Yet another article claiming that homeschooling and courtship is the magic formula to great marriages and obedient kids. I dislike the way Vision Forum, Bill Gothard, and other patriarchal people (like this author) think God promises to fix all our problems if only we keep our kids away from all those evil public schoolers. And don't forget our "Christian" duty to work towards a theocracy.

I second the recommendation to look into a vitamin D deficiency and allergies. It seems odd that your depression would regularly happen in March.

Thanks for posting about this. We've used Dreambox for 1 1/2 years on a month-to-month plan. This will save us a lot of money!

Maybe they just don't like dolls and girly toys. I never really liked the dolls I was given as a child. I preferred to use my tea set as camping gear.

If I had a bazillion dollars, I'd hire someone to make deep brick garden beds for me.

When you click on a game that has a star on the icon, it means the game is pre-testing new material. If she does well, it will skip sections. If she has trouble, it knows she needs the lessons. Make sure she knows this, so she can stay calm when she sees a game with a star. My son has completed K, 1, and 70% of grade 2 and I haven't seen negative numbers anywhere but the frog races. I usually sit with him while he plays.

I was told once that in my state, landlords have to repaint in between tenants (at least for apartments). If this is true, they probably use the cheapest paint and labor possible. Since flat paint shows fewer imperfections in the wall, they'd save labor costs by not having to bother to fix things properly. When we bought the house, we knew we'd have to repaint soon. We decided to give the kids 6 months to destroy the flat paint before redoing it with satin. They are ahead of schedule!

Bumping for you

Our house has flat paint - the cheap kind where even furniture that touches the wall damages the paint. We've been here less than six months and most rooms need repainting. Today, my mostly potty trained boy peed and pooped his pants. He came down in the kitchen and was backed up against the wall. When I noticed his pants were wet, he moved away. It was then I saw the butt-shaped pee "print" on the wall. Argh!

What other non-fiction audio books would a 6-10 year old enjoy? We already have Story of the World Volume 1. Are there any good science audio books for kids?

I have no idea about what is normal. I did laugh when I saw the person in the esophagus. I like the picture.

What is SWR?

Look up the Mises Institute for more info.

I have the first level of AAS, but I haven't tried it yet. I didn't see how I could fit it in. Maybe I will get it out and try it instead of phonics for a few weeks.

Characters: DS1, barely 6: An energetic boy who vacillates between great enthusiasm for whatever we're doing (school or otherwise) and feeling like the life is just awful because I am a mean mommy. He doesn't have much in between emotionally and has trouble calming himself down. He's been like this since birth. Also, if he's a little short on sleep or hungry (which he often doesn't recognize), he is much, much harder to wrangle and will spend a lot of time throwing fits and arguing about minor things. He is very helpful when projects need to be done and will volunteer to help. Daily chores are tolerated, but not looked forward to. DS2, almost 3: An equally energetic, very physical, little boy. He's not a pushover and isn't afraid to tell us not to interrupt his when he's speaking. Thankfully, he's easier to calm down, although he can very extremely persistent. Recently he's begun demanding his own "schoolwork." Me: A mom that wonders why DS1 has to constantly argue and throw fits when he doesn't get his way. He thinks he's in charge. He's just about unbearable when hungry or tired. When he's well rested and fed, he's much better but still drives me to the edge. A few weeks ago, I started researching private schools around here. This week was much better, since we didn't do school Mon-Thurs. We were out working in the garden and they got a new sandbox. Today we did school again and he dragged 1 hour of work out into about 2-3 hours with his fits, meltdowns, and arguing. I had to send him to "detention" (sitting by his dad with nothing to do) multiple times to calm down. Here's what we do for school: -Phonics Pathways (1/2 - 1 page per day) - he dislikes this -Webster's Speller (20 words, about once per week) - he dislikes this -Singapore 2B text and IP (daily) - generally enjoys this -DreamBox math (1-2 days per week) - he likes this -Handwriting (2-3 sentences, daily) - tolerates this -FLL 1 (about 2 lessons per week) - enjoys this -Science - library books - really enjoys this -SOTW Vol. 1 (1-2 days per week) - he prefers the audio version to me reading; likes reading associated library books; we don't get to the projects -Maps (1-2 per week) - he enjoys this -MindBenders and other logic games - absolutely loves these -Occasionally, some work from MEP math or Math Mammoth He dislikes phonics the most, but he absolutely needs work on it. He can sound words out, but really, really wants to guess at them instead, and reverts to that often. He can read Magic Tree House books by himself pretty well. Math is less of a struggle. He'll still argue sometimes, but we get it done more often than phonics. He seems to think he's supposed to automatically know how to read any word he sees and that sounding out words is beneath him, or cheating, or something. He doesn't have this same attitude problem with math. The list of work seems big, but when he cooperates, we can get through it all in an hour and spend more time reading library books. I posted all his school work so you can tell me if I need to back off. I don't want all his work to be super easy; I think he needs to be challenged. I was bored all through school and always wanted to be challenged. Also, although he is bossy with us and his brother, he doesn't seem to be that way with other kids, at least from what I can tell. (He doesn't get to play that much with kids his own age.) He enjoys talking to adults and has declared that his best friends are the X Family, (two parents, and their kids, age 17-21). At TKD and at a trial gymnastics class, he listened to the instructors carefully and seemed pretty mature for his age - basically not like at home. Today was another one of those days I felt like :bang head:. I don't know why people talk about terrible twos. He was much, much easier at 2! It's been downhill since 3 1/2. In the last month, the eye rolling has begun. Any advice?

I am gluten and dairy-free. Believe it or not, being GF is easier, at least in terms of finding substitutes (maybe not cross contamination at restaurants). Homemade GF bread is better than anything at the store, but there are some goof GF cookies and desserts available. Coconut flour makes excellent desserts, especially cakes and muffins. However, there is no substitute for good butter on a potato or real cheese. (Coconut oil works well to replace butter in baking. Coconut milk can be used for rice pudding and smoothies.) And many "dairy-free" cheeses still have casein, the milk protein I react to. At buffets, I have to avoid all the cooked veggies and rice because I never know if they have real butter or fake butter with casein on them.

Something to consider would be to buy a microscope and have the man do his own sperm count every few months, to make sure there aren't any present. There are kits available for this.

My guess would be that for these surprise babies, the enough connection was left (or regrew) to allow some, but not the normal amount of sperm through. I believe infertility is declared if it takes more than a year for a couple to get pregnant. So if the man has a very low sperm count, after enough time, one might make it to the egg. Also, sperm counts can vary based on diet, hot baths, etc, so if the man changes these things, his sperm count might increase.

Here's a thread to get you started.How I Treat My Adrenal Fatigue. I skipped over the CFS treatments in it, because my cortisol levels were no longer low when I developed CFS. I'll come back when I get a chance to describe my CFS journey.

I need to go to bed, but I've dealt with both of these. After 5 years, I am almost back to normal. If I forget to post more by Saturday, please PM me a reminder. I would like to share what I did for my CFS.

That's very sweet that he is so protective of the baby already.

The course has been very interesting. I think I am getting a lot more out of it as a "real" adult that I would have had I taken it at 18.

In my business law course we learned that the cival (not criminal) definition of battery is any unwanted touch by a person of something he or she is holding. No injury needs to occur. I wouldn't be surprised if this incident could count as battery. In another section of the book, we learned about how a business may be held liable in a lawsuit if they retain violent employees. The company probably fired him to protect themselves. If they kept him and he acted out again in the future, they would likely lose in a lawsuit.

The reason I asked was because we know a couple teenagers and one adult that used to do it. The woman was on her high school team, but once she graduated, that was it. I feel kind of bad that she spent so much time on a sport that she can't do anymore. My DH played baseball and I played soccer, so we can still easily find places to play as adults. Another girl we know quit (I think) because she didn't want to go from 13 hours of training per week to 20. She was at a dead end, unless she joined the more advanced team. After hearing these stories, I thought it would make more sense to steer our kids in the direction of sports they can do all their lives. Of course, we could still let him try gymnastics for fun, and encourage him to focus more on another sport when he gets older.

Nah, we're not going to get divorced. We're just getting tired of this problem.