When we expelled 2 of my DC from hs, they were shocked. They didn't think that would actually happen. They have been in a regular school since September. For me, it is harder to be a school-parent than a hsing parent. I have to keep track of too much. School uniforms. Gym uniforms. homework. Projects. Milk money. Pizza money. Tests. Packing lunches every day. Remembering to pick them up. Getting them rousted from bed at 6 a.m. so they will get to school on time. Keeping them organized -- schoolbooks, papers, backpacks, lunch boxes, ties. Remembering to sign and send back paperwork. Attending mandatory events. Worrying when the kids tell me how much time is wasted, how bored they are a lot of the time, and seeing how little the teachers know if they can't read about it in the textbooks. Keeping track of dates and times for every little thing. I don't know why, but hsing is so much easier for me. Part of it is probably that I plan and assign everything, so it is all already in my head. Plus we don't wear uniforms or have to get up at the crack of dawn and jump into high gear right away. RC

http://www.mercola.com/2001/jan/21/weston_price.htm http://www.realmilk.com/ These are the sites that started my research into the dental health benefits of raw milk. I have dealt with the deceit factor very sternly. Also, DS no longer has access to soda since Dh is so horrified about this situation that he has banned it from our house. It's so hard for me to determine what is fact and what is fiction about raw milk, and about all sorts of nutritional issues. Right now I am using myself as a guinea pig. I've got the book _You Staying Young The Owner's Manual for Extending Your Warranty_, by Roizen and Oz and I just started following their suggestions. I've also got one of Dean Ornish's books and I'm thinking about switching to the diet he recommends for people who have heart disease. An interesting side note is that the Roizen/Oz book's vitamin and mineral supplement suggestions have resulted in my feeling more mentally alert than I ever have after only a few days of taking the suggested supplements. It's a mystery to me why that would be the case. Meanwhile, I sure would like a way to determine which nutrition claims are accurate so that I can use them to make sure my children have optimal nutrition. I'm not sure we will switch to raw milk, but it's certainly worth considering, IMO. Take care, RC

Yup, that's the one. I answered Colleen's question -- upshot is the milk doesn't sound raw or organic to me. Merely unhomogenized (maybe). I didn't ask the dentist about the raw milk, but I plan to. RC

Our small local paper had an article about it, which is no longer online. I did some research and I think the reporter assumed the milk was raw and organic because it is billed as "farm fresh". Actually, it is just regular milk, from the research I did, due to your question. It is pasteurized (therefore not raw) and the additives spoken about in the article turned out to be flavorings -- coffee, chocolate, and strawberry. The cache this dairy farm has is that it delivers milk to homes and sells it at its farm stores -- mostly in old-fashioned glass bottles. I couldn't find anything online that said this milk is from grass-fed beef, or that the cows were not given hormones or antibiotics. Now that I've thoroughly researched it, this seems to be a small but conventional dairy farm. For some reason, they have loads of pictures of cows on their website and that's the bulk of it. If you are still interested, here are the articles. http://www.whittierfarms.com/ http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/92811.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/94647.php http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/01/18/fatal_germ_found_on_production_line_at_dairy/ Meanwhile, I've learned a lot about raw, organic milk. here is an article about a farm I am considering buying milk from. http://www.newfarm.org/features/1104/chase_dairy/index.shtml Now I have a couple of questions for you, if you don't mind. What does raw milk taste like compared to regular grocery-store milk? Do you happen to know if a person who has heart disease (I had double bypass surgery a few years ago) safely drink raw milk? Thanks for your question, Colleen. I enjoyed researching the answer and learning about raw organic milk. RC

I don't write in my books because I've got nothing to say. I do put in those post-it bookmark things if I plan to return to a passage in a nonfiction book later, though. My Bible is a different story. I underline passages in it with wild abandon. Mostly I just talk to my books. I beg them to get lost so I can muster up the self-control to do housework instead of reading.

My DD, who attends a parochial school for 7th grade, after being hs'd for many years, got her standardized test results back. She took the test right when school started, so the results are actually what she learned at homeschool. She placed in the 92nd %-ile overall, and in the 98th %-ile in math!!!! Yet she acts like she doesn't have a brain in her head. For instance, when I tell her to do her homework, she says other things are more important (meaning her friends and her clothes and hair and her working on me to let her wear makeup and drawing and watching t.v.). The words "so, yeah" populate her vocabulary now that she is in this school. This is the new "whatever ..." I guess. She did poorly on a science test last week because --"I knew 100% of the material except where blood enters and exits the heart". Well, wouldn't anyone realize that a test on the heart would include that information? She flunked -- big fat red F -- Spanish last term. She just didn't want to study it because she doesn't like it. She doesn't think she needs to study. She does her homework, but never bothers to actually learn the material. how can a 12 year old girl do so well on a standardized test (Terra Nova) and perform so poorly in school? her other grades on her last report card were A's B's & C's -- but she could have had all A's with very little additional effort. What is going on -- there's a disconnect somewhere. This baffles me. Thanks for your advice and help. RC

Sue, it's not a calcium problem -- the enamel is wearing off his teeth. It's definitely a brushing and coca-cola problem, though. I went into his room and found a partially filled 12-pack of coke, and *18* empty cans of coke hidden around. In the kids bathroom under the sink in the way back were another dozen empty coke cans. Dh drinks a lot of coke and DS just took it upstairs to his room and sipped cokes while he read late into the night as the rest of us slept. I didn't notice the coke supply going down because I don't drink it and I don't let the kids drink it. I knew soft drinks were bad for teeth, but I did not know they could eat away at the enamel, especially if sipped over a period of time -- continuously, usually while the person is on the computer, reading or watching t.v., according to my research. I read that the raw milk does have to come from grass-fed, hormone and antiobiotic-free cows. I'm just scared to kill off DS with it. The raw organic milk that has killed several people here lately was contaminated after it came out of the cow, while the containers were being filled, is the best guess. The weird thing is that the farmer said he thought the contamination occurred while additives were being put into the milk. If it's raw and organic, what additives would be put in it? The news article didn't say.

I give out demerits, which translate into chores. We have 3 toilets, and the first 3 demerits given out are for the kids who get to clean them. Then I move on to the sinks, and so forth. The toilets, etc., are cleaned immediately when the demerit is given. Too many demerits in a day, and privileges are lost (one at a time) for that day. This works to a point, but because of poor behavior and refusal to do schoolwork, I expelled two of my kids from my hs last May. They now go to a parochial school, where they are as sweet as pies, *quiet* and well-behaved. BUT when they come home, it's back to the usual conduct problems when I try to get them to do their homework. I've resurrected the demerit system. A third child also goes to this school now, because Dh thought it would be good for him. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I am hs'ing one child, who has always been the most cooperative of all, and I feel sane until the other 3 kids come home and start their stuff with me again. My DC are 12, 13, 13, and 13 -- and I wonder if their ages are contributing to the problem -- hormones, etc. I'm interested to read the responses you get. RC:eek: that's me, going insane

My DS, age 13, just had his teeth cleaned and today had his braces removed because his front teeth are decalcifying. I researched this topic for hours this past weekend and bought some products from dental.net to hopefully help with the problem -- special toothpaste and some stuff to soak his teeth in (while he is wearing a bite tray). During my travels through the internet, I ran across some research which said that only a small percentage of people who drink raw milk get cavities, and that drinking it will remineralize decalcified teeth. has anyone ever heard of this? I'm kind of afraid to give DS raw milk, especially because several people have died here recently from contaminated raw milk. Whatever the ingredient that is supposedly responsible for this is in the stuff I bought for DS, though. Do any of you drink raw milk? I also thought it was odd that, although the orthodontist stressed to DS that he must brush and floss several times a day, he did not mention the decalcification problem. Apparently it is common for kids who do not properly care for their teeth because the bacteria get trapped behind the braces. I never even noticed that DS was not brushing his teeth correctly or, in many cases apparently, at all. It wasn't a case of me forgetting to remind him -- he just lied about whether he had done it or not, or didn't do a thorough enough job. I think if I had better eyesight I'd have noticed it. To see the problem, I had to take off my glasses and practically stick my face into his mouth. The other weird thing is that it happened over a 3 month period. DS had his teeth cleaned 3 mos ago and there was no problem evident then -- at least not to the dentist who noticed it last week. Back to the raw milk question -- do any of you drink it, and do you have healthy teeth?

Just checking to see if my sig appears.

Sorry, wrong board.

Bumped hoping for responses.

National Geographic, Wired, Good housekeeping (the capital h on my keyboard stopped working), Family Circle, Taste of home, Women's Day, Reader's Digest, Scientific American, American Rifleman, Better homes & Gardens, American Girl, Boys Life, Cricket Magazine and Calliope.

A raised ranch is a 2-story house, right? I'd have a major problem with sleeping in the basement while my kids slept upstairs. I would not buy a house that had a master bedroom downstairs with the kids rooms upstairs because of that. I'd leave the family room in the basement and maybe add another small bathroom there and install some shelving or cubbies for the kids toys. In our garage-turned-playroom, the previous owners built-in cubbyholes and put formica counter on top of it and that has been a great place to store toys and games at the kids' level. If he wouldn't mind, I'd put the 12 year old boy in the room made from the former garage. I would make extra sure all the doors and windows were locked and very secure first, since he would be sleeping on the first floor by himself. Then I would have DD9 and DD7 share a room, and have the two youngest share a room, and keep the current master bedroom. RC

P.S. You should change your sig to "life is like an ICEBOX"! :D

My kids are 12 and 13. They get paid nothing for cleaning up after themselves. I pay them 75 cents a day for 3 chores, which take a hard worker about 15 minutes total to complete. These are things like washing counters and stove, unloading the dishwasher, cleaning the bathroom sinks and toilets, taking out the garbage, cleaning the dining room table, and so forth. I pay them $20 total to shovel the driveway, stoops and walkway after the snowplow has done the bulk of the work and to clean the snow off the car and my SUV. I pay them $100 total twice a year to rake the yard (spring and fall cleanup costs $400-$600 if I pay someone else to do it). If they don't work, they don't get paid. 10% of their money is saved to give to the charity of their choice. 30% goes to pocket money, 30% to short-term savings for whatever they want to save up for, and 30% goes to long-term savings (car, college -- something big). They make $6 a week doing this stuff, or $8 if they have garbage duty on garbage day. They can make more -- I have lots more chores than they are already assigned. I have a chore list and they take turns choosing which ones they want to do each week, and cannot duplicate chores 2 weeks in a row -- that way everyone will eventually learn to do everything.

Not cruel at all. The guy was working that night because he wanted or needed to, so I'm sure he appreciated the business. At least he didn't sit there all night and earn nothing. IMO.

My kids participated in a science fair. We went to see the exhibits tonight. #4 winner's question was whether boys or girls remember thing better (girls won). #4 gave a list of 40 words to a group of 2 boys and 14 girls, all of whom were 12 or 13 years old. They read the words and 10 minutes later had to write down the ones they remembered. DD was one of the girls. She left halfway through writing down the words she remembered, and finished up a half hour later, so her response was not valid, IMO. Not that anyone caught that. Isn't that a statistically insignificant sample size? That being the case, how could #4's project be a winner? #3 was about which liquids were flammable, including brandy and water. Come on! Nothing new was learned from that. The results were within the general knowledge of any halfway educated person, literally. #2 was about electrical usage in the home and how to use less of it -- it was a great project and deserved to win. #1 was about which of several types of soap cleaned hands of e. coli bacteria the best. There were no hands involved. Swabs were taken from a dance school's barre and something was grown in petri dishes, which was afterwards "treated" with the various soaps and allowed to continue growing. No microscope was used, so the girl did not know whether what grew was e. coli or not. No incubator was used, not that I know if that matters -- #1's petri dishes were "incubated" on top of her fridge. This irks me so much. My own DD did a huge microbiology experiments testing 5 different typical kitchen counter surfaces, 4 cleaning methods, using purchased e. coli and a homemade incubator. DD's project was so intricate compared to that of the #1 winner, so why didn't DD win instead?? Everything was controlled as much as possible, including the temp in the incubator. We didn't use a hospital lab's incubator because DD could learn more from having to make her own. I asked and the students were graded on their project overall (DD's passed muster with 3 scientists -- all doctoral level, a microbiologist and 2 M.D.s ). her report was professionally done and bound and looked really great. It was a wonderful report, too. her interview with the judges went very well, too. The judges were from Raytheon and were an engineer and 2 scientists (what kind, I don't know). It just irks me to no end that DD did so much work -- visted a microbiology lab, consulted professionals, purchased the materials such as e. coli and luria broth and so forth, figured out how to make a homemade incubator, and researched dozens of articles and websites (FDA, CDC, Fight BAC!, USDA and other worthy resources), found out about safety in a microbiology lab and applied all the rules so we wouldn't have her non-pathogenic e.coli all over the house, and so forth. She even found out how many billions ($22 billion) foodborne illnesses cost to medically treat each year in the U.S., how many deaths occur as a result of these illnesses (9000 a year), which diseases are caused by pathogenic e.coli, how food is cross-contaminated in the home kitchen, and so forth. her display board was a masterpiece, a wealth of information and lots of pictures were on there, and it was done in the usual science fair style. Yet she did not win a thing. Also, the judges decided who would get 4th place vs. 3rd place based on which project title they liked the best. True story, from the horse's mouth -- the principal. DD's title was a good one. Cleanliness in the Kitchen - What You See Is Not What You Get! Two more of my kids participated and one did not deserve to win (bloodstain pattern analysis at crime scenes) and the other certainly did a lot of work and a great job (how park factors affect stats of the 30 MLB teams) but the judges didn't understand it and virtually no one cares about it. DD's project, on the other hand, was timely and the results were ostensibly important to all who work in home kitchens. Sorry, my h's won't type if they are capitalized, and my colons don't work at all on my keyboard. No idea why. What do you all think? Am I being a sore-loser on behalf of my DD? Tell me the truth. If I am being a horse's behind about all this, let me know.

We own about 6,000 personal books and 45,000 in our store. Way too many books, IMO, but we have 2 major book packrats in our house. The store started out being a way to sell some of our personal book collection and my husband grew the business by accident -- he just couldn't help himself for some inexplicable reason. I have extolled the virtues of e-book readers, but the book-rats hate the idea, of course. We live in a library -- no place for art because bookcases fill so many wall surfaces and diminish the floor space available for furniture.

We have 13 yo triplet sons and a 12 yo DD.

I like the new board better than the old one. Thank you! RC

It costs around $90 to fill my SUV with 30 gallons of gas. I don't drive less because everywhere I go is max 4 miles away and it is all necessary driving. But I have decided not to take long car trips to see my family (1200 miles away). RC

My children who attend parochial school take naps after school every day. This is because they are night owls and have to get up at 6:30 a.m. DD is in 7th grade and DS1 and DS2 are in 8th grade. My 8th grade homeschooler doesn't take naps because he doesn't have to get up until 9 a.m. None of them took naps after age 5 because they weren't tired during the day, until my DC started having to get up at the crack of dawn. RC

I hate cleaning floors and bathrooms and putting away clean laundry and unloading the dishwasher. I don't iron anything, because I hate that, too. RC

We sent 3 of our 4 children to parochial school this year. DS1 and DS2 are in 8th grade, and DD is 7th grade. DD and DS1 were kicked out of homeschool for not doing their schoolwork. DS2 went because DH thought that since he is shy, it would help him to be around other kids. DS1 and DS2 were homeschooled from 2nd through 7th grade. The school they are going to has only 13 students in each class, so it was a great transition from homeschool to regular school. Some of those students were formerly homeschooled as well, and as luck would have it, they have become my DC's "best" friends. My DD still does not fully cooperate by doing all of her homework. Her report card was the worst, including an "F" in Spanish! She says other things (ie., her new social life, her hair, her wardrobe) are more important. We are in the process of nipping that attitude in the bud. Mind you, she did not get this from school -- it's just that her friends in the 7th grade are just like her and this does not help matters any. DD is a social butterfly who was in PS through 3rd grade and was reluctant to be homeschooled. She loves school -- just not the academic part. Our best student is DS1, and he was the worst in the 7th grade at homeschool. He thinks the parochial school work is too easy. DS1 has practically got a photographic memory and school work has always come easily to him. The difference is, he's applying himself now, whereas he would not do anything in homeschool in 7th grade. He is an extrovert and loves being around the other kids. DS2 left homeschool reluctantly. I gave him the option of returning to homeschool at the end of every grading period. He is very concerned about how well he does at school (for the first time ever), has made a few acquaintances, and does not want to return to homeschool unless he leaves the parochial school in a blaze of glory. DS2 said he hates school, no matter where he goes, so he may as well stay in the parochial school. He is not doing that well, but that has more to do with some learning disabilities than with his attitude. DS3 is still in homeschool in the 8th grade. He want to attend "regular" school eventually, once he is caught up in math, but he prefers being home especially since the other kids are not home. DS3 has been homeschooled since the middle of 1st grade and has always wanted to be homeschooled by himself, so he is in hog heaven. I find it much harder to keep track of everything now that 75% of my kids are in regular school. There is a lot of work that is required of them after school -- homework and projects and reports-- which we would have done during school hours. I think a lot of time is wasted in regular school, and this proves it to me more than anything else does. No one wants to do more school work when they get home, after being in school all day. The whole thing gets on my nerves. Also, none of them want to get up at 6:30 a.m. -- they really hate that, all of them being night owls since birth. In summary, the DC are happy enough at parochial school and I am more stressed out than ever!