Is it, A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle)? It sounds very similar.

(all the animal births I've witnessed were full of gutteral grunting and pitiful yeowling) Congrats! What'd the kids think of the afterbirth scene? That's where my dcs moved away quickly, lol.

Why should the stronger women be forced to fit the stereo type of the weaker sex? So, this girl is good at something, but shouldn't be allowed to compete, because she's a girl. She should shave her head and try to pass then. We've come so far. For pete's sake! We cannot even be equal in competition????

We'll be starting in September... I so EXCITED!!!! (ok, so we're already doing dot to dots and things, but he begs to do work) My 3yo ds will be starting (with very little pressure :) ) Ordinary Parents Guide to Reading Magnets to Mudpies Bob Books (we've been reading the shapes collection) and I just ordered our Rainbow Wooden Pattern Blocks (for counting and things) I feel so silly, to be this excited, but with my other two I was warned the kids couldn't get into PreK if they knew too much, so we stuck to fairy tales (the kids still knew too much). Since I plan to hs Luke (woohoo), I am not too worried :)

Maybe the biggest difference is that my oldest child is a girl and she was offended that I would prtect her from her little brother, under the premise that she's a girl. We HAVE discussed picking on someone smaller than yourself. And I completely agree with you on that. Should my dses grow to be Thors, womankind will be safe. My boys open doors for everyone, so does my dd. Chilvary isn't just for men :) My dd can be rather gallant at times.

Thank you. I can remember going to VBS with the children of athiests. It was really disturbing, imo, that their parents would send them there, seemingly, to mock everything they saw and heard. Is that a surprise? I mean, it's a church function. :001_huh: I'm sorry I keep quoting you, but you write, clearly, what others have vaguely written. I'm really at a loss. I can't believe it would be a surprise to anyone that a church would use Bible School, to teach the Bible. No kidding.

Which goes right along with the number of undiagnosed mentally ill people in China being much higher. I would imagine there is a greater stigma attached to mental illness there. As a previous poster said, comparing us with China is apples and oranges.

I've contacted sellers and had them combine shipping... Am I the only one?

I think the move to equality has put a hurting on the "you never hit a girl" idea. When my ds got into skirmishes with his big sister, I started off appalled that he would hit his sister, A GIRL. After the first two, 'YOU NEVER HIT A GIRL,' squeelings were over, my dd approached me. Why does it matter if I'm a girl? I'm just as strong as any boy. Well. Of course she is......... So, now, we focus on, we do not hit, we do not shove, we behave in a dignified manner. I leave sex out of it. I know I'm not alone in this, having discussed it irl with many friends, or parents of my dcs friends. Woohoo, equality.

I understand about escalators and doorways, but on the sidewalk it's not that simple. I'm normally walking with a gaggle of kids. I keep the kids on the inside of the sidewalk, away from the road, regardless of which side it's on. In a group of adults, we normally stay on the side closest to the road, so we don't block doors. Now that I think about it, most people I see walk on the inside if they're close to where they're going and the outside if they're ambling. Granted, in places like NYC the rules could be different, maybe even carved in stone, but the places I normally walk around have more situational rules, than hard and fast. A group of adults keeps to the outside, a group of children to the inside. If you want to stop, you better be going into the door you're blocking, or you need to get out of the way.

Lol, I just try to stay out of the way, so I swerve wherever there isn't anyone walking.

Vicks on the chest, neck and back helps too. What about Robatussin (I have no idea how to spell that), they make green, I would guess that wouldn't contain red dye. Of course, check the label first :) Good luck!

We started Latin in December (Prima Latina) and Greek in March (Hey Andrew, Greek Alphabet). Some people have a higher aptitude for languages, and I am pretty sure my ds does. Let your dd start, if it's too much, drop it for awhile and go back later. It really depends on the person, but if she's excited about it, why not?

I would say different rates of diagnosis has a LOT to do with their findings. Also, different governments and cultures have different views on mental illness. Perhaps, less Chinese are diagnosed, because their families would respond in a different way. One more thing, many of the things Americans stress about are not high expectations, they are requirements. In many counties and under some hoas, you cannot go without utilities, you can't live in a house that's falling down, you can't leave the grass long, etc. Our standard of living is higher, and in some cases enforced, iykwIm. Of course, we're going to be more stressed, when losing your job could mean you lose your home, even if you're paying the mortgage.

I called them and asked. We could not write in the books, so they said the time limits were not to be used. If I were you, though, I'd call and check. That way you have personal verification :)

I didn't see what kind of math you used. We were going to go formal curriculum, but that bubble burst pretty quick. My ds sounds very much like your dd, he. hates. math. I found out that by getting the cheap, Walmart workbooks, he stays on level, it's WAY less work, and he still learns the concepts. IOW, we don't drill, we rarely do more than one or two pages of work a day, we learn concepts, practice and MOVE ON. So, every day is a little bit fresh, the constants always pop up for more practice, and I am not tossing hundreds of dollars out the window. The workbooks have bright pictures, they disguise the numbers of problems (for example, he did "5" addition problems today; each of those five had six problems, so he really did 30, but to him, it was only five), and they appear to be much easier. Dcs still learn all the sol concepts, still practice, but it doesn't seem that way to them. To them, they're practically coloring in a coloring book.

I would have to wonder, though, how many people would be sunk by that? It's fine and dandy to say, only those who can, should, but the government has some really unrealistic ideas about how much money a family needs to survive. IOW, you can make 30 thou. a year here and you are middle class. Houses cost 100 thou. and up. The electricity company here is charging around 200-500 a month. Just for housing and electricity, around half of the monthly income is sucked up. Put in water and food (of all the crazy ideas), and you have a paycheck to paycheck situation. The big problem is that the local government sees this as more than enough for a family to live on. IOW, enough for that family to pay back the assistance they had before. Take out another hundred dollars a month and the family has sunk back to the brink. My parents recieved too many fs the year they were on it. They had to pay back the amount that went over what they were supposed to be getting. Ironically, that meant eating out the food closet, because they were back to being in the red, every week. SS didn't see a problem with this, because their income, before the fs money came out, was above the poverty line.

That is why I took my ds out of school. He was fine up until this year (2nd grade). All of a sudden, he stopped working. He refused to do the journal entries, he refused to "work," rushing through all his classwork and spending his extra time reading or drawing. His grades were excellent, except where they graded him on behavior. Have you read "The Well-Trained Mind?" In the older version, she describes how her son became a "non-learner." THAT is why we homeschool, and for your dd, that would be the biggest concern. Can she stand in line? Raise her hand before speaking? Color in the lines? Use scissors? Sit "criss-cross applesauce?" Follow simple directions? Then, she doesn't need Kindy. I do too.

I would say the problem is that people are forced to lie. We've gone through some tough times. At one point, my dh's grampa had cancer, was living with us, so we could care for him; I was pregnant; Dh lost his job. We didn't qualify for any assistance because of my car. A Geo Prism (97), this was in 2001, was worth so much hypothetical money that we'd have to sell it. We ended up with all the cupboards bare, bumming food and gas money from our neighbors (God bless them). SS TOLD us to lie. They TOLD me to sign my car over to someone else. They TOLD me to lie about Grampa's income. We didn't, but I was shocked that they would inform me that this was sop. If you don't lie, you don't qualify.

Why wouldn't you friend her? I mean, you're never on there, so it's not like she's going to be bugging the pants off you and if you start going back and she posts too much, just hide her posts. It seems like an easy way to make someone else happy, why not?

Or telling seniors how to spend their SS, or the disabled how to spend their benefits. Lots of times people ignore how they would limit their own rights, choosing instead to lament how others aren't doing the right thing.

Earthworms were more interesting than I expected, and pretty easy to dissect. I missed grasshoppers, but my friends raved about them :). As I remember, starfish and crayfish were very difficult to cut, tough outer coverings. Sounds like lots of fun! Wish I were there :)

We're either being haunted by the ghosts of yummy foods past, or identify too closely with our fat... lol, I prefer the ghosts of y.f. past, myself.

I'm doing Weight Watchers, without the group. My mom gave me all the books. I'm not a joiner, but the points system is working pretty well, and the extra, flexible points, let you splurge on a slice of cake, when necessary :) Since I've started losing weight, I've been having nightmares that I'm lost in a sea of thin people and my family doesn't recognize me. It makes me want to eat entire cakes, for fear of losing my identity, how's that for wierd psychological connections?