You all must have some tiny little sandboxes that you can just up and 'change the sand'. The last one we built was about 20 feet x 20 feet, and it took 16 yards of sand to fill it (according to dh). And I used to worry more about the black widow spiders than I ever did about cats. Those spiders will infest the sandbox toys, the walls of the sandbox, everything. And we've had them everywhere we've lived - up North, down South, out West - everywhere. Just throwing that out there ... as if you needed something else to worry about ... :D

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Sometimes it depends on where I'm living, I suppose. When we first moved down here and were househunting, we lived in an apartment. The only one dh could find which would allow our 3 cats, 2 dogs, and 5 kids, was .... shall we say ... in a questionable neighborhood. We regularly heard and saw police vehicles pulling up in front of our building. (drugs, spouse abuse, etc.) For the entire 6 months we lived there, I never let any of our dc out of the apartment without me or dh. We sure got a lot of school done during that time. :) Currently, we live out in the woods. (120 acres, can't see or hear neighbors, woods as far as you can see in every direction, etc.) I only let our dd's go so far - alone. We frequently have trespassers (grown men) who may or may not be carrying guns or other weapons. Since I never know who most of these men are, or where they come from (motorcycles and such), or when they're out there; and there are many hills/small mountains around us which would make it hard to hear a scream ... well, I decided to err on the side of safety. I will, however, let them go anywhere in the woods they want to go with me or one of their brothers (and dh, of course). My oldest ds, however, routinely traveled alone by plane to visit his (bio) father, twice a year, from the time he was about 5-6 yo. But that was back in the 80's. No idea how that works nowadays. ETA: And I just sent one ds and one dd out into the woods to chase down the motorcycles I've been hearing all morning ..... :glare:

If you start them early, it may not take the full 11 years to go through your grammar program. We've always done year-round school. As soon as our dc finished with one grammar book, I gave them a week off grammar before starting the next level. Working this way, now-17yod has been finished with the entire ABeka grammar books for a few years now. I think our dc liked doing all the grammar. It was easy for them and provided a nice break in days filled with hard things like Latin, logic, GB's, etc. And because it came easy to them, they never spent very long on grammar each day; so it's not like it took up tons of time. You may find the same with your own dc. It gets easier and faster as they get further into it.

The only thing I'd do differently is that I wouldn't care about the sandbox. But, then, I never had mice in our sandboxes. The mice never would have survived our kids. :D I also never covered our sandboxes. I'd rather let the rain and sun wash and fry the sand. I'm thinking that the mice love it because it IS covered??? What I did for sandboxes (and all outside play) was to keep a pump bottle of hand soap on the back of the kitchen sink, and when dc came inside they had to wash their hands. I found that if I had them wash in the kitchen, the hands always came out cleaner than if they went off to the bathroom where I couldn't see them doing the actual washing. :glare:

Haven't read the other posts. Yes, they've always had free access to the kitchen. We don't have set mealtimes. Someone cooks a few dishes every day and leaves it on the stove to be eaten whenever they get hungry. There are no junk foods in the house and we all drink water (except dh's coffee - only coffee drinker in the house). If we get hungry, we eat what's cooked, make our own, or eat leftovers from the frig. I began teaching our 5dc how to get their own food (or make their own) when they were small.

The 91% alcohol (Wal Mart) works well. First, I take a razor scaper like gas stations use to scrape off the Inspection Stickers, and scrape off as much as I can. Then, I dump some of the alcohol on a rough kitchen rag and rub the glue off. I also use it to clean the entire outside of the book. It's a little hard on the hands, so I sometimes wear rubber gloves if I'm doing a lot of books.

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Dd's and I were just at the mall yesterday. I'm pretty sure I saw some in Belk's. And Belk's has been sending out a lot of coupons lately.

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He sounds like he just thrives on structure. So when plans change on him, or unpredictable things come up like social interactions (what could BE more unpredictable, eh??) ... it throws his for a major loop.

I don't know about climbing the ladder; but it might be possible to go up it sideways. My younger brother joined the Air Force right after high school. Got his degree in something or other while in the Air Force and then retired at a young age (late 30's or 40 maybe?). Began another career as a town administrator with his new degree. He was able to move to a few different jobs (same state) as one job finished and the next came up. I heard recently he's ready to 'retire' once again from this career. Not sure what his next career will be, but he's getting 2 'pensions' that I know of at the moment - and he's only 52yo. Added to that, when he and his wife (kids gone) move to a new town, they buy a lesser house in a nicer neighborhood; fix it up; then, sell it at a profit when they get ready to move on to the next job. Meanwhile, dh and I continue to move from (dh's) job to job in the same industry (semiconductor) in order to get significant raises; and either renting or buying a house, fixing it up, and then selling it for a smallish profit. But we never quite catch up like we'd like to. I just asked dh how much longer we have to pay on this house. He said about 15 years. We're 53. We'll be doing good to get the house paid off before he retires. My parents, OTOH, lived in the same place for 35 years. My father worked at the same company for 35 years (DuPont). No moving expenses. That's almost unheard of nowadays. They had excellent health insurance, a nice pension, plenty of vacation, etc. Not many companies offer much of these things anymore. To me, it's more about the changes occurring in business and industry which make it almost impossible for my generation to live the life my parent's generation lived. All I think we'll be able to do here is give our dc the best educaton we can - at home and otherwise - and the rest will be up to them. But I have no clue what kind of socioeconomic rung they will end up on. I try not to project quite that far into the future. :001_smile:

I have never enjoyed reading aloud. But I did make the effort before our last 3 dc began reading on their own, because we had discovered WTM. The only way I could keep from falling asleep was to do it early in the morning after a good night's sleep, because my own voice puts ME to sleep. But, mostly, I just asked my dh to do all the read alouds. His voice is much louder than mine and he's a talker. I'm not. That and I got them reading on their own as fast as I possibly could without rushing them or frustrating them. :) Now that our youngest is 17yo, when we sit down to read something (usually Bible studies) we go around the table and take turns reading one paragraph each (long paragraphs in our current book). Everyone except me, that is. I still don't like reading aloud. :tongue_smilie: ETA: Also BOT's. I had them listening to BOt's a LOT.

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We have one of these as well and we love it. A suggestion for piano shopping ... Take your piano players and make them play the piano or key board or whatever ... while you are browsing in the store. I am so glad I did this, because some of the sounds of the best name-brand pianos just grated on my ears. And I knew I would have to listen to dc learning to play, practicing, playing, etc., for possibly hours every day (5 dc) for years to come. It HAD to sound good to ME ... for the sake of my poor ears. Make sure they play for more than a few minutes, and make sure they play many pianos so you can compare their sounds. Take their music if they need it. Tell them to play as if they were at home. Most of the pianos we heard were shrill to my ears. The salesmen called them "bright" and said that's how performers prefer them because the sound needs to carry through a large area. Well, our house is not large and it just hurt my ears. You'll know when you hear what you want. We also did as another poster suggested and took as much of the piano apart as we could to see the guts. We looked for cracks, warping, rust, worn parts, etc. And don't believe it when the salesman tries to explain away any defects. Go with your gut. (We even saw a 'new' grand piano with cracks in the sound board one time.) Also, one of our ds's taught himself to play on a cheap keyboard. We eventually upgraded the keyboards, went through a few free clunker pianos, and finally bought the Charles Walter piano. He used to carry his keyboard everywhere - in the car, out to the shop, outside. Even if you go for the piano, it might still help your dc to have a keyboard to play around with. HTH ETA: Oh, and if you want to start with a clunker, just ask around. You'd be surprised how many people have old pianos they'd love to have hauled off. Some will even pay YOU to come and get it. (Your dh can ask around where he works.) And you can stick it out in your shop (we did) for them to play around with. Then, when you get a good one for the house, they can dissect the clunker out in the shop and learn all about how it works on the inside. Our ds's enjoyed doing this.

Our local goodwill and salvation army will take them. I also get a recipt for tax purposes when I donate to them.