I don't tend to give much weight to "trend" articles, to be honest. They tend to make sweeping generalizations, and to cherry-pick anecdotes that support their argument. It's kind of amazing to me how many people make their living as "experts" about how this generation is ABC and that generation is XYZ, without anyone ever asking them for hard data. So much of it is stereotypes and selective observations.

You'd do that in front of your kids?! The animals belong to the shelter. It is not okay to lie to them so that they will give you something of theirs. Really, the sense of entitlement from some on this thread just boggles my mind.

We had boneless chicken breasts brushed with mustard, wrapped in bacon, and grilled. And basmati rice, and a raw platter: baby carrots, red bell pepper strips, sliced cucumber, and apple wedges.

Really good point.

We're doing K this year. You can see our curricula in my signature. We don't have a schedule, because with both parents working and an active 18-month-old in the house we need to be very, very adaptable. But, for example, here is what we're doing this week: Monday: Mom reads aloud this week's Five in a Row book, "A Pair of Red Clogs." Geography: Find Japan, Tokyo, and the Sea of Japan on the map; discuss the fact that Japan is made up of islands, is not very large, and has a large population. Social Studies: Read other books about Japan and discuss Japanese culture. Watch the video Big Bird in Japan. Art: Explore the beautiful variety of Japanese rice papers. Make origami butterflies and study other examples of origami. Reading: Alex reads aloud a book of her choice, taken from a basket of appropriate-level library books. Math: One page of MEP level 1a. Chapter book read-aloud: Two chapters of Roald Dahl's The BFG. Tuesday: Dad reads aloud this week's Five in a Row book. Social Studies: Find Japan and Tokyo on the map again. Field trip to Asian grocery store to further explore Japanese culture. Reading: She reads aloud a book of her choice, taken from a basket of appropriate-level library books. Math: Dad and Alex set up a miniature "market" like the one pictured in the book and practice selling each other things, to reinforce money identification and counting skills. Chapter book read-aloud: Two chapters of The BFG. Wednesday: Science: Visit Nature Center and explore the exhibits. Phys Ed: Hike at Nature Center. Reading: She reads aloud a book of her choice. Math: One page of MEP level 1a. Chapter book read-aloud: Two chapters of The BFG. Thursday: Mom reads aloud this week's Five in a Row book. Language Arts: What is a frame story? Do we have any other books that use a frame story? Handwriting: For copywork, trace and then copy the phrase "A pair of red clogs." Art: Visit the Asian art collection at the local art museum to see Japanese ceramics and prints. Reading: She reads aloud a book of her choice. Math: One page of MEP level 1a. Chapter book read-aloud: Two chapters of The BFG. Friday: Mom reads aloud this week's Five in a Row book. Science: How do meteorologists predict the weather? (FIAR tie-in.) Social Studies: Continue to explore Japanese culture through picture books and web resources, including a child-appropriate anime cartoon. Dinner in a tatami room at a Japanese restaurant. Reading: She reads aloud a book of her choice. Math: One page of MEP level 1a. Chapter book read-aloud: Two chapters of The BFG.

I wouldn't recommend trying to do Jamestown and Williamsburg in the same day. Even with a whole day at Williamsburg you'll just be scratching the surface. At Williamsburg we've had particularly good experiences with: - Great Hopes plantation. You may think Gone With the Wind when you hear "plantation," but Great Hopes is a much more representative example of how the "middling sort" of farmers lived. Excellent, excellent interpreters of slave life are at Great Hopes. Because they're building on the site, it's also a great place to see carpenters, etc. at work. - Benjamin Powell house. This is set up to explore children's activities and family life. We have often gotten to participate in colonial-style cooking in the kitchen behind the house. - The Milliner shop. If you have any interest at all in textiles, clothes, or needlework, this is a fascinating place to hang out. I went once when I was very pregnant and one of the milliners gave me a fascinating demonstration of 18th century maternity clothes. :lol: - The outdoor Revolutionary City programs. Every one I've seen has been fascinating.

I went to a rigorous liberal arts college which is often referred to as "grad school for undergrads." All freshman and transfer students are required to take an intensive, year-long, cross-disciplinary course in Greek and Roman Humanities. Every student is required to produce a senior thesis based on original scholarship. It is third in the nation in the percentage of graduates who earn Ph.D.s. - higher even than MIT. Only one other liberal arts college has produced more Rhodes Scholars. It scored a D. :lol: Honestly, to me a college which *requires* broad survey courses in multiple areas is a college which doubts its students' high school preparation. So of course the "big name" highly selective colleges are going to score lower. If they thought you needed a bunch of basic courses, they wouldn't have admitted you.

Oh cool, I didn't know they had Bill Nye! They just added a bunch of Reading Rainbow episodes, and are supposed to be adding more.

...if your five-year-old can construct an argument for how any random junky toy could become the basis for a unit study. "So we NEED it, Mom!"

Did you just seriously equate using daycare with thinking a child is "disposable" and not loving them? Seriously? Using daycare so you can earn a living and support your family is like abandoning your dog at the pound? That's one of the most offensive things I've ever seen anyone post. You are badly in need of a sense of perspective.

I like those two, too. And Farrar's blog is indeed worth plugging - it's really great. :001_smile:

I think there are individuals and groups which put in a lot of effort stirring up fear about the UN Convention and about homeschooling becoming illegal. I think they do it to serve their own financial and political ends. In reality homeschooling is not legally threatened in any state. It has become a mainstream choice in many places.

Taco and/or burrito fixings work really well for something like this. Kids tend to love anything that's make-your-own.

:iagree:It sounds like everything you would hope to achieve with a punishment/consequence has already happened.

Your history and geography are social studies.

I usually have two or more books going at once. Last: Jasper Fforde, Shades of Grey. Sort of postmodern science fiction, except that you can tell that Fforde is writing from outside the SF genre even though all his books play with fantasy. I liked it. J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban. I'm re-reading the series. Current: How the States Got their Shapes, by Mark Stein. Fascinating pop history/geography book which answers questions you didn't even know you had. J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. See above. Next: J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Read-aloud:Laura Ingalls Wilder, By the Shores of Silver Lake. I don't know what we'll do next. My 5yo found my copy of Little House on the Prairie, which I had put away for when she was older and better able to understand the context of how Native Americans are treated and depicted in that book. She really wants to read it. Maybe I can distract her with the next Oz book instead.

Right up the road in Baltimore, it's the same thing. Nobody asks why, because, you know, inner city schools, but they are shocked and amazed anyway.

The "camping when baby is due" thread got me curious: how far is your house from the nearest basic hospital? I'm realizing that my perspective is a bit skewed because a 10-15 minute drive would take me to four different hospitals, two of them major. That's obviously not the norm, but I'm curious about how many people there are here for which a 30-45 minute drive to a hospital wouldn't be anything out of the norm.

Oh hey, I know Doc. Or "knew," I should say, since it's been years. Small world. Honestly, I think it is a really bad idea. With your first plan, to go home and have a homebirth there once you go into labor... how far is it? What are the roads like? What are the roads like in bad weather? If you ran out of time to get home, would you be car birthing at the side of the road? If something went wrong and you or the baby needed medical care quickly, what would the hospitals near Estrella be like, and how far are they? What would happen to your daughter if you were birthing at Estrella without your husband and you had to have an emergency transfer to the hospital? You say that you wouldn't even be camping with your usual group. If you're thinking about using the first aid station and/or the onsite health care, it would probably be a good idea to first check with the Estrella medical providers about how they'd feel about getting involved in a VBAC outside the hospital. They're expecting to be there for food poisoning, sprained ankles, heat exhaustion, fighting injuries, and stuff like that, right? They probably wouldn't have the equipment to take care of a newborn in distress, and even if you're totally comfortable with the idea of a no-tech birth, that doesn't mean they will be. There may also be implications for Estrella as a whole - for example, their event insurance, or (if the site is rented) their ability to use the site in the future - if you birth there and something goes wrong. So I'd think it would only be fair to check it out with the... is it still the seneschal, for something as large as a war? Having an unassisted birth at a crowded event in a close-knit social community like the SCA is very different from having an unassisted birth in the privacy of your own home. Unless you're the most quiet birther ever, people are going to know it's happening. And it's going to bother/worry people. I know that advocates of unassisted birth believe that it is very safe, but most other people don't believe that - so they would think there was something incredibly dangerous was happening on site. It seems unfair to put your community in the situation of either trying to ignore what's going on in the next tent or trying to decide whether or how to intervene.

I worked all day today and got a nice 8.5-hour break with no one touching me. Colin nursed a lot in the hour after I came home, but it was all very polite - quietly on my lap or standing still in front of me, with no poking and grabbing. He was easy to put to bed tonight, too. So I don't know - maybe he can sense change in the air. ;-) I talked to my husband and we agreed on some arrangements. I'm going to start insisting that he hold still for nursing and that he not grab, bite, poke, or climb. You all are right, he certainly does have the language and cognitive ability now to understand that those are the rules. I'm going to start talking to him now about see-see (nursing) being for daytime, and that see-sees need to sleep at night. On our next free weekend, we'll try having my husband take the night wakings while I sleep downstairs on the couch. I really don't think he needs to night nurse for calories, even on days that I work. Tonight for dinner he had fried rice (three big shrimp, egg, peas and carrots, rice) and 4oz milk. Then he had two big pieces of mango, some grapes, some Cheerios, and another few ounces of milk for a bedtime snack. The boy can eat. :001_smile:

I hope things get better soon. I have been there. I found that it was hard for me to have a good perspective on what was going on with my emotions, because at the time, everything I was thinking and feeling (such as "everyone thinks I'm an awful mother") seemed totally rational to me. Please consider getting an outside opinion from someone you trust, such as a friend, pastor, midwife, or OB, about whether you may have crossed over from baby blues to PPD.

Holy cow, really?! You've got to loosen up and start getting your POV out there!:lol:

I would, too. Well, I would call the on-call doctor for my ped office first because they're very responsive and helpful, but i'd expect them to tell me to go in that night.

I don't think I do want to wean, although there are certainly times right now when all I can think of is "Ugh, I never want anyone to touch me ever again." I think that if I could cut him down to 4-5 times a day I would be ready to keep going for another 6 months to a year. Sometimes it does really feel like an important connection. And of course it's reassuring to know that he's getting good nutrition even on the days that he does science experiments and art projects with his solids. That is such a fantastic way of framing this. Thank you. You're doing a great thing, and I encourage you not to wean. Maybe go spend a lot of time in air conditioned places, though. We co-slept until he turned one, and then moved him to a crib because no one was getting any sleep. Now he's in the crib until whenever I totally lose patience, which sometimes is almost morning and sometimes is as early as 1:30. On a good night, he'll wake around 3 to eat and then move into our bed at 5:30 to nurse and doze. On a bad night, I may be up every two hours, or he may refuse to be put down for an hour after a night waking. But the crib still seems worth it, because in our bed he rolls around a lot and kicks. I followed links from the kellymom toddler nursing site and found the suggestion of having him co-sleep a night or two with just his father. That might be a good option for us for nightweaning, if my husband is willing to try it. Just the idea of a couple of uninterrupted nights somewhere else has me dizzy with excitement. I think that I'll also try implementing the rule about needing to lie reasonably still on my lap if he wants to nurse. That should cut down on a lot of my physical pain, both because he won't be doing gymnastics and because he won't be latching on as often. Thanks, everyone.

I am a liberal and a feminist. I would gladly pay more taxes to help provide food, education, and medical care to people who are less fortunate than me. I think that the health care bill didn't go nearly far enough towards providing universal health care. I am in favor of an expanded social safety net and opposed to privatizing social security. I support public education as long as the choice not to use it is preserved. I support expanded access to accurate sex education, birth control, birth choices, and safe legal abortion. I support freedom of religion and freedom from religion. I oppose the death penalty, the PATRIOT act, and 9 out of 10 wars. But that 10th war may be vitally important, so I am not a pacifist.