As to the laptop---check with their program to make sure there aren't any special requirements. I know when I was at university, there were a few majors that had certain operating system requirements.

What is everybody using? Language Arts: All About Reading 3, Evan Moor Spelling 1, First Language Lessons 1, Writing with Ease 1 Math: Saxon 3 History: Story of the World 1 Science: Elemental Science--Biology for the Grammar Stage Latin: Song School Latin 1 Religion: The Ology: Ancient Truths Ever New by Marty Machowski Other: Tech: typing.com; Piano: Music for Little Mozarts.

Things I like to see: A "Wbat we believe" section, but make sure it is robust. Some are so generic it is hard to tell how they feel about certain issues. B. Any denominational affiliation, if applicable. C. Logistical info --- parking, typical dress code, times of service, length of service, etc D. Pastor/staff bios. E. link to watch/listen to previous sermons

I'm about 1/3 of the way through Clarissa by Samuel Richardson, and about 20% of the way through the audiobook of Rules of Civility by Amor Towles.

We do Christmas Eve at our house and we open presents that night (we don't do Santa gifts). This way our kid gets time to play with all his new toys before we spend Christmas Day going to celebrations at both sets of grandparents' houses.

So we're about halfway through Elemental Science (the Intro level), and it's ok, but it seems like the pacing was off---did we really need a week on rocks, then a separate week on metamorphic rocks, a week for igneous rocks (volcano), and another week on sedimentary rocks? I get that she was trying to do 6 weeks per main topic, but this was a stretch. The upper levels (bio/chem/physics/earth science and astronomy) seem to be paced better.

Definitely! We used to have weekly dinner/game nights with a few other couples, but haven't seen them in several years. First there were the shutdowns, then when that ended, one of the families demanded that everyone wear masks during the entire event (down to the ridiculous pull it down to take a bite of food, pull it back up to chew), and we weren't going to do that. I think they may have eased up some based on photos I've seen of them posted on their social media where they're out and about finally acting normal (they'd had their toddler in masks and surgical gloves before), but they haven't bothered to contact us since then, and we haven't bothered either. There was another group of people we'd have frequent playdates with who all had kids who were within a month of our kid's age, and we haven't seen them all together since then---we've randomly run into one or two at the zoo or the grocery store, but nothing planned. They'd all just shut themselves in their homes for months and then once their kids got older, started sending them off to preschools and public school, and so we just drifted apart. We have made new friends since everything happened though, so it's fine.

Our children's museum has a few "child-size" toilets in the restrooms, which is super nice! (They're clearly labeled on the outside of the stalls so that adults don't try to accidentally use them.) When my kid was younger, I completely hated the restrooms that had the changing table inside the accessible stall. I get why they did it that way in some places (retrofitted the diaper table in and no other good location), but I always felt super rushed in case someone needed that stall. What I'd love to see would be a hallway with all the sinks/paper towel stations etc, and then a bunch of individual floor-to-ceiling doors for stalls. (I've seen this setup at some elementary schools, which makes sense as it's super easy to make sure kids aren't messing around but still gives everyone privacy.) It'd be super convenient when I take my son places----right now it's no issue to bring him into the women's room (he's 5), but in a few years that'll just be awkward, but I also don't want to send him into the men's by himself at most places, and don't want to take up space in the family restrooms because we don't necessarily need that much room.

The only time I've worn one after the mandates ended was at my son's pediatrician where it was forced. He has his yearly checkup in a few weeks, hopefully they've dropped the requirements---it appears the hospital group it is a part of got rid of the forced masking months ago. DH and I are pretty sure we had it around Christmas 2021, but we didn't bother getting a test because there wasn't a benefit to doing so----the recommendation if it was that would've been rest and fluids, and the recommendation if it was the flu or some other virus would have also been rest and fluids, so we saved the co-pay and hassle of going to urgent care and just did exactly what we would have done for a sickness that occurred in 2019 or earlier. Our son was around us that entire time we were sick and he never caught whatever it was.

Because our local district is not rigorous enough for our needs.

For my 5 year old: Math: Saxon 2 Phonics: Finish up AAR 1 and move into AAR 2 Handwriting: Zaner-Bloser Handwriting 1 Spelling: slowly introduce AAS 1, but I'm not forcing it at this point. Science: Elemental Science--Intro to Science Social Studies: 180 Days of Geography for Kindergarten by Shell Education. Also learning about the different states in the US using resources from our library.