I really like the ESV. My church uses the NRSV, and I actually prefer a gender-neutral translation like the NRSV (I think it's more accurate, but that's a different thread...), but I just like the way the ESV reads. I find the NRSV kind of awkward and it just doesn't have the literary flow I think the ESV has. I've always liked the language of the RSV, and the ESV is largely a revision of that text, so maybe that's why. At this point I read the ESV almost exclusively (although I do have a few NRSV study Bibles that I like for their notes). I also like the New Jerusalem translation. It's very readable, and when I want the deuterocanon, that's what I read. I mostly read storybook Bibles to the kids. I'm reading the Jesus Storybook Bible to DS right now, and we both really like it. I also have a couple of children's Bibles based on the NRSV, and I like the Rhyme Bible for little ones.

I have two 17 months apart. I think twins would be MUCH harder. The older of the two is weaned, so I'm only nursing one baby. She's also sleeping through the night, so I'm only dealing with one child during the night. I think that just between nursing two babies, and dealing with two who were waking at night, twins would be much, much harder. A friend of mine had twins, and she doesn't remember doing much their first year except nursing them, and trying to get some sleep.

This. If it were at all possible to make it work with the husband doing his dream job, I'd do that. Otherwise, I would try to see how much you could do of both. As mentioned before, could the husband work part-time at his dream job and part-time on his computer work? I know that my husband could be making a LOT more (like 2-3 times what he's making now) doing tech stuff instead of working at a university doing research. But he likes what he's doing. He left tech to get a doctorate because he wanted to do something that he felt mattered. And, I'd rather have a husband who is happy than one who is miserable, even if we have less money. This is what he's doing 8-5 or so every single day. I can't imagine asking him to do something he really hated, when there was another possibility that we can make work, just so we could have more money.

FWIW, I have a graduate degree, and I would be a wreck financially if DH died. He had a doctorate and he'd be pretty bad-off financially if I died, as well, since we'd lose my part-time income, and the kids would need child care. We'd both be in a difficult situation, financially, if the other died. I don't see that as a terrible thing. I don't think independence of the type we're talking about here--where your life partner could die and you'd go on just fine financially--is realistic for most people, male or female. People are interdependent and need one another. I don't think there's anything oppressive or anti-feminist about that. If that happened, the one of us left would probably end up moving in with one of our sets of parents. As it is, if we end up moving back east, we'll probably share a home with my ILs, so that we can help them out (my FIL's health isn't great) and so we could all contribute financially. I don't know, I'm just becoming more and more of the mindset that our "do it all on your own, be independent" mentality isn't particularly progressive or practical for an interesting number of people.

Just want to say I could not agree more with the quoted text. That articulates what I've been seeing and thinking for so long. I will say that one thing I wouldn't be surprised if we see more, and that we might need, is a return to multigenerational housing arrangements. It's my understanding that, for most of history (and still in most places), you didn't just grow up, move out, and marry (or marry then immediately move out)--people often lived with family, both because they needed time to get on their feet financially AND because their family needed their help. I do think that in many cases young married couples might need to live with family for a time, and people would need to be open to that possibility. But, I do think that in general we may see a return to that sort of living arrangement--which is still common in many other cultures--especially if we don't see a significant economic turnaround soon.

A few thoughts: I used to be able to do school in one sitting. DS and I would sit down for 45-90 minutes--depending on what we were doing that day--and just get it done. Then the other kids came along. We were still okay when DD was an infant, but once she was a bit older, and especially once DS2 came along, that was right out the window. And, sometimes it drives me crazy. I like efficiency. I want to sit down, do what needs to be done, and check it off my list. But, while that is sometimes possible when you have a 1:1 ratio, most homeschoolers don't have that. There are other little people demanding my attention, which means that now, more often than not, rather than zooming through all our subject, maybe taking one break in the middle, we do a subject at a time, and then break because I need to tend to somebody else. Homeschooling is not like traditional schooling. The parent is the teacher. That means things are different in a lot of ways. I used to get really concerned about the fact that lessons would sometimes result in tears. Oh my goodness, I'd think, what if he was in school? He couldn't cry like that! The thing is, he wouldn't. He's crying like that because he's not at school, he's at home, and I'm not just his teacher but his mom, too. That changes things. I can remember, as a kid, crying over homework, whereas I never cried in school over my work, no matter how much there was or how hard it was. And, while I could sit for hours and work at school, that wouldn't happen at homework time. When you're home, things are different. And, just because it's possible for somebody to do something, doesn't mean it's necessary or even desirable. I think that, when homeschoolers say, "My 6yo can't sit still," they don't mean, "It would be completely and totally impossible under any circumstances for my child to sit still for long periods" but mean "My child is not naturally inclined to sit still for long periods and that's okay."

I didn't see that in her post, or her reply, at all. Being upset because somebody accuses you of being either unable or unwilling to parent your child is a different thing from wanting everybody to agree with you. Anyway, as to the OP, does your daughter understand what school would entail? I'm just wondering, if she went to a kindy that had a lot of playtime, if maybe she thinks that second or third grade would be something it isn't. If she balks at you asking her to do work, she's going to balk at the amount of work she's asked to do in ps. Does she generally have a better attitude around other people than around you? Do you think she'd have the same problems she's having with you at school? That's one major reason why, even when DS drives me crazy, I generally don't consider putting him in school. I know him, and I know he'd be just as bad if not worse in school. So, I'd still need to change the behaviors, but I'd have less time to do it, and I'd be worried all day about how he was doing in school. But some kids really do seem to behave much better when they are around adults other than their parents. What are your long-term plans? If you're planning on homeschooling her again at some point, I'd probably be hesitant to put her in ps, because you'd probably have to deal with all of these issues all over again. But if you were thinking ps would be for the long-term, that wouldn't be an issue. Do you want to be homeschooling her? I guess I'd see that as the most central thing. If you want to be homeschooling her, I'd probably do whatever it took to make it work. But if you don't want to be--which I think is completely and totally okay, since homeschooling is not a requirement for being a loving, caring, good parent--then I wouldn't continue to do something that seems to be making both you and your daughter miserable. Oh, but there is also homework to consider, and whether that would make every afternoon (and pretty much all the time you spend with her during the week, if she's going to bed at 7) miserable for both of you. If homework is going to be a two-hour battle each night, that's really not all that much better than school being a 3-4 hour battle, you know?

Thinking about it, I think I was taught morality in more of a positive way, in the sense of my parents teaching and modeling positive virtues and behaviors rather than telling me what not to do. Does that make sense? Like, they never said, "Don't get drunk." But I was taught the value of being responsible and making good choices, and getting drunk gets in the way of that. I certainly had it drilled into my head in (public school) health class that getting drunk, drinking and driving, and sex were dangerous and best avoided, though!

This, exactly.

DH is REALLY lucky I didn't see this before I made the sauce. He's not a Nutella fan, but I wouldn't have cared.

All the sauces sound good, but we've got a winner, because this is stuff I have.

I've had a pork tenderloin going in my crock pot all day, and just realized that I'm missing a key ingredient in the sauce I was planning on making. I don't have the car, so I can't run to the store. What can I whip up with just routine fridge/pantry stuff to pour over the tenderloin? We're having roasted brussel sprouts and cheese grits as sides, if that helps.

That's where I got the glasses I'm wearing right now, and I love them. I got them for $69 total, and that was with a fancy coating and extra-thin lenses. Zenni is the other one I've heard about, but I haven't ordered from them.

Oh my goodness. I love that. I may actually have to steal that and share that Venn diagram with my students, many of whom seem to think that, as long as their sentences are grammatically correct, they're good to go.

That is exactly the kind of sentence I get in papers from my students who are relatively competent writers but who either don't know what they are trying to say or don't know how to say it. Or who are just trying to say something to fill up the white space. In other words, it's the kind of sentence that strikes me as a b.s. sentence, where the writer wants to sound like they are saying something intelligent without actually saying anything at all. Of course, if it was my student, I'd say it much nicer than that. ;)

What's funny is that I measured WAY ahead with my DD, and several weeks behind with my second DS. My OB was expecting my DD to be 10-11 lbs., and she thought my DS would be maybe 6-7. Both of them were the exact same weight, 8 lbs. 3 oz., despite the fact that I measured so different with each of them.

At least it was just grandma. My son once called campus security--which was programmed in--when I let him play with my phone while we were having dinner with friends (he was about 1-1/2 at the time). I guess it happened pretty often, because the officer on the line, when I finally realized what was going on, just laughed, said he wasn't the first little kid to call, and told me not to give him the phone as a toy any more. I was pretty embarrassed, though.

That was going to be my suggestion. When I can't think of anything else to do with chicken, I usually do chicken parm. I pound the breasts so they're a bit thinner, dredge them in some olive oil and then cover them in bread crumbs, then bake them for about 15-30 minutes at 400 degrees. Then I cover them with spaghetti sauce and mozzerella (sometimes some parmesan if I have it) and bake another 10 minutes or so. It comes out great.

In our case, if we were going to have one of our children tested, we'd take them to the child development center at the university where we work. Would something like that, if it's available to you, be an option?

I think you're setting up an unfair comparison. I think that one potential benefit of marrying younger, for those who think people should abstain until marriage, is that it will reduce temptation. But, I think there's a host of other benefits, such as being a means of becoming emotionally mature (something that I don't think just happens with age, but with experience, and marriage/parenting are among the most maturing experiences one can have) and an impetus to become financially independent. I tend to think that expecting somebody to become emotionally mature before they marry is like expecting somebody to overcome their fear of public speaking before they give a speech. It doesn't happen that way. You get over your fear of public speaking by giving speeches. You mature emotionally by being in relationships that require emotional maturity. I don't think there's anyway around that, and I don't think we're doing people a service by encouraging them to delay that process. I'm NOT saying that marriage/parenting is the only way to become emotionally mature. Obviously single people and people who marry later aren't emotionally stunted. There are challenges there that also bring about emotional maturity. But, for most people, who plan on marrying and having kids at some point, I just don't see any real virtue in intentionally delaying starting on that path. I'm certainly not talking about marrying at 13 or 14, but more that people who are 18-20 and who intend to marry and have children are being done a disservice when we basically tell them to put everything else--most especially making money and amassing stuff--above marriage and parenting, and insist that they put their desire for family on the backburner for another decade or so. I really don't think much growth or maturity comes from that.

To some extent, my antipathy toward science is laziness. Well, maybe not laziness, but a general dislike I have for making and cleaning up messes, especially when I don't see a particularly big payoff for it. Maybe if I was more impressed with the experiments we've done, I'd feel differently, but as it is, I don't think we've ever done an experiment where the result was worth the effort, either in terms of the learning that happened or the fun we had with it. So I don't think it's necessarily that I don't like prep time, because I have no problem spending the time prepping for other subjects. I just don't think the time spent preparing for science lessons--gathering stuff, setting up, doing the experiment, cleaning up--pays off enough to make it worth it.

I think I want something pretty much unreasonable: I want a secular elementary science program that isn't textbook based but also is really light on experiments. I'm just not up to experiments often (or elaborate experiments ever), and it seems like most of the good secular hs programs are experiment-based. With the two babies I'm just not up to it--although, to be honest, even before the two babies, hands-on stuff was never my thing. The good secular programs I've seen all require more material-gathering, set-up, and clean-up than I'm willing to invest right now. So I put DH in charge of science, but he's been slacking off. Mostly, then, we're just letting DS read science books he gets out of the library and play with science-type toys (like his snap circuits and microscope). Can I count our daily walks as "nature walks"?

I doubt the kid meant that to be snarky. It's possible, but they probably really thought you meant "mom" when you said "mom," and not that either parent would do.

It really depends. In general, I expect that, unless I explicitly say that it's a "yard only" day, kids will come in. And, they'll probably try to anyway, because kids like to come in the house and they forget things. So, if it's a yard-only day, I usually end up issuing quite a few reminders that the can't come in the house. I don't tell DS that he is only allowed in other people's homes if they invite him; if he's invited to play at somebody's house, unless they specify that it's yard only, I assume he can also go in the house. I mean, I expect he'd knock and not just barge in, but I don't expect he'd wait in the yard if the child he was playing with went inside. The exception is our neighbors, whom we share a yard with. When their girls are out playing, DS is allowed to just go out and play with them (obviously, since it's also our yard), but he needs to ask the mom or dad or grandma if he can go over to play before he goes in the house; if the girls say he can go in, that's not enough of an invitation. That's kind of a unique situation, though, because of our yard set-up. In general I'd expect that if he was going to someone's house, he'd also be welcome inside, unless they specifically said they'd only be playing in the yard. It's more a number-of-kids thing for me, with our rules. We have a very small home. We've got three kids of our own in it. I can take one or maybe two more inside, but not much more than that; if all three of ours are awake and in the living room, there's just no space for more than 1 or 2 (maybe 3 if the third is tiny ;)) extra. So, in general, if DS has four or five friends in the yard, which sometimes happens, they aren't coming in unless they need to get a drink or use the bathroom or something. If he's got one or two friends over, they can be either inside or outside, but I do like them to pick and stick with one for a while. What drives me crazy is when they are coming in and out of the house every five minutes (and, even worse, coming in and out out of both doors every five minutes!), and at that point I'll usually banish them to the yard for the rest of playtime. There's only one child who isn't allowed in our house most of the time--not unless I'm available to strictly supervise--and that's because he has stolen stuff in the past. Oh, and the other thing I have a rule about is that, if DS has several friends over, they ALL have to be inside or outside. I've had times when he's had 2 or 3 friends over, and a few want to play outside but others want to be inside, and that doesn't fly here. They don't have to all play together, but they need to either be inside or outside together, because I can't supervise kids in both places.

But why are people failing? It seems like they are failing, largely, because of delayed marriage. If it were a matter of remaining abstinent until 20, more people could do it. But it's a matter of remaining abstinent until 30, most people will fail. That's not mocking, it's just reality. So, why not present an alternative to young people? Rather than only saying--and this is what I see most abstinence programs/proponents saying--"Go along with the prevailing cultural ideas about when you should marry and what you should achieve before marriage, only don't have sex until you do," what about holding up marrying younger (not as a young teen, but at 18-22 or so) as one possibility? If churches are so interested in "defending" and promoting marriage, it seems to me that encouraging young couples to marry and supporting them when they do would be far more effective than abstinence campaigns.