But she DID have consequences. She felt bad, she felt guilt, she felt shame. Those were the consequences. And those consequences led her to pray about what she'd done, and to make the decision- all by herself- to stop doing it. As was evidenced in the computer's history. That's pretty amazing and mature, if you ask me! And she didn't try to lie when confronted, she immediately confessed- and then went through still more guilt, shame and so on. I SERIOUSLY don't think any further consequences are necessary. I think it's been handled perfectly so far- by both daughter and mother.

Truthfully? I may be the only one to say this. But I don't think I'd punish her. She admitted it to you, she apologized to you, she told you she felt bad, she told you she thinks she IS bad, she told you she'd stopped doing it (which you saw for yourself), she told you she wouldn't do it again, she even told you she'd prayed about it. I would let it go. Other than telling her that if she is curious about anything in the future, she should come to YOU, and that you'll be checking her computer history from time to time and if anything inappropriate comes up again, she'll have to lose some computer privileges or some such... I don't think she needs any further "punishment." Her curiosity was normal, your response (so far) seemed perfect, and I think that you managed to resolve it with your conversation with her alone. I don't think a punishment is going to do anything that hasn't already been accomplished, via your conversation, and your daughter's own train of thoughts. By the way, when I was your daughter's age, I used to satisfy MY curiosity by looking up bad words in the dictionary, and a year or so later, by trying to watch the Playboy channel- which at the time was scrambled, so you could always get these occasional flashes of something... rather than just getting no picture at all like you do today. But I didn't have the internet back then. :D

I just think that if a host has strong preferences or expectations, it is the host's responsibility to make their expectations perfectly clear when sending out an invitation. It should say "This is a drop off party" if they want to make sure they are keeping crowds down to a minimum. They should not assume that a parent will automatically know that they are unwelcome just because the invitation only had a child's name on it. Based on this thread alone, something like 34 people feel it is perfectly acceptable and common for a parent to stay with their child and wouldn't be bothered by it, or would be surprised to hear otherwise. Compared to like 13 who think it is rude or poor etiquette. And then a handful who didn't indicate specifically one way or another how they personally felt about it, but who just offered advice on how to handle the situation from here- how to stretch the food, etc. So doesn't that mean that it IS "generally assumed" that parents are welcome to stay at a kid's birthday party? I don't think that's rude or impolite or poor etiquette. It's obviously socially acceptable and/or expected by the majority of people. Most parents will always assume it is ok to stay with their children if they are more comfortable doing so, for any reason, and would never assume that it would NOT be ok. But out of curiosity, I tried looking up "proper etiquette" for this situation alone. I found, on "Scholastic Parents," something that says: "Birthday Party Etiquette FAQ's Be a host or party-goer that Miss Post would approve of! Leading etiquette experts and parents who've been there solve sticky party dilemmas. By Shama Narang Want to be a host or party-goer that Miss Post would approve of? These are some of today's popular party dilemmas solved by leading etiquette experts and parents who've been there." One of the "FAQ's" said: "My child's been invited to a party. Does that mean I'm invited too?" The answer was: "Ask! Chances are if the invitation doesn't say "and family," your presence is not needed unless it's a party for a child under 3. However, the best way to know ahead of time is to discuss it when you R.S.V.P. If your spouse will also attend, let the host know. The big no-no is bringing other siblings to the party without a direct invitation from the host. Unless you have an infant, it's not particularly polite to even ask the host if you can bring a younger sibling, but if you're stuck it's always better to discuss it rather than surprise her." It does say your presence is not "needed," ...not that it is not welcome or rude or improper or what have you. It says the best way to know is to discuss it when you RSVP- well, your guest RSVP'd and did indicate that they planned to come, and if you didn't want them to, that was the time to say so: "Oh, well, actually, we planned on keeping this small and casual and keeping costs down, would you mind just dropping Johnny off and picking him up at 5 this time? We'll take good care of him." It indicates that the major breach of etiquette is bringing along other uninvited children- siblings, etc.- (which I do agree with, by the way! When you plan for a certain number of children, you shouldn't get saddled with extra children to entertain, feed, and who might mess up the dynamic of the planned party etc). But I still don't find it a breach of etiquette, rude, impolite, surprising or in any way bad that a parent might want to stick around and help monitor their kids. The bottom line is you failed to make your expectations clear, and now you're upset about that, but going on about how furious you are at these people and how they've "forgotten to be polite" is just unwarranted. Their intent is either to help supervise their children's behavior and safety, or to make sure you don't find them rudely using you as a babysitting service when you didn't outright say "Hey, just drop them off and go!" Neither of which are impolite trains of thought.

It looks like a great first day :) I love the blog!

I'd give them a couple of clear warnings/chances, and if it got out of hand again after their last "chance" was used up, they'd have to be separated for X amount of time, or for the rest of that particular assignment, or whatever works for you. Make sure they are perfectly clear on the procedure ahead of time.

Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon. It's my favorite book (well, my favorite series) ever, hands down.

LOL!

Where I live in PA, my kids just finished taking group swim lessons at our local town pool. They're Red Cross swimming lessons. There were 8 lessons total, 45 minutes each, and it cost $25.00 for the first kid and $15.00 for the second. So for my daughter to take her level 4 and my son to take his level 1, I paid $40.00. (In previous years they did 10 lessons instead of 8, and they were 30 minutes each instead of 45, so sometimes they do it that way too).

Where I live in PA, I've never had any negative comments or feedback. Occasionally I get an interested/curious question or two (usually it's: "Where do you get your materials? Does the school give them to you?" or "Are you going to do it all the way through high school?") but for the most part I get friendly, positive comments, if anything.

I always find a couple of trays of baked ziti pretty easy to make.

Why does he have to have speed tests? I wouldn't want to work on a timer either. You're encouraging speed with math, not attention and diligence? What's the point to that? If you have a kid you know that doesn't work for- adapt. Skip the speed tests. Isn't that part of the beauty of homeschooling, being able to understand and work with each child's individual learning style? I pay more attention to things I'm interested in than things I'm not, too. Don't you? Maybe you can find a way to work a little more within his interests. He likes books? Great. Maybe you can work more of his curriculum around the books he enjoys. Maybe you can find ways to make things a little more hands on for him. Maybe you can reconsider some of what you're thinking he "needs" and determine if he really does need them. I mean, I have no idea what sort of assignments you give him, or how old he is, or anything, but it's something to think about. If he's distracted by his sister's assignments, maybe you can find ways to modify them to make them work for him too, if he's interested. Or maybe they need a separate workspace where he won't be distracted.

I don't know, I guess I'll just never see it your way or understand your thinking. First, I have always addressed my children's party invitations to their friends, because that is who they are inviting. However, I've ALWAYS assumed that a parent might either drop them off or stick around to keep an eye on their kid/wait for their kid. I have NEVER considered parents unwelcome at my children's birthday parties- yet I still don't address the invitations to the "family" or word them to specifically invite the parents. I've never seen anyone do that. Same with any invitation my child has ever received. About the food issue, sometimes I'll word the invitations to say something like "lunch will be provided for the kids" so the parents know that their children will be fed a meal, which also implies that it is ONLY the children I am feeding, even if the adults decide to stick around. But really it has never been an issue. Any party I've ever gone to where we parents stick around, we've just sat and chatted and did not expect to be fed, and did not just help ourselves to food. If someone came over and specifically said, "Hey, help yourselves, we've got plenty," that's a different story. But more often than not, that wasn't the way it happened. And nobody cared. Really. We KNEW it was the kids who were there to celebrate. We were just hanging out and keeping an eye on our kids. You keep going back to how the parents weren't "invited" but I think you're missing the point that parents who decide to stay at a party to keep an eye on their kids just don't see themselves as "invited guests," and do NOT expect to be treated as such, which makes the "but they weren't specifically invited!" issue moot. Many parents think it would be downright rude of them to just drop their children off and leave, having the hostess left to run the party, celebrate with her child, and supervise/monitor everyone else's children, too. They either think they are doing you a favor/doing the right thing, or they think that they are helping to ensure their children's good behavior and safety by sticking around. Either way, they're not expecting you to treat them the same as the invited kids, and neither of those scenarios are a cause for the kind of angerness and bitterness I see in your thread. I would be so uncomfortable with a parent like you. It's actually baffling to me to think of someone reacting this way to my hanging around with my child at a birthday party, I've just never encountered this sort of attitude before. Ever. We'd likely just decline and stay home if I knew a parent felt as strongly about this as you do, because you would SERIOUSLY make me feel awkward and uncomfortable. Since you are worried about/having trouble with the financial aspect of providing extra food, again: You are NOT obligated to buy food for them. They won't expect you to. But if YOUR way of thinking, personality, whatever the case may be won't allow you to think of it that way, then why don't you just call the parents up, and say "As you know, we're ordering some pizzas for the kids. If any of the adults who are sticking around would like to chip in toward an extra pie for themselves, let me know and I'll be happy to order it at the same time as I order the others." Or go ahead and give them some potato chips and ice water and call it good, plenty of people have already reassured you that it's perfectly acceptable to do that. But acting like you're forced to provide a meal and getting this angry about it? Wow. I don't get that. I'd rather have a hostess who made me feel welcome to be with my children than a hostess who fed me pizza. Just saying. At the VERY least you should understand by this point that the parents who are staying are not doing it to be rude, and do not consider it rude, and are making a choice that is not only considered widely socially acceptable, but also actually polite in many circles. Since your viewpoint differs from a lot of other peoples, maybe next time you can just be much more specific in the wording of your invitation, and spare yourself the fury.

Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting concept though. She basically says "I can't answer that now, because I know her" when asked at some point if she would have terminated the pregnancy had she known. But that she should have had the choice BEFORE she knew and loved the child she'd brought into the world. That it was the doctor's responsibility to tell her way back when so she could have had the opportunity to make a choice- a choice that would NOW be impossible, because she already loves this kid. It's an interesting thing to think about, really. If you know your child is going to have a lifetime of nothing but pain and hardship, assuming you're not totally and rigidly pro life for say religious reasons to begin with- would you terminate a pregnancy to spare your child that kind of life and pain? This is not the same as saying "I don't think a disabled person's life is worth living" (to me) but "I wouldn't want to spend my life in constant pain and hardship and not being able to fully live it and so on, so I don't want to put a child through that either"- I'm sure it's a very hard, very personal decision. If your doctor fails to see the signs that were there and give you that choice and you have this child now that will have all sorts of expensive special needs- should the doctor have some sort of financial responsibility? If making the doctor take responsibility is the only way your child can have a safe, secure life financially (what if you can't afford all those things and this is your way to provide for said child, to make sure she is cared for not only now, but perhaps in the future when you aren't there to take care of her)- would you do it? It's definitely not a black and white issue! Not that it's one that I'm trying to debate or argue one way or another lol- just saying I can see where the main character is coming from with trying to have it "both ways" and that I did think it made for a good and thought-provoking read.

Oak Meadow provides a 36 week lesson plan. So each lesson tells you basically "Do these things this week." I prefer to have it broken down by day- I just find it easier to have a daily schedule to follow. I don't schedule my day by time slots or anything like that, but I like knowing "get this stuff done sometime today, that stuff done sometime tomorrow, this stuff Wednesday" and so on. So usually over the summer I'll gradually go through the syllabus and break it down day by day and put that stuff into a wordpad document. This way I can see that I have our week pretty balanced, that she's not going to spend way more time on school stuff on a Monday than she is on, say, a Thursday, I can see where it's convenient to add in anything 'extra' and so on. Then, over the school year, every week I can open up that document, highlight and print that week's lesson plan, and see at a glance what we want to get done on any given day that week. Then I can cross things off as we go. If something's not crossed off, I'll know that means we just didn't get to it and that I should tack it on to another day that week or whatever. It does take some time to prepare but like I said, I just do it gradually over the summer as I have the time and the inclination and then I find it very convenient to have over the school year. ETA: Here are some examples, from 4th grade which we did last year, and for K and 5 which I've already got all laid out for this coming year: http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/126296.html (5th grade schedule/lesson plan) http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/126472.html (4th grade schedule/lesson plan- includes some pics of the things we did) http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/125979.html (Kindergarten schedule/lesson plan)

Want to talk books? The book I last read was: "Handle With Care," by Jodi Picoult. I liked it, but, then, I like all of her books! It's about a girl born with a condition that causes her bones to break all the time, and what their family life is like- and then the mother decides to file a "wrongful birth suit" because she loves her daughter and wants to provide well for her future- but this causes all sorts of drama- the husband doesn't think she should do this, the kids start to think it means the mom doesn't/didn't want them, even though she reassured them otherwise, the media is all over them and other people think this mom is a real jerk, and so on. Oh and to add a twist, the OB-GYN she is suing is also her best friend. The book/s I am currently reading are: "Deconstructing Penguins: Parents, Kids and the Bond of Reading" (you all raved about it so much I decided to order a copy and check it out), and "Where Are You Now?" by Mary Higgins Clark. It's pretty good so far. The main character is a girl whose brother disappeared out of the blue ten years ago. But he calls every Mother's Day, and won't tell his family where he is or why he disappeared. Other people are disappearing too, the missing brother is starting to be accused of being a murderer, and his sister is trying to find him and to find out what's going on. I borrowed this book while we were staying at a bed and breakfast as I'd forgotten to bring myself something to read, and the woman was nice enough to let me bring it home to finish, and I said I'd send it back media mail when I was done. This is one of those authors I tend to buy if I see them at a used book sale or something, rather than buying new, but I usually enjoy them well enough. The book I plan to read next is: "Bullet," by Laurel K. Hamilton. It is the most recent book in the "Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter," series which I confess to loving. And buying new. In hardcover. I have the whole series. It's more "adult" than Twilight. The book/s I'm reading with my kids: "On The Banks Of Plum Creek," with my 9 y/o- we're working our way through the Little House series, obviously. and "The Indian In The Cupboard," to both my 9 y/o and 4 y/o, after seeing some of you talk about how even your young kids liked that book. It's holding both of their attention, including my 4 y/o's, surprisingly well! So? What are your last/current/next? Feel free to add a brief description or review so the rest of us can see if we want to check them out, too :D

I could never schedule things by time slots. That just doesn't work for me. I don't like being that tied down, and I wouldn't want to feel like I wasn't doing what I was "supposed to be doing" if (when!!!) I didn't stick to "the schedule." With that said, I do take my weekly lesson plans (provided by Oak Meadow) and break them down into daily lesson plans. So now at least I know which specific things I want to aim to get done in a given day. I then take my list of "things we want to get done today" and cross them off as we go. But I don't tie myself down into what time (or even what time of day) they must be done or the order in which they must be done or anything like that. If nothing else is going on, maybe we'll just work our way through and get it all done (4th grade took us about 3 hours a day). If other things are going on, maybe we'll work a bit, then go out and do a field trip or whatever we wanted to do, and then get back to it later. If we didn't get to something at all, it'd stay on the list to get done some other time that week, but usually we got things done. This has worked very well for me- it's allowed me to be both flexible and organized to an extent, and it puts less pressure on me and I don't have to start stressing out that "oh no we didn't do X at 10:30 AM and now my whole day is thrown off!" That would make me batty. :) Here are sample schedules for what Oak Meadow 5 will be like for my daughter the first week of school next month and what Oak Meadow K will be like for my son the first week of school next month to give an idea of what our days will be like: http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/126296.html (5th grade sample schedule) http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/125979.html (Kindergarten sample schedule) and for the heck of it, here's a sample schedule from 4th grade (with pics), which we finished last year: http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/126472.html (4th grade sample schedule) This will be the first year I'm teaching two kids/grades using the OM curriculum so I still have to see how it goes in regard to working with both of them at once! I do know there will be times my daughter can work more independently this year, though she does still like individual attention, and I guess those will be times I will work with my son for K (which I can't see taking more than like an hour a day anyway)! I just have to see how it works out in the end... wish me luck :D

Here's a detailed daily schedule/lesson plan for our first week of school, which we'll be starting next month. This is using the Oak Meadow 5th grade curriculum: http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/126296.html

What do you mean? Having to go somewhere for a regular, weekly activity to begin with, you mean? The gymnastics place is about 15 minutes from my house. It would only be once a week because the kids would go on the same day and at the same time. Anyway my husband did wince a little bit when I told him the price haha but then he admitted that no, he didn't think it was a totally unreasonable price, and said that if I wanted to sign them up and let them try it out and see if they like it well enough to want to continue, to go ahead. By the way, I have a choice of class times. I was going to do 4:30-6:00 but now I'm thinking that will interfere with dinner too much. I'd rather eat beforehand, not have to first start thinking about dinner at 6:30 at night when the kids would be starving after class and I'd be more likely to be tired. I guess we'll do the 6:30-8:00 class instead!

Yep, this. And the can runs out sooner than you'd think it should. But they do taste good and i agree it would be great for something like camping, if you bring an electric griddle or something.

The ped could probably help you with what to use for the constipation at this point, but I definitely wouldn't push the potty issue until she's ready. Many kids won't start using the potty for that til right around four years old, as was the case with my son. He was getting closer and closer to his fourth birthday and I was thinking he was never going to use the potty, and then two months before he turned four, he just started using it. One of my nephews just started pooping on the potty finally, too... one month before his fourth birthday.

Thanks all! I'll show this thread to my, er, somewhat frugal husband when I tell him how much it's going to cost for the kids to join gymnastics haha.

I was thinking of putting both of my younger kids into gymnastics in the fall. My 9 year old would go into the "advanced beginner class," which is 1 1/2 hours (from 4:30-6:00 PM) once a week. My 4 year old would go into the "beginner" class, which is a 1 hour (from 4:30-5:30 PM, then he'd just hang out with me for the last half hour while we waited for his sister). Her class would cost $58.00 a month. His class would cost $40.00 a month. So $98.00 a month for the two of them. Plus a $35.00 registration fee for each of them, payable once per year. Would you consider that reasonable/average?

Well, my daughter is only 9. But so far, any book that is going to be "assigned" is a read aloud. (Plus we do a few more read alouds just for fun, if there are books that I think will be fun and interesting for us both, or that will inspire discussion etc). Independent reading, those are the books she chooses to read on her own for fun.

Our group is on meetup.com, so that might be a good place to start. Also, you might have local museums and/or historical places of interest that offer "homeschool days" or "homeschool programs," and that might be a good place to ask... or good events to network at. For that matter, our bowling alley has a homeschool bowling league. You could look up (just google) homeschool groups in your state and see if anything comes up. If you really can't find anything, you might want to consider starting your own group- either on meetup.com, or by perhaps putting up flyers with an email address and/or forum you start in places that homeschoolers might frequent. Like the library for instance. The library might even be able to tell you whether there ARE other homeschoolers in your area.

I usually refer people to the following website: http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/ I tell them to start reading through that, and doing some research online and/or at the library, and not to hesitate to ask me if they have any questions or want to chat about it. Sometimes I tell them a little bit about how and why I started homeschooling.