Hey, they finally added horses, donkeys, and mules instead of a ride on a pig that you can't control. I think that's pretty cool for them. :D

My great grandfather who was an immigrant from Spain was quite insistent that he was *not* Hispanic; that that term only applied to those who came from South or Central America.

Hey, they funded a study of duck penises (or is it peni?) This study sounds MUCH more relevant.

I squirted a lactation consultant in the face one time. She was really nice about it, said it wasn't the first time it'd happened. Another time I had to go to the ER and we were there MUCH longer than I (foolishly) expected. I was leaking like crazy and had no more pads to catch it, and I was so engorged it was painful on TOP of what I was already there for. Once I finally was in a bed I had my Dh find a bed pan and I sat hunched over it as I dripped into it, TRYING to hand express but they were so hard it didn't work well and so painful that I was crying. Right about then a male nurse walked in and said "WHAT are you DOING?!!?" I guess he hadn't had enough exposure to breastfeeding as a kid. :p

When I was in K I thought there were strict gender assigned colors and when I asked a boy what his favorite color was and he said "red" I was horrified and told him red couldn't be his favorite color because that was a GIRL color!

I am sorry for your loss! I had never heard of hypermesis before they reported Kate having it, and I ended up with it, too! I probably had it with my first as well and just didn't realize it was more than just "morning" sickness.

http://strictlykatemiddleton.blogspot.com/ When she was doing the Canada tour I checked it every.single.day. And then went into withdrawals when it was over.

Yeah, that stinks.

:iagree: I'm not even into fashion, but I follow a blog that is dedicated just to identifying what Kate wears in public (even though that means pretty much nothing to me, I like looking at her pretty dresses and HATS!) I'm pregnant at the same time as her (I did NOT get pregnant just because the Duchess did) and my baby girl's middle name is going to be Catherine, but that was decided YEARS ago to honor a family member who passed away. :tongue_smilie: But, yes, I'm totally excited. :thumbup:

I'm thinking WTM has lists of things to pick from for memorization, but I recently moved and my books are all packed away and I don't know where my WTM is or I'd look it up for you. It doesn't have it all open and go, but it could give you an idea of where to look for those things.

Companies get special deals for using those companies, so they get charged less and can charge you less for S&H. Regular people don't get those deals.

Is this the one you're thinking of? http://www.amazon.com/The-Pencil-Grip-Crossover-Ergonomic/dp/B001SN8HPI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1373323265&sr=8-2&keywords=pencil+grip

YES! EXACTLY!!!

Excellent! Thank you for sharing! I'm bookmarking that!

Estimated grade levels for OPGTR: http://sceleratusclassicalacademy.blogspot.com/2012/12/grade-levels-in-ordinary-parents-guide.html Some ideas for assessing his "grade level:" http://sceleratusclassicalacademy.blogspot.com/2013/06/learning-to-read-to-reading-to-learn.html And ideas of books to start challenging him: http://teachingmybabytoread.blog.com/2011/03/01/guided-reading-levels/

I got the Step 2 water table second hand and am pretty happy with it. The kids like the divided sections, and it's strong enough that when a 4 year old decided to climb in and sit in it it didn't collapse. There isn't room for more than 2 kids to play at it, though. http://www.amazon.com/Step2-WaterWheel-Activity-Play-Table/dp/B000641DPQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373312931&sr=8-1&keywords=water+table

I didn't recognize the title until I read this. THEN I remembered because that creeped me out too and I thought that was completely inappropriate boundaries with an ADULT offspring.

I've never burned a book, but I was tempted once or twice. The first when I was a teenager and I was just completely disturbed by a book I read (though now as an adult I've been considering re-reading it.) The second time was a Cat in the Hat learning library book that was so full of bad/wrong/misleading information that the idea of other children reading or being read that information and believing it to be true was very upsetting. I returned it and almost said something to the librarians about it; I also wanted to leave a note in the book for the next reader, but I never did. Instead I wrote a review of it on my blog and shared that review on Amazon.com and Goodreads so that I could warn other parents. http://sceleratusclassicalacademy.blogspot.com/2012/10/kids-book-review-hooray-for-today-cat.html

If you can find it used on Amazon or somewhere, the Evan-Moor ScienceWorks for Kids' Learning to be a Scientist sounds perfect for you and that age. I blogged about what we did when we did it, here's the link: http://sceleratusclassicalacademy.blogspot.com/search/label/Learning%20to%20Be%20a%20Scientist I cannot recommend this book enough. It should be easy enough for you to get the materials ahead of time and simple enough for your husband to do without much prep.

When I was young I was given some....human biological information that was inappropriate for my age, but not the right information when I got older, so until Sophomore year of high school I thought that a man's....you-know-what had to be exercised like a muscle to....perform it's non urinary function. I thought guys had to flex and exercise to make it possible to preform it's secondary function.

I chose "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?" (18) to memorize in Shakespeare English class sr. year of high school. As part of it we had to not just be able to recite it to the class, but also write it out with perfect spelling and punctuation. I think it stuck much longer because of that second part. ETA: And here's David Tennat (the 10th Doctor) reciting it in his original Scottish accent! http://pinterest.com/pin/258675572317802534/

FLL1 is totally doable for a kindergartener who is up to it. I tried in K with my oldest and he wasn't "getting" it, so I waited. But I figured out that doing it all orally didn't work for his learning style, so I added some things to make it so he could understand better. We haven't done school in 6 months thanks to a very difficult pregnancy and a move out of state, but this week his little brother asked what a noun was and ds6 told him exactly the FLL definition, so it STICKS! :) Here's a link to my blog about how we expanded FLL1 to make it "hands on." http://sceleratusclassicalacademy.blogspot.com/search/label/FLL%201

I've been wondering about this myself! I don't remember when *I* switched over. With my kids, at times it seems like they're doing some short periods of "silent"/in their head reading, but that's just a sentence or two.

For our wood anniversary we got a wood plaque at the craft store and we were going to use a dremil (not sure I'm spelling that right?) to engrave on it our names/initials, wedding date, and a verse or something. We bought the plaque, but never got around to engraving it. I suggested painting on it, but dh didn't like that idea.

Ohh, okay, I thought the air reference was *actual* air. :headbang: