My kids ALL love when the clothing bins come out - the recipient as well as the girls who previously wore the clothes. The big girls love seeing their favorites and remembering wearing those things, and the little girls who are inheriting are always excited to see what will fit this time. Hand-me-downs are awesome at my house.

Colombian Spanish is lovely, and generally one of the "more proper" versions. There are sayings and slang and whatnot, but the basics will serve y'all well wherever you go. Also, y'all, Colombia (and its adjective, Colombian) has an /o/ in it, unlike the city in the states. And good on you for getting your little girl started early!

I'd go halfsies on it.

Yep. I think if the fussing isn't an option, you're just going to have to adjust. Is there evening stuff you enjoy that you can shift to the wee hours? I'd probably wind up going to bed really early and moving my "me" stuff like reading and exercising to the early morning with the early riser. Having a decent amount of sleep plus something to look forward to would help me not resent being up so awfully early.

I'd try leaving her for a bit - to see if she'd just chat for a while and go back to sleep. You'll know if she becomes upset. 4 am is brutal. Hang in there, sister.

I'd make it a family-wide change, personally, and not a kid-specific thing. To me, that would feel a lot more gentle. You can lead in with, "hey I've been reading about this low-carb thing and I want us to give it a try. Let's spend some time together looking for low-carb recipes we might like to try."

Definitely yes. My 7 y/o second grader often read an AG book in a day.

That type of stuff happens here, too, and drives me batty! When a child is seeking offense, they are sure to find it. I usually have them go back and try again, preferably with an over-the-top kindness. So, "oh, hey, that's not how we talk to the people who are dear to us, please try again as though you truly and dearly love this sister." And ideally, the rude kid would see the error of her ways and say, "yes, dear sister, of course you're welcome to see what I'm looking at." Sometimes it turns out well, sometimes not. I also occasionally am snappy with the kids, realize the error of my ways and model this exact same thing. "Oh, dear child whom I love so dearly, let me try again, will you be so kind as to pick up your shoes from this walkway and deposit them in the correct place?" If I you come up with something that works at your house, please let us all know!

Do you do standard kinder after junior kinder, or is it instead of junior kinder? If it's a choice between one or the other, and he'll do first grade the following year regardless, I'd choose junior. But if doing junior meant he'd do kinder the next year as a six year old, I'd choose plain kindergarten.

I think that the folks who have suggested harnessing grandparent help are onto something. "hi, Paige! I want to come over tomorrow afternoon - will that work for you?" "Sure, Mom, you know we love to see you! It IS a busy afternoon, but geez, they all are! Kid2 has a doctor appointment at 3:30, I wonder if you'd rather run him into town for me, or hear Kid3's reading and make sure everyone has their math done?"

I launder by room - so the huz and I get a load, Kids1&3 get a load and Kids2&4 get a load. I do not sort, whatever is in that room's dirty clothes basket goes into the washer. So all that is on an as-needed basis. If the basket is full, I wash. Some people aren't great about getting their stuff into their dirty baskets, and their laundry just doesn't get done until they get around to it. But then the clean/dry stuff goes upstairs by room, just like it went down. The kids put their own stuff away, with help for the littler girls. And I eventually put away the grow up stuff. Probably.

My favorite Christmas tradition is one I made for our family. Since then I've seen very similar things on the internets, but I love it and my kids do, too. December 1st I hang a ribbon with a 25 little envelopes, one per day. Then each day has a little business-card sized paper that has a special thing for the day. Some are things that would be happening anyway, like going to the Christmas Eve service at church or making a batch of our favorite cookies. Others are tiny, like wearing Christmas socks that day. And I always keep a "read one of the Christmas books from our bookshelf" card in reserve just in case our day can't handle what I'd originally planned. I like that we spread the celebrating out all month, which for me takes a lot of pressure off of the Christmas Day Experience. I love seeing my girls' excitement about seeing what is in each envelope, even the small things are more special because they come from the envelopes. And I like that I can add or take away as they grow and mature. Having a bubble bath isn't what it used to be, but red and green toenails are totally in. My other favorite is fajitas for Christmas dinner. Everyone can make a fajita they like out of the mountain of options, and I don't have to make a turkey. :)

My little bitty people (think under 4) usually wear a two-piece suit, to make bathroomery easier. My older gals prefer to have their bellies covered. If they wanted to wear a bikini, I'd probably go for it. But not a skimpy one.

Quite frankly, I'd not have my girls in a school like that. My people attend a UMS school (so they go to a school two days a week and we homeschool the other 3, and everything works together) - their idea of existing is to partner with parents, equipping them to educate their children. I think somewhere that's discouraging that connection and downplaying the very real and present feelings of a little bitty kid wouldn't fit the needs of my sensitive children. And anyone who told my kid they were "acting like a baby" would not continuing in a teaching role for that kid. I'm sorry for your girl and the hurt she had, and sorry that you're feeling conflicted and upset about the incident.

Great, thanks! I just put that one on hold at the library. :001_smile:

I love to sew. And to read, but sewing usually wins over reading.

Y'all. I have four (4) daughters. I'm realizing that I haven't done, to date, a good job teaching them to talk through all the feelings. And believe you me, we have a lot of feelings. One girl, the eldest, is a stuffer. The next girl is more of a yeller. The third daughter is probably the best at the feelings, she's 4. And the 2 y/o is, you know, 2. I need help helping them. I feel out of my league here. Generally, I do a reasonably good job talking about my own feelings and handling things as they come up, but somehow I've not yet transmitted this stuff to my people. Any ideas? Thanks for thinking with me. ETA: They're 2, 4, 6 and 8.

It sure wouldn't be a moral dilemma for me - but it is for him. I agree with the other gals that he oughta just ask the boss. Most likely he'll feel relieved to have spoken about it, have the permission to do what he needs to do, and move on with life. I do think you'd be in the right to all-but insist he speak to the supervisor about it, though, rather than continuing on as is.

This may be a bit different for homeschooled kids, but I'm *sure* my parents never hardly even would have recognized my friends' parents after elementary school. By the time kids have some activities they're involved in (where they'll see those friends) and then later can drive, they really can manage their own friendships, right? I mean, my 8 and under crowd typically has whole-family playdates, so I'm on the lookout for moms I enjoy, but I can't imagine that middle school and high school aged kids would be in the same boat. Am I wrong?

Teaching my girls to sew is a long-term project. I've had each of the bigger girls (they're 6 and 8) do probably just about every step of a project, but not all at one go. Even my littler girls (they're 4 and 2) can take pins out and enjoy doing it. The bigs have traced and cut pattern pieces, pinned them onto the real fabric, cut that out, pinned things together, threaded the sewing machine, done straight line sewing, removed pins, pressed seams, and sewed on buttons. Neither of them has really made a whole project (beanbags excluded), but I think either of them could. One thing that helps my people quite a bit is to set the sewing machine up on a kid-height table, so that they don't have to stretch their little leggies so far to reach the go-pedal. My ironing board also can be set up lower, which I do believe is safer for them. ETA: I *try* to always say "yes!" when they offer to help with a project, no matter what it is.

I'd totally give it a go! I have 4 girls - aged 2, 4, 6 and 8. Right now 2 and 6 share a room and 4 and 8 share, with a set of bunk beds in each (tiny) kid room. I have a crazy idea of putting all four of them in the (huge) master bedroom so we can have a bonus room, but I can't talk the huz into giving up our nice closet. If I were to follow through with my scheme, I'd set a timeframe -- we'll give this a whirl for 3 months and see how everyone likes it. Before that I'd not make any major furniture purchases or even paint, but after that we'd commit for a more long-term stay.

oh, yikes - I hope I didn't offend you RedSquirrel. I see now that I may have. Please forgive? I hadn't at all meant to imply that YOU don't tolerate negative emotions. My particular kid does not or can not do her best work when she is in the depths of despair. From what I can see, every required exertion at that point oppresses her. So the carrying on while in the midst of a Grumpy Episode for me feels unproductive. Does that go differently at your house? I'm quite honestly surprised to hear that the brainstorming for writing a paragraph is considered a difficult/problematic exercise. I mean, I guess I saw that in my living room this morning, but I assumed that the problem was with the kid. To me it seems like getting the ideas out there before doing that actual writing would separate those things and allow the kid to develop the skills on their own?

That makes sense, Ellie. I know she can enjoy writing, but it definitely wasn't happening with the story about the hike. And I see your point that certain things may be useless to her, and her resistance, though passive, has become an issue for me. So maybe my how-to-deal needs to be coaching on how to talk through the feelings and move on from there? (Oh, honey, I hear that you think the brainstorming won't be helpful for your paragraph and you'd rather just write the thing... how about we just give it 90 seconds? Does that sound okay?) Is that a reasonable goal for this age, to think she could potentially talk about it instead of withdrawing?

Yes! Definitely. 4 y/o apologized. And with help, 8 y/o talked through it: "Little Sister, when you told me to move, I felt mad." "Big Sister, I'm sorry and next time I won't bounce the couch while you're reading." But the default would have been to flop away and bear a grudge for a while. 4 probably would have been oblivious. I'm not at all sure that the writing thing is out of touch with her abilities. Maybe just the structured-ness of it? This is a kid who writes pages and pages about a Cat Family or aliens from Mars or whatever and delights in it.

Ellie, I really appreciate your perspective. You're totally right that some things might not fit her learning style or mood or whatever. Sometimes we can still adjust .how. we approach the work even if the assignment itself is set. The brainstorming assignment (quite possibly stupid, I agree) I approached as a conversation in which I would take notes for her -- "okay, so you're going to write on that hike we took when we got lost - what else do you remember about it? What kind of tracks did we see? Can you remember what the weather was like?" And her math stuff, which she was perfectly capable of but not so confident in, I've started sitting right next to her for and just repeating the things she says. That has helped - she feels more supported in the math effort but is still supplying all the brainpower. I see the issue not really as a discipline one, though eye-rolling and loud huffs and whatever totally can fall under that category. A similar pattern of behavior crops up sometimes in sibling relationships for this kid - a slightly annoying 4 y/o sister asks the reading 8 y/o to move over on the couch so that she can have more room to bounce. 8 huffs loudly and says, "fine, I'll just sit nowhere then!" in a .tone. and flops over to sit in a windowsill. It's a passive-aggressive thing here, and I suspect the same stuff is going on with the school work, though with less outward drama.