Of course you don't. My point was just that nobody in their right mind would think that letting random kids handle a gun was okay. I was just jumping in from the perspective of a second amendment supporter to say, "Don't assume all gun owners feel that way!" Just like nobody wants all homeschoolers tarred with the "lazy non-schoolers" brush, gun owners don't want to let a few nutjobs tar all of them either.

I figured I'd be married with a bunch of children. I think I'd wanted babies of my own since I was about two. I said I wanted to be a teacher, but that was because saying that I wanted to be a SAH mom wasn't socially acceptable, but teaching was. I don't think I ever really intended to teach in a classroom. I'm doing about close what I said I hoped to be doing. I suspect none of my middle school classmates would be surprised. I married my high school sweetheart, and I teach our houseful of children. I think I'd have assumed my bunch would have had a few more girls in the mix, but otherwise, I don't really surprise myself. Old farmhouse in the country -- doesn't really surprise my twelve-year-old self. My little girl even has the name I picked out for her long before she was even conceived. I think I'm really just a slightly older version of my young adult, teen, and childhood selves.

None of the responsible gun owners I know would consider it to be responsible to let random kids handle a gun at a soccer game or wherever it was mentioned. They take gun safety, especially with children, very, very seriously. If children are curious, they would carefully show an unloaded gun to the children, with parental permission, in a controlled way, and only after serious discussion about safety, treating every gun as loaded, etc. They would believe demystifying guns through education and careful treatment. They'd be appalled at the scenario that seems to have been described.

Well, first, if I really was anti vaccinations, I'd be looking for a doctor to sign the medical exemption. Barring that, I would first start with any that are actually required, and I'd do the catch up there first. My state has some that are required and some that are recommended, and I'd start with the required ones first, asking my family doctor which ones he or she felt were the most important. I suppose maybe meningococcal and other meningitis vaccines would be at the top of my list, if I weren't getting them all, and chicken pox, rotavirus (especially for an older children), and hep B would be at the bottom. And I'm personally not a fan of the HPV vaccine because I'm really concerned about its safety. I think it's just not well studied enough for my liking.

Around here, it is very easy to get a conceal carry permit, and many people have them. Those who carry responsibly, which is the vast majority of people who own guns, don't forget to check for signs. If a store or church has a sign prohibiting guns, they would choose not to enter that store, or they'd remove the gun and lock it in their car. Responsible gun owners know the laws and also know that they need to comply with personal requests when on private property. (It's not prohibited, as a blanket rule, fwiw, at least in my state, to conceal carry in a church; it would depend on the individual church.). I'd say they go about their day not thinking of it in the sense that they aren't going to be fiddling with it, but they also don't forget that they have them on. They do indeed consider their itinerary and whether they will be stopping at a place, or state, at prohibits gun carrying, and they will take proper precautions and know when they will need to put a gun in a vehicle or whatever. It's entirely possible that you might conceal carry while out for the day with your family; for instance, you might go hiking in the woods but make a stop at a National Park at some point, and until a few years ago, it was illegal to carry inside a National Park, IIRC. Whether I'd be upset if someone had a concealed gun in my home -- depending on the person, I'd assume that person did. And depending on the person, I might be more cautious about children jumping on the visitor and more cautious about making sure they stayed out of the visitor's sleeping space. But I also trust that any visitor we know well enough to have overnight also knows to treat guns with respect and care to keep small people safe.

Multi quote isn't behaving today, but green. . . Hmmm, that would be pretty too. Might depend on what I see at the store if something grabs me. And painting the one wall a darker cream -- I didn't think of that, but it could work too. Well, I see I have my work cut out for me at the store! DH told me to go ahead and pick out something. We have the cream already, whether for that room or some others or both. My dad will be here in a few weeks and will be around for a while, so I'm keen to get on this while he can help me (because my poor DH is just so busy and doesn't have the big blocks of time to paint) and my mom is here to be the extra hand with the kids. Plus, I don't need the schoolroom for our summer work; the kitchen table will suffice, but come August, I will want the individual spaces back. So the schoolroom can be July's project.

Okay, HO MA Level 2 is the only Level 2 I haven't actually bought yet (I will use it for DS1 in sixth grade a year from now), but this is how we work HO and reading: They read the novels as a different subject from History. Whatever time period they're studying in history forms most of their assigned literature for the year. So it might look like this: Day 1: Literature -- read a chapter of HO novel; History -- read pages from Kingfisher and do a map Day 2: Literature -- read a chapter of HO novel; History -- do summaries and add things to timeline And so on. If they get to the point where they need to do a writing assignment or project for History based on the HO novel, I have them stop doing History and double up on the novel, reading two chapters (or whatever we've decided on) a day until they have finished it. At that point, they will start a new novel for Literature (an HO one if that's coming up next, or else something from my list of what else I want them to read) and do the writing assignment or project for History. This has worked very well for us. Also, despite what HO calls a "lesson," I find that those are generally too much for my children to do in a day (although if you do history in large blocks and not every day, they might be fine), so I go through the printout of assignments and draw lines to indicate what I feel is a reasonable amount of work for them to do in a day. This has also worked well for us.

We have used HO for middle school, sixth and seventh, and we have used Writing With Skill 1 along with it. Yes, we do both. I really like the step by step stuff that WWS teaches; it has given DD a better understanding of how to do her HO assignments. That being said, I occasionally modify assignments from both programs. We skip some essays in WWS occasionally, or more often, we condense an essay or lengthy summary from HO into a paragraph or a couple of sentences. HO has a lot of really good stuff, but I do worry about some of the summaries and such becoming busywork. So condensing has worked well. No more than one full essay a week at this point. (We only school four days a week, and we do some days of The Creative Writer instead, so we don't always get a week of WWS done in a week.)

Depends on age. I really like the Susan and Richie Hunt books for young ones (3-7ish) and am going to try an Explorer's Bible study with my fifth grader next year. My eighth grader is going to work through the Simply Charlotte Mason book, Life in the Word, I think it is called. It walks you through different types of Bible studies, the goal being that you can then do those types of studies on your own. I think it'll be really helpful as she moves into young adulthood. I might work through it myself, actually. My kids have also really liked the Bible application lessons that have gone with Narnia this year.

I mixed up eastern and western in the part about the windows. Fixed them now! I have four delightfully fidgety boys and a delightfully energetic girl -- more calm for schoolwork is always helpful! I love the idea of cream with a blue accent wall. We did cream with a dark red accent wall in a different house, and it really worked. All the kids either face the eastern wall with the windows or have it to their side when they're at their workspaces. I could paint that one (the biggest wall -- it becomes a little alcove under the highest part of the stairs) blue, and then it would be a calming and unifying color for the busiest wall (it's the one where our books are stored, and where the toddler toys are, plus the wall maps). Then I could paint the other three walls cream for the neutrality. Yeah, I think I like that idea!

I want to paint my schoolroom and need help deciding on a color. There is a warm cream that I love, and it would look nice on the walls. I could use a blue for the trim. I could also opt for a light dusty or colonial blue. Things to note: -Natural light -- varies. It has southern and eastern exposure, so it's bright and cheery in the morning and needs some more lighting (currently it has three sconces on that eastern wall, which will stay, and a floor lamp on the western wall, which isn't really doing it for me and which needs to be replaced with some more sconces on that wall). No ceiling light, although it does have a currently defunct ceiling fan. -House was built in about 1830. Ceiling height is not tiny but maybe a little shorter than current average. -Floor is a red oak laminate, and it's in good shape, so we will keep it. -Eastern wall has two windows. Southern wall has one window plus an unused door that is half window. Western wall has two doorways into other rooms. Northern wall is open to the stairwell, although we may eventually remove that and just have a larger schoolroom, in which case, the northern wall will be closed except for a doorway into the kitchen. So, a lot of broken up wall space. I have maps between the windows on the eastern wall, and a clothesline for art projects between the doorways on the western one, plus some nature prints around the walls. -Accents that are likely to stay in the room are navy, deep red, or medium-dark wood. Curtains -- I just have cream lace sheers so far, but I may add curtains at some point, maybe. I think either color could work. Cream for the neutrality, or blue for the gentle bit of color?

Group work at some point. I'm still trying to figure out when the best time for it is, whether that's before we start any one-on-one time, or as a break in the middle, or after lunch. I also need to tend to my littles and do a little housework right after breakfast. This is approximately what I'm thinking for the year: Wake up, dress, morning chores Breakfast Kids clear breakfast dishes and go to start their independent work while I tidy up, clean up littles, switch laundry, etc. Group work (half an hour or so) Then rotating blocks where I work with one child at a time, while the others work independently. Lunch Check-in and discussion meetings with each of the older two children.

Oh, dang, Quill. You just made me cry. Sometime nobody's gonna shove Goodnight Moon and Hungry Caterpillar in my lap yet again, and I'll no longer be such close friends with Corduroy and Curious George? Now I am blinking back tears about not having to blink back tears when the Little Engine What Could (because that's what my 6yo calls it) makes it over the mountain and all the dolls and little toy clown cheer. That's going to be rough.

I get it. I still have little ones, but I miss my pigtailed little princess in her dress up clothes!

I'm grateful for all of the recommendations I've gotten from this board! All the books, and of course, OneNote! So many great things I wouldn't have known about. Thank you Hive and SWB!

Really?! Oh, that poor kid!

You did fine and had lots of good stuff to say! We loved having you as one of our speakers! DH and I were able to decide that we don't feel we are going with a diploma program, which has been my biggest question. Yes, they did tell me that as well, and I'm sure it does vary a lot, but it was at least reassuring to hear that they do routinely have basic gen ed courses transfer. They really upped my opinion of CCs, or at least HACC, so I feel like more options for our kids just opened up.

Baby-sitting my younger siblings, then branching out to sit for other families. As a teen, I also tutored kids, and one adult, in math. My first real paid job, as in actual pay stubs, was working in our school district's office as a summer aide, answering phones, making copies, pulling job applications, etc.

Yes, I was really glad to learn that last night as well. I also appreciated hearing that the local CC credits are likely to transfer too, and that both colleges represented last night recognize the parent issued diploma. I learned a lot!

Oh, Eaglei, I am so sorry for your tremendous loss. Continuing to pray for your family. . .

Also, another reason I think four is on the larger side: if you have two, a girl and a boy, as we did, and you have three bedrooms, which is very common, they each have their own room. If you then add a third, no big deal, as two boys or two girls can share a room. Two children, one room, very easy. If you have a fourth, and it's a third son, like we have, it's trickier. Three children, one room, is a little more cramped in most typical bedrooms. So I think four is large if they are not two and two. Also, yes, spacing matters. My first two gaps are three and three and a half years. My second two gaps are two years nine months and just over two years. That felt like pretty much six years straight of pregnancy, heavy nursing, and toting a baby around (and I loved it!). Even now, my two youngest still need a lot from me. I can imagine that three or four might feel very large if they're all close together and at the Mommy stage at the same time.

We may be the only people who downsized vehicles while expecting their third child. I had an eight seater Ford Expedition, but when gas hit $4 a gallon, we bought a Focus to be DH's commuter car, but since it got so much better gas mileage than my Expedition, we also used it as our family vehicle for the next three years (until baby four necessitated a minivan). The salesman looked a little confused when I hauled a third car seat out of the Expedition to see if all three would fit in the Focus. (Fwiw, they fit nicely.) I grew up the oldest of four, and we knew a handful of families with five, six, or more, as well as plenty with four. A few with eight or ten. So I never felt like we were the only large family, but I do consider four to be a large family. Two or three seems average to me, and one seems small. I think once you are unable to fit everyone in a sedan and require a larger vehicle, you're a large family. Maybe it's also because when you have two, that's one parent per child, so totally doable, because most of the time, both children don't require two full hands at the same time. With three, it's a little more of a stretch if everyone needs a parent at the same time, but not too bad. But by four, it's much more of a stretch, and everyone simply can't be attended to at the same time. I guess I figure that four is on the larger side, but it also doesn't really stick out to me, if that makes any sense. It's what I knew, so it doesn't seem unusual to me, but we were also balanced, two boys, two girls. Five is only one more than that, and it hasn't really seemed like too big of a stretch every time we have added one more, but I do recognize that most families don't have five. But we are not balanced at all, so maybe that makes it seem larger than it is. It's a lot of little blond stairstep boys. I actually get way more comments from strangers about "four boys" than I do about "five children." Oh, I know why I consider five to be large, other than that it fills a minivan to capacity (which is why we didn't replace our minivan with another minivan and went for a full size, for the legroom for teenagers and the cargo space): things are often packaged in sets of eight, so with four children, everyone gets two. With five children, everyone gets one, and there are three left over. Four is simple and tidy; five requires more finesse. (But five! Can't imagine life without our number five! He arrived with great drama and continues to defy all expectations.)

I will say that I get the privacy concerns. Only my daughter has her own room, and only because she's the only girl. My one son adores his brothers but sometimes gets annoyed that he doesn't have his own space for his own stuff. I can see why that's irritating. Right now, there isn't much I can do about it, but our plan in the long run is for that son (the oldest) to get his own room, while the middle two boys (who are pretty much joined at the hip) share a room. As of now, and probably for several more years, the littlest boy sleeps with us, and we may put him in with the oldest boy at some point, or at least keep his clothes in there. I actually think that will work pretty well for a while, but really, we're kind of laid back about who sleeps where, so it also wouldn't bother me to put the three youngest boys in a room and have the oldest have his own room if that's what he needs. (Second son is very outgoing and extroverted and seems to thrive on having more people around.) Whatever the need, we also have a pretty big house, so there's always somewhere to go if you need to be alone, which I think is the key. We HAVE a schoolroom, for instance, but the kids frequently take their work to a different room if they need more quiet. I think my kids get different advantages to being the oldest, youngest, and middle, same as happened in my family growing up. I got to do things first, and every milestone was new and exciting for my parents, and I got privileges (like choosing my seat in the car) just because I was the oldest; my sister got the benefit of parents who weren't as worried about making mistakes because they'd already figured out the parenting thing, and she got to have them all to herself after we moved out. Sometimes I was a little bored because an activity favored the younger three; sometimes baby sister was bored because an activity favored the older three. I figure there were ups and downs to all of it, and overall, my parents were good, competent, and involved parents, and we all turned out okay. I do think that at some point in your adult life, you have to forgive your parents for what they could or couldn't or did or didn't do for you. Short of things like not providing food or basic education or basic care, or outright abuse, who knows how your life might have been different if they'd made sports available to you, or if they hadn't pushed sports so heavily, or whatever? You are who you are, and most people just need to realize that their parents were doing the best they could with whatever resources they had available at the time.

I'm the oldest of four, and I don't recall being bitter. I definitely don't wish my parents had stopped with one or two, because then I wouldn't have my baby sister, and I love her, and the brothers between us, to pieces. Would I have liked a little more money available for activities and lessons? Yes. But having fewer kids wouldn't have necessarily made that possible anyway. None of my five seems bitter. They feel somewhat sorry for the only child of two working parents who lives near us, because she doesn't have any built in playmates and sometimes seems a little lonely, whereas my kids are always running around the yard together, in some random combination of kids. (She isn't out much, but they do include her when they see her.). My older ones are old enough to realize that fewer kids would mean more cash available for their wants, but I don't think any of them ever feel actually bitter or wish we didn't have the babies. Actually, they all love on and adore the babies a LOT, and they constantly beg me for another baby. When we told them we were expecting the fifth, I expected my oldest to be thrilled, and she was, but I wasn't expecting that my second would be quite as overjoyed as he actually was. My big kids help out, but my littles do too when they can. In a largeish family, everyone contributes as they're able. When I was recovering from appendicitis, my mom told me how much my oldest did with the two littlest. They might not feel like helping out with the littles at any given moment, but actually resentful? I don't think so. Fwiw, I do most baby care. My big ones help keep an eye on littles outside, but they don't do baths or diapers, except for the occasional time when I am not available. Mostly, they do clean up after the littles some (like, all kids get a room to tidy daily) and help with putting shoes on, filling water bottles, and buckling car seats. (This I consider to be perfectly fair because when we go out, it's usually for the big kids' class, where the little brothers have to sit and wait, so the trade off seems entirely fair to me, and even if the big ones grumble a bit in the moment occasionally, they will agree that it is fair also.) I do think teens and preteens can be obnoxious and grumpy in general, so I wouldn't take it too personally. It doesn't necessarily mean said kid wishes some of the younger ones don't exist.

My family likes their meat and potatoes too. :) But they will sometimes eat non-meat-based (and non-bread/pasta/rice/potato-based dishes are pretty typical). They like my spinach-egg-cheese casserole. I think it's a little boring, but they cheer when it's on the menu. A large container of cottage cheese, shredded cheddar cheese (a couple of cups), a dozen beaten eggs, and frozen chopped spinach. Mix all together, and bake at 350* for 35 minutes or so, until top is golden brown and set. I usually serve carrots on the side; bread and applesauce would go well too. Indian food! Paneer! They also like this dish (although I've used diced chilis instead of whole): http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2013/01/vegetarian-pinto-bean-green-chile-casserole.html#more