As of 3.40 p.m. the score is: headboard 1, saw 0.5 I give up. The frame is so securely attached to the drywall that I can't get it off. I've called a handyman. I get half a point for removing part of it.

I tried to put my home ed experience into business-type language, so putting in keywords that (I hope) would resonate with whoever was reading the cv and communicate my point, that home edding experience included transferable skills. So I put down: Home-educated two students from Years 10 to 13 to obtain secondary school diploma. [emphasis on end goal] Researched educational methods, analysed different routes to nationally-recognized exams and diplomas [one of my strengths is research and analysis, so I tried to bring this out here as well as elsewhere in the cv. also emphasized the "nationally-recognized" to indicate accountability to an independent third party] Sourced materials and tutors [choice to use the verb "sourced" because it sounds more business-y] Don't forget to put in all your volunteer experience. I had my cv circulating for months before I remembered that I should have added my most recent volunteer work.

Laura, I wanted to ask you about Calvin's experience at uni -- I think you said he's doing classics. DD may be interested in classics at Oxbridge (her Greek tutor pushing for her to do this but is pushing for Cambridge). Do you have advice on whether one is preferable to the other?

There's lots of good cv examples for women returning to work from various sites. If you search for "relauncher" or "returner" or return to work etc you will probably come up with lots of examples on how to present your experience.

We did Thanksgiving last Saturday, so a fairly ordinary day here. DS8 is home off school for two weeks following surgery, so I'm meant to be doing schoolwork with him (very happy to have some time to "homeschool" for just a bit). In fact I'm doing battle with the most heinous headboard -- the previous owners took a six foot by six foot piece of wood, glued it with what must have been some sort of superglue to a frame made of 2 x2"s and stuck it to the wall of DSs' bedroom. Then they covered it with a hideous black flocked wallpaper, attached a rope light that gives no useful light. It is ugly and blocks the entire wall from being used for something sensible like a cupboard or bookshelves, so I'm trying to remove it. With a drill, child's saw, chisel, screwdrivers, hammers, electric. I've been at this for hours already and the darn thing isn't budging. It's also clear the wall will need to be spackled and repainted once I'm done. Argh! The good news is that we have nowhere to go, and DS is on very limited activity, so we really can't go too many places that require walking.

Kind of lame, but I really want socks. I wear black socks most days and have, over the years, collected pairs from different brands etc so matching them up is close to impossible but it annoys me when I can't wear a perfectly matched pair (maybe what I should want for Christmas is to get over this OCD tendency!). I'm asking for 8 pairs of black knee-high socks that are identical so I can get rid of the other black socks and have perfectly matched socks from now on. Oh, and a new laptop would be nice because mine keeps making funny noises.

How about something from Bath and Bodyworks or similar? They have some really cute very Christmassy soaps, antibacterial gels, lotions, etc. My dd is in China this year living with a host family. When she is home at Christmas, I'll send her back with some of those for her host sister (13) and probably a sweatshirt/T-shirt from a local attraction or similar. For her host parents/aunt/uncle/grandmother (she is lucky, she lives in a family that has relatives in the same apartment building so she is part of an extended family) I will probably send her back with some of the fanciest cookies/tea I can find (Harrods/Fortnums or similar). I may go to a museum shop to see if I can find anything there since those have good quality gifts that often are specific to that museum. I'll ask DD next time I speak with her and let you know if she has any specific suggesstions.

One of mine is getting: circuit stickers (from Maker, can also find them elsewhere) kit to build an Edo-style clock (also from Maker and through Amazon) yet another yoyo so she can make those around her crazy with her yoyoing yarn book with examples of crochet granny squares so she can have a crochet project that is can be completed quickly In years past she has gotten a trebuchet kit lots of jigsaw puzzles Bare Conductive kits (paint that conducts electricity so its easy to make light up paper cards, for instance) Nanoblocks Lego architecture kits For things to do with your hands that aren't sewing/knitting/crocheting, I like the shop on the Maker site.

A friend of mine teaches at a college. He told me about a student who told him she had been assaulted, while drunk, at a party by a fellow student. She refused to report it. He reported it to the police, the school and called the girl's parents. Their response? She shouldn't have gotten so drunk. Unbelievable.

Our hamster is called Hedgehog, Hedgie for short. So I think Hamster would be a great name for your hedgehog.

When we adopted ds8 after 3 non-average bio kids, I thought the odds were in favor of getting an "average" child, who would do well in life thanks to a nurturing environment and complete acceptance of whatever he turned out to be. It didn't work out that way. DS8 is just as non-average as his sibs and is musically the most gifted of the four, who are all seriously gifted musically. Argh. And while I"m happy and excited for the opportunities this gives ds, I have a bit of that "oh no not again" feeling. I am, of course, attributing ds8's abilities entirely to my excellent nurturing and am now firmly on the side of nurture not nature.

I would really appreciate some suggestions on this. DD, 16, has been tired for several months. We had several rounds of bloodwork until a Dr ordered a ferritin level test, which came back low (11). DD took double doses of iron supplements for two months, retested, and ferritin came back at 13.8. Haemoglobin and iron were both normal. She went back to the doctor today for more testing. Iron was low (4.8), ferritin 10.8, and haemoglobin normal. Vitamin D was low (20 where normal is 30 to 100). She's going to have to have more testing to figure out what's going on, whether it's malabsorption or blood loss. It's unlikely to be diet or non-compliance with the iron pill regime. She also has an identical twin sister who has none of these issues, which makes me think it isn't likely to be something that's just weird about her but normal, IYKWIM. Does anyone have suggestions for things I need to look into? Ideas? Experiences? It's a weird situation in that she's doing a school year abroad, so I'm not right there (although, as I've told her, I will fly out there if necessary -- I suspect that she will get better care where she is than here at home). I emailed with the doctor she saw today and he seems very good and inclined to listen to my views as well, which is great. For example, her pulse was irregular, so he immediately ordered an ECG, which was done straightaway. I thought that was quite good. Any and all help is appreciated!

Here are some boys' names from the directory at my son's "posh" English school (hate the word posh but you know what I mean): Guy Angus Jocelyn Felix Ludovic Horatio Archie Constantine Hamish Milo Augustus

Right after reading this I happened to be listening to NPR's Planet Money on the question, who owns the air? I thought some might be interested in light of the issues raised here so I'm posting the link: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/05/23/314915583/episode-541-who-owns-the-air I'm particularly fond of the chicken farmer part of the story.

DDs started reading at 3, and progressed about one grade level every two to three months until they got to the point where they were reading like "normal". I did cvc phonics and the Dolch words with them but no further explicit instruction. I figured that with the sight words and the sounds of the letters they were pretty much good to go. I added a bit of incentive -- "read it have it" -- so they could get a candy treat if they could sound out the name of the candy. Once per candy type. And of course they had access to lots and lots of books and were read to every day etc etc!

I'm finally learning that sometimes it's not worth putting up with particular people when you have the choice of doing so or not doing so. I've been guilty in the past of having my children continue in activities where the other kids or (usually) adult leaders were not good for them. I generally have this "just stick with it" attitude, and tried to get the kids to stick with things because I think there's value in persistence. In the last couple of years, though, I've come to see that persistence is pointless when the person in charge is toxic. For example, when the coach of a team ignores them, or uses foul language, or is arbitrary in his treatment. In fact, I just removed my youngest from an activity this morning after he reported, for the third week running, that the older boys were being mean and nasty. The adult in charge decided that it was all ds's fault and that the older boys' behaviour was just fine. While ds is no angel, he almost never has any similar trouble with other activities he's in, so I'm inclined to believe that there is considerable fault on both sides. Plus older reliable dd confirmed that she thinks the boys in question are not at all well behaved, from her personal observation of them. When the adult in charge decided that it was entirely up to ds to adapt his behaviour to fit the group, I decided it was time to leave. I think it's just fine to leave a group over one person if this person spoils the group experience, especially if the person is a leader. Life's too short to waste time with unpleasant people, especially when there are so many wonderful people out there.

DS started to get a bit of fuzz when he was around 12. Because of school/music commitments, he had to get rid of the fuzz. I'm a single mom, however, and DS's dad isn't very involved at all. DS didn't want to ask his dad for help and didn't really have anyone he felt comfortable with to ask. SO...I bought an electric razor. Couldn't figure out how to get DS to use it (some sensory issues). Scared to death to take a razor to the boy's face. Ended up using Nair on his upper lip! It became our little secret (no longer I guess) -- he'd come home from school every few weeks and we'd quickly do a Nair session. Poor kid! This summer I gave him three options of men he is close to to teach him to shave, and he asked my dad. My dad got him all the stuff he needed, helped him out, made him feel comfortable with it and now we are sorted.

And here DD and I were, thinking I was the only mean parent who wouldn't let her child learn Cuneiform.

We did French and Latin by Skype/Facetime, which worked out beautifully. It did require a good bit of independent work from dds, but as they were in high school, this was not a problem. We had the advantage of having lived in France for a year, though, so they had a jumpstart in French. Our French tutor via Skype was fantastic if anyone needs a tutor. DDs did the SATs and secondary school leaving exams. The French SAT and the exam lined up nicely in terms of content, and they did well on both, although I did not have the impression that the SAT was a very good measure of their ability (seemed to be easy to get perfect, but they did have near native advantages). The Latin SAT didn't line up quite as well -- the SAT focused a lot (according to DDs) on identifying grammatical structures used, while they were accustomed to translating texts back and forth. They did well on the SAT (750) but one did extremely well on the secondary leaving exam and the other got an almost-unheard of perfect score. I personally think the leaving exam was a more challenging measure of their ability in Latin. I personally wouldn't want to focus on the SATs at the end goal, but I am not familiar with the APs and cannot comment on those.

Yesterday got off to a bad start (and continued like that!). I told DS8, "boy, I guess I'm having a bad day." He says, "So you're having an inauspicious day?" Thank you Jim Weiss and all your audiobooks.

How about Uniqlo? My dds have jackets from there that weren't too expensive and have worn well.

Three of dd's five recommenders have had trouble with the "submit" function on the Common App. One still doesn't seem to have gotten it to work, so I just sent a paper copy of the recommendation along with the supplemental materials I was sending anyway. It's been such a pain -- none of DD's recommenders is accustomed to writing recs for US colleges (if at all), only one was written in English, and not one had any experience with the Common App. It's been incredibly nice of all of them to help out and I'm just annoyed that the Common App seems to have made it more difficult than it could have been, as far as I can tell, since these are all intelligent computer-savvy individuals who shouldn't really be having so much trouble with an online form!

How about books by Edith Nesbit or the Chalet School series?

Wrap up some socks or something silly so he'll have something to unwrap. At that age it seems to be all about the paper and the box.

Joanne, I'm sorry your dd doesn't test well. FWIW, I have identical twin girls, who have taken exactly the same coursework, with exactly the same teachers, with exactly the same assignment, etc etc. One has consistently tested better than the other on all standardized testing. Not by very much, but it's clear that one tests better than the other. They have the same attitude and the same approach to practicing. One thinks a little differently than the other, which means that one is more suited to testing than the other. Sometimes there's just nothing you can do about it (as you well know). Will your dd take the SAT again? We have some SAT prep books that we won't be using again and I'm trying to find a good home for them.