Gorgeous!

This is something I need and it wasn't on my list. I have books on several subjects that I've bought as multi-year sets. Thanks for reminding me.

I'd love that poster for my schoolroom. Where can I get it?

You give me hope. :D

It always amazes me when people say it's ok to cut off healthy pieces of a child's penis without anesthesia because he won't remember it later. That's like saying it's ok to do do surgery without anesthesia on an Alzheimer patient because he won't remember it later.

I was.

You've got your baby girl! Congratulations -- she's adorable!

It's sort of a toss-up. I've been more sensitive lately since he shows signs of needing privacy. On the other hand, he'll walk across the house completely naked, stand there and have a conversation with me with all the family jewels out for display, then suddenly put both hands in front of his privates and back away like he just remembered. :tongue_smilie: I'm thinking this is a sign of puberty too.

I love this idea. Who do you sell your garments to? Do you sell online, or locally? Word of mouth? I'm a website and graphic designer. I've had my own company for almost 15 years, although I've slowed down the past five after I started homeschooling. I work sporadically when a new client comes along, usually not more than 10-20 hours per week, sometimes not at all. It does not interfere with my homeschooling -- I've been doing it so long that it's easy for me to tuck in an hour here and there and complete a project on time.

That can only work if you let her. Long ago I made a firm decision not to let family dictate holidays to me. It almost got me divorced and I saved my marriage by just saying no to pushy in-laws. It's worked for many, many years. If my MIL tells me she's buying the ham for Easter, I'd smile and tell her, "Gosh, let me know how it turns out."

What's up with this? He'll be 11 in a couple of months. I just went into his room to make sure he hadn't kicked off his comforter, and noticed how his upper lip is really dark when you see it from a certain angle. I've been noticing this for a few weeks now. I don't see any dark hair on his legs or armpits, but he's taken to covering his "privates" when I walk into the room (which is new), so I don't if there's hair anywhere else. Is this too young? My eldest is a girl, so I'm new to male puberty. Aren't boys supposed to start much later than this?

Computers, Netflix, Internet service -- they can't study without that.

An orphanage has collapsed with all the children in it. I think I'm going to be sick.

I hear you. :) That's why I'm walking a fine line here. I know he's cognitively capable, but I'm not certain that he's emotionally able. I want to help him become independent without setting unrealistic goals. Thank you, everyone, for your feedback so far. I always get good advise here.

There's a very large Haitian-American community here in Miami. They're a pretty proactive community, so hopefully tomorrow they'll have collection places where I can drop off blankets, food, checks, whatever. I feel awful for these people. How many people are going to spend the night tonight not knowing if someone they love very much is alive, or dead, or just trapped under rubble hoping to be found. What a catastrophe.

That will never happen in this country in your lifetime or mine. IMO, the atmosphere in this country right now is as nationalistic as was Germany in the 1930's.

My nephew had a pronounced lisp when he was younger. He had delayed speech and we figured he would outgrow it. By third grade it was unresolved and he'd say things like "funder" instead of "thunder." It was very noticeable. When it became apparent that he wasn't going to outgrow it, my sister went to school and had him evaluated and put in speech therapy. (Tell me three teachers during three consecutive years didn't notice.) He did speech therapy for a year or two and his speech cleared up completely. It was provided by the public school system and didn't cost anything. He is 25, married, and speaks perfectly now. This is my only experience with speech therapy for kids, but in our case it was a 100% solution.

I have pictures and witnesses. ;)

I would never gift this book. If the conversation came up, I might recommend it, but nothing more. It's too creepy.

One time when ds was just shy of six, we watched a video about ballistics and weapons fire. It was some medieval history program about warfare. He was very taken by it. He talked about it all evening. The next day I walked into his room and there was pee everywhere. I asked him what had happened, and he told me that he had been trying for some particular dispersal patterns he'd seen the day before. He'd pissed all over the wall, in his closet, all over one corner of his bed, and on the window sill. Basically a 360 degree dispersal pattern. I had to rip out the carpets and re-floor his room. You should be happy yours is a girl.

Our ds (10.75) sleeps about 10 hours each night. He gets to bed around 10, and wakes up by himself (no alarm clock) around 8 or 8:30.

Ds will basically stop working if I'm not right there with him. For example, if I give him two pages of practice problems to do for math, he'll get up and come find me after every problem. I've asked him repeatedly to save it and show me the whole thing, but it seems like he's incapable of sitting still and doing an entire page without getting up and wondering off to find me. He'll come and ask me for instructions. When I ask him if he read the instructions on the paper, he'll look at me like I just landed in a space ship. If I'm right there with him, then he'll start a conversation about something completely unrelated. It seems that I'm constantly having to direct him back to his work. He's always polite and gentle when I ask him to go back to work, but it lasts exactly three minutes. He's not normally clingy and when he's playing he could care less where I am or what I'm doing. I thought he'd outgrow this, but he's just as demanding of attention as he was last year. I'm really starting to see this as a work ethic issue, and that is something that needs to be addressed. I don't remember having to give his sister formal lessons in working independently. When she was in fifth grade, I could give her a list of things to do, give her the instructions required, and send her off to complete her assignments. How can I teach her brother to do the same?:banghead:

Thank you, guys. Seeing your schedules is helping me see that we really aren't biting off too much. We have a time leak somewhere and I need to work on streamlining this. Part of the problem is that ds will basically stop working if I'm not right there with him. For example, if I give him two pages of practice problems to do for math, he'll get up and come find me after every problem. I've asked him repeatedly to save it and show me the whole thing, but it seems like he's incapable of sitting still and doing an entire page without getting up and wondering off to find me. If I'm right there with him, then he'll start a conversation about something completely unrelated. It seems that I'm constantly having to direct him back to his work. That's pretty draining. Blah!:banghead:

Thanks! This sort of thing sort of is just exactly his thing. Great resource.

My ds is a geek. He comes by it honestly -- both his mother and his father are professional geeks. Ds has been experimenting with Gary's Mod and other game development and game-modding software. He loves it more than anything. It's his current obsession. I know he's learning important skills, but I have no idea how to channel this obsession and leverage it to the advantage of his schooling. Dh has suggested that I assign a report on his current project, but I know that will just ruin it for ds. I guess part of this is my need to justify him sitting at his computer an hour a day building worlds and games without my being able to capture it and put it in his portfolio for his evaluation this year, and his permanent record. I have that nagging feeling that if it can't go in the portfolio, it's time wasted. :tongue_smilie: The other part is that I see a missed opportunity here and I can't get a handle on it. If he loves gaming and design so much, is there something I can do to use that love to build on his other subjects? Can you tell I'm reaching here? I'd appreciate any advise or comments. TIA.