My 10 year old has hair like you describe!

I've got naturally curly thick hair. I also live in a home with no A/C and my hair is currently a couple inches below my shoulders. I'm also a naturally lazy hair person, and I have a square face, which you can't see in the picture, but I figured might be an important detail. I am so tired of my curls, and the thickness, but I have no money for a stylist - I've cut my own hair for YEARS. What can I do to it this summer to help me like my hair again? I don't really feel like living in a ponytail all summer... Here's a picture from a couple months ago - it's a bit longer now. Suggestions?

my kids are young, oldest is finishing 4th grade. And I am going to take next week off for sure, I decided that right after I hit post. I have to get a certain number of days in thanks to PA law, but I need a break!

I'm in total burn out mode for this year. It's killing me to get the last couple weeks of school in for the year. So my thought was to start school in July instead of late August and just be done by now next year. But I feel like that's not going to help because it's only just now starting to be sort of warm here, so it's not like nice weather is killing the spring for me. So I wonder if I need to consider a more year-round schedule? Something with lots of breaks built in? For those of you who do a year-round schedule, does it help prevent burnout?

I do this, but have trouble sleeping because a random noise will jolt me awake because I'm in charge, I guess. I can sleep with the kids in their rooms for rest time when my husband is home but not when it's just me and the kids. I guess I need to work on that.

my kids are 2, 5, 7, and 10. I go to bed at 9 most nights, sometimes earlier if it's been a particularly rough few days. I get up between 6-7 when my husband's alarm wakes me. If his alarm doesn't go off I still naturally wake up at 7... and honestly I prefer to be up at least 10 minutes before the first kid who gets up around 7 anyway, because my day always feels more chaotic if I've not had a cup of coffee before kids start their morning demands... lol. I do take Vit. D, and I get outside as much as possible when it's nice. And I drink another cup of coffee ;)

I do take a nap on the weekends, it's just not enough to catch up. Garga, your post was actually interesting for me to read through - I KNOW everything you stated. And we've placed other areas of our health as priorities but this one hasn't made the top of the list because it seems like there's nothing we can do. I think it's time we addressed the issue and tried to figure out a solution. 3 of the 4 kids go to bed without an issue by 8pm usually at the latest. The 2 year old is going through a phase where he is having night terrors or nightmares or something. He'll cry for a few minutes and then go back to sleep. Half the time I don't even have to go into him but he still wakes me up crying even if I don't have to get out of bed. The 5 year old has some behavioral difficulties that we are working on - seeing a psychologist and an occupational therapist. Some nights he's good, other nights, like last night, he's up until 9pm having defiant issues against going to bed and then wakes at 2 in the morning not able to sleep in his bed anymore and refuses to go back to his room. So we have learned to bed him down next to our bed on the floor.

I'm tired. I'm always tired, it seems. My Dr. ruled out any medical cause for the tiredness and has diagnosed plain and simple "homsechool-mom-of-4-who-has-to-wake-up-overnight-to-help-kids-and-simply-doesn't-get-enough-rest". My psychologist recommended that I have my husband try to help out more in the evenings. Which is a grand idea, only he leaves the house before the kids are awake in the morning and doesn't get home until I'm putting dinner on the table in the evening. So his help consists of playtime and bedtime prep. And he doesn't wake up without extreme prodding overnight so he's not much help there. my kids don't nap anymore and I have trouble napping while being in "alert mode" because I'm the adult in charge. My husband's alarm went off twice this morning before he simply turned it off and didn't get up for another 20 minutes. Believe me, I will correct that issue because by the time the alarm went off the second time, I was awake for the day like it or not. And Wednesdays are my long day - He has a 20 minute break at home for dinner but has responsibilities that require him to leave the house at 7:30 and isn't done and home for the day until 10pm. I just don't know how to catch up on rest right now, but there's only so much that coffee can help with.......

Great, I feel much better about my timeline now... any specific biographies/living books that you would recommend that I add to the list as well?

I'm looking for those obscure/not often covered American history topics that are more often overlooked/ignored that YOU would ensure got sufficient study during a year on American History. For example, the trail of tears and the Japanese internment camps. I'm looking to fill out an American history timeline/living book list that I used in the grammar stage/early elementary years, but need to beef up for a logic stage student.

Sorry for the delay in updating, I just got home from the hospital after spending last night with one of the girls. All three surgeries went well. Only one had a complication of some fluid buildup in the lungs that was impacting her breathing. She's still in ICU but stable. First shift family was able to get sleep last night and I was part of the second shift. Everyone is hurting and mourning but doing ok. Thank you so much for the prayers.

We found out that a family member died last night in a bad car accident. 3 of her 5 kids were in the car and 3 are all going into surgery today. All 5 kids were adopted, 4 were foster to adopted. She taught those kids how a mom is supposed to love her kids. She absolutely would have chosen to be the one to die, too, so that her kids would have the chance to live. She homeschooled the three who are in the hospital - the youngest is 13 and has a broken lumbar. It's so devastating and we are all pretty shaken up. I covet your prayers... thanks. See update on page 2 - all three came through surgery well and are starting to heal. One had complications from fluid on her lungs but is stable and they are optimistic.

Has anyone read this article? https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180223092142.htm I am wondering if there is some application to kids with sensory sensitivity to noise? If we have a silent shouting practice prior to going into stores or other noisy environments would it help them perceive less noise?

This biggest problem with these ideas is that we live in 900sf. we can keep the dog out of the kids room, but we have one common area that we all share with the dog because that's the only area of the home other than the kitchen and my and my husband's room. so I can vacuum all day long but the dog is a heavy shedder and we won't be able to keep them apart much.

The Dr. told us to just put him on a daily dose of antihistamine but I'm not too crazy about that idea, and I'm wondering if (as hard as it might be), getting rid of the dog would clear up all three kids of their symptoms.

so, allergy testing for my 5 year old son today showed he's allergic to both cats and dogs. We have a dog...This might explain the itching he's experiencing and maybe help mediate the sensitivity to clothing that he experiences. He also had a lot of thick mucus in his nose in spite of the fact that he's able to breathe without a problem. That said, I was rather surprised. I didn't expect pet allergies, we were looking at food because of behavioral issues. So my question - my 2 daughters experience near constant congestion and are rarely able to breathe out of their nose. No dr. has ever suggested allergy testing, but now I'm wondering how prevalent pet allergies are between siblings and whether or not their symptoms are from our dog too?? The Dr. has always suggested allergy meds without even caring what's causing the allergies.

I wanted to post an update on where we are in this crazy process. Our initial psych eval didn't give us more than "anxiety", OCD and the need for more evaluation... every appointment since then has been canceled due to illness (a couple times our family, a couple times the psych herself) so we're no further on that end, but we've made some interesting steps in other directions. First, he got Bells palsy and was put on prednisone... which cleared up his behavior. Completely. I'm talking eye contact, pleasant, happy, compliant, amazing. So we started pulling together a team to help us figure it out - his primary Dr. is working on us with diet, we've started OT, and we are seeing a chiropractor. We have had heavy metal testing done, should get results back next week, and it will also include some basic nutrition stuff too. Had a bust with the first OT, but the second one is a winner. We're figuring out tons of behavior issues and sensory strategies to work with him there. And she caught a shut down so much earlier than I have been able to - helping me know what those very very first symptoms of what overwhelmed looks like and giving me great suggestions for various behaviors. The chiropractor has made the absolute best impact on his sleep - he's actually sleeping now! I mean, in his bed, all night long, not waking early anymore. He actually wakes up rested and in a pleasant mood now! We have allergy testing lined up for this coming week because now that the prednisone is out of his system, we are seeing a pattern of itching on face/neck/ears after eating certain foods. (Right now I may be crazy but my gut says corn is the issue...) We've started using digestive enzymes, L-Glutamine, Vitaspectrum, Omega-3, and a good probiotic. We've cleaned up our diet - gluten free, (have not removed casein yet), organic fruits/veggies, eliminated all artificial colors/dyes/preservatives, essentially eliminated all processed foods. I'm making keifer and kombucha and have devised a picture chart for the kids to have healthy food choices when they are hungry. We've replaced our pots and pans (which had exposed aluminum) and got rid of our plastic water bottles for good stainless steel ones. We've started filtering our water, both really good filter for drinking water and a whole house filter for a few less things. And I've replaced all our soaps/stuff with safer stuff after doing tons of research on it all. So, I feel at times like we're shooting in the dark, but I also feel like we are heading in the right direction. We know that inflammation in the body is causing the behavior issues because prednisone cleared them up entirely, but we just have to figure out where the inflammation is and how to eliminate it. On the to do list for next month (because we are out of money now! lol) are Lymes testing, IGG allergy testing and testing for MTHFR gene mutations. And we're hoping to actually see the psych again, if spring can ever come and everyone can be healthy on the same days again!

The OT didn't do anything on retained reflexes, which bugged me, I am going to have to do some studying on that myself. Thanks for that suggestion! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the ideas! Right now he is peeling stickers off of a sheet and sticking them on a piece of paper to make pictures with them - He's using that pincer grip and struggling to get the stickers off but is motivated, and having fun.

Thank you for all the suggestions! Yes it is for fine motor skills, but I might look into the handwriting thing for my daughter whose handwriting is terrible. I'm collecting all kinds of ideas for strengthening fine motor skills. Due to a scheduling thing and an insurance thing that we have to figure out, we can only go to the OT once a week for a while, so I'm trying to boost all that I can at home too.

The OT for my son recommended that he use broken crayons and short pencils to draw and color with, but he refuses to use broken crayons... any ideas on how to get crayons or markers or colored pencils that are short? Or do I need to figure out a way to get him to draw with the broken crayons? TIA!

My dr. just recommended this to me today!

Ha, yeah, I did! Apparently the evaluation was not a full autism eval and so we have 3 more sessions set up to allow her to observe more behaviors. In the meantime she said his official diagnosis is anxiety. She thinks OCD and sensory processing issues explain most of his behavior and acted as if the actual label of autism is not terribly important, although she said on paper ( the stuff we filled out) it's there. So I'm going to get him on a picture schedule at home, start observing for sensory triggers, get him into OT and bring him back for 3 more evaluation times where she wants to see him interacting with me and dad separately. Lots to process and do, I'm still in info overload mode. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I am sorry that I am not responding much, I am reading and absorbing everything and greatly appreciate everything everyone is saying. And my husband brought home wine, so once the kids go to bed I am going to drink a glass and relax and go to bed. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don't know how to handle this issue. My mother-in-law has told me flat out that there is nothing wrong with my son other than my parenting (she blames it all on me, absolving my husband of any wrong-doing). She even flat out told me that she wishes I would just listen to her and start spanking. (wanna know what happened when we spanked him? An hour later my husband and I were still taking 10 minute intervals to keep him from harming himself in his room with the door closed while the other kept the other kids away from the room. I think we both had bruises from that experience. That was a year ago.) She knows he's being "evaluated" because he is still not fully potty trained and she knows we can't get him to go to his classes at church. BUT. She's the one keeping our kids. Our other babysitting option fell through and so she's keeping them. We already declined her dinner invitation for tomorrow night. I also told my husband that I would walk out on her and wait for him in the car if she tells me that the diagnosis is wrong, whatever the diagnosis is. *Sigh* she seems to be coming around, so I'm just praying for her to have mercy on me and work on the ability to hold her tongue.