I have a while to go before I really have to worry about this. This year we are doing B4FIAR for my toddler, and I'd like to start doing a loose "lesson plan" for the different books, lessons and activities for the books. I would like to do this to start having a bit of structure (for myself, not for him) and learning how to structure our year with the lessons/curriculum that we have. It will help me remember different resource locations (blogs, etc) for activities so that I don't forget something cool I've read or seen somewhere. I fully realize that is not necessary with a child this age or with the "curriculum" we are using, but I would like to know how you do it. How do you make the jump from "These are all of the curriculum choices we made this year... Science, math, history, reading, spelling, english, etc... to this is what we will do on which day throughout the school year? It seems like so much to coordinate! How do YOU do it? Do you sit down before the school year, make tons of notes, write things out, etc. Or do you wing it and hope that you get to the end of a level before the end of the school year?

I PT ds at 19 months and it was far easier in my experience than those darned preschoolers! :) i would wait it out. They are trying so hard to assert their independence that many of them refuse to be PT, even though they absolutely have the ability. I would stop and retry later. GL!

I had a miscarriage with my first pregnancy. I will be honest, it was very difficult. I had a hard time "bonding" with the in-utero baby for quite a while. I was worried I would lose him and I was anxious most of the time. Once I hit the 24 week mark, I started becoming more excited and less anxious (thou it never left until he was in my arms). If you would like another baby, don't let the fear of the unknown stop you- it is absolutely worth it.

DH and I just attended a very nice wedding at the Ritz here in Charlotte. I wore a black satin dress from white house, black market. It is also what I wear on formal night on cruises. DH wore a regular suit and tie, and was not under dressed.

I am a former pedi RN at the office we take DS to. I was surprised to find out that each of my son's appointments up to a year (1,2,4,6,9 and 12 months) were over $800 each! Thankfully, our insurance pays 100% of well visits. We have always charged administration fees for vaccine, but 38 for the first and 12 for each additional. Also, if you do not have insurance, I would recommend getting the vaccines at your local health department. They are free and without an administration fee for most states. So, he could get his physical at his normal MD and get her recommendations for vaccines- then get them at the health department. Does your office offer a self pay option? I know most in our area (NC) offer a 40% discount for people without insurance.

No, it tends to be very, very, very humid in the southeast. Here in NC, we average 90-100% humidity in the summer. On top of 95 degree temps, we heat index into the low 100s. It is miserable.

My husband was weaned between 3-4 and remembers. He is still quite creeped out by it, but not something he brings up. :)

I wouldn't be worried. Even so, from my anecdotal experience- 9 pounders don't have any more issue coming out than a 7 pounder in general. FWIW, my son was measuring 5.5 pounds at 32 weeks (about the same, maybe ahead of what your LO is measuring) and was 9+5 at birth (39 weeks).

Yep. As long as the milligrams delivered (200 mg, yes?) are the same, there is really no reason why your kiddo can't take it. It is just the pill maker covering their tails.

I am sending you a private message! We are close and looking for something just like that. :)

Andrea, me too! I loved the day each week when we did a different times table (1-12) timed (about 1 minute for 20 facts?)... if you passed it then you move "up" to the next one the following week, and if you didn't you did the same one again. LOVED it. I will definitely be doing this with my kid. It solidified multiplication tables for me- and then my husband on the other hand, didn't know what a multiplication table WAS in college. That was fun trying to teach him at that age for his math classes!

I see that the recommended age is 2-4 for B4FIAR. I am really interested in starting it this fall with my little guy. He will be two- has anyone else started that young, and was it beneficial for them? I would love to have something to help give us a little structure in our day, and DS already loves several of the books included.

I don't care that she objects to strong academics. She would never, ever be able to change my mind that academics are not an important part of homeschooling. That is specifically what I ultimately do not care about. She will object to our homeschooling method, and I don't care.

I think you are taking my words out of context- I replied that she was of the second type (someone opposed to government run schools), not of the first who homeschools to primarily completely customize the curriculum and educational choices of her children. This is not her. That is why I said if she was of the first type, she would have cared more about the academic offerings (of which there were none) to her children. I don't care that she has a different opinion. I care about vehement, angry arguments... especially when they are presented in front of my children. I also care because my husband was "educated" by her and had a serious problem when he entered college. It took him an extra year to catch up with high school (and lower) level classes to be able to attend. I also have several brothers and sisters in law who are still under her wing. They have a long road ahead of them. I care about under-education of children, whether public, private or home and I certainly care about it when it is our own family. Using the guise of "homeschooling" to keep your children home, isolated (the only friends the siblings need are each other), and uneducated is abhorrent. To think that is better than public schools, just because? Plain sad for the children who have no choice in the subject. Anyway, that is all I will say on that subject.

I totally get this, and I wouldn't call it demonizing at that point. You are relaying your direct experience with a specific school (or schools). There is nothing wrong with this, at all. I was taking issue with the fact that many think that ALL public schools are terrible, bad places that produce nothing but criminals (being ridiculously dramatic here, but you get the idea). Everyone has a right to criticize things that they've had experience with specifically.

I think maybe those who are irritated by the word demonizing haven't experienced what some of us have. It's absolutely fine to criticize something, but completely different to actually demonize, and that is what I have heard a lot of here. In response to another previous poster, I guess my use of "we" was more of a generality (because, as a homeschooler, I certainly don't participate in this, and still used the word we- so obviously, I wasn't trying to classify each and every homeschooler guilty of demonization of public school). I guess the bottom line is, different things work for different people. Some public schools don't educate well. Some homeschool parents don't educate well. Some private schools don't educate well. People do what works for them.

Actually, yes! She has on multiple occasions. I find it humorous, and have told her that will likely not be the case... but she begs to differ. :glare:

I can totally understand this. I left public school, and all of my friends (and their judgements, and their parents opinions) to be homeschooled. On my own accord. I fought my parents hard for the opportunity. I had a LOT of opposition, but it worked out. I was able to start college early, I met my husband and the list of positives can go on and on. Even though our homeschooling community is HUGE, there are still a lot of people who think all homeschoolers are dumb, and illiterate (and I come across them often as we still go to traditional playgroups where most parents will send their children to public school). I'm sorry that your community where you are isn't large, and I understand that must be tough.

Lisa, thank you for your thoughtful post. Lots of interesting points. As far as our local "group," we've been a part of a few so far, but I haven't found one that fits us just yet. While we classify ourselves as Christians, the Christian groups in this area are just as you spoke of. Very low quality, if any, academics and character is the main/only focus. Focusing on character is not a bad idea, however as you pointed out before you CAN do both- and you can do both well! As my little ones get older (and they are both still young), I hope to find a group that we can fit into academically. It is very important to me for my little guys to have a very strong academic foundation that will open the doors to the future that they want. I don't want something that I do to hold them back from being a doctor or a lawyer if they would like to be, which has been the case in my ILs situation.

I agree. This is not demonization. This is expressing your own personal experience and opinion of your local public school system in an articulate and not offensive manor. This is not the kind of experience I have had in others preaching their anti-PS agenda.

I'm honestly surprised that people are irritated by this discussion. I never said that ALL homeschoolers criticized public school. I was homeschooled, my husband was homeschooled, our children will be homeschooled. I was making an observation that I see often- homeschoolers demonizing public school in many forms. If you haven't seen that in your circle or haven't participated yourself, then that's that. And nobody ever asked you to justify your homeschooling here, on this board and certainly not in this thread.

No, no, no. The first sentence is not accurate. I am surrounded by our local homeschool culture and have been for almost ten years. It is a common occurrence around here (glad to hear it is not like this everywhere), but it especially hits a nerve when it is MIL. I don't want my children exposed to toxic thinking like that- I am especially defensive in that situation.

I had my police officer husband read this and this is his opinion... Find out if the director wants the angry guy removed in the future (since he is not a member, or if he is a member and is disruptive, the same question remains). If the answer is yes, then definitely call police and have him banned from the property or arrested for trespassing. If the director won't stand up for you, you should probably not volunteer anymore, or may pursue a complaint against the director for not ensuring the safety of their employees.

Thanks for the interesting points of view! It is different for me coming in on this side (getting ready to homeschool my own child versus being the child who is homeschooling), and I just don't like what I see in our local community. We have a fairly large HSing community (in our county in the tens of thousands, and in our local group over a thousand), and I hear them focus so heavily on how children are in public school, how things happen in public school when the reality is that most of them haven't stepped foot inside a PS for 20+ years. I hate that we are excluding others by turning them off at the get go (in our area), because the opportunities to educate other families are definitely there. I agree I need to learn to "Pass the bean dip" with my MIL. She is a definite nut. How do you sit through long, rambling one sided-discussions about what her instagram user name should be without your eyes rolling out of your head?!