire swing that has received hard use (year-round, and we get a decent amount of snow). We were given a (very rickety) swing set that my children have definitely claimed as their own. Besides swinging and sliding, they use it for sidewalk chalk, have built a small table on a hinge in the fort area, added a pulley and rope system to hoist buckets of junk up, etc. They also: -ride bikes and scooters -Ripstik -stilts and pogo sticks -PVC pipe building (if you throw in some old sheets and chip clips, they build forts) -army tent (a real tent! used by a real soldier! which they think is awesome!) -random wood, hand tools, caster wheels, pulleys, rope, etc. -fire pit (my 11-year-old son started by setting leaves on fire with a magnifying glass when he was seven...as I type this, he is putting the finishing touches on tonight's dinner that he cooked in his Dutch oven, over the coals) -rakes, shovels, branch trimmers (with direction, mostly - they do have a "digging hole" where they are free to dig, but if I give them a job and the tools, they like to accomplish it) Instead of driving to playgrounds, we tend to walk or bike if possible. It means they're pretty worn out by the time we get home. If we do a picnic style lunch, that is always well received and they wander away to play when done eating.

I don't like bridges. Or water. Or bridges that go over water. It's better than it used to be. I mean, once I started driving, I had to stop closing my eyes as I went over bridges. And then we lived in the Twin Cities when the I-35 bridge collapsed into the river during rush hour, and six people died. They said since it was stop-and-go traffic, there were a lot less fatalities than if traffic had been going faster. And for months there were reports about how so many bridges were not up to standards. So I'm totally justified in my fear now. Sometimes when I let the dog out at night, I get this irrational fear that a jaguar is going to attack, or something horrible will happen to the dog. We don't even have jaguars here. One night, as my husband was letting the dog out, he said, "Sometimes I worry that when we let the dog out, he's going to be bitten by a zombie, and then we'll let a zombie dog into our house, and that will be the end of us." Jaguars are sooo much more rational than zombies.

There is an awesome indoor playground in Edina, Minnesota. Three stories tall, sanitized every night after closing, no ball pits - and lots of plants and trees inside (LOVE all the green in the dead of winter!). My children have a blast every time we visit (used to live there, now we return every couple of years). But I admit that, as they have gotten older, it is so much easier to just watch them play than have to accompany the youngest everywhere. I did see one dad split his pants while chasing after his child in there...

That sounds very much like my daughter. Every spring (March-June/July) her behavior is simply awful and out of control. Lots of flying off the handle, beating up/clawing her (older) siblings, massive temper tantrums, kicking the walls/me. It finally dawned on me that it seems allergy related, as it has followed this pattern for three years, since she was two. (It took me looking back at saved calendars to make the connection of when she was at her worst.) I figured it was because she just felt so cruddy - no one has stellar behavior when they aren't feeling well. She's carried Epi-pens since she was almost three, and did allergy testing when she was four - tested positive to at least two things in every single category, including most grasses, molds, trees, animals, etc. The allergist basically said that she isn't *that* allergic to any one thing so he can't really say that it's allergy related and therefore, can't offer much more to help her. Right now she is on Zyrtec, Singulair, and we're experimenting with different nasal sprays (per the insurance company's hoops to jump through). She cannot have Benadryl. I know that her face is still itchy most of the time, but she just shrugs that off as normal. I'm not sure what else we can put her on to try and improve things for her. I wish I could find better answers before next spring rolls around.

We do: -scrambled/fried eggs (hard boiled eggs are "snacks" in our house)...on Saturdays, my husband will make omelets sometimes -muffins (big batch=freezer muffins, so only make once every three weeks or so) -pancakes/waffles (same as with muffins, reheated in the toaster - the buttermilk adds a bit of protein!) -oatmeal ("real" oats, cooked fresh) -seven grain cereal (Bob's Red Mill - seriously, my children devour this stuff) -the occasional box of Cheerios for those moments I realize I forgot to plan breakfast There is usually a fruit, smoothie, or smoothie pop (leftover smoothie in popsicle molds - lots of yogurt in them, so protein there too) to go along with the main part of breakfast. I wake and get ready first; everyone else wakes at 6:00; breakfast is at 6:20. Lollygaggers needs to be done by 6:50. Bonus points to anyone who has already finished math by that point (it happens regularly!).

Could you elaborate on this? That sounds like what we're dealing with, but neither our family physician or our allergist has offered tangible help, and meds are not seeming to make a big difference...

We ended up having really cloudy weather (and a trip to the ER, but that wasn't eclipse-related...also not how I had planned on spending the day). I picked up my bummed kiddos and we were driving home, when THE SUN CAME OUT - it was after the height of it all but still within the timeframe to see *something* - earlier they had seen nothing due to the clouds. So I pulled over on the side of the road (two lane undivided, no traffic), and we grabbed our glasses and stared for about a minute. Then I made everyone get back in, because I felt awfully silly. I did, however, refrain from driving with my eclipse glasses on.

And this is why I bought a Foodsaver. So I can keep my eclipse glasses fresh for the next one. Just seal and freeze!

I haven't read all the responses... At 16, I went to India and came back with a foot fungus. It took about eight months to get rid of it (after numerous prescriptions, soaking my feet in apple cider vinegar finally worked, just in case anyone needs to know!). But I was also told to wear open-toe sandals and, if I had to wear socks, they must be wool. So, Birkenstocks and wool socks for that winter, even with 18 inches of snow outside! I had a hard time adjusting back to close-toed shoes, and still prefer no shoes if possible. In winter now, I prefer Haflingers, which are wool so I'd assume are more breathable than other shoes.

In another town not too far from here, a couple won several million. They really liked their hometown, even though it was going through hard times. So they built a grocery store, paid off their church's mortgage, built a football stadium for the high school, and helped redo the city parks. They have become local heroes.

$75 covers Internet and home phone. We were grandfathered in when our small phone company was bought by Windstream, so we can't change anything (options like caller ID, voicemail, or Internet package) without losing our rate, and any change would be more expensive. We don't have cable/dish/whatever.

I own a hair dryer for thawing our pipes in the winter... My hair is past my waist, dark, and slightly wavy. I used to chop it into a bob, then let it grow for four years, then chop it again. I think I am too old to pull off a cute bob now, and anyways, I would have to *do* something with it if it were short, as the wave gives it weird flippy bits that look more like "bedhead" rather than "cute" or "trendy". So, I wear a bun with a hair stick every day. Once in a great while I will braid it, but I hate the feel of hair on my neck. So I just condition, comb, and put in a bun. Rinsing out the conditioner takes the longest, at about four minutes.

My husband is in IT and deal with security issues for a billion-dollar company. He's extremely careful with passwords, and uses a password generator to come up with random uppercase/lowercase/number/symbol passwords of a ridiculously long variety. What worries me is that the bank that has our mortgage is a) not case sensitive and b) doesn't allow symbols in their passwords. How drastically reduced are my password options! I have a piece of paper where I write down our passwords because I can't remember all of them.

Yes! My favorite is Captain Vegetable. My children have only seen a few, carefully chosen youtube videos of Sesame Street. They love the Kids Just Love to Brush song (one of our regular teeth-brushing songs), and anything with Grover. Personally, I feel Grover is under-represented on Sesame Street. No one seems to appreciate him the way he deserves. I think the introduction of Elmo has a lot to do with that...

Wow, I wouldn't have thought of many of these! He also likes 3D printing, painting minis, knife sharpening, puzzles...these are all things he's dabbled in. I can't believe how many listed that I also have tried! He might go for ham radio, stained glass, learning Greek, or blacksmithing might be worth looking into! And a few I'm not sure what they are - off to Google to educate myself.

I'm thinking ahead to Christmas and my husband's birthday. He is a geek by nature, but I like to broaden his horizons a bit, so I get him "unusual" gifts sometimes to spur on new hobbies. Some that he has really enjoyed are a ukulele, sewing machine, and lock picking set. Once he has the basic tools, he really likes researching, watching how-to videos, and essentially teaching himself how to do this new thing...but they aren't things he would ever pick for himself. Does anyone have suggestions for unusual self-taught skills I could interest him in?

We are planning to drive about three hours to see it fully. We have our eclipse glasses already, and are trying to convince friends to join us!