That laugh!
Iām currently conducting my daughterās first driving lesson. Looking forward to stress and higher insurance premiums.
For those a bit older than me, our oldest child (nearly 20) moved out of the house to head to college yesterday and we are having a bit of a tough time with it. We still have our youngest (HS freshman next year) but are beginning to see the inevitability of him leaving in 5 years in our headlights now too.
Any coping strategies for those of us watching the younglings leave the nest?
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Grunching a little but if no one else mentioned it, Happiest Baby on the Block was probably my number one resource for dealing with a newborn. Iāve also been thanked numerous times for recommending it.
Why even have a school uniform if every day is a dress up day?
told my wife and sheās listening to it on her audio book thingy thingies. hope it will help, thanks.
i decided not to read it but nickname my baby colic instead
My baby had 4 shots today at his 6 month appointment this morning. Now his right thigh is all red in reaction. Heās crying continuously and strongly like never before. Is this really normal and wait or do I need to take him in right away? Somebody tell me this ends in 5 minutes.
Never happened to my kids. Never heard of that and donāt recall being warned about it as a thing that might happen and pass. Sounds like go in ASAP. Urgent care or something. Iām not saying panic, but better to be safe here I think. GL.
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The redness is gone and heās sleeping now. It lasted 15 minutes. Itās funny how my brain turned off while he was hurting.
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Phew. Anti-vaxxer avoided.
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What are people with smart kids doing these days? My 5yo has started complaining that she hates school because itās boring. She goes to a really good public school, and she seems to be doing fine socially, but sheās just not enjoying the academics because itās mostly stuff she already knows. (As an example, for the last four weeks, our weekly email from her teacher has described the match curriculum as āThis week we continued to work on putting together and taking apart numbers up to 8 using number bonds.ā Last night I asked her what 6 times three was, and she immediately decomposed it to 9 + 9 and answered that by subtracting 2 from 20.)
Starting next year, sheāll be eligible for gifted classes, which will hopefully be more interesting, but thatās still only one day a week. I hate the idea of sending her to private school. Iāve flirted a bit with the idea of home-schooling, but thatās got lots of obvious downsides. The only semi-realistic idea Iāve come up with is to come to some kind of modus vivendi with her teacher where she can read independently during the more boring academic classes, but Iām not sure thatās actually a plausible answer.
Sign her up for outside STEM classes? Thats pretty impressive math skills for that age. Get her into coding early.
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Iām not sure thereās a great answer. We never really considered home schooling or private school. Advanced classes were helpful, but as you note thatās a minority of time at that age. We ended up skipping a grade for our kid, which at the time was a decision we really struggled with, but itās turned out great. Probably the only answer I can offer is to make sure youāve got plenty of educational-but-fun stuff available to do outside of school (to the extent the kid is interested or you can encourage her to be interested), encourage her to be helpful to other kids in the class if she could pull it off without seeming like sheās bragging, and ride it out until she has the opportunity for more advanced classes as she gets older.
Good luck.
Weāve got 3 kids who fall at very different points on the continuum, and weāve discovered that our schools arenāt very good at dealing with kids at either of the two extremes.
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I think this is pretty normal unfortunately, even at the best schools
Our little guy just hit 7 months. Heās sitting up like 80% of the time now and eating solid foods, so heās pooping a lot and itās more often than not an up the back blowout.
The upsized diapersā¦ They do nothingā¦
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Iām basically convinced that any school (private, public) is going to hold most smart kids back* (or most any kids for that matter). If you could put together some sort of bespoke homeschool experience, your kid would learn a lot more academically than if they just went to school.
On the other hand, if you keep them at home that hurts them socially.
Most people arenāt in a position to homeschool effectively. We probably could, but they would lose out on all the social interaction of school. So weāre making a bit of a sacrifice on the academics for that.
I think you have to accept that just by sending your kid to school, youāre already sacrificing a bit academically. Once you realize this, itās just a matter of mitigation. Just find the least bad option available to you and send them there.
I realize this was completely unhelpful.
*There are probably some pairing of schools and kids that allow for exceptions to this general rule.
Yeah there just isnāt a way of teaching full classrooms in group settings that perfectly caters to every kidās ability and engagement level.
Exactly. Although this should be obvious, it took a while for it to really sink in for me. Then I went through a phase where I felt a bit guilty for not homeschooling the kids. Iām now at peace with the tradeoffs that have been made.
Thereās really no way to prepare yourself for this. Just a completely unique experience to be responsible for a baby when this happens.
See also, meconium.