The biggest thing I had to remind myself was that these are MY children, not my parents' children or my in-laws' children. And there were times that I had to kindly, but firmly, tell a family member, "These are MY and Dh's children. We are going to raise them in the way WE think will be best. We appreciate your advice and concern, but we will be making the final decision for the best way to educate them." That being said, if I were you, I just wouldn't discuss it with them right now. You said that you've been debating homeschooling, and haven't made a final decision yet. For the time being, you can simply say, "You know, we are still thinking about the various options we have for kindergarten."

How terrible! It's a shame that family would leave the house in such a wretched condition. :grouphug:

Thanks! I will have to try it. I spent most of the afternoon NOT talking, and then had to talk to parents out at dd's soccer practice since I'm the team manager. I'm definitely looking forward to getting used to all the talking/reading again. I don't remember it being this bad in years past.

I need to whine to someone who is not my dh. I'm sure he's tired of hearing me. ;) And I can't whine to any of my non-hsing friends because their answer will be, "That's the price you pay for homeschooling." My throat hurts. We are on week 3 of school. I read to them A LOT! History is read aloud, science is read aloud to the girls, all of my 1st grader's directions must be read aloud to her because she's still struggling to learn to read, spelling words are read aloud. Then there's all the other talking I have to do just to give directions or be a mom. I don't really have a question. I just needed to get it out. I feel better now. (Well, my throat doesn't, but you know what I mean :tongue_smilie:)

That is extremely frustrating! I can't blame you for being upset. First of all, if these were just scrimmages, then she should have played. The best way to practice is in a game situation. So the excuse that they "need more practice" is bogus, imo. I admire your dd for expressing interest in talking to the main coach about it. That's a great idea. I hope that things will work out for her on this team, and that the rest of the season will not be like today was.

All of this makes sense. Truly it is MY day that seems long. The others have breaks throughout the day while I work with this one or that one, but I am busy the entire day. I'm happy to see it isn't just me being an unorganized mess that is making school take so long. (Actually most of the time, I think I'm pretty organized but was starting to wonder.;)) We're using MFW Rome to Reformation with my older 4, plus MFW 1st grade phonics with dd6 and MFW preschool activities with dd3 (only because she wants me to spend some time on school with her too, otherwise I would be just letting her play beside me during the day). I'm finally at a point where I'm realizing that I don't HAVE to get it all done in one day. If science is taking forever, we can stop and finish it tomorrow. No one is going to hunt me down and beat me because we take 2 days to do something. :tongue_smilie:

Looking at the ages of your children, I'm starting to think that it may not have anything to do with the number of children I'm schooling, but how old they are. When they were smaller, the work was easier and didn't take as long. My 1st grader is done by noon, my 3rd graders not long after lunch. My oldest is the one who is still working a good deal after lunch. He's doing pre-algebra, Apologia general science, IEW, etc.

How long does your homeschooling day take? Most of the homeschooling families around here are done by noon, but most of them only have 1 or 2 children who are school age. When I was only schooling my oldest, or even him and the twins, we were done right around lunch time. Now, we're doing schoolwork from 8 am until about 3, with breaks for lunch, guitar practice, and a 30 minute free time. Is this about right for those of you schooling 3, 4 or more children?

People can't seem to keep their hands off my ds' head. He has extremely curly red hair, and that seems to attract everyone (esp strangers) to run their hands through it. They still do it, even though he's 11. My mil fussed at him (and me) when he was about 5. She took him to church with her, and several older ladies kept rubbing his hair. He politely said "Please do not touch my hair." Mil told me how rude that was that he would ask an elder not to touch him, that they didn't mean any harm, that it embarrassed her, and that I shouldn't allow him to talk that way. Um, excuse me?? Now, people touching my babies - I've usually been okay with that. I just asked them not to touch the babies' hands or faces. Only one time did it bother me, my twins were preemies and everyone and their brother seemed to want to get in their faces when we would go anywhere. I just explained to people that they were preemies and easily susceptible to sickness, and most people understood.

Too funny!!

:grouphug: It is definitely NOT your son. I agree about finding a different outlet for making friends, either a different park or organized sports or something. The park you're going to doesn't seem to be the most conducive for making friends.

I'm also struggling with MY motivation so far this school year. Part of my problem is that I feel incredibly overwhelmed. My house is a disaster, dd3 is doing everything in her power to create chaos during school time, and dd6 still can't read.

We're still working on the rule of not running to the door every time the door bell rings, although we don't get many interruptions that way during the school day. Most of our interruptions come from the phone ringing. Even though I can ignore it, the small people all seem to need to run to check the caller id to let me know who it is and ask me 3000 times why I'm not answering it. :glare:

This drives me crazy also. I posted an update for a prayer request last week, stating that my friend had passed away. I had people "like" the post. I'm not sure how to take that. Do they "like" that my friend passed away? I do like being able to keep up easily with friends from college and family that live across the country.

I signed us up. This sounds like fun! We play a lot of games here.

Wow! I sit here with tears rolling down my cheeks as I think about the cost of MY freedom. I pray I never take it for granted.

Thanks!

Thank you!

Thanks!

Thanks for the welcome! I think my children are pretty adorable too (but I'm a little biased). ;) My son actually just got his hair cut!! It now is a good bit shorter, and he styles it into a "faux"-hawk. It grows really quickly, though, so I'm sure by Christmas, he'll be back to the full head of curly hair. We joke a lot that it seems unfair for him to have gotten all of the curly hair when 3 of the girls ended up with hair like mine - stick-straight. Only 1 of the girls has curly hair, and she's the other red-head in the house.

Thanks for the welcome and the kind words about my blog.

Thanks!

Thanks for the welcome! I love the Upstate; I went to Clemson, we briefly lived in Greenville around the time our littlest was born, and we have family up there. I'm definitely ready for cool weather. We're starting school next week.

Thanks!

I'm new to the forum and wanted to introduce myself. I'm TaMara, homeschooling mom of 5 blessings. We live in SC, in the Pee Dee Region (thus my user name). Looking forward to learning more from all of you.