Well, I did that twice weekly as a college student, and I don't remember feeling tired, but I did lose a lot of weight -- not at all a normal thing for this ol bod! I think it has a bigger effect on the body than they tell you .... Maybe he could try donating only once a week for awhile and see if it gets better? Hope things are OK for your dh. Karen

:iagree: How beautiful a relationship they must have, for your dh to even consider this kind of trip. Your dh sounds like a real treasure. Karen

Gawd NO!!! I agree that someone who casually shares others' sensitive information would not be trustworthy with yours. I think it's awful. Guess you probably could tell from my first answer LOL. Boundaries !!! Sympathies, Karen

I'm with Laurie4B ... it sounds like it's time to be straight about it. Maybe it's just that I'm a nasty harsh person ... and that may be true, as I have always had trouble with female friends ... but what in the world is ungracious about being truthful? You don't have to be sarcastic or whatever ... just truthful. "It hurts a lot on an ongoing basis, but I try not to think about it." Or whatever would be more appropriate. You see what I mean. Or what Laurie suggested. How is that burdening the inquirer with embarrassment? It's true ... it's not your fault or moral failing ... it's not their fault or moral failing ... where's the embarrassment? I honestly don't understand. And honestly, some people need to be asked not to ask. Not because they're trying to annoy you, but just because a straightforward request is the best way to get the message through ... you mentioned mind-reading ... yeah, something like that. Prayers, Karen

:grouphug: Our dds may have been twins separated at birth. You have all my sympathies. Karen

Sounds like a local aberration to me ... but I concur with you that I would be uncomfortable having my children treated as notches on someone else's belt. Karen

You are not the only person who thinks the school is completely nutso. Good questions. We ended up bringing the kids home, too. Our issues were slightly different, but same underlying principle, I think. You are not alone with this. :grouphug: Karen

No. I wanted to home school from the beginning. I could see it was going to be necessary. But DH was adamantly opposed ... so as a compromise, we sent our kids to a well-regarded Catholic school ... ... until DS's 4th-grade year, when he learned exactly nothing and was socially isolated. He also had a bad teacher, who refused to work with us to get him some enrichment/acceleration/whatever. Poor DS probably burned off 1000 years in purgatory that school year. In addition, DD, 2 years younger, was not learning what she should have been learning, but we were brushed off by HER teacher when we expressed concern. I wouldn't call that teacher a bad teacher, but we certainly were unimpressed with her over that concern. At that point, DH agreed to try home schooling for one year and then re-evaluate. By Christmas of that school year, DH told me we could continue home schooling indefinitely; he was entirely converted at that point. Karen

When they were little, I gave my kids whole milk. The experts say young children need the fat content. Okay by me. Now that they're teens, I buy 2% for them. Time for them to become accustomed to lower-fat foods. DH drinks 2% also out of his own preference. I have always drunk skim milk. I do not need one unnecessary calorie. Karen

DD suggests Cookie and Cream :)

Our town has no library, so I buy a subscription from a town in the next county that's an hour away, round-trip. I just make it part of the weekly routine to go there. I usually have holds waiting, so that's motivating, too. At this point, it's a ritual I would miss if I didn't go. A 5-book limit is really stinky. I wonder what Einstein decided on that. Sympathies, Karen

We do group activities at the kitchen table. It's also the dining room table. It's just a nook off the kitchen. We have no dining room. Most of the schoolwork is done independently ... usually the kids go to their rooms to do that. Books, binders, etc. that I use are kept in a crate in that area. Also a crate where the kids put their completed independent work. The kids' books, binders, etc. are kept in their rooms. Other books, including curriculum I'm collecting, are kept in crates in the basement. We don't have any bookshelves either. I hate this house.

Jean, I'm not aware of the other discussion, but what you describe is exactly how it works for our family. I was sick enough not to be able to get up at all one time when the kids were preschoolers too young to take care of themselves. DH took a couple-three days off work to take care of them. He didn't clean the bathrooms or anything, but he did keep the kids fed and diapered, and prevented them from killing themselves or others :) And I, too, have served cold cereal for supper a time or two. :) Karen

I feel your pain. :grouphug: My ds14 will still go hungry rather than walk into a fast food place and order himself a sandwich. When dh or I am with him, he'll place an order, but he'll mumble it. He has gotten the wrong food a couple of times due to that -- I look on it as a learning opportunity. This same child can talk up a storm with strangers in the "right" milieu. He is a fencer, and he can go to tournaments and meet other fencers and coaches -- both students and adults -- and chat and be personable and have to be dragged away at the end of the day. I don't get it and ds can't explain it. Karen

I'm no lawyer, but I did serve on a jury for a violent crime. There were four separate charges we had to decide for just that one single incident. The prosecutors loaded up every possible variation of a charge they could. It taught me that the number of charges doesn't mean anything about the number of crimes committed. The crime I juried for happened one time and it really was just one crime, but the prosecutors were gunning for conviction on four separate charges. I don't pretend to understand whether that is just, but it is legal. I'm truly sorry you are dealing with this so close to your own family. It is heart-breaking. As far as systems to weed out predators, it is my impression that this is primarily bishop-dependent. By that I mean that some bishops take it very seriously, put effective administrative mechanisms in place, personally keep tabs on it, treat it like the crime it is, etc. ... and others not so much. :grouphug: Karen

John Gatto goes into that in his books, but that's certainly not material for a 9yo. Karen

:iagree: I had my own bedroom from about the age of 7. I had no end of roommate trouble in college. I had 4 roommates in my first 2 years ... both years I was assigned randomly in the 1st semester and it was a disaster; then I moved in with someone I knew for the 2nd semester and things went better ... some of that trouble was their fault ... some of it was my fault. From my 3rd year on, I guess I gained enough skills and found more compatible girls to room with, as it was fine from then on. I have one boy and one girl, so sharing is out of the question for us. But I do regret that they are not learning room-sharing skills. Karen

Yah, as I read this thread, I was thinking "don't forget about math!" Math goes right along with music and art a lot of the time. Karen

Both my kids used Singapore independently. We used the textbooks, Intensive Practice books, and Challenging Word Problems. They did one lesson per day through a unit in the text, then went to the IP and did the corresponding unit (I had to schedule page numbers for IP, as it is not laid out in lessons). CWP we did 1/2 to 1 year behind, usually doing 1 page a day, or for a change-up, doing 3 pages of CWP instead of a regular lesson. Both kids were well ready for algebra concepts when they finished this series. Karen

:iagree:

Yes. You are not alone :grouphug: My kids are teens now, and to summarize our experience, there are basically three camps of inquirers. There are people who are comfortable with their own lives and decisions who say something to the effect of "that's cool." There are the deeply invested public school teachers who immediately launch into an inquisition on testing. Then there are the ordinary folk who are not so comfortable with their own lives and decisions who fall into two camps -- the "I could never do that" whiney type and the "you think you're so smart" jealous type. Best defense I have found is to make sure I'm confident in what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. Nobody can take that away from me. It helps that I am an older mother (first living child at age 35) and am already into that middle-aged don't-give-a-c***-what-anyone-else-thinks phase. ;) I would also echo those who say not to give out more information than is necessary for the situation. Most people aren't necessarily hostile to home schooling or advanced learners, but then again most people don't really want to know about it. Offering that information can be interpreted as intimidating or arrogant by the less confident. OTOH, if they are seriously interested in the topic, as BillyBoy says, be ready to talk :) :grouphug: Karen

You don't say what kind of binding, etc. your Bible is. I did throw away a Bible. It was a paperback version that was so worn, the cover was flaking and peeling -- not tearing, but sloughing off in flakes, weird -- anyway, it got the point that it really wasn't usable and it was just a paperback, so I just tossed it. No lightning bolts hit me. OTOH, if it had a nice binding or cover material, was in ANY way family-related, etc., I would try to have it rebound or somehow refurbished. Karen

Well, I won't answer that question, but I will tell you what happened in our family. FWIW. Our dd had a heart murmur that some docs heard and some didn't -- from about the age your dd is until she was diagnosed with a large ASD at age 7. She had open-heart surgery 2 months later. We had no clue. All along, the docs that heard the murmur told us "don't worry about it." So we didn't. Then one day, her doc said that she had had that murmur for awhile and he wanted it checked out. So we took her for an echocardiogram and got the punch in the stomach that evening. So when docs or other people say "it's probably nothing," well it probably is nothing. But if it's not nothing, it will be hell. Just saying. Knowing what I know now, I would ask one of the docs to send you for an echo. That will tell you whether it's something to prepare for or not. But that's because for our daughter, it wasn't nothing. Some people just hit the lottery, I guess. Prayers, Karen

:iagree: This is a great resource for all kinds of Catholic religious ed and home schooling things. Their approach is gentle and kind. They would welcome an email from you so they could guide you to appropriate resources. You should also begin a period of self-education, so you can learn what you should have been taught but weren't. I know what you mean about not being taught, as I see it in my children's religious ed. It was different for me, being an adult convert. Your pastor can help point you in the right direction for self-ed. Please ask him -- he will WANT to help someone who WANTS to learn :) Prayers, Karen