I am an infrequent visitor to the boards these days. My youngest is finishing high school this spring and he attended a brick and mortal school-not my choice, but in fact it was a great fit for him and has worked out well. FYI he attended a Bard High School Early College and if you have any interest in learning about the Bard schools, please PM me. I am a huge fan! My purpose in writing this post is to find out how you all have handled the books, papers, and ephemera you have left, when you are finished home schooling. I freely admit to being, not a packrat exactly, but too sentimenta

Hi everyone-flash from the past here. I have not been around much this year; my youngest finished homeschooling when he went to high school almost 4 years ago. He attended a Bard Early College high school that was just opening in my city, and it has been a great fit for him. Anyway, just popping in to say he was accepted ED to Williams in December. Yay for early decision!!! It made our Christmas and New Year's holidays much nicer and I strongly recommend it! I see that someone else on the boards, Alewife, has a child accepted at Williams and I'm wondering if your child is actually

I had only half my thyroid taken out, but for that I did not have to stay in the hospital, though they offered it as an option if I had a lot of pain or any complication. Fortunately, neither was true. If I had elected to have a total thyroidectomy, I would have spent a night in the hospital. And a different view about covering the scar-I planned to do this, until after the surgery. It felt awful to me for anything to touch that area! So I showed off my scar LOL. I couldn't stand to cover it.

Hi Jenny, I had a partial thyroidectomy in April and it was not a huge deal. It's the biggest medical procedure I've had; it was the only time I've ever had general anesthesia. But I felt pretty back to normal within a week, and mostly functional in a couple of days. Not awful pain. No stitches or staples. Just glue! You will have to deal with adjusting the medications after it's over, and I was fortunate not to have to. But the surgery itself was not bad. So ask away or PM me if you have other questions.

I am re-posting now that my youngest has been at a public charter for a few weeks. He's in ninth grade and it's his first PS experience. First, I will say it's a Bard Early College high school (google for more info), and he chose it over some other schools, including private schools, because he thought it would be most similar to what he had already been doing. I am just SO impressed with this school, and ds loves it. He IS my "bloom where planted" child so he might be just the same anywhere. What is apparent is that the classical education he had, such as it is, at home, was very goo

OK at the risk of dating myself I will mention (again, as this came up recently) the incredible troll from the old boards who said her 12 yo had gotten pregnant in the bathroom of their church during co-op. She invented alter egos (several!) who posted messages in support on the massive, huge thread when she announced the pregnancy. Someone here (I thought Mrs. Mungo) did some research and discovered IP addresses for several of the posters in the thread, including of course the troll OP, were identical, and exposed her. The aftermath of that lasted for awhile. People here felt so incre

Well since I have two out of two college kids attending their safeties, I'm not enthusiastic at all about this idea. It's the kind of thing that honestly makes me think that there must be some way for applicants to fight back against a rigged system.

Count me amongst the monitors. I think it's wonderful that you and your daughter have conversations about her relationships. You must have a strong relationship and that is sooooo valuable. Really, it sounds like the problem is more that you are upset and anxious about the situation. Keep talking. Try to remember your own adolescence and how awkward things were. Meditate. I think coaching her is very appropriate. Just because some kids don't seek or accept this from their parents, it doesn't mean you shouldn't. Also, maybe there is a book out there to help her cope with boundaries

Home canned tomatoes. I think those are a possible common source of botulism.

It's a hot button issue because American moms have been arrested, charged with felonies, gotten threatened with having their kids taken away and obtained criminal records because of it. It's not simply a parenting choice.

As creekland has pointed out, your posts about this family are particularly relevant to the topic of this thread because the kind of judgements you are making about this family are very much like the kind of judgement that allows people to feel OK about summoning the police to the scene of a child in a car or walking home from the park. No, you haven't called the police. But I think there is a more compassionate way of seeing the situation, as that of a family who has made a different choice than your family has made, and for which you see no clear reason. As many posters have pointed out,

I can tell you that it matters *a lot* to at least one administrator. I found myself in a social situation with a recently retired Dean from a top school. She told me that it's common knowledge that the top administrators of the school, along with its Board, have put a very high priority on moving the school from "top" to "tippy top" within a certain time period or heads will roll. I think there is a subset of driven high schoolers out there to which it matters very much too.

I do too. Just the idea of enjoying a quiet cup of tea with a friend while my baby was sleeping would have made me happy some days! I just returned from a trip to Japan and Japanese people most definitely do this. They also leave their pocketbooks in the stroller outside the store or restaurant. I was reminded of what a fearful culture we live in here in the USA. But it is all part of the exaggerated (IMO) fear we have of people we do not know. While I was there, I saw a boy, probably 3 or 4, who got separated from his parents at the airport bag claim area-so lots of people milli