As for not knowing how they don't know... I experience that with my boys every day. I understand!

If it helps at all, my husband washes his thick, curly hair with conditioner 99% of the time. He only uses shampoo a few times a year. His hair looks and smells great.

I'm another who must eat low carb to lose weight. Prior to having children, I lost weight and kept it off with standard recommendations and calorie counting, but after my first child, I gained 35 pounds eating 1500 a day, exercising, and exclusively breastfeeding. It didn't make sense. I kept at it, used WW and other low calorie methods but the weight stuck. It wasn't until after kid 2 that I was so desperate that I tried LC (and also gave up wheat, which I'm apparently allergic too - that got worse after kid 2). 75 pounds melted off without counting calories or struggling to stick with my diet. Post kid 3, LC is still what works. I cannot ever eat a standard carb diet again. I gain weight eating 100g of carbs a day, regardless of calories (as I did after kid 1). I maintain if I eat 50-75g, and I lose if I eat 35g or less. I've had a very stressful and traumatic year and have been stress eating carbs (ie, tortilla chips) and have gained a bit back even while keeping calories in check. I'm trying to stick with LC again to get it back off. Until this year, I had no trouble eating my maintenance level of carbs, so I know that once I fix my stress eating, I'll be fine again.

I took my second child to playgroup for a while beginning when he was 18 months because we had just moved across the country and I was trying desperately to connect with people. The older child tagged along. It went...well, we're all pretty sure that our oldest is autistic (testing pending), so now I understand why it was so challenging to take the older along (he was 4.5). While this did provide a social outlet for me, it dried up quite suddenly when everyone put their 2 and 2.5 year olds in preschool. At that point, I started looking very hard for a group of homeschoolers that would accept people homeschooling preschool and kindergarten and eventually found people like myself: parents of preschoolers who intended to homeschool elementary as well. They all had younger children too, so it's been a great fit for us.

My youngest just recovered from a stomach bug that lasted for 10 days. It was awful.

This is an excellent point. I was subjected to a lot of unsolicited judgement this summer from certain people who had decided my husband was a work-a-holic. Upon further listening to their own complaints about their spouses, it became clear that their husbands had similar behaviors (not exercising, not engaging as much as the wife/kids desired in family time, not doing household projects). The "difference" was that their husbands engaged in their hobbies (building things, fixing cars, gardening) instead of being with the family, while my spouse works instead of being with the family. My husband loves his job. Seriously, he adores it. These men work at jobs they dislike to support their families (certainly admirable), so they have hobbies. My husband's work is his hobby. If he could find another hour to work each day, he would take it in a heartbeat. It makes me cranky. (I admit I'd be slightly less cranky if all those hours earned enough money for me to be able to hire a babysitter or house cleaning service.)

While my child would NEVER have a drink (or gum) in an art museum, he is also incapable of watching where he is going and is very clumsy. These issues are part of the puzzle of his special needs. I can absolutely see him doing this at 12. His issues make going into museums very stressful for me (I also have a toddler an an ADHD/sensory-seeking preschooler so we don't go out much :-)), but I have to trust that museum that allows children also plans their exhibits carefully to avoid (most of) these situations.

I agree with this completely. I live in a highly academic area (think lots of people putting their children in preschool programs at 2). When we moved here, I was homeschooling preschool for my 4 year-old (we're CM, so this means I had a plan for the books we'd read and the field trips we'd take, along with casual math and reading instruction). It took over a year to find friends for him because everyone was in preschools and the homeschool groups wouldn't accept us because we weren't "real homeschoolers." Eventually, we found a group of homeschooling preschoolers that has continued to grow up together (and we let preschoolers in). Addressing this issue in your class is very important, especially if you live in an area like mine.

I'm not a Christian. I fully support equal rights for all humans. When I was a fundamentalist Christian, I believed that LGTBQ people were sinners and professed the "love the sinner, hate the sin" line. After becoming good friends with a few LGTBQ people, I realized that my faith was condemning real people. This was the beginning of a long, painful deconversion process. I am so very thankful that I had the opportunity to meet people who were not heterosexual and cis gender so that I could become the person I am today.

Sunday - 60 minutes of jogging/walking. I'm working my way back from an annoying calf injury that really doesn't want to go away. It's annoying because it wasn't even caused by exercise, but by lunging after my child in a store. Monday - yoga video and push-up challenge.

If this is on the level of housecleaning or professional organizing, I suspect that here such services would go for $50-$75 an hour.

I'm raising very challenging children (I don't feel comfortable using the term SN yet because I don't yet know what those SN's are) with minimal support. I find that I have to work very hard to see the good moments in the day, event bough I know they are there.

I think I am going to have to stop identifying myself as a CM homeschooled. As I (and those I reference) do it, it is extremely rigorous, but CM seems to be seen by most as an easygoing, relaxed method. That's so strange to me.

Another cup user here. I was a 100% tampon user until I discovered the cup about 10 years ago. I never liked tampons, but I preferred them over pads.

I would have lost my mind if I had to watch videos in order to keep up in class. I do not learn from videos. It just doesn't work for me (and it's so much slower for me than reading). When I was in 6th grade, I briefly attended a private school that used Abeka's video school. It was absolute torture. I figured out how to unplug my headphones just enough to cut the sound without being caught and learned to read discretely. I earned 100s the entire year, but I could have learned so much more if I hadn't had to be so sneaky about learning my way.

I make no judgements about large families, although I would love to have coffee with the parents and learn the tricks of the (raising them) trade. I can use all the help I can get! I get comments Every.Single.Time I take my children into public, and I only have three. People seem flabbergasted that one can have three biological boys.

Nope, no dedicated schoolroom. I play the clear-the-table game (no dining room either) game multiple times a day. It's not a lack of space because I have room in our finished basement for a schooling area, but I need lots of natural light every day to maintain a healthy mood, so that's not an option. Books in active use are stored in the living room. Other books are all over the house in whichever bookcase has room for them (we moved twice in four months last year, and my book organization has not yet recovered).

I'm starting accounting and business courses at the state university after the new year. I'm overly educated in a field I dislike, so it's time to make a change. I want to learn guitar. I'm learning as much as I can about OT and retained reflexes in an effort to work with my son while we sit on the waiting list for his evaluation.

My son is in the fourth Miquon book (Blue), as well as Singapore 3B, Life of Fred, and Beast 3A. He chooses his Miquon pages each day. Beginning with this book, I've required that he do each section in order, but he can choose any section. Prior to Blue, he picked at random in any order from any section, but that stopped working with this book.

What about setting up your school year so that a month of that 4 month stint is scheduled vacation? I'd feel fine flying under the radar if I was following the laws of my home country, including making sure I educated for the appropriate number of days.

I'm a homeschooled child (through 6th grade) who is homeschooling her children. If my mom knew how to navigate a forum, she'd weigh in. I expect at least one of my brothers to homeschool his kids. Two out of my three best homeschooled friends are homeschooling their kids. It happens. I wish the economy were what it was when we were young (I'm working part time this year and headed back to school to earn more), but I value home education and we prioritize it.

OP, what is IM?

Agreeing that active children can still have retained reflexes. My eldest has multiple retained reflexes, but he runs, jumps, rolls, climbs, rides his bike, conquers the monkey bars, and skis. He does all of these things well and often, but only after significant effort and practice (much more effort than his younger brother ever needs to put forth), and he still looks quirky doing them.

Implement daily exercises to address retained reflexes. Convince myself that daily exercises to address retained reflexes are more important than daily math. More intentional exercise with the kids: park, track, or scootering around neighborhood daily instead of the more typical sending them outside and calling it sufficient. My kids are so high energy that even three hours in the backyard doesn't make a difference. Wake up before my children. Yes, even before the middle child. My middle and youngest (finally) have been sleeping through the night for four months. It's high time I lose this sleep deprivation mindset and get out of bed early. Redesign the daily routine now that middle child has given up his nap. Make sure that the redesign still includes silent time for me. Actually implement new routine. Start working part time without dropping the ball on homeschooling. Do daily morning time. No really, do it. Return to regular memory work, probably as part of morning time.

Sounds like my house. My eldest is on an eight month long waiting list for his evaluation, so I don't know exact what we're dealing with, but I do know how exhausting it is!