Two of my children are adopted from my sister. My parent are raising her three other children. My dd12 never lived with those siblings but we visit and she does feel something toward them. She's also closer with her biological brother that we adopted (ds16mo) than my other children. I don't regret adopting these two though. It was in their best interests. Adopting the other three weren't an option given to us (we would have happily adopted them too). The system is set up with rules that are meant to be in the best interests of the children but when those rules aren't in the best interests of certain children they become really hard to break. They system is poor but there really isn't a great way to fix it without a MAJOR overhaul.

Interesting topic. As a Canadian I am constantly having to switch back and forth between metric and imperial. My US friends seem to have to do much less of this. I think that we probably have to deal with travel issues more often. For example, google maps says that a certain trip will take 17 hours of driving and is x km/miles away. We have to figure out if google is realistic for our family (it never is) and then where to stay for the night based on how far we estimate that we will have travelled by nightfall. We need to be able to catch a scam more. For example, The Brick might be selling in couches for "low monthly payments of $49". We need to be able to figure out what that means when you add up the interest accrued over 3 year. How much more will we be paying by buying on credit then by just saving up the money and buying the couch outright. People would definitely be better equipped if they had more experience dealing with statistics. People throw statistics around all the time to persuade people of their opinion. Simply knowing the different strengths and weakness of mode, median and mean averages would make a load of difference. There's a great little book that we have called, "How to Lie with Statistics." I plan to have my children understand that book thoroughly before they leave home. Our society is also more science based then ever and so math related to technology, like binary or hexadecimal, has more relevance. Understanding logarithmic scales is relevant to understanding news about earthquakes. I'm getting a little esoteric here. I doubt my mother or father would understand these examples but nonetheless I think that it's best if we can roughly understand the science around us.

We're incubating baby #7 at the moment. I think that they were all worth it. Some dreams may have to go but new ones arise.

That's soooo rude! It's not like you signed up to be a part of reality TV show just because you put your house on the market.

Homemade mac and cheese?

R&S

Some people don't realise this but celiac can lead to constipation rather than the classic diarrhea.

I hope no one thinks that my dc are unhelpful. They do so much work for me. What I'd really like is a break from having to think and organize everybody's work load. I'd like to be able to take a nap and wake up to them being constructive rather running around like maniacs with the littles because I forget to give explicit directions before I went down. I must sound whiny. This thread is helping me be a little more realistic in my expectations. I frequently fall into the trap of expecting too much of my oldest. It's easy to expect them to be adults before they're time. Thanks for the reminder!

A razor? What's that?

The title says it all. My two 12yos will very occasionally pitch in without some direction on my part but it's still rare. I'm in my first trimester and I could REALLY use a little extra responsibility from them.

You can do it! Don't let the naysayers say otherwise. They've just never seen it done. If you look at my signature you'll see that I've got a crazy age split. My four littles can be such a handful. We can still get work done. It'll take you a little while to find your groove and you'll probably struggle at little at first but it is possible. Toddler proofing your house will make a difference but also try to plan some special school time activities to keep your toddler busy and stimulated during school time. If you newborn is really tiny keep in mind that you're probably feeling overwhelmed because everything in life is overwhelming for the first couple of months after you birth a baby. Also, good discipline of your older three will help a lot. They can rotate entertaining the toddler.

I'm glad you figured things out. It might be worth contacting someone (like the BBB) about it or at least finding every place on the internet that you can to warn others.

I've got a set of these books given to me and I'm toying with using them to supplement WWS with my son that is struggling (I think that he might be slightly dyslexic/dysgraphic). I've got book A, 1 and 2 and the teachers manual. What are your thoughts?

I have a daughter that used to clam up with narrations. One thing that I've found over time is that she simply wasn't understanding what I was reading in a deep enough way to be able to narrate back to me. For example, we have recently been reading a book called The Story of Canada. I tried reading it to my two older children a few years ago and both of them were interested in what I was reading but for some reason I dropped the book. We just recently picked it up again and I thought that I would do a light read-aloud with them. Dd has commented several times how much more the passage is making sense to her this time around. We've had this experience with several subjects. I've read and explained several times how the planets rotate around the sun, how the moon rotates around the earth, how the earth rotates on an axis and how the seasons are created. We used models. She seemed to understand but it wasn't until this year that it solidified when she asked me why there are time zones and I went over the explanation again. She said something like, "Oh, that makes so much sense. I always wondered about that." I seriously wonder if some of the classical education movement is expecting too much understanding out of children in the grammar stage. For example, the ambleside.org reading list is WAY to mature for my children even though they are quite used to the language of old books. I don't know if this would work for you but what about talking to her about her anxiety and suggest to her that you try a really babyish book just to see if the source of the problem is that reading is to complicated. Try a book WAY below her level, like a Berenstein Bears book. Usually the title can almost be turned into a narration without even reading the book. You could even tell her ahead of time that if she's still having trouble to not cry but to just let you know that it still feels too hard. This might give you a clue as to whether comprehension might be a problem or not.

Normally: ketchup - I call it candied tomato sauce - blech! sweet pickles processed cheese most overly processed food (like boxed beef stroganoff) raw zucchini ginger - unless it's well blended with other food chocolate with mint - like them separately, but hate them together, reminds me of chocolate toothpaste When I pregnant (like now): everything except cheese

Does she wet the bed? I ask because there is a strong correlation between bed wetting and constipation (symptomatic and asymptomatic). There's a ped urologist that works with bed wetters and has them do nightly enemas rather than stool softeners because they just work better for clearing constipation (if you're interested - his website is: www.bedwettingandaccidents.com). The problem with constipation is that when you're chronically constipated the colon gets stretched out of shape like a used balloon. It can take months for the correct shape to return.

I have 2 12yos. While they're not horrid to each other most of the time they definitely compete regularly and try to be at the top of the pecking order. They're both trying to become adults and the easiest way to do that (in their minds) is to peck their way to the top. I wonder if a good part of your problem is that your 12yo needs to be helped into a more mature stage of life. I can see my boy going through this. My boy has needed new freedoms and responsibilities. Does your dh do a job that he can enlist in you ds's help? If not maybe they could do some make work projects together, like building a fence or fixing up a car. My boy thrives on this sort of stuff. He loves knowing more than me about certain things. It makes him feel like a man in the right sort of way. Maybe he could busy himself doing some sort of 12yo job like lawn care or paper delivery. Or maybe if you've got a little extra cash he could do a short course on something boyish, like electronics tinkering or basic carpentry. You said that he's anti-sports but does he like swimming? Could he do some swimming lessons? My boy is just a ridiculous handful if he's not adequately stimulated. My 4yo is the same too. They just need mental and physical outlets besides just reading and washing dishes. Just think about what the average man would become if he had to live in your role without masculinizing it. That's probably not all there is to the problem but it might be one avenue you could take to relieve yourself a little.

I had issues when I was a teen because I couldn't find the opening! I tried several times but I would get so freaked out that I would give up and just sit out from swimming (FWIW - my family was not at all conservative). Maybe she's partly not able to figure things out because she's a little anxious about the whole process and she's just giving up too quickly.

I know that this isn't modern, but what about "Pride and Prejudice", "Jane Eyre" or similar books? They've got nice strong characters to get to know. Stay away from Wuthering Heights. I remember despising that book in my senior year because of how dark it was. I gave up half way, got Cole's Notes, wrote my essay and threw away the book.

Intersting, I'm completely ignorant of the situation south of the border. That might be interesting for my children to look into.

In particular I was thinking that it might be nice to have something that would present both sides. A lot of current sentiment is that us modern folk realise how evil the system was and would never have participated in it if we were living 75 years ago. Not that I agree with their reasoning but the people that created the system and perpetuated it believed that they had good reasons to go about kidnapping children from their families. I'd like a resource that doesn't demonize these people partly so that I can help my children learn from history. When we demonize a group of people in history we're less likely to recognize the ways in which we might get caught up in the same deceptions that they were a part of.

I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions for good preschooler worksheets that would take more than 2 minutes to complete. It seems to not end up being worth my time to sift through 20 crummy ones to find one good one when I'm really just trying to buy time for schooling my big kids. Are there free printable books of worksheets that could save time in printing? Other ideas?

Good idea with the daylight suggestion. I think that I'll try to work that in. DH is an MD but he doesn't have any suggestions.

Have any of you had this problem? My 12yo DD is a terrible night owl and as much as I try to control her sleep she'll lie in bed till 11 or so and then has difficulty getting up in the morning. We wake her between 7 and 7:30 every morning without fail (she'll sleep through any alarm). She's been like this her whole life. The trouble is that she's sleepy during lessons. Letting her nap just exacerbates the problem. We were having a bad day today and I thought maybe I'd see if any of you have had this problem or have any brillant solutions.

I was just doing those lessons this week. I didn't realise that there was an issue with trapeziums. I just googled it, blech! Now I have to run off and find out what the Canadian definition is. I just thought that trapezium was just a different way of saying trapezoid.