I'm already invested in CW and R&S, and didn't want to change to WWE. So now that the Primers have come along, I'm excited about doing them with my younger girl, she's just the right age.

I've done it, because I sometimes work at the library running field trips for classrooms. We haven't got neato workstations, so my kids just work at a couch or table. I pack them up a bag of what I want to get done, and they do it. It works fine, but since I can't be there with them it's not as good as home. We might try it at random for a nice change of pace this year.

Bummer. I'm sorry to hear that. I know that bad mood very well! First: don't just tell them to do a job and then leave the room and expect it to get done. Tell them to do the job and then watch them do it, and inspect it. (This is known as "they do what you inspect, not what you expect.") If they're watching TV or whatever, they cannot continue that until the job is done. I frequently use small bribes, almost. We can't do whatever fun thing is planned until the jobs are done. This can even be a meal, though often kids are too hungry to be able to deal well with that idea. For example, after lunch every day my kids have certain jobs to do, and once the jobs are done, they can have the otterpop or the game or whatever it is they want to be doing. We do chores at breakfast, lunch, and evening. Breakfast is things like getting dressed, making beds (they're spotty with that one!), teeth, etc. Lunch is more the house chores like sweeping, taking out trash, etc.--they have different jobs for every weekday at lunchtime. Evening is a general tidy-up and jammies, and we don't read bedtime stories or watch TV until they're done. I would ease into it, and be really diligent about enforcing. Like you could start with daily bedmaking for a week or so. Stand there while they do it, and don't allow fun stuff till it's done. And, control your temper. I practice ruthless cheerfulness--if you never lose your temper and sweetly, cheerfully repeat yourself ad nauseum without ever losing your cool or giving in, you will get better results over time. This is not easy for me, but I'm improving. I grit my teeth and think how aggravating I must be for them! :D You might like to read the Love & logic parenting books, I really like their attitude. I use Managers of their chores for job ideas and organization, but in a very relaxed way, I could never do the actual method they advise!!

I want one too!

What if you can't afford all this stuff, what do you do? I haven't got $100 to spend on school supplies for each kid, and I only have two.

Well, maybe it helps that I live in a small city? And also, I have run a program for school kids at the library for several years now, so I'm somewhat familiar with the district office and several teachers. I've lived here about 9 years now (my kids are 9 and 6) and have had time to get to know something about most of the local elementary schools (like which ones have high scores, the demographics, which have special programs like GATE or open structure, etc.). When my friends talk about school, I'm sympathetic and interested--I mean, I don't have to pretend about that. I can't say that I can keep track of every teacher that gets mentioned, but I know that the guy K teacher is really great, and Mrs. K. gave little M. a pretty hard time, and so on. Right now there's a lot of upheaval and I'm interested, so I participate. It's not hard to agree with the kvetching. :tongue_smilie: For example, I have a friend whose little girl is very quiet and shy in class (not at home!). She keeps getting seated next to 'difficult' kids to keep things quiet, and then she spends all her energy on that instead of her schoolwork, and she comes home exhausted and with terrible papers. I can discuss that issue as well as anyone, I guess. (If this year's teacher isn't very good for her, they will homeschool.) Also, since I follow a lot of curriculum stuff, people do ask me sometimes about things. A year or so ago a friend emailed me with "The district is piloting two math programs for next year--have you heard of Everyday Math?" :scared: So I got kind of involved with that and even went to the parental curriculum review and argued with a math teacher. I was one of 3 parents who showed up, but the district had not exactly advertised the opportunity... Anyway, most of these folks are very good friends of mine, and it's not like there are any other classical homeschoolers around here to be friends with. Maybe I put in the effort because I haven't got a choice! I love my friends, though, and they are even pretty good about listening to me get excited about Classical Writing every once in a while. We have lots of other stuff in common.

I am around for a lot of these conversations, and I usually manage to contribute something useful, but it's taken a lot of listening and keeping up with local school issues. Happily I'm interested anyway, but it's certainly true that I end up hearing a lot about the local school. It does convince me that I prefer homeschooling--I think my friends spend at least as much energy on school as I do. Last night I went to a baby shower where about 2/3 of the women there talked mostly about their kids' school (which is starting next week, and there's a lot of anxiety and uncertainty because of the budget cuts and bigger classes and all sorts of things--no one even knows teacher assignments yet). The other women were teachers, since the guest of honor is a teacher. So yeah, lots of school talk!

I'm not sure you're supposed to be able to figure out the answers to those questions. I know I never have--I've read it like three times, trying to figure it out, and never have really understood it.

We love: The Court Jester The Secret of Roan Inish The Neverending Story

Whoa, free house cleaning? Score! Yeah, that is a real problem, that people see it as an option to be discarded if conditions aren't just right, and ps as the default that you should fall back on. I don't know when that will ever change.

I like the phrase 'cheerful heartlessness.' That's the attitude I try to maintain around people like that. I like the repetition of the one sentence! My FIL is quite difficult and I just quit caring about anything he said several years ago. (It's probably easier for me to do this, since he constantly makes remarks favoring my daughter over my niece, which makes my SIL's head explode.) He's not normal, he never will be (long story, not entirely his fault), and while he's very hard to spend time with, I just don't listen to any of it and that makes it easier. I'm sure relieved when it's over, though, he takes up more space in a room than anybody I know, psychologically speaking.

I voted #3. I have two kids and one has serious food allergies, which does sometimes limit her participation. Happily, we have had very good luck with leaders and people willing to make accommodations and tweak things so that she can participate as much as everyone else. (For example, we did a summer-long cooking class with friends, and I just sent a list of things to avoid. Everyone was very helpful and willing to discuss ingredients, etc. with me.)

SWB says they're totally unnecessary. I had the time when my oldest was in 1st and she enjoyed drawing pictures on index cards and putting them on a timeline, and then I kept all the pictures and they were really cute--but it was more extra fun than anything else.

You might like to read this: A really, really, really long post about gay marriage that does not, in the end, support one side or the other.

What I don't understand is why the pastor (and his wife, who is also very involved) is encouraging and abetting these actions. I don't understand how someone who calls himself a minister can justify this. I don't blame him totally or anything; I know that he has also counseled her to love her husband. But to me his actions (helping her to deceive her husband) speak louder than his words to love her husband. I have no reason to think that she is actually committing adultery. But certainly she seems to have some inappropriate feelings towards this pastor, though also she is very close to the wife, who seems to encourage all this.

May I ask something about Reformed churches? I have to admit that I am harboring a lot of anger about Calvinism and Reformed theology these days. We have been friends with a family in our church for a long time, and over the past year the wife has decided to join a Reformed church. She says that she has given her life to Jesus (our own Christian church doesn't have Jesus in it). OK, fine. She has every right to convert to whatever religion she likes and I don't object. But the fruit of this apparent conversion has been, as far as I can tell, nothing but bad. She has withdrawn from her very nice husband, and is on the verge of divorcing him. She has been neglecting her 5 lovely children, and emotionally manipulating them ("You can go to church with Mom and make Mom happy, or with Dad and make him happy." Dad hates this tactic.). Since the two oldest boys decided not to go with her, she has withdrawn from them and acted in ways so that she has lost their respect. She has become short tempered. She has dropped her former friends, except necessary contact. Her blog presents a shiny, happy facade that is mostly about church, a bit about her children, and nothing at all about her husband. So, to my question: the pastor of this church, and his wife, encouraged her for a long time in deceiving her husband. She said nothing to anyone about her changing ideas for quite some time, but emailed the pastor every day and waited anxiously for his daily replies (which, in our church, would be considered totally inappropriate). She ordered books and materials to study which were sent to the pastor's home so that her husband wouldn't know. Something was so obviously wrong that her husband thought she was having an affair, but she refused to discuss anything with him. How can this possibly be right? How can the pastor justify his actions? I don't understand all this at all, but it's certainly caused a lot of pain around here.

We take pictures and do a little profile, and go out to lunch afterwards. I try to have something fun like a science experiment.

I don't know that voracious reading is enough. I am certainly a reader, and my grammar is fairly good, but I still feel like I'm in a kind of fog when it comes to anything very involved--I don't really know what I'm doing and that doesn't help my confidence. Good usage sometimes eludes me--I didn't know the difference between "less" and "fewer" until I was 25 or so (and used it incorrectly in an important grad school paper :blushing:). I really wish I had had better grammar instruction as a kid, and hope I can do better for my kids. But we're only to R&S 4, so we'll see how long we last! (I also think that reading does not guarantee good spelling--it helps, but if you're not a natural speller, reading alone will not do the job. My brother and sister are both avid readers, but they can't spell at all.)

My good friend spent a lot of time at her grandparents' house when she was a kid. I think it was most of the time, actually. She was not allowed to make a mess in playing or anything like that. One day I discovered that she has never, in her whole life, built a fort out of blankets and chairs--or anything like that! She's had to work pretty hard at loosening up enough to allow her children to play and make normal messes. Happily, she has mostly succeeded! But just think how little she was allowed to do--it's very sad. That was definitely too clean. When you value your things over the people in your life, that's too clean.

We generally start at the same time with the public school, so the kids can feel like they're doing the same thing as their friends. We just signed up with a charter ISP that actually starts a few days later, but who cares?

We've never had a skin prick test done and have always relied on blood tests, which I have been very happy about. I suppose you should just insist on bloodwork instead of skin pricks, but maybe I've just been very lucky in getting them so easily.

Thanks; I'll watch these when I get a chance. (Given that it took me about a month to get to the talk on evolution my husband liked, it will be a little while...so I'd love to be able to comment on your thoughts, KingM, but by the time I can you will have forgotten about it.)

Well, I think it says "by or about" yes? SWB may have been thinking of abridgements or a biographical mention; I wouldn't give a real Austen novel to a grammar-stage kid. I might watch a good movie version, though--one without suggestive scenes (new Northanger Abbey, looking at you!*) or terrible interpretation of the story. *I actually love this movie, but they had Isabella sleep with Captain Tilney and the scene isn't graphic, but certainly not for an under-12 or so.

Nope. And if I actually had the chance, I'm not at all sure that I would.

I think you did the right thing taking him to the ER. Good for you, and who cares what the doctor thinks? Remember that ER docs see a lot of people who really do come in for no reason, so he may be a bit biased and cynical about it. It is a great help to have Benadryl and an EpiPen with you at all times. I have sometimes used the Benadryl. For us, the epi is insurance--we have never used it, but it's there just in case we need it. I would rather pay for one and not need it than not have one on the day that my daughter needs it to save her life.