[Do your kids use Kindles? At what age?]

I started letting the girls read Kindle books several years ago.  

[Were you read to much as a child?]

No, I can't recall it ever happening.  I do remember being taught to read before kindergarten though.  But somehow I still turned into a bibliophile.

[Starbucks cup rant]

It's just plain silly, and I say this as a Christian.  I do think the plain red is ugly, but that's strictly my personal opinion of the aesthetics.  I really don't need Starbucks to reinforce my faith or beliefs.  I drink the coffee and throw the cup away.  As noted previously, there are WAY more important things to be bothered about.

[Anybody Watch The Great British Bake Off/Great British Baking Show?]

The girls and I started watching last year.  We love it.  I wish they would show the more current seasons!  I saw that it was on Netflix, but just the US versions right now.   :(

 

My ODD wants to make all the elaborate dishes and I'm like... have fun, kid! I'm not helping you; I know my limits!

[Happy Reformation Day!]

I was going to try to do a few small things with the girls, but ODD got out of her practice late, and we wanted to eat before TOT'ing, so I didn't have time.  I did have DH read them a Martin Luther book last night though.

[Happy Birthday, Mrs. Mungo!]

Happy birthday!!

[Your most successful habits to raise a bibliophile?]

Read alouds every night.

Lots of time spent at the library and used bookstore when we're in town.

Books in just about every room of the house.

Parents read every day.

Time for "free reading" AND book basket (school related) reading every day.

Be excited to recommend books, talk about them, etc.

[My brag - my kid got accepted in to the adult space]

This is completely awesome. I love to hear about kids doing neat and different things!

["I'm not smart."]

Smart people know they aren't smart. 

 

LOL

 

Not that that helps you.  : )

 

I tell my kids that if they are getting everything right then it's too easy and they won't learn much.  My older kid has gotten a lot better about making mistakes.  The younger one still tends to have his freak out moments. 

 

 

My girls tend to think that if they have to think about it for a while, something's wrong.  No, sweetie....

[Let Your Kids Regulate Their Own Candy Intake + Poll]

We allow the girls to exchange some of their candy for a small toy or gift.

 

The rest of it, I usually allow them a day or two to eat what they want, and then after that, they have to ask before eating some of it.  They have proven themselves to be honest and trustworthy, so we don't keep their candy for them, they store it where they want and could access it at any time.

 

Rebecca tends to dole hers out very carefully, to where she is still working on Easter candy now.

Sylvia chows hers down.  But she then has to deal with having no candy at a later time.

 

ETA: We do candy at all the usual times year round, but almost never have it at other times.  We don't keep a lot of sweets in the house as a rule, because MOM has a hard time self-regulating!   :laugh:

[Weird Moments in Halloween]

We TOT at a mall, and it was rainy outside last night.  My girls are older, but very well-mannered, and I have instructed them always to give way to little kids.  Anyway, the mall was incredibly crowded, and we saw examples of why some people think older kids shouldn't TOT.  There is a defined line for TOT at the mall.  We've done it for years.  Well-mannered people fall in line and TOT.  You approach the store from the right side.  We had some older kids passing on the left, cutting in and approaching the people handing out the candy from the opposite side, cutting in front of kids of all ages who stood in line, and hitting tons of stores in that manner.  They had parents with them who were just allowing, even encouraging this.

 

I'll be happier when it's a non-rainy Halloween night!

 

FWIW, we spent a while at the mall and ended up with not a ton of candy, but it's not like the girls needed a ton, so we left before TOT ended.

[What was your Cabbage Patch doll's name?]

Melissa Beth was my first one.  She had my coloring.  Then later I had a brunette named Jewell.

[Anyone cross stitch?]

:D

 

My "later" backs are better than my "earlier" backs. I am self taught and I didn't really know how to weave my ends in neatly in the beginning.

 

 

Ah, see, I was taught by a pro.  Literally, my mom stitched more than a few photo models for Leisure Arts back in the day.

[May I please poke in here? Nonacademic giftedness.]

I also think that it can be easy for kids who compete at a high level in anything to compare themselves to a really big field without realizing it-and for parents to do the same and forget how much of the iceberg is below the surface. But just because there are 12 yr olds doing calculus doesn't mean that a 12 yr old in Algebra 2 isn't advanced and is showing exceptional promise in math. And it certainly doesn't mean that said 12 yr old's parents can't worry about how they're going to meet that child's needs. The same is true in other fields, too. There are a lot of talented athletes who aren't going to the olympics, but it doesn't mean they're not talented.

 

Your DD is exceptional. Her coach sees it. You are allowed to be proud, to be worried, to be happy, and to be scared. All at the same time. Congratulations to her-and to you!

 

I was thinking along those lines in the shower.  Just because a gifted kid might not become famous for an invention or a world record, doesn't mean they're not gifted.  :)

[Anyone cross stitch?]

I went through a spurt of cross-stitching a few years ago.  I did vignettes of 3/4 seasons and one little one for each month of the year.  And then I do...what...with them?  Much easier to fold up a blanket or a hat and gift it to someone.  I still have a partial project of a gorgeous colorful geisha in a hoop, but I sadly think my eyes might not be up to it anymore!

[May I please poke in here? Nonacademic giftedness.]

I'm kind of in a weird position and there's no good place for me to talk, but I've found some solace here now and then.  My ODD is a competitive gymnast.  She is not a phenom, she will never be elite or go to the Olympics, BUT she is very talented, and we're just getting a look at that now.  She has a top-notch coach (not unknown in gym world, but not saying the name because the gym world is TINY) who picked her out of a lineup the first day he saw the team and inquired about a "handful" of girls out of over 40, of which DD was one.  This coach has decades of experience in elite and college gymnastics.  He knows what he's doing.  He is also great at parent communication, and has said many times how beautiful DD's form is, that she is very on track and high potential for Div I or II college gym, and just told her last night she could make L7 regionals "easily."  The AA score required at states for a L7 to make regionals here is at least 37.  I was staggered about the regionals assessment and asked DD if she was sure he said it to HER or to all the girls - he said it to her (not taking anything away from the other girls) because she specifically went up and asked him while the other girls were moving mats elsewhere.

 

This is a huge deal because while she started gymnastics very young, she didn't start competing until she was 9.  She hasn't skipped any levels at all, and was getting passed over, belittled, and ignored by her first head coach.  

 

Anyway... I feel like I felt when my younger DD was 4 and started reading in the gym lobby when ODD was in a class.  Like when you go down that first hill on the roller coaster.

 

:huh:

 

Thanks for letting me babble on.  I can't really take it to the hardcore gymnastics boards, because there's 20 people there who will say, "Yeah? I've got a 9 year old L10!"  But then it can also get lonely among the regular gym mom crowd.

[Math Woes - Teaching Textbooks]

I'm so glad to read this. I just quit TT and have CLE on the way. I wanted err needed to like TT. I wanted something to be independent!! But TT is just not working.

 

 

CLE is actually not too terribly teacher-intensive.  It's served us extremely well and I hope you guys have success with it!

[Logic for gifted 5th grader]

Ah, Sylvia blazed through pretty much all the Prufrock Press books a couple of years ago.  She adores the puzzles.  I've just been buying her Grid Perplexors - I think she's at level C now - and doling them out slowly.  I would love just a big, giant book of them.

 

ETA: Oh, for Pete's sake, we're 11 weeks into school and she's finished her first Grid Perplexors book!

[Helpful resources on narcissicm?]

I'm totally with you.  It took me about 34 years to realize that my upbringing was profoundly abnormal.

 

I'm now no-contact, although she changed her FB name to spy on me last year, lie to my aunt about me (my only remaining relative, basically), and then try to sneak back into contact with me.

 

Everyone thought she was "such a cool mom" when I was a kid.

 

I'm the scapegoat, my sister is the golden child.  Sister (9 years younger) has since moved out, although I don't know the circumstances because we don't talk either.

 

My ODD is 12, which is the age when I really start to remember some of the awful stuff my mom did to me.  I can't even wrap my head around treating my daughter that way.

[CLE 600 to Saxon Algebra 1/2 - checking in!]

Okay, so I had spent a lot of time here over the previous years going back and forth, trying to figure out what math to go to after CLE.  I left CLE because they spread their pre-a over two years and I only wanted 1 year of pre-a.  I wanted Algebra 1 in 8th grade.  I also wanted to stick with one math through high school if possible, and CLE does not yet have Sunrise editions of any further classes.

 

I eventually gave my DD (now age 12, 7th grade) a placement test for Saxon.  Last year, while she was in CLE 603, she was close to placing into Saxon 8/7, so I did some thinking and made an educated decision and bought Algebra 1/2 with the DIVE disc for her.  I purchased the set by My Father's World, which includes their lesson plans.  Please note, their lesson plans do not assign all the problems in the problem sets.  I am aware that a lot of Saxon users say that it is imperative for kids to do every problem, but my DD can be slow.  I decided to have her do the assigned problems, and if she began to encounter difficulties or not understand concepts, I would start to assign all the problems.  So far, so good.

 

Based on a suggestion from a board member, I watch the DIVE lesson alongside her.  Then she goes and does the assigned work.  

 

I would not consider her to be advanced or gifted in math.  When we first started homeschooling, math was a producer of many tears and tantrums!  I seriously wondered if she had learning problems.  

 

She completed Test 8 today and got 100% on it.  She is easily understanding everything introduced so far. She feels confident and competent in math, which is one of the major reasons I loved CLE so much.   Hopefully this will continue!  I'll try to check back and update this a few more times throughout the year.

[Apologia General Science - marking labs and notebook]

You're not alone.  I feel completely lost every time I go to check up on my DD's work.  Why can't it all be in one neat book instead of scattered over three different resources!??!

[S/O How much do you spend on your kid's hair?]

DH cuts Rebecca's hair because it's very straight and we just do a blunt cut (it's always in a ponytail, braid, or bun anyway).

 

We take Sylvia to Great Clips because she has tons of hair and it's curly and has long layers.  The last time we had her hair cut, we could have made a toupee with what hit the floor, and she looked like we hadn't done a thing.  It's usually $10 plus tip.

 

[I'm gonna say it. And people are gonna come at me. But so be it.]

I do not want to hear about candy corn because I am trying to re-lose the pounds that magically hopped back onto my body after slacking all through fall and winter last year!

[What do you REALLY wish you were capable of that you just cannot do..]

Tons of things: play piano, sew, sing, speak a foreign language really well, paint or draw.

[balancing your needs with family's needs]

One of the best things dh has ever done for me was do a read aloud with dds at bedtime when they younger. It stopped when they were about 11 and 13. It was awesome. He would read for at least an hour, I could hear them laughing and that made me happy, and I had alone time. I felt so happy, light, and re energized when was done. He truly enjoyed the time with them too and they still talk about it.

 

 

Very much like this!  I am SO grateful that my DH can read aloud to the girls before bed and I can just unwind and go on to sleep if necessary.  I am usually much in need of a break by that time.