Starting to think about next year when DD will be in 9th grade. She doesn’t like science or math and is poor at thinking/reasoning/drawing conclusions from information given. So I guess I’m looking for something that is engaging and breaks things down into small, well-explained parts. I’m not set a particular science so open to anything but I do need a creation-based or neutral program. She would probably prefer something video-based if possible. She also doesn’t like labs or doing much writing. I really don’t know how she’s going to get through high school science.

We lived in our last house for 10.5 years and the playroom, laundry room, and kitchen got repainted within the first year. The rest of the time we lived there the playroom got repainted once more (raspberry was just not a good color for a bunch of boys!), and one wall in the living room got painted. DH hates painting and I've only done it once, many years ago before we got married. We've been in our current house for a year, and so far the living room has been painted (after removing wallpaper). 15' of wall along an open hallway + the entryway will be painted in the next couple weeks (again, wallpaper was removed). We hired someone for both jobs. Hopefully most of the rest of the main level will be be painted by us in the next 6 months. A bathroom and a bedroom have had wallpaper removed and need to be painted, and our long L shaped hallway + a few short walls around the kitchen needs repainting...I think the previous owners painted it before listing it and they did a lousy job, with missed spots and areas where it appears that they primed but didn't paint. I'd also like to repaint the baby blue accent wall in the master bathroom. DH will eventually get around to painting the un-wallpapered bathroom, and I will probably need to paint the rest this summer if I actually want it to happen. I cannot imagine that painting will be more of a hassle than removing wallpaper and cleaning 100s of sq ft of grout. (After removing wallpaper from 4 rooms, never again will I buy a house with a bunch of wallpaper! And there's still wallpaper on 2/3 of the family room, the stairwell, and half of the bonus room.) My parents have lived in their house for 30 years, and in that time the attic bedroom has been repainted once, and the living room and main floor bathroom once. My parents are definitely not big on home upkeep though.

Th book (or blog) Raising Lions has been helpful for my strong-willed and intense boys.

We have a very oddly-shaped family room that currently is functioning mostly as a play area. We had a TV in it at one point (in between the built-in bookshelves) but haven't gotten a new once since the kids broke two TVs in less than a month back in September. Probably it will have a TV again in the future, and I don't know where else it could go with the room's odd layout other than in between the bookshelves. I'd like to try having a homeschool room again and this is the only available room. It would need to have a play area at the far end for the 1 yo and 3 yo who is a tornado. I would also need at least two separate workspaces/tables/desks to be able to keep my 11 yo and 9 yo far enough apart that they aren't overly tempted to mess with each other, but close enough that I can easily supervise them both. Some of what's in the room now would have to go...I know there's way too much stuff there. I'm trying to sell the little TV stand cabinet, but it could function as a standing desk for DS11 (he needs a standing workspace). Probably the mattress that they use as a trampoline will have to go, and then the foosball table could go where the matteres is now and that could be the play space. The sectional seems too big for the space to me. Idk where else in the room it could go...to me the most logical spot for it would be next to the wet bar, but then where could we put a TV? Maybe it would be better to break the sectional into its parts and re-arrange it? The big ottoman could go in the play area. The coffee table was intended to be a Lego table with baseplates glued on top but that hasn't happened. It could go elsewhere or be moved in the play area. Suggestions on where to put tables and/or desks to make a homeschool area? And how to layout the play area? I've attached a floorplan of the room and a few pics. The room is basically a U-shape because of the fireplace in the middle, and there's a narrowish hallway running behind the fireplace.

A big part of the problem is that my kids are just not normal in any area, including falling asleep. It takes all of them but the baby at least 30 mins to fall asleep every.single.night. Always has. Two pairs share rooms (2 rooms) and the younger one in each goes to bed at least half an hour before the older one...and most nights the older one ends up waiting even longer because the younger one still is awake. Then once the younger one falls asleep, it takes the older one ages to fall asleep, while they get out of bed and complain they can't fall asleep, or need a drink, or or or. Case in point: 3 yo went to bed at 8:20ish. It's now 9:40 and he's still chattering away. They have no toys in their bedrooms. Just ridiculous.

Health issues, mostly adrenal fatigue. I need 8 hrs of sleep but my 18 mo wakes at least once a night plus gets up for the day around 6 most days (DH gets up with him in the morning some of the time). Also I have insomnia off and on and am periodically awake for an hour or two in the early morning, or don't sleep soundly after, say, 2 am.

I really, really need to start going to bed at 9:30 most nights. However, this has been an aspiration of mine for about six years, and actually happens about once a month, so clearly I need to make some changes to the way I go about trying to get to bed earlier. I am just not an on-time person in general, so that might be part of it. Usually it is between 10:15 & 10:30 by the time I get to bed, so I need to cut close to an hour off my evening. So...what helps you get to bed earlier, or at the time you want to get to bed?

Maybe this is too simplistic, but it might be worth a try. To me it sounds like she might be overly focused on the negative aspects of her brother, and encouraging her to consciously think of some positives about him might, over a period of time, help her to feel less annoyed by him. It might be worth just asking her each evening to think of and tell you three positive things her brother did that day...and then see if after a few weeks of this gratitude practice she feels less annoyed by him. To my mind, if she can consciously choose to do something other than pull her hair out when she's annoyed by him, the hair pulling is likely a pretty minor issue, and it's worth trying to just redirect the behavior while also working on addressing the feelings that lead to it.

I'm having a hard time coming up with quick and easy breakfast foods with some protein for my 14 yo. She is sensitive to dairy and oats and we normally eat gluten free also. She also will not eat sausage. Before we realized that she was having problems with dairy she liked to eat yogurt or an orange julius smoothie knockoff that had yogurt and milk in it. She's not found another smoothie recipe that she likes, but it would be really helpful if I could find a dairy free smoothie recipe with some protein that she would eat. Also open to any other dairy, gluten, oats, and sausage free ideas! One can only eat scrambled eggs (the only type she likes) for breakfast so often...

I need to come back and read this thread when I have more time. Need to get back to healthier choices after New Year’s. I need to gain about 10 lbs (breastfeeding = losing weight really easily for me). It’s not as fun as it sounds, really...having to eat 3000 calories a day all the time while dealing with hypoglycemia issues gets old. The number one thing I need to do for my health is get to bed earlier. I’ve been trying to get to bed at 9:30 for about 6 years...this actually happens maybe once a month, so maybe it’s a lost cause.

And I'm already regretting it. Usually we get one or two gifts per kid. They get a lot of gifts from both sets of grandparents and gifts from several uncles and aunts also. This year I got more like four things per kid, plus a few joint gifts, plus there's all the things they got each other. They'll be happy, but I'll be the one picking up after all the extra stuff every day and feeling overwhelmed by it all. Ugh. (I changed topics instead of starting another post...sorry for any confusion.)

I think it’s fine to tell him that you feel frustrated that you’ve been trying to communicate for years how much you disliked all the work that his family’s Christmas involved, and he’s only starting to understand it now that he has to do part of the work. Whatever his reasons for not understanding, he is an adult and he is CAPABLE of understanding and choosing not to. You should not feel at all guilty for asking your (adult) husband to consider your needs also, no matter how magical of a Christmas he desires. (Also, if this is a recurring issue with other things throughout your marriage, you may want to look up over-functioning. It sounds like either your H is pretty good at guilt-tripping you, or you naturally tend to be an over-functioning and feel guilty when you finally decide you’ve had enough and start saying no, or both.) It sounds like you’ve done plenty of talking/trying to convince over the years, and the only thing that actually works is setting boundaries. So next Christmas, instead of initiating “the Christmas talk” yet again, and most likely ending up frustrated again because he still doesn't really get it for the most part, decide what you are willing to do, and what you’re not willing to do, and just tell him that. He can do the rest or it can go undone. Now if HE initiated “the talk” next year, it might be worth having, but go into it with low expectations and be prepared to state those boundaries.

I bought one of these too and am working on cleaning the very dirty grout and travertine tile that we have about 1000 sq ft of. It is taking a good bit of scrubbing with a grout brush along with the streaming...just steaming isn’t enough for this stuff, and steaming alone dos nothing for all the tiny crevices in the tile where dirt has accumulated. When I finish it will all have to be sealed...ugh. Here’s a picture where a section I've done runs into one I haven’t. You can see how disgusting the grout is!

I think that accessible beige would look nice. Or if you want an off-white, there are so many different undertones for off-whites that it wouldn’t have to be a yellowy one. Maybe choose one with a peach undertone since you like apricot?

We have a triangle-shaped storage closet in our basement, and I’m having trouble thinking of anything I can store in there besides extra blankets and pillows. It has a few random tubs in it currently. It’s about 3’ deep at the deepest point and 2.5’ wide at the widest. The floor section is about 2.5’ tall.

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I think they rarely cancel here. Sometimes they have a late start if the roads are bad. They have to keep going really, or there’d be a whole lot of days to make up. We usually get a couple of weeks of -25 below weather each winter and schools still are open. Possibly in the more rural areas they close for that kind of cold. We lived in MI for one winter and it seemed like they were always closing or late starting for snow. I thought it was weird.

This house. Sort of. I think I’m happier overall than I was with our last house. I like living in town. I like having trees around and feeling the wind a lot less than when we lived in a mostly treeless area out in the country. We really needed more space, and now we have it. But I hate the basement layout, and strongly dislike the tile floors that are throughout the main level, and the easily-climbable brick fence. I feel overwhelmed by the amount of projects that this house needs (or I want to make it more functional). I’m frustrated because it takes DH sooo long to get around to doing bigger projects, so either I’ll have to find a way to do them myself, or convince him to hire someone, or just wait. I’m frustrated because we don't agree on much which is a big hassle when it comes to choosing projects (and life in general). If I had to do it over again, I would either not agree to buy this house and just keep looking, or insist on certain projects being done as a condition of buying it, and before moving in for some. Little boys. I wanted boys, but they are so incredibly difficult.

Magformers. My 3 yo has played with these a ton since he was about 2.5. My 6, 9, and 11 yo’s still love them. If I had to pick only one toy those are what I’d pick. If your nephews already have and enjoy Magnatiles, I’d say get more of those. Or maybe some of those big cardboard blocks for building houses. My boys loved Duplos and then Legos when they got old enough, but for whatever reason wooden train tracks, Lincoln logs, and wooden blocks never really caught on here. They’d get some, play with them for a bit, lose interest, and they’d get scattered everywhere.

I guess I feel neutral about the house overall. The hassle of the downstairs bedroom locations is really a big deal to me, and that won’t improve as the kids get older. There will always be kids and teens who need to be checked on frequently (since we don’t seem to run to responsible and trustworthy here). I did get an intercom which helps somewhat with calling DD, but she still needs to be visually checked on. The tile and the fence are the second biggest issues. The size/maintenance is just something that hangs out at the back of my mind, and periodically comes to the forefront when I’m already feeling extra overwhelmed.

Yes, it’s a full finished basement. The dining room was an add-on but I believe everything else is original. It is an 80’s house. There are some indicators that all the upgrades—wallpaper, tile, paneling, and updated kitchen and bathrooms—were done by the elderly couple who owned it right before us. They must have owned it for quite a while.

When sorting through curriculum, how do you decide what stays and what goes?

The master bedroom is 12’x14’. Is that small for a big house? It seems like it’s about the same size as the masters in the other two houses we looked at that were in this size and price range.

I'm thinking I may fit into the HSP category mostly because of a few specific things. I've always cried really easily, about anything and everything, which I absolutely hate. I have a low tolerance for noise and chaos and stress. I've spent much of the last 11 years (since DS1 was born who spent most of his first year screaming and projectile vomiting) feeling overwhelmed. I do think much of it may be due to my underlying thyroid and adrenal issues...I'm not sure I would have fit the qualifications for hsp as a kid.

Can we talk about hsps as homeschool moms? I am not sure I am technically a hsp as I am not as empathetic as hsps are often described, and I have quite a high pain tolerance, but otherwise the description fits very well. I am in a pretty constant state of overwhelm during our homeschooling part of the day, which often leads to me melting down around 11:30 many days. Wondering if there are others here who are hsps, and how you handle the overstimulation of being with and managing your kids all.day.long while hs’ing.