I'm having too much fun here now. I was here playing last night and decided to microwave some popcorn. I popped into the kitchen, got out the popcorn, pressed the 'popcorn' button on the microwave, and happily scurried back to my computer. I heard the timer 'ding', but waited a couple of minutes before going back in to get my popcorn. Then I heard dh hollering from the living room, "What's burning?" "Nothing should be burning! There's nothing cooking!" "Oh, yes, something is *too* burning! You need to get in here!" Highly irritated at the idea of my surfing being interrupted, I walked into the kitchen . . . and found the entire room full of (stinky) smoke. On the way to the microwave, I noticed my unpopped bag of popcorn lying on the kitchen counter. Realizing that I 'popped' something other than the intended corn, I hesitantly opened the microwave and found Kitten's leftover cinnamon twisters from Taco Bell, which she had stored there to protect from our cat, who nibbles on anything she can get her paws on. The paper bag they were in had fused to their smelly, charred remains. Nasty stuff. My house still reeks this morning. If I accidentally burn my house down, it's your fault. (Apparently, these new boards are so much fun they'll bring down the house!)

I'm another Lorna, and, though I've posted infrequently over the years on the general board, I've only lurked on this one. My primary reason for lurking is my 14 year old, who spent K-5 in public school before things got so bad I pulled her out. At 10 months old she pointed to the clock on the wall and gave us a very clear "what's that?" -- we spent the rest of the evening teaching her the words for all the objects she could find, and we've gone from there. She was the youngest child in the history of our district to be admitted to the GT program (which met for an hour a week and was basically useless). We pulled her out of ps after 5th grade, which is when the 8th grade science teacher (who was also the GT teacher) decided my 10 year old would be the perfect person to demonstrate experiments and explain concepts to children 3 years her senior. (Let's just say that young teenagers don't appreciate that type of thing very much, and this put an end to her social life.) Since she had been miserable since Kindergarten anyway, pulling her out seemed like the way to go! She has been much happier since we started homeschooling! I also have an 11 year old who was in the ps gifted program, as well (just for K-1, as that is the point where we pulled them out of ps), but did not qualify with the off-the-charts scores his older sister had -- his were more 'normal' gifted scores. Our 6 year old has never gone to public school and we've never had her tested, but she appears to be somewhere between her brother and sister in the area of giftedness. I'm looking forward to being involved over here now -- I am really enjoying the new format!

I've lurked for years, but have only occasionally posted. However, I have a serious case of Larvae Envy going on right about now, so I imagine I'll be doing a bit more posting in the future!

This is my fourth year. My older two kids both started out in ps (one through fifth grade and the other through first).

3 -- 9th grade, 5th grade, and 1st grade!