Your diabetes expert is right. The protein in green vegetables is negligible. I don't know anything about the guy that wrote the book, but I'd return it if the author is making wild claims like "green leafy veggies have x times more protein than meat." That's simply not true.

I love the term "child-led." Children can't lead themselves in education. If they could, they wouldn't need one. Your friend is doing her children a great disservice. One day, one of them may wish to go to college and the child will be utterly unprepared. (What do you mean I can't tell you what you teach me, and you just give me an A on it?) I know people who are not doing a liberal arts education for their children, but they're still teaching them enough content that it counts as learning. Your friend sounds like a lovely mom and a lousy teacher. Just my opinion.

Our nanny had it. She was crippled, could barely put her foot down and nothing could touch it. She went in for the surgery (outpatient) and walked out that afternoon. I mean *walked* out. According to her, she felt nothing during surgery, and after the anesthesia wore off it was just a bit annoying, but not so painful that she needed meds (although her doc prescribed them). Within a week she felt like it had never happend. She can out-hop me now.

No, wouldn't do. Some of the old girls would go on tilt. :tongue_smilie: Did you know that the link in your signature is a dead end? The Internet gremlins have been in your sigfile.

These are great ideas and I only posted a few minutes ago. This place is an encyclopedia. I'd love to hear more ideas. Our group is third to sixth graders. I'm going to teach Biology in the morning, break for lunch, and do art/art appreciation in the afternoon.

I'm teaching two co-op classes next Friday. I'm looking for ways to come together as a group at the start. Prayer is traditional, but that's not a good option for us. What activity do you plan at the very start of your meeting to get everyone into the right groove? :bigear:Thank you in advance for any ideas.:bigear:

I don't want this to be buried during the evening rush!

OY! :grouphug: Sell it! A caret solitaire will bring in several thousand dollars.

Many of us have had the kids lie under the table and draw pictures like Michelangelo did in the Sistine Chapel. This Friday I'm teaching a co-op Art Appreciation class and Michelangelo is the topic. We'll mix tempera paint with egg yolks like he did, and then do the Sistine Chapel under my table. (We did this two years ago.) Do you have any "fresh" ideas for this project? I would appreciate any ideas. Thanks.

Take your kids and go! If dh can go, wonderful. If not, take your children yourself. No point is throwing away money and disappointing the kids. If dh can't go, take a camera and document your trip. When you return, the kids can create a scrapbook for him. Go! Enjoy!

May I say, with a lot of respect and sympathy, that this is completely self`-inflicted? Your children do not need this, and keeping the louse in the house "for the kids" seems like a terrible idea. So they'll miss him. They'll get used to it. Children of divorced parents deal with it just fine. Just my opinion. But I have some experience with a waste-of-oxygen ex-husband. The only thing your kids "need" is to have him and his disruptive behavior gone for good. Having him sit there like a slug without a job, doing nothing but watching TV all day is not an example you want for your children. If you really want to do the right thing for your kids, show him the door.

No it's not. Comments like these add nothing to the conversation and serve only to fuel the bitter divide in this country. The United States is the ONLY industrialized nation that does not have universal health care. We lag behind even some African countries, and behind ALL South American countries. For our decision we have the 37th best health care system in the world and one of the lowest life expectancies among industrialized countries. That is nothing to be proud of. And you should know that as "horrible" as health care is in England, they still live longer than we do. LynnMcCormick, you should know that a fetus born at 22 weeks of gestation has 0% probability of survival. Science is simply not there yet. Do you really belive doctors didn't treat this child because it was too expensive? They would have tortured that innocent child with needles, tubes, cut holes in it to find veins and arteries, and for what? Please tell us exactly what kind of treatment you would have wanted for this child in view of the fact that there is none.

If you can't find a curriculum you like, you can still print anything you find online. Find what you like and download it to your computer. Once there, you can upload to a print service like Kinkos.com and they'll have it printed for you in hours. If uploading it is not convenient, save it to a disk or thumb drive and walk into any print service shop, including OfficeDepot and OfficeMax. I bet Staples also, but I haven't done it there. My house got hit by lightning years ago and it took out my printer while I was in the middle of a print-intensive project. I got really good at getting stuff printed without a printer at home. Almost forgot -- Kinko's has an educator's discount of 15%. Their website changed recently so I don't have the link for the registration. If you can't find it and need it, PM me and I'll find it.

Instead of using a "set" of readers, I just identify books by reading level and turn them into our readers. First, go here: http://www.renlearn.com/store/quiz_home.asp This place will give you the level of almost every children's book out there. You can look for "series" and "reading lists,". This year, for example, I found that Mike Venezia's series on the U.S. presidents are leveled between 5.0 and 5.9. These are our readers for the year. There are 43 books - perhaps 44 by the end of the year. It takes us three days to read each one. They're leveled and it counts as American History. I've been sorting books by level for three years at this site. I love it. "Readers" are rarely quality literature. Instead, we do it backwards. We find quality books, level them and use them when we're there.

Good grief. For a "bad" mom, you sure seem to be working hard to help your child. Your job is not to be perfect. Your job is to do the absolute best you can do for each of your children and it seems that that is just what you've been doing. Don't beat yourself up. This is just another stone in your path. We all have them. Hang in there.

And this affects you how? Her tantrum is between her and her therapist. NOT your problem.

Do it on Thursdays. It's the day that fits most people. Why sacrifice the people who show commitment in favor of somebody who barely engages? Announce the meetings for Thursdays.

Nothing yet. I'm on zone 10 and my grow season begins in mid-October. I dig out my last crops in May, although I've had tomatoes stick it out until early June. Last year I had a bumper crop of weeds. It was my first year growing crops directly in the ground. The weeds were brutal. This year we're going back to 8 X 4 X 12" raised beds. Dh will build them at the start of October and I should have my first crop of "winter" veggies in by mid-October. This year I'll plant: Tomatoes (slicing and cherry) Peppers (mostly sweet, some hot) Carrots Beets Cabbage Lettuce and salad herbs Pole beans Bush beans Squash Cucumbers Peas Strawberries Onions (last year's were delicious) Mulberries (our tree has fruit practically year round) Avocados (amazing -- best I've had, the tree is full of them now) Bananas (our tree is small, we should see the first hands this year) Mango (the last hurricane took our mango and mamey, but we're replacing the mango this year) And my herb garden: Parsley (curly, flat, and purple) Sage Rosemary Basil Mint (for tea) Catnip (for the cat!)

I'm so sorry for your loss. Our dogs are family, and I'd be a cripple right now if I'd had to put one of my girls down. My thoughts are with you and your family. :grouphug:

Pull her out of public school and graduate her yourself. This happens in a lot of places. Kids either go to high school all the way, or just don't graduate. Here in Florida, homeschooled kids can do dual enrollment at college. By the time they're of high school graduation age, they already have an associate's degree. Who needs a high school degree then? Another option is to have her sit for the GED exam. If your state's GED exam is anything like Florida's, an eighth grader can pass it. Sad but true. That's why we homescool.

Diary of a Wimpy kid. It's perfect boy humor. My 9-year-old loved the three books so much he asked for the blank journal (from the same author) and has begun writing. For a reluctant reader and writer, that's awesome news.

My in-laws had many questions and doubts. They were very tactful and respectful, but I could see they were clearly worried. This is how I handle it. Every month, ds and I collect his best and most interesting work, scan it and send it to Grandma. This is five or six pages, with a cover letter from the sprout. She gets updated with his progress regularly. Within a few months she was enthusing and bragging about her homeschooled grandson to anybody that would listen. She realizes that her grandson is getting a far better education than he ever will in ps or even in many private schools. Every year I make a copy of ds's portfolio, have it bound like a book, and send it to Grandma. (I have several copies made -- I keep one and share with other family members.) The portfolio includes his entire curriculum, artwork, beautiful samples of his work, portions of his history and science notebooks, music and sports, photos, field trip reports, etc. It's an amazing keepsake and a year-to-year record of his education. Nobody can argue with that. ;)

I got pregnant with my youngest when I was 43. I almost keeled over when the doctor told me. It was a better pregnancy and childbirth than my first. I had a home birth, easy as those things go. I have more patience and less energy than I did with my first. I have a lot more experience and ds benefits from that. In our case, I also have the benefit of modeling mothering skills to my daughter now that she's older. Very soon she'll have her own children and she's been watching me raise her brother for the past 10 years. More and more women are having children in their 40's. It doesn't seem to be much different than having them in your 30's. I think it's fine for a woman in her 40's to have children if she can afford to and is prepared to raise children for the next 25 years.

My daughter, who is now 27, wore a Pavlik Harness. She was born with bi-lateral hip dysplasia and wore it for 6 months. My one concern are the x-rays. Mind you, this was 27 years ago, but we had to go in every couple of months and have her hips x-rayed. I don't know if they use x-rays anymore -- perhaps there is a safer way to monitor this now. If they still use x-rays, you want to be sure that your child has as few as possible. Be proactive on this. Once she was fitted for the harness, she had to wear it day and night. I only removed her feet from the little stirrups for baths and diaper changes. It was heartbreaking for me. And every minute I let her little legs free was a source of angst and guilt. I cried a lot. It did not appear to bother her at all. She never cried or fussed when I put the harness back on. After six months, her hips were perfectly formed and aligned and it was over. The doctor told me that her walking might be delayed and not to worry about it. A couple of days after that, she stood up in her crib, took a look around, and fell on her fanny. She was walking without assistance at 8 months. Babies just kick their little legs around with no resistance. My daughter spent six months pushing down on the stirrups. She had very strong legs. Her hips never bothered her again. It's a non-issue and we go years without thinking or talking about it. I'm glad I happened on this thread and was able to share my experience. Let us know what the doctor says on Friday.

We use an iPod. It deals with the different formats. I just import whatever I have, MP3, WMA, whatever, and the software converts it to whatever works on the iPod. I've never met an audiobook that wouldn't go easily into the iPod. I've had it for two years and I can't imagine how I managed before it. We listen to audiobooks at bedtime, during games of Lego, when we're coloring, in the car, when we're sitting in the dentist's waiting room. It's also turned into the main music maker in our home. We have a Bose speaker/stand for it and you can't beat the sound with a stick. Love my iPod. And the OP above is right, the Zune is a less expensive devise and pretty much does the same thing.