We live in a tiny apartment, but I wouldn't give up our adjustable kid-sized table for anything. They do all writing/drawing/crafts there (which also makes it easy to contain mess) and it's surprisingly handy when we have other little friends over for meals.

That is very odd. The nuchal test was just starting to become more common when I had my now-almost-6yo, but my understanding is that offering it is now standard of care for all pregnant women, regardless of age. Far fewer false positives than the AFP. I have occasionally had things denied because they were submitted by a midwife instead of a dr. (urgh), and now that I think about it I was once denied for something (don't remember what, it may have been a fetal echocardiogram) even when they resubmitted it under their backup OB's authority. I ultimately got it covered by having the perinatologist I was also seeing put in the request. If you're also consulting a high-risk doc, that might be an option. The only other thing that occurs to me is that I also ran into trouble when I went over three ultrasounds -- any more than that required special authorization. Have you already had multiple ultrasounds, by any chance?

Hey, I have this! It was my father's when he was a child. I think the publication date is 1926, IIRC. I had to put the set in storage this year but am looking forward to getting it out. The whole thing smells a bit from a fire in my grandmother's apartment back in 1980 or so, but substantively it is just a treasure.

That's good to hear -- thanks for replying! It's always nice when someone backs up one of my half-baked ideas with actual, you know, informed experience. :001_smile: We will keep on keeping on.

You can get OTC test strips at the drugstore to check for a UTI. They are nowhere near as precise as the test strips at the doctors,' and neither one is as good as a culture, but they can give you some helpful information.

:iagree:

LOL. When I was pregnant last year, my mother called me to tell me that she had heard a Jewish boy name that was just so lovely and unusual: "Jacob! Isn't that nice? You don't hear that every day." Actually, Mom, you do. Jacob was the #1 boys name in America in 2009. :001_smile:

nm -- double post, AGAIN.

As far as I'm concerned, the only correct definition of "American name" is "name belonging to an American person." As for choosing a name that is easily pronounceable by native English speakers, I can certainly see why it might make a kid's life easier, although it's perhaps a bit less interesting for the rest of us. :001_smile:

:iagree: Great post.

You did them a huge favor and they want to say thank you. Let them. As prior poster said, you can of course thank them and say it wasn't necessary, but insisting on giving it back is going to come across as odd, and possibly a bit stand-offish (by implying that their gift was inappropriate).

My BIL used to work at amazon and still has lots of contacts there. I will ask him about this policy and will report back.

Full-day here. Some public schools also offer preK, which is generally very competitive to get (the schools don't have to take all zoned kids for preK and so they run a lottery), and that's frequently full-day as well. And the only private school with half-day K that I've heard of here is one of the Waldorf schools. There may be others, but the overwhelming majority are full-day.

Love this. I actually think that schools today are doing quite a lot of things better than they were when I was a public school student back in the early Pleistocene, but I think I can do even better at home.

We do a bit of formal schoolwork every day, but I am not at all convinced that the stuff I give my son during 'school time' is any more challenging than a lot of the stuff he comes up with on his own. In the final analysis I simply lack the nerve to unschool, but in a way I think that's kind of a shame.

What an interesting post, violinmom. My son is in his second year of Suzuki cello and I think the program is simply brilliant. I can't believe the sort of serious musicianship that they are teaching to such young kids. DH and I are both beyond impressed with the quality of the whole enterprise. The only down side is, as others have said, the tremendous amount of parental involvement it requires. It is a LOT of time and energy, and it isn't cheap, either. (Well, nothing here is cheap, but still). If you are simply not going to have time to go to the lessons and classes, supervise practice, etc., then I would likely just wait until the child was old enough to take on most of the responsibility associated with traditional lessons. Obviously all music lessons for relatively young kids are going to require parental involvement, but Suzuki is really structured around the assumption of the parent as co-teacher, as least for a while.

I love sandalwood. Alas, DH loathes scented candles with the passion of a thousand suns.

i agree that consulting an attorney is crucial here. It would seem to me that you have a good argument that in your particular case, paying you fair market value does not make you whole, and from what you say, the statute mandates both. I also have to imagine that there are cases just like yours springing up all over the country. Just googling quickly, here one article on the subject: http://www.rebusinessonline.com/main.cfm?id=13206 I'm sorry for the headache (and heartache). :grouphug:

I only know a few other homeschooling families, and I have no idea what they do day-to-day. I would assume that they are serious about it, if only because pretty much *everyone* I know is deadly serious about their children's education.

That poor child. No matter what her figure is like and no matter how she dresses, she is still thirteen years old. I imagine she is desperate for attention and trying to get it any way she can. Is her father in the picture? What a heartbreaking description.

The Amazing Miracle Blanket. It is my standard baby gift.

I don't think it's unreasonable for a parent not to want to be the sole financial support of the family. It's a huge responsibility, especially in these uncertain times. That said, if you're both working 50+ hour weeks, both of your lives will change. Is your husband on board with taking on a greater share of the housework and child care? (I am assuming that since you are currently SAH most of that is your job right now, but that won't be possible if you're working full-time.) How does he plan for the two of you to handle sick days, school vacation days, etc? You won't be able to keep a job and take off for all of them yourself; he will have to take some of them. Is he expecting that you will up and quit if his job takes you elsewhere again, or will you be able to stay long enough to build a career? I know plenty of happy, healthy families in which both parents work full-time (or more). But it takes forethought and commitment to make that happen, just as in a SAH/WOH family.

I'm a lefty -- my two older boys seem to be righties, alas, but I'm holding out hope for the baby. Love the notebook! My big regret is that HWT wasn't around when I was a child. Handwriting was SUCH an ordeal. Between the Palmer cursive and those erasable pens that were all the rage back then, I had just a terrible time and essentially stopped writing in cursive the moment it was no longer required. Which is fine and all, but going through HWT with my son it's just such a easier way to write as a lefty.

Isn't it the national curriculum in Singapore? I have to assume that it's designed for a wide range of learners.

I think that I would more likely to homeschool an average or struggling student (especially the latter), actually. But I don't homeschool my oldest because he's accelerated, but rather because I am generally sold on custom education, so I suppose that's not precisely responsive to your question. FWIW, I myself was a very accelerated student as a child (just like both of my parents), while my brother was not. He had some additional difficulties to struggle through, but he was and is not especially intellectually gifted. I'd say that our thoroughly mediocre school district didn't serve either one of us all that well, but he really got the shorter end of the stick.