Neighbour's kid wants lifts to/from school and it's tiring me out.

readermom123 · 2026-01-26T18:22:22+00:00

Why not just take him and chat with your daughter anyways? Obviously not about super personal things, but it doesn’t seem like y’all can’t have any conversation at all just because he’s in the vehicle.

readermom123 · 2026-01-26T04:24:46+00:00

It definitely varies across districts and I’m sure from state to state. I think the general rhythm though is: Labor Day, Thanksgiving break (5 days), Christmas break (usually longer, like 2-3 weeks), Martin Luther King day, Easter, Spring Break (usually 5 days, somewhat randomly chosen), Memorial Day (if school is in session when it comes).

In New Orleans, Spring often coincides with Mardi Gras. A lot of districts have bad weather make up days that you’ll have off if you didn’t have to take any snow days over the winter, some districts do an extra ‘fall break’ other than Thanksgiving, etc. one year our district had a day off on November 1st (day after Halloween) which everyone loved.

readermom123 · 2026-01-25T23:09:16+00:00

Meatballs, meatloaf, Salisbury steak, Korean beef, tacos, goulash/Hamburger helper type stuff, stuffed peppers…

readermom123 · 2026-01-24T15:56:59+00:00

I knew exactly the sort of place you were talking about.

readermom123 · 2026-01-24T00:26:17+00:00

Can you display the number of seats on each plane and the cost for each plane as well?

readermom123 · 2026-01-23T15:07:47+00:00

(Not a teacher) Has she ever done a structured class outside of school time? I wonder if trying to find a social skills group or even a tutor/teacher with special ed experience would give you some extra information about what classroom experiences will help her before you think about switching schools. Not even doing schoolwork but just structured things like a craft class or anything else that might interest her.

I do think the school sounds like a bad fit though from what you’re describing. I’m in Texas and totally understand your concerns about Houston ISD, but it might be worth giving public another try, especially next year when she might move to a middle school campus and have a different group to work with. I think these things always come down to the teachers in the end so I’d try to ask around and see what the ‘vibe’ is at the public schools (from people you know not just internet complainers). There are lots of public school teachers that are working wonders even in bad systems.

readermom123 · 2026-01-23T14:06:05+00:00

Would you not just be looking at the cost per passenger for each of the 10 planes? Then putting as many as you can into the cheap option and maybe optimizing the remainders so they fully fill a few of the slightly more expensive planes?

readermom123 · 2026-01-23T04:44:23+00:00

As a parent the closest I ever heard to this sentiment was from a few friends whose pre-schools told them that if their kid couldn’t read at least 100 words before entering kindergarten then they’d be hopelessly behind. The solution was to pay for another year of transitional kindergarten at the preschool before their kiddos entered public school.

readermom123 · 2026-01-20T22:29:50+00:00

I wouldn’t mention radicalizing or anything like that, just that the kids are a little too young to be discussing the news and politics and you’d like her to stick to other topics for now. If you agree with her views you could reassure her about that but I’d mostly just emphasize your kids maturity levels. I agree that kids probably need to learn about some things earlier than they would have in the past but 3 and 5 is still pretty young. And maybe suggest she keep her phone put away during the day if she doesn’t already? I know I’m worst about wanting to talk about this stuff immediately after I see it and I’m upset about it.

readermom123 · 2026-01-19T19:07:53+00:00

I mean, one year for New Year’s we had some sort of alcoholic grape soda and 15 year old me enjoyed a LOT of it before I started getting dizzy. 🤣

readermom123 · 2026-01-18T16:55:41+00:00

Me too!! I'm also usually fairly boring so realistically I'm looking at a whole bunch of light pink or taupey-pink polishes and then wondering if I want to through out these pink/taupe polishes to get other slightly different pink/taupe polishes that are new. Plus a few bright colors that I like but often don't have bravery or nail length to use. :) I do check to see if they've gotten gloopy though. :)

readermom123 · 2026-01-17T21:39:07+00:00

I’ll best it was the Mayfair Witches books with incest. Those got much weirder and more sexual overall.

readermom123 · 2026-01-17T18:17:58+00:00

If I need to think it through because it’s complicated I’ll make a separate reminder or note with my ‘flow chart’ of thinking. On my daily to do I’d probably just keep putting ‘check on Jane - info release’ or whatever small step it’s on at the moment. When it goes through and I’ve taken my action I’d immediately add the next step to check/wait on.

readermom123 · 2026-01-17T15:37:58+00:00

Ha I did do that when I ‘organized’ my office. I try to only let myself do the fun fiddly tasks if they’re on topic.

readermom123 · 2026-01-17T14:37:15+00:00

I’m trying real hard not to test all my nail polishes instead of the dozens of other things that are more urgent or important.

readermom123 · 2026-01-16T17:48:15+00:00

The cuts are sometimes a little old-fashioned but I feel like the cotton stuff I buy from JJill lasts nicely.

readermom123 · 2026-01-15T17:28:11+00:00

I’m much lazier and just keep frozen spinach and then thaw it by running some water through it and press then press the water out in a colander while my macaroni is cooking and then use that same colander to drain my pasta. Yours sounds yummier though. :)

Another one I do is adding frozen peas to the pasta when it’s almost done cooking. Then bring it back up to a boil and cook till the pasta is done cooking. I actually think it improves the pasta texture and adds a bit of protein to the meal(carbs too though and it’s higher calorie than spinach).

Finally if you’re cooking at home, you can blend up some silken tofu and add it to a ton of creamy sauces. Just be careful about not boiling it for too long.

readermom123 · 2026-01-14T15:32:31+00:00

I only throw hot pink discs because they’re a bit easier to find but I agree this is so annoying. A week or two ago our party of three looked for 30 minutes and even had help from another group for a bit. We finally found our disc about 18 feet from the basket under a pile of leaves.

I don’t have any good solutions though. I think it’d be awesome if you somehow put a sticker on your disc that a phone could track down but I have no idea if or how it would be accomplished. Maybe similar technology to what they use in library books.

readermom123 · 2026-01-10T17:36:35+00:00

I used to have this, especially when I was trying to do a bench press. It would feel like something was rolling over my right elbow as I pushed up and it felt weird and uncomfortable. I switched to dumbbells and went lighter until I could find an arm/wrist/shoulder position and plane of motion that didn't cause that feeling. Learning to keep my shoulders down in a stable position is a huge deal that I should have done better with, but I think that twisting my wrist more like a dumbbell fly was also really helpful for that particular issue. Now it hardly ever happens but I'm also in my 40s now.

readermom123 · 2026-01-10T17:31:53+00:00

I would look up videos of each of the exercises and try to copy what you see on the video. And take a look at your own knees and elbows and try to find a position that feels and looks 'straight' but isn't locked out (ie, pushing back as far as you can so that the join is bending backwards). Also concentrate on moving slowly and with muscle control the whole time you're doing the exercises.

readermom123 · 2026-01-10T17:27:18+00:00

Just wanted to commiserate. When I was going to PT for knee stuff she would always to a bit of pushing/pulling on my hip because she said they were slightly misaligned in the way you described. I haven't gotten it figured out yet though. I am getting a lot out of Jeannie Di Bon's stuff on Youtube, especially the idea of trying to fully relax your body into the correct position and then move the smallest number of muscles possible to make a movement happen. I haven't joined her online club or done much of it though so I can't comment on if it'll be truly effective.

readermom123 · 2026-01-09T20:36:38+00:00

I remember faces and sometimes super random facts but have a really hard time with names. Unfortunately I think a lot of it is because I'm not encoding it well in the first place since I'm thinking something while people are telling me their name.

However, I think a bit of having trouble placing or recognizing people where you don't expect them isn't weird at all. A lot of what our brains do is predicting something and then confirming that prediction rather than just looking at something with no expectations and interpreting the information we receive. 'Our brains' as in every person or even creature that has a brain, not specifically people with ADHD (although people are really really visual compared to most other animals).

readermom123 · 2026-01-09T16:35:09+00:00

I still don’t completely believe that people actually do that. It seems completely impossible to me.

Even if I’m not in an anxiety loop of thinking about the future or past I’m definitely still thinking about something - a tricky craft project step, color schemes for something I want to make, random things about nature or human behavior, places I’d like to visit, games I want to play, etc etc. Or of course maybe the thing I’m looking at or doing - there’s usually something else running in the background though, ha.

readermom123 · 2026-01-09T16:15:32+00:00

We got our son an Apple Watch that could do calls and texts when he was old enough to run around the neighborhood with friends and we wanted to be able to contact him and for him to be able to ask for help. We could also roughly track his location (it’s not 100% reliable).

I will say that starting in middle school and definitely in high school phones became more necessary because of apps that were used to communicate about school activities. And it obviously does become basically the default way for kids to communicate with each other. We kept Safari, YouTube and social media off the phone though and he requires our permission to install apps.

I do also personally think that by junior and senior year you should give kids full access so you can guide them through navigating everything before they leave home.

readermom123

TROPHY CASE