Yes, familiar. Positive, if everybody is on-board with it. Which definitely seems to be the case in the OP. No - it would go against my way-to-frugal nature. :001_smile:

Yes, familiar. Positive, if everybody is on-board with it. Which definitely seems to be the case in the OP. No - it would go against my way-to-frugal nature. :001_smile:

I was crazy for horses growing up. (Still am :tongue_smilie: ) No way my family could afford to buy or keep horses or even pay for lessons. So I made friends with the neighbors down the road who owned horses. Helped in the stable with grooming, taking care of tack, mucking out stalls....went over whenever I knew the farrier would be around....stuff like that. I ended up buying my first horse from them when I was in my late teens. Which I know probably doesn't help you. Unless you have happen to have neighbors or friends that own?

Yael - so sorry for the viola. :crying: That would have been the hardest loss for me.

We have tons of extra storage on our computer so this is the way we do it too. I don't use iCloud, so no help there. My Dh warned me off saying it was one of the "glitch-iest" (if that's even a word) applications ever. So I think what you did is supposed to work, but maybe it got messed up somehow. :confused1:

Sorry guys, I have been so crazy busy the last couple of days...family emergencies......Arghhh!!! So, anyway I will look into all the suggestions, websites, books, etc. Thanks again for all your help. I'll keep you all updated if I can.

I have been talking to other mom's in the area and there doesn't seem to be any EI programs anywhere close to us. (We live in the boonies) I have dealt with the local school and even though they are amazing for such a small school district, I know that they will not be able to do anything until at least fall. He will be 3 years, 3 months at that point. So, I think that leaves me with trying to make a go of this at home...at least for now. I'll research here on the board, but if anyone has a "cliffnotes version" of the type of therapy I could be doing at home that would be great. Or maybe just point me to a good website or whatever. I will also make an appointment with the pediatrician. Thanks everyone for taking the time to share your experience and perspective.

Ok, yes, I see what you mean about the manuals. I hadn't looked that far. OUCH!

Thanks, Elizabeth. I will start googling. :001_smile:

I had to laugh at the name of the curriculum. It struck me so funny that I showed my daughter and she wonders if that is some sort of evil joke. Like some poor kid somewhere will be asked someday what he uses for writing, and he will innocently answer, "Size matters" :rofl: Seriously though, I am not sure if I am looking at the right stuff. One set of 18 books is only $38.50. That seems really inexpensive to me.

:crying: I am glad that his story has a happy ending at least, but poor child.

So, Lecka, you are saying that it doesn't really matter why he is the way he is, that services will help either way? I hadn't thought about it that way.

Oh and thanks for the well wishes. :001_smile:

Thanks for the input. I am a bit surprised that you all think that he is that atypical. To me, it seems like most of the issues could easily stem from neglect....for example he didn't learn to talk as early as he maybe should have and then he gets frustrated because he can't communicate like he wants. And if no one has ever told him "no" then maybe he is having a hard time processing that. OR maybe he is just really stubborn. :confused1: We have a six month power of attorney so I think I could at least start the process.

Ok, I am spending way to much time on the board. My hubby is saying that I am starting to see "special needs" in every child. :001_huh: But seriously, this child has me so confused and honestly, he's wearing me out. So, any advice or help would be greatly appreciated. Quick background....we are unofficial "foster" parents to an almost 3 year old child. He has been with us for almost 3 months and the situation is very fluid....he may be with us for another year or more or he may go back to his mother tomorrow. His mom is a drug addict. She says she wasn't doing drugs while pregnant with him but I'm not sure I believe her. So prenatal drug use might factor in. Also definitely neglect. Actually, when we first got him, my go-to justification for any of his behaviours was neglect/poor or no training. I'll try to make a list of his negative behaviours, followed by the positive. Negative or unusual or confusing: 1. Very limited vocab - basically the only words he knows are things like thirsty, water, cereal, nap, shoes, outside. So he can ask for things that he needs. And a few that he wants. Otherwise he just points and makes this grunting sound. He never initiates speech on his own other than asking for things. Also, if he wants to be held he will follow me around with lifted arms and make weird noises. 2. Echolalia - I actually looked the word up. :001_smile: He will repeat the last word or two of every thing you say. At first this was so frustrating because I didn't realize what he was doing. I would ask him to tell me if he was all done with something (food) and he would almost right away say "all done." Or if I would give him a choice between water or milk he would always just repeat the last word I said even if he wanted the other. 3. Doesn't seem to know his own name - When hubby leaves in the morning as he is waking out the door, he will say "bye, Alex" to which Alex replies, "bye, Alex". At first we all thought this was cute/funny, but then I realized that I don't think he knows his name. Or now that I write that, maybe that has more to do with the echolalia. 4. Hitting himself - When he gets frustrated he will start slapping himself in the face. This doesn't happen very often, just when he doesn't get his way about something he really wants. 5. I am not sure what to call this or how exactly to explain, but he seems to get in "ruts" - both verbally and behaviourly. For example if he asks for something and I say no, he will say please, I will say no and then he will say please again. The no/please will go on endlessly unless I either ignore or redirect. And he actually almost seems like he forgot what he was asking for. 6. Limited affection. Sometimes he is in a really affectionate mood and will give tons of hugs and kisses. He likes to push his face up against mine. But if I try to initiate he usually says no, stop, or just pushes me away. I am trying not to take this too personally. :( 7. Lots of sleep issues. Refuses to stay in bed unless someone sits by the bed and makes him stay in. Often doesn't sleep much. Like he won't fall asleep until midnight. He wakes up at 7:00 along with the rest of the family and then generally takes an hour or so nap in the afternoon. That seems like very little sleep to me. Also, he likes to take off his clothes in the middle of the night and often we wake up to a naked little boy. Which is not funny, considering he is not potty trained yet. :D ( I just recently ordered escape free pajamas from amazon. They haven't come yet) On the positive side, he is generally happy, curious, he does imaginative play like toy trains. He knows the proper use of things. He likes to brush my hair, for example. He can put on his own shoes with a velcro closure. He likes to help fold laundry and knows where his drawer is and can put stuff away. He makes good eye contact. He will return a smile if he is in the mood too. Oh, and he can use a spoon/fork and do a pretty decent job of feeding himself. I know this got long. Maybe there is too little information to go on to say anything conclusively. And the little tyke's background confuses things too. So, what do you all think? Neglect, typical 3 year old, or something else? (BTW, Alex is not real name)

My husband just bought a smoker. I kind of objected to it at first budget-wise :tongue_smilie:, but he has made supper 3 times in the last week. He made the meat, I warmed up some veggies and we skipped the carbs. Super simple. So, hey, yeah, no worries. Enjoy your smoker. :001_cool:

:party: Yeah!!! - for him. And for you. My son is 11, and he is dyslexic. (Barton's level 4) We haven't gotten there yet, but I can rejoice with you. :thumbup1:

Not Quill here :001_smile: , but I can give you my experience, for what its worth. I have been running Quickbooks with Windows 10 for months now and have absolutely no problems. I have the PRO 2015 desktop version. I didn't even realize there were supposed to be issues, it's been that trouble free. :hurray: So, maybe it depends on the version???

:iagree: I am so glad that I never upgraded to 8... I went straight from 7 to 10. Which I love btw. My husband hates it, hence the angst today when we thought we might have unknowingly upgraded. My sister who is very much "into" computers (website design, developing apps, etc.) loved Windows 8. I never got that. :confused1: I thought everyone hated 8.

I have a question about my son's handwriting. I've attached some samples so you can see what I mean. When he was first tested by the school a year ago, his writing speed (manual, not cursive) was 8 letters/ 20 seconds. (Most students his age can write 23 letters/ 20 seconds). A year later, I don't think it has improved any. The evaluator went on to say that "teaching cursive writing may improve his ability to write. It will be very difficult but not impossible to remediate his manual writing techniques." I didn't like her use of the term "remediate" because it seems like the underlying implication was that he had been taught wrong, when, in fact he hadn't. He wrote a lot of his letters starting from the bottom rather than the top....not because he doesn't know better, but because he forgets. We have worked through several handwriting books. The latest is Pentime 2 where it teaches the transition from manual to cursive. As you can see his cursive is actually rather pretty. But that's on lined paper and it takes him f.o.r.e.v.e.r because none of the letters are automatic. He has to look for every stroke. His manual writing is rather atrocious as you can also see. So far we have only done testing with the school with an unofficial diagnosis of dyslexia. Is his handwriting such a struggle because of the dyslexia? If not, should I be looking at further testing? And what would be your thoughts as to what the underlying issue might be? If you were I, would you keep working on the manual writing, or would you concentrate on cursive. We have started typing (TTRS) because frankly, I am worried that he will never be able to write fluently. He is 11 and shows a lot of manual dexterity in everyday life. Thanks for any advice or insight BTW, just to avoid confusion, I wanted to say that I have changed my name and avatar. (It's complicated) I have been on this site for a long time, but even under my old name, I didn't post that much. :001_smile: Handwriting.pdf Handwriting.pdf

If you haven't updated yet and absolutely, positively KNOW that you will never want to The Never10 app is an easy solution. I think it automatically runs the script that JanetC mentioned upthread. Forbes did an article on it. I just ran it on my system. Quick and painless. http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2016/05/30/how-to-stop-windows-10-installing-automatically/#3a0bd7352a10 I feel for all of you that have already had to deal with this. So frustrated at Microsoft right now. :cursing:

Really, wow, do these work? Has anyone really used these?

Ugghh...I keep typing up responses and then erasing them because they say too much. I think it would be too early to seek guardianship or anything like that. Not enough history. I think I just have to wait and see what happens. I just feel awful that I have to wait until things get worse before I have any viable options. Thanks everyone for your help.

It seems like I am the only one (so far) who has voted that is against both. :sad: But like someone upthread said, for different reasons. I would not like HP because of the wizardry and also because Rowlings seems to believe in a sort of ends-justify-the-means moral relativity. I think my casual reading should reflect my own biblical world view. I don't think that HP does. I don't like Dr Who because of a whole host of other reasons. Nothing against science fiction whatsoever. :leaving: Leaving now before you all throw rotten tomatoes at me.