Coconut oil here!

I've had easy deliveries, but I would vote for going for a day trip, since it's only an hour. Or suggesting that they come to your house, but at least for me, then I'd feel like I had to host, and that would be harder on me than just packing up some extra diapers and clothes for a day. (I would bring cloth, and just toss it in a bag, a trash bag if need be, but it's perfectly reasonable to bring disposables for the trip too.) I *have* traveled with two of my babies when they were four weeks, and it wasn't too bad; nobody expected me to do much of anything, so I took it easy and sat around a lot. If your extended family would be okay with that, I'd go for the day. Is it possible your MIL could come to your house a few days beforehand and do a quick clean or whatever would be needed, and then she could play hostess at your house, if you really don't want to travel? The other reason to consider traveling is this: if you have a difficult delivery/recovery, will you be up to whatever your regular Christmas plans are? That is, will your older kids notice a lack of X or Y that is Always Part of Christmas? If so, I might consider going to the ILs as a distraction. We did that one year; things were very tight for us, and I was also newly pregnant, and going to visit the grandparents was so exciting and different that it really helped the kids not to notice that we didn't have as many gifts or cookies or whatever. I think it's also very reasonable to say, "We need to see how things go before making any plans." I don't believe that you owe your ILs, including your SIL, anything. If you feel at all worried about going, then I vote for staying home.

Mix eggs with the oatmeal and make baked oatmeal? And/or mix yogurt with the oatmeal? On a really tight budget, I'd be making a lot of beans (and I really feel for you with the wanting to be low carb and just not having it be financially realistic). Dried, for the absolute cheapest thing -- maybe you can cook up a big batch when you have a few hours at home, and then use them in meals for several days?

My almost 4yo adores the Winnie the Pooh audiobooks with Jim Broadbent. He also really liked the Henry Huggins audiobooks; Neil Patrick Harris did several of them, and they're really good. B. D. Wong did The Mouse and the Motorcycle and its sequels, and we also enjoyed those a lot, as well as some of the Ramona books on CD. I think it would be a toss-up between Henry (and Ribsy!) and Ralph S. Mouse! Cherry Jones's recording of Famer Boy is pretty good too.

Oh, no, that's true; it's not fair for the teacher to have to remain after class. I just meant that if we're late, *I* do my best to catch my own kids up later. But our co-op has a built-in play/social/lunch time afterwards as well, so if it's one of the students in the class I teach, I'm usually there anyway, or can e-mail the parent the stuff later. I think there's a huge difference between the occasional problem and a habitual one. Everyone's had an extenuating circumstance at one time or another, and grace is important there, IMO, but being frequently late is a problem. The other family in the OP sounds disrespectful.

:iagree: Personally, I thought "social studies" units on things like community helpers were silly, so we didn't do them. I didn't need to do a lesson on sanitation workers; we watch them bring their trucks around every week to pick up the trash. The local police chief stops to wave at the children when he does his regular patrols. We visit the library and grocery store regularly and see people working there. And so on. I think a lot of the "social studies" sorts of things for younger grades are to teach them the things that they're not seeing naturally, because they're stuck in a school building all day instead of living life alongside their parents. I far prefer the WTM approach of starting history early in an age-appropriate way, and I do geography and culture along with whatever we're studying in history.

As someone who tends to be late often (because I'm terrible at estimating how long it will take to get ready), but not routinely 15 minutes late, and I'm really, really working on it this year (successfully thus far), I tell my kids to slip in as quietly as possible, and if they have missed something, just do the best they can, and we'll catch them up later. I think it's not fair to the other families in the group if you take up class time to catch up another child. Our co-op is pretty good-sized this year, and we have a check-in/meet-and-greet/socializing time, then prayer and announcements, then picture study, and then the first class. We start prayer and announcements on time, but that way, if someone is late, at least they're not automatically missing class time. Our classes are only an hour each, so it would be frustrating to stop and have to repeat something for a latecomer (especially if it's frequent).

:lol: :lol: :lol: and :hurray: -- sounds like good plans to me!

What about having your 16yo stay with her aunt or a friend for those couple of days? That way she can stay but not be alone.

Heifer International has some free educational materials. They come with a (nice) book, some CD-rom stuff, and some other educational stuff. You could suggest that they look at various historic monuments/sites from around the world via Google Earth; the pictures from there link to other websites where they could learn more.

I was thinking the exact same thing -- Mrs. Mungo and Tibbie, please!

We've never even owned a crib, and we have four children. As long as you're quiet, the baby will likely just sleep in his crib while you spend time alone; you could also try playing some soft music or nature sounds near the crib.

Ah, that makes good sense, then. I am doing that with my DD's Latin; I think doubling up/going fast works well as a solid review.

Can you do a delight-directed/Mom-directed sort of hybrid? I often take my cues about what to plan based on what the kids are interested in. I also leave plenty of time in the day for them to follow their own interests. Our support group does a history fair every year as well, and my kids' projects may or may not be related to what we've studied as a family that year; they may have their own subject.

I would do less copywork. I don't know that I'd double up the days frequently, though; I think some of those skills need some time to sink in. My 7yo has exceptionally neat handwriting, so I don't have him doing the copywork for that skill, not primarily, anyway; I have him doing the copywork to help him absorb vocabulary, sentence structure, punctuation, etc. So I don't always make him do two sentences, unless they're short. Charlotte Mason advocated having the child do shorter copywork but doing it well; I try to err on that side -- I'd rather my son write fewer actual letters/words but have them be neater.

I like neat and tidy myself, but my kids like to doodle. I let them doodle with a few caveats: -If they're doodling excessively instead of working, that's not okay. -If I can't read something because of doodling, I make them redo it. -If it's something that I know I specifically want to put in the portfolio that will go to the school district, I don't like doodling on it, but I generally let them know that ahead of time (and also that I expect absolute best handwriting for that item). If it's done sloppily (doodling, excessive cross-outs, very messy writing, etc.), they redo that page. Other than that, a doodle while they're waiting for me to finish explaining something to another child, or while they're thinking over a problem in their head, or something -- eh, no big deal. DH doodles when he takes notes too.

From the grocery store -- probably Gala or Pink Lady. However, apples are SO much better from a farm stand, or if you pick them yourself. I live in apple country, though, and right now, the apples are plentiful and amazing. We picked some Golden Delicious over the weekend that are incredible. Some of the local places here carry a Nittany apple. I always buy some of those, and they're very good. :)

Well, at least one of my children says he's going to stay with me forever, so maybe it'll happen. :) (I told him that he's welcome to stay with us as long as he wants, but that at some point, he'll probably want his own home with his wife.) I think it's nice when a newly married couple has its own place, but I think the multi-generational thing can be done well. In the Amish fiction I've read, one of the sons gets the main house/farm when he's ready, and the parents move into a smaller house on the property, maybe attached to the main house. I think that's nice for the son's wife because she gets to run her own household, not be a guest in her MIL's house, but she's got the company of her MIL to help with kids, cooking, etc. I love my parents and ILs, but I like having my own space. Otoh, there are a lot of times when I wish either grandmother was closer. I fully expect we'll have at least one parent live with us at some point (I'd say my mom is most likely), and I think it would be okay. We'd make it work. Especially because of the economic struggles, we've talked casually with our own kids about us living with them someday, and of course, right now, they all think that sounds great. ;) For me -- give me a room in your home, but you be in charge of running it; I'll help you out and be an extra pair of hands to help with the little ones or fold laundry or whatever. I'll keep my knitting out of your way and won't demand anything special. Yes, please! (What else can I do to show my gratitude for someone who chose to think as highly of my child as I do?)

Some friends of ours used to hold a harvest party. They had a big old barn, and they'd decorate it with typical fall decorations, just nothing scary or controversial. They'd do games, bobbing for apples, stuff like that, and the kids were encouraged to dress up, just nothing scary. Everyone brought a bag of candy, and they dumped all of the bags into a big pot and then gave out a bag to each child to take home. So the kids got fun with friends and candy and a chance to dress up, and the parents didn't have to worry about small children being scared or reluctant to go trick-or-treating. I went a few times as a teen helper, and personally, I thought it was a win all around.

I think I'd suggest the Diva Cup as well. I seem to recall that one of the issues with tampons is that they draw out too much moisture. If she continues to have issues, I would suggest trying a midwife, as I like their generally cozier approach; the ones I've seen would probably be very good at putting a teen at ease, and they've always been particularly gentle with exams and such too.

I'm cracking up, because I can so see one of my boys being like that (except that if he paid attention, he'd actually probably be really good); he's my sweet, absent-minded professor. My other boy would be front and center, knowing exactly who should have the ball and hustling to his spot. And they'd both be loving it. It would drive me batty to watch too (even if it was my own kid), but at least the child's having a decent time and not sitting on the couch. I'll never forget a soccer game when one of my brothers was about 6 or 7. The coach had his daughter on the team, and at one point, he went to put her in. "M, c'mon, it's your turn to play." M (the coach's daughter): "Do I have to?" Lol. I hear tee-ball's a real riot to watch with the "butterfly children." :)

Probably a barrier method (diaphragm + spermicide), coupled with a very strict observance of fertility signs and temperature charting.

My kids all liked making the fruit-candy-jello cell model last year! Gross, but cool. It did help them visualize all the parts and gave them a hook upon which to hang each part's function. They also liked this video (we watched it a bunch of times): http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/videos/humanbody/circulatorysystem.html There are some other videos and activities on that site too. I want to say that SheppardSoftware.com had some fun games too. I picked up this book at a library sale or something years ago for super cheap, so I pulled it out, and we looked at some of its details. It's pretty cool because it's SO detailed: http://www.rainbowresource.com/proddtl.php?id=002613

I don't think my 7yo has encountered that yet, but it threw my now 10yo DD for a bit of a loop. Once she understood fractions (which, oddly enough, have always been completely intuitive to her, when a lot of math concepts are not), that helped, because she could visualize 16 as "ten plus more than half of another ten." Also, relating anything to money helps her. "If you have 16 cents, are you closer to having one dime, or two dimes?" Eventually, it clicked.

That's what I thought as well. This concept required quite a ridiculous visual explanation for my daughter to understand it, so I wanted to emphasize starting in the ones for my son -- but he's got his own idea that works. I'm just going to wait and see how it plays out. I should no longer be flabbergasted at how different two children can be, but it still always amazes me that my older two learn and process so completely differently.