bwahahahaha!!!!!!

You know who I would have watched? Isabella Gielniak. My dd and I watch Toddlers and Tiaras sometimes to inoculate her against princess culture, and Isabella was a delightful surprise. Posy and I wanted to have that kid over to play. She was hilarious, sweet, goofy, and her mom loved every minute of it. But of course, her family doesn't appear to be a train wreck, so what would be the point of giving her her own show?

By LL, do you mean Lively Latin? As an adult, I could get through one of the Big Books in a matter of days...

This smacks to me of a public school attitude that every child should be in a class of same-age peers, every day, and that nothing else is appropriate or normal. It's possible that what she's saying is that being exposed to other people's expectations/reactions, especially people he has high incentive to please, will aid him in self-regulating his behavior. Even so: 1. I agree with the poster who said that he may learn to regulate in public, just to melt down at home, in which case you and she are still going to have to have a conversation about root causes. 2. There are definite disadvantages to a large, extra-family, same-age peer group, including a shift toward group standards and away from family culture, which can actually increase strife in the family, especially if peers start telling him your beliefs are chafing or unreasonable. That's one thing if you're cloistered and unhealthily restrictive, but it's something else again if you're simply talking about living according to a specific set of principles, and whether she likes it or not, that includes homeschooling. Honestly? I'd find a professional who would agree ahead of time to respect the simple ground rule that homeschooling is NOT on the table as something to pick at. If your kid were public schooled, she would not immediately latch on to that as the problem. OTOH, if there are ample opportunities for social interaction and she realizes you never go, then that's something to talk about, whether it's b/c you and your child have different levels of need for social interaction, or b/c you're burned out from dealing with him, or b/c you dread taking him out b/c he melts down. But I think homeschooling is a red herring if it's popping up on her radar just b/c it's unusual TO HER.

Bird mesh.

Thank you for pointing out that site! I hadn't seen it before, and my 6 y.o. is happily playing away right now. The games are well put together!

Bumping to see if anyone's heard anything. I'm looking at the site right now, and there's nothing new up.

Well, the homeschoolers who sold to us were moving locally, and their house wasn't on the market very long. I want to say two weeks? They tried to sell last summer and it didn't go, so they took it off the market. We saw it this spring and snapped it up.

Don't you worry...we have one, and we *used* to be able to let her out to run. I'm taking a lot of walks with her. Just found out that a local-foods co-op will now be selling out of a storefront half a mile away...with free delivery, no less, though hopefully I won't use it.

Thinking of you, K. So sorry this is going on. Keep us updated?

No worries. My thread title is striking me hilarious when I look at it now. I bet a few people have come stampeding in here thinking, "What's next!?" I AM excited about it, and am trying to ramp up that feeling even more when I miss my chickens and turkeys and ducks, none of which could come with us. Several people have said to me, "You're moving INTO town? Why? I'm trying to move OUT," and I'm fine until they say it. Then I have this huge wave of homesickness. It was the best choice we had available, it really was. So I'm focusing on the best things. (I'm also converting our small, south-facing front lawn to mixed perennials/food. And getting bees.) We will have a chat tomorrow about whether we all prefer to see money, or a thermometer, or marbles! On the one hand, I love the idea of calculating each trip's cost. On the other hand, our commute to town used to be so much longer that the "putting our old gas budget in an envelope" idea sounds attractive, too...it would certainly build up faster. Hmm.

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: Your family will be in my thoughts.

Dear me. My post did not read, "Help my whiny, spoiled children learn to walk." In NY, we lived on three acres. They ran and hiked constantly. They are excited to go to new places despite that fact that temps have been near 100 degrees. I asked for a jar or other incentive plan so we can keep track of and save money for the fun classes. I realize we x-posted, rosie, but yours was not the only post that leaped to the "What the heck do you mean, incentive?" conclusion. I know how to parent. I just stink at cutesy crafts and charts.

I'm not so much looking at it as a reward as a savings plan, a la A Chair For My Mother. It's a fun way to set aside what we're NOT spending on gas, not a reason for walking, per se.

Glad to see the good update! Will keep you in my prayers, just in case!

We've moved to a town where we can walk to just about everything. The library, the farmers' market, book stores, the LYS, etc.. I'm thinking anything in a one-mile range should automatically be non-car. Even our church and the university, both of which are across the river, are two miles away or less. By bike, that's no big deal. My plan is to finally teach the kids to ride and get pannier baskets to haul home any loot, but that's going to take a while. We lived on a 55 mph road in NY, and no one but me has a clue how to ride. For now, we walk. When we lived in the country, gas was a significant portion of our budget. We can afford more classes, camps and fun stuff if we don't use our gas money. I've never been good at incentive jars and sticker charts. Has anyone got an idea of how to set one up so that we can reward ourselves when we don't drive or penalize ourselves when we do?

We're here! It took a few days to get wi-fi rolling (and I'm not impressed with Comcast), but we're in, I've painted a bunch of bedrooms, and we're emptying tons of boxes! Despite the heat, we love it so far. We can walk to all sorts of things we couldn't before. Our church seems likely to be a great fit, too. We've got library cards and start swim lessons on Monday. Hopefully we'll see some folks around.

Oh beaners, I'm vibing. The new photos are SO much better! I think it's a charming house! kokotg, I'm really hoping that these showing yield you a great buyer. Surely as the school year draws near there will be transplants anxious to get settled? Our house SOLD. We are out and done. I am so relieved. Completely agree with kokotg that a lot of the nostalgia is lost during the selling process. The whole thing was fraught with small mistakes on the part of both of the realtors and the buyers, up to and including a snafu during the final walk-through when they asked, "where's the pellet stove?" We'd gone back and forth during negotiations, trying to get the price up a bit and include the appliances, but they said they didn't need them. We'd asked about the pellet stove twice to be sure, AND they'd initialed specifically that it did not stay. Um, sorry, guys. It's about 23' into that 26' truck over there. (They asked if we'd sell it to them, and my dh looked at the truck and thought, "Are you crazy?") Anyway, the stove is here with us in Indiana. Now I just have to make sure we can get pellets. We were very lucky. NY takes FOREVER to close, so we found a house after ours had been under contract for several weeks, and still closed on our purchase only a week after we closed on our sale. It's not rural...but it's at the other end of my "acceptable" spectrum. In town, walking distance to everything. More square footage, MORE BATHROOMS, and a smaller mortgage payment due to the drop in interest rates. We have a garden, and will likely install a beehive next spring. There's light at the end of the tunnel, ladies! Keep on keeping on!

This is the best thing I've read in forever. Thanks for the laugh! Your DD is amazing!

Doing it ourselves, if you believe the quotes we got, saved us between 3-5K. Getting everything into one rental truck saved us another grand. Frankly, we need the money. For us, hiring professional movers would mean starting life in a new town in debt and unable to enjoy many of the new experiences that make moving exciting. I can't justify paying that much to have someone else pack the boxes and load. While I boxed, I just repeated that I was paying myself instead of someone else. It helped. It was still miserable, but it helped.

I cleaned things *out*, by being very harsh about public domain books we could read on our kindles, games or toys missing pieces, etc., but the things that made the most difference were things like the sleeper-sofa loveseat, the china hutch, the riding mower, etc.. We sold and put out "curb alerts" on a TON of stuff. Some of it we'll have to replace, but it will still be cheaper than renting an additional truck...by the time we were done, we fit all our stuff in one 24' truck, without hiring professional movers. It saved a lot of money.

And loading! I can say with absolute confidence that it does. Am exhausted. Have booked movers just to unload the truck this weekend at our new home. Hope you're moving someplace terrific!

Nevermind. I'd never been to the World Book site before, and it loaded the gateway page instead...weirdly, I couldn't find them by searching, but they came up the second time I clicked the link.

I'm sorry to hear that you're leaving, MosaicMind! I hope we'll love it as much as you have.

These stories are making me teary-eyed!