Yes, I had this scenario. I didn't even mean to mention it but it came up in some chit chat that a particular girl declined 4 flavors of ice cream that we had and said she only ate chocolate, vanilla, and mint chocolate chip. Her mom was HORRIFIED even though I mentioned it totally in jest, like I get that when I eat ice cream, it has to be perfect ice cream because I don't get to eat it a lot. But apparently the girl eats EVERY flavor at home, it was only in the homes of others she was trying this!

I'm a reader, as are both my parents and my daughters. My husband is not a reader. Neither of my brothers are readers. In our family, it is almost that the "girls" are readers, the "boys" aren't -- except my dad is the biggest and most "serious" reader in the whole family.

This is the biggest one for us.... Just don't waste food. Easier said than done.

I put "I have not home schooled full time but have after schooled / enriched topics not covered in traditional school (not just tutored the same topics taught at school)." I guess I could have said that I did part-time when my kids were in prek, but they did a 15 hour a week preschool which isn't that few hours for preschool.

Ugh, I read it. I never tell new moms the story about having my kids (both in the hospital)-- not because I think it's extraordinary but because I've come to think it's way too common, and I can't really tell the pregnant woman "Don't worry, nothing like that will happen to you." Because those kind of things -- and worse -- really might happen. For me, the first time the doctor got confused and left stuff inside (???)... I was CRAWLING for a week before I knew something was really wrong. The doctor looked me in the eye and said "There was no damage done." The second time they didn't do anything wrong, the baby just didn't cooperate. No one was in the room and she decided to be born anyway. The doctor barely made it in time. Someone out there has perfect birth stories for all their kids, but I haven't met them yet.

This is what I did... I slowed way down at one point and spent extra time on math facts every day. I think she was 5 1/2 -6 years old in Saxon 3 + LOF something or other. Yes, Saxon 3 took us way longer than I thought it would but she was so young for it, it seemed fine to hang out there for a while.

Maple syrup in warm milk... mmmm... I also like it on salmon. But I find it hard to imagine having TOO much maple syrup. It never lasts in our house and is so expensive!

In worst case scenarios we've used the bravewriter freewrite thing with some success -- just keep your pencil moving for 5 minutes, find a couple of points to expand, write on those, and keep going. I don't think you could do this with every single question though, it would take forever. I do find that particular question hard though... it's three questions. This thread makes me so not look forward to my kids being 11, though. That does seem like a complicating factor!

Yes - in a pretty fanciful way... it's getting vague but it had something to do with doing business with various imaginary alien races (e.g., one had 4 fingers on each hand). I remember thinking it was neat but there was absolutely no indication that it might be useful information.

Same. I sort of do the bulk paper towels, toilet paper, shampoo, etc. every 2 months or so but mostly because we buy in bulk when I accumulate coupons and there are decent sales. But really, all of that "other stuff" (fruits, veggies) is most of the shopping AND the most time consuming shopping (checking over the fruits and veggies, etc.), so I still end up shopping just as often.

Sort of. I think the sauce is fine without, but I usually put whatever vegetables are aging in it so they don't go to waste.... and in the summer whatever is in the garden (e.g., basil which it seems like you can never eat enough of).

Maybe it's a huge placebo, but flossing makes my gums feel so much better.

Rec classes average out to $18-23 an hour... most things really seem to land in that range. There are those bizarre things that end up being like $2 an hour (usually run by high schoolers, but for $2 I'm willing to forgive a lot). Swim is $23-25 for 1/2 an hour though.

My daughter goes to public school, and it's STILL not enough social interaction for her. We live in a small house (literally 1/3rd of the size of some of her friend's houses), no electronics on playdates since electronics are mostly weekend things, and no girls around her age in the neighborhood. I've found I need to go out of my way to have people over even though it's so far out of my comfort zone. I am a total introvert. I typically have her do the inviting first, then I handle the details -- she will be 7 soon but she doesn't have a good understanding of her own schedule yet. I do want to get her used to inviting people on her own. Once she's invited someone, I send their mom an email with 4 dates in the next month that we could do. In the school year, we don't do a lot of playdates, but in the summer/breaks, I hold those dates for 3 weeks -- otherwise I keep going until I've got something tentatively marked for every weekday I know we have free. Some people won't get back to me but most do, because their child has mentioned it. This summer, it worked out so that there were 1 or 2 weekdays per month that we were totally free in the summer. But of course not all of that is for my one daughter... when you add in other activities and another child, things get booked quickly. I should mention that when there are public schooled kids in the mix, it really can be tough to get something even one month in advance! I originally felt idiotic planning a month in advance but over time I've realized it's mostly the families with only children that are available on short notice. Maybe it shouldn't be that way but it is.... One thing that works for us is to find 1 or 2 friends that are eager to hang out (you mentioned she has one homeschooled friend), arrange something to do, then shoot a quick email out a couple days before that says "soandso and I will be at the [beach/playground/etc.], we'd love to see you there if you have time!" People will randomly show up and it will remind people that your daughter is "there" so they don't forget. It's exhausting. I regularly wonder when my daughter (and her younger sister) will be old enough to do all the logistics on her own. My friends tell me 8 to 10 is the magic time but for now my kids are enjoying having a social secretary (sigh) -- I think for some kids it can be harder though. I doubt my older daughter will "get it" until she is 10 or even later.

If you go slowly, I think it should be fine. My older daughter uses mostly 3rd grade or so in other LA stuff, and we're fine with SWI-A... BUT I let her type her final copy, otherwise I hear hand-fatigue related moaning.

That is the flip side. I live in an area where people get married relatively late but child-care costs are very high -- a lot of women were in jobs like partners in law firms or tenure-track faculty, but scaled back or quit altogether when the first or second child was born... if you then choose to stay home with your kids (I did) you start to wonder why you got that degree to begin with. I've kept both going to some extent but it's taken a toll.

My aunt and her husband got a divorce, similar circumstances but there was more to the story. Part of our family took what seems to be your view though, and we weren't even told when he died until after the funeral. The thing is, I get he was flawed, even dangerous, but the love of a little child for a fun uncle persists into adulthood and beyond logic. Weird to admit, but I still miss him.

I do the 2 hours of unstructured time thing, as an accountability thing to me. My kids go to public school and I afterschool them, but it's not even schoolwork that tries to encroach on the unstructured time... it's structured activities. Scheduling in 2 hrs of unstructured time helps to prevent us from signing up for too many activities.

Here too -- the kids are having a great summer, but we aren't moving as quickly through material as expected because we're never home all day. At the end of the summer, I'd love to hear what everyone THOUGHT they would do compared to what they have done... mostly to comfort myself, haha. E.g., My older daughter is in Saxon 5/4. In the past month, she's done 7 lessons, +1 test/investigation, so really... she's only gotten 2 days of math in per week.

I can't remember where people are located, but if Monica in Switzerland is in Switzerland (that sounded so weird...)... I know eggs are processed differently in different places. Like in the U.S. eggs are washed, but in the E.U. that's illegal. I think there's something similar with how the chickens are vaccinated in the U.K. versus not in other places. Like someone above said, a lot has to do with the quality of what you get. Like in local grocery stores, if you get a steak & you don't check carefully, it might be two stuck together not a whole steak... which means if you sear it, there was a surface in there that wasn't seared. Ew.

About a million.

He shouldn't need to change in this case. It's not that bad of a mismatch to merit that. Based on the times that I told him something didn't match (he can be really really bad) and he immediately changed, I hear "Does this match?" as "Should I change?" Once I tried "No, but don't change" and he told me about 15 times on our trip that he felt awkward that his clothes didn't match and should have changed.

I guess I do. Example: Husband comes down wearing shorts that are warm blue and a shirt that is a cool blue. Him: Does this match Me: It doesn't NOT match. Him. OK, so it matches. Me: I didn't say that. What I really mean is, "maybe I wouldn't put that together but it isn't exactly a crime against people's eyes or anything... it's not worth you changing your clothes and it's not worth my time to make you understand the difference between warm and cool shades when you seem from the past to be unable to distinguish between them." But what he hears is, "I am going to frustrate you on purpose." Edit: I should mention that when I hear "Does this match," It's more like "Are my clothes so embarrassing that I should change, because if you say it doesn't match I'll change."

Yes, I thought it was strange, and kind of insulting. They were told for the purposes of these particular colleges (we are in the Northeast where there are ridiculous numbers of PhDs...), a PhD was considered a terminal degree and so was an EdD but a JD wasn't. One of these women decided it wasn't worth it,since the pay was paltry anyway. The other is actually getting an EdD just for the credential.

My daughter uses Saxon at home, used Montessori number work in prek-k, Envision starting in K, plus Life of Fred and probably some other things I've forgotten. Ironically of those that you mentioned, Math in Focus is my favorite. Envision has a similar approach but just isn't as well done imo... but I didn't want to do MIF at home if she did Envision in public school. Others may have a different take on this, but in our local public K, math was incredibly low-key... they did Envision K. It was the WRITING (the crazy amounts of output for kids, some of whom who could barely read!) that really stuck out to me.