We're just getting started, but I work nights four shifts/week and DH usually works 6 days a week. DD has art class through the city Monday morning, so we go do that w/ the boys I babysit M-TH from 1000-1130. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we do school before I pick up the boys, which falls after when I'm off my night job at 7 AM on Thursday. Friday is our "outing day", so I take a nap as soon as I'm home from work so I can get the car from DH by driving him back to work (he has to bring GF home from Fri. morning training, so I get the car then). We do errands or zoo or meet up with friends, etc., and pick him up usually around 7. We do school again on Saturday if we have nothing planned (such as an SCA event), and on Sunday.

DD eats and watches a TV show first thing in the morning...sometimes two if I wasn't up before her and haven't had adequate time to caffienate myself. Then one or the other of us declares that it's school time, and I drag her away from the TV or she drags me off the computer. We start with a read-aloud of our Aesop's fable for the week, which DD will narrate or respond to with a story of her own (the latter usually having nothing to do with the fable, but she IS practicing narrating something with a beginning, middle, and, eventually when I insist, end). After the fable we do our memory work, which is a Havamal verse tied to the moral of the fable. Sometimes DD will color during the fable, especially on the first day of the week (Tuesday because she has art class Monday morning). Once I get in Wee Sing America, we'll probably start off with a patriotic song/poem to precede the fable. It'd be circle time, but there's only the two of us so it's more of a line.

Between working 4 nights/week, babysitting 4 mornings a week, 1 of which involves taking one of the boys babysat to art class with DD, and all of which involve driving in traffic around the university to drop off/pick up my friend for whom I'm babysitting (a chore I avoided when actually in college myself by taking the bus)...then my only day off from both babysitting and Wal-Mart is usually one of the few I have the car for the whole day (by dropping DH off at work), so we wind up shopping/going to the zoo/visiting friends, etc. The result is I wind up out of the house some time out of pretty much any given 24 hour period. It's exhausting.

I read a theory somewhere that wearing a bra all the time lets the connective tissue atrophy faster, leading to more sag than without. Age and pregnancy have the biggest effects long-term. Consider, if you would, that they're SUPPOSED to do that. Why do we, as grown women, have this ideal that our books will remain in like-new condition when they have gotten so much use? To quote my favorite sci fi author (Robert A. Heinlein): "Nursing does not diminish the beauty of a woman's breasts; it enhances their charm by making them look lived in and happy."

In my area bulk wheat, etc. are available at Whole Foods, Sprouts, Sunflower Market, and through the Tuscon co-op (I need to look at their prices again, given the changing food costs around here)--they deliver in quite a bit of Arizona, NM, and West Texas. Also, rice is cheapest in the East Valley at LeeLee's Asian Market in Chandler--check and see if you have any Asian food stores, they often will have bulk rice cheap. Other ethnic stores will sell staples in bulk, too--Often you can get pinto beans, rice, and masa flour in bulk at a Mexican store or a chain that caters to that population (such as, in this area, Food City). Rice will be cheap at Indian stores, etc.

Can't comment on all of these, but The Old Man and the Sea is relatively short, I don't think I'd skip the book on that one. The Grapes of Wrath would be an excellent one to see the movie for. They change some of the plot points and you get nothing of Ray Bradbury's style in the Farenheit 451 movie, but if you just don't have time for it, you could read a couple of his short stories instead. In general, I think movies do have a place, they became a powerful contribution to the Great Conversation in the 20th century. Just as one doesn't want to discount theater and drama when talking about literature, film has its place. Given DH's love of movies, it's likely that DD will have the option of film studies in high school.

Why not? Just sterilize/preserve them first... If I drove by, I'd think you were in the SCA. This is great, keep them coming. So far all we've learned is, you can't use the pepsi-mentos reaction for a paper maiche volcano, unless you build the volcano around an unopened container of pepsi, because pouring the pepsi defizzes it too much for the reaction to work. Should have watched more Mythbusters before we tried it.

Yeah, soy is such an improvement, because you know its the natural food of beef cows, and it comes oh-so-conveniently genetically modified to be Round-Up Ready. :glare: Seriously, given that there is also SOME solar input in the making of the corn plastic (i.e., in the actual growth of the plants), as well as that it is biodegradable, I'd put it on the list of "preferable", at least over non-recyclable plastics. I seriously need to get some muslin bags made. A couple of the stores around here don't go overboard with the plastic pre-packaging, even if I haven't got any convenient farmers' markets available. I'm hoping to join a CSA when the season comes around this fall. Or plant a garden. Or something. I look for containers in the order of: 1. none at all 2. glass 3. recycleable metal cans (a lot nowadays are lined with plastic which excludes them)/paper/cardboard 4. recyclable plastic 5. at least not more layers needed of non-recyclable stuff than necessary to preserve the food. Actually, I fail at it a lot because I wind up going in for convenience foods. My ideals don't match my reality. :tongue_smilie:

Downsides: Conventional corn production uses a LOT of fossil fuel/fertilizer/energy. Subsidies for corn and the profitability increase of putting more acres to grow raw material for plastics and biofuel is taking land away from growing food even as food costs are rising thanks to increasing oil prices. Upsides: it's biodegradable.

Every kid should have at least one chance to do this. I recall an incident when I was five or six, on a dare from his older brother, my dad's boss's younger son and I rolled, I mean literally rolled, in the "frog pond," which was actually just a ditch full of runoff water next to a potato (or was it beet?) field. Looking back I want to shudder at the thought of what might have been in that water (irrigation runoff, conventional farm), but it couldn't have been too bad if it hadn't killed the tadpoles. We went back to the boss's house and the big brother hosed us down (I doubt this was the first time their mother had dealt with such a mess), then we went in and showered--me asking why the boys had tails, according to my mother, which I don't remember, but I do remember how cold the hosing off was! This was in Idaho, and it was summer but not THAT hot, ykwim? I was sent home in borrowed clothes and my mom just threw the muddy ones away, they were that bad (having started off a pale pastel sort of color). I figure sooner or later this will come back to bite me with DD making a similarly stupendous mess. Hasn't happened yet, though she has recently learned how to turn on the hose in the backyard, so...:tongue_smilie:

We usually use Tide, the Free and Clear if I buy it, regular if DH buys it. Or we'll use Kirkland, but after having my membership lapsed for a year, I went back and discovered Kirkland had gone to HE formulation. Anyone know if I can use that in my non-front-loading, non-efficient washing machine? I'd try the natural brand at Costco, but it has an added scent, which is not a good idea to mess with in our family--DH is finicky because of a history of breaking out with cheap detergents and most any powdered, and I'm finicky because of my eczema as well. I'll occasionally get 7th gen if I have a coupon, which I do right now.

If I was already in the habit of making homemade detergent, I'd stick with it. We use Tide Free and Clear or Kirkland (Costco brand) Free and Clear, because they effectively clean even DH's aprons and chef coats, not to mention cloth diapers, but no one breaks out in reaction to them. DH breaks out with cheaper detergents and powders. I also use the free and clear over the regular because I don't want any unnecessary scents, etc. in it and my own excema is unpredictable and has worsened periodically so I don't want to push it and get a skin reaction myself. I never even considered Dreft because I got warned that it can cause build-ups on cloth diapers that make them less absorbent, and I don't like buying/using separate products when it isn't necessary.

In many traditional societies, ones where women marry in their teens and take on adult roles in the household very young, young men are often not given full adult responsibility until they are in their late twenties or later. They are answerable to their father, uncle, or wife's father or uncle, depending on the kinship system. To get their full inheritance of property and familial authority takes a lot of time, maybe because there is wisdom in recognizing they aren't ready for it. This is why the Constitution puts age minimums on running for high office. And perhaps an underlying reason why the Biblical Jacob (was it Jacob?, my Bible is rusty) had to work for fourteen years for his father-in-law before he'd trust him with his favorite daughter and let him strike out on his own.

This article by Katherine Dettwyler, an anthropologist who has actually studied breastfeeding, should be informative. This one is good too: Why Nurse Toddlers And if I haven't bored you, check out the other cool articles on her website: http://www.kathydettwyler.org/dettwyler.html My 4.5 yo. Kindergartener is still nursing. She's down to about 2 times a day, since she nightweaned around 3 1/2. She'll nurse a bit first thing in the morning, and sometimes in the afternoon when she's tired (though doesn't usually fall asleep nursing any more--used to be the only way I could get her to sleep and the only way she'd sleep at all at night). She was sick a couple of weeks ago and nursed a lot right after--for several days she nursed frequently. She's seldom been ill, always bounces back from being sick, and until recently nursing her was the most effective way of calming her when she was upset or overtired, etc. I don't remember the last time we nursed in public, but we stopped doing so about the same time she nightweaned, around 3 1/2. I also have expected good manners about nursing since she was old enough to even remotely understand--she has to ask, she may not grab at my shirt, etc. And the last year or so I'm far more likely to tell her to wait if I'm in the middle of cooking or eating, etc.

Try alternating a cool, moist rag for 10 min. with a heat source (a lightbulb works well, you just have to cup your hand around his ear to make sure you don't touch him with it and burn him) for five minutes. The alternating heat and cold encourage the sinuses to dialate and drain pressure off the ear, plus feels good. This helped DD w/ ear pain before.

About the only time I edit is when I'm reading a book of mythology, especially Norse myths, that talks about the myths as something no one believes any more--such as the introductory chapter of D'Aulaires Norse Myths. As these myths are part of our religion, I edit out this viewpoint. That's about it. As DD gets older, we'll talk about things, rather than edit them.

Distinctions of wealth vs. poverty are very much relative. I saw a documentary once on the !Kung. This woman started off a description of her childhood as a hunter-gatherer in a marginal environment by saying "when I was young, we were not poor". They had everything they needed and expected by the norms of their culture, even though by our standards they were the poorest of the poor, owing essentially nothing. They weren't in poverty until they were herded onto a reservation, told they were poor, and given handouts. The world her daughters grew up in was one of very different expectations, of knowledge that there were others who had a lot more "stuff" and that they were never going to have all that. They'd also lost the ability to hunt and travel freely, and were losing other aspects of their culture as well. Poverty and wealth are very much relative.

My floppies, computer (for the hard drives) and 40 gal. tote full of notebooks. AKA everything I've written since age 8. My copy of Teutonic Religion (it's out of print and would be very difficult to replace) and the doily made by my great-grandmother that serves as an altar cloth on our family altar. That would pretty much be it, I think.

There's also cross-cultural correlation between co-sleeping--particularly with the baby's mother--and lower SIDS rates, but you don't see promotions on that because it doesn't require spending money on more baby gadgets, cribs, etc., though there is the AAP recommendation that babies sleep in the parents' room in the early months. DD slept with me and I could hear her breathe all night. She was able to regulate her breathing by hearing mine, and I slept better because I didn't have to get up in the night to nurse her, though I slept lightly. She slept on her side a lot, but also her tummy. Only rarely did she sleep on her back. Like other primates, humans are a carry-along species with our infants, not a cache-ing species (that leaves them in the den while going elsewhere to bring back food, etc.). Human infants are hardwired by nature to expect to have mama or another caretaker close by, holding them much of the time. Crib-to-bucket-to-changing table-to crib isn't healthy or natural. That said, judging by my baby brother (who as a foster child was required to sleep in a crib, on his back), the carseats are probably the big factor more so than the crib.

I can't use most of the coupons I come across, when I do get a coupon I could use, I usually either lose it or forget about it when I'm at the checkout. I do shop the sale ads for the different stores, but only because I work at Wal-Mart so I'm there 4 nights/week and can take advantage of the sales through ad-matching. I also wind up doing most of my grocery shopping there, again entirely because I'm there already.

The point of an outline is to use as a tool for either summarizing the main points in something, as in a form of note-taking, or else to organize one's thoughts before writing a composition. Personally I've always detested formal outlining. I'll write a very rough outline when writing a paper at the college level; in high school when required to do an outline I'd usually write my paper first then make the outline from the paper. For note-taking or summarizing information, I prefer to map my notes. I don't remember now where I learned this tool, but it just works better for me to put my main idea in the middle of the page, with secondary points offshooting from it. Couldn't figure out how to insert the pic, so here's the link to where I put it on my blog: http://lifewithluthien.blogspot.com/ Sorry it's upside down. First attempt at using the scanner, etc.

The movie 300 is incredibly violent and not even remotely historical. I found this: Last Stand of the 300 on The History Channel. There are some short clips on the site that should tell you whether or not it's appropriate to watch in entirety with your son. You might check out this from PBS: The Greeks . And there was a movie done in 1962 called The 300 Spartans.

For K, the 3 R's plus a gentle intro to classical and Heathen studies is the focus. Once she starts reading, we'll add in Latin. Everything else is based on DD's interests or mine. It's likely, for example, that her knowledge of history as we go along will lean disproportionately towards material ecology and towards Heathen and Medieval Europe, thanks to our involvement in the Society for Creative Anachronism and our religion. An upbringing in the Society will likely bias her education in the fine arts, and she will likely learn more about SCA swordsmanship and archery, (well, and baseball thanks to DH), than about most other sports. She will have a better grasp of evolutionary theory in biology, as well as of history and geography, by the time she finishes high school than the average American college grad because ignorance about these topics is a huge pet peeve of mine, and I will not abide it in my child. If her current love of music and dance continues, that will likely play a significant role in the coming years. My most important goal is that she have the tools to learn anything she sets her mind to learning, either formally or informally, and a desire to continually expand her skills, knowledge and wisdom.

:iagree: with Cadam. I also think any teenage girls you're responsible for should be talked with and counseled to steer clear of the guy, and why.

For the early months I favor prefolds and covers or wool soakers, because of frequent changes and quicker laundry process. When DD had to be in daycare I sent AIO's because they went on like disposables, easier for the DCP to deal with. When she got older, esp. that last year where she was in training pants during the day and needed something heavy-duty at night, pocket dipes were the bomb. Certainly prefolds are the most economical.