Ds has a summer cold, a bit of sniffles and a cough. This is what he built for himself to "recover":
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9586708@N03/?donelayout=1
The shoebox in front of him is his "greatest invention ever!" He poked some holes in it and routed all his cords through it, so they don't get tangled and the cat doesn't try to eat them, lol.
Mama in the Forest, thanks for clarifying who FOB are, I feel so out of the loop,
UnschoolingMa, there is a parents room at the venue? I've never heard of that. I work at an arena, and I'm sure there are more than a few parents who would have appreciated this during the Black Eyed Peas concert, or the upcoming Hilary Duff concert. I was just incredibly stoked to get to see the second half of the Roger Waters concert, where he performed the entirety of Dark Side of the Moon (yes, I am an aging rocker chick, sigh)
Gargirl, the first reporting process can be pretty stressful. Once you know what they want, it becomes pretty second nature. I'm lucky to live in an area where they actually don't want much information and the whole process is pretty openly just about covering everyone's butt. Since ds is now highschool age and has recently decided he might want to go to university after all, I downloaded Homeschool Tracker, the free version
http://www.homeschooltracker.com
I just input whatever ds has done after the fact as an "assignment", the hours add up really quickly. Ds has already completed about 1/3 of his history credit for the year in one month.
JudeJude, how great is it that you're willing to take in your dh's neice and her family! Sounds like it will be fun.
Ds was a very, very picky eater, and we were very poor when he was younger, so I didn't always have high quality food available for him. Getting him weaned off the crap took a while, he had a lot of sensory issues, and the 5-8 years were the worst. I learned to just keep serving him the food I wanted him to eat, and just keep exposing him to new things.
There was a really funny moment (in retrospect) for me. Ds absolutely refused to eat spaghetti and tomato sauce for years and years. One day, I was craving spag and decided that I was just going to make it and he could eat it if he was hungry enough. He argued and whined and complained and finally I put it in front of him. He looked at the plate, said "oh, THIS is spaghetti?" and ate the whole thing
: I learned from that to question him a little more closely on his dislikes, lol.
Now that ds is 14 and eats as much as two grown men, I have to be very careful with the food bill. I've been menu planning for years, and have gotten even more anal about it now. I have a list of soups, salads, sandwiches, entrees, breakfasts and desserts, I try for 14 of each so I can rotate a lot and not have a whole lot of repeat meals. I sit down once a week and pick out what I'd like to eat (what ds wants is no longer much of an issue, his answer is always "FOOOOOOD"), and then make a grocery list from the menu. I never shop without a grocery list, and I'm very precise on my list, if we're having a ham sandwich one day, then I buy enough for just 2 sandwiches (otherwise ds would eat it all standing in front of the fridge looking for a snack, ahhh, I'll be sooooo happy when this teen growth spurt thing eases off!)
I did take me quite a while to put together the list of meals that ds would eat when he was still picky, it took a lot of experimenting with recipes and tweaking things, but I'd say it took about a year total till the whole food/dinner/what do I make thing was never an issue at all anymore. With a 3 and 5 year old, their memory is not that long, and if you just keep offering them the healthy stuff, and never have the bad stuff around, they will quickly forget their old habits.
Yikes, this post is getting long, why am I getting so wordy in my old age?
Happy belated Canada day to any Canucks around here, and Happy 4th of July to all you Yanks!