My daughter is interested in theatre so we are going to work on little monologues written for children. I have found several on the internet and there are monologue books available on amazon etc that are not very expensive. In addition, she also works on memorizing her prayers and since she does enjoy theatre, she memorizes lines/songs for the shows that she does.

I am not a member of a HS group by choice but I do have an issue with some statements of faith. Recently, I wanted to get my daughter involved in a homeschool drama group but I just could not do it because of the SOF that I was told that I would need to sign. If it is contrary to my beliefs, I will not sign it for any reason.

I am a no here. I belong to a few email lists of local homeschoolers that I get info from. I was a member of a group a few years ago but it was not a good fit for me. I work nights 28 hours a week and with homeschooling, I just can't operate on anyone else's time table for activities other than the things my daughters do. I am fortunate that my sister, SIL and closest friend all homeschool so I do not have to be alone if I choose not to.

My children are crazy about the old Electric Company series. We have watched and watched and watched. The punctuation song is a particular favorite and they sing it during school often.

For anyone awaiting this program I thought I would let you know that release date has apparently been pushed back to May rather than March. I emailed the company to ask when it would be released and they gave me this information this morning. Unfortunately, it throws a big wrinkle into my math plans since we begin our new school year this month.

I have not used it but there is a DVD from Netflix called "Prayers for Little Children" that covers the Hail Mary Our Father and some other prayers. There is another in the series called "The Rosary for little Children" as well but I forgot to check and see if Netflix has that one or not. I think they do though.

I looked up Dilaudid in my drug reference book and it specifically says that it is not recommended for children or nursing mothers. Zofran lists nursing mothers under precautions but there are recommended doses for children. It was prescribed for me when I was in my 1st trimester due to severe morning sickness. It is an anti-nausea medication rather than a pain reliever.

I understand why the doctor would speak to your daughter but you are her mother, your daughter has you there with her so I feel there should still be some respect there on the part of the doctor. My daughters are younger but an attitude like that from a doctor is one thing I will not tolerate. No one knows my children better than I do and most of the time, I know more about what is going on with them then they do. My younger daughter has some issues and we are now on our third orthopedist, who we drive 6 hours one way to see, and our second urologist who we drive an hour to see. Probably at this point though your daughter is going to have to speak up and let the doctor know in no uncertain terms that you are going to be part of her care.

I looked at the Teaching Textbooks placement test for the grade 4 program and a lot of the material on it, is not in the table of contents until the end of the year. So, in my thinking and with what I have looked at on the website, I think it will work for my daughter even though she can't answer all of the questions on the placement test because most of the year is spent working up to that point anyway. It's late. Does that make sense at all?

I call right away. My OB sees me from as early as I call. I have had two miscarriages and my youngest daughter born with a birth defect so I personally don't put it off. I want the knowledge that someone else is looking out for us as well. I have also had difficult pregnancies so waiting for me would not be an option. I usually need the IV fluids before 10-12 weeks.

I actually make mine by taking the leftover chicken carcass and the pan drippings and then cover in water and boil on the stove. Makes some really good chicken and dumplings too when it is all done.

I used to live in Austin and I would have to go with the Texas answer. I loved it there (well, except for the fire ants and the heat in the summer). My practicality wins out though because I can't imagine living anywhere else. My youngest daughter was born with a clubfoot and it has been difficult enough getting her good ortho care here in the US but that problem is worse outside the US. I have one friend who brought her son to the US from South Africa for his foot treatment.

I am one of the many thousand Jennifer's out there and when I was in middle school, there were 4 of us that were in pretty much all the same classes together. I had always been called Jenny but I changed the spelling to Jenni when I was in 8th grade. It still sticks around to this day. My oldest daughter (age 7) wanted to change her name to Celia after watching "The Apple Dumpling Gang" but that has not stuck. That is the only discussion we have had about it so far.

My oldest used to beg me to teach her to read starting at 3.5. I used the Hooked on Phonics program and it worked extremely well for her and she is now 7 and is a very advanced, excellent reader. My younger daughter, age 5, much to our surprise, has taught herself to read by taking the little phonics I have taught her to date (two levels of HOP) and she does memorize every word she comes into contact with. She recently picked up the first Chronicles of Narnia book and began reading it to herself (not sure of the actual comprehension but she can make out the words). She is not intimidated by anything but I am concerned with what it is going to be like to teach her the rest of the phonics that she needs for spelling etc. It should be interesting.

We did Connections Academy for one month when my daughter was in K. I hated it. It used a slightly modified Calvert Curriculum which I did not like at all and neither did my daughter. It took only a few weeks to turn my daughter, who previously begged to do school work, into a crying child every day asking if we had to do school. I did not like the teacher structure and I thought a lot of the work requested was ridiculous for a small child. We quit after one month. My sister and SIL also did it with older children and their work load was unbelievable. My sister, who BTW is very disciplined, could not get all of the work done for her two boys in one day without 8 hours spent doing it. The teachers in our experience were also just out of college and had next to no experience. My sister has a master's degree in education and they were telling her things were wrong that absolutely were not wrong. I know it works for some but it was not worth it to us.

Go to http://www.zamzar.com. This will download and convert the youtube file to a usable file type for your computer. You can convert to wma for video or mp3 if you just want music. They will email the converted file to you within 24 hours. It is all free. I have used it several times.

For me, the visitation/viewing at a funeral is not comforting at all. It all stems back to me being a little girl when my Grandpa, who I loved dearly, died. To this day, my final memory of him is in his coffin and I HATE that. I had seen him the week before he died which is an absolutely lovely memory and I wish I had been left with that. When my FIL died after his battle with cancer, my MIL and I elected to not have an open casket viewing. We had the visitation with a slide show of pictures showing him how he was and not what the cancer had done to him. We got to say our private goodbyes the morning he passed away at home before the funeral home was called. I did not want my children to see him that way and be left with the same memories I have. I have been to A LOT of funerals in my life time and for me, having the body there is never comforting. I find it very interesting the different approaches people have to death. I have been to funerals before where people even take pictures of the body. I had to go to a funeral in November for a 6 week old baby and I was praying that the casket would not be open. Thankfully it wasn't.

The CAtholic church does allow cremation as long as the remains are still buried together. The scattering of the ashes is not allowed. As for the ashes not being allowed in the Church, some of that is based on where you live and what Archdiocese governs your area. My father in law was cremated three years ago and had a full Catholic funeral, at the Church with his ashes right up front where the coffin would be. His ashes were then laid to rest in a marble crypt like area designed for cremated ashes. There is room in the same "grave" area for my MIL to be buried when she passes. I definitely want to be cremated. I personally also LOATHE open casket visitation etc so my husband has been given strict instructions as to what I want if I go before him.

I work from home now and I actually own more PJ's than actual clothes. My husband in the winter changes into PJ bottoms with a sweatshirt or just sweatpants. In the spring/summer, he has some comfy shorts/T-shirts that he changed into. We are all about the comfort here. My oldest daughter, 7, is addicted to footie pajamas and would never take them off if I would allow it. She lives in them.

I knew going into it that my family would be supportive since my older siblings both homeschool so it is a family affair. I was worried about my in-laws but wow, I was pleasantly surprised. They had some questions but were supportive from the onset. My MIL goes to a lot of garage sales, thrift stores etc and always has a list with her of books that I want. I have found more resistance among my friends, none of whom homeschool.

My children both got a stomach virus right before Christmas with exactly this happening. It woke them up about 1 AM and the vomiting began. It continued for a few hours and then, later in the day, they felt fine again. At first, liquids were problematic too but then I was able to get them to start drinking slow sips. Hopefully, it passes quickly like ours did.

Last year, I administered the CAT test (reading and math only) from Seton. It cost $25 and they were very quick getting the results back to me. The nice thing about it was, each individual section is timed but you don't have to finish the whole test in one day or anything. So, we could easily do a section, take a break and then come back to it so there was no pressure to it. The instructions are very complete so it was not difficult to do at all.

The bakery for the GS cookies posted on their website that all of their peanut butter cookies are safe as no products came from the questionable peanut places.

The album with Allison Krauss and Robert Plant is AMAZING! I am so glad that they won.

I hated, hated, hated the math program. I scrapped it in the first week and was teaching math with my Horizons books I had at home. I thought the LA program was OK. It was nice in that all the components were covered but I found it all to be too much. The reading stuff was good - a mix of Junior Great Books, classic stories, poetry and the books they read although the 1st grade readers were far too easy from my advanced reader. The grammar lessons etc moved at a pretty quick pace. My daughter did fine with that but she has a gift for grasping the language and she did not need a lot of instruction there. If your child struggles with that, it might be more difficult. They also use Handwriting without tears which I don't like so we scrapped that as well. I found the whole LA program to be on a faster pace then I thought necessary. Personally, I would feel more accomplished if my 1st grader could competently write a good complete sentence than an invitation or other creative paragraph. I have heard from other parents that once you hit 3rd grade, this all gets even more aggressive. I know other parents have felt differently about this and really like the LA program. The Art class was nice but I felt it was more than we needed at this age. My daughter is still happy making paper bag puppets, so I don't feel we needed lessons studying lines at this point. Let me know if you have any other questions. I am happy to help.