OK, in response to the request for the name of the med, I found out that I apparently saw something that looked more official than it actually was, and that altho there are anecdotal reports, one might say that the benefits outweigh the dangers, as long as one pays some sort of attention. Sorry about that, all. I will have to remember this and never take the word of one official-looking document on the web again!!! (I am very embarrassed)

Two of my children were dxed by a nurse practicioner with asthma just because they had one episode with minor wheeziness. Even my older son, who has had wheeziness with colds for many years, was not dxed with asthma by the doctor. None of the children has ever had a bad episode with asthma (the doctor said if my son's ever got worse than what it is that he would up the dx to asthma). So what I am wondering is if there is something else that could have caused that one-time wheeziness in my children, because the NP wants to treat them aggressively, but the meds actually don't make any difference in them, except for that one time when they were actually sick. The med she wanted them to be taking all the time turns out now to occasionally cause psychosis in children (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) so I am very glad I took them off it. I would take them to our old doctor, but he moved :( Thanks vor any help anyone may be able to give :)

Thanks to both of you, Peela and Kalanamak :) Peela, that is a great idea about keeping the drill work with the subject: you are right: I have tended to do it all at the same time. I am not good at making things fun, but I think I will put more of the work of reviewing it on the children (so they are doing it with each other rather than having me involved) and pass along your suggestions to them. Kalanamak, That is a very good point. Looking back, I see that having routines instead of schedules didn't really work because they always knew that they would get the free time they were going to get no matter what. So I will be stricter about time in the future :)

This is a totally different topic, and may have already been covered before, but maybe your sisters could do more to help your parents? It seems lke you live near your parents and your sisters live far away, but they could get together and arrange for some help. Also, if you have Meals On Wheels, I don't know how they work everywhere else, but it sounds like your parents would qualify if they lived here.

Just wanted to add one note about Ecclesiastical pronunciation: there are some US sites which say that the accented e should be pronounced /ay/. However, in most of the world, this is not the case, e continues to be pronounced as a short e (/e/ as in red), so I emphasize that this is how it should be pronounced to my children. It's the difference between Yay–soos and Ye–soos (Jesus). Maybe I'm just a bit of a nut...

This has been perhaps my most major problem teaching, which is that my children get bored with the drills and stuff we have to do every day. Multiplication, grammar, that sort of thing. They get bored and I figure that I'm doing something wrong so I try to change it and then we get into a muddle. So, rather than go that route again this year, I'd rather figure out how to just accept that it's going to happen and keep myself from drifting off track. Any advice? Thanks very much :)

Thanks very much :) I'm not sure what we'll do, I guess just switch back to Saxon for this child, who really likes Saxon a lot and is happy to be back. It's amazing how different children can be from their very own parents :lol

The way Saxon used to have their books, there was no geometry. So, there was Alg 1, Alg 2, and Advanced Math. Do Alg 1 and 2 cover Alg 1 and 2 and geometry, or do they leave out some of the Alg 2? (I'm confused because they're already getting into trig... I am sooooo confused. I hate Saxon, it seems so disorganized to me, but my children are happy with it, so we keep plugging away). And what would Advanced Math have been? Pre calc? finishing up Alg 2? Thanks very much :)

My mother can't believe how much we are depriving our children: first homeschooling, then no cable!!!!! Nya ha ha... I'll have to get her this book...

I have lived in the city and now I live in the country, and I grew up in the suburbs. And it seems like you have the same thing all over; it's not limited to one system. Yes! I think it would be great if we were to change the K–12 system so that the resources we have already set up could be shared with the adults. One of the points that I made that was lost was that when I went to CC as a high school senior, I was surrounded by people who actually wanted to get an education, and a lot of whom were enthusiastic about what they were learning! Plus there were more male teachers, and I don't care how un-PC this is, it makes a difference with the boys over 13 or 14 or so. I'm at the point where I'm beginning to think that all testing is driving education too much. Too much rests on the tests, and I think that the reason we need testing as our accountability measure is that the control has been taken from localities and put into the hands of people who are very busy and very far away. Now, about that teacher comment, which I did not make, I think she may have been referring to the higher-ups in the system, but I would like to comment on Myrtle's quote about Mary Ann Coreley, that she wants to teach teachers to "Have the 'courage to teach' antiracist and anticlassist curricula ...provide professional development for instructors to help them explore issues of poverty, racism, cultural dominance, power, and internalized oppression..." I always remember one thing I heard many, many years ago about Spanish radio and TV. In the area in which I lived, almost all the Spanish media was owned by one or two people, and that was that in this type of situation, the media was almost always slanted very heavily to the Left, and that there was a certain amount of mutual backscratching between certain politicians and the media owners who "delivered" the votes. Considering that you mentioned how adult ed includes citizenship classes as well as ESL, I'd say that there's quite possibly an element in the entire adult ed system which pushes in that direction politically. OTOH, that same sort of thing is going on in the K–12 schools, so I don't think it's really a factor in this. Every so often I drive by the multi-million dollar school complex, usually on the weekends. And it is empty. Think of how it would be if we combined the adult ed with the high school, or the last two grades of high school, and allowed kids to take classes at off-hours and adults to take the classes they need which are already being taught, or which are easily expanded. And if we relaxed restrictions on teachers so we could draw upon a wider range of people to teach, esp retirees. It just seems to me that there are a lot of scattered resources and unused people... I guess that's probably too utopian, tho.

Astrid, I wrote a wonderful and extremely profound response to your very informative post... and it got lost in cyberspace. Anyway, thank you for your great post. I did not know that adult ed encompassed so much. I am not so much against adult ed as I am against setting up (or vastly expanding) on the Federal level yet another system of something that is not in their purview, and I think that the Council could have suggested a full review and overhaul of how we educate K–12, considering that over 40% who pass through this incredibly extensive and forceful process are, in effect, "failed products" of that system. Obviously immigrants who came here when older are in a different category, but even those whose family lives are disruptive could be educated in a way more conducive to their actually learning, and surely those whom we call young adults ought not to be educated in a system designed (and not all that well) for children. So, this response is not as profound or anything as my original, but I got the gist in :) (PS I was kidding about its being wonderful and profound!)

Oh, Colleen, I haven't read all the other responses, but I am in the same boat sometimes. Not necessarily with houses (altho I will avoid that thread!) but with activities and curriculae! We're far away from anywhere and on a tight budget too. We live in a 150+yo house which has very awkwardly sized rooms and only one bathroom for the 6 of us! (And so far, we have all survived) We are not country people, so even the people around here must think we're nuts and of course, they see all the mistakes I make in the garden... It is hard, but I am so blessed that we are able to homeschool... and that makes it all worthwhile (except when I forget that!)

Do you think that the fact that the government does do all these things "for the people" affects the ability of people to be self-sufficient? Like, if everyone around you is on welfare and the amount you make makes it so you aren't living as well materially? (So, aside from the fact that our income is reduced by taxation to pay for all this.)

yes, I must say that homeschooling has greatly improved my thinking :)

Sheesh!!! Hello???? We spend $9139 per pupil (this does seem to include stuff like new school buildings) as of 2002. That is over $100K per pupil for 12 years. And now the National Council on Adult Literacy wants the government to spend even more on adult education (non-pdf version with highlighting of terms). Admittedly, only $1000 per adult served per year, but with 20 million adults, that adds up to $20 billion!!!! Each year!!!! and admittedly that's a drop in the bucket compared to the annual $435.4 billion spent on childhood ed, but why is it that the same National Council which tells us the huge amounts spent over 12 years have failed now recommends more of the same????? So, for over $100,000, we get 93 out of 230 million adults who are illiterate or barely literate: And the suggestion is that in 12 years we should have geared up to provide educational services to 20 million adults every year? That means that after another 12 years, we will have been able to "serve" an additional year of education for every adult. (Not to mention that the likelihood of the expense going up is very high.) Does anyone else think that there is something seriously wrong that is not being addressed in our society? Or am I weird?

Oh, numbers 3 and 4 are coming at the same time!!! Congratulations!!!! I didn't know that, and I am sorry! I see how that would be difficult at this time.

Oh, numbers 3 and 4 are coming at the same time!!! Congratulations!!!! I didn't know that, and I am sorry! I see how that would be difficult at this time.

Hi, We have a horse and we need to pick out his feet, wash or groom him, and exercise him. So I thought that a little while before it starts to cool off in the evening, we should wash him, then pick out his feet, then exercise him. He seems a little happier about a nervous middle-aged lady picking his feet after he's been washed (ie, cooled off). But I was wondering if doing the exercise after all that would bee too much for him? Or if it should be done before we wash him, and then the washing would be like a reward? And if you could say what changes should be made for the winter (keeping in mind that we are also trying to fit in homeschooling), that would be great! Thanks very much!

I hate those Gotta-do-it hormones.

I can totally empathize, esp about the hooks-only velcro (honestly, that makes no sense!) But have you thought of teaching your 1yo not to do that? You'd have to reserve some time where that would be all you expected to accomplish, and just pull her away every time she started for the bookcase(s) and tell her no. You can then direct her to something she can play with. I taught my daughter not to touch electrical sockets, and one day I heard her saying to herself as she looked at an electrical socket in a waiting room, No. No. No. And she didn't touch it :) Also, when I was having a problem of no word spaces, I put an apology and explanation in my sig line. I still tried to get as many as I could, but was able to be less obsessive about it!

Oh, great :) It's so nice to know I'm normal, or at least within the range :wink: Thanks so much, Samantha and Melissa :) Now I understand better why I do the sorts of things that I do when I'm tense when I don't get enough sleep...

I have always been a night owl, but for some time now I have seen a pattern where I feel like I could just go right to sleep if only I could get to bed at 10:30, but since I generally have to stay up a little later, I end up wide awake, and often have trouble going to sleep before 1 am (or later :angry: ). I was just wondering if this "second wind" was normal? Thanks :)

Oh, thanks, Katie and Shelly :) this is esp good because I have some old coffee mugs that I like but we have about 30 (I have not idea how that happened) and there are only so many you can use as pencil holders! And storing stuff here and there through out the house... organizing it to be that way (as opposed to our current total lack of system) sounds terrific! Shelly, I hope I get more answers too :wink: :; Katie, hope the re-do goes well. I have a dream of just an island in mine.

You know that drawer in the kitchen that has odds and ends in it? I need a lot fo those drawers. There are so many gadgets, batteries, etc., that I don't know what to do with. I have no idea how people handle these things, and my house is driving me crazy (so I am spending three days fixing it). Thanks for any help—this place was not really made for a homeschooling family of 6, more like a boarding school family of 4 max (only one bathroom, for example).

We have a couple of shelves of videos (after 2 declutterings). We watch them so rarely, but I keep them because the older children enjoyed them and I want them available for the younger ones. Is there any way to transfer them to dvd so they won't take up so much space? Thanks :)