On the bad days, I try to remind myself that I'd STILL have to do all that I'm doing, if they were in PS (bring home homework, do laundry, shop, outings, etc). The only thing they would get more of is time to pass notes in class, or perhaps play with friends in PE, that sort of thing. I don't work outside the home right now, but I have health issues that keep me from doing all for them that I would like. Are there any subjects you can cut from the list? Especially since you've got three. It looks like a lot. (I say that not being real familiar with most of what you're using; if it's all taught in small bits, it may be fine.) I know your dh is trying to work from home, but is he actually helping you as well, or is he basically babysitting while you're gone? Because if he is, he will need to pick up some of that slack ... you can't do it all. (If he is helping, then good for him!)

I keep most papers during the year in a binder. In the preschool years, that gets pretty unwieldy fast! So at the end of the year I pare it down a bit. But I do still keep a binder, and any workbooks completed, just for my own records. Field trip flyers and things, too, in case I should ever need to 'prove' school days. As my oldest is getting older (first grade now), our notebook system isn't working as well, so not sure what I am going to do. Probably still keep samples in a binder, and completed workbooks. I keep each year or so in a banker's box (cardboard, cheap) along with papers we submitted. Hopefully this will be useful. Definitely going to weed it down once they graduate though! Keep the cutest bits for scrapbooks.

I would ditto seeing a (good) therapist or counselor, as well as seeking medical help. Many health issues can cause depression (like someone mentioned above, thyroid issues are one), and depression/anxiety can cause health issues too. So you want someone to help you take care of your body as well as your mind, if that makes sense. You may or may not be comfortable starting off medication right away, but you at least want to know there's not some other problem contributing, and you want to know what your options are if you do choose to pursue medication. And since so many meds do have initial periods of side effects, you want good coping strategies and support when you start them.

Are there state regulations about how many children can be in a room with one teacher? I know around here, 18 kids to one teacher wouldn't be okay... at least not in the daycares and mother's day out programs I've seen. Maybe other schools have other rules. Anyway, I think one adult to 18 four-year-olds is a disaster waiting to happen, no matter how good the teacher. :)

I don't think it matters. I've not tried the online lessons, but read his books as a kid (Draw Squad and Imagination Station) and really, you can do them in any order. The books' lessons build up in each book, but they all go back to one of his key words or ideas, and they are all step by step. I don't think his books have to be done in any particular order. I just pulled them out the other day to show to my first grader, and we did the first part of lesson one in Draw Squad. We had fun. :) We learned about foreshortened circles, and drew some cubes and cylinders (birthday cakes and tables and candles).

Now, that's a catalog I'd like to see. Books for kids who don't need the repetition, but that does introduce the basics just in case you did miss something (with skippable lessons). We're going to try FLL next year ... I see it's very scripted, but I figured I'd do like I do with everything else and adapt it. I like that it's light and gentle.

I'd have to agree, it depends what you're fighting. In our old place, I would never have thought of hiring a pest control person. But we moved (a mere few blocks away) and the bugs were awful! It was truly intolerable. Nothing worked. So we called, and we haven't looked back. It's so much better. That said, once we got the problem under control, he's only been spraying outside ... I don't like pesticides if I can help them. But sometimes it's better than the alternative.

We love 'em here. But I do limit how often. I grew up eating them ... they were a treat, LOL, an ethnic food from my mother's childhood in Hawaii. I had no idea they were 'cheap convenience' foods till college, when many of my friends lived on them! I have to avoid them on certain days, as sodium is a migraine trigger for me, but I do like them.

Logic puzzles are good for making inferences based on facts given ... deductive reasoning. My son has loved them since I pulled them out in January ... he loves 'solving the mysteries'.

Ditto the Leapfrog and also the Scholastic DVDs. If you're using them on the computer, Reading Rainbow has DVD/CD-ROM episodes with games ... pricey but the one we got was fun.

Tons of stuff in Birmingham. Including Scholastic's warehouse sales. :) And I think the state convention is usually there? AL is a great state to homeschool.

((Hugs)) I'm half-adopted ... my mom divorced an extremely abusive husband and remarried when I was about 5. Our new father adopted us. When I was 19 (and after my dad passed away), my birth father's family contacted us. It was very traumatic. (They also had the gall to do it on Mother's Day, of all things.) They just showed up on our doorstep. After all that shock and confusion, my sister and I later made the decision to drive up north and meet our birth father. It hit my mom hard. He, and his family, had been so awful to her (though even she will admit they were never awful to us), that she just couldn't accept that we might want to meet him. Now, I hardly have contact with the man ... his fault, not mine, the man just can't write a note to anyone. But I do contact his mother a few times a year, and send photos of my kids, and stuff. Since our contact has been minimal, my mother calmed down somewhat. I think it helped when we affirmed that yes, he'd been horrible, and yes, he still had a temper, but he had sure mellowed a lot. There have been rough moments (like when my sis wanted to invite them to her wedding), but since mostly it has nothing to do with her, and she can see that they are NOT usurping a parent's place in our hearts, she has let it go. We mostly don't talk about it with her. I know that's not the same as your situation, it's a different kind of hurt, but I just wanted to say, I understand where you're at. I wish I could have better relations with them all, but it just hasn't worked out. I am so sorry you have to keep this secret, and I hope that your mom will understand when she is told. This is the sort of thing that counselors can help with, help you understand how to talk to her and bring things up. The book Boundaries can be good too, to keep you from carrying guilt and worry that isn't yours to carry. (And it's cheaper than counseling, LOL.)

I think it's both, really. But I can only speak from my own schooling experiences, which were public schools. I was motivated to do well because I loved learning, but I also learned early on that it wasn't necessary to slave over an assignment when thirty minutes of work would get me an A. And there were so many other things I wanted to learn, that school things sometimes slipped. I was also shy, so I had a hard time seeking out opportunities. I did well with what was offered, including spelling bees and scholar's bowl, but I would have a hard time approaching the administrators to start new things. (We did start a high school chess club and an Odyssey of the Mind team, but because of no support and guidance, all our motivation got us nowhere.) So I think even motivated kids need some support, and where I was, we didn't have much of it. I can see my kids showing signs of being much the same as they grow, which is one good reason for me to keep them home as long as possible. But I still have to battle my personal shyness to provide them the support and opportunities they need.

Mine are still so young, but I do plan to teach things. I'm of the young-earth-creationist mindset, and dh is not. So at least that one will be covered. LOL. Right now, Ted's into numbers ... asking when the earth was made is one of them. (He's 7.) So we talked about how the earth had to be made at least before the Bible was written, and how it goes back to around 4,000 BC or so, so the earth had to be at least 6,000 years old. (My numbers may be off, forgive me, medication fog today.) And then I explained that some people had done experiments and thought it might even be millions of years old, but that others read the results a different way. That's as deep as it went, and he had enough of an answer to satisfy him. I figure I was at least able to present both sides very gently and with respect. Which is what I hope to do with other issues as they come up. I want them to understand and lovingly respect the right of others to think differently, while understanding strongly why he believes the way he does, and what questions and opposition he may encounter. But that's mostly for later. Right now, still very young.

Another option to consider: She may be having a reaction to a medication... many of them can cause mood or personality changes if there's an extreme reaction. Worth reading the fine print on anything she's taking, if the behavior has grown more pronounced lately, and she's started new stuff (which could be possible, given her medical history). I've got family members with some similar personality characteristics, and in their cases, that's all it is. Annoying quirks. If it got suddenly worse, though, I would definitely be concerned. In at least one case, it's annoying personality combined with genuine grief and some serious life stress.

Tara, is she seeing a pulmonologist for the asthma? There are pediatric pulmonologists in Huntsville. They seem pretty good, though my sister had some issues with their treatment of her daughter (whose asthma was FAR more severe than anyone ever caught on, till the family moved and had to get a new doctor who figured out the problem). I do hope you find out what's going on! That sounds horribly scary. If you need the pulmonologist group, send me a PM and I'll find their information for you.

I would agree about keeping important documents like marriage certificates (that's the genealogist in me talking) and the death certificate (which he may need to prove benefits and things, at unexpected times). Photos, yes. Old receipts, no. Poems, maybe. That'd be more your husband's call, I think. I don't know that I'd be comfortable displaying things ... but I would want to have the special things accessible for the kids when they want them. You're sweet to be doing this. :)

Both the resellers amendment and the stay still require that the seller 'be sure' that their products are safe. So it only saves the paperwork, really. And how can they be sure (in any legal sort of sense) without testing? I'm not really seeing the benefit of this stay.

I guess we're lucky. :) I consider us partners. I do most of the actual teaching, but he works so that I can stay home. I choose curriculum, but I discuss my goals with him to make sure we're in agreement, and he helps me make sure my choices are within our budget. I slog through the daily assignments, and he provides my balance by reminding me not to cut out all the fun stuff if we get behind. He takes my kids on the field trips that my health doesn't allow me to manage but that we feel are important or too fun to miss. And he definitely knows the ages and levels of our kids, but then, we only have the two. And he never gets MY age right. LOL. (He thinks I stopped having birthdays at 26.) My dh rocks. ETA: I would call him the 'principal' of our homeschool, simply because he does have administrative oversight. :-) I'm the teacher and curriculum specialist, I guess. And janitor. LOL.

Can I ask what the difference is between old-earth creationism and theistic evolution? I am confused. I understand old earth vs. young earth creationism.

See if you can count the credit even if he takes it in 8th grade. That helps. You can always add a consumer math kind of class, with practical life skills math ... balancing a checkbook, planning a budget, reading stock market info, or whatever you think is appropriate. Credit for math, life skills, and not pushing too far, all in one tidy package. :)

I didn't get pre-algebra, but I also did Algebra in 8th. My mother had to drive me twenty minutes to the high school every day to accomplish this. Why I got to do it, and not some of the other kids, I will never grasp. (And I still had to do 8th grade math on top of it! Ack!) Then, they tried to enroll me in Algebra all over again in 9th. I camped out in the counselor's office for three days till they sorted it out. No way was I going to do that ALL OVER AGAIN! Oh, and they ran out of math after Trig, so I had a year to kill at the end. They wanted us to drive forty minutes away (and back again) to take Calculus at another high school. What a waste of a school morning. My mom wouldn't let me. (And I don't blame her.) I have no problem with kids who are ready doing algebra early. But I don't think all kids are really ready for it. At least with homeschooling, though, the logistics are a lot easier!

My son is in first grade, and ahead in math. We're just working through Horizons a year ahead. (So he's in the second grade books.) This is working well for him. It's letting him take the time for fine motor skills to catch up. It's 'easy' for him most of the time, so he has fun with it. But there are challenges (he's perfectly capable of doing three digit subtraction with borrowing, but doesn't like to take the time to do more than one problem!) that he's got to master before he can move on. There are things we probably need to drill before he moves up a level ... mastery of multiplication would be good ... but so far I'm liking this choice. I hear a lot of folks go from Horizons to Teaching Textbooks. It looks interesting to me, but someone above posted that it's not very rigorous. Is that true? I know dh will want him to do rigorous math in high school.

I just heard there's a new 'stay of enforcement' about testing requirements ... which sounds like a good thing ... till you read the fine print and find out it's exactly like what they said about resellers ... they don't have to test or certify (yet) but they do have to be sure their products are safe. Which sounds like a burden still to me. Sigh.

I can say, if you have a migraine ... you do very, very quiet subjects that day. :-) Keep a stash of fun-yet-educational coloring sheets in an emergency folder, and a stash of Reading Rainbow and Magic School Bus videos. Plus snacks. :-D I deal with health issues, one of which has turned out to be migraines in the last couple years (yippee). We get through it. I'm lucky to only get one or two a month; I'm sure it would be harder if that was more often. Lessons that can be done in small chunks, books you can snuggle on the sofa to read, and independent learning activities, are all things that will help you through any sick days you encounter.