This is why I started reading news directly from apnews.com. I've been reading more Wall Street Journal, too, because their headlines don't immediately send my anxiety through the roof. If the headlines are obviously trying to push buttons, that says to me the reporting isn't trying to convey information, but instead is promoting an agenda. I don't want any agenda! I just want to know what's going on in the world.

We stopped wiping down packages and groceries. I don't do take-out, because the restaurants around here are lousy or far away. I am doing curbside as much as possible, but I hate it. Going into the store and picking groceries was the only little sliver of normalcy that I had, and now I can't even do that. Just masks, hand sanitizer, washing our hands, and no social events. We won't see people outside of this household until we are vaccinated, period.

I spent years politely listening to a friend's political ranting via email. We're talking multi-paragraph diatribes with a large portion of word salad. I could never figure out exactly what point this friend was trying to make, so I'd sort of ignore it and say "uh huh" or "interesting", and then move on to other topics. The *one* time I said "Please stop sending me political rants. It's too much right now", I received an 8 paragraph rant about all my character flaws, (I'm a "snowflake", I lack critical thinking skills, I'm a sheeple, I'm hypocritical about feminism because there was that one summer I read both a book by Elizabeth Warren AND a book by Phyllis Schlafly 🙄, I'm fake, and oh yeah, ex-friend feels sorry for my son because he'll have so many challenges to overcome later in life because he was homeschooled and raised by me. "Poor kid; he's turning out ok, despite having YOU as a mother"). Oh, and the rant was delivered on my birthday. That was a decades-long friendship, completely annihilated over politics (and boundaries, too, I suppose). This year has made me seriously question whether people are worth knowing.

The coordinates lead to @Terabith's neighborhood.

I second the idea of buckets. It seems like we never have enough buckets.

Moderna begins phase 2/3 study of it's covid-19 vaccine in kids age 12-18. Moderna Adolescent Covid trial

Are you doing research for an academic purpose or research for your own family? Do you have soon-to-be school age children? If you spend some time reading threads on here, you'll see lots and lots and LOTS of posts discussion all of the ways that homeschoolers socialize.

I'm so sorry 😞

Yay! I am really happy for you!!!!

We live in the country, so we don't have the "neighborhood kid" dynamic happening. We had a lot of issues pop up in the local homeschool group. It was non-stop drama, bad enough that I started researching every private school within an hour of me, because I was so burned out on dealing with mom-generated drama that trickled down to the kids. And yes, we too have dealt with the family that would only attend if every detail of the event was exactly how mom and kids wanted it. If it wasn't, they griped and groaned about it and tried to hijack the event. When I stopped inviting them, they griped that they felt excluded and I was being a "mean girl" and cliquish. 😠

Guilty as charged. Canine Cough Dex tabs? The "big dog" dose works just fine for people. 🐶🤷‍♀️

Wow. Congrats on being the cool girl.

Yes, I am 2 layers deep in procrastination right now. 😄

Oh, I'm so happy for her! I hope she can see her family very soon. ❤️

Oh definitely. There are so many things I was obnoxious about when kiddo was a wee one. I had a lot of BIG OPINIONS. I still have a lot of BIG OPINIONS, but I'm mostly too tired to debate anyone about them.

I don't really care what anyone else does, either. I just hate the squabbling that someone is/is not a better parent because they do/do not participate in the Santa tradition. Festivus is my favorite tradition. I wish more people got behind that one.

Dang it, I was hoping to avoid the Great Santa Debate this year. Why will this rotten holiday tradition never die? 😞

I think I would not read much into this, in light of the pandemic. These are not normal times and many, many, many people are proceeding with extra caution regarding whom they spend time with. How long have you lived in this neighborhood? A few weeks or months? They may need more time to know you before they want to invite your for holiday events. Have you invited them to come hang out? It sounds like their kids still play with your kids? If so, then just...let the kids play and find your own friends apart from your kids.

I think if you hang out in fb homeschool and parenting groups, you will find lots of people who say they "aren't readers" or that their kid "isn't a reader", because they find it dull or tedious. It isn't that they can't read, but that they choose not to, because "ugh, books are boring!". 😕

Right? We stopped using it after that, lol. I think I must have thrown the book away because it's not with the rest of the saved schoolwork. Yikes.

I ran into this issue a few years ago, while using Wordly Wise of all things! I don't remember the exact passage, but there was a statement in a reading passage to the effect of "Some people think boys are better than girls for xyz reasons", and then some follow up statements how that wasn't true. Kiddo BOMBED the reading comprehension question about the passage, and said "Well, the reading said that boys were better/smarter than girls, so it has to be true". What?! This wasn't an issue until this stupid reading passage. I spent a lot of time undoing this message. (And yes, I did correct it; please don't think I'm raising a mini-sexist!).

We have a relative that likes to issue impossible invitations. They know we'll decline the invite and then they gripe. "I tried to invite them, but they always say no! They're soooo difficult". Well, yeah, if you wait until Tuesday to invite us for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday and you live 4 hours away? We're going to decline that invite because we've already made plans, (and those plans don't involve finding last-minute boarding for our pets and hotel reservations for one of the most busy travel days of the year).

This is more freezer friendly than shelf stable, but it's my go-to when I don't want to think about cooking. Honey Garlic Meatballs: frozen meatballs, honey, brown sugar, minced garlic, ground ginger, soy sauce. Dump it all in a slow cooker or Instant Pot (I add a little broth if cooking in the IP), and serve over rice or noodles. I usually do frozen green beans with it.

If it's going to be A Thing no matter what you do, you might as well do what works best for you. I like Mercy's answer. Keep it short, positive, and offer to Zoom with them. You aren't the one ruining the relationship. If they pitch a fit, they are the one ruining it. That's unfortunate, but it's not your fault. Sympathy! We've had relatives get sniffy because we declined invites. I'm like a broken record "That sounds fun, but we aren't socializing indoors until we are all vaccinated." Repeat as often as needed.

To be truthful, I didn't really have an idea of what I wanted to accomplish academically when we started homeschooling. We were sudden refugees from public school, and while I knew that homeschooling was 'a thing', I didn't really know how it was done. In the beginning, I was much more focused on the relationship we have as a family than academics. I think it's very hard to homeschool well if you don't have a solid, loving relationship with your kids. "Home" is the first part of "homeschooling", after all! It's a place where we should feel comforted, supported, accepted, and affirmed. John Holt, John Taylor Gatto, Sandra Dodd were authors I liked. To me, Sandra's book is more of a "relationship building" book and less about homeschooling. I also liked "Hold On to Your Kids" by Gordon Neufeld and "Love That Boy" by Ron Fournier. Neither are homeschooling books, but they helped me define some important ideas in our homeschool: 1) Accept, Love, and teach the child that is in front of you, not the child that you imagine them to be, want them to become, or that someone else thinks they should be (Love that Boy), and 2) Yes, you absolutely can prioritize "family" over "peers", and that the family unit should be the foundation upon which kids build their identity, not their peer group (Hold on to Your Kids). Kids and parents get a lot of messaging that being together is a bad thing and that kids best learn independence by being apart from their parents starting at an early age (daycare! preschool! afterschool enrichment activities! endless summer camps!). I read some Peter Gray, too, but didn't care for him. He falls into the "Kids should be socialized with and by peers, not adults" camp, which I disagree with. I'm still glad I read his books, though, because it helped crystalize what I wanted. I agree with @Hunterthat you need to have a good idea of who YOU are as a human before you try to teach other people how to figure out who THEY are as humans. If you aren't really sure of who you are as a human, I recommend staying off social media. You won't find who you are there, but you'll find a lot of messaging about who someone else thinks you "should be".