I would just tell her what's going on, in as matter-of-fact a way as possible, and subtracting any details about internal family dynamics and/or the general weirdness of it all.

I am putting together a geography study for next year -- the Core Knowledge books are a great idea. Thanks for the suggestion.

I have not read all the responses but FWIW I have told my children that they were now reading the first time they were able to sound out a BOB book on their own. Other than that, though, I don't think that I'm ever really in the position of needing to tell someone else whether my child is reading or not. Are you talking about a formal assessment to an evaluator? If so, I have to imagine that there would be specific benchmarks for each step in the process.

Ugh. My FIL has that same attitude, and I find it baffling and more than a little depressing. Let's just rule out most of what life has to offer, shall we? Anyway, you get a gold star for sure.

double post

Wow, this thread is timely. I was actually just sitting down to the computer to dig up the customer service number for Nallenart to find out what on earth happened to the order I placed a month ago. I guess I have my answer now!

Ahem. Any chance you might be able to post instructions? I have short-haired boys, but I have long hair and swim myself. I agree that she just has to at least take the time to rinse off. Her hair will surely turn to straw if she doesn't, and the chemicals are so bad for the skin, too.

I don't think that the pictures are especially scary, but he does complain that some of them are ''too scary." That said, he gobbles up books about war, natural disasters, and other types of upsetting things without batting an eye, so I have no idea what this child's deal is. Battle of Gettysburg? Not a problem. Three Little Pigs? Problem. It has been a great project, though, collecting all of these different versions of traditional fairy tales. I've been amazed at the variety and creativity of the different retellings. And thanks for the links, Geo -- some of those look very interesting.

This doesn't by any chance have anything to do with that Op-Ed in last week's NYT, by the older woman anesthesiologist who was arguing that female doctors who go part-time are letting down the profession? In any event, I have a J.D/Ph.D and I get this same thing all the time. Along with the charming corollary, "Wouldn't your spot at X program/school/whatever have better gone to someone else who would have used it?" A few thoughts: (1) You are getting this question not because you are doing something non-medical but rather that you are doing traditionally female work for which you are not receiving a paycheck. If you were doing something else equally unrelated to medicine -- say, trading derivatives at Goldman Sachs -- nobody would dream of asking whether you were wasting your medical degree. . (2) Children need to be taken care of, and they need to be educated. Somebody, or somebodies, has to do this. So the question then becomes, who should do this work? Should it be the exclusive province of people who don't have other options -- the uneducated, the undocumented, the unlucky? If no, then how much education is too much for people who take care of children? Is a high school degree too much? What about college? Is that too much? Or is the postgraduate level at which one becomes 'overqualified' to tend to other people? Alternatively, maybe this is just basic human work, and *nobody* is wasting anything by doing it. (3) There is no pleasing everyone. If you did continue your medical practice and you and your husband arranged for other care for your children, plenty of criticism would still come your way, possibly even from the same people. (Your husband, of course, is free to do as he likes without any such judgments.) You're ****ed if you do, and ****ed if you don't, so you might as well do what makes you and your family happy.

I have, and use regularly, the textbook, workbook, HIG, Intensive Practice, and Challenging Word Problems. I also have Math Sprints, which we use sometimes but should really do more often.

I have been checking out all kinds of versions of different fairy tales from the library, and my oldest son in particular HATES the scary stuff in the originals. Terrified. As in, begging me to return the book immediately so it won't even be in the apartment. I keep reading how children process the violence in fairy tales differently, that it satisfies some kind of important psychological needs, etc., but clearly my son has not read those experts. So I have developed a new appreciation for the watered-down, happy-dappy versions in which nobody dies and everybody lives happily ever after in peace and harmony. Sigh.

Wow, talk about no good deed goes unpunished. Regardless of who understood what about the girl, that man was spectacularly, appallingly rude. Raising his voice to you? Are you kidding me?

I am crazy about my MIL. Really, I feel like I won the IL lottery with her. She's just incredibly sweet, loving, and supportive, without ever overstepping boundaries. Periodically she and I marvel at our collective good fortune in lucking in to such a wonderful DIL/MIL relationship, and I tell her that she is my model for how to be a great MIL myself someday.

I find it completely foreign as well. I live in NYC, and while folks definitely don't smile at passersby (NO EYE CONTACT!!) I find it incredibly easy to strike up a conversation pretty much anywhere, any time. People will tell you their life story at the drop of a hat, and with the kids as common ground it's even easier to find friends. It may be because -- like one of the above posters mentioned -- a lot of people in the neighborhoods where I have lived are transient, or at least have moved here from somewhere else.

No. I do, however, take quite seriously the obligation to raise good citizens. I also hope over time to be able to convey a certain appreciation for the general project that is the United States -- the whole radical, flawed, remarkable enterprise. But I don't consider that patriotism, exactly, and certainly not as most people who talk about 'patriotism' mean it.

Well, it's not a beauty contest. And I've never quite understood the folks who blow dry their hair naked. But after years of competitive swimming (i.e., 25 girls and three working shower heads) you're right, I don't have much modesty left when it comes to showering and dressing in the presence of other women. And I can be in that locker room, showered, and fully dressed before most people even get their suits off. Sorry you don't like my droopy breasts and stretched-out belly, though. They used to be nicer :001_smile:

I think that it is perfectly reasonable for girls and women not to want elementary age boys in the locker room, but as this thread is making clear, there frequently *aren't* a lot of good solutions. When my oldest was 5 and too big to go in with in the women's room at the Y, we ultimately just wound up just stopping swimming for a while. The men's room at that (big, urban, very crowded) Y was just not a controlled enough environment, and when we switched pools to a more sheltered environment, I discovered that he just couldn't quite manage the whole thing solo. And we go everyone by foot/public transport, so no car to change in, and going home dripping was just not an option outside of midsummer. i have other friends with same-age boys who only swim when Dad is available. I am hopeful that now, at 6, my oldest might be able to handle at least the changing part, although we haven't yet tried it. I really wish that more places would at least consider how to handle this problem. It's not like it's a new issue -- I worked at a YMCA for years in the 80s and 90s, and unsurprisingly, this exact same situation came up constantly back then, too. Has that YMCA built any kind of family locker room in the intervening 25 years? Of course not.

We live in an extremely busy area, with loads of tour buses coming though constantly, and nearly all of the public bathrooms that we use have literally thousands of people streaming in and out of them all day. While I tend not to get too worked up about stranger danger, I just can't send my 6yo into these men's rooms alone, nor can I have him wait outside without me. Restaurants are no problem, nor are bathrooms in the music school or the children's museum or places of that ilk. As for the pool thing, that is just SUCH a pain. First, I switched pools, because my oldest was too old for the women's room and the local Y men's room was just not a good scene at all. The place we switched to was considerably safer and quieter, but then I discovered -- as one of the prior posters mentioned -- that my 5yo couldn't actually manage the whole shower/locker/changing thing solo. (At least not without coming out naked to look for me and his younger brothers in the women's room, sigh) So we actually just stopped going swimming for a while. He just turned 6, though, so I should give it another try.

Our ped does the first test at 9 months IF the baby has been crawling for at least six weeks; otherwise it's at a year. (And she does blood draws, not finger sticks.) I agree with those who have said that the lead must be coming from somewhere other than their current place. I'd look first at toys and dishes. But I'm so sorry for the little boy, and I hope he gets the help he needs.

I live two blocks from the WTC and I the subject of 9/11 first came up with my now-6yo when he was about 3.5. We have had innumerable conversations about it since. I wholeheartedly agree with the recommendation for the Gerstein book -- that is one of my favorite picture books, ever, actually. I can't think of any other resources off hand, but I will think more about this question and post more if anything occurs to me. I know one of the local elementary schools recently held a lecture about talking to your child about 9/11 -- I'll see if I can find out more about who gave the lecture, etc. ETA: Oh, I just thought of something. A local 14yo just made a film about September 11, which was his second day of kindergarten. Here's some info: http://www.tribecafilm.com/filmguide/second_day-film33278.html http://abcnews.go.com/US/person-week-brook-peters-14-911-documentarian-voice/story?id=13545924 I haven't seen it, and so far it looks as though it's only been shown around here but it might be worthwhile to try tracking it down. In fact, now that I think about it, I should track it down myself.

What an interesting thread! There are a lot of places that I would like to live for an extended stay, but I can't quite imagine actually emigrating anywhere, with the possible exception of Vancouver, Canada. I lived in Japan for a couple of years, and DH lived in England -- both great places, but we couldn't live in either one permanently. But I would love to live somewhere else for a while, in particular either China or Israel.

:bigear:

My kids are up between 5 and 6 am, especially now that it's getting light out so early, and I just cannot bear to get up at 4. And I can't set an alarm, anyway, with the baby in our room. So I try to cram in a fast workout -- either running or swimming (there is a pool right downstairs) every other day just somewhere randomly in the day. Sometimes I go while DH is eating breakfast and watching the kids, sometimes I go during dinner, and occasionally I go at night. Although I really don't like to do that, not only because by 8pm all I want to do is pass out, but also because exercise wakes me up, so then I will have trouble sleeping. The other thing is that I am just not able to work out that hard. I am too tired. I'm trying to at least work in some interval sets for both my swimming and my running, but it requires digging down for energy that I seem just not to have.

Great post. And color me impressed at the quality of your high school education. I never read any of those cases until law school, and I doubt that as a 12th grader I could have successfully identified the quote.

I don't mean to single you out, much less pick on you,:001_smile: but this is niggling at me and I just can't let it go: just because you are not being paid does not mean that your work does not have economic value. It has the value of whatever you would pay someone else to do what you do all day. Which, admittedly, is not very much, presuming you're a SAHM like me, because our society places a very low value on carework, and ESPECIALLY when that carework is largely done by women, so maybe you're already factoring this in and that's what you mean when you say 'vast majority.' But just in case, and to belabor the point, the imputed value of your unpaid labor should be considered part of the family income.