I think that could probably be said about anything, though. Even a very good thing could become a problem for some people, if they used it to escape from their problems or devoted too much time to it. So I don't think singling out one genre of fiction or one hobby is particularly useful, especially given that I really doubt that romantic fiction is a genuine problem for the majority of people who read it.

I'm 33, and I wear these: I actually bought them as my spare pair, and thought these wire-rimmed ones would be my main pair, but they are so comfortable and DH likes them so much that I now wear the plastic ones almost all the time.

We started second grade about a month ago. We're doing CLE Math 2 and Math Mammoth Math 2 (after much debate and starting and stopping a couple of different math programs). Rod and Staff 2 for grammar (I really, really like this, and so does DS, but we do modify the sentences quite a bit to make them more fun and less conservative Mennonite ;)) WWE 1-2 for writing (we started 1 last year but haven't finished yet) Spelling Workout A & B for spelling Getty-Dubay Book C for handwriting Prima Latina for Latin (we just do it orally, no writing) SotW for history, plus library books R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey Life for science Developing Motor Skills in Art and Artistic Pursuits 1 for art Recorder and Classics For Kids for music I've decided to do my own reading program. I'm going to pick out books for DS to read and then come up with discussion/comprehension/vocabulary questions for them. I think that's what we're doing this year. DH really wants to learn Japanese, and he's considering getting the Learnables program and going through it with DS (who also really wants to learn Japanese--they're both big video game fans), but that will be DH's job, not mine. We seem to be on track to finish science quite early, in which case DH plans on doing some sort of electronics study with DS.

I don't think Zinn is anti-WASP; he certainly has no problem with the working-class WASPs who were part of the labor movement, for example. Zinn, like a good Marxist historian, is taking the side of those who have been oppressed, and primarily those who have been oppressed due to class. Obviously race intersects with class very closely, so the two are tied together, but Zinn's bias is anti-ruling class, not anti-male, anti-white, or anti-WASP. If there's one thing, IMO, that Americans are more uncomfortable talking about than race, it's class, so it's easier to write off Zinn as just "anti-white" or "anti-white male" than to think about the ways in which his position is mainly about class.

I have personally never met a Jewish or Muslim person, no matter how conservative, who believed in a young earth. That's not to say they don't exist, but I've never encountered one. That said, I never encountered anybody who believed in YEC before I started homeschooling--I didn't even know there was such a belief (and I was raised in a pretty devout Catholic home)--so I could just be naive, and most of the Jewish and Muslim people I know, I know from university settings, but I don't think it's common in either religion. I'm not sure how common it is in Christianity either, though, especially outside of the U.S., or in mainline Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches. (I'm an Episcopalian and neither OE or evolution pose a theological problem.) I have known Muslims who didn't accept the theory of evolution, though. Well, I had a Muslim student once who wrote a paper about how they didn't accept the theory of evolution. So I'm assuming that's a view that some, though not alll, Muslims hold (I've had other Muslim students argue the opposite position in papers). I don't think it generally comes with a view in a young earth, though. I've never met a Hindu or Buddhist who believed in a young earth, or heard of one doing so.

That isn't true, I don't think. Zinn, as I noted, is a Marxist, in terms of how he views history (he takes a materialist, progressive--in the sense of history progressing towards something better--view). Marxism is about as far from "politically correct" as you can get in the United States. "Politically correct" is about offending as few people as possible. That is absolutely NOT Zinn's intention. Zinn's intention is to shake people up, to make the comfortable uncomfortable. That's pretty much the opposite of political correctness, which seeks to keep as many people comfortable as possible by being as inclusive and inoffensive as possible. Your standard textbook is politically correct. It doesn't want to offend anybody. That is not Zinn's project.

In what sense is it "politically correct"? You could certainly argue that he brings a Marxist slant to history, which he certainly wouldn't deny, but I think it's extremely difficult to call such a position "politically correct." The whole point of "political correctness" is to minimize offense, and Zinn's ideas would, to many if not most Americans, cause significant offense.

I have the same due date as you, and I also took my 1-hr GTT on Wednesday. Do you need to see the provider to get the test? At the practice I go to, the lab is separate from ob/gyn, so I could go to the lab and get a test done without needing to see my ob. I probably wouldn't wait three weeks for the test. Maybe call the new provider and see what they say? They might try to get you in earlier or have you do the test at their lab.

Do you leave in any conditioner, or rinse it all out? Leaving in some conditioner might help. It takes a bit of time to figure out how much to leave in. My DD just needs a teeny, tiny bit (since she's so little); I need quite a bit. I know a number of people who use Biosilk on their curly kids' hair. It's pricey, but you just use a tiny bit at a time, so it lasts.

I decided on Latin for DS, but mainly because I took Latin in college, and I loved it. I feel more confident teaching it than I would teaching a modern language. If I was more comfortable with Spanish, and it was more enjoyable for DS, I'd go with that, without hesitation. (This is probably heresy, but honestly, Latin isn't that hard to learn, once you have a good grasp of English grammar, due to the limited vocabulary, standard forms, and no real need to understand it conversationally. I am far more comfortable reading Latin after just one year of college Latin than I am reading Spanish, which I studied for five years. So if your kids get interested in learning Latin at some point, I'd say that once they hit high school or college, they could probably pick it up relatively quickly on their own. I feel like it takes much longer to become proficient in a modern language, so if I was confident in a modern language, my personal preference would probably be to start my kids on the modern language when young, because years and years of study are often needed to become fluent, and then save Latin for high school, since I don't think they'd need more time than that to gain proficiency.)

The first year, YES. But I felt like I needed to use a boxed curriculum, and that's expensive. A big part of why I was so attracted to TWTM was that it was the first clearly laid out plan I saw that made me feel like I could provide my kids with a quality education without spending a fortune (and while having the freedom to customize). We're book buyers anyway, though. I think I was probably spending $80-100 on books per month before we started homeschooling--yes, I have a problem, although that did include books for me, for DS, and for DH--and so now I just figure that a lot of that will go toward school stuff.

I've been wondering this myself. My DD (1yo) has really curly hair. We do sometimes use baby shampoo, if it's gotten really, really messy (like when she decides to rub all the cream cheese from a bagel into her hair), but I feel like her hair gets so dried out when we do that. For the most part I've been treating her hair the way I treat mine: wash it with conditioner, then put a little more conditioner through to leave in. That seems to work okay, and it's much easier to comb out. I don't do anything like vinegar or baking soda with my own hair, just washing it with conditioner (which, from what I understand, is enough to clean the scalp and hair if rubbed in, particularly if you have drier hair that doesn't get oily).

I'm fine with the idea of my kids not carrying on our traditions. I would be hurt, I think, if they didn't include us in theirs.

We haven't had cable in probably 7 or 8 years. We got very few channels for a while, but since the switch to digital (we have a converter box), we get ABC, NBC, CBS, three PBS stations, FOX, and a bunch of local stations. We have a Wii, which we can stream Netflix through. (I think you can also stream through the PS3, but I'm not sure.) We can hook up our TV to our computer and watch things (like Hulu) that way, but we rarely do that. If we want to see what's going to be on TV, we just check TV Guide online. But we get few enough channels that it's pretty easy just to flip through.

That's funny, because I always wonder how people can manage to fill 3+ hours of instructional time for their 1st and 2nd graders. I feel like we do a good amount of work, and unless DS has a really terrible attitude and spends lots of time complaining, we very, very rarely go for more than 90 minutes.

To be fair to teachers, if I were dealing with some of the parents they had to deal with on a daily basis, I might conclude that homeschooling is not a good option, too. And ego certainly comes into it on both sides. I have no doubt that ego is part of why some homeschoolers are so quick to vilify the public school system.

It works for our family. That's pretty much it.

We have a small house. We've got an open area that serves as our dining room, living room, and office. We homeschool at the dining table or on the couch, depending on what we're doing. I'm not sure if I'd want a separate room, at this point, even if we had the space. I've got a 1yo, and by schooling in the main room, she's got access to all her toys, to the TV/DVD player if needed, and to her high chair if she needs a snack. Once the kids are all older, I might feel differently about that and feel like a separate space for school would make sense, but right now it's much easier to keep DD happy and supervised by doing school in the living area.

I think the "problem" with public school districts that do have serious problems (and I'm not convinced that most do, honestly) lays mostly with the families. But, having seen the outcome of our local public schools with my freshman writers, I don't care who's to blame, it's not a place I'd send my child. We live in Detroit, though, and the public school system here is probably among the worst if not THE worst in the entire nation. Although, while I do not in any way blame teachers or administrators for this, the emphasis on standardized testing is one of our reasons for homeschooling, so I guess to some extent I do "blame" the institution. I will say that I think the public schools, overall, do quite a good job with an incredibly challenging and necessary task. I do think that homeschooling--or any kind of individualized education--is going to be a more ideal choice, but it's simply not realistic to expect many parents to homeschool, and certainly not most, and less-than-ideal is okay. I make less-than-ideal choices for my kids all the time, because that's what works for my family. Less-than-ideal can still be perfectly appropriate and even very, very good. I find it kind of funny (and sad) that so many homeschooling parents feel the need to write off public schools as these terrible, horrible places where everybody just runs wild and no learning at all takes place. If homeschooling is such a great option (and I do think it is), then public schools can be (and I think are) places where people can receive a perfectly adequate or even very good education and we are no less justified in making the choice to homeschool.

This is the explanation I've seen of the commandment that has made sense to me. That said, I don't say "Oh my God!" or things like that, simply because I know it does bother some people and I try to be respectful of their feelings. For the same reason, my DS knows it's not something I think it's appropriate to say, especially around others. But, I don't think the commandment is talking about that sort of thing, but what is mentioned above, and doing things like swearing an oath in the name of God and then reneging on it.

Right now, we're doing about 60-90 minutes four days a week, and then maybe 30-45 minutes on Friday. DS just started second-grade work and at this point we're mainly focusing on language arts and math. We usually also do a short history reading each day (generally nothing more elaborate than that), and on Fridays we do science (either a unit from Real Science Odyssey or a trip to the science center or, if I'm feeling really lazy, a couple of Mythbusters episodes. ;)) I'll probably start upping the time in September--giving him more writing (right now I mostly transcribe), adding in some art and music, doing an extra page of math--once we've adjusted to the new baby, but for now, since summer is coming and DS's friends are all going to be around, I feel like spending about 90 minutes a day on the basics is sufficient. Ideally I'd like to get us doing about 2 to 2-1/2 hours a day in the fall, though.

Am I the only one who finds Zinn, particularly once we move past very early American history, quite hopeful?

That's what I was going to say. When you make a mistake, mention it. Make mistakes on purpose sometimes, in front of your perfectionist child, and then react to it as a normal, okay part of life and learning. I do that with my DS, who a perfectionist. I'll make a mistake (sometimes on purpose, often just because I make mistakes!) and then respond to it as no big deal.

I was the same way. Always babysat, worked at a day camp, did childcare on the side during grad school before I had my own kids. The biggest disappointment when I had my own children was realizing that being good with other people's kids does not necessarily mean being good with your own children. I am, even today, so much more patient and forgiving toward other people's children than I am toward my own. With other people's kids, I just enjoy their company and their kidness. With my own kids, I've got so much of my self-image tied up in their behavior (and what other people think of my parenting) that I find it much harder to enjoy them and treat them with the same level of patience and understanding. Sad, but true.

One would be in the Lego box, one would be stuck inside the couch, and one would probably have ended up in the kids' room, under their bed.