[did your DD have regular periods right away?]

It's not very uncommon for it to take a couple of years for a girl's cycle to regulate into a regular pattern. I was very surprised when my dd settled right away into an every 4-5 week pattern right from the beginning (she's only had 3 cycles, but started her first on April Fools day ... she was not amused).

 

Definitely send supplies. I remember being very irregular at 13 and being caught without at camp ... and the canteen had run out, so I had to deal with toilet paper all week ... not fun.

[Cursive first?]

I agree that it does depend on the child. My one who did cursive first has prettier print than cursive, while two who learned to print first print in total chicken scratch, but have decent cursive (learned in second-third grade). The other learned to print first, then cursive, and can write equally neatly in both (though doesn't all the time -- but that's an almost-teen thing, I think).

[1st grade math problems]

I'd look at something with either a lot of spiral review, hands-on, or both. It's been a while since I've seen RightStart, so I don't remember how much review is built in. I know that Saxon is very spiral, and is also pretty hands-on in the early years. It's not uncommon for children in this age group to need concrete manipulatives to really grasp the concepts, and it also sounds like she does better if she doesn't completely leave off of one topic to work on another (thus the panic over subtraction). Do you know what she disliked about Horions? That is another program that has the kind of review that she seems to need.

[Classroom Painting colors]

I'm really happy with my minty green classroom -- we bought a house that was all dark beige/light brown and finally got to add color 3 years after we moved in. The green definitely makes the room more inviting.

[s/o of Faithmanor's post. If carrying your baby could kill you....]

We've been faced with the potential of things turning this way, but thankfully they never did, so we were never actually faced with the decision. It did give us cause to discuss. Dh would be angry at the situation, but not at my decision if I tried to buy a few more weeks of inside growing time for the baby. It's a stinky situation to be in all around. We were before viability, and we had decided that we would fight to wait until viability before delivery, but exactly when in that process to have us go our separate ways -- we hadn't decided, and like I said, our situation never came to an actual either/or decision -- baby was early, a different complication made the delivery tricky, but he and I came through fine in the end -- they didn't even take him to NICU, which in retrospect, the well-baby nursery didn't handle him well, and he probably would have done better long-term if he had stayed in NICU at least until I was ready to go home.

[Re-introduce yourself, no matter how long or short you've been here]

My name is Jerin, I've been homeschooling for about 10 years now. I currently live deep in the heart of Texas, but was raised a Navy brat. My dc all fall on the GT end of the spectrum, are all math/science inclined (though I have one who is also an artist), but my boys also have various physical, learning and emotional disabilities that sometimes make things interesting.

 

I have an approach to education where I read a lot about many different methods, take what works, and unabashedly leave the rest behind, so our format is a big mishmash, and is adapted for each child and their motivations and style. The older group are getting pretty independent now, and my role is more as facilitator than teacher a lot of the time. The older two have transitioned to mostly high school level work (though older dd will likely to to ps for high school in the fall of next year), the next one down unschools, but loves when I strew middle school level textbooks in his direction. The little one keeps me busy looking for things to keep her busy.

 

The whole family is training in Tae Kwon Do right now. My younger ds has his black belt and is a junior instructor. The older two are also junior instructors and they will be testing (as will I) for our black belts in the fall. Dh is about 6 months behind us in our training, and the little one is working on growing into things so that she can join us eventually.

We're also a scouting family -- older ds is working on his Eagle, younger ds will likely come home from camp Saturday with Tenderfoot completed. Older dd is a Juliette Cadette who can't wait until she's 14 and can join a Boy Scout Venture crew, and I'm leader of a county-wide homeschool troop for younger Girl Scouts (I'll take 5-10 year olds, though most of my girls are 7 year old Brownies).

[Why would my baby....]

It definitely couldn't hurt to put a call in to the therapist, who might have to see it to know for sure (or as sure as you can get of a 12 mo old's motivations). My best guess is it's a sensory-seeking thing, but it could be at the head is just getting heavy and you need to do something to help build those neck muscles. Either way, it doesn't sound like anything serious, but definitely something the PT would want to know about/could work on.

[Are all 14yr old boys this way?]

Dh calls this the pod people stage. For most kids, it only lasts a year or two, and thankfully, we haven't had to deal with it head-on yet, though my 14 year old has me drop him off across the street for softball practice (church league) because having parents is like, so embarrassing. My almost-13 year old will likely be the mopier one. We already have to drag her sometimes, but she usually gives in and participates once we're there.

 

But yeah, we'll just ignore it and drag them along and ignore the attitude. If they don't want to have fun, that's their business, but they're still part of the family.

[VERY hurt right now]

I'm sorry. I think that the person who said that rehashing/telling so many people individually (ESPECIALLY close family members) is just too much on top of dealing with the diagnosis is right.

 

This is definitely true for my dad. So, I learned that his dad dies in a mass email, and I learned that he'd been hospitalied for a stroke when he posted on Facebook that he was home and feeling better and thanks for the prayers (local people knew because he had to cancel things ... my brother, who apparently was just not quite local enough -- a bit more than an hour away -- was really upset about that one ... my other brother and I are much further away and there wasn't much we could do, but it might still have been nice to know ... my mom WAS posting on FB while Dad was in the hospital).

[Do you have a child who continually gets called the wrong name?]

Having grown up with a made-up name where this happened a lot to me, I was very careful in naming my dc.

 

Other than my Ellie being called Ella occasionally (both can be shortened forms of Eleanor, so she takes it in stride, as does my Andrew, who usually goes by Drew, but occasionally someone will shorten it to Andy instead), we really haven't had mispronunciation problems.

[Do you have a local curriculum bookstore?]

We have a Christian bookstore that has a big homeschool section, but it is 2-3 hours to bigger cities to go to a true homeschool store, so I only get to go when I am in those cities for other things.

[Boy Scouts - transferring to a new troop]

We haven't had to do this yet with our boys (the time may well come), but I grew up a Navy kid, so my brothers had to do this several times. Sometimes it took visits to a few different troops before they found one that fit, so I would encourage shopping around. My boys' troop would always love to welcome older boys (both by age and rank) ... we have so many drop when they start high school, so there are a lot of boys who are under First Class and 6th-7th grade and not always enough older guys to lead them.

[My mom had her first freak-out in homeschooling over cursive]

My dc are the oddballs around here because they know cursive and none of the ps dc do. My boys' handwriting is so much more legible in cursive than their print is. And it does help in reading cards and letters -- some people (extended family) write notes even to my little one in cursive, and it's nice that she can read them herself.

[Junior Great Books]

There are teacher manuals that come with books, right? Is there not enough info in the TM to pick up on the methodology?

 

I'm a trained teacher and we did lots of Socratic questioning at the secondary level - well at least I did when I taught, so I'm not seeing the mystery that would require extensive training. :confused: Am I missing something?

Yes, I found the teachers' books did a good job at stepping through the process. I sat in on some of dd's classes (her classroom teacher was trained), and what she did followed fairly closely to the guide.

[Junior Great Books]

I got hold of a 3rd-5th grade set a few years ago. My dc were using it in their ps GT classes -- ds wasn't really that willing to continue at home because of negative experiences (not with JGB, but in general) at school, so I didn't have a discussion group and it doesn't really work well 1 on 1 with dd.

 

I need to drag it out again. I can probably get my 6th grader to discuss along with my 3rd grader. He had a slow start to reading (dyslexic), and still need to work on comprehension/analysis skills.

[We finally got dd13 a phone...what rules do your teens have re: their phones?]

Right now ours all share one phone when they're out. But ds is getting one for his birthday ... we're also doing the unlimited text, pay to talk (since teens don't seem to know that you can talk on them anyway).

 

Our rules:

Mom or dad can take it and look through your texts at any time.

Phone goes on the mantle at bedtime and stays there until after school is completed for the day.

He'll be paying us for the plan. We will go over the bill, any calls to/from Mom and Dad, we'll cover. Most other calls will be his responsibility.

Irresponsible behavior (with the phone or in other areas) may result in suspension of the plan.

[Tell me good things about the Homeschool Store in Houston]

This is the one on the northwest side of 610?

It's got some great bargains if you can find what you want. I got some great deals there a couple of years back ... a whole set of Alg I books -- student text, teacher guide plus all of the extra masters/tests, etc. for like $20. When I was there, there was a kid about 10 manning the counter, but when I had difficulty finding something, she got her dad out of the office.

 

My ds is a Shriners patient, and his clinic is usually on Mondays when that store is closed, so I end up going to HEP more often, since we're pretty far south by the time we are at the hospital and they're open on clinic days. It's a 3 hr. each way trip, but we can do it all in one day, so don't stay over unless he's having surgery -- I think that's when we went last time -- we got into town early enough before it was time to check in.

[What was it like, going from 3 to 4 kids?]

#4 wasn't too bad for us.

 

She's definitely our most demanding and intense, but the first 3 all came in a 30 month span, then she was 4 years after, so they were 4, 5 and 6 and able to do for themselves/help quite a bit. The most difficult part was I had 3 in diapers, then two then one, then one for a year, then had to start back with all of the baby stuff again.

[when to leave a breast-feeding baby???]

My mom went away for a weekend when my brother was about that age ... it disrupted the nursing relationship to the point that he refused to resume when she got back ... it was an uncomfortable weekend away (even with some pumping), along with an uncomfortable couple of weeks after. My dad was deployed and it was to get to go see him (however briefly), but I'm not sure she'd do it again.

 

Still, it's an individual decision. With my youngest, who was/is fairly demanding, I HAD to get away for a couple of days at that age for my own sanity.

[How old was/is you dh when you had your last baby?]

32 ... so was I.

[WWYD Stay or Go?]

also, I think the money to build, the money to heat, the money to heat water, the gas to go get the water, the composting toilet, etc will add up and not really save you much money.

 

I agree with this ... better to save the money that you'd spend hauling water and wait to get the well dug next year.

[Prosthetic & Orthotic Careers?]

I agree with the Biomedical Engineering path. Dh's roommate from college did this -- in college, he was making me orthotics (I was born with birth defects), and now he makes robotic hands ... really cool stuff.

 

My dh works for Hanger, the Prosthetics company that made Winter's tail, but he's in IT in the corporate office, so doesn't get into the actual nitty gritty of what they do.

[Upstairs master bedroom?]

I like being on the same floor as the kids also.

 

My only wish: that the laundry room was also upstairs!

Our favorite house that we owned was the one with the laundry upstairs. We had a big master suite, there were two bedrooms for the kids, and a big bonus room that would have made an awesome schoolroom (the kids were too little for us to worry about that), with a closet that housed the washer and dryer.

 

I so loved that house, my dh didn't so love that it was located in the state of Washington (Tacoma area). He lasted one winter and wanted to get back to the Rocky Mountains and clear skies. Oh well. If I were to build, I'd probably model my plans on that house, though.

[Upstairs master bedroom?]

While sometimes a little more privacy would be nice, when I go through a week like I did recently with several children up sick in the night (7 year old with UTI and vomiting for a few nights and 11 year old with a nosebleed he couldn't stop on his own after 15-20 min), it was nice not to have to keep running up and down the stairs.

[Do you plan to Homeschool through High School?]

Some yes, some no.

 

#1 -- Probably. He's almost halfway through high school now. He'll do dual enrollment in the local community college for a couple of years, and will probably graduate a year early.

 

#2 -- Probably not. She wants to try ps again for high school. She'll likely enroll in our school district's IB diploma program, but a Science Charter school hasn't been completely ruled out. If she decides differently once she's there, she can come back home after the first year.

 

#3 -- Probably. My unschooler has never been to school and doesn't see the point in institutional education yet. He'll likely do dual enrollment at the CC too, and is the only one of my dc who is already actually looking at colleges, but he is just starting middle school, so we have time.

 

#4 -- Likely not. She'll likely go out to school as soon as a tenable situation is found. Even if she ends up staying home for a while longer, her brother will be done 3-4 years ahead of her, and she is much too extroverted to be happy in a 1 on 1 situation once the siblings are gone. She may come home for a gap year at some point, though, as she's a year ahead at the moment, but what's best socially at 7 might not be what's best at 15.