I used to just always say the grade I consider them to be in, but it's been getting weird when I do that lately. DD is young for the school grade she would be in (Sept. birthday) and she's working a grade level ahead. When she tells people she's in 4th grade and she just turned 8, she gets some strange looks or people argue with her. This year we're taking a gap year, so I either tell people we're doing a mixture of 3rd and 4th grade work, or I tell people she would be a 3rd-grader if she went to school, and at home she's doing 3rd and 4th grade work. It's confusing with DS too. He would be in 4th grade, but if I ever did send him to school I would probably hold him back a year. He also has an early b-day (August) so he would be young for his grade, and I don't feel he would be mature enough. It's never easy, is it?

I've never used the phonics program you're using. The only thing I didn't see on your list is grammar and art, and I'm not sure if grammar is built into your program or not. Even if she's not reading fluently yet, you can still do some parts of speech games. You have a nice activity schedule, and everything else looks great.

I have a couple of friends who are allergic (though not as allergic as your DD!) and whenever they come over, I make sure I vacuum immediately before they get here and I lock the dogs in another room or put them in the yard. If I had a family member like this -- especially if it was a small child who was having this much of a reaction -- I would be very flexible. Short of boarding my animals elsewhwere, which I wouldn't do, I would do my best to make sure everything was clean and the pets were kept away from the guests. If I was told it would be easier on the family with the allergic child that we travel there instead, I would do it if distance wasn't a factor. Less cleaning for me, right? I think you need to be honest with your family members when it comes to these invitations. Tell them about your DD's last reaction and that you're keeping her out of school because of this issue. Hopefully they will understand. Edited to add: Before we have new people over, I always tell them we have 3 cats and 2 large dogs that all shed, so if they have allergies they can make the decision not to come, to take medication before they come, or they will have the opportunity to tell me they have allergies and ask what I can do with the pets while they're here. I'm very willing to work with people. I'm allergic to dust and mold, so I know how unpleasant allergies can be, and I'm only mildly allergic.

What about a picture calendar? DH makes one every year for his grandmother. My ILs like wine, so one year we got them a gift certificate to a local vineyard that does wine tastings and wrapped it up with a bottle of their wine. We've also given them a membership to an art museum. For Mother's Day/Father's Day we started a tradition a couple years ago. We get them and my mom tickets to a show in Boston. We all go together to the show and out to dinner after. It's expensive to do, but they enjoy having that experience with us.

I know a couple of real-life families I've met at homeschooling events who educationally neglect their children. More regulations won't help because they'll ignore them, not register, or find some way to get around them anyway. Families like this and like this one: http://gulfnews.com/life-style/people/i-let-my-children-do-whatever-they-want-1.1108729 scare me because even though we know policy and regulations aren't going to change anything, policy makers are going to look at families like these as a representation of all homeschoolers, impose stricter regulations, and the majority of us will be left jumping through more hoops while these people continue to fart around, watch TV, and pick wildflowers all day, or whatever the heck they do when they're neglecting the education of their children.

This is ours from the week before Turkey Day and our science class the week of Turkey Day. I posted it on another thread, but it was near the end. http://jujsky.blogspot.com/2012/11/week-15-week-before-turkey-day.html

Well that's silly. If you talked to grandma and told her you were trying to find one on e-bay because DS likes it so much, would she give it to him?

Michael's has several origami kits. They range from $6 mini kits that are different animals with pre-printed folds to larger, more expensive kits. You could also get a book on collage making and different scrapbook paper. What about just a scrapbook kit? A crafty 13 year old could have a lot of fun with that. You could buy some FIMO clay or regular clay, some clay tools, and an instruction/idea book for your DS.

Are you overreacting? Let's analyze this. 1. You had to spend Thanksgiving w/MIL and strangers. From your post, it sounds like MIL is not your favorite person, as you said she kept dumping on you the entire time. 2. You did most or all of the work for Thanksgiving while other people played or treated you like crap. 3. Your husband didn't offer to help while you were cooking for HIS family. How nice for him to have a vacation while you work your butt off for people you don't much care for and would probably rather not spend time with. 4. He was flirting with another woman. No matter what he says, that's what he was doing. While you might not mind it with your mutual friends (flirting openly with mutual friends in my presence wouldn't bother me) flirting with a stranger is different. There is no shared history of friendship and respect there. She is just some woman. 5. He physically touched this other woman during rough play. NOT appropriate! Other than giving friends of the opposite sex an occasional hug in greeting or departing (in front of our spouses) there is no touching. No, you didn't overreact at all. Your husband was completely out of line. He's lucky you were as nice to him as you were and a tray of hot food didn't "accidentally" wind up in his lap or on her head. "Ooops! Sorry! So clumsy of me. I must be a little punchy from doing ALL the work to feed you people."

I think that it's the thought that counts. Maybe he doesn't have much time to do baking/cooking for himself since he always cooks for others. If he was blown away by receiving a hand-drawn picture from a little girl, he sounds like a man with a kind heart who will appreciate your gesture.

I read a lot about night terrors when DD was going through them. It is related to sleep-walking, and sleep disruptions in REM can be hereditary. I had night terrors as a child. My uncle and brother were both sleep-walkers as children.

It sounds more like she had a bad dream, went to you calmly for attention, and then started freaking out for whatever reason (attention-seeking behavior, or maybe it replayed in her mind and she reacted to it or it could be a survival-instinct thing that she calmly went to you and then broke down once she was with you and felt safe again). My DD used to have night terrors anywhere from once every couple of weeks to several times/week for a couple years. What you're describing is not a night terror. If it's a night terror, the child remembers nothing, and I've never heard of a child with a night terror getting her parents. My DD would usually be crying inconsolably in her bed, sometimes fighting us. She'd appear to look at as (eyes wide open) but she'd really be looking through us. They say never to wake a child from a night terror, but if it didn't pass relatively quickly we would get her up and make her walk with us up and down the brightly-lit hallway. Once she truly was awake, she'd snap out of it, look at us with a sleepy smile, and talk to us a bit. It would literally be like someone flipping a switch. My son has never had night terrors, but has had a few horrible nightmares. He would wake up, come to our room, and tell us he had a bad dream. He'd be able to recount all or some of it. Night terrors or nightmares, I'm sorry your little one is going through this.

I'm an E/ISFJ. There's a 1% preference in E over I.

Pretty, but again -- all short sleeved!!!!!! Wooden soldier needs to don one of those babies and get his little wooden butt up to New England in December. I bet those dresses would have sleeves after that!

Mine is late, and it's mostly a rant about the AWFUL science class we took Thanksgiving week. Blah! http://jujsky.blogspot.com/2012/11/week-15-week-before-turkey-day.html

My main gripe with Christmas dresses (and this has been my gripe since DD was a toddler) is 95% of the Christmas dresses have short sleeves. I live in New England. DD will be wearing this in the WINTER. Why are there so many short-sleeved dresses in the store? That makes no sense at all! The whopping 5% of long sleeved dresses that are left are usually pretty ugly.

We did the same thing. Kohl's on Black Friday. We bought 2 sets of 600-count queen sheets. I rarely buy sheets -- I either end up using whatever cheap once come in the bed-in-bag sets we normally buy or we get sheets as a gift. We really needed new ones, and boy was I appalled when I looked at the price tag!!!!!

Oh, I think so. Most of my friendships are unequal. Some times I'm undervalued, sometimes I undervalue my friends. I think it's worse now that I'm homeschooling. It used to be that I was undervalued in most of my friendships, and now I usually put much less of an effort into my friendships than my friends do. I don't have the energy or time and we seem to be on different schedules. My friends with kids in school are busy after work rushing their kids to activities so they tend to call me in the middle of the day when I can't talk because I'm teaching. In the afternoon I'm also rushing my kids to activities. It's hard to connect, and I put much less effort into connecting with people than they do. In fact, if it wasn't for my husband pushing us to go out with this set of friends or have that set of friends over, I would almost never see anyone outside of our activities.

:iagree: Another one agreeing with Jean. They all come from me and me alone. I'm in a constant battle with myself to :chillpill:

I bought all sorts of goodies. I found these itty-bitty terrariums at Michael's. They're egg-shaped and each grow one plant. I also found little origami kits there there $5.99 each. The papers are pre-printed, including the fold-lines, so I think you just follow the directions and go with it. We always get them a movie for their stocking because we don't travel on Christmas (we stay in our pjs, play, and watch movies). She's getting Brave, and I pre-ordered Ice Age for him. He's getting a couple Skylander figures and she's getting a necklace. They each have either a coloring book or a sticker book as well, and we might get them a couple of gift cards & some candy & chapstick.

German Shepherds. They're wonderful family dogs, protective, and they were bred for herding. They do shed like crazy though, so you'll want to make brushing part of your routine. Also, I've found in my experience that male dogs tend to stink more than female dogs, so you may want to weigh that into your decision-making process if you don't like that doggy smell.

Let him go. It will be a nice opportunity for him to spend a good chunk of time with his friend, and if you trust all the adults involved, why not?

If I'm making them something, they usually know about it. I used to try to keep it a surprise, but ran into the same problems you're having -- there's little free time when they're not around and I'm not wiped out. I made them rag quilts this year. They picked out which pattern they wanted and gave me an idea of colors. They saw some of the fabric in the house while I was cutting it out, but I was able to sew them together while the kids were gone with their grandparents for a week this summer. They know they're getting them, but haven't seen the final product. DD asked me a couple weeks ago if I would make Disney princess dresses for her American Girl dolls. At first I wasn't going to do it due to time constraints, but really, how long is she going to ask me to make her American Girl clothes? I bought the pattern and fabric while she was in dance class last weekend and told her that I'm making her the dresses, but they may not be ready in time for Christmas. I took this week off from school and want to work on them. There's no way I could do that without telling her. She can't see them finished and on the dolls until she gets them.

I've heard Kids of Catan is awful. I haven't heard anything either way about the junior addition. My kids have been playing it for about a year. They need a bit of help now and then, but the more we play, the more independent they become.

Can you possibly take the week after Thanksgiving off as well? I know you might be reluctant to do that since you're taking 3 weeks off around Christmas, but it might do you some good. It's hard to play catch-up during a holiday week. We took this week off too, but it was less to get things done and more because we wouldn't get anything (school-wise at least) done, if you know what I mean.