You might consider a few things: 1. You could start doing the assignments in different ways that she might consider fun... if you want her to write spelling words and the thought makes her miserable, can she: Draw them in the dirt with a stick? Write them on the sidewalk using chalk? Use a blackboard or whiteboard? Turn it into a craft, like making a paper plate and crepe paper windsock and writing a word on each streamer? Draw it with her finger in a tray of salt? Write them on the tub walls with bathtub crayons? Etc. 2. You could drop the formal things she's hating and go with an interest-led education for now since she's still pretty young (around here compulsory school age doesn't even start until age 8, and there's a school of thought that says it's better to wait until then anyway... have you read "Better Late Than Early" by the Moores? Even if you don't fully proscribe to that method, it might offer some perspective; I found it to be an interesting book). 3. You could bribe her. Instead of doing one hour straight through, set a timer. Tell her you'll work in 15 (or 10 or 5 or whatever works) minute intervals and as each timer goes off, you'll take a break to do something fun- maybe one round of hide and seek and then back to work and then another round if she does well, etc. Or tell her she can give you spelling words. Just something that turns it into more of an upbeat game kind of thing. I agree with the person who said I wouldn't see it as a discipline issue. She just may not be ready, or you may not be doing things that fit with her personal learning style, and you may just need to find another way or take a break.

I like the first one best. Beautiful photos! :)

Good choice. It's summer. He's only 5. It's okay to be flexible, relaxed, and to realize that learning happens in all sorts of ways. Grandma camp among them. :) P.S. I agree with those who said I'd make the same choice for my 5th grader (who is going into 6th grade in the fall). I'd even do it over the school year, not just the summer, if such an opportunity arose. I love that as homeschoolers we CAN be flexible and we CAN take advantage of various opportunities that come our way. And I do believe that life and learning are pretty inextricable. All the time, throughout life. But especially when you're only in Kindergarten. :)

I had mine removed a week and a half after my son was born (he's 5 1/2 now). I had had a couple of attacks while pregnant but they couldn't do anything then other than tell me to watch my diet and avoid very fatty or spicy foods. I had a consultation set up for after I gave birth to discuss surgery, but then another bad attack put me back in the hospital sooner than expected. Basically, I had a ten day old breastfeeding baby. We had just moved the day before- slept one night in our new place- woke up to a mountain of boxes that needed to be unpacked and a bad gallbladder attack. Ended up in the hospital for five days, had emergency surgery, oh and it was a few days before Thanksgiving and relatives had just come out from two different states to see the new baby, celebrate thanksgiving etc. It was pretty crazy! Anyway... My belly was sore for a while after, and for a while some trapped gas can almost feel like another mini gall bladder attack, but once healed, no problems, I don't feel different etc. I am very glad I never have to face another gall bladder attack, because that was some of the worst pain I ever felt in my life!

Thanks all, and Pam I appreciate you sharing your own positive outcome. I left a message for the dr asking if he can have them test my progesterone levels too when I go for the HCG test tomorrow. I don't know if it could make a difference at this stage but if it's low maybe they can give a supplement and maybe that would help? I know there is so little that can be done at this stage and whatever is going to happen will happen, but just trying to cover whatever bases I can on my end.

Spotting ended up looking a little more pinkish yesterday evening (it had been brownish every time prior to that) so I called the doctor and ended up going to get the Rhogam shot last night just in case. It looked pinkish a couple of times last night, this morning mostly brownish again. Still only pretty light spotting either way, but I just don't have a great feeling about things between that and the HCG levels not rising so well so far. Well, I guess tomorrow will tell when I repeat the HCG test again. It's only 9 something AM but I wish today would hurry up and be over with already. :P Thanks again to those of you who are keeping me in their thoughts, prayers, etc.

I agree with those who said they wouldn't censor it at any age.

Except she said it went on until she was in high school, and he's a couple years older than her. This wasn't an isolated incident in early childhood. And she wasn't the only one he did it to.

I'm so sorry you went through that and that you are now in this awkward situation. None of this is your fault. It is not your responsibility to protect another adult- not your grandmother, not your cousin, not your cousin's wife. I agree with your husband that it's better not to be around that guy at all and not to have your kids around him at all. I would tell your mother she cannot invite the cousin and if she can't wrap her head around that she should skip throwing a party altogether and just have a private visit with your family. Alternatively you can email or call said cousin and inform him that in light of your history, you and your husband have decided that you no longer want any contact with him and do not want your children around him and that if he is invited to your daughter's party by someone else, he is to make whatever excuse he wants and to decline the invitation and that if he shows up, you will leave immediately and when people ask why, you will tell them the truth. That ought to keep him away. But then there's a part of me that feels like the wife ought to know for the children's sake...

You have nothing to feel guilty about and don't need to clarify anything IMHO. And that would be even if you DID buy her the game yourself. It's hardly as if it's an either/or situation, where if you're letting your kids play video games that must mean you're not interacting with them on a more personal level, too. Nance, (who does buy her kids video games, and does plenty of other stuff with them, too).

Oh, that's great, just over a week away! Can't wait to hear about how it goes!

So, the doctor just called me. He said that my HCG levels on Monday were 410 (blood test taken around 11 AM) and today they were 587 (blood test taken around 8 AM). They are rising- but not as fast as they'd like to see them rise. They should double every two to three days, but it could just be that it hasn't even been quite 48 hours in between tests. He said they can't really detect anything on ultrasound until the levels are in the 3 to 4 thousands or higher. So for now they want to keep monitoring my HCG levels. He told me to go back to repeat the test again Friday morning, so I have to stress for the next 48 hours or so until I can do that and hear from him again. In the meanwhile, I have to go to the hospital blood bank tomorrow for a shot of rhogam because I have RH Negative blood and I've been having spotting. And I should call if I develop heavier bleeding or bad cramping. The concern is whether the fetus implanted in the right place I guess, but all I can do now is wait until Friday and see what happens with the HCG levels. I am scared. :crying:

Somehow I missed this post... I think I missed seeing the last couple of posts in this thread somehow! I think this is around the time I started getting on my computer less often because my sciatica was acting up. That's awesome that you gave a donation!! I have the FAF on my facebook "likes" page and have seen that they are matching donations this month through June 30th or something like that. (That was also where I saw not so long ago that they were still short over 1,000 host families!) Anyway, I was just curious if any of you who had decided to start the process have any updates to report...have your interviews gone through? Have you been matched yet? Coming up with any exciting plans? There's just over a month left til our two FAF kids (9 y/o girl and 6 y/o boy) come for a week and it's going to be a whirlwind week! They are coming on Monday, July 25th in the evening. We are going directly from the bus to the campground...we've got cabins rented for three nights, that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. My brother and sister-in-law and their three kids also have a cabin rented right next to ours. We'll get home from camping on Thursday the 28th and they'll get to see the house, use the small pool, do their own thing etc. Friday I plan to take them to a wildlife park that has an awesome safari ride where big animals come up close to the open air bus and you can feed them right over the side of the bus, plus there's a small petting zoo area, a reptile house, people who walk around with baby animals, etc. (This particular place will even admit the FAF kids for free). :) Saturday, we're going to Knoebel's Amusement Park (my husband is in some coral reef aquarium club thing and they're having a group picnic there that day). Sunday we are apparently going to a backyard wedding LOL...my husband's sister is coming from California and has just sprung on us that she is getting married and wants to do it while she's here, at my other sister-in-law's house in her backyard...so, yeah, we're all going to the wedding lol. Monday we are going to the lake...rented a campsite there just for the day so we can use the grill to cook out and roast marshmallows while swimming and playing in the sand and so on. And Tuesday morning they have to be back at the bus by like 8:30 in the morning to head back home! I think I'm going to do something like make some sort of paper chain link sort of thing...each one will have something written on it as to what we are doing that day...and each night, they can remove a link from the chain, and when it gets to the last one, they know they're going home to see their own parents again.... I expect them to get a bit homesick by the end despite all the activities, going by last year... but anyway I'm looking forward to doing all these things with them and seeing how it goes!

Thank you! And btw I will have Alexa write a letter to your daughter this week. Somehow (don't ask me how, I have no idea) I misplaced the last letter your daughter sent before we even had a chance to open it. Then we did get her postcard but things just got nuts here with a bunch of different things and Alexa never got around to writing again and I never got around to encouraging it... but I'll have her write. In fact, I'll tell Alexa to call this afternoon to start things off again. :)

Went for my second blood test at like 7:30 this morning. Sometime this afternoon, my doctor's office will have the results to compare with Monday's results, and then they will know if my HCG levels are rising like they should... ...I am on pins and needles waiting to hear the results myself and I REALLY hope the doctor's office calls me with them today. I don't know if my nerves can take it if they make me wait until tomorrow to hear from them. I had such a hard time sleeping last night, tonight would probably be ten times worse. I just want to know if this pregnancy is looking viable or not so far. I feel like I'm in such limbo, not wanting to stress myself out too much, but finding it hard not to worry; wanting to get excited about the pregnancy, but afraid to let myself get too excited before I know things look okay... Ugh today is going to positively crawl by.

Thanks, and congrats to you, too :) I went for my second blood test this morning to find out my HCG levels (my first test was Monday, now they can compare them to see if they are rising like they should). I am SO nervous. I just want to know already if this pregnancy is looking viable so far or not. They said the results will probably be at my doctor's office late this afternoon. I REALLY hope they call me with the results today and don't make me wait until tomorrow for them. I had such a hard time sleeping last night, tonight would probably be even worse. Sigh.

Where does a general keep his armies? In his sleevies.

That's awesome. My 5.7 year old son who has had no formal schooling as of yet loves to play computer games, and he's somehow learned things like how to count by 50's and other similar math operations without my ever teaching him that. The first time he randomly started doing it a couple of months ago, my jaw was on the floor, as was my husband's. We asked him how he knew that, and he named a computer game he'd been playing. From wanting to know how many points he had and/or how much money he would need to buy certain things, he just figured it out! Crazy!

I'm only four weeks (and still unsure as to whether things are even going to work out with this one) so we haven't talked about it yet, but when I think of how much trouble we had naming a kitten, I just know it's going to be hard agreeing on baby names haha. With that said...when I was pregnant with my 5 y/o son, Ben, we had decided that he'd be Elizabeth if he was a girl...so if we have a girl this time around, we will probably still use that!! (ETA: I like Claire for the middle name but that's not definite yet). If we had a boy... who knows. We'll need all nine months to find and agree on something, I'm sure! :D

The day I pulled my daughter out of public school toward the end of her third grade year and started homeschooling her instead. My son is 5.7 years old and I don't really think of myself as "homeschooling" him per se yet. This fall is when he would be official kindergarten age here in our district and it is when I plan to start my kindergarten curriculum with him. That is when I will consider him as being officially homeschooled.

Go to askpauline.com and click on the link that says Evaluator List. You can then browse evaluators by area code. Good luck!

I think of "many" as being more than 5 kids.

Whenever we either run out of too many things, or I feel motivated to, or it's convenient to.... no set day or time. Often it ends up being some weekday morning or other but no set weekday and other times it's an afternoon or an evening or even sometimes a weekend (which I try to avoid only because it's more crowded then).

LOL I was thinking that, too. When I was in my very early teens, I was sneaking out AND sneaking people in, and it was easy, because we had a split level type house and my mother had decided to take the downstairs portion for herself and leave us upstairs and it was easy to do things without her ever hearing or knowing.

I hated my first MIL- she was always so cold and rude to me. My current MIL- I like her for the most part. Sure there are some things about her that can be annoying (overly dramatic, sometimes doesn't censor what she says as well as she should, etc) but she has a good heart and I don't see her too often as she lives out of state so I can handle it lol...and I do like her well enough. I also adore my step-MIL, really friendly, sweet woman.