I love Shirley Hughes. The Alfie books and Dogger are great for younger kids, but she also has some heavily illustrated story collections aimed at a little bit older kids. They're kind of hard to find, though, at least in the US. I think one of them is Stories by Firelight. something like that.

You know, I often feel like I spend too much time here...then a thread like this comes along, and I think, "my goodness; I've got to find more time to read the boards!" But then I'm an Aries, and we hate to be left out of anything.

Ours is up! link in sig

I sometimes enjoy discussing politics with friends who can do it without getting emotional, but I've found people like that to be few and far between (honestly, I'm not sure how great I am at it, either (in real life; I think I can do it reasonably well online), but I've managed it sometimes. I have friends from all over the political spectrum (it would be hard to have many friends at all if I limited them to those who agree with me politically, given where I live!) I think we'd be much better off as a country if everyone had a diverse group of friends instead of staying in a like-minded bubble--not necessarily because people would change each other's minds about things, but because I think it's essential to see "the other side" as real people who happen to sincerely disagree with us instead of as demons or caricatures. (not to sound like I'm patting myself on my back for my diverse friendships; were it not for geography and circumstance, I'm sure I'd have trouble resisting like-minded bubbles as well. They're so....comfy ;))

oh, I wish mine needed 12 hours! My 9 year old goes to bed around 8, but stays up reading until 9:30 or so. He's usually up between 7:30 and 8. My others are asleep by 8:15 or 8:30, usually up around 7 or a bit after.

I just went through this putting together Mario and Luigi costumes :). Amazon has Liberty overalls for sale in all sizes; they're super cute and reasonably priced. They seem, FWIW, to run pretty true to size or perhaps a little on the small side--I'd order one size up to be safe. http://www.amazon.com/Walls-Liberty-Youth-Washed-Overalls/dp/B000WO89LQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287087495&sr=8-1

My first two almost never spat up. My third did all the time, and it surprised me pretty much every single time :). I just never got used to needing a spit-up rag on my shoulder.

Well, I hope everyone's happy; thanks to this thread I'm neglecting my children in favor of reading some guy's blog, entirely dedicated to exposing Noam Chomsky as a hack and a fraud :D

I'm not especially easily offended :) But I do think we might have to agree to disagree. I'm not seeing how there's a "consensus" when we can each post links from respectable sources saying exactly the opposite thing. I found half a dozen links in a couple of minutes classifying examples such as eagle in eagle chick as adjectives. So I guess I'm not sure how we're defining "consensus." The OED isn't an ancient relic; it's updated all the time. I actually have no dog in the adjective vs. determiner fight, but when MCT can cite a source like [the current edition of] the OED to back him up, I would have a difficult time telling a child that he's wrong, rather than "I disagree with this." However, I'll also fully admit that I have no training whatsoever in formal linguistics; I come at language from a background in literary analysis, where people regularly declare other people in their field to be full of it, but where it's generally understood that there's a fair amount of posturing going on there and nothing in the way of empirical evidence ;)

I don't think it's quite the same thing. If we want to decide who's right about germ theory, we can conduct experiments which can then be reproduced by other scientists. If we want to figure out who's right about whether articles are adjectives...well, the only thing we can do it see what linguists are saying about it and whether there's a clear consensus. The link you posted says itself that the OED says that articles are adjectives. I don't think we can really call the editors of the OED the linguistic equivalent of flat earthers. I think it's certainly interesting to point out to students that grammar is a living thing that is always evolving and about which reasonable people can disagree, but I don't think it's fair to be annoyed with MCT for defining articles the same way the OED does. I still don't think this follows. There's an accepted order of adjectives in English. We say "little old man" and not "old little man" but that doesn't mean they aren't both adjectives. Of course, I guess we could say "old little man" and not be incorrect, exactly. This link: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/adjectives.htm talks about order of adjective and lists examples like eagle in "eagle chick" as qualifiers, "final limiter, often regarded as part of the noun (e.g., rocking chair, hunting cabin, passenger car, book cover)." Note "often" i.e. there's not a consensus. I don't think MCT is "dumbing down" grammar to make it accessible to younger children. I think he just disagrees with you.

Fascinated, I have looked into this whole is an article an adjective controversy further. Apparently, traditional English grammar puts articles in with adjectives, but many modern linguists put them in their own category and call them "determiners." Both camps seem to have their supporters.

But articles ARE adjectives. If they're not adjectives, which of the 8 parts of speech would you label them as? I'm not following your "not an adjective but a noun modifier" line of reasoning, either...modifying nouns is, after all, what adjectives do. I guess maybe I would find the grammar in Artes Latinae frustrating :)

DS9 is doing the Town level this year (all the components). It's going really well! He just finished lesson 6 in CE and the second lesson in Paragraph Town. We've just started Building Poems. Practice Town is his favorite part of LA by far, and I'm really impressed with how much he's retaining and the way he's really thinking through the sentences and how they fit together. We're also doing WWE style dictation and narration from the books he's reading for literature, and he writes summaries from his science and history reading a couple of times a week. Also Evan Moor's Daily Paragraph Editing and Spelling Workout. ETA: he did Island level last year.

Yep; I read to my two oldest while DH reads to my youngest. Then they read to themselves in their rooms for (within reason) as long as they want.

Ours is up; link in sig!

That is encouraging--thanks! Yeah--maybe this is a separate thread, but that's the main thing I guess we need to figure out--how long to hold on to the Sienna and how much money are we willing to put into it if it gets to the point where it needs something very expensive replaced. The guys on Car Talk do say it's always cheaper to fix your old car than to get a new one. I'd love it if the Sienna would keep running for another couple of years at least. Thanks for all the Kia feedback, everyone, and I'd love to hear more from anyone else!

We have a 99 Toyota Sienna with 180,000 miles on it. There's actually nothing wrong with it, as far as we can tell, right now...but it has 180,000 miles on it, so I'm thinking ahead. I love my Sienna. The single most important thing to me in a car is reliability, and I've got that--I've been driving it for 7 years and have only made fairly routine, relatively inexpensive repairs to it (the most expensive thing we've had fixed is a $700 oil leak, and that's by far the most expensive). It does not leave me stranded by the side of the road. Therefore I love it. Having had such good luck with the Sienna (and Toyotas in general; my husband drives a 95 Camry), I am reluctant to get anything different. But a used Kia Sedona would be so much cheaper than a comparable Sienna, and I also hear good things about them. We'd be looking for something with 60,000-80,000 miles on it, probably 2004-2006. It looks like I could easily get a Sedona for $8000 or under, whereas I'd be spending at least $10,000 on a Sienna. So....experiences, good and bad? Anyone driven both a Sienna and a Sedona and want to compare the two for me? We have 3 kids, a mess of pets, and tend to take long road trips, so cargo space is something I need to think about, too. From what I've read the gas mileage is pretty comparable, so I guess reliability and roominess are the two main things that I can think of at the moment.

We just got back from WDW last night...so I just skimmed the thread. But I have 3 kids about your kids ages (9, 7, and 4), so I'll throw my thoughts in: We really prefer staying onsite. We did off-site one year, and it just wasn't the same. That said, many people swear by it, so YMMV. We get two connecting rooms at Pop Century, which comes out to around $170/nt in the off season (we always go in September). We request a room with a king-size bed for one of the rooms, and we've gotten it both times we've asked (one bonus of the king size rooms is that most of them are handicap accessible and those come with a fridge for no charge). Other on property options with a family of five: *Ft. Wilderness cabins (I believe these have a full kitchen) *family suites at All Star Music (these have a "mini kitchen" which means, I think, a fridge and microwave) *Port Orleans Riverside--some rooms have a "trundle bed" that pulls out for a younger kid--from the pictures I've seen, it looks basically like a crib sized mattress on the floor...and then two double beds *any deluxe resort except Animal Kingdom Lodge and Wilderness Lodge (which, of course, are the two cheapest deluxes) *renting points for a DVC resort--you can rent points from a Disney timeshare owner and get a 1 or 2 bedroom The cheapest of these is probably Port Orleans Riverside--for a week it will save you maybe $200-300 over 2 rooms at a value (your next cheapest option, I think). We considered doing this this year, but felt we'd be too cramped for a whole week. As has been mentioned, definitely check on free dining. If you're planning to eat out most of the time, we find that free dining for the 5 of us pretty much erases the price difference between on and off site (staying onsite you also have free transportation and/or free parking). As far as rides...there are a few where you'll have a problem is your 9 year old can't/won't ride alone or if your 9 and 6 year old won't ride together. Mostly on roller coasters and other more intense rides, though, so if you're planning to avoid those, you'd be fine. I'd say, however, that Disney's idea of a "thrill ride" is much different from, say, Six Flags. They're very heavily themed and generally are as much about the story and the theming as the actual ride experience. I.e. I wouldn't avoid thrill rides because you don't enjoy them at other parks; very few Disney rides are particularly intense by today's standards. My four year old tried and loved everything he was tall enough for (and he was tall enough for almost everything). If your youngest is 39 inches barefoot now, I'd say there's a very good chance he'll be tall enough for the 40" rides by the time of your trip. It is something to think about, though--there's still plenty of rides with no height restrictions, but if he's like my 4 year old it would be very hard on him to watch his older siblings ride things he can't.

I was going to quote the same thing :). And, in fact, I do quote it, half seriously, all the time, around here (but I don't actually spank anyone). When I'm one on one with a kid, he usually knows when to cut it out; when it's 2 or 3 together, we have problems. I have no problem with a bit of goofiness, but they need to know when to stop.

This is one area where being a teacher (or being married to one) has its benefits (pun intended). 5% of DH's pay is whisked away before we ever see it, and if he sticks with it for 30 years, he should get a decent non-stock market dependent pension. I've heard that about SS and teachers in some states, Daisy....we definitely pay SS here, though. We also have a whole life insurance policy that DH's grandfather bought for him when he was 3....it has a nice cash value right now, and if we manage to hold onto it (i.e. we don't have to cash it out for an emergency at some point and, you know, DH doesn't die and we don't get the money that way) it will be a very nice chunk of change eventually. We're lucky that we have that stuff going for us, because saving money aside from that is pretty tough at the moment (and for the foreseeable future).

x-post!

According to Wikipedia: wow. 18% is a lot. Okay, following the link, though, it looks as if it's not so much that 18% of Americans have thought this whole thing through carefully and decided they believe the Sun revolves around the Earth....it's that that's how many people just haven't ever learned that it doesn't. I'm not sure that that's better or anything, but it's different. I'm going to have to go read the whole Wikipedia entry now. Fascinating!

Oh, that's a good point. Mine are all very tall, so by three they're tall enough for most anything they're interested in. My 4 year old hit 44" a couple of months ago, and we're all hugely relieved, as we're leaving for WDW tomorrow and he does NOT deal well with being left out of things his older brothers get to do :D

Mine have been to Disney World 3 times and Disneyland once. My youngest was 3 (3 months shy of 4) last year when we did Disneyland, and he remembers it pretty clearly still. He doesn't seem to remember much of anything from trips before that, though. I think 7,6, and 4 are GREAT ages, personally. I think pretty much any age we've done so far has something to recommend it, though.

:iagree: Yes--soothing--that's the word I was going to use. My very favorite toddler bedtime book is Sandra Boynton's "Going to Bed Book." sniff. I miss having itty bitty kids.