Thanks for the link. It does seem to indicate that waiting three months is sufficient which seemed to be the standard when I read people talking about it on pregnancy/TTC forums etc. I had my shot at the end of June and haven't yet decided whether to start trying again in September or October, but either way it will be about 3 months or more. Hopefully all will go well next time!

Sounds fine (and fun!) to me.

I agree that this is a need-based issue, not an age-based issue. If she's old enough to have dark or thick or extremely noticeable hair AND it is bothering her, she's old enough to shave. Hopefully your husband will understand.

I'm sorry. I would try calling the dentist (either of them) and saying you need an emergency appointment as you are in a lot of pain.

Where I live in PA it's standard to start seeing the OB at 7 weeks.

I just read the thread so I got to see the updated story too, and based on that, yes, I would allow it. Like others have said, this is grandson doing something nice for grandma, not grandma playing favorites. You could always soothe younger by doing something fun with him at home or making alternate plans with him or something. If it had been Grandma offering to take one kid but not the other- well in MY situation it wouldn't bother me as much because if she offered to take my almost 11 y/o but didn't feel up to taking my 5 y/o, I would understand. My 5 y/o is not always easy to handle or keep up with and Grandma is in her 70's. But if you've got two older boys and that isn't an issue, then, yes, it would have bothered me and I wouldn't have allowed it.

I live in PA and US (and PA) History is one of the "required subjects" at the elementary level here, too. Now, I don't know about NY, but here in PA, it does not say HOW you need to teach it, and I really don't think it needs to be a formal, lengthy course of study...here OR there. So far we have covered US History each year, but this year we won't be. This year we're focusing exclusively on ancients with Oak Meadow 6 and SOTW. The way I plan to address that is in my summary. I tend to write up a brief summary to include with my portfolio each year just summing up what types of things we did for each required subject (this fills out my more "minimal" portfolio as I only submit 3-5 samples per subject, and it helps to address things you can't easily provide a "sample" of like music or P.E.). Anyway, under the History section, I plan to say something like: This year we are focusing more on ancient history, but we are, however, also continuing to watch shows such as the Liberty’s Kids series and the How The States Got Their Shapes series, and/or documentaries recorded from The History Channel pertaining to United States history, and we continue to learn about Pennsylvania and United States history via conversation, reading and field trips. Could you do something like that, too?

My daughter used TT (TT5) for the first time this past school year and ended up vastly improving and doing well on her standardized test math scores. (She scored in the 82nd percentile which means she did as well as or better than 82 percent of all the kids nationwide who took that particular standardized test- and you can bet not all of them used TT. She way more than held her own- and this is NOT a mathy kid, and her scores the previous year were only like 59th percentile). (And we did not supplement with anything). When we were down in Florida on vacation staying with family, one of my husband's cousin's kids was doing his math homework one day and I got to see what he was working on- it wasn't anything more "advanced" than what we were working on. Plus just to throw it out there, I've seen people here mention that SWB has put it on a list of math programs she recommends or improves or whatever it is- I haven't seen it first hand, just seen others here mention it. I've decided to not care whether other people think TT is "behind"- TT is not teacher intensive which is great for me (I don't like math), TT is fun for my daughter which means she enjoys doing math and doesn't dread it, TT explains things in a manner that my daughter gets it- no more "Math is too hard," "I'm not good at math" comments. I'm completely sold. I've got a pretty detailed review of it on my blog if you want to take a peek: http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/124221.html

My 10 year old daughter attends a Judo class at the Y every Saturday, and usually participates in a homeschool bowling league in the winter. That's her only sport, although she does also do a library book club and Girl Scouts. My 5 year old son played teeball this year and is starting soccer next week. He also participates in the homeschool bowling league.

So just as a final update, I've been going for bloodwork regularly every week while the doctors followed my HCG levels back down to 0 after I had to get a shot of methotrexate at the end of June for what was very likely an ectopic pregancy. Anyway, I went yesterday and got the results today- my levels are finally back down to 0 and I guess this is some sort of closure, at least. A little bittersweet, but I'm glad this part is over with and I can start looking forward again. I started taking my prenatals with folic acid again today and will wait a normal cycle or two and then start trying again. I'm just really hoping I will be able to conceive again on the quick side (I'm 38 and it took 5 months of trying for that ectopic) and hoping that the next time I have much happier results. Thanks to everyone who was supportive in my various pregnancy threads a while back and to those of you who PM'd me from time to time to check in. :grouphug:

:iagree:

About 2 1/2 years...since March of 2009. Pulled my daughter out of public school toward the end of her third grade year. Homeschooled her for the rest of third, all of fourth, all of fifth, and we'll be starting sixth this fall. My son will be homeschooled right from the beginning. He's never been to a preschool/public school, and I'm starting K with him this fall.

lol I don't know why but I just like starting on a Monday, and I like to wait til the summer is over to start, so Labor Day it is. We never do anything special on Labor Day anyway, and the kids certainly get plenty of free time and days off- so they've never cared about starting school on Labor Day. (Plus my husband is off on Mondays, too, and it's nice having everyone home for the first day of school to help out with things and then sort of celebrate a bit together).

My son, who will be 6 in three months, has NO interest in coloring for the most part. Every once in a blue moon he might color a page like on a kid's menu at a restaurant if he was bored enough...he wouldn't try particularly hard to stay in the lines and wouldn't color the whole picture. He doesn't like to draw on his own either. Once in a while he will and then it's mostly scribbles or random shapes. Very rarely will he attempt to draw people or other recognizable things.

We usually start on Labor Day. I am excited about it. I kind of missing doing school with my daughter over the summer (even though we stay busy with tons of other stuff), and this year I'm looking forward to starting K with my son as well!

I liked Bewitched, Leave It To Beaver, Little House On The Prairie, Flipper, The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, Dif'frent Strokes, Punky Brewster, Small Wonder, and Silver Spoons as a kid.

We sometimes deliver meals to moms in one of our Meetup groups who just had a baby. We've done: Chicken fajitas or Beef tacos Baked Ziti Tuna noodle casserole Pizza delivery. :D

Once. We have one cat (an almost four month old female) and my 10 y/o daughter cleans the litterbox first thing each morning.

I don't know, it seems like you can just tell the people you are closest to, who are most likely to call you on any sort of regular basis, that you would prefer them not to call during school hours, and they will respect that. The people that rarely call or who are calling as a one time thing, it's not going to matter. They'll just leave a voicemail and you will call them back when you want to.

Almost any pet store carries them. We feed them to our gecko. Just be advised that if you leave them in the plastic bag the pet store puts them in, THEY CAN AND WILL CHEW THEIR WAY OUT and you will end up with crickets hopping all over your house, causing you to start shrieking and not wanting to walk around your own house for fear a cricket will jump onto your foot, and you will call your husband in an angry, traumatized panic demanding he come home from work IMMEDIATELY to find and catch every last cricket and never, ever bring them in the house again.... Cough. Oh, wait. That was me. So, uh, yeah, now they must be bought just a few at a time and fed immediately to the gecko, or stored in containers they absolutely cannot chew their way out of. :D

:iagree:

This tends to be what I think.... so while I wouldn't display one (and was never from the south), it doesn't really bother me when I see it displayed. My husband on the other hand gets really irritated by it when he sees one. He thinks people who would display it are either racist, ignorant, or both.

I do feel like I found a great fit for my family, and I do feel fortunate that I found it right away, pretty much when I first began homeschooling. I had pulled my daughter out of public school toward the end of her third grade year, and since there was only a short time left in that school year, we did our own eclectic mix of things without using any formal curriculum. The following year, which was to be our first full year of homeschooling, I knew early on what I wanted to use because another homeschooling family I knew used it and had told me about it and showed it to me. It was the Oak Meadow curriculum and I fell in love with it right away. I loved its whole philosophy and approach- gentle in the earliest years, creative, hands on- and looked for it used. I got really lucky when I found an older version of the curriculum for sale in one big lot, K through 8th grade! I bought it and used it with my daughter for 4th grade and 5th grade and will be continuing with it this fall for 6th grade, while simultaneously starting K with my son. I have supplemented here and there with a few things- we enjoy SOTW for example and normally do that over the summer for fun, and this past year we decided to use a different math curriculum (still using Oak Meadow for everything but math), and we're going to do Meet the Masters for art this coming year- but Oak Meadow is our main curriculum and we really, really like it. I have no intentions of changing to a different curriculum. It works, and we enjoy it. :)

Oh my gosh, that's crazy!! Sorry you had such a bad experience!! We didn't have any behavioral problems or hissy fits or any such thing with any of the four kids we've hosted so far (a ten year old girl, two nine year old girls and a six year old boy), although the first girl we took did also have some sort of medication we weren't notified about. That was because her mother didn't write it on the form and told her to just take it on her own, because her mother was scared she wouldn't get into the program if they told the FAF the child was on medication (it was for high blood pressure or some such). My daughter told me that the girl had medicine and I made her bring it down to me and talked to her about it. But other than that, the kids were all polite and well-behaved and so on, with the biggest issue being homesickness (most especially with that first girl, the other three were fine for the most part). A friend of mine (another homeschool family who lives near me) hosted for the first time this year and say they plan on inviting their FAF child back next year as it went well (that was a 7 y/o boy). Renthead Mommy from these boards hosted for the first time this summer too and she said "He is really nice and polite and quiet." Which is all to say I hope you consider giving it another try at some point! I swear, they aren't all like that! Denise, Thanks for looking and your comment :)

I've got a whole bunch of pics on my blog now of our Fresh Air Fund visit from this past week (the kids went home this morning). If you click on the link in my signature line it will take you to my most recent entries and you can scroll through and see the pics from the last few entries. We really did a lot and had a good time, and the kids were great...but it was also exhausting having two extra young kids here for 8 nights and trying to fit in so many activities with them! :D