This has been a busy week. We did karate on Monday and began horseback riding lessons on Tuesday. I wish I had brought my camera. William was nervous and said he just wanted to watch, but upon hearing it would only be him and one other student and they would just be getting to know the animals for the first class he changed his mind.

He rode a horse named September. He started by learning how to put a halter on him and how to walk behind the horse safely. After he attached the halter he attached a lead rope and led the horse down to one of the barns and the training corral. By this time the other student showed up and led her horse down as well.

The next lesson was grooming. William and his classmate learned how to use brushes to groom the horses then used a pick to clean their hooves (or hoofs?) That made him a bit nervous because he was scared he was hurting the horse. He learned how to pick up the feet and hold them properly during cleaning as well.

Next they put a blanket and saddle on the horse. William was taller than his classmate so they teamed up on both horses to get the saddles placed. They also learned the proper way to put a saddle on the ground so it wouldn't be damaged.

Now it was time to ride. They led the horses to the training corral and learned how to mount and dismount. After they were mounted they practiced riding in a circle and letting the horse know where they wanted to go. The final test was riding in a figure 8 around the corral.

Then they led the horses back to their home barn and helped the trainer unlatch the stalls so the horses could go into the pasture for their hay and water. William also had his first drink of water from a water hose. I kept thinking about how sad that was. I grew up here in the south, playing outside during the summer and drinking water from faucets and hoses, and he's never done it!

He really enjoyed the lesson and is excited about going back.

We had another playdate on Thursday with his friends at the park. They played Star Wars in the rain at the playground and had a good time.

We have the 4th of July and a birthday party coming up next week. It will be another busy week.

Homeschooling / Education

Homeschooling Your Child's Multiple Intelligences

Editorial: Let Officials Tend to Their Duties and Leave Homeschoolers Alone

Unschoolers in Collge:Choosing a College

The LD Child:Could homeschooling work?

Student Denied Opportunity Scholarship Earning Good Grades - And His Own Way

Teacher Accused of Bullying Students

For Growing Numbers, The Classroom is at Home - One of the mothers in the story says that she was motivated to "try" homeschooling. We discovered the hard way that when you "try" homeschooling you usually set yourself up for failure. You have arguments, there are disagreements, you end up hating the entire process. Once we decided there was no more "try" homeschooling became an adventure and a journey. In the words of Yoda, "Do or do not. There is no try."

Number of Children Taught at Home Soars - From the UK

Education Feels Right at Home for This Family

Full-time Education for Parents and Children

Homeschooling Finds a Home in Delaware

Picture Yourself as an HT Writer - for Students in Huntsville AL

Homeschoolers Design Their Own Class Rings

Real ID

Real ID: Will innocent pay for sinners?

National ID Cards: Tracking You

US Slips National ID Card into the Real ID Deck

I'm taking too many lazy days. William asked me about reading more Robinson Crusoe the other day. We do need to get back into reading it more if we plan to finish it by the end of summer. Once the new Harry Potter book is released on July 16 we'll be reading that. I also want to read The Chronicles of Narnia with William before the release of the movie in December. And we'll be starting school back in August, so we have a lot to do. We also have a house and a school room to get ready for guests come September for our science co-op. I also want to get started on a new book, I have some ideas floating around in my head that I need to get down on paper.

My mom called yesterday and told me a local place is starting horseback riding lessons and she offered to pay for a few lessons for William. We are heading up there today to try it out. He's been asking about riding for a while but I don't know if it's really a passion with him or not at this point. Karate is still his main love. If there is a tournament anytime soon we plan to get him a practice sword so he can compete in sword kata competition. He's very good with the sword katas.

He watched more Animal Planet last night - The Most Extreme and That's My Baby. We have 2 hermit crabs, but I never knew they could carry a sea anemone on their backs as protection. It was very interesting. We saw puppies being born on That's My Baby. Every time William watches Animal Planet he tells me again he wants to be an animal cop so he can stop people who abuse animals. He's very sensitive about animal cruelty and loves all kinds of animals.

We watched the AFI Award Presentation to George Lucas the other night on USA and we watched a documentary about the Star Wars saga on A&E. Once the final movie is on DVD I'm sure we'll be purchasing all of them on DVD as a set. We have them on VHS but I prefer commentaries and all the additional information you get on a DVD.

Summer is supposed to be a time for me to relax and take time off, but instead I seem to be working on something all the time, either school stuff or a house project. There is a lot to be done, but I think we'll spend an evening catching fireflies one day. We are having a 4th of July BBQ and heading out for fireworks.

It's definitely summer and I'm so thankful for central AC :)

Apart from William writing his dad the Father's Day note not much has been going on. My parents are off to Tampa Bay this weekend for Antiques Roadshow. My mom has tried three times to appear on the show and she finally got tickets. She is bringing a print (not a painting, just a print, but it may be an uncirculated print) she believes to be by Thomas Moran and my father is bringing some slave tags that he purchased a while back. I researched them and found that most slave tags are fakes, but he is insistent that these are real so he's taking them. My mom made a joke that usually the fake stuff gets on TV so he should definitely be on TV :)

We had our playdate on Monday again but were only able to stay at the park for an hour. We'll have another playdate on Monday and try to arrange it to be longer this time.

I'm working some extra hours and we're also getting our school room in shape for the science co-op I'll be leading in the fall. We're also getting ready to do a room swap between me and William. He's getting the current computer room as a bedroom and I'm moving my office to his bedroom so I can be away from the noise and the dogs barking. We have 3 months to finish this project and I'm feeling like we're behind already.

I also need to finish some planning for school and make a trip to the library to see some books I plan to check out during the fall.

I'm looking forward to the Fourth of July when we'll have a family BBQ then watch the fireworks on the lake. It's going to be our only big summer "thing" this year. We may make a visit to MIL's home around Labor Day if we can board the dogs.

I hope everyone else's summer is going well.

Homeschooling and Education

School Board Alters Homeschool Policy

Baptists Push SBC for Vote on Public School Resolutions - One of the points made in this article states that many Baptists cannot afford to homeschool their children or send them to a private school. I would have to disagree with this. What it means is that they are saying a parent cannot afford to QUIT WORKING OUTSIDE OF THE HOME in order to homeschool. I'm not going to turn this into a work inside the home / work outside of the home debate, though. I have worked outside of the home for many years and only recently was able to find a legitimate way to work from home, so technically I am still working. However, I am also a member of many email lists where homeschool parents do work outside the home. They may work split shifts with a spouse or use family members or another homeschooling friend to help with childcare if the child is young. If money is the issue, then these people need to stop looking at $500 curriculums, especially for younger children. You CAN homeschool very easily with little money. I haven't spend ANY money on the fall yet. I'm only using what I already have and I'll be using material from our public library.

Another point is that "public schools are a mission field" and "a great place to make a difference". Did Jesus send children out to call people to him? Didn't he train adults to preach and lead others? Why would we send our children out into a school system that denies God and expect them to be godly? For more on this topic you can head over to Guilt Free Homeschooling.

I heard a 14 year old girl call into a talk radio show the other day and explain how hard it was to say no to drinking, drugs and s*x at her school. I told Scott that what was so sad about this young girl is that her parents probably weren't even aware that she was feeling pressured, especially since she called a counselor on a talk radio show.

I would like to make a point, though, that the SBC may be missing. Homeschooling is not right for everyone. It can be a lot of work. It forces families to be together and learn about each other. That can be a good thing, but it also forces families to work out problems and talk to each other. There is no hiding anymore, no running off to work and school and activities. For many families, that could be very scary. You can read more on this topic at Atypical Life. Andrea says it better than I can.

Girl Fights for Position in School Band - I pay taxes to my local school as well, but I don't want any favors from the school system. The more homeschoolers accept from the public school system the more regulations will be required.

Girl's Case Puts the Light on Homeschooling - It's always sad when stories like this come out and people want to put more regulation on homeschooling due to stories like this. The social worker in the story said that when social services contacts a family it's "for a reported concern." I'm sure it is. I'm also sure that many "reported concerns" are from nosey neighbors, family members that do not agree with homeschooling, non-custodial parents, or just people who like to make trouble. Preventing cases like this is a large gray area in education regulation. The majority of homeschoolers obey the laws and they are educating their children. Treating law-abiding homeschoolers as potential child abusers with more regulation would be going too far.

Give Homeschoolers a Shot at SouthEast Tech School

Home Schools Celebrate 20 Years of Education

Patrick Henry College - Training Young Christians for Political Careers

Homeschoolers are Busy All Year

Mom Won't Sign Notice of Intent - I'm all for following homeschooling laws, but if the notice of intent isn't required by law in her state why force it? Sometimes it's the local school systems that like to add to the state law that causes most of the trouble. The end of the article bothered me, though, the way they included what the 10yo boy said exactly as he said it, bad grammar and all. People aren't going to look at the article as a mother trying to teach her son and follow the state law. They are going to look at that one sentence and say "He can't even speak properly. She's not teaching him correctly!" Those people need to come down here to Georgia and hear some of the discussions I overhear from public schooled kids playing at the park. You'll definitely hear more than bad grammar at times.

Real ID

Steer Clear of National ID Card

Is A National ID Card Coming?

Real ID Changes DMV Procedure

You can currently hear Karen from Spunky Homeschool on Homeschool Talk Radio. She is talking about the A R T of Homeschooling. It's a great interview! Be sure to listen to Homeschool Talk Radio every week. You may hear someone you know, or you can apply to be interviewed yourself!

I've had a problem with William and his writing. He always says he can't or doesn't know how, even though we've been working on this for a long time.

Yesterday he sat down with some paper and started writing his dad a note. He asked me how to spell only 2 words - father and parent. This is what he wrote:

Happy Father's Day

The day when all dads get the day off parenting!

Love

William

I knew it was in him!

So this is what happens when you turn off the digital cable :) He's written a note to his father, he's playing computer games about Egypt and dinosaurs on postopia.com, and he's talking about learning how to program computers so he can write a computer game similar to the sims. He says he wants to be an animal cop and a game programmer. He's watching more Animal Planet than cartoons, even though we still have Cartoon Network. He's playing every week with his friends at the park and trying to teach them how to play Yu-Gi-Oh. He had a problem with a game earlier and looked up the company's website for an FAQ. He couldn't find one so he asked if he could call them. I checked the site and agreed to the call, so he called and left a message for the support group for help for the game :) Now if I could just get him to read a book...my summer will be complete :)

Here is a just a bit of what we've been doing around the house and getting ready for school in September.

We had another play date with my friend's sons on Wednesday. It was only an hour this time but they do enjoy being together. They found William's water gun in the trunk of the car and spent most of the hour taking turns soaking each other. It was a very hot day and they were able to stay cool for some time. I found a nice spot on a picnic table under a tree and laid down on the surface for while to snooze. I know, I shouldn't do that, but it was so comfortable :)

I've gotten a lot of planning done for the first 11 weeks of our schooling, plus some planning done in other areas as well. I'm putting myself out there and I volunteered to hold a science co-op in my home next fall for my homeschool group. This is a really big deal to me. Remember my post about why I quit church, when I described how shy I was and people would leave me alone? Well, I volunteered for this and met with the group director on Monday. She had some laboratory equipment and books I'm borrowing and we talked for a long time. She described me in ways that I've never been described before, such as a leader and a go-getter. I am not that, not at all, but as I said in the previous post I'm trying to change my actions so that other people do not see me as stuck-up or aloof. The saying is To Have a Friend You Must Be A Friend, right? So that's what I'm trying to do. She has the link to this blog now, so yes, Lynn, I'm really a very shy person and if you only knew me a few years ago you would not be trusting me with this class :)

Anyway, I have a syllabus written up for the class - it will be "chemistry lite" because I'm not going to get into a lot of chemical equations type stuff. I still need to gather together all of my experiment information and have lists of supplies needed for our first homeschool group meeting in September. I'm almost finished with our dining room / school room makeover and it will be so much fun having a school room. I love homeschoolers with school rooms, even though I know we don't really need one. I'll post a picture when it's finished.

Yesterday I had to head off to the hardware store for a fuse. Apparently our old fuse box doesn't like to have a fan, carpet cleaner and vaccuum running at the same time. We have no light in the house, no ceiling fans, and only outlets in some rooms are working which is how I'm still on the computer.

We spent today in Atlanta at my youngest brother's graduation. He graduated the Art Institute with a Bachelor's in Video Production. He won best in show for his portfolio and has a few interviews lined up with various companies. He's very good and has lots of great ideas for commercials, products, etc. We are very proud of him.

It's been an exhausting day, though. We drove to College Park and took the Marta train into town. We found a few signs to the Art Institute, but then they stopped. We spent almost 20 minutes walking around before finally finding the building. But Marta is still better than trying to drive in Atlanta. And Scott and I didn't have one traffic/lookout/we're lost fight on this trip.

Hard copies of my book "Life Lessons" are still available at Cafe Press. I don't have an auction on ebay right now for a downloadable copy but I may put one up again shortly.

My Cafe Press store doesn't just include my book. I've created some Homeschool Field Trip T-Shirts, some Homeschool Graduate mugs, and other items such as a pillow, journal and tote bag using some of my photos. Check out the store and see if there is something else you would to have. There is a link for a coupon for all apparel included in the link section of my blog.

Carrie at Mommy Brain has tagged me for this meme so here I go :)

List 5 things you miss from childhood:

1) Summer nights at the local pool. We used to live close to the pool, just over the railroad tracks and up the hill. It would close at 5pm then re-open around 7pm. We liked to walk over there to swim in the evenings. It wasn't nearly as hot around that time and the pool was almost empty instead of filled with people the way it was in the early afternoon. After an hour of swimming or so we'd walk back home across the railroad tracks and be more than ready for bed.

2) Weekend long reading sessions. I love to read. I don't get the time to read as much anymore because my weekends now consist of payroll work and housework. But when I was little I would spend Saturday morning cleaning my room or watching cartoons, then I would take out a book, lay across my newly made canopy bed with the bright yellow comforter, and read all day. I would usually finish the book by suppertime. I read Charlotte's Web, Little Women, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, and one of my favorites called The Marigold Line about a community of cats trying to save their favorite passenger train. I would start this over again on Sunday morning.

3) Saturday morning cartoons. I didn't have a million cartoon channels. Cartoons were relegated to Saturday mornings only and usually ended around 1pm or so. We watched the Smurfs, Scooby Doo (the original), G-Force, Superfriends and Spiderman and Friends. After the cartoons I would usually read the rest of the day (see above) or sometimes play outside with our next door neighbors. Today, I don't think ANY of the Big 3 networks even show cartoons in the mornings. They've now been relegated to UPN, WB, and the ever present Cartoon Network and all the varieties thereof.

4) Riding my bike. I got a 10 speed bicycle for my 10th birthday. My brother and I established a "route" that we would ride - down the road, turn left, up the hill, turn left twice more, go down the hill with the curve at the bottom really fast, go around the curve, under the bridge, then turn right to head home. I even won a bicycle race once - against a boy! - on that bike. Today I would be scared to death for my son to be off down the road on a bike without me nearby, and I haven't ridden a bike in many years.

5) Camping trips with my mom. My father worked all the time - I mean ALL the time - so sometimes my mom would take us camping. We had an old pop up camper that we used. We didn't bring a TV. Sometimes it would just be somewhere close by for the weekend. We would fish at the lake, Mama would clean them and cook them for dinner. I read a lot inside and outside of the camper. We would bring a radio and we'd listen to the Top 20 countdown in the background. Sometimes we would play UNO or our made up point version of "Go Fish". Sometimes we would just talk about various things - our thoughts about religion, family, school. It was the only time we were usually together and able to listen to each other.

The Rules:

Remove the first person from the following list, bump everyone up one spot and put your name in the number 5 spot. Please link all of the blogs as they are linked now or risk future blog-shunning.

Subliminal KoolAid
Lady Mac
Shades of Pink
Mommy Brain
Routon Family Homeschool

From the above list I'm only familiar with Mommy Brain, so I cannot vouch for the content at other sites.

Now select 4 unsuspecting souls and add them to your list - with a disclaimer that I'm adding personally - I know some people don't like memes and such, so if you do not want to do this then don't worry about it, okay?

Spunky Homeschool
Mellie Helen at Golly Blog Howdy
Andrea at Atypical Life
Anne at KeelthePot

Homeschool / Education

Elite Take Homeschool Route

Maryland Keeps Ban Against Homeschoolers in Face of Lawsuit - This is regarding playing sports on school teams, either public or private, when you are considered a homeschooler. It can also pertain to school clubs or other activities that homeschoolers wish to participate in. I don't agree with homeschoolers playing on school teams. There have been homeschooled groups that organize their own teams and play with other homeschoolers or schools that don't have a regulation against playing against other students. To me, if you want to participate in extra-curricular activities provided by a school but you still want to homeschool you are expecting to take what you want from both worlds. I don't think that's possible. If homeschoolers open themselves up to the school system in any way then homeschoolers are asking for more regulation.

Path to College Scholarship Can Be Tricky for Some - It's weird that there are 2 sports stories regarding homeschoolers so close together. It's also weird because I visited with my homeschool director yesterday and her son is going to a school in Atlanta next week where scouts are holding baseball tryouts. He actually tried out for the Atlanta Braves yesterday and will be trying out for a minor league team as well in another city. If kids have the talent they will find a way to try out, they don't have to attend a school in order to do this.

First Person - Parents of Athletes Choosing to Homeschool

Southeast Technical Institute won't admit homeschooler

Computers Work Their Way into Preschool

Home is Where School Is

Freedom of Schooling

Preschool Loosens Parent/Child Bond

From the UK - Disruptive Toddlers to Be Treated at Potential Criminals

Homeschool Graduations More Intimate and Informative

Homeschooler won $50K on ABC Show "The Scholar" - Link to His Bio from ABC

County Relaxing Homeschool Restriction

Real ID

Sensenbrenner to Dean regarding attacks about Real ID - They are still talking about immigration. When will we hear about how Real ID will affect our privacy?

Repeal the Real ID Act - Allow for Personal Privacy

Real ID Raises Real Danger for Identity Theft

Last night I called a friend of mine, another homeschooling mom, and asked if I could pick up her two boys and take them to the park to play with William. She said they had a
friend spending the night and could he come as well? I agreed so today I picked up her 3 boys and took them all to the local park.

We started at the local city field, but with all the rain we've been having much of the playground was too wet to play in and there were puddles everywhere. The boys decided they wanted to go to the new park with the three slides, so off we went.

They play very well together, even with the differences in their ages. William is the oldest and the youngest was only 6.

After a walk to the recreation building to use the restroom and the water fountain I heard the 3 oldest boys discussing the recent Star Wars movie and their favorite characters.

Boy 1: I like Anakin, he's my favorite.
Boy 2: My favorite was Qui-Gon, till he died. Now Obi-Wan is my favorite.
Boy 1: You like Obi-Wan? No, Anakin and Luke are my favorites.
Boy 2: Who do you like?
Boy 3: Anakin and Luke.
Boy 2: But Anakin is the bad guy. He becomes Darth Vader. Obi-Wan is the good guy.
Boys 1&3: I still like Anakin.

Then I heard various discussions such as "Wasn't it cool when this happened?" This discussion continued for some time until they made up another game to play that involved climbing and chasing one another all around the 3 slides.

It started raining again so we left to take the boys back home. We stayed for a while and I was able to talk to my friend while the boys played outside in the sprinkling rain and jumped on the trampoline.

We had a good time and I hope we can do it again next week. My friend is also interested in the co-op classes my homeschool group is going to do in the fall. I've volunteered to head up a science class co-op so on my off days I'm fixing up our dining room and turning it into a school room for the classes in the fall.

By going to this page at Reach for the Stars website you can recieve $25 of free products. They mostly have preschool items but I found some nutritional information that seemed very interesting that I can use. I found out about this through Tenn, and since I don't need anything else, since I don't have preschoolers, please use her as a referrel. Her information is in her post at School At Home.

Homeschooling and Education

Narnia Movie Educator Sweepstakes - Win a trip to the premier in England this December! Yes, homeschool parents are eligible!

Gang Violence Leads Family Out of East Providence - "Mr. Roderick (principal) said that all someone with a complaint has to do is provide the names of the person who allegedly broke the rules and the school will deal with the problem accordingly." - Maybe he needs to read the article. I believe that it says she has spoken with the school many, many times and nothing is being done. Why do principals and school board officials and such always sound like a broken record?

Academic Athletes Spell Success

Homeschooling Choice Praised - and yet there is this quote: "The biggest challenge to a well-rounded education, Cichocki said, is socialization. "You have to learn how to deal with people that are different than you, people you don't like. Sometimes that is difficult to do in a sheltered situation, which is what some home school situations are.'" - How many times do we have to go through this? SCHOOL situtaions are the sheltered situation. The 'smart kids' stay with the smart kids, the popular kids have their own little group, the girl who is your best friend one day is talking behind your back the next. My son is definitely NOT sheltered in any way. He's with people of all ages almost daily. Sometimes I wish people who say things like this would spend maybe a week with a homeschooling family just so they can see how socialized they really are.

Home-schooled Grads Set Out to Make Their Mark

Teens Assemble a Way to Learn About Robotics

Home School Helps Children with ADHD

Brainy Teens Face Off in New Reality Show

Real ID - I've contacted my Congressmen many times on this issue and I keep hearing about how it will help with our open borders and will reduce immigration. Why doesn't someone reply to concerns regarding our privacy?

BlueBear Network and VisionSphere to target US Real ID Act - Here it is, they are going to use either facial or fingerprint identification on the new licenses. It says that they use biometrics to prove that someone is who they say they are. There is still a problem with this, though. I could move to a new state and have all the documents that are going to be required in 2008 and they would all be fake. They could have the name Regina Phalange on all the papers (for you Friends fans out there), and then they take my fingerprints or scan my face or eyes or whatever, and suddenly I'm Regina Phalange. This will work for anyone who is NOT already in the system. So, of course, they want all the states to be able to share information so that if I AM in the system with the name Christina Routon I cannot move to another state, get fake documents and become Regina Phalange. This affects my rights as well because the government will be treating law-abiding people as if they were breaking the law. DMV employees will be calling your electric company to verify you have service at the address on your bill. They will contact the county where your birth certificate was issued. All of this violates our privacy.

Real ID Theft

Coming Soon:National ID Cards

Real ID Act a Blow to State DMV Budget - I had heard that there would be federal funding, but I guess now there isn't going to be any funding. I wonder how long that will last?

Here we go, another shameless plug :)

You can now hear my interview on Homeschool Talk Radio. Give a listen, and be sure to tune in every week so you can hear others - hopefully some that we know and love - get interviewed as well! And there is a link to the book on the site!

**Note after listening to the show** I thought I did well, especially since I'm usually not a very good speaker. This was a lot of fun!

I did want to mention my name. I did tell her how to pronounce my name and, like most people, she got it wrong. She said Roo-ten. It's spelled Routon with the OU sounding like "OW! I stumped my toe!".

So, now you know how to pronounce my name and you know how much of a southern accent I have :)

One quick thing before I get into my family update post. I finally got some of the pictures from Washington DC up on the family website field trip page. Click the link to get there and scroll down to see Washington. I haven't finished going through all of the pictures yet, I took so many it's going to take some time. Now, on to my post :)

I found a neat little blog while I was checking my stats the other day. It's called As Jack Grows and it's about a cute little boy named Jack who just turned 2. His mother wrote an interesting piece on using attachment parenting as a child gets older and it got me thinking, so for my weekly family update I thought I would write a bit about how we parent William. We were attachment parenting when I didn't even know what it was. William turned 11 in January. We have made many mistakes but on the whole I believe we've done a lot right.

We had a homebirth with a midwife. We did struggle financially through the pregnancy, but with some help everything worked out okay.

I breastfed for 7 months until an infection caused me to stop. William went straight to the bottle and more solid food and loved it. We never used cereal in a bottle. Cereal was begun at age 4-5 months and was always fed to him with a spoon. I breastfed on demand and once he was on more solid food he had mealtimes when we did. I didn't put him to sleep with a bottle but I did breastfeed him to sleep at times.

I based my schedule on him when he was an infant. After about a month he stayed on a pretty regular schedule with no help from me or his father. As he got older he adapted more to our schedule.

We became friends with a couple when William was an infant and were frequently at their home to play role playing games. We ended the friendship when they told us to let William "cry it out" in their bedroom after a nap and after they told us that it was their house and they would say what they liked. We responded that he was our son and we would raise him as we saw fit. Then I let her know what I thought of her parenting style of having her young children eat sitting on the floor and only drinking water so they wouldn't make a mess.

He stopped using a bottle at age 14 months. After that point I only allowed a sippy cup. He never missed the bottle until he saw me feeding another baby and got jealous.

We never used a pacifier.

We've used a family bed off and on all of his life.

We delayed potty training until the summer after he turned 2 based on maturity information I'd read as well as noticing cues he exhibited.

We believe in doing lots of things as a family. We go to movies, we visit family, we like to hike in the local state park. Even grocery shopping and housework is usually done together.

When we are wrong about something we tell him we are wrong. He sees us as humans and knows we are fallible.

We take an interest in things he's interested in. We watch the cartoons he likes and we learned how to play the Yu-Gi-Oh card game. When he started collecting the cards we got him a notebook with plastic card page inserts. We play video games together.

He also learns about things that we are interested in. I've shown him how to crochet and cross stitch. He's enjoyed watching Star Trek and Star Wars with us. Scott gave him many of his Spiderman and Batman comics that he enjoys reading and talking about with his father. He knows about my college classes and writing and encourages me when I'm down and celebrates with me when I succeed in something.

We have homeschooled now for 2 years and are beginning our third year. Before we began homeschooling I found myself sometimes getting ticked at William for no reason and wanting to be left alone. I think homeschooling has definitely helped our relationship to become more positive.

William is told that he's loved and cared about daily. He's still tucked into bed each night with a kiss and a prayer.

What have all of these things done for his esteem and us as a family? I believe it's helped him be more confident. He isn't scared to speak to waiters at a restaurant or a salesperson at a store. He's a very caring and polite young man. He gets along with people of all ages but has a special place for younger kids that the older kids tend to push aside when they play their games. We have some really great discussions at times about all kinds of topics. I think that attachment parenting, even when we didn't know what we were doing, means treating a child as a person and valuing their feelings and interests. This is also a big part of the Charlotte Mason homeschool philosphy that we follow - the child is an individual.

Now, how will we continue this style of parenting as William enters his teenage years? For the most part, we plan to continue as we are now and give William more responsiblity in some areas. I believe we are building a strong relationship now so that when he is a teenager and is wanting to be more independent he'll be ready for that. We want him to know he can talk to us about anything. We will continue to monitor his friendships as he gets older. Driving does worry me some because I know what I was like when I got my car - and I know what Scott was like as well :) He does need to earn at least 1/2 of the money for a car of his own if he wants one.

We'll also continue to homeschool and do things together as a family. I'm not sure how I feel about dating right now. My husband and I dated each other and other people and both had our hearts broken a few times. However, my husband and I also met each other when we were 8 and were friends long before we dated. We will definitely encourage friendships before a dating relationship. As William gets closer to a dating age we'll read the dating books and make family decisions regarding dating rules. I know as he does get older and can drive that he will branch out from the family more. That is why this early relationship is so important.

As a disclaimer I'm not saying that everything we did was the absolutely correct thing to do or is the right thing to do for everyone. We did make a lot of mistakes. The parenting style that we have and the things we did when William was a baby and a toddler are what worked for our family. I do believe that children need to feel they are a part of the family and not a hindrance. Saying things like "I got a couple more kids at home - want them?" or other comments to people within earshot of children make them feel hurt and unwanted. I believe strongly that children are people and should be allowed to voice their opinons and feelings with respect, even if those opinions differ with a parent.

Fifteen years ago today I married my best friend in the entire world. We met when we were 8 years old and I asked him to marry me on a Valentine's Day card in third grade. We starting dating at age 16 and married at 18, thinking we were grown but still really kids.

Life has been hard at times but also very good at times. We've been broke and we've had abundance. We've been through sickness and health. We came through a seperation and came out stronger when everything was said and done. We've cried together and laughed together.

Happy Anniversary to the love of my life. I hope we have another 15 years - and then some - to be together.

Then - June 2, 1990

And Now

Homeschooling and Education

Laptop Learning

Homeschoolers Bask in Graduation

Enki Education to Host Series of Conferences about Curriculum - Includes a link about the Enki Education Curriculum. I've never heard of this so I'll also read up on it and include some type of synopsis next week. No, I'm not about to switch curriculum again :)

Home Based Education

From the Duh? Department - Socialization No Longer an Issue

Homeschooling Lets Kids Realize Their Potential


Real ID

Court to Rule on Real ID immigration law

Invasive ID - They say it's not mandatory so it's not a national ID card, but if your state DOESN'T comply, they don't get the federal funds and anyone living in that state cannot enter a national park or a federal building. Those very limitations MAKE it mandatory. And is a state REALLY going to turn down federal money?

Real ID Rules May Mean Longer Wait at the MVA

And another one for the Duh? department - Federal ID Act May be Flawed

Real Problems with Real ID

Real ID Act Would Affect Hiring