I do use internet on my iPad frequently, but there is a lot it can do without the internet, although you'd need internet access occasionally in order to download apps, books, etc. I have 16GB, and it's enough for a LOT, but if you want to keep a ton of pics and e-books on it, you'd want more. (I mostly borrow e-books from the library and delete them when I'm done.) I have an iPad 2, and it's lovely; I don't need the fancier camera or retina display (super nice display, but I doubt you'll really notice not having that) that the newer one has. The iPad 2 has a display that is clearer and nicer than my desktop machine. Could you use the iPad without a regular computer? Yes. I think. I rarely use my desktop machine anymore. I only use it to print things from the iPad, since my printer won't print from the iPad directly (but newer ones will). Also, in order to save space on the iPad, I don't usually download camera pics to it; I use the desktop for that (although I do have a card reader that will download pics to the iPad, and that's been nice right now when I'm supposed to be in bed more than walking downstairs to the computer). Accessories that I find incredibly helpful: styluses. Extra long cord for charging it. Case of some sort. Bluetooth keyboard (which is part of the case). The keyboard takes the iPad from "cool toy" to "really, really useful." Typing on the on-screen keyboard is a little annoying and cumbersome, but the bluetooth keyboard makes the whole thing function like a small laptop but with the additional capability of the touch screen. Even with the keyboard, it's still really easy to use it as a tablet; the keyboard folds back, and I can hold it like I would a clipboard and write on it (works great for grocery shopping). Really, the iPad has made my life a lot easier in many ways, but one is that I can keep grocery lists and other notes on it, thus reducing paper clutter.

I like Notability a lot as well, and I also vote for the cheapie styluses (the kind amazon sells for like $3 for 10). Sometimes we hit a dud or two in a pack of 10, but we also have a toddler who tends to take the styluses apart, so I really can't justify spending $15 or so on one stylus when the cheapie ones work just fine (except that they take about three weeks to arrive).

Duplos. More Duplos. Then a few more Duplos just for good measure. Duplo table and interchangeable truck/car parts optional. Counting, colors, motor skills, engineering skills. . .

Ugh, I'm sorry for both of you! Our little guy arrived early yesterday morning, 40w4d, a whopping 9 lbs. 3 oz. (my first two boys were bigger, though), and if it's any consolation, I'd trade being pregnant a few more days for a calmer experience; after a day of light contractions that were going nowhere and about four hours of hard contractions that were still going nowhere, until I got up to walk around a bit, I went from 1-2 cm to holding my baby in a very intense 1 1/4 hours. He's doing great, and so am I. I hope your babies arrive very soon!

Mr. Q should go onto a Kindle or Nook easily; I have it on my iPad, and I think I put it on DD's Kindle too. It's way too much to print the whole thing (it's like 900 pages between the student and teacher parts). So far, I have not printed anything from Mr. Q except for the definitions at the end (which I printed so I could turn them into flash cards for review), as I just have my kids fill in the worksheets on the iPad, but it would be easy enough to print just a few of the worksheets and not the whole student part.

I have a bunch of meals in the freezer right now, to make cooking easier on DH after the baby arrives. I have meatloaf in there (portioned and wrapped -- just unwrap it and cook it), buffalo chicken (sauce plus spices plus chicken breasts -- add a little water to the pan, and let it all cook for a while until it's ready to shred), Italian chicken (frozen green beans topped with diced chicken, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, and spices), burgers (portioned and wrapped individually), pork chops (one recipe is just cinnamon, applesauce, and pork chops), and other stuff I can't remember right now. Some of it's a little experimental, but it should work. Pinterest had a lot of good freezer meal ideas. My DH takes leftovers for lunch, so I just plan on whatever we're having for dinner leaving enough for him to take the next day, rather than making meals specifically to freeze for him.

double post

That is SO something my DH would do! (He also works on old houses.)

I hope we are both pleasantly surprised with newborns this weekend! My DH can only take about 5 week days off from work, so I would really like to have the baby today or tomorrow, have my parents and ILs visit for the weekend (I like everyone to come in the first few days when the baby is still sleepy and I'm still on the birth high, and then I like them to leave by about day 3, when my milk comes in, the baby wakes up and wants to nurse a lot, and my hormones go flip-flop, because I won't rest when people are here), and then have a full week before DH has to go back to work. That's what happened with #3, who arrived early on a Saturday afternoon, and it was so perfect; everyone came and left by Monday, and we had a quiet, restful week. It was much easier on me when DH went back to work than it was any of the other times.

In about 20 minutes, I will be 40w2d, over 40 weeks for the fourth time. I've been grumpy for a couple of weeks and emotional too. Wish I had an urge to clean like I did with #4!

My 2yo plays with toys, mostly, or he looks at books; he loves books. Puzzles too. Right now, he really loves this Duplo set and plays with it for hours and hours and hours, truly (we also have a Duplo table and multiple basic Duplo/compatible MegaBloks sets so he has tons of pieces): http://www.amazon.com/LEGO-DUPLO-Creative-Cars-10552/dp/B00A88DRYU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376610620&sr=8-1&keywords=creative+cars+duplo I am really impressed at how much play value it has and how much he loves it; it is a lot of bang for the buck. He also spends a lot of time playing with the wooden trains.

I generally prefer afternoon appointments, around 1 or 2, when I can get them, 3 or 4 if they're closer to home (most things are at least 30 minutes from us). That way, I can get schoolwork, at least some, done in the morning with the kids and have or pack lunch, plus add grocery shopping in after the appointment, and still be home in time to make dinner. That being said, for the past several months, two of our children have had speech therapy, and it's been one morning a week, an hour per child, one right after the other, so we spent two hours in the waiting room. I just packed schoolwork for the waiting children to do, and then we went grocery shopping and sometimes to the library afterward, in which case I often packed lunch. That wasn't really ideal, IMO, but it was okay.

I understand. I get very tired of eggs, and I don't particularly like bacon or sausage (and daily doesn't fit into the budget anyway). I get bored with salads and meats too. Sometimes I really just want to have a plate of pasta and twirl the noodles around my fork. (I do like spaghetti squash done as noodles, though, but it's not quite the same.)

Apparently, we have babies, LOL. I was 7 months pregnant with #3 on our 10th anniversary and 8.5 months pregnant with this baby on our 15th anniversary. But we don't really do anything special for the round number anniversaries; we go out to dinner (usually with the kids, although last year, my parents watched the 3 older ones so that we could go to a fancier restaurant and just have the 12mo with us), and DH often brings me chocolate. We did take a trip for our 10th, with the kids, and that was a lot of fun. I can see us going away for our 20th, though, just the two of us, since we will likely not have any very little children.

I've not seen Minimus, but we use (and really like) Latin's Not So Tough. We do it mostly orally (so that I am learning along with DD), but it could easily be done independently. The only drawback is that if you wrote in the worktext, you couldn't reuse it, and they're not super cheap. There's also Getting Started With Latin, which can be done independently as well, but it would be a lot of writing if you (the parent/teacher) then wanted to check the student's work. If your student wants to learn it on her own, without you wanting to check her work, then GSWL would be very easy to use, and it's cheap too.

I have had exercise induced asthma for 20 years. It's managed by albuterol inhalers. If I know I will be exercising strenuously, I take a puff of the inhaler before exercising, because preventing the attack in the first place is better than treating it. However, usually, I just keep the inhaler with me when we hike or whatever, and I'll use it only if I need it. I do tend to need it more often if we're outside in the cold; I cannot run in cold weather without needing it. My asthma has been very well-controlled for many years, with me only needing the albuterol occasionally; once a month would be a lot, unless I get a nasty chest cold. However, with the advent of hot weather, it has flared up in the past few years, to the point where I need a preventive inhaler, or I need the albuterol multiple times a day. The preventive makes a huge difference. I mention this because even if it's only exercise induced now, things could change for your daughter at some point.

I drink tap water, unfiltered, but ours is well water; town water might have stuff in it you don't want. (Ours has been tested and is safe, no lead or anything bad.) I don't mind the taste, and I prefer it not super cold, but my mom only likes ours if it's been refrigerated for a while, and DH doesn't like it at all. Have you tried Stevia, specifically liquid Stevia? DH doesn't like it either, but I like it in coffee and tea made with our tap water. It's expensive, but a few drops go a long way, and a small bottle lasts me several months, so it's actually pretty cheap. I don't like the flavored Stevias as much, not for water, although I like them okay for coffee. Water, a bit of lemon juice, and a few drops of plain Stevia (or a tiny bit of powdered Stevia), and it makes pretty good lemonade without all the icky. Around here, you can get milk that doesn't have the growth hormones. You *can* get raw milk here too, but there are at least two major brands in our grocery stores that are pasteurized but that don't have the growth hormones. ETA: re toxins in plastic. I remember reading a while ago that plastic milk cartons were okay (no BPA), but the disposable water bottles should probably be avoided because they do contain the BPA. Which is why my kids and I are sporting brightly colored Klean Kanteens everywhere we go -- I feel comfortable using the KKs because they are stainless steel, no BPA or aluminum, and they last a long time. :)

I write a note to each child, which is at their breakfast plate on the first day of school; in it, I express my joy at having them learning at home with me, and I give them a little preview of the things we'll be studying that year. Costs merely pennies and a few minutes, but it seems to mean a lot to them. (I find the notes tucked into their pencil boxes, and I know they reread them throughout the year.) We also do "first day" pictures -- outside if possible. Portrait-style, one of each child individually, and then one of them all together. Ice cream sundaes for dessert would be fun too, and not terribly expensive. Or maybe you can make it the one time a year you go to a place for ice cream cones.

SnapCircuits!

I don't mail the letters, but one of our first-day traditions is that there is a note at each child's place at the breakfast table, in which I tell them how happy I am to have them learning at home with me, along with a brief preview of the things we'll be studying that year. They love these. Last year, DS2 was 3, almost 4, and he had one for the first time; he has kept that note (and then this year's too) tucked in his box of crayons and supplies. I know my older kids keep their notes and reread them too. (Had to include the 2yo this year too, haha; obviously I had to read it to him, but then he walked around carrying it for a few days.) For the older kids, it is a tangible reminder that even when I have to be the bad guy and make them do actual, y'know, hard work, I'm still grateful to have them here. And while FlyLady isn't really my thing, I can see why she's helpful. If you really have no idea where to begin with getting organized, she's offering a solution. As with anything, you can go whole-hog with it or not, whatever works for you.

We had our oldest's name chosen long before she was even conceived. We did sort of pick a couple of boys' names for her, just in case, but I was absolutely certain she was a girl. One of the two boys' names was Michael, but when we were expecting DS1, we decided that Michael wasn't quite what we wanted, but that the other boy's name that we had considered for DD was just right. (And it is; it fits DS1 so very well.) DS2 didn't have a name for five days, because nothing that we'd considered seemed right. His name fits him well too, though. We almost named him Isaac; DH liked the sound of "Zac" for a nickname. Well, it wasn't right for DS2, but a couple of years later, we got our little "Zach," only DS3 is Zachary, rather than Isaac. Had DS1 been a girl, Katherine was very high on my list. Had DS2 been a girl, Katherine was very high on my list. Had DS3 been a girl, Katherine was very high on my list. So was Abigail. Katherine and Abigail are still very high on my list. It remains to be seen whether we'll even need a girl's name, or if we'll go with one of those two. My ILs had chosen a name for DH's younger sibling. Well, she is a girl, but when she was born, they decided that it just didn't fit her, so they chose a different one (which does fit her). Turns out that they name they had originally considered was mine. :)

I have not tried Duolingo or Rosetta Stone, but I would also see if your library has Mango Language.

I have not tried Duolingo or Rosetta Stone, but I would also see if your library has Mango Language.

Good stuff -- thanks for posting it. Good advice and humor.

I would try spray detangler before the Downy dunk; just wrap a hand towel or two around the doll to prevent the liquid from getting in the eyes. We have Kirsten and her ridiculous amount of hair as well, and the spray detangler has worked well. You just need to use a fair amount of it and detangle small portions at a time.