I can kind of sort of see it. If he was older, then he was probably of the generation where talking about stuff like that was very taboo. And to be perfectly honest, while I'm generally quite open with my DH about stuff like that, I'm not sure I've ever talked about the mechanics of it to quite that level of detail, so who knows what he thinks about how it comes out, or if he's even thought of it at all. It's entirely likely that he's grouped that under the heading of "my wife's bodily functions that I'd rather not contemplate too closely" and in that case assuming that it works like other ones that he is familiar with is not completely unreasonable. What I think is most weird is that grown up people have to ask for a bathroom break at all ...

When we were in Alaska 2 years ago we visited a fish hatchery and they showed a video of cutting open a female salmon and dumping the bright red eggs in a 5 gallon bucket and then grabbing a male salmon and ... er ... "milking" his nether regions to squeeze out the sperm into the bucket and then mixing it all together with water to fertilize and create new baby salmon. It was one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen in my life!

Us too. This year we (and by "we" I mean "me" because DH just doesn't care about gifts or stuff for the house at.all.) got new living room furniture for Mother's Day, Father's Day, his birthday, my birthday, our anniversary, and Christmas. We would have bought it anyway, but now we have the bonus of not having to come up with something for those occasions. Other years we we go on small trips/getaways. Years that we don't get something big together or go on a trip, we just go out to eat.

I wish! My oldest 2 are boys so it goes in spurts but often all I get is a POL (proof of life) every once in a while. To be totally honest it's mostly facebook and the boards 😉

I don't have requirements from the state, so I only keep their written narrations (because their word choices sound so cute in hindsight) and any particularly cute artwork. The rest gets chucked in the recycle bin. Do you all remember that last day of public school when we got to dump all our old workbooks into the bin as fondly as I do??? 😁

If you're asking if we turn the router off during school hours, the answer is no. I can't homeschool without facebook and Hive breaks LOL, let alone ask my kids to do school without Internet. And we don't outsource to online providers, they just need to be online for various research and to look up definitions and to google how to cite a source, etc. etc. If they fritter away their time by doing other stuff online when they are supposed to be doing school, there are natural consequences to that - namely that school takes longer to finish. But I'm not sure if that's what you're asking.

I have a drawer and I wrote the contents on top of the lid with a Sharpie

I like Math Mammoth a lot, it's very conceptual and teaches those concepts so incrementally that you don't even realize you're learning long division until you're already doing it and it's easy. BUT ... we have found that jumping around in math during elementary often creates more problems than it solves. Ask my current senior how I know 😉 I would switch if a program's approach really wasn't sinking in and my kids weren't getting the concepts, or if a particular program was causing great angst and anxiety about math, but I'm not sure I would just because they were bored. A better time to switch is after elementary math and going into pre-algebra, IMO. Probably lots of people disagree with me, and that's OK too, but that's my 2 cents 🙂 We like Video Text for Geometry, it is very challenging and proof heavy, but it takes a long time (more about a year and a half unless you significantly skip things) and even though it teaches trig concepts I wouldn't call it a full trig or precalc course no matter what their website says. Jacobs Geometry with the Dr Callahan videos would be our 2nd choice if I didn't already own VT.

I just have them spend about a half hour on it once a week freshman and sophomore year (by that time they've finished other more formal geography work). My goal is for them to memorize all the countries of the world and then work on the capitals, but if they don't master the capitals it's no big deal. Mostly I want them to be able to listen to the news and know where in the world they are talking about.

Those look fun, thanks!

I must have spent a hundred zillion quadrillion hours 2 years ago on researching how to do oldest DS's counselor portion of the Common App. School profile, philosophy and motivation, evaluation methods, outside coursework, transcript, course descriptions, counselor letter, etc This year with 2nd DS I just have to tweak the stuff I used for 1st DS and write the counselor letter. Phew! Sooooo much less stress this time around! Many thanks to all on this board who gave advice and answered questions patiently! And to all of you in the thick of it for the first time this year, be assured that it won't always be this time consuming! 🙂

I got a prescription filled at Wal-Mart (not my usual place for Rx) for my littlest DD who is just 2 months old so it was in a syringe. The label said 6.25 mL as the dosage, and the pharmacist patiently told me, "You give her 6 and a quarter milliliters. That's just a little more than 6" and helpfully showed me where the line on the syringe is just above the 6. 😛 Um, yes, thank you, I am proficient at 2nd grade math actually. I wasn't sure if that was a reflection of how stupid I look or of how clueless most of the customers are 🤣

Speaking more to myself than the OP or anyone else, but I'm on my phone a lot more than I used to be, and even when I'm not on it my attention is more scattered and I don't stick with one thing for as long a period of time as I used to. I agree with everything everybody else has said so far too, so I'm not saying that our phones are the only culprit, but I think our screen time eats up lot more leisure time than we believe it does.

Yes, I think this is exactly it!

Google says the average SAT score of an admitted student at Purdue is 520-630 for Reading and 550-690 for Math and he is close to the higher end of both of those scores.

Btw, glad she got good results! 👍

This is the most important part and the only reason to take the test in the first place! His score puts him at the top of the range of average admitted students at Purdue and that's what we were shooting for.

He did compare scores with his friend (which I wish he wouldn't have done but whatever) and they got the same exact score, so I think that's helping him be more cheerful about it.

Good point! Hopefully he gets some perspective within a few days. I've told him this, and I think he knows/believes it's true. Hopefully he'll recognize this in just a few days and not be so perfectionistic.

We've had good luck using Great Courses lectures to teach note taking. When we first start I have to frequently stop the video and give them more time to write stuff down before resuming, and sometimes I have to prompt them, "Did you catch that? Did you write that part down? That is important to make a note of because ______________." Eventually with lots of practice they get better and faster at it. The lectures are only 30 minutes and they are usually very engaging, so that helps a lot with content.

I just started a thread about this because my DS was disappointed in his score 😞 It's a good score and I'm not disappointed at all! But he thought he'd done better than that because he thought the test was pretty easy. Maybe the tough curve you're talking about is the reason why he didn't score as highly as he thought he would?

I thought about asking him if he wanted to take it again, but I don't want him to think that *I* think he needs to take it again.

... but I'm not. It's a good score! Improved 50 points from his PSAT and in the 93rd percentile and in the upper range of average for the accepted students at the university he'd most like to attend! And I told him all that. But he's disappointed because he felt like he had done better on the actual test in comparison with some of the practice tests he'd taken. And his score on the essay was only so so and he felt like he'd nailed it. It kills me that he's so disappointed in himself when he should be celebrating that he did well ... ugh 😞 Any wisdom to share to help me help him?

Thank you for this!!!! The track tapping thing is brilliant!!!

For us it's worth it because that's our musical education. They are required to take lessons from about 3rd or 4th grade through 8th grade, then I give them the option to continue and use that as their Fine arts credit for high school or quit. So far all our high schoolers have chosen to continue. When they were younger my older 3 would practice happily but I always had to remind them. Now that they are older (17 and 15) they remember on their own most of the time. The 19 year old hasn't taken lessons in 2 years but still plays on his own for fun. My 11 year old will usually practice happily, but not always. And she usually just goes through the motions and doesn't really try her best to master each piece like the others did. It's a lot more demanding on my time to keep her morivated, but it's worth it to me to get her to master this skill and know she'll carry that musical background with her the rest of her life. YMMV. FWIW, our first piano teacher always said they had to play each piece 3 times a day or they wouldn't improve - 1 or 2 times per day would just keep them at the status quo. And she also said that it usually takes 5 years of lessons before it becomes something they love and can do well enough to pursue it on their own without prompting.