I say go for it. You said you still have some undergrad work to do, so start taking a class each semester. By the time your littlest one is school age you will have your undergrad degree and can then think about moving on to med school if you still want to. If you do nothing, you'll still be dreaming about it in four years but no closer to making it a reality.

I'm 34 and I still have trouble with past and til! It drives me crazy when my husband will say "quarter til 9" because I have to mentally convert that to 8:45. I wouldn't worry about it though, I'm sure your dc will pick up on it sooner or later. :)

We have a rental property that we were thinking about selling. I called a realtor and he said that we should wait until the lease was closer to being up for renewal because we weren't charging enough rent. We bought the house for $140,000 in 2004, it's now worth about $125,000, and we are charging $1200/month rent. The realtor said that a landlord with lots of rental properties would want $1200 (12%) for every $100,000 in property value, so he suggested we wait until we could bump the rent up. HTH.

Sticky situation, for sure. I'm pretty much inclined to go with the my house, my rules way of thinking. You can't control what the whole world does, but you can control what goes on in your home in front of your children. Surely your sister will understand, and if she doesn't and chooses not to visit you because of this, then really, she needs to grow up, and that's her problem, not yours.

Perhaps you could find a used literature textbook from a PS?

Letter of the Week is free and is great for, well, learning letters. They also have some science and social studies stuff there too, I believe. Five in a Row is relatively inexpensive, especially if you can get the books from the library. And if you're wanting to teach printing, I highly, highly, highly recommend Handwriting Without Tears. Some people don't like how "basic" the letters look, but it's so simple and gentle that even the youngest kids can learn to print neatly, which IMO is more important than printing beautifully.

When she was 4 and decided she wanted to learn to read, my grandma taught her with the old Dick & Jane books, just like she taught me 30 years ago. Whenever she finished a book, she would get a treat, like going out for ice cream or picking a small ($5) toy from Walmart. Now we've moved past rewards and she's expected to learn/read because she's a child and that's her job, just like daddy's an adult and his job is to go to work. When she was struggling with her spelling tests in PS last year, we did agree that if she got a 9/10 or 10/10 for 5 weeks in a row she would get some Littlest Pet Shop toy that she'd been wanting. It worked...she got the toy...but she didn't learn to spell, she just memorized the words for the test.

That was RUDE! I would have spoken to the manager. The waitress needs to mind her own business. I had a similar experience at Staples last week. There is a woman (probably in her 50s) that works there. We go to Staples a lot and always try to go through her line because she's really friendly and has always been nice to us. Well, last week she of course mentioned school and my DD said, "I don't go to school. I'm homeschooled." This woman then went off on a tangent about how she can't believe how many people homeschool now days and how public school was good enough for her generation but moms of my generation (I'm in my 30s) seem to think it's not good enough for their kids. I didn't know what to say, so I just mumbled about how it had nothing to do with the education, but that I didn't want my daughter to be exposed to values and beliefs that weren't in line with our families. Woah, that was a BIG mistake! I found out more about this woman's personal beliefs and preferences than I needed to know. It was SO uncomfortable and now I don't want to go to Staples at all!

That's exactly why I'm so reluctant to plan things out very specifically. I just can't gauge how quickly she'll fly through some things or how long she'll drag out others. So, my new method is to create six-week goals. At the end of six weeks I'll evaluate our progress and set goals for the upcoming six week period. But the biggest thing is to remind myself that they're simply goals. If we don't make the goal in spelling, we won't stress out about it as long as we're actually putting in the time each day. But if we're flying through math and get done with six weeks worth of work in four weeks, we'll keep right on going. I'm also planning a 1-2 week break after every six weeks, with the idea that we'll school year round. The break will be used for travel, resting, doing fun things, holidays, and catching up if we're falling seriously behind where I think we should be in an area.

Our old church (a Christian Church) would baptize anyone who wanted to be. Our new church (a generic nondenominational church) has specific requirements. Personally, I prefer our old church's approach. I don't think baptism should be denied to anyone who expresses a desire. And I agree with the PP, now might be a great time to start seeking out a church home. (Not judging, I know how things happen sometimes.)

Well, at first I thought it was all wrong, but then after hearing your kids ages I think it's completely appropriate, although I would have probably given the 8 year old something, like maybe $20, but since he is a man, he probably didn't even think about how sensitive an 8 year old might be. Older kids have bigger wants/needs than young children and as the younger ones get older they'll probably receive more expensive gifts too. When I buy birthday/Christmas gifts for my nieces & nephews the older ones always get more expensive gifts. It's much easier to find a $25 gift for an 8 year old than it is a 16 year old.

My daughter had computer class 1-2 times a week last week when she went to PS for 1st grade. (All the "specials" rotated weekly so some weeks they got it once and some twice.) From what I gathered, they just played games and got yelled at by the teacher who taught the class. My daughter thought it was a waste of time, but then, she complained daily that the whole PS experience was a waste of time. :)

Thanks everyone. I'll check out your suggestions. I'm just happy to know that there are other kids who have struggled like this. I tend to start obsessing about certain things when it seems like she is way behind.

My daughter can't spell to save her life. She wrote a "paragraph" to describe a photo the other day and this is how it went: "Won day ter wus a snow man. Won day it meltid away. The and." I didn't know if I should laugh or cry. (I kept a straight face to her, though.) Obviously we need to do some work. When she was in PS last year she struggled with the spelling tests the teacher sent home. She finally got to the point that she was able to memorize the list but it didn't cross over into anything else. If she needed to write the same word that was on her spelling test somewhere else, she would misspell it. She is reading very well (at the end of 1st grade the PS teacher said she was reading at about a halfway through 2nd grade level) and if I give her a list of some misspelled words along with one that is correctly spelled (eg BOK BUK BOOK), she almost always can pick out the correct spelling, but if I asked her to spell book she would get it wrong. So, what I'm asking is, is this totally abnormal or is it all part of the process? I know we need to do something to work on spelling, but I think giving her a spelling test every week would be a waste of time and energy as she can't seem to retain it. Any suggestions for a spelling curriculum that might help her catch up?

I did FIAR with my daughter when she was 4 & 5 and she loved it. She never got bored with the same story over and over, even when I did. We still have all the FIAR books that I purchased and she is getting to the age where she can read them herself and does. Recently I heard here explaining what a gondola is to her stuffed animals while reading Papa Piccolo to them.

I can't imagine that the teachers won't already know anyway. I mean, don't they get some sort of report from the year before or something. When they don't get the report on your son, they're gonna know somethings up. I wouldn't send a note though. It's not like he's in 1st or 2nd grade and might be too young to articulate a problem if there is one. By middle school he should be mature enough to let you know if he is having difficulties.

Honestly, if your kids are recreating scenes from the book, I think it's entirely appropriate that they would pretend the Indians are stinky killers. I mean, if they were stinky and killed people in the book, and they're acting out the book, it would be weird for them to now smell like fresh linen and come over for a cup of tea. I'm sure your kids probably don't think that Native Americans today are like that, but they're not pretending to be people of European descent and Native Americans in 2012, they're pretending to be Pa and Laura and the Indians in the 1800s.

My husband has a construction company and by default I usually end up meeting with clients to help select paint colors. Sherwin Williams has this really neat online tool where you can upload photos of your room and paint them online to try a color out. http://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/color/try-on-colors/color-visualizer/ I'm a color crazy woman....every house I've lived in I go crazy painting each room a different, incredible, inspiring color...until now. I've reached the point that I've figured out neutrals are so much easier to decorate with and change up with the seasons. (And I like to change things up often.) Rooms like the kitchen are good for painting a bold color because you probably won't do much changing up. But for the bedroom, a nice neutral color is good because then you can get a couple of different comforters and switch them out every other month for a different look. Same with the living room. Go for a neutral, and neutral furniture, and then buy different pillows to swap out. And DEFINITELY don't paint a kids bedroom something crazy like red....been there, done that. She was SO into ladybugs....I did an amazing ladybug room with RED carpet. Six months later, she's all about purple unicorns. Thank goodness we moved, so we didn't have to deal with the red carpet, but never, ever again will we do that. From now on she'll have a neutral paint and carpet and we'll swap out with comforters, pillows, and curtains.

I'd have to buy an iron in order to be able to teach my daughter how to iron...and I'm not sure I want to spend my curriculum money on that! ;) In all seriousness, it's probably a skill that parents should teach at some point, but I haven't ironed anything since I quit my job to be a SAHM 7 years ago.

I said the exact same thing to my husband last night. But, as he said, the Republicans really need the Florida vote so they were willing to risk the possibility of a hurricane in order to try to sway the voters there.

I have a cousin that had an allergic reaction to an apple a couple years ago (she was 18 or 19 at the time). They finally concluded that she was allergic to the wax coating they put on apples sold in the grocery store.

My 7 y/o DD does the exact same things you mentioned. The losing her place and getting distracted by the pictures I figured was just because she's a little, well, flaky. :) But the reading a contraction the long was has really puzzled me. I don't suppose it's a big deal and eventually she'll get it, but it is strange.

Looks like I'm in the minority, but I wouldn't make a big deal about it as long as it's legible. My big thing is neatness...I will not tolerate sloppy work. But as far as the letters themselves, I'm not worried. The public schools here barely even do much handwriting and don't even teach cursive anymore. They start putting a huge emphasis on typing in second grade. Out of curiosity, is your child a lefty? My DD (a lefty) makes a lot of letters in ways I find strange, but then when I talked to my mom (also a lefty) she said that she makes her letters in the same way.

Thanks ladies. I wish I could make up my mind. :confused:

Background: 1. DD is entering 2nd grade. We HS'd for K and part of 1st and then some life circumstances forced us into enrolling her in PS for the remainder of 1st. She survived, although she complained daily that she was bored to tears. Things have straightened out here and we're going back to HS for 2nd grade. 2. I'm really relaxed. I don't like anything that's too school-y (eg I would hate Abkea, I'm sure.) If we're going to study the Civil War, that means its road trip time to Gettysburg. (We're big travelers.) On the other hand, I have no desire to mummify a chicken. Ever. I guess what I'm saying is that I like to learn by doing, but I don't think everything needs to become some huge, mom-intensive project. 3. We're going to be spending most of the next few months in the Caribbean, so although we have a great public library system here, I don't think we'll have access to much (in English) while we're down there. That means, that I definitely need to have something that pretty much comes with all the books I need, and has a relatively small list of extras because I don't want to spend tons of money on buying books we'll only use for a short period of time, and will have to pay to ship home. 4. DD loves geography. (As do I.) We have maps all over our house just for fun, and we're pretty well traveled. We did start on SOTW last year, but neither one of us were really into it. I see the value in learning it, but I'm not sure I really need to be all uptight about making sure my 7 year old knows about ancient Egypt. There's plenty of time for that later. So.....I'm thinking about buying My Father's World: Exploring Countries and Cultures. Based on what I said above, do you think it would be a good fit? If not, can you recommend something else? So far, the only thing I really have a handle on is language arts. Everything else is open for discussion. :)