Didn't you tell me once that there was a Japanese restaurant in your town that was your favorite? Have you called to see if they have a place for a meeting? Other than that, I think it's like the Godfather: Go to the board(ie)s. ;)

Chris--hopefully you're right, & they meant 8th grade!

I prefer the paperback because it stays open better. But they're going to look really...*ahem* LOVED when we're done with them. :D

Can we talk about this book? I'm only 100-120pp in--although spoilers are fine--I mean, I *have* heard of the cultural revolution. :) I've seen it compared to the Diary of Anne Frank, but it's been YEARS since I've read that--would the 2 pair well together? Or be too heavy together? What about reading about the French Revolution alongside this & other books about the Cultural Revolution? Finally--what age range would you say would be best suited to this book? Obviously (I think!) not elem, but it seems pretty heavy/over the head of what a middle schooler would usually read, with obvious exceptions. I ask partly because Amazon says 8 & up, & that seems...pretty young for some of the themes in this book. Does it make a difference if they're reading it on their own vs discussing it w/ someone?

It's also not THAT hard--I found a handful of free & cheap plays after just an hour of googling & reading samples online. My favorite was $25 to perform, & they email you a PDF of the script as part of that fee. You get to print as many as you need. The lady doing this play is an English teacher, so she has no experience looking for a play--but neither do I, & I'd still...not do THIS play. In her position? I would have asked one of the theater teachers in the district for some suggestions, not just paid a lot of money for something I hadn't read--only to find out it COULD be read free online. How did she even manage to order it without seeing the button to click for a free sample???

They paid something like $200 for this play, wanting it to be for a "wide audience." Now it's just going to be for parents, & 4th-5th graders "with permission." Dh felt it was inappropriate for *his* age (due to stupidity) last night when I insisted he read it. Each new scene sinks to a new low. It was SO gratifying to watch his jaw drop more and more. What can I say? I have a cruel streak, & sometimes it's fun to inflict bad writing on the people I love most. ;) (Maybe that's what the teacher who chose the play was thinking?)

Please, please read it through to the end. It gets. so. much. worse. than the 'rum tum tuggers.' I tried to tell Lara & dh yesterday that the worst thing about it was how stupid it is, but neither of them believed me until they were subjected to it. These brain cells we're building in our kids don't come free, ya know. Think of all the hours of math & phonics we've sweated over by the time they get to this age, & to have them flushed by a single mind-melting, coma-inducing play? (Our kids are in the same class.)

My kids have kind-of come in sets: the oldest 2 are 2 yrs apart, next 2 14 mos, so combining has been easy & obvious. But oldest is in 6th this year, next one in 4th. I'm wondering how much longer combining will make sense. Someone pointed out to me last summer that science is about to fall off the list, because it will be math-based. I guess that leaves lit & history, but I've kind-of always treated those like one subject. This year we started out using Light to the Nations, but 4th grader got overwhelmed & has instead stuck to SOTW & Kingfisher (which is fine--I've made the discussions address both books, same time period). But as their strengths & interests begin to diverge--ds is mathy, dd loves writing--they seem to begin to be needing more focused time from me in different areas. History was the backbone of our hs 1st-4th, but...now that they can READ, lol, & I've got 4 kids doing school every day...history is getting less & less attention, so that whether or not it's combined is kind-of...moot. Thoughts?

Dh & I took a lit class together when I was pg w/ #1. I was a lit major, so there was a ton of reading, & I couldn't always keep up. One day on the way to an exam, I asked him to recap Paradise Lost. He got a B on the test; I got an A. This happened to us in every lit/phil class we took together, & he STILL complains about it. So you want to hear some poetic justice? I hate rereading books, & I can only think of ONE I've read more than once. All the way through, cover-to-cover, FOUR times now. The phonics book. :p

My oldest is a 6th g, 12yo boy. The hardest age so far? GIRL! LOL--it's the tears. They stress me out! But 3rd & pre-reading were hard, too. Pre-reading, esp, because it's easy to forget that that will end & hard to imagine being able to say, "Go read this." Now I've got 2 beginning readers, & although I still don't like to teach reading, I've seen past this point, so it's not as bad.

bump

I am so, so sorry my post came across...maybe...somewhat insincere? "Fake convert" is probably a terrible way to put it, but it's how I put it *to myself* at the time. I wanted to convert years before, but I took it SO seriously (as I think a person ought)--like a *marriage*--that I didn't feel like I could "sign on the dotted line" unless I was 100%. And time after time, when I looked for answers to the issues I had with the Church, I ran into walls with the people at different RCIA groups. Catholicism is so different from the other Christian denominations I've had experience with...it requires a completely different way of life. It wants EVERYTHING. *whispering*: It wants into my bedroom. When I was Evangelical & I went to the grocery store, I looked like everyone else there. If a stranger started talking about religion, our beliefs were VERY likely to be close enough for polite conversation. If I got a divorce or used bc, that was mostly my business. So it was like...I decided to force myself to be ok with giving it what I could instead of everything. This is very not like me, compromise. LOL And it turns out, I couldn't do it--hence not finishing RCIA in 2011/12. If the parish we're at now hadn't had such good books to read, there's NO WAY I would have made it through this year with all the chaos my life has been in, but instead? The doctrine of the Church, the Saints, the community--have given me the grace & strength to survive it. ************************************************************************************ I'd be hesitant to congratulate someone on a conversion story that sounded flippant or insincere, too, & I think I've "known" you long enough to understand your feelings--esp when you clarified below. And the joking comments? I'd probably have been able to tell more easily that they were jokes if they hadn't been interspersed with other comments that weren't joking. Between it all, I was genuinely confused & thought maybe I'd lost any ability to read internet-tone at all. And I'm also sorry that there's any contention here in this thread. I was trying so hard to present my story in a neutral enough way that it would be appropriate for the boards as a whole--since I've come here for so many years with religious questions to the boards as a whole--that I think I clipped out too much of what was personal--the smooshy feelingness of it all. I mean, I feel SO gushy about Catholicism right now that I do try to tone it down, even for Catholic friends, but...maybe...you can't tell a conversion story w/out too much emotion? I mean...it's emotional. As far as explaining...in the right context, it's such a privilege & joy to get to talk about why I'm converting. I don't mind for any of you guys at all, if you'll excuse my sometimes-bumpy language. ((Unsinkable))

Considering the last I'd heard--in 2011, I think--the good news in your post is SO good. I've been thinking about you, worrying, praying over the past year. I'm so glad--so, SO glad A's health is...well, much better it sounds like. I pray all the other things would work themselves out peacefully, quickly. I know how incredibly deep your love for each other has been & through what incredibly hard times. I hope all the hurt can be healed, fixed, whatever. I hope health & comfort for you both & for your children. (((Joanne)))

*passes the shovel to Renthead*

The kidding is making me nervous...I can't tell which of you are kidding & which are not!

Maybe it was just my personal experience! 4 was kind-of the unwritten limit in the churches we attended, & we got cross-eyed looks for that. We were told that for dh to be a proper pastor, we couldn't have any more children--sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes directly. And it's not that we were just *dying* for more children, it's that we had ethical issues with birth control. No desire to push that on anyone else, just wanted a little breathing space to work that out on our own. Kwim?

Totally not fake any more. And the original reason for the fake-convert? The Catholic Church's teachings on family were the closest I could find to what I (really) believed. Catholic homeschooling families were often the most inspiring to me. I finally decided that our faith-lives were made up of something like 90% daily how-it-lives-out (you know, child-rearing, house-cleaning, size of family, ethical interactions, etc) & 10% theology-stuff. I figured a 90% match in a Catholic Church was closer than a 5% match in an Evangelical or Baptist church (because even there, I didn't have a full 10% agreement). So there were genuine reasons even before I could be 100%.

Resurrecting a dead thread--any updates? I've been looking at Kolbe for a couple of weeks now. I think I want something accredited & organized for high school. I've got a couple of years to decide, but so far everything I've disliked about it on the surface has turned out to be really interesting when I read their reasons for the topics/organization/etc. It looks like not a perfect fit, but pretty good, &...I guess I think I'm willing to sacrifice in the form of conformity for high school in exchange for some accreditation/reassurance/record-keeping. We used SOTW/WTM for elem, & now we're floundering (w/ SL) in mid sch--not in a bad way, just not "WOW this is the best curric!" -- So I thought I'd look at high school plans & try to work backward. If that makes sense.

I'm not digging up a dead turtle again. Y'all are crazier than dh! :D

Is marching in front of the school the best way to open a discussion about a book? Nah, but if you schedule a meeting in the library or at town hall, who's going to show up? All I'm saying is that something public, crazy, etc--gets attention. I'd imagine at least some letters to the editor or break room (or WTM!) discussions going on, & *that* (could be) good.

It can be surmised from what I previously (last year) shared, but the details are still hair-curling. But I read the Curly Girls book, so I can handle anything. I still like my last labor nurse's mantra: You're coping well. In some ways, coping with afterward is harder. You don't have the adrenaline.

This is a good point. My first reaction to the protest was...to laugh. I'm not offended by someone marching about a book by themselves in front of a school; I'm amused. And I start to wonder how that action can be incorporated into the class's lit study. Perhaps that's not very nice, but... But I agree that the violence in the book is pretty horrifying. Dh just finished the first book--we both loved it--& I remarked that as violent as it is, it's amazing to me that none of it seems gratuitous. I can't wait for my kids to get to read it, BUT I WILL WAIT. It's too much for them at this age, & I HAVE a 6th grader. (No one has to agree w/ me; we also save the HP books for age 11 & up, & read them ourselves, AND loved them.) Your comment made me think though--the ramifications of giving students the option to choose another book removes the opportunity to discuss the appropriateness of the lit choices. In some ways, it's almost as if it's SO democratic as to shut down the democratic process. Because, to some extent, a community school should offer a voice to the community, yes? So maybe the protest isn't as dumb/funny as I first thought--maybe it's a good way to bring light to the topic & get people to discuss it. To what extent that can or should impact the classroom--AT LEAST there's a discussion. At least people are being asked to think about--what do we want our teenagers reading? At what age? Not that books should be banned or that these choices should be taken away from parents, just in the context of a public-school reading list. For ex, if the public school next door wanted 4th g'ers to start reading 50 Shades of Gray--we'd want to discuss that, yes? (I haven't read the book.) So in that sense, maybe getting people to talk about lit choices is one of the healthiest, most democratic, most LITERATE things this family could do. (Here's hoping literacy & democracy are their motivations, lol.)

Ok, but in all fairness, the movie left me feeling that way, too--but because I wondered if the film makers had READ the books. You know, I expect to be disappointed with movie-versions, but the stuff they missed was the stuff that would have been GREAT in a movie. (Like the MUSIC. Should have been good enough to win best sound track, if they'd understood/READ the book!) Sorry. The movie made me so mad it hurt my feelings. :p

Yeah, but I think you know. ;) Really, though, the nut cases are rarely the people who STAY in my life. They're just the strangers at the bus stop.

I mean, being back on the boards...I shouldn't try to do school today, right? ;) The phone repair people were here this morning. Between the turtle & Thurs school, the kitchen was a wreck, so we got that cleaned up when she called to say she was on her way. Then the baby pulled the coffee pot off the shelf from his highchair, so I was cleaning up old coffee & broken glass when she got here. (Thankfully I hadn't made coffee yet AND we have another pot.) Then she had to check the jacks in the rest of the house, which I *didn't* clean. Oh my gosh. I'd asked dd to try to make my room presentable, just in case, but a) her def & mine are on different planets. I can't tell she WENT in my room. And B) the phone lady had to go in the kids' rooms, too. *faint* But we made paths for her, got the kitchen & coffee & glass cleaned up, fed the baby, cleaned up the oatmeal he found later, & then I remembered ds had made coffee, which I reheated, & now here I am. I'm pretty sure if I close the computer you guys will disappear. And the last couple of weeks here have been kinda lonely, so I hate to risk it... Update We've moved & are living in CO Springs. This house is amazing--I've never had more than 1200 sf, & this is more than twice that. Dh got a contract in the project management field, & so far, he's LOVING it, which is the best bonus I can think of. I was told it would be otherwise a few mos ago by a "curious bystander." Well, not loving it would be a polite version of what was said. Anyway. We are converting to Catholicism & coming into the Church at Easter. I'd decided to fake-convert when we moved here from TX. I was pg w/ #5, disillusioned from our time in seminary, &...well, many of you guys know how hard it is to be anything on the Protestant-Evangelical spectrum with 5+ kids. It was Catholicism or Atheism, so I was really hoping I could be Catholic. I started RCIA in 2011, but when the baby came & was in NICU, etc, I just couldn't get up the energy to keep going. And the class...gosh, the lady who taught it was sweet, but the class was boring. In the mos I was there, the only thing they taught was stuff Christians could agree on across the board. And pretty soon, the Catholic stuff in the building--the statues, stained glass, vestments--started to freak me out. I realized either God & His Stuff looks like this or it doesn't. If I was going to spend eternity in a Catholic heaven, I kinda wanted to spend the rest of *this* life with something more familiar, you know? I guess what it comes down to is you can't fake-convert. Which I knew. At some point during the mos that followed, I told someone I wanted SO badly to be Catholic. Like the way you want a guy you're dating to somehow make the unacceptable parts invisible. Like pretending he's not stupid so you can date him & just WISHING he'd keep his mouth shut so you can keep your delusion. lol I found another parish that looked worth trying, & their RCIA was year-round AND on Sundays after mass, so--convenient to try. Dh had a test one Sun, so he needed the time to concentrate, so the kids & I went. If you can imagine a woman showing up w/ 5 kids by herself & practically shouting/begging--WHERE IS RCIA?? It was the Sun after Easter. I went to mass that day, too, & I told dh--it's the weirdest thing. None of it really made a lot of sense, although the sermon was good (can't remember it now). Mainly, though, I left with a ginger-flavored peace, like if you could taste the sun setting over the mountains, full of fizz. They let me come every Sun w/ all the kids, who brought picnic lunches & toys & books, & they let me check books out from their library, & after a few Sundays, I asked dh--What if Jesus is really present in the Eucharist? I mean, I KNOW He's not, but...what IF? I read Evangelical Is Not Enough by Thomas Howard, Elisabeth Eliot's brother, and a modern-day convert. This book had a greater impact on me than anything else I read, but at the same time, I encountered some beautiful Chesterton quotes & downloaded a free book of his, which dh & I began reading together. The logic of the books I read was alarming. I hadn't expected any of the "weird" parts of Catholicism to make sense, but the more I read, the harder it became to remember why I ever believed differently. Questions I've had since I was a *child* began to be answered--but with acceptable answers, not Christian-ese, if that makes sense. Then I began reading the early church fathers. Finding the original sources & getting them in the right order, etc, is a monumental task. Excerpts quoted here & there in textbooks...well, the textbooks were biased, so I didn't feel like I could trust those. In a short time, dh's church history books from seminary became SO OBVIOUSLY wrong that we threw them out. I hope it was poor research & not malicious, but in a college textbook, even research THAT poor is...well, it's really, really bad. The book we threw out is so popular, so well-regarded that I'm haunted by how many people have read it, will read it, & will trust the information in it without question. I would have! I didn't get very far into the writings of the early fathers--I was trying to simplify them for the kids, so it was slow-going, but it was also really dense. Ignatius of Antioch was my favorite. He talks about the necessity of unity in the Body & urges his followers: "Man by man, become a choir, that Jesus may be sung." Something like that, but more beautifully put. Dh through all of this was...cautiously supportive? He wanted me in church & reasoned that the Catholics were "probably" Christians. He was pretty sure. We had so many long, long conversations, & when he finished his classes, he began coming to RCIA with me. I thought it was his imagination at first, but he was right: every time he asked a question, the lady who ran the thing sort-of twitched. But that's better than the church in FW whose leader escorted us to the door when she found out he'd been in a Baptist seminary! Anyway, he got to the point that he said the theology made sense in his head sometimes, other times in his heart, but he could never get those to be the same. Honestly? That was more than I'd hoped for. We'd originally agreed to go to separate churches, raising the kids Evangelical. But more & more, I'd wanted to raise the kids Catholic, wanted to baptize the littles. And it's not like the bigs sat through all of this without an opinion--they were ready to convert before I was! Dh had assented to the bigs converting. He came to the point that he was ok with the littles being baptized Catholic, because, in his words, there was no other church that would make sense any more. But part of that is promising to raise them Catholic. I asked the priest if I could promise to raise them as-Catholic-as-possible. Because until dh was more comfortable w/ the idea (if ever), I couldn't make that promise! After a miraculous encounter w/ God which I can't explain, dh was ready to convert. So ready, he asked the priest if he could come in to the Church early. So ready, he wanted to try to Convert All The Protestants, lol. I pointed out that if he'd met himself before being ready to convert, he'd make himself run away, & he calmed down a little. He just...felt kind-of jipped to have not had the information about the historical church before hand. One of the biggest differences for dh is the issue of calling, or vocation as it's called in the Catholic church. He'd struggled before with feeling called to be a pastor, going to seminary, & supporting a family. God FIRST, right? But the churches we'd attended during seminary would swallow up FIRST so that there was nothing left for second much less third. If you couldn't feed your family, remember: whoever leaves his family for Christ will be blessed. Not that he really bought into *that* but...it left him in Superman mode. Or maybe just...what's the horse's name in Animal Farm? "I must work harder." So he'd work harder & harder & HARDER until there was nothing left. I felt certain that we'd eventually lose our children (spiritually speaking) because of it. Something HAD to change. Enter Catholicism. You can't be a married priest. (I know there are certain exceptions, but broadly speaking.) So. His CALL is to be a husband and father. Suddenly, his profession matters in a new way--it's not a cop-out our a less-holy calling or something. It's not an undercover evangelist opportunity. And he's able to bear the burden of life-responsibilities with a new fervor & cheer that has...always been near the surface for him, if that makes sense? Like, he had the *character* for it, but not the background to point him quite the right direction, so I'd see this man almost surface & then disappear, over & over during our marriage, & I would get frustrated. Now? It's like I can see the man I married break through the ice & come up for air, & he's in a boat, & he's sailing for the shore. I hope he can say something nice like that about me, too, at least in the long run, but that would be another story. *************************************************** You guys really deserve more details about other life circumstances, but I can't. Not now. *sigh* Plus, you know how wordy I am. It would kill the boards to say all the things I want to say. ;) I have a really good dr, though, & I think that someday I will be ok. I think the kids will be ok. Now I really want to talk curriculum. I've tried to explain to dh how to do that, & he just can't. Not like y'all. He thinks it's a problem to be solved, not a philosophy to sit & discuss over coffee. I mean, if he approached the Meaning of Life like he approaches curriculum, we'd have a graph or a chart & be done in under an hour & be stuck w/ nothing to talk about. Well, except dead turtles. ;)