We have at least three which is weird considering we live in a place where it rarely ever rains. My kids all have 2 pairs of boots too. Strange.

My now 10yo ds did this with my now 5yo when he was 8 and 9 (if that makes any sense). I separated them as much as I could and talked to him a lot about how cool it is to be a big brother and how she just wanted to do things like he did. It worked for a few days but not continually. We spent a lot of time talking about how he was at her age and that even though he doesn't remember, at times he was kind of annoying too. (Of course I said that in as loving as I possibly could.) Then I watched how I was speaking to each of the kids--ie, if I got frazzled with her, he was going to also. If her climbing on things irritated me to no end, he was going to get irritated too. I spent a lot of time reading to my younger one and making sure he could see that no matter what she did (it was a very hard period for all of us) I loved her dearly. Then I spent time reading with him and listening to him and making sure his stuff was safe from her. It didn't solve anything right away, but over time things got better and stayed that way. HTH.

I hope it's okay to jump in here. Your experience reminded me of one we had last year. I took the kids with me to interview a new doctor and as soon as he heard that we homeschooled he told them that they'd have a lot more friends if they went to regular school. My poor boys spluttered and honestly so did I. Clearly it wasn't a good fit and we didn't choose him as their dr. The ironic thing was that I'd just picked them up from a friend's house where they'd gone for an impromptu get-together with about 10 other kids. No way would they have been able to do that I'd they had been in "real school."

Most of mine call me Mom or Mama. My 8yo ds calls me Momma--he spells and says it differently than the others but I've never known why.

Thanks for the warm welcome. I'm trying to make a signature, hopefully it worked. In case it didn't, on my desk right now is Latin for Children, Singapore Math, SOTW 4, Beatrix Potter, Sentence Island and a bunch of other stuff that has nothing to do with homeschooling. I really need to clear off my desk before tomorrow morning.:001_huh:

Hi, I'm Felicity. I have 4 kids, I hs my 2 boys, 10 & 8, my dd5 goes to kindergarten and my dd3 wanders around asking us to read to her. I have been reading here for a while and just wanted to introduce myself. That's all, thanks. Felicity, etc

I am a long-time lurker here and I really hesitate to delurk on this thread...but I am anyway and I hope my input here is okay. I am LDS (or Mormon) and I started out hsing using Ambleside. We loved it, even TCOO for the first few readings until I got uncomfortable having to substitute "savages" so many time. After that I found the chapter on Mormons. These are my ancestors HE Marshal was talking about. That's my family spoken of like that. Honestly, I cried. I threw the book away--the first time I'd ever done that. I tried to continue using AO because I liked the other book selections (I had already taken out the Trial and Triumph book), but couldn't. It was tainted in my mind. And maybe that's my own problem and I'm being judgemental. All I could think of was that The Advisory read that book and thought it was okay for children. And it's not. ToG is not something I've ever planned to use and I respect the families here that are doing their best to hs their children well. But that book. It hurts me that it's out there, with the section on Mormons scheduled or not, being read and being some families only exposure to Mormons. Anyway, I'm sorry for intruding and the emotional sound of this post (not to mention the length). Usually I'm calm and collected. It's that book, I tell ya, the book.

Hi, I've never posted before, but I'm from Frederick, although I don't live there anymore. I can try to get in touch with some friends to see if they know of a good mechanic there (weirdly I don't think we had major car issues while we were there). I don't know about fees or towing, but I can probably find someone honest who will fix it enough to get it home. PM me (I think that's what it is) and we can talk more. Oh, and do you know approximately where in the city he is? Felicity (ds 8, ds 6, dd 3, dd1)