I'm sorry.:grouphug: Prayers for you and your family.

We were at a wedding reception at a restaurant when an older lady walked in and sat next to us. She looked exactly like a bag lady with long unkempt hair, an oversized down jacket even though it was late summer, and dirty long nails. I thought that she walked in off the street to beg for food when she saw the reception going on. It turned out that she was from the wealthiest family in San Francisco and my brother's boss.

:grouphug: You are a great mom for being there for all your children, not just your DS1.

:grouphug:

she was selective with her questions....inserting herself in the debate with questions and comments of her own. That's all.

I agree. I'm sorry about your son:( But thanks for the warning in case I ever need it for myself or any one else I know.

at camping trips. Thanks. I'll make sure to check on the arrangements for tents before the next camping trip. I also talked with my ds about being thoughtful of others and courteous when making any refusals to requests. Then I sent a message to the mother of the other boys explaining the situation and making a suggestion that if her son needs help with his tent, then my ds can go over and help him with it if he will get help in return to set up his own tent at the next camping trip. That way, the boys can start learning to work together; that's if they still want to.

so I guess my ds didn't commit a major etiquette faux pas by not sharing his tent with the friend who didn't bring his. Thanks for the feedback:)

I have a question about the sharing of tents at a camp out. If a boy doesn't bring a tent for some reason and asks another boy if he can share his tent, is the other boy obligated to share it? Last summer, my ds went on a canoe trip along with a small group of other Boy Scouts, bringing his two man tent along. He's only eleven years old and had never even canoed before or been away from home for more than one night. He knew this other boy pretty well from church and had shared his tent with him on a previous one night camping trip which didn't go too well. The other boy had brought his tent that time but didn't want to set it up so he asked to share my ds's tent. My ds was happy to do so but was fed up when the friend dumped his stuff on him, taking off to go swimming. My ds had to set up his tent by himself, running out of time for swimming . The friend made a big mess inside later on. So on this canoe trip, when the friend asked if he could share the tent again, my ds said no. So the friend ended up sleeping under the stars along with a couple other boys. When my ds told me this a while later, I was taken aback. saying that maybe he should have shared the tent even if this friend was not very nice but then I left it at that. I thought the Boy Scout leaders would have stepped in if the friend really was upset and needed to go inside a tent. I'm asking about this because today at church, the mother of the friend walked up to where I was saying hello to another friend and looked through me as if I wasn't there. Then she turned her back on me and started chatting with the other friend, freezing me out. So, I wonder if my ds really did something terrible to her ds that he should apologize for? Is the refusal to share a tent a big no no even if it was hot at that time? What do you guys think? I'm a bit upset about this because this friend was a big factor in our choice of this boy scout troop. ETA to add: Also, the friend was loud and kept my ds awake until late on the first camping trip. I don't think we made arrangements about tents for the canoe trip but my ds joined at the last minute and this friend had signed up a while earlier but still didn't bring his tent. Plus his mother is a lawyer and has excellent social skills so her behavior to me this morning was deliberate, not because she was socially awkward. She had always smiled and said hello at least even though she was always cool to me but this morning, brrrrr, chilly.

my dh speeds when driving. Like he would go downhill really fast and then come to a screeching stop at the intersection. He says that as long as his foot is not on the accelerator, it's not too fast. Or he gets off the highway at 60 mph, keep his foot off the accelerator and then stop suddenly when he comes to the intersection. He used to ride motorcycles so I guess he misses the rush of dangerous riding. Oh, and he also leaves the mop or vacuum cleaner when he's done cleaning the floors and the hampers out after sorting the laundry. I annoy him by throwing out odd pieces of paper that turn out to have addresses or other important info. on them.

Our dil's live far away from us also and if we want to see them, we have to drive out there. We take turns visiting each other. I hope they don't mind having us there because we want to see them along with our sons and grandchildren. It's probably not easy for your mil and fil to have to travel a long way and to stay in a possibly uncomfortable place so that they can see you guys. At least, they are making the effort. It's tactless of fil to charge you for stuff without agreeing on the price beforehand. Sorry and I hope he won't charge you for stuff this time round. And I hope they don't comment on the clutter or the pond but I've caught myself making similar comments to my adult children. I was nervous and trying to make conversation. Maybe your mil and fil were feeling nervous in general and not meaning to pick on you? It'll be great for your children to see their grandparents, right? Try getting some take out food and take pictures of everybody. Time goes by so quickly and kids grow so fast and grandparents won't be around that long, really.

I've decided that I'll have my ds stay in the class as long as he feels somewhat comfortable. It gets awkward but the girls are genuinely nice and it'll be good for my ds to get the experience of talking to girls as friends:) He doesn't know older girls otherwise and knows only a couple girls his age to talk to as a friend. Then next year, I will look into either public or private schools where they offer French classes to part time students if there are still no boys by then taking homeschool French that are close to my ds's age and level. When and if he really wants to stop going to the class, I can probably find a tutor who can step in for the rest of the year but it'll be a lot more expensive. Or I can just put the class on hold until next year.

I said social situation because my ds is doing fine academically. The problem, as I see it, is with the social aspect. My ds is eleven years old and in a class with two other students who are both thirteen year old girls. The teacher is also a young girl, age sixteen. The class has been going on for a few weeks and now it seems that the girls are talking hair styles and other girl stuff since they are getting used to each other. I'm sure they don't mean to leave my ds out but it's just awkward. I'm not sure the class is really a good fit for him. I'm used to either big classes at schools or private tutoring. Also, the coop classes in the past had a better girl/boy ratio. And the way it's going, they might be in the same class for a couple years at least. My ds was very excited about the class until today. Now he's talking about dropping it for kick boxing where there are only boys:) I could also switch him to a home school Spanish class where there are quite a few boys his age. I had suggested it to him in the beginning of the season but he wanted French, not Spanish. One of the reasons I signed him up for the class was social. Now he's not really getting the boys his age. I'm deaf so there's no way I can help him with the pronunciations at home if we drop the class. Ugghhh.... My dh says the class is just fine and a good thing for my ds because it's a great opportunity to learn French at a good tuition rate. But I'm not sure of the emotional aspect of a boy two years younger than two girls. It just seems weird to me but is it because I'm locked into the public school mentality?

Praying here.:grouphug:

I'm using for my 6th grader the following... Calvert math BJU 6th grade science BJU reading Holt's Elements of Language - The Introductory Course Calvert's old spelling book A Child's Story of America as the history spine and selections from SOTW and activity guides to go along with it Calvert's Story of Sculpture Beautiful Feet's History of Music Various library books pulled from Calvert's old sixth grade course and the reading lists in the WWE books Geography - haven't decided yet Matin Latin and an outside French class The French class is a big part of what is making this year a good one. To my surprise, my ds is loving it! It's a small homeschool class taught by a sixteen year old girl who is taking AP French. She makes it a lot of fun. The hard part is the planning...I'm terrible at it.

Is your dd doing any grammar this year? I didn't see it on your list. I read all your lists with great interest as I used Calvert with my older kids way back in the mid 80's before Calvert had changed so much. I, too, love the Builders of the Old World and their old physical science book. I'll look for the animal book for my ds who loves animals. The list of movies looks wonderful too.

Yes, that's a good description of what my son is doing. Kind of a shrug, kind of a neck twist, and kind of a head roll. It's been going on for about three to four months now. I talked to him about it last night and asked if he's in any pain. He said no. I said that maybe he was having tics. His face lit up and said, "Yes, that's it!" So I reassured him that this was probably just it and that it should go away in a few months. He looked quite relieved. And I checked out the website that Perry linked to. Quite interesting. Thanks!

For the past few months, my ds has been shrugging and twisting his neck as if his neck is hurting or uncomfortable. It seems to get worse when he's under stress. Might it be growing pains?

are they considered as "lost and without Christ"? Is that what you said, seriously?

Hello, your ds sounds like a delightful and energetic little guy! Some guys including my youngest ds are a lot more restless and easily distracted than others. I even posted about him on this board in the past. Some advice I got was to use textbooks with few pictures to distract him and doing a lot of the work orally. Having him snuggle next to me on the couch to filled his need for physical touch. Also I let him doodle on his math and other workbook pages which seem to help him process his thoughts. Now that he is eleven, he has settled down quite a bit but there are times when we just have to put down the books and go outside for a break. But when he was interested in something such as his Pokemon cards or a book on animals, he was able to sit still for long periods of time and focus. That's how I could tell that he didn't have ADHD. How does your ds focus when he is on his own and doing his own thing like reading comic books or playing with toys?

because I couldn't listen to them along with the children. It was hard for me to locate the place on the cds to continue if we stopped before they were done. For English, I did use books on tapes for my high schoolers as they were old enough by then to use them independently. And they all used Chalkdust for math. The dvds are easier to use but if they're not close captioned or have transcripts, they're worthless to me because I can't answer questions afterwards. Same with computer programs. But stories on tapes or whatever are great as long as the kids enjoy listening to them on their own and are not being used in formal schoolwork. And yes, they help with listening comprehension and vocabulary. Maybe the deaf mother can put the children in Classical Conversations or a writing coop?

to write well. However, I am pretty strong in English. I used the Calvert curriculum with all of them and subscribed to the teaching service for a while. If I had poor English skills, I probably would have used a self-teaching language program like PACE or LifePac. One thing I did that helped my kids was to have them read their sentences and paragraphs out loud so that they could hear for themselves if they made sense and had good grammar. I made sure that they mingled with our neighbors, friends, and family members to pick up strong spoken language skills so that they could self-correct their compositions after reading them out loud to themselves. I sometimes outsourced the writing to online writing coaches and English classes. I still have a eleven year old son at home to work with and I think he's doing okay.

Since Latin is harder in grammar than French, I'll go light on the vocabulary for this year and maybe next year and focus on the grammar. Go slowly too. As for the French, my ds will do all the work for the class. Then pick up the pace in Latin in a couple years when he is ready to take an online class. Thanks guys! Laura, that's interesting what you did in your teens. That's sort of the same plan I had in mind for my ds; that's if he's willing to go for it.

My son has been learning a little Latin for the past couple years and is beginning to learn French in a coop class this week. He is saying that he wants to drop Latin because the grammar is more difficult than the grammar in French. He is having trouble with the endings of the nouns and verbs. But I'm not sure that even though the French apparently doesn't have the endings like Latin, it still has the pronouns and verb helpers that have to be memorized like in English so it's not that much easier than Latin? Am I correct?

Praying for you and the family.