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Escapee
Member
06-15-2004
| Thursday, September 28, 2006 - 1:38 pm
Emma has been sleeping a lot the last couple of days. I am on an antibiotic and can't nurse her, so she has been on formula for two nights. Both nights she has slept 10 hours at least, then woke up only to go back down for a nap a couple of hours later. Is this cause for concern? Lilly never EVER slept this much, while I enjoy the extra sleep, I am worried. Also, Lilly has a funny discoloration of her skin that starts on her upper arm and goes down her back. I noticed this last summer, and this summer it seems darker. It's like two different pigmentations of skin on her arm and back. It seems to be bigger this year too.
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Scooterrific
Member
07-08-2005
| Thursday, September 28, 2006 - 1:55 pm
She's probably sleeping more, due to the fact that she's not hungry as often. Formula sticks with them longer. You may wnat to have a doctor look at Lilly.
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Thursday, September 28, 2006 - 2:18 pm
She may be adjusting to longer play periods too. She's old enough now to be up for longer periods of time and moving around (she's not old enough for crawling yet is she?) more on her own and that could be wearing her out. Dakota was like that when she got to the age she was moving more on her own, she would play so hard she'd just drop off from pure exhaustion.
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Thursday, September 28, 2006 - 2:42 pm
Parent teacher conferences are today and tomorrow which always leaves me with a question or four for more expereineced parents or teachers. Today was Caleb's. First thing we went over was the begining of the year tests they take (they also take the same test midyear and end of the year.) For each section, they are expected to reach a certain score, like in spelling they want them to get 15 words out of 40 (he got 22, which is great.) Ok, so she's showing me his reading, spelling, writing, and vocab test scores. In most of them he's already passed the score they have laid out for fifth graders. Vocab he was about three points under the score they have set so that's something he needs to work on (looking up words he doesn't know.) We get to fluency in oral reading though and she tells me she's concerned and he needs to work on this. The standard they have for fifth graders is 120 wpm's in oral reading and he's only at 105 wpm's. She gives some pointers for working on it at home like reading to Kota or reading a favorite passage or poem outloud to someone, then we move on to discussing math and homework and end of appointment (they only last 15 minutes!) My question is this, what does it matter? Other than vocab and fluency he scored well above the set standards for every subtopic...spelling, comprehension, sentence and paragraph structure, etc. His regular, weekly reading test scores are fine (A's in fact.) If a kid is comprehending what they're reading, if they have good spelling and writing skills, what does it matter how fast and fluent they read outloud? Especially when it's only 15 words under the standard they have? I know with Dakota this is a problem that we've been working on with her but with her there is a huge gap between her test scores and the standard for her grade level on fluency. It's an obvious problem with her but with Caleb it is fairly minor. Especially when with him there's other things to focus on like his sloppiness, laziness, and just plain not paying attention to what he's doing when it comes to class work to worry about!
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Escapee
Member
06-15-2004
| Thursday, September 28, 2006 - 3:11 pm
War- she is pulling herself up and standing momentarily without support. She refuses to crawl and when you put her in the crawl position, she gets on her hands and feet instead of knees. She is seven months old, which is the age I was when I walked. I am getting nervous about Lilly's skin thing. I have read up on it about everything from Vitiligo to Addison's disease, nothing I have read has said "oh, it's nothing."
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Maris
Member
03-28-2002
| Thursday, September 28, 2006 - 3:49 pm
War my son always did well on reading tests but when I tell you he bombed in those standardized spelling tests, the worst speller in the world. I always took those little graphs and averages with a grain of salt, if you are happy with where he is, I think you probably know best. All I ever really cared about was whether he enjoyed reading and would read by himself. If he can do that then he is ahead of the game, that pays off!!!!! I used to have parents admonishing me for letting my son read Mad magazine, but he would devour that magazine, read comics endlessly and that was fine. Now, he is an avid science fiction reader, loves to read national geographic, popular science and has an appreciation of literature that I wish I had at his age. My son ended up getting accepted by one of the specialized high schools in NYC and is going to one of the best boys schools in NY. My point is, if you are happy with his level of comprehension and interest, that should be enough. I cracked up though at this : Especially when with him there's other things to focus on like his sloppiness, laziness, and just plain not paying attention to what he's doing when it comes to class work to worry about! Good luck!!! My son is 14, he is still sloppy and lazy until he has to focus ... then he pulls out all the stops -- I think that is just being a boy. I have a friend, her son is 20, going to Georgetown and he is still sloppy, lazy and is the exact same way he was in third grade.
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Escapee
Member
06-15-2004
| Thursday, September 28, 2006 - 3:54 pm
Reading is good no matter what you are reading. Even if it is smut, you are still broadening your reading skills. Who knew? When a guy says "hey, check this article out in play boy" then he reads it out loud to hs buddies....I'll bet he didn't realize that he was actually broadening his verbal and reading skills. Not that guys read the articles..... (just finding the silver lining)
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Secretsmile
Member
08-19-2002
| Thursday, September 28, 2006 - 4:32 pm
I think teachers are in the zone of trying to help each student live up to their utmost potential, I'm sure she just wanted to give you ways to help Caleb. That said...those tests only gage how well he read that day, not how well he does the other 364 days a year. What if during that part of the test his leg was itching and distracted him for a few minutes, or he thought his pencil might need to be sharpened soon, or even if the kid in the next seat passed gas? Then his test result would be less than his actual skill level. You know this, it's just hard not to react when something is pointed out to you by an outsider. You are doing a great job raising your kids, don't worry about what a computerized test says.
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Thursday, September 28, 2006 - 4:37 pm
LOL Maris, actually I think we had this same conversation about the sloppiness and laziness a couple years ago. She was saying that she can tell he's in a hurry when she reads the spelling word sentences he does in class and then she read me a few examples. I was staring at him as she's reading thinking what the heck did you do just throw five words together and call it a sentence? Then she reads the last one, "He swept the split crack." I had to stop her right there to tell him, I was staring at his face as she's reading these off and he knows we can tell right off he did those in a hurry without even caring if the sentence made sense. And this was after she'd already had to stop and ask him what a couple of the words were because she couldn't read them! Up til this year I've been pretty easy about reading. I don't care if they're reading the back of a cereal box as long as they're reading, lol. I've signed off on comic books and those little booklets that come with video games for their reading logs as long as I've seen them read it. This year though he has to do a weekly book report so he has to read an actual book for it (which he's not the least bit happy about, lol...the book report that is.) I don't know, it just seemed like after it was done that whole part about his fluency was such a waste of time. He's got missing homework assignments that he lied to me about that's got him not only grounded from everything but breathing, eating and sleeping through at least this weekend but has him working his butt off to get them finished. He's rushing through classwork so fast no one can read what he's doing and we spent a good 5 minutes in a 15 minute meeting discussing the fact that he can only read 105 wpms a minute instead of 120. That's why I was wondering, am I just missing something??
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Maris
Member
03-28-2002
| Thursday, September 28, 2006 - 4:51 pm
what do you think??? Do you think you are missing something???? My gut always was dont dwell too much on the standardized tests. I was always sympathetic to teachers, assured them of my concerns, but took it with a grain of salt. Do you know what my son did in third through sixth grade? He would get two pencils and have soldier fights. He would sit in class with two penciles and have them fight each other. I would go wild, you cant take pencils off a kid and mine finds a way to ignore what is going on in class and have soldier fights. His lunch??? they would eat in class. at the end every day his schoolbag would have soldiers made out of aluminum foil in it. I cant tell you how many days I would think, why cant my kid be a good little student and just pay attention. It all worked out
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Friday, September 29, 2006 - 12:49 am
You guys are right. I honestly don't put much stock in the standardized tests, sometimes the results seem to match up with what the kids know and sometimes they don't. We've got other things to work on with Caleb, the reading fluency score is just a distraction. Our neighbors, same topic different kid, lol, have three older kids (a 16 yr old boy and two jr high age girls) then two younger ones, a baby girl and a 5 year old boy who just started school this year. The older ones are busy with after school stuff and my neighbor was telling me that the little boy misses his older sibs reading to him. Then she saw Caleb and mentioned that he is her five year olds reading buddy in school and asked if he'd like to come over and read to him in the afternoons. Dakota overheard and she volunteered before Caleb could answer. They've been taking turns reading to him. For her, reading outloud (while comprehension is fine) is a struggle and one we've been working on at home and at school with tutors, and to voluntarily read outloud to another child is a big deal. It's exciting for us that she's gained the confidence to do that and I have to say everytime I look across the street and see them sitting there in the neighbors front yard with a book between them I can't help but grin. LOL Maris, I can just picture a little boy with his pencil soldiers during math lessons. Caleb's thing now is drawing pictures (usually dragons or knights) while his teachers lecturing about something. Heck, maybe it is just boys this age, they're so full of imagination and creativity that it's bursting to get out.
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Thursday, October 05, 2006 - 11:21 am
I lost so many awesome mommy points this morning it's not even funny! Caleb had a track meet and since our school was hosting it this week it was their responsibility to find volunteers to help out today with things like passing out water, taking down place numbers, and timing the kids. He came home earlier this week and asked if I'd help out and I said sure. Got there this morning and coach asked if I'd fill the water cups and hand it out to the runners as they came in. The water station was set up so it was on the black top while the kids were on the grass, finish line about 20 ft away or so. I knew where I was standing I wouldn't be able to pick out Caleb at the start line cuz that was on the far side of the playground, but I'd see most of it. The fourth grade girls run, I'm passing out water like crazy, not even paying attention to who I was giving it to. I saw the fourth grade boys start and went back to filling up cups as the boys started coming in and handing em out. All of a sudden Caleb's standing at my side and I said, "what's up buddy?" He says, "came in 33rd." Huh? You ran??? Apparently they switched it up this week and ran the fifth graders first. I was far enough away from the start line I had no idea who was out there, and wasn't paying attention cuz there was another race and a half to go before Caleb was supposed to be up! I didn't see a thing and I was so shocked I missed it, Caleb knows I didn't see it. I asked how many boys were racing, he said 100 and something, so 33rd was excellent. I made a big deal out of it, told him what a great job he did and how proud I am he tried his best. He was pretty excited about it and told me that it was fun. It was 95 last week for their race, 67 today and the kids sure looked a whole lot better when they were done this time around. We had kids come in first or second each race, plus quite a few in the top ten of all four races, so won first place for the team part. They're thrilled, they'll all get ribbons for team placement. Best of all they got to race in front of their whole school and they enjoyed having a bunch of people cheering and waving signs for them. I still feel horrible though. What kind of parent attends their kids event and misses the whole damn thing?
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Escapee
Member
06-15-2004
| Thursday, October 12, 2006 - 10:47 am
Lilly has Vitiligo. Does anyone know anyone who has this disorder?
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Julieboo
Member
02-05-2002
| Saturday, January 06, 2007 - 6:42 pm
New problem. My totally-never-ever-been-scared-of-anything-before-two-days-ago-seven-year-old-son all of a sudden, out of the blue, called me to his room two nights ago. He was in tears. He was scared. He said he couldn't stop thinking about this one video game. Weird thing is that he hasn't really played that game ever (it's called Kingdom of Hearts). It is a character assuming role playing kind of game (I think) and those are hard for him to "get" and play with on his playstation. We got it at least 6 months ago and he tried it the day we got it (a friend was over who was somewhat familiar with it). But as far as I know, he has not played since we got it. So anyways, I told him we'd get rid of the game. Yesterday morning (and this morning too) he said he was not scared anymore. But in the evening he seems to get very spooked. He said something about the heart getting cut out. (Not sure if it is the evil guys' heart or the good guys'.) Can someone who might be familiar with this game give me some insight on the heart thing? And does anyone have any suggestions for us? Should we encourage him to talk about what is freaking him out. He is very resistant to talking about it. But I think it might help him if he keeps talking about it. Or is that just gonna keep it fresh in his mind...??? TIA
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Saturday, January 06, 2007 - 8:24 pm
You can read up on it here Julie: Kingdom of Hearts Wikipedia Article
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Julieboo
Member
02-05-2002
| Saturday, January 06, 2007 - 9:28 pm
Dang, it seems so complicated. Thanks Jimmer, at least I do see something about the heartless. Not sure it can help me do anything to help though...
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Karen
Member
09-07-2004
| Sunday, January 14, 2007 - 3:13 am
Julie, I've played Kingdom Hearts through from beginning to end. You're correct that it's a role-playing game; if you've heard of the franchise Final Fantasy, it's that, meets Disney. Your son plays a character, Sora, who is not exactly from the Final Fantasy series, but loosely based on. You play with a tag-team consisting of this Sora character, Donald Duck, and Goofy, as you play through Disney environments like 'the hundred acre woods' (Winnie the Pooh), 'Agrabah' (Alladin), 'under the sea' (Little Mermaid), London from Peter Pan, the castle from Beauty and the Beast, etc. You run into Jimminy Cricket, Moby Dick, Chip n' Dale, Simba from the Lion King, Tarzan... The main "bad guys" in the game are called "the heartless". The basic premise of the game is that Sora, the character you play, is trying to restore the hearts of the princesses of the Disney world (Cinderella, Snow White, Jasmine, etc.) that were stolen by the heartless. Your son would play through these different Disney worlds, killing the heartless and saving different princesses. I don't remember an exact scene of a heart being cut out, though the game is a bit 'darker' than you might expect Disney to put it's stamp on. But the game is also rated "E for Everyone". As an adult gamer, I take the ESRB ratings very seriously. I do understand how and why he might be a bit frightened by the game, but coming from a "gamer" who is a huge fan of the parental ratings system, I support this game fully and recommend it to many people with children about the same age as your little one. It's the kind of game that parents and kids can have fun with together -- I'm almost thirty and I put this near the top of my list of 'must play' games, though it is at it's heart a children's game. Sorry to hear it's giving him frights -- it's really quite a fantastic game. Let me know if there's anything else you want to know. Just know that the basic premise of the game is rooted in Disney, the moral is to keep on doing what feels right and good will win over evil all the time.
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Escapee
Member
06-15-2004
| Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 3:46 pm
Anyone else have a baby that's allergic to milk?
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 3:51 pm
Two of them, plus both my nieces. It's a pretty expensive allergy, especially if they don't outgrow it.
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Cinnamongirl
Member
01-10-2001
| Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 4:00 pm
Interesting read on milk allergy.... http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/medical/allergies/milk_allergy.html
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Escapee
Member
06-15-2004
| Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 4:29 pm
DD2 is either allergic or lactose intolerant, I suspect the first because even lactose free gives her diarrhea. It is a very expensive allergy and I have read so much about how bad soy is for kids. What to do, what to do.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-31-2000
| Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 4:36 pm
My son had a problem with lots of food as a baby. So badly that even if I drank milk when he was being breastfed, it gave him gas. He went on soy at 4 months and stayed on that till 1 year of age and was a much happy camper. I haven't seen any long term damage, FWIW.
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Scooterrific
Member
07-08-2005
| Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 4:59 pm
Well Escapee...take her to the doctor for testing. I'm sure they can provide you with all sorts of solutions, once they know what it is.
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Julieboo
Member
02-05-2002
| Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 5:01 pm
Why is soy bad for kids? Yeah, I am sure your pediatrician is the one with the answer.
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 5:11 pm
I'd take her to her ped and discuss with them. But I can tell you some kids you just need to keep trying til you find the right formula that works for them. Caleb was pretty easy, we switched to a soy, low iron formula and that worked greatfor him. Dakota we had to try three different formulas to find one that didn't make her gassy, constipated, or give her diarrhea (all of this was dr recommend btw.) My youngest niece went through pretty much every type of formula out there before they found something that worked for her. It gets easier once they get out of the formula stage. Caleb and my oldest niece outgrew theirs and can have all kinds of dairy stuff. Dakota never did, though she can have very small portions, half a cup of milk every few days or a small scoop of ice cream. She's still likely to end up with a tummy ache, but she likes chocolate milk at school on Fridays and an occassional ice cream cone. Youngest niece is only 3 but seems to be following Dakota in that more than a little bit of milk/ milk products makes her sick. It sucks cuz Kota has to have lactose free milk, which costs $3.99 a half gallon and she goes through 2 or 3 a week. I have to be careful of stuff I buy, checking for milk, and finding alternatives (I joke that I'm probably the only mom around who searches out cheese thats mostly oil based rather than made with real milk, lol.) And then dealing with tummy aches when she unknowingly or unthinkingly has something with milk in it. Oh and missed school. She was in maybe first grade when I got a call from the school nurse who was just furious. She had Kota in her office, sick as can be with stomach cramps and diarrhea. I asked if something was going around and she said no they fed her cheese pizza at lunch! All of a sudden I understood her anger, when she enters her pin number in the pad at school the cafeteria worker gets flashed a message on her computer screen that Dakota's not to have dairy except for on Fridays with chocolate milk and even then they're supposed to ask her if she's had milk at home. Let me add both Darren and I were on soy formula as babies. He was able to drink milk eventually, but I never could and still can't and most of my childhood was filled with soy (which I hate, lol!) No long term effects here. I would definitely discuss with her doctor though, especially if you have concerns with soy. They can also help guide you towards a formula that will work best for her and suggestions on how to help her best. My youngest niece for example, they were told when she was pretty young (maybe 3 or 4 months old) to give her a water/prune juice bottle heated up once a day to help with constipation and to give her the all natural gas drops.
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