My dog (and cat) will lay on top of any blanket or coat left on the floor but has never gone under one and does not like them placed on her either. Eta zombie threads always get me

I am sorry. Your family is in my thoughts.

I would allow it even younger then 12 for breakfast but not for dinner which I treat more as a family meal.

That is not a very good opinion piece. I turned away from church and never went to a VBS never mind a flashy pop cultural version. They never even had things separate for kids. People might do a few VBS but I know no one who shops around for flashy churches. Doing some fun stuff to give people in the community a good perception does not mean that people actually interested in a church because they are believers will leave because it is not always fun and games. What is wrong with science anyway? The thing about choosing radical Islam is out there. What wrong with people not being a Christian anyway.

The chance of a stranger abducting or raping a child they do not know is statistically extremely low. The chances of walking in on people having sex in a well used bathroom is not high. A flasher could occur anywhere. If there are rape cases we hear about it now but the chances of it happening are low and it can happen other places besides a bathroom including your own house as happen in a local case. It actually happened to girls in bathrooms too. A rest stop is no more unsafe then somewhere else. It has places to eat and bathrooms for people traveling. If someone was disturbed and wanted to hurt someone I do not think they would pick a crowded bathroom with lots of people going through and lots of stalls being used. There are advantages to letting kids have increasingly more responsibility and handle things independently. You should not do things you do not feel comfortable with and no matter if you bring him in or let him go himself it will be fine but it is not dangerous to let a 8 or 9 year old use a bathroom by themselves or wait outside a door for a short while by themselves.

I am the same way. I like really eggplant parm because it isn't soft and slimy but I do not like how squash and zucchini is usually cooked.

My list could be even larger this is just stuff people usually like of the top of my head. I can be pretty picky. Potato chips Pork bacon (do not eat pork but even when I did I do not like the texture or taste of it) Ketchup Fruit pies Cheesecake Chocolate cake Coffee Wine Beer Dark chocolate Donuts Omelets French toast Olives

When the homeschooling charter talks about having a curriculum list of things you do not need to get approved and they say it is huge list but half the stuff you want to get is not on the list I do not think I will find someone using the exact curriculum I will be where I live. People on WTM would know it but I do not think anyone is using the combo I will be. My kids all have different stuff themselves.

My ds who is almost 9 now goes in the men's room by himself and that started sometime this year. He can also wait outside the restroom if I need to go in but he does not which I do not worry about at all. I was a little more worried with a boy in the men's room then vise versa but it something he will have to do soon anyway and the risk is extremely minuscule. He can handle the task perfectly fine. He also has to go in the locker room at the pool by himself now. There are no family locker rooms. A 4 year old boy I would definitely bring in the women's room with me and no one would care.

I am so sorry. What you are describing is nothing like you asked for. That really sucks that you have to live with that haircut. I know that must be hard to have it so much shorter then you wanted and so poorly done.

I started with recognizing numbers when grouped together for numbers up to 20 with chunky counters, ten frames or the abacus then moved to adding and subtracting with the ten frame using Addition and Subtraction Facts that Stick. Then I used Education Unboxed and Cuisenaire Rods and Base 10 to teach multiplication, division and two digit addition and subtraction with games like math war. Education Unboxed also is good for fractions, multi digit multiplication and long division. Miquon or Gattegno is a good resource too. I also plan on trying Express Math as mentioned above.

I have never bought straws for home use. We only use straws when we go out to eat which is not that often. Definitely not more then one a day.

My kids participated in two. One was with a church we were involved with something not church related and the kids liked the adults and they told us about this week long outdoor camp for kids they do in the summer. We are not religious but I am ok with my kids knowing about Christianity and hearing bible stories. I knew people that did it and said good things about it. This was mostly a fun camp that was not pushy. They did hear bible stories and meet adults that were nice and a good representative of their church without being pushy. I do think they would like some kids to go to their church or think positively of Christianity but it really was more about having fun with some bible stories with messages about being good people thrown in. It was to give kids a low cost fun thing for kids to do where you do not have to worry about them getting into trouble and for the parents and community. My friend told me about another one and I thought it would be similar but it ended up being way more pushy with asking you to prosetelisize and it was young earth based with lots of really bad science and their "evidence" in a very comical pushy way. I got a call afterwards that my kids accepted Jesus and I needed to bring them to their church which is funny because my kids are either very indifferent or outright atheist and they still were afterwards so they must have felt like they had to say it. I also was in a neighborhood for another activity where a church puts on a park fun day and the kids wanted to stop by and it was also very pushy with wanted to sign them up for their bus church program and they asked kids about accepting Jesus right there at this neighborhood park party that kids just are interested in the bounce houses and games. I do not want to do any program like those again but I do not mind ones like the first I described and would do similar to that again if it was something that interests them otherwise. So yes some are strictly about salvation and some are more low key and more like what you describe with a positive place for kids and leaving them with a positive impression of the church and or just Christianity but not expecting anything either. My kids are all atheist and comfortable with it but they do not mind things that are fun that include a bible story.

I lived in a 1000 sq foot condo with 3 kids. I would have liked another bedroom since we have a boy and girls but it actually was ok size because we had a garage and a decent size storage room in the garage. I wanted a yard for gardening and with a place where the kids could play outside. The condo did not have a kids play area and had a lot of parking lot compared to land. I also wanted a better school. I wanted a school that had at least a decent rating but it did not have to be in the best neighborhood which we could not afford anyway. We now have around 2000 square feet and it is more then enough. I do think layout and storage is very important. I could go smaller if it had very good built in storage, a mud rooms and small walk in closets and walk in pantry. The average house today is much bigger for smaller families then in the past and in most places people live in smaller houses then in the U.S.

They like dark damp places so you might find some nearby in the right type of environment but they are solitary. I would see a bunch watering when there were covered pipes in the ground for watering. I could tell before I even saw one by the type of web in the hole and once I watered they would come up.

I had to go without insurance when I graduated college and again when dh worked for a company too small to offer it. For about a year the kids got the state coverage then we made just over the limit by a very small amount because of a change they made in how they calculated income. We actually made below the median for a family in a pretty high cost of living area. The private coverage had an over 1000 dollar monthly charge before you even considered pre existing conditions plus a 10,000 dollar deductible at the smallest. It was not at all close to being affordable for us. We could not pay the monthly charges. There was no choice but to go without even though I definitely did not want to. This was before ACA. When the kids lost insurance I was completely devastated and absolutely frightened. I worried constantly. It was the worst feeling in the world not knowing what would happen if the kids something big come up. They have charity care but you only qualify if you are just above poverty and only for some things. We have insurance now and it is decent but so much of what we need is not covered like OT and PT so I cannot get it even though I feel it would be so beneficial but i know it could be even worse. One thing on your list the car accident could be covered if you had med pay coverage. Things like cancer treatment or things that need long term treatment would not. Hearing stories of friend's or family's kids having issues that required a lot of medical treatment worried me so much at the time because I knew it could happen to us but we would have been screwed. It sucked.

Spalding can be good but it was not good for my kids who struggled learning to read at all. I have seen kids who read really well really fast since it teaches common words by analyzing them phonetically and learning phonograms. It can get kids reading really well above grade level in not much time but I also seen with my kids and others that it can also very much not work for others with dyslexia or other issues. One thing that can be a. Issue is he many words and patterns they introduce at one time. I saw and knew of several kids from the the traditional school that used Spalding at the tutoring place that uses Barton. I would get his vision checked out too with a COVD if his writing is getting worse despite practice.

It is the summer after 2nd and 3rd and a letter comes saying the sister is skipping a grade to 4th for the upcoming school year and it is upsetting to the brother that his younger sister will be in 4th grade with him and gets to skip 3rd grade. He thinks it will be obvious to the other kids she is smarter then him. The whole lemonade competition came about because of this. The brother no longer wants to sell lemonade with her and was ignoring her which she does not understand so they started a competition.

I cannot stand Junie B books. I made the mistake of trying to read one of them once and I could not continue. She was a mean spirited child and the grammar was really bad even for a first grader. I also did not like a Giving Tree or I Love You Forever. I do not like Pinkalicious, JellyBeans or those Magic Animal or Rainbow Magic Fairies books. Magic Treehouse serves a very limited purpose of showing an early reader who is gaining more skills and becoming more fluent that they can tackle a chapter book but the sentences structure and language is very poor so it is not a read aloud. I do typically leave easy reader books to early readers and I include chapter books written at a lower level that are fluff in that catagory so I will not read Rainbow Magic Faries aloud. I really liked a Poky Little Puppy as a child. It was not as good reading it aloud but I do not put it in the cannot stand category either although it could have gotten close when it was requested a little too often in a row. That did not last too long fortunately. I do not like most Dr. Seuss books very much but I do like the Lorax.

Yea I see comments like what I am guessing is there on news article a lot. It seems very rampant and it makes me extremely disheartened. Throwing insults at others rather then debating is another extremely rampant practice and it drowns out rational discussion.

Some books I really liked as a kid that I enjoyed reading with my kids were Tales of a Fourth a Grade Nothing, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlotte's Web, Socks, and Sideways Stories from Wayside Street. Most of what I read as a child was fluff.

I think the examples you gave can be handled mentally if they have built up their mental math skills and have a good sense of place value and decomposition and I do think it comes in handy to have those skills. I have one kid who can handle them and one I need to really work on that skill with and it will be harder for.

I guess I am in the outlier category too. Five would be minimalist for me because they do wear pajamas every night and they often get too dirty to wear again. I do not put away laundry every day so I would not like less then five pairs and five would be hard. I am pretty minimalist in most areas but my kids are hard on clothes and I do not like putting away laundry or the kids rifling through the laundry bin so I like to have more then the bare minimum of clothes. I get most clothes from thrift stores but that can be hard to find with pajamas. I rewear clothes a lot but it does not work as well for the kids because they play hard. Plus one has motor planning issues so she gets messy eating still.

If I could do it again I would have gone for a better paying career that was also an interest rather then just an interest and not worrying that it was low paying. I was aware that it was not a high paying career but thought that did not matter. I do not have a lot of material wants in life and actually prefer to live simply but life is more expensive then I anticipated back then and it is very hard to get by with low paying careers especially once you have a family. I am not working now but probably will in the future. I am not there yet with kids old enough so who knows what the future will hold. I think I would have an honest talk about the cost of living and what life could look like with certain salaries and talk about other things that were also interests that may also work. I could see also maybe needing to give advice about majors where it would be hard to find work or not taking out huge loans for field that not pay a lot etc. I can see having conversations about things they were considering but I would not shame them or anything like that.

I have a very light shade of brown eyes and my husband has green eyes and two of my kids have a much darker shade of brown eyes then me. I babysat a family where the parents had light colored eyes and blond or dirty blond hair and they had a kid with brown hair and brown eyes and it was their genetic child. I know of other kids who have brown eyes with light eyes parents. I also see a lot in some mixed raced kids that one parent has only brown eyes in their genetics and the other parent light eyes and the kid ends up with light colored eyes. Basic biology is that brown is dominant but it is actually a little more complicated than that.