Halcyon, what is BtB Spanish? My rising eighth grader wants to start Spanish next year, and I'm not sure what program to do.

I'm tentatively planning to use American Odyssey with my 8th grade dd next year. I'll be listening in for other suggestions here though.

The idea of taking things away and making him earn them back is a good one. I would either do that or institute some kind of check-out system. Sort the toys into various bins and make him come to you to check one out. If he wants another toy, he needs to pick up all parts of the current toy and put them back before he can have a different one.

I do! My mom is one of my closest friends. I love it when people say I am like her. I hope it's true! I'm leaving Wednesday to spend 3 days with her. I'm so excited!! I also have a lovely MIL who I get along great with. I have been blessed in the mom/MIL area.

My sister lives about 45 min from me. I see her several times a month. The rest of my family lives about 2 hrs away. They come up for birthdays for my kids and my sister's kids. We go to see them for holidays and random visits. Between my parents coming up and us going down, we probably see them about once a month or so. Dh's family is about 3 hrs from us. His parents come up for the kids' birthdays. I take the kids down for a week in the summer and we visit for either Thanksgiving or Christmas (we alternate with my family).

We send them if we are not able to say thank you in person. Most people I know send them for showers and weddings still. I did get a weird generic thank you note from my cousin for her wedding a while back. It was just a general pre-printed note which I thought was strange. I think with all of the ways we have to contact people now, thank you notes are on their way out just like newsy letters.

I agree with a PP that he needs to decide on an amount that he is willing to lose and then make him promise to stop after that amount has been reached. Otherwise this will go on forever. Unfortunately I've seen it happen and the results are not pretty. I also think that if you have the money, go ahead and get the help you have been asking for. Tell him your dream is not to be so overworked. He gets money per month to follow a dream you don't approve of- you should be able to do the same.

My mom lined the diaper with extra absorbency maxi pads for one of my siblings who regularly wet through the diaper at night. She said it worked really well.

Right there with you. It's nice to know I'm not alone!

[quote name="ocelotmom" post="5246538" timestamp= And probably Cheaper by the Dozen, which I admit I haven't actually seen, but it doesn't look like it could bear anything more than a passing resemblance to the book. The newest Cheaper by the Dozen is really terrible. Other than the correct number of children, it has nothing to do with the book. There is a movie from 1950 that I thought was a good representation of the book. It would be worth checking out.

Dd 11- Monster High girl Ds 8- ninja Dd 3- either Tinkerbell or Cinderella For babies we have a pumpkin costume. They're so chubby at that age that they make great little pumpkins. :)

We've been going at half pace as well. We do a week on and then a week off. On the week off, I give some writing assignments and we decide together if a chronological narrative or whatever would be best and then review what that entails. I think it has helped dd to use her skills for "real" writing assignments and not just the ones in the book. We also try to discuss different types of writing in what she reads. She dragged her feet through the descriptive weeks. She kept telling me it wasn't that important. So we went through all different kinds of books to show how description was used. It's hard to find a book that does not contain description of some sort. I think that has reinforced the fact that the instruction is practical and not just something to go through the motions of doing.

What degree of power and influence does the aristocracy hold today? Where does their wealth come from? I know a long time ago the land they inherited guaranteed a certain amount of income, but I'm assuming this is no longer the case. Do they work like normal people? Do they get preferential treatment like rich, white men get in America?

Dh and I have trouble finding shows we both like to watch, but we both really liked this one. James Spader is great! I don't know why, but the show reminds me a little of Alias- another one dh and I liked. Maybe it's because there are on-going mysterious elements but not in a frustrating, no-one-ever-knows-what's-going-on kind of way.

Check your library. I was able to watch season 2 by borrowing the DVDs from mine.

One time the child didnt find tooth fairy money, but for some reason when I went in to double check it was right there under the pillow. :) Another time, there was a day when twice as many children as usual lost a tooth and the tooth fairy got backed up. She caught up the next night though.

I thought it was ok. I'll probably give it a few episodes before making a judgement call. The Revelations thing was really predictable, but I liked the guy playing Crane. As an aside, is it weird to anyone else when clergy are depicted as the ones trying to stop the end of the world? I mean, aren't Christians supposed to be eagerly awaiting the return of Christ to earth and not actively trying to prevent the precursors to his coming?

I'm guessing if the grandparent-parent relationship is a good one, then the parent-child relationship will remain strong. On both sides of our family there are kids who are very close to their grandparents the way you described. In both cases the grandparents have a lot of respect for the wishes and rules of the parents. There is no undermining or manipulating going on. If a child tries to use a grandparent to go around the rules, the grandparent does not allow it. There is also good communication between grandparents and parents. All of the kids are still close to the parents as well. I can see how there would be a big problem eventually between parent and child if the adults are not all working as a team and following the same rules for the children.

I think siblings getting along is more about personality than age. With each one you have, it's a roll of the die as to how that child will interact with the others and vice versa no matter the spacing. My younger brother and sister were 20 months apart and fought like cats and dogs. I am 7 yrs older than my youngest sister. We weren't close growing up, but we are very close now. My mother is close with her sister (15 months apart) and her brother (12 years apart). I really don't see age as the factor in relationships going well or not. It will be hard as far as activities go. Thankfully, we were blessed with a fairly easy-going child so we can cart her around to various events with no problem. But sometimes we can't go to stuff bc of nap time or she's just had enough for one day and will melt down if we have another event. There's a give and take there between her needs as a little one and the needs of the big kids. Every family just has to find their own balance, and you will too.

I think if you see it expecting it to be different than the book, you will enjoy it. For me, it was much better than the first movie. Things are added and deleted like any other time a book is made into a movie. The book was much better, but the movie was entertaining too.

Maybe you could break up the memory work into shorter segments. We do memory work, but I do our science memory stuff right before our science lesson, Bible verse and catechism before Bible, etc. We might do 20 min of memory work, but it's in chunks of 5 min or less. Freedom to choose some things- even which lit book to read next- really helped my ds who didn't like school. I don't agree with changing everything just because of complaining, but it is a good idea to try to ferret out the "why" behind her feelings. It might be that she hears that her friends don't do much work and feels like it's unfair or that she is overly frustrated about some things that could indicate a problem. The former would get a "suck it up" answer- along with some explanation of different types of school, the latter needs more investigating. Ds hated math in first grade. I told him to suck it up (not in those words, but still...). Then one day we talked about it and I realized he was bored out of his mind because the material was too easy. We did some skipping and switching and he was a happy camper. Not to say this will be your experience. Just to say sometimes you discover surprising things when you talk it through.

If someone comes to chat with you and gd, introduce yourself and then hopefully they will do the same. If they give advice, smile and nod. If they want to take gd, say "Thanks for offering to take her for a bit, but I really want to spend as much time with her as possible. I just can't get enough time with gd!"

I put that I paid after 18, but maybe I should have put other. Dh and I moved in with my parents for about 6 months due to some complicated circumstances. We paid rent, but we volunteered to do so. My parents would not have demanded it. During my college years they never asked me for money.

We use Typing Instructor. It has a lot of games to teach typing, and it has worked well with dd. ds is just starting it this year and has made big progress in only a few weeks. I highly recommend it! http://www.amazon.com/Typing-Instructor-Kids-Platinum-Windows/dp/B002U0L1BU/ref=sr_1_1?s=software&ie=UTF8&qid=1378657324&sr=1-1&keywords=typing+instructor+for+kids

We are using: Spelling- SWR (20 words per week) Math- MM 3 Grammar/Vocabulary- Shurley 3 Cursive- Cursive First Reading- selections by mom plus a couple of lit guides Writing- copywork and summaries of reading History- SOTW 4 Science- Apologia Chemistry and Physics Geography- US geography through outline maps and iPad apps, Geography Songs Typing- Typing Instructor