Well, to get the Tiger Cub emblem, they have to know three of the Bobcat trail items anyway. It doesn't just get handed out. Once they've done that, it shouldn't be a big deal for them to continue on to complete their Bobcat. In the packs we've been involved in, it gets awarded at the first pack meeting, and then the beads are awarded at subsequent pack meetings. Does your pack work differently? If not, it shouldn't be an issue to start working on some of the Tiger track beads in the first few weeks. In fact, it makes sense to me to do so, because it will take several weeks for the little guys especially to memorize all the Bobcat stuff. I think it would get boring for them if all you did in the first few weeks was to work on Bobcat. We usually would practice it at the beginning of the meeting and then again at the end of the meeting. Then after the first few weeks, whenever any of the boys were ready, we'd invite the cubmaster in to test them on their Bobcat. Now if your DL doesn't want to do Bobcat at all, then that's a problem & since your Cubmaster already knows about it, he needs to address it with the Den leader. As far as switching, I don't think I would quite yet. Your DL hasn't even led a meeting yet, right? I think I'd give him a chance to show how he'd do. I wouldn't judge just based on his meeting notes. Some people just write really detailed planning notes, in case they forget something, but are more relaxed in their actual presentation. I am also a fan of men leaders for the cub scouts. The men definitely lead things differently than the moms do, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Last year, my Tiger had a dad leader and t was really good for him. Our leader is a sort of no-nonsense guy too, but with the Tigers that can be a good thing, because sometimes he was better at corralling the boys and keeping them on track and not taking a lot of guff. But his wife did do more of the crafty type activities, when those were called for. So perhaps as assistant den leader, that is a role you could fill? Overall, I think I'd wait a bit and see how things play out and how he interacts with the boys. We've switched packs before due to poor leadership, so I totally get that, but I think I'd give it more time in your situation.

Congratulations!! I love his name. I had a baby in June and never did a baby announcement thread because by the time I got around to getting back on the boards, I figured it was silly to announce my two month old. :lol:

There are also at least two other moms of triplets who homeschool here on the board. Hopefully, one of them will check this thread and chime in as well! If not, you might want to start a "Homeschooling Triplets?" thread. :001_smile:

:iagree::iagree::iagree: We rent out our house without a property manager, because we could not afford the 10% a property manager would charge. 13% does seem high, but you'd have to run the numbers. Most of the 10% pm's also charge one month's rent to find a renter and initiate the lease. Also, we've had similar experiences as TranquilMind listed above, so would rather manage the property ourselves if at all possible. Fortunately we live only about 2 1/2 hours from our home, so if something goes wrong, it's a pain, but we can go down & take care of it. Or so he told us. The first tenant caused a flood and ruined our parquet floor within the first week and tried to blame it on us and get us to pay $500 dry cleaning expenses for clothing in boxes that were water damaged. Sigh. She went on to run a "massage" business from the home. Yes, the quotes there mean what you think they mean. Our second tenants supposedly had excellent references. They lived in our house for about a year and a half and they completely trashed it. They allowed one room to be used as a room-sized cat litter box/scratching post. When we pulled out the carpets, they were FULL of cat litter and urine. The wall of built-in shelves were ruined by deep cat scratches. The shades were all shredded by cat claws. This was just one room. All the others had similar ridiculous damage. Our property manager was useless. I am sure there are some good ones out there, but ours we paid 10% a month, then had to pay him a month's rent again each time his loser tenants left, he up charged every repair and did nothing to help protect our property or check to make sure it wasn't being destroyed. Now, instead of a property manager, I did all my own advertising and showing the house. My husband did all the prep on the house and does most of the repairs himself. We have a local friend who drives by the house every week or two and is available to go to the house if a repair emergency arises. We offered to pay him a small fee each month, but he refused, so we treat him to dinner when we're in town. We have neighbors who keep an eye out as well and will call us if necessary. They even did a repair for us once, just because he knew how. We're fortunate to have excellent tenants. I had to hold out through several questionable ones until the right folks came along. The whole process is stressful, but it's so much better to have tenants that we feel comfortable with in our home. Our tenant also pays us each month by electronic transfer, so we don't need a PM to collect rent. I was able to buy a state specific lease online. So far we haven't missed a PM at all. So, other than my obvious bias against a PM, my best advice is to set up an electronic transfer for the rent. Check into a home warranty, especially if you have an older furnace or ac that might go out. Keep a savings fund to cover all other repairs as they come along. Be sure to have your tenants fill out a property condition form when they move in, so there is no dispute later about what is a pre-existing issue and what is damage they may have caused. Include a small deductible for repairs, to discourage them calling for every little small thing. Make a welcome basket when they first move in and try to cultivate a good relationship. We are pet owners, so we are sympathetic to renter's with pets. But rather than simply allowing or disallowing pets, we list the home as pets on a case by case basis. Then we can evaluate the situation, but don't automatically turn away potentially good tenants.

I am so very sorry. :grouphug::grouphug: What a beautiful tribute. Thanks for sharing a little bit oh him with us. :grouphug:

Here's our school/age redshirting saga. It's a little confusing, but it works for us. :) My oldest son's birthday is June 2002. We started him in pre-k at just turned 4 and in K at just turned 5 (homeschool all along). He was VERY ready and eager to start and academically, he did fine. But our next son was born in Oct 2004 and he was definitely not ready for K at 4, not 5 until October, and he wouldn't have made the local cutoff anyway. But I didn't want to wait until he was almost 6 to even start K, so I decided to do a calendar year school year with him instead. So we started K in January, when he was already 5. While contemplating this, my husband was laid off and we lived apart for a while and then made a big move, so we weren't homeschooling as consistently as I wanted. So I decided to take a winter break from school that year and adjust my oldest son to a calendar year grade as well. So we took 1 1/2 years for 2nd grade (with some significant breaks) and if we remain on this schedule, he will now graduate in Dec 2020 at 18.5 years. I like this SO much better than him graduating at almost 18. I also like that he has a built in "gap semester" after graduation. I figure this will give us flexibility to let him do extra, interest-led studies during the gap, or even to just continue jr college classes that semester, or if he really wants to, to only have one semester to catch up on if he wants to adjust back again. So for that one year, we had both boys on a calendar year schedule. But as it turns out, my second son was a much less eager and ready Kindergartner, so he wasn't ready to move on to first grade the following January. We could have just continued K work and called him 1st grade, but I thought that was silly since if he was in public school he wouldn't have started 1st until the following fall. So we went ahead and took 1 1/2 years for K and he is now right on track with his PS peers, although one of the oldest in class. Socially, that is perfect for him as well. So now I have one child on a calendar year schedule and two on school year (my third son started K this year), which is a little quirky, but it meets the needs of my kids so I don't mind. ...Except for this time of year when folks keep asking my boys what grade they are in. E says 4th or 5th and S told cub scouts last night that he will be in 2nd, but he doesn't know when. :lol: So other than poor communicating on my part and forgetting to prep them for hs questions, we are happy with this arrangement. My last two are summer babies too, so I am thinking about 1/2 year redshirting them too. So here's the breakdown for my children: Born 6/2002, 4th/5th grade, Grad Dec 2020 @18y6m, gap semester Spring 2021. Born 10/2004, 2nd grade, Grad June 2023 @18y8m Born 4/2007, K, Grad June 2025 @18y2m Born 7/2009, possibly start K Jan 2015, grad Dec 2027 @18y5m Born 6/2012, possibly start K Jan 2018, grad Dec 2030 @18y6m

We've only been using the DVD for a few days, and so far I love it. BUT, we were Sequential Spelling users already, so we already knew that the spelling part of the program and the way it is designed works for my son. Sequential Spelling had lists of 25 words, many with common roots, so that the child sees a pattern of spelling: hot, shot, spot, lot, a lot, blot... Then the next day he'll see the same words with 's' endings, if appropriate. Then the next day with other endings like 'ed' or 'ing.' The same general list is used for 4-5 days and then it moves on to new word families. There is some variation thrown in there, with random words or phrases that may or may not follow the pattern, or a word like 'thought' after the list above, so that discussion of various spellings for the same sounds can occur. The lesson is designed for the parent to read a word from the list, say a sentence with the word, the child to write it down, the parent writes the word on the board, in two colors, and then the child immediately corrects his spelling if he wrote it incorrectly. So for the list above, I would write all of the 'ot' parts of the word in red, and all of the letters before and after in green. The idea is to visually reinforce the commonality of the words. So the child hears the word, hears it in context, writes the word, sees the word with visual contrast, and then corrects the word if necessary. The theory is that the combination of audio, visual and kinesthetic will help with retention. BUT, there is not a lot of teacher helps or discussion with the program. Few explanations of why words are spelled the way they are and why the exceptions occur. It is more of an intuitive learning program and learning through doing and seeing the patterns, rather than memorizing rules. This program works for my son because he is a perfectionist, so ending up with a complete, correct list makes him happy. He still doesn't like misspelling a word, but it is quickly remedied, by himself, without my input. ;) He also has improved in his spelling quite a bit. And spelling is done pretty quickly and without much fuss. As for the DVD, which is actually a DVD-Rom to be played on the computer, all it does is replace the parent part of the routine above. The program says the word, says a sentence, pauses for the child to write the word (sometimes the child has to pause the program to have enough time), then the word appears on the screen (conveniently in two colors without all the pen switching), and child corrects it if necessary. You may have guessed why I love the DVD. Same program, but a lot less work for me. So it allows me to work on another subject with another child. but I am still in hearing distance, so I can provide an explanation or comment if necessary. Overall, I think the DVD was worth it for my family. But I don't know that I would recommend it for someone just starting with Sequential Spelling. I think that it could make someone say "this is it!?" if they have not been previously exposed to the program, because it is very low key and straightforward, just like the books. I'd probably recommend picking up the first level book, which often sold inexpensively used, and trying the program for a little bit first to see if it works for your child, before investing in the DVD. People seem to either love or hate the program, and I think you'd know within a few days which way it is for you.

Our insurance is priced similarly to the example you've given, when our contribution to a medical spending account is taken into consideration, except that our deductible is $5000. I do revisit our insurance spending each year and try to see if there is a better option. It does feel pretty crazy, because we pay such high premiums and then since we have a high deductible, we end up paying for most of everything ourselves anyway. Ideally, we would build up a nice savings in our MSA, and be able to go with an even higher deductible plan. But so far, we end up spending all of the money we've set aside, and then some, because of medical spending that is not even covered by our insurance (midwife, chiropractor). I've thought about dropping the insurance altogether and socking away that $1k a month into an account of our own and "self-insuring" since it seems like what we are doing anyway. But, then we'd lose many of our tax advantages since my husband is self employed, and of course if something really BIG did happen, we'd be devastated financially. And of course, soon we'd be facing tax penalties for choosing this option as well. I'm thinking about switching our plan to the $10k deductible because it would save us a few hundred a month in premiums. We haven't hit the $5k per person yet anyway, so we pay for most everything now and that would be the same. And if something BIG did happen, we'd have to make payment arrangements for a sudden $5k bill just as much as we would a sudden $10k one. So to answer your question, yes the main reason we keep paying the insurance is for the catastrophic coverage. And also, with five boys, so far we've had at least one emergency visit per year, so the contracted rate with the insurance does help knock it down a bit. Years ago DH & I decided to go without insurance one year, thinking we were young and healthy. I ended up in the ER a couple of times with gall bladder attacks and it took us years to pay that off. So we're definitely gun shy about going without.

My 10 year old soccer player has practice from 645-745. My FIVE and seven year olds have football practice from 630-800, but it tends to go to 815, 820, so we don't get home until after 830. It doesn't really faze us though since my kids don't generally go to bed until 930 or 10. I do wonder about how the public schooled kids do it, especially if they have homework still to do after they get home! In my experience, once we hit October and the evenings get shorter, practice times will start and end earlier. It's inevitable, but I actually prefer the later times because if gives my husband a chance to get home and to be able to help with the sports shuttling. :)

LOL. Somehow I have a hard time imagining MCT saying "My bad." :lol:

:iagree:

Same for us.

Thanks for the advice. Sounds like we're going to have some down time for the next week or two! I think I am going to keep the baby quarantined in my room as well. He should be protected somewhat by breastmilk antibodies, but my older kiddoes just can't keep their hands off him!

It looks like my three year old has Hand, Foot & Mouth disease. He's been irritable for several days and on Wednesday started refusing his food and drink and drooling. Then yesterday, fluid filled blisters started appearing on his hands, and in his mouth. Now they are on his bottom and feet too. According to Dr. Google, it looks like something that will just run its course, right? None of my kids have ever had this before, so I'm inexperienced with this virus. For those who have BTDT, did your other kids catch it too? I do have a 2 month old, so I'll probably be keeping him quarantined in my room, at least while his brother has the rash. Dr Google also said that kids can continue to shed this virus for several weeks!? So, if our kids have had this, how long did you keep them away from other children? My kids all go with me everywhere, and we have A LOT going on the next few weeks, including co-op classes I teach and a robotics league I am heading up which starts meeting next week. Just trying to figure out what I need to reschedule. Thanks for any advice & experience. :001_smile:

I suppose what you are both referring to and what you presume I am uneducated about is the concept of herd immunity. I do realize that had the unvaccinated child been vaccinated and therefore less likely to be sick at that point, then the vaccinated child, who's vaccination did not take or had worn off or was stored improperly and never effective to begin with, would have been less likely to have contracted the disease on that day from that child and to pass it on to the infant. It's similar to the birth control pill. The pill is supposed to suppress ovulation and prevent conception. But just in case that doesn't work, the pill also creates a hostile environment in the uterus so that if a conception does occur, it probably won't implant. So the vaccine *should* work by provoking an immune response in a child to prevent them from contracting a given disease. But just in case it doesn't work as designed, then hopefully all the other children around them have been vaccinated and their vaccinations hopefully do work, so hopefully the first child will be avoid contracting the disease anyway. I actually think a decent argument can be made for herd immunity and a societal obligation. BUT, I do not think that most people realize that the overriding benefit of vaccinating their child is NOT for their own child's health, but rather for the benefit of those around them. Regardless, I still believe that a parent should have the right to decide what their own particular child should be injected with. A parent should be able to weigh out the potential societal good against the risks and benefits to their own child and have the right to make a decision to vaccinate or not.

It is sad when any infant dies, I'm sorry to hear that. But the failure in this story is not that a child was not vaccinated, but rather that a child who was vaccinated, that is the brother, contracted the disease anyway. If vaccinations work so well, then vaccinated children would have nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, this is not true. So parents should have a choice, whether or not to inject their child with chemicals and various by-products that may or may not do what they are purported to do, and may or may not cause adverse reactions in their child. I find in interesting that folks who are so adamant about not having their children around unvaccinated children are often themselves not completely up to date on all of their boosters. And of course, there are a LOT more vaccinations now than when all of us were children. So we'd have a lot of catching up to do.

I understand. There have been cases in our town too. Then, a few days ago, a stupid mosquito got on the house & my 2 month old woke up with four bites. :001_unsure: But of course, people get bit by mosquitos ALL the time and the vast majority of the time they do not get WNV. So I'm not worried, but I will keep an extra close watch on him for the next week or so.

Yes, there is an option in Pinterest to avoid each of your pins being posted to Facebook. Go to the dropdown menu in the upper right corner of your pinterest screen with your screen name and select Settings. Scroll down and toggle the option to Publish Activity to Facebook Timeline to Off.

There was another Pinterest thread yesterday and lots of folks shared their boards on there as well. Including, a blog roll with over 500 pinterest boards from Homeschoolers! Here's that thread: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/showthread.php?t=420227 As far as using Pinterest for homeschooling, I am slowly getting more specialized on my boards. I've currently got boards for: Preschool Math Bible/Character History Science Geography Language Arts Languages Art Music File Folder Games Art Projects 2011/2012 Curricula 2012/2013 Curricula as well as resource boards like homeschooling Blogs, Resources, Articles, Funnies, Homeschool Rooms, etc. I am planning to break down some of my other boards further when I get a chance, like History time periods and specific sciences. One of the coolest features on Pinterest is collaborative boards. For example, some moms here on WTM started boards for the BFSU curriculum, one for each track: A,B & C, to post resources for specific lessons. I am planning to do more along these lines as well, such as a board for the Intro to Science class I am teaching at a co-op. I also have boards specific to some of the activities we participate in like Jr FLL and Cub Scouts and will add ones for activities like Winston Science or Future City. For newbies to Pinterest, my best advice after joining is to click on Pinterest links from threads like this one. You can browse through our boards and when you see a pin you'd like to save to your own board, you click on it. The first click makes the picture bigger. Then you hover over the picture and it brings up an option to repin. You click that, create a board name to post it to (it's usually easier to start with very general boards like "homeschooling" and you can worry about specializing more once you get the hang of things), and click Pin. That's it! If you want more details about the pin, then instead of hovering and seeing the repin option, you can click on it directly and that will bring you to the original link for the pin. Sometimes it is just a picture, but often it is a link to a blog with instructions to make the project you see, or free downloads, or to a website to purchase the great product linked, etc. Once you feel comfortable repinning and have a few boards of your own to curate :D, you can download a button for your browser to "Pin It" whenever you're browsing on the web and come across an article or picture or blog post or product you want to save to your boards. My pinterest boards are here: http://pinterest.com/scrappyhappy/

I have lots of Homeschooling Boards... and a lot of other boards too. :001_smile: http://pinterest.com/scrappyhappy/ I'll check out all of yours while NAK later this evening!

We just celebrated our 20th, but we are already planning for a Mediterranean cruise and trip to Rome and Cinque Terre for our 25th. My husband had started planning this for our 20th but... we ended up having a new baby instead, 18 days before our 20th anniversary! Funny thing is, the same thing happened on our 10th- we planned a hiking trip to Machu Picchu, and instead celebrated the birth of our first son 12 days before our 10th. Maybe we need to forget the "milestone" anniversaries and try for a 23rd or something like that. :lol: I think your plans sound lovely!

I rarely click on the ads. However, the few times I have, they were targeted ads, usually regarding homeschooling, that popped up after I had done some related google searching. Of course, this poll is not going to be particularly helpful because if we are here, we already admire the PHP products and would be more likely to click on a link. I don't think we are representative of someone on FB who is less familiar with PHP. But I will say that I don't recall clicking on those side ads for a company I've never heard of and *never* for one that makes outlandish or unbelievable claims.

She told you that she believes her son's version of the story over what you actually WITNESSED? Yeah, that would hurt my feelings too. I can understand that sometimes kids will distort their version of events, but I'd expect my adult friend to trust me. Sorry your son was treated poorly. It stinks when friend dynamics change.

Those meat salespeople can be tricky! Once one came by, and like you I was busy and distracted. And ALL my kids rushed to the door with me because we were expecting a package from Amazon. So the fellow starts asking his questions and before I can respond my boys keep answering things like "We LOVE steak!" and "My papa grills *all* the time." I'm telling him no thanks and trying to push my kids back in the door and the salesman is totally ignoring me and responding to the kids! They are all "YES, we'd love some meat" and "YES, we have a *big* freezer!" and he starts to head away from the door, saying "I'll be right back to show you what we've got!" I had to literally shout "Everybody STOP!" I told my kids to get in the house NOW in my best mama means business voice, and told the pushy salesman that I was not buying meat off a truck thankyouverymuch! Even though I managed to escape, I could totally feel myself being wooed by the enthusiasm of my kids and the sucking up of the salesman. So I totally understand!

My husband is Hispanic of Mexican heritage and I am a very fair Caucasian of Irish and Italian heritage. One of our sons looks just like my husband. Dark eyes, darker skin, brown hair. Spitting image of DH as a boy. Two of our boys are WHITE. Very fair, sunburn easily like me, light brown hair, light eyes. They would never pass as Hispanic. One son is more of a mixture. Features-wise, he looks a lot like my husband. His skin is light, but he tans easily. He has brown hair and green eyes. We don't know yet what camp our baby is in. :) He has very dark hair and dark eyes, but his skin changes colors. Sometimes he looks darker and sometimes he looks very fair. So my boys are all 50% Mexican heritage, but only one, maybe two, would pass as Mexican. They have actually referred to themselves as half Mexican and gotten some weird looks and double takes. I always assumed our children would all have brown eyes and would favor my husband more because of genetic dominance. But now we joke that I obviously have very strong genes. My husband even worries sometimes that folks will think the fairer boys are not his when he is out with them without me, but they hang all over him and call him Papa, so it's pretty obvious they know him. I list the boys as Hispanic on paperwork or Mixed if that is an option. I have often wondered whether folks will be skeptical of their heritage when they are grown. However, my husband refused all throughout college to take advantage of any heritage or race based programs, so it may not even be an issue for my boys. From my perspective, I think folks should take any advantage offered, but my husband feels strongly otherwise.