I'm not very physically affectionate with people in general. I can't remember the last time my MIL hugged me. My wedding? That was over ten years ago, we have a good relationship, it seems like we'd have hugged since then. My husband's brother usually gives me a quick hug when he sees me after a while. Same with his grandparents. Or my brothers and sisters. I hug my mom when I see her because it's always been a while since I've seen her. That said, I'm very affectionate with my own husband and children. My kids get hugs and kisses every day.

Are they from a culture where that's normal? I'm not so it would probably weird me out a bit. :)

Why in the world is a kid's job to socialize a kid? I always joke that kids are basically savages and it's our job to civilize them. When you throw a bunch of savages into a room together, you're expecting savages to civilize each other and it's not realistic. ;) Kids should be socialized by adults, not other children. Yes, a child socialized in this manner will be "different". In a good way.

As someone who is weak in the face of parental pressure, I do sympathize. There have been times I was physically ill at the thought of a conversation with my mother that I knew wasn't going to go well. Is there a book that's a kind of "Good reasons to homeschool" type of book. Something that goes into statistics about homeschooled kids doing very well academically and socially? Would your parents be offended if you said something like, "I'd like to talk to you about this, but this book explains my thoughts so much better. Could you please do me a favor and read it and then we can go over anything you might have to say afterward?"

I agree with everyone talking about class size. I went to a large megachurch where we used to live and volunteered to be an Awanas teacher. We had a teacher in each class and two assistant teachers (I was one of these). We had a class size of about 15-18. And it was absolutely chaotic most of the time. Of course, my particular main teacher didn't know the first thing about managing groups of kids so she let them run wild. :p

I've decided to work year round in an effort to eliminate the beginning of the year adjustment period where my nine year old has such a hard time with everything. I took our 36 weeks of school and spread them out, giving extra weeks around Christmas and so on. Anyway, all that to say, this is our first vacation week. We're going to do a couple field trips and get some much needed housework done and that's it.

I recommend MarioKart for your first game. It's a very friendly, fun racing game. There's characters and other cars you can unlock and three difficulty levels and lots of maps. We still haven't played through all of ours. Plus you can race each other so it's a good multiplayer game.

Spoilers about My Sister's Keeper. Ok, so she sets up this whole book so that it's pretty much inevitable that the sick sister is going to die and they go through the whole pain of the court proceedings and so on... and then they KILL the healthy sister in a car accident?? Random! And then they let the sick sister live out of the blue? That book was the first I had read from Jodi Picoult and it completely turned my off of her for all time. I don't mind surprise endings and I don't mind plot twists, but you can't lie to your readers about what's going to happen and then turn around and do something else. And to throw a car accident in out of the blue was really a sad attempt at a surprise ending. :p Sorry if I sound overly annoyed at this. I do get too emotionally invested in some books I guess and that one really irritated me.

Ambiguous endings bug me too! I feel like the author couldn't commit to an ending or something. I always assumed he died but then read later that he shows up in a sequel, which makes it feel like even more of a cheat. If she knew he was alive, then tell us, you know? That said, despite my slight annoyance at the end, The Giver is one of my favorite books.

Firefly is the bestest! And only one season. :(

Why? It's like race is some kind of unmentionable. She shouldn't be embarrassed about her skin tone and we shouldn't act like it's something embarrassing by not mentioning it. I just think it's healthier to be open and not afraid of talking about these things. I use the term black. I have a sister adopted from Haiti and we've don't really refer to her as Haitian-American. She's American, she's our sister, with a dry sense of humor and an an addiction to celebrity magazines. :)

This thread makes me sad. And not for the same reasons everyone else is sad. We're going to vilify a bunch of women for Facebook status updates? :( I should probably stop clicking on this thread but I kept wondering how long it would go on...

You guys can thinking I'm a cold hearted mom but yeah, I looked forward to school starting. Summer was relaxing and fun, but by the end of the summer, I was ready for the structure in our lives. I liked the peace and quiet and how easy it was to get things done with them at school and I enjoyed picking them up in the afternoon and catching up on our day and doing something fun. Spending all day every day with them, I don't get down time to recharge and be as fun. I'm not going to pretend I'm this endless well of joy and patience.

I started watching Angel and I find the show really annoying. One of the great things about Buffy is the interactions between the characters. Giles and Xander, or Annya and... well, everyone. Angel has none of that. The entire premise is lame as well. Buffy had a clear purpose and a destiny she couldn't escape, etc. Angel seems to be forcing himself awkwardly into his position on his show. I haven't even managed to get through the first season, to you might take this with a grain of salt, but the show has been disappointing. SPOILERS: Plus, within the very first season he is offered two ways to drastically improve his life, one time to be given everything he could possibly want, and he turns them both down. Lame.

Just out of curiosity, why don't you allow packages delivered to your house? The only reason I can think is that you don't want to answer the door. Will your deliver person not simply drop them off? Mine will unless a signature is required. Or is there another reason?

I think my nine year old's first crush (several years ago) was Prince Charming from Shrek 2. Not sure what that says about her taste in men. :p I also found a picture she had drawn of two stick people holding hand and was labeled with her name and a boy from school she has known for five years. It said "Me and my future boyfriend (hopefully)". She hung it on the wall but them seemed embarrassed when I noticed. For someone whose recent obsessions are spying and secret codes, she's not terribly subtle.

My mother used to call them child care centers "day orphanages" (which I think is actually a term someone else used? Dr. Laura maybe?) and she used to call public schools "child prisons". I guess because of that I can't really get my panties in a twist over someone using the term "real school" to refer to public school. :glare:

Not really. I try not to be easily offended and that one just doesn't seem that important to me.

We've had ours since Christmas and they still play it a few times a week. I guess the novelty has worn off a bit but they do love it. My kids get frustrated with games and won't sit there for hours and hours playing them. We set the timer for half an hour or an hour.

Maybe they plan to let the puppy's interests guide them. When the puppy shows interest in, say, not biting, they'll go to the library and check out some books on not biting. ;) The kid will grow up and could learn what he needs/wants to know. But that dog will be a terror.

testing again

Is it bear with me or bare with me? I also have think about whether and weather, but I usually get it right.

We owned one when I was a child. If this is going to be an outside dog, you need to live in a place where it is pretty much always cold. We had one in Texas and even with him being an inside dog, it was just cruel. My grandparents lived in Maine and they had two of these dogs. They were still inside dogs, but they had a lot of fun in the winter. There's a picture of me as a baby sitting on the floor next to one of my grandparent's Great Pyrenees, who was laying on the floor trying to sleep. I was pulling back his lip and examining his teeth with my little baby fingers. He just laid there, tolerating me. They really are very sweet dogs.

Ha! I love it. :)

As imperfect as I am, I'm sure they'll have all kinds of complaints. All I can say is that I'm doing the best I can and I'm sorry for the mistakes that I've made. Kids are very forgiving. They want to love their parents and if you acknowledge your mistakes, they usually won't hold it against you. :) Even as adults I think we all want to have a close relationship with our parents and would be happy to let go of any grudges we may have against them. Maybe I'm generalizing too much. But I think that's generally true. I expect my kids will be similar. They'll have to deal with the unique way that I messed them up and I'll be there to help them get over it.