Our girls are allowed to read for about half an hour before lights out. It's a nice winding-down time for them. The older one, who is 7, has been having trouble with sleeping, so she's got a little booklight and is allowed to read with it if she can't sleep. I don't think she usually conks out during the story, though; she turns the light off and goes to sleep. And they listen to a nice CD after lights out.

Oh, that's familiar. My daughter will draw every number on the math worksheet in some special way, color them all in, add sparkles, and then fill in with flowers and fairies and whatnot. By the time she's done you can't read the answers. Yep, it always took her forever to color in the little umbrellas! Then I go to teach Sunday School to 5yos, and I bring them a lovely coloring picture, and some of them don't want to color! :eek: I don't know how to handle it! :o

In college I had a buddy whose last name was Hussein. He was a lovely guy from Fiji; his family was of Middle Eastern descent. It's like being named Jones. Remember King Hussein of Jordan? He's got a lot of relatives.

You can only do so much. You have a huge amount on your plate and frankly, I would not be able to do it. If it was me, I would put the kids in school, which is not the end of the world, and try again in a year or so. It's better to be a healthy non-homeschooling mom who is happy for her kids in the afternoons than to be an unhealthy homeschooling mom who is drowning because she's trying to do too much.

Well, I like to look nice, but I'm not a fancy sort of person. I can look nice in crop pants or jeans and a cute t-shirt. My price range is Kohl's and Lands End overstocks, and I don't like to shop, but I try to look good. I didn't go to hair salons or anything like that when I was younger, but I started getting my hair professionally cut last year and I love it! Partly I feel like I should look nice. I don't want my kids looking at me and thinking "Hm, married, religious homeschooling SAHM = frumpy grump! No thanks!" In a way I'm an advertisement to my family for my choices, and I want them to be attractive choices--I'm competing with MTV and Cosmo* for their attention and I want to win. Style isn't substance but it sure can help. I'm not gorgeous or anything; I need to lose weight too. So I try to get plenty of exercise and eat right without carping on about my weight all the time. I've got a couple of little girl sponges watching me, so I feel that I need to show that exercise and strength are fun, and one shouldn't obsess about weight. *I don't actually let my little girls look at MTV or Cosmo. But let's face it, they'll get plenty of exposure to those things without my help.

For us it's a kid's holiday. We had a bunch of kids over yesterday to decorate cookies, and my kids have fun making cards and decorations, and we're going to get a heart-shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's for fun. If I can find the little heart tins from last year, I'll bake muffins in them for breakfast. But my husband and I don't do anything. Our first-date anniversary is 2/28, so we always do something special then.

My best friend in junior high was hooked on, I think, Days of our lives--the one with Kayla. Given the many young girls named Kayla I've met, I think a lot of people were! She taped it every day and watched it after school. My story is a little odd; I was an exchange student for a year, and my host family--Dad too--was hooked on The bold and the beautiful, which played in the evening on a local channel We always watched it (often on tape). I think the episodes were a couple of years old, but they involved Ridge, Stephanie, Thorn and Brooke and so on!

There are things my kids are going to miss if they stay homeschooled through 12th grade. There are things they would miss if they went to PS, too. There isn't a perfect education, but I chose homeschooling because I think that I can do better overall (if I commit myself properly) than a professional who is trying to teach 20+ kids at once, at least in the early years. The professional *may* know more than I do about child education, but she's spread thinner, and I know more about my kids and am able to give them more one-on-one attention. My oldest kid is one of those fairly bright (not genius, but doesn't struggle), compliant kids who often gets ignored in a classroom. I've worked in a school and I've seen it; the teacher spends most of her effort on the kids in crisis, which they need--but the kids who aren't struggling get almost ignored because they aren't crying out for help and there just isn't enough time for everyone. I was one of those kids, and when I did need help I actually didn't know that I could ask for it. About teaching more than one kid and running a home at the same time: it is pretty hard. I only have two, and I'm not sure how I'm going to cope when the younger one starts K seriously. I'm hoping that by then we can afford to have someone come in to help with the cleaning. I can only do so much, and I'm now reaching the edge of what I can manage and stay sane. I want my kids to work to the best of their ability and to get a solid, rigorous education, but that doesn't mean that I want them to work years ahead of their PS friends or be super-geniuses. If I could give the same sort of things (solid basic skills, interest in learning, ability to reason) to every kid, I would, because I'm hoping that the kind of education I'm aiming for would be a good base for any citizen, regardless of chosen profession. It will be a long time before we hit high school, so I'm mostly thinking for younger ages here. It's true that I can't specialize so much that I could give my kids an excellent higher-level education in any subject. Luckily, I have a math genius for a husband and a community college in town. When we get to age 14+, it will be time for my kids to be making some decisions for themselves about their educations, and public school is an option. Happily, the local HS is much better than mine was--mine was, seriously, nearly useless. If my kids can get dedicated, passionate teachers for some subjects, I will consider them very lucky; I certainly never had any before college. So my personal experience has made me a little cynical about that.

I only have girls, so I have nothing to compare with. But it wasn't easy. The first one wasn't too bad, she was nearly 3 when she trained. The second one was awful, esp. with BMs.

Why not get both?!? [/muppet movie] I'm not sure that modern Greek and Koine/Classical Greek are all that similar, so you might want to check that. But I think there are different reasons for studying the two. Latin is rigorous and gives you good grammar and vocabulary skills. It teaches you to think really hard. It makes learning Romance languages easier. It's a great base for learning to read, speak, and write in English. But, aside from the Aeneid, there's not a ton of wonderful literature to read in Latin, unless you want to read Thomas Aquinas in the original for religious reasons. I don't personally see a lot of incentive in becoming really fluent in Latin. Greek, OTOH, is a beautiful language with a lot of great literature to read, especially the New Testament. If you study Koine and then Classical Greek, there's a lot to read and enjoy. But it's not nearly so related to English, and studying Greek won't do the same things for you as Latin will. So for myself, I tend to see Koine as a sort of bonus language in which fluency is more of a goal than it is in Latin. I don't have to do it, but it will be a source of great enjoyment. So in our family, Latin is more of a useful, basic tool, and Greek is a worthwhile extra. We're hoping to do both eventually, but we started with Latin. (And we just bought Elem Greek I, yay!) We will definitely be doing a modern language as well, but later on. But hey, I'm no expert on either one, so feel free to ignore me. :p

My husband doesn't watch P&P with me. He can't stand anything Austen. (You've seen the Red Dwarf Austenland bit? That's how he feels about it.) He does do a very good impression of Mrs. Bennett, though. "Oooooh, Mr. Bennett!!" Anyway, I love the A&P P&P, and those things are supposed to be there, yes. but you don't have to love it, there's no WTM rule! :D

Our pediatrician has been very good about the homeschooling. She hasn't made a big deal of it or anything, but she seemed to think it was a good decision. Our allergist was downright enthusiastic about it. Our oldest daughter has severe nut allergies, so the ped. was happy to hear that she would be avoiding the perils of school lunch period. The allergist just talked about academics. When my younger girl started sleeping in stinkbug position at 6 or 7 months, the ped told us it was fine, since she was old enough to turn over on her own and all. Don't know if that counts.

Yeah, that's no fun. But it's my understanding that there is some developmental stuff going on there. Small children tend to think that if they say something, it will be true, so they may say what they want to have happened. Because of this there's not much point in asking a small child to tell the truth when you already know the facts. Just dealing with it (without trying to get a confession first) might be a better path. However it's been a while since I read up on it, so I'm sure someone will come along with better information. :)

Oh, thanks everyone. This is something I've been a bit worried about; we're doing R&S 3 and Aesop A right now and I love R&S and want to stick with it. I looked at a sample of Harvey's online and promptly hated it, so I was hoping that it would all work out. I'm very excited about CW and it's one of my daughter's favorite things.

So far, we've gone out to a nice dinner. Our anniversary is early in January and we're usually pooped after two months of birthdays and holidays. A couple of years ago, for our 10th, we thought we'd like to go on an overnight trip--we've never gone for a trip without the kids. Didn't happen. Nor did it happen last year for 11. 'Cause we're kind of lame that way. This year we were bound and determined to go--as soon as my husband's January deadline was over. So our first planned date in January didn't work out because of that. Our next planned date was, in fact, tomorrow--and I got as far as booking a hotel room before we discovered that our planned destination would be closed. We're hoping for March, but I think the universe hates me and won't let it happen; there's another deadline April 1st...:( But I did just realize that we didn't even go out to a nice dinner last month, so tomorrow night we'll do that. Thanks for starting the thread and reminding me!

For the past few years we've had a regular babysitter; a girl from church whose parents are friends of the family. She's great, and shows up every Saturday at 6.30 unless she has something else she has to do. Now she's 16 and has a life, so we're going to get a new girl pretty soon--we know her from church too, but she's also a close neighbor and homeschooled. It's really nice to have a regular babysitter; I don't have to remember to call someone and the kids look forward to Saturday nights.

It's my understanding that the Greeks' love of nudity in art was considered pretty weird by other peoples of the time, regardless of climate. And the Greeks didn't go out in public naked; the men worked out naked, they often partied naked, but they still wouldn't dream of being seen undressed on the street. (Women, of course, didn't do any of that stuff unless they were courtesans. Even the statues of women were modestly clothed for a long time; nude women in art were a shocking innovation that came long afterwards.) Nude statues of young men were an idealization of perfection. And there was also a lot of sex. Greeks were kind of weird about sex, they had plenty of their own hang-ups.

I had mine out 7 years ago, and it was pretty simple. I've never had any problems since. The only thing I had was that after the surgery, I couldn't lie down in a prone position; for some reason it hurt a lot. The nurses said that sometimes happens and to sleep in a recliner for a day. That worked--we had to borrow a recliner!

I like to embroider and sew. I do a lot of quilts but at the moment am doing dresses for my girls and my new obsession: bookbags with actual bookcovers sewn in. (Like, retro ancient bookcovers that no one would actually read, but that have neat cover art, that is, ugly but fun cover art.) I do like to cross stitch but am picky about patterns, and haven't come across a good one in a while. So give me some links to historical or literary patterns, I'd love that! My last cross-stitch project was a while ago, but this was it; the rabbit and millefleurs pillow at the top.

We learned these too. They're very handy, I learned them as a kid and still hum them to myself every so often!

Yes! Partly because yesterday I made the trip to the big city and the homeschool store. I needed one or two things and figured I might as well get some of the stuff I needed for next year too. So yesterday I bought: Elem. Greek I (whee!) SWO D Italic Handwriting A and E, one for each kid Adventures with Atoms and Molecules I and II Usborne Encyclopedia of Science and pH strips. I still have to buy a few things like CW Aesop B and Saxon 54 online, but those can wait a while. And I already have SOTW 3 waiting.

Oh, that looks so fun! My daughter would love to do something like that someday. Also, I'd never heard of your books (sorry) but they look fun, and I put one on hold at the library. ;)

There's also some fun Doctor Who merchandise... You can get great stuff at some castles. I once bought a neat wooden sword and knight tunic for my little cousin when I went. My kids play with the sword now.

Classical Writing!