Spaghetti and meatballs and salad.

I voted yes, although I’m not entirely sure if I understand what you mean by philosophy. I know why we homeschool and we have underlying principles that drive the way we learn. If that’s a philosophy, then yes. As far as methods, we primarily use a classical approach, although less strictly so than when we started.

We’re on the same chapter. I love the colors idea, I’ll have to tell that to ds. One thing that has helped him has been for me to show him how to start thinking about a proof backwards. Sometimes he doesn’t even know where to start and just is stuck. So I showed him how to start with what you want to prove, then think about what do I need to prove that and work backwards until you can figure out how to work forwards.

I agree with Parking Panda. You might find overnight garages that are cheaper along the Metro lines in Virginia (or Maryland). I know the garage near me (Dunn Loring station) is really cheap. But I’m not sure if they allow overnight parking or if they tow. The question though will be whether the cost of parking and taking the train in is less than the cost to just park in a garage in DC. My guess for a family of 4 is no. For us, it’s often about the same cost to drive into the city and park for the day at a garage using Parking Panda as it is to Metro.

I’ve recently discovered a habit-tracking app called Momentum. There is a paid version but you can also track 5 habits free. It’s easy to use. You set the habits you want to track and then just check them off daily. You can also set them to be a different schedule than every day. I’ve come to believe that it’s more useful to change small habits and then build them into routines rather than start with big goals. Because it’s easier to break down the bigger goal into smaller tasks. So rather than “clean my house better" maybe come up with 1-3 areas that you want to work on. It might be “Do a five minute clean three times a day.†or “Spend 30 minutes on cleaning the area of the day†(and then ala FlyLady or some other system assign a room of the day) or “Put away laundryâ€.

I teach a high school science class. I don't mind when people miss. I see my role as being there to help them. If they choose to miss, that's their choice. I do have strict policies about assignments. I won't accept anything late for any reason (except illness). I will help them work ahead but I've learned over the years that I don't have the time to accommodate requests to turn things in late. So if they want a grade from me they have to keep up with assignments even if they are absent. And I can't typically take the time to give extra help to students who are missing a lot due to other commitments.

Yes, this. It’s not a violation of HIPA because it’s part of your policy. Typically if we get a request for information from insurance, it includes a statement saying why we have to release the information.

I would doubt that our troop will choose to go co-ed. It’s in a Catholic Church that also supports Girl Scouts and I would bet that the decision will be made to continue to just offer what they do now. There is also a Venturing Crew already there. My daughter doesn’t do GS or AHG at this point because she already has too many activities. Scouts fulfilled a need for social interaction for my boys and it worked out that the troop we joined is also one with friends they know from elsewhere. I’m not opposed to her doing Scouts if she wanted to but she hasn’t expressed real interest yet and I would discourage it more out of “I can’t add one more thing to our schedule†than any philosophical reason. So, right now I don’t see the decision making a huge difference in our lives.

MRSA is actually fairly common in the community and common in kids. Most of the time we just treat it and you won’t see it again. It’s good to know that she had it because occasionally you will see a family where multiple people will get it or a kid who will get it several times and then you need to be more vigilant about eradicating it from the family and house.

I was a very picky eater as a kid and teenager. I just preferred my host to not make a big deal of it. If I didn’t like something I would say “No thank you†and just not eat it. I never knew what to do if they asked me what I liked because I didn’t want them to change what they were doing to accomodate me but I also didn’t want to eat stuff I didn’t like. I think the best thing you can do is to make what you would normally make, adapt as able (if you can have one cheese pizza do it...that’s fairly easy), and not make a big thing of it if she doesn’t eat whatever you all are having. It reminds me of the time I went home with my college boyfriend to visit his family. His Mom (unknown to me) asked him what I liked to eat. The only thing he told her was “lemonâ€. We had lemon-flavored everything that weekend. Lemon muffins, lemon chicken, lemon bread, asparagus with lemon zest, lemon-citrus dressing. I thought it was so weird (although tasty). It wasn’t until later that I found out why everything was lemon and then many years later when I was older that I thought about how that poor woman must have been desperately trying to figure out what to feed me.

Legally you have to sign for the shots until the kid is over 18.

So far in 9th grade, none. Except studying a bit for Latin. He has an outside class and the quizzes are always on Mondays.

Memory is a weird thing. I have a very clear memory of watching the Challenger space shuttle explosion in elementary school. I can remember being taken to the library to watch the lift-off on TV and sitting in rows on the carpet with my class. I can remember being shocked and scared when it happened and the librarian quickly turning off the TV and trying to distract us. It is as clear as many other memories of mine. Problem is it can’t have happened. I was in high school when the Challenger exploded so there is no way it happened anything remotely like my memory. And I have no idea why I have that “memoryâ€. One of my kids has many “false memories†of stuff. I don’t know if it’s an active imagination or what but he will remember things that absolutely never happened. (At least I think they didn’t. :)) There are a couple of things in our shared history that dh and I both are very confident that we are right about but where we disagree. Some are more annoying to me than others....usually things about the kids. We joke about it in a way that keeps us from arguing and acknowledges the crazy. Usually I’ll say “Oh, that must have been your other wife.†(We haven’t ever been married before...otherwise that probably wouldn’t be a funny joke.)

My Mom would have done it and would have thought I was weird to mind. I agree though that the bigger issue is respecting you asa a parent. It doesn't matter what other people think; if you feel uncomfortable then Grandma should respect that. It's ok for her to roll her eyes and think you are overreacting but not ok for her to throw a tantrum or to ignore your wishes.

I used to be annoyed by teenage trick or treaters and to think that my kids would never do it. I would impose a cut-off at some not-yet determined age. I remember reading this article a few years ago: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marion-franck/what-you-need-to-know-about-6-foot-trick-or-treaters_b_6030982.html and thinking it sounded sweet and kind of gave me the other side of the story. Now as the Mom of an almost 14 year old who is tall and muscular and who looks older than he is...I’m ok if he wants to trick or treat. I feel like so much of his life now as a high schooler is being pushed to grow up. Taking on more responsibility, harder work, bigger worries. He’s doing a great job and occasionally I see little pockets of him just wanting to be a kid again. He stopped in the middle of doing his work the other day to make slime with his siblings. And had more fun than they did. I don’t know if he will go this year (probably depends on friends) but if he does, I hope people are nice to him.

I clicked on the thread because I thought it was going to be about something like what my oldest would do...when he was preschool age he thought it was really funny to purposefully get things wrong. We had this math game and I was really worried because he couldn’t do even the simplest tasks. Then I realized he got every single one wrong (which seemed odd, even random guesses would occasionally be right) and would giggle every time. The game also kind of reinforced it because when you got a wrong answer there was this funny horse that would say something. He liked the horse. After I read the thread, I couldn’t even really grasp the point of the post except that it was pretty offensive. So I decided not to engage.

If you don’t have to report, I wouldn’t worry about it, especially at that age. The second day is a very age appropriate field trip. The first day is maybe a little light, but it’s fine for first grade. We don’t have to report and I’ve never kept track until this year when I have a high schooler.

I did al three big ones online and also did Innivus and ChexSystems. They were all easy. The info was all stiff I figured they already had so I didn't think it increased risk. To do it by paper you have to send in a bunch of copies of documents and that seemed riskier to me.

I like an adapted version of Paula Deen’s Monster Cookies. They are a little overly sweet but you can cut down on the sugar a bit and leave out the M&Ms if you want. They also have no flour so have the advantage of being potentially gluten free (you have to use the right kind of oatmeal and other ingredients). I’m not gluten free but since so many people are these days it can be nice to bring that as an option.

And I could be your triplet. I could have written both your posts.

I HATE talking on the phone. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Even when dh and I were dating long-distance we talked on the phone maybe twice over about an 18 month period. And that was before texting. We wrote long emails daily and kept in touch, but no phone. I have a relative who has expressed that it makes her sad that I don’t initiate phone calls. The thing is that I hate it so much that it’s not ever something I would think to do. I would never think “Oh, I miss so and so, I should call her and chat.†If she calls, I’m happy to talk. If she’s here I’m happy to talk. Not calling is not a “I don’t care about you†thing to me but really a “I don’t think of calling someone.†I don’t chat with friends on the phone, I don’t chat with anyone. Maybe your sister is similar and it’s not you, it’s the phone. :)

I have tried and tried and have not found a way to have my Mom limit what she buys. I get told I am mean if I push too hard. There are other issues there and other boundaries that are more important to set for me so this is an area that I've somewhat given in on. We have gone to giving more experiences because they get so much stuff from other family. It doesn't limit the stuff from family but it does give us a way to do something special that is not just stacks of more toys. We've done: reptile house tour, trapeze lessons, tickets to plays, day at a favorite activity, pottery lesson. Or I will buy thing that I know they could use and that are special (expensive sports equipment, camping stuff for Scouts, science supplies for school, really good art stuff). For Christmas we have started to do a big family gift, usually an experience like tickets to a play or event. One year we went away and went snow tubing and to a water park.

My current middle schooler isn’t doing Latin because he hated it so I let him quit last year. My oldest did Lively Latin Book 1 and 2. We started young. I can’t even remember why at this point...I was an overzealous homeschooler, probably. But he actually really loves Latin and it’s a good fit for him. We started in 3rd grade and he did LL Books 1 and 2 over 5 years (through 7th grade). We went slower at the beginning. My youngest is doing LL Book 1 now and also really loves it. My middle son did LL Book 1 and didn’t like it but he’s a different kiddo and really just doesn’t like much of anything school related. He got enough in that I felt like he had a good foundation for vocabulary and it helped reinforce grammar. He is trying Greek this year at his own choosing. As far as LL...we really liked it. I found it very easy to teach as someone who had not had Latin myself except for one year in 8th grade about a million years ago. My oldest really loved the history so we read all of it and incorporated it into the lessons. My next two didn’t so we just skipped those pages. Oldest has continued with Latin through Lukeion. He did Latin I last year and I think found it fairly easy after LL. That was a nice experience for his first real online class. He did very well in the class and on the NLE. He’s finding Latin II much more challenging this year but is hanging in there and doing well. Overall, I’m pleased with the foundation he got from LL. It’s a bit pricey, but one nice thing is that once you’ve paid for it you have access to print out for as many kids as you want (in your family). So we paid for oldest and then have been able to print out the pages for the next two. I like printing myself as that enabled me to skip the history pages for my kids that didn’t want to do them.

I would let him quit. I think there is a difference betweeen quitting because it’s too hard or if a parent sees benefit but the kid doesn’t like it and quitting because the class is worthless. My son took a live (not online) writing class a few years ago that he hated. I had him stick with it because I didn’t want him to quit and because I’d paid for it. But at the time I kind of agreed with him that it was a bad class with stupid assignments. I wish I had let him quit. He hated writing before he started and the class only made him hate it more. We are just now (three years later) getting to the point where writing isn’t so much of a horrible thing for him.

This is what I thought of. It’s unusual to have just one person in a family with it, but I’ve seen it happen.