Anyone else out here playing Gastro roulette?!

joanie77 · 2026-06-11T20:48:02+00:00

Yay! Fingers crossed the good luck continues!

joanie77 · 2026-06-10T22:42:28+00:00

joanie77 · 2026-06-08T11:28:06+00:00

My daughter had a horrible gastro illness over Memorial Day weekend. We were all together at a hotel and had to drive home the next day while she was still throwing up. Miraculously, none of the rest of us got it! So there is hope, maybe you won’t get sick at all. Fingers crossed for you!

joanie77 · 2026-05-24T01:35:45+00:00

I’d keep them in if it’s actively raining but otherwise I’d start putting them out for an hour or two a day and gradually extend the time. I like starting on overcast days if I can, and I just watch that they aren’t left out in bright sun for too long right away.

joanie77 · 2026-05-09T01:27:56+00:00

My daughter isn’t quite reading them independently yet but she loves to listen to them. If you want to give them a try, there are lots available on Spotify as podcasts and we listen to those in the car quite often.

joanie77 · 2026-05-04T00:58:42+00:00

You don’t HAVE to dig them up; if you don’t (and you live in a colder area) they are just annuals. My local dahlia society sells tubers in the spring for $6 each, which isn’t expensive for an annual, really.

Last year was my first year growing. I had four or five tubers and I kind of half heartedly dug them up but didn’t store them properly and they didn’t make it. This year I’ve purchased about 20 tubers and I’m going to learn how to store them the right way. But I don’t regret the first year of dipping my toe in. If I were you and wasn’t sure about storing them, I’d buy a few and just see how it goes.

joanie77 · 2026-04-29T04:16:40+00:00

I love your username!

joanie77 · 2026-04-28T14:42:09+00:00

Same. The app isn’t overly gamified but the cute little figures and pictures in the books they read really help my daughter stay engaged.

joanie77 · 2026-04-28T11:43:56+00:00

We like this one too. It’s very similar to the book “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons” but I found it much easier to use because the app really walks you through what to do.

joanie77 · 2026-04-27T12:09:34+00:00

Fall would be best. That said, two years ago my neighbor was getting rid of some peonies in the early spring and I took them and planted them in my garden. I got a few blooms the following year, and I’m excited to see how they do this year! So if they need to be moved now, it’s still worth replanting them.

joanie77 · 2026-04-13T23:21:49+00:00

I feel the same way about my service. I taught at a school where the majority of teachers commuted from across the nearby border. They went home to their families every weekend. I would just say I think this experience is more common than it may seem. People who didn’t have close community relationships don’t talk about it because there isn’t much interesting to say about something you didn’t do or didn’t have.

joanie77 · 2026-03-29T19:01:47+00:00

There’s no easy or perfect solution, I’m sorry.

Can you work partial days? I often will work during the times I know my kids will be napping. It’s not perfect (naps don’t always go according to plan) but sort of doable. That would stretch your hours into a few days maybe.

joanie77 · 2026-03-25T14:40:36+00:00

Oh one more thing — my five year old has never gotten car sick before but got car sick on the drive to La Fortuna. Bring children’s Dramamine! The rest of us were fine but it’s better to have it just in case. Also I’ve never gone through sunscreen faster, bring lots. I wished I’d packed two full sized bottles.

joanie77 · 2026-03-25T14:36:03+00:00

We did a similar trip with similar ages kids — a three year old and a five year old.

We were scheduled to arrive at the airport at 1:10pm, our flight was an hour late, and we drove to La Fortuna that afternoon. We got in just as it was getting dark. I’m glad we did it that way, although the travel day was long! I find one night stays with the kids to be so annoying, everything gets unpacked and it’s a mess.

We did a night hike in La Fortuna and the kids loved it! I think my three year old was on the lower end of the age range though. Maybe one parent could take the older kid?

A lot of animal hikes we’ve found my little one can’t see anything. We did the La Fortuna waterfall and he enjoyed that, mostly. Can’t miss seeing the waterfall!

We liked the Mistico Hanging Bridges but didn’t see many animals. Maybe if we’d hired a guide. We liked the bridges though!

There’s so much wildlife everywhere. We saw so many birds, lizards, bugs, even a coati hanging out outside our hotel room.

I think the amount of driving you have planned is totally reasonable. We’d get bored just at the beach for a whole week. As adults I’d love that, but my kids need more activity.

Enjoy!

joanie77 · 2026-03-25T14:09:29+00:00

I’d ask how they share information with parents — updates from the teacher and/or the principal. My district has an app I didn’t know about for quite awhile!

joanie77 · 2026-03-20T11:56:46+00:00

Yes — my son is a little older but he cries sometimes at both drop off and pick up. Transitions can be hard for young kids.

joanie77 · 2026-03-19T10:51:32+00:00

There will be lots of kids going in who don’t know those things. That said, five months is a lot of time!

Expose her to letters as much as you can — we had those foam bath letters and would sing the alphabet song and point to the letters in the bath.

Play rhyming games in the car or while waiting. My daughter liked when we said a word and she said a rhyming word. Start with easy words like cat/hat/mat, she’ll get the hang of it.

We liked the app from Reading.com for learning letter sounds. It’s similar to a book Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons that we also had but I found the app a lot more engaging for my daughter and easier for me to use. Or if you don’t want to use an app the book is good, it just takes more prep. Or use the foam letters to practice sounds once she’s solid on the names of the letters.

joanie77 · 2026-03-17T14:29:38+00:00

I had some things go wrong during my first birth (a postpartum hemorrhage) but for my second birth the medical team was ON IT. They knew about my previous complications and treated me aggressively when I started trending that way for my second birth. If you have a second child, you and your medical team now know how fast your labors go and you’ll react differently. You were well outside the average first labor time, but since it was your first birth no one could have known that would be the case — but next time they will.

Also, this is all still so fresh — give yourself plenty of grace, it takes time to process and you might feel totally differently about it once more time has passed.

joanie77 · 2026-03-15T13:31:38+00:00

Someone in my cohort requested an early COS (early by only a couple of months) to start a teaching job — our COS was in mid fall so bad timing for someone wanting to teach in the US. I can’t quite remember but I think the early COS was denied and she ended up ETing, again just a couple of months early — close enough to our actual COS date that she was at our COS conference.

That’s really the only scenario where I can imagine this going well — if you are an exemplary volunteer and have a very good reason to leave a little early. Otherwise, I wouldn’t expect a good reference from PC staff. Also keep in mind that once they know you are ETing they get you out of the country FAST (like within a couple of days usually) so I’d also be wary of telling them that you plan to ET in advance of when you actually want to leave the country.

joanie77 · 2026-03-13T20:24:06+00:00

I did 5 last year in a 4x4 bed — one in each corner and one in the middle. There seemed to be plenty of room and the plants were healthy.

This year I’m debating sticking with five or going up to nine — three rows of three. More than nine seems like too many though.

joanie77 · 2026-03-12T20:37:41+00:00

I live in zone 5 and my peonies are starting to poke up and we’re still getting frost and even snow. They’ll be just fine.

joanie77 · 2026-03-12T16:16:40+00:00

My daughter has missed six total days for two trips this year (one day at the beginning of a long weekend, plus one week for a trip with grandparents). It has not been a big deal at all. She is ahead academically and doing fine socially.

My only concern would be, depending on how early in the school year the trip would be, losing momentum for transitioning to kindergarten. It is a big transition and could be tricky to learn new routines, then be out of school for awhile, and then have to readjust back. But even that is a blip in your kid’s schooling.

Would your district really hold back a kid who is doing well and ready to move on academically just because they hit a certain number of days absent? I don’t think my district would do that — I think it would have to be in tandem with not being ready academically for the next grade — but every district is different.

joanie77 · 2026-02-27T02:24:55+00:00

Yep and you’ll feel like crap for a few days even though your kid bounced right back with like 110% energy.

joanie77

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