It has been a while since I did an update on her, and now that we are starting a new school year I thought would take a minute to record her status. If this seems negative, I don't mean it to be. The good is great but not much to wonder about. The below is the stuff I think/wonder/worry/ over, so it is what makes the final draft here today. This is super long. It is mainly for my memory purposes and to be used as a gauge for her development.
She HATES her hair. After the horrible breakage it was uneven, so last week she had to have it cut. She has cried about it at least 3 times. It is too short to braid so she has to have twists. The first day it looked cute, but after sleeping on it and the shrinkage from the humidity, it is looking rough. It doesn't even hang a little bit down her neck, it is cropped short. She complains about looking like a boy and I understand why. It is now even shorter than when she came home and I too am sad for her loss. There is NO girl in the whole school or church or neighborhood that has hair anywhere near as short as hers and I think she feels like the odd man out. As soon as it is long enough, I think that I will insist on extensions for her.
She looses tons of her personal possessions, not permanently lost, although quite a few things have never turned up. She leaves waterbottles, jacket, hair bows, and clothes. While at the beach, I had to drive her back to the beach 3 out of the 5 times we went in order to retrieve something she had left. I have heard of this problem with other adoptive kids, and this is something that I believe she has kept from her previous life. Her personality is thoughtful and conscientious so I do not think that this is an airhead, add thing, She never owned things, she never went ANYWHERE (literally), so she was not trained to look after things. If something was lost or broken, it was either gone for good, or in the case of clothes just walk over to the giant table laden with clothes and find something that fits. We are trying to rectify this behavior of absent mindedness by making her immediately upon realization that something was left to go get it, and if my driving is involved she has to pay monetary token of the cost. We have only enforced the payment at the beach, since being home, she only has had to go to the neighbors to get a forgotten item.
She was terribly excited about starting school again, but after the 2nd day she said it was boring. I take this with a grain of salt, because this is the kind of kid that is always looking for a good time. She NEVER wants to be idle. For one, she still has not figured out how to entertain herself. Even if she is reading, braiding her dolls hair, or just laying on the floor, she follows us around to just be with us. I am not sure if this is left over orphanage behavior or just her personality. So I think that school has just become mundane, not that she is having issues there.
She still likes to try and scare us by jumping out from behind doors, or running to hide when she sees us coming and then jump out.
She still laughs a lot and gets super excited about the small things in life, like Cinnamon Toast Crunch or going to a different store, but no longer throws herself on the ground and rolls around about it.
She seems perfectly adjusted, but would have no problem going away for a good long while without us. She talks about a month long camp her friend goes to, and never seems ready to come home. Again, is this an age appropriate thing or not well bonded. She asked me what would happen to her if we died, and I told her that she and the boys would go live with Aunt Tonya, to which she almost broke her hip in a wild dance of joy.
When it is just our family, like on the recent trip to Hilton Head she seems a little isolated. The boys have a camaraderie that she is just not a part of. They talk and laugh about some of the same things, but she never seems to fit into that. I don't know if that is because of lang issues, being a girl, or something else. She may just need another girl in the family.
Even though she is only a year younger than Luke, she never seems to have conversations with them. They will all laugh at something funny whether in a movie or joke in person, but that is the extent of it. She seems to do fine with her little girl friends but I don't hear enough of what they talk about to know if she is a large participant in the conversation. She talks to me a ton, but lots of it revolves around questions, rather than conversation. If we do talk about stuff, half of what she says is a little off and sometimes illogical.
For instance, a few weeks ago she wanted to take water with us to run errands, she does this all the time with no assistance from me, she knows what to do. She asked me about the water getting too hot in the car and I stated that the ice should keep it cool, she then asked me where the ice was. The ice that she gets all day long. We saw a person dressed up as a bee (i think it was a bee) and she asked if "it was real". I clarified that it was a real person with a costume on, she said "No is it really a man that is a bee?" She has asked me if the Jolly Green Giant, the Planters Peanut, Clifford, and the Hulk were real, yet seems to understand that Dora, the Trix yogurt bunny and other things are not real. These aren't things from the past, the Green Giant was today, and she is dead serious.
Language is still a bit fuzzy in her head. I totally get that and have patience for that, but the above mentioned leaves me puzzled and sometimes annoyed. She does not seem to understand the concept of TV. I don't mean the technical aspect of it (I don't even get that), but acting or pretending in general. If she sees "real" people acting she thinks they are that character. I have tried over and over to show her how it is done. I have had her hold a camera and then I pretend to be someone else or act in a crazy way to show how the "real" people can pretend to be someone else. Well last week we were watching one of the Spy Kids movie and saw the actor that plays MONK on the TV series. She has watched several seasons of MONK so she is very familiar with his character on that show. On Spy Kids he was a bad scientist. I pointed out to her who it was and she recognized him. She said, "is that really him?" I said that yes it was really the man that pretends to be Monk and now he is pretending to be someone else. She said, "oh, okay! Is he still married to Trudy?" Trudy is the wife that is married to the character Monk on the show. She did not get it, and that puzzles me. I don't know if I am expecting too much understanding or is she behind in some developmental ways. I know that preschool children believe that the man at the mall in the Santa suit is really Santa, but if you pulled a man straight out of the jungle and plopped him in a mall and explained about a costume or pretending, I think he would get it, if he didn't die first from stimulation, materialism overload.
Time makes no sense to her. Years, months, weeks, days, hours and minutes can all become blurs of confusion for her. Sometimes she seems to grasp days, but most of the time all is fleeting. Yesterday we had to leave at 9:45 to go to a meeting, she was to walk up the street to a birthday party at 10:45. When I told her what time to go, she asked if that was in the middle of the night. I can understand her confusion on that, but she has been to lots of birthday parties and never woken up in the middle of the night to go, plus I had told her that it would be one hour after we left that she was to leave. Then she said that that was forever and was 90 hours from now. Evan told me that when it was 10:30 he told her that she would be leaving in a few minutes, but she said that it was not dark yet.
She will still do things that I don't expect someone her age to do, yet my expectations are probably too high. After speaking to a friend that has a daughter older than Dania, she said some of these things are perfectly normal for a girl her age. She will still run her hands over the raw meet and I've had to remind her even recently to not poke holes in it. She always wants to try and run my credit card, although it never seems to take when she does. When I come home with groceries I normally honk for the boys to come out and help carry stuff in. She seems wild to tear off her seat belt, land in my lap and honk the horn. I put a stop to the frantic approach, but will let her honk the horn. While I wonder how long this will still be something fun to do. A few weeks ago in the kitchen I was loading dishes and had just put soap in the dishwasher and was closing the door. She had been sitting at the stool in the kitchen. When I shut the door she flew off her stool, knocking it over, scrambled around the island, slipped, popped up to smash the start button. The whole stool thing startled me so that she actually did manage to push the start button before I did. Are all these things still novelties to her, or is she trying to control something. None of it is alarming or worrisome (except her hair), but it is something that I think about, because I have to remember to respond appropriately, have patience, and "get" her. I love, love the fact that life is fun and an adventure to her. I never, ever want to squelsch her spirit of life. I have noticed that having her in our lives has made me laugh more at things that I would never have considered funny, and if you really know me, you know that is a good thing.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
School
I sit here on the bed at the end of a long but pleasant week. We hit the ground running Monday morning, and I didn't catch my breath until this afternoon. Football and basketball are going to make the first half of the year quite interesting.
This is my day,
6:45 wake up ( I know that is not too early, but it is too me)
7:00 wake Luke and Dania
7-7:30 coffee time with Nate (half the time)
7:30-wake up Austin and Evan
7:45 -Drive the 2 to school
8-8:30 coffee time with Nate on some of the days, or Bible time with the 2 big kids if he can participate.
8:30-12pm various school, I let them do what they want, but some things we have to plan, because they do them together.
12-1pm lunch break, this is where things have really worked for me this week. During the lunch break I cook dinner. I do all prep work and cooking and stick it in the fridge to pop in the oven later. I cooked 4 big dinners on M-Thurs, and tonight we had all the leftovers.
1-3:30 school. I am spending the majority of the time doing school with them. I am reading all of their assigned Readers and Read-Alouds, I am also reading the books for the Bible course. I have my own account on Rosetta Stone so that I am learning Spanish along with them. I grade Math, and go over History to make sure it is sticking. I am not reading History, Poems, or checking their vocab.
3pm-Tuesdays and Thursdays I take Austin to basketball
3:30- small children arrive home on the bus.
3:30-4:30- talk to small ones and look over the stuff they bring home, clean kitchen, make sure they do homework, listen to Dania read.
4:30-final dinner prep
5:00-pick up Austin
5:30- eat dinner
6:15-leave to take Evan to practice (most of the week I stayed and watched, Thurs Nate rode him on the motorcycle and then came home, since the bike uses way less gas.
8:15 get home from football practice, eat snacks, clean up kitchen (kids that are home clean up dinner while I am gone), get small kids organized for next day, night grooming.
9:00 everyone upstairs, Luke and Dania lights out.
9:30 lights out for Evan and Austin
We go to sleep somewhere after this, but I can't remember it.
Thursdays are the really, really long days. I leave the house at 8:25 and stay in the neighboring town till 1:30 while they take their writing class (Austin) and Science classes (both). Evan gets a ride home at 11:30 so he can do school at home. I have no one to carpool with Austin, so when Austin is done with writing he has an hour to kill before his science class, he does school in the car while I go to the pet store to get crickets for Rango, the new reptile of the family.
If I have to run errands in the day I have managed it an hour before lunch, so that if I run over the time I estimate I will be gone I am only missing some of lunch.
The things I really want to stick with are; making dinner at lunch, learning Spanish, reading all the novels, and keep their math graded, and discuss history. The novels tie in with History that they are learning so it cements it better.
Well, we are off to a good start, but it is week one after all.
This is my day,
6:45 wake up ( I know that is not too early, but it is too me)
7:00 wake Luke and Dania
7-7:30 coffee time with Nate (half the time)
7:30-wake up Austin and Evan
7:45 -Drive the 2 to school
8-8:30 coffee time with Nate on some of the days, or Bible time with the 2 big kids if he can participate.
8:30-12pm various school, I let them do what they want, but some things we have to plan, because they do them together.
12-1pm lunch break, this is where things have really worked for me this week. During the lunch break I cook dinner. I do all prep work and cooking and stick it in the fridge to pop in the oven later. I cooked 4 big dinners on M-Thurs, and tonight we had all the leftovers.
1-3:30 school. I am spending the majority of the time doing school with them. I am reading all of their assigned Readers and Read-Alouds, I am also reading the books for the Bible course. I have my own account on Rosetta Stone so that I am learning Spanish along with them. I grade Math, and go over History to make sure it is sticking. I am not reading History, Poems, or checking their vocab.
3pm-Tuesdays and Thursdays I take Austin to basketball
3:30- small children arrive home on the bus.
3:30-4:30- talk to small ones and look over the stuff they bring home, clean kitchen, make sure they do homework, listen to Dania read.
4:30-final dinner prep
5:00-pick up Austin
5:30- eat dinner
6:15-leave to take Evan to practice (most of the week I stayed and watched, Thurs Nate rode him on the motorcycle and then came home, since the bike uses way less gas.
8:15 get home from football practice, eat snacks, clean up kitchen (kids that are home clean up dinner while I am gone), get small kids organized for next day, night grooming.
9:00 everyone upstairs, Luke and Dania lights out.
9:30 lights out for Evan and Austin
We go to sleep somewhere after this, but I can't remember it.
Thursdays are the really, really long days. I leave the house at 8:25 and stay in the neighboring town till 1:30 while they take their writing class (Austin) and Science classes (both). Evan gets a ride home at 11:30 so he can do school at home. I have no one to carpool with Austin, so when Austin is done with writing he has an hour to kill before his science class, he does school in the car while I go to the pet store to get crickets for Rango, the new reptile of the family.
If I have to run errands in the day I have managed it an hour before lunch, so that if I run over the time I estimate I will be gone I am only missing some of lunch.
The things I really want to stick with are; making dinner at lunch, learning Spanish, reading all the novels, and keep their math graded, and discuss history. The novels tie in with History that they are learning so it cements it better.
Well, we are off to a good start, but it is week one after all.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
School sanity/insanity?
We just got back on Thursday from our beach trip to Hilton Head Island. I may get around to posting the bad pictures (cause we got no camera that is worth a hoot) but that will have to wait. When I arrived home the purchases that I made for the upcoming school year were awaiting me. I took several scholastic financial plunges this year, and for the sake of glimpsing what school can look like when you homeschool for a long time, and things need to be tweaked now and then, I am revealing my thought process and how much it cost.
My first big plunge was that I finally decided to go with Sonlight for the core curriculum. They are pricey, but my reasoning behind this was I wanted the 2 big boys to be able to do a lot of the same stuff, so that they can do school together. Evan loves to read and I wanted some really good books for him, and Austin was totally burned out with his textbooks, worksheets and boring and random reading. I found the perfect package with Core W. It is one year condensed world history and I purchased the Lang Arts package that corresponds with the material. Core W is good for people new to Sonlight, and it fit their ages well. So my Sonlight includes Bible, Lang arts, strong History, Literature and Poetry, Reading(there are about 50 books that they will be reading), Vocab and Spelling(small amount so I am supplementing) and Geography. This is costing around $650.
The second plunge into icy waters was my Rosetta Stone Latin American Spanish 1,2,3 homeschool edition. This I found on sale through Sonlight for $350. The boys and I decided that this was going to have the most beneficial outcome, because Grandma speaks Spanish and we live in an area that has a high Spanish population, so there are many people to practice with, which helps cement a foreign lang.
Our third plunge is Science. As of yesterday I signed the boys up for classes in the neighboring town (25min away). Austin will be doing Apologia Biology, and Evan will be doing Apologia Physical Science. Evan is on the younger side (usually this is a 8th grade class with some 7th graders participating), but they were not offering a general science class, and since he was a good student I am hoping he can handle the class. The class runs for 28 weeks, starting next Thursday and cost $360 for each student, plus the student Textbook for $43 each. Thankfully they are on the same day, so that I don't have to expend so much gas driving that far twice a week, but it will be a long day. Evan's class is from 9-11 and Austin's is 11-1pm. I am going to pack lunches and do school in the car or at McDonald's with the kid not in class. Science in the upper grades is one of those hard classes to teach (IMO). It is hard to make it interesting unless you love it, it can be pricey to do all the labs, not to mention incredibly time consuming making sure you have supplies on hand, and I think it is much for enjoyable to do it in a group.
They are also doing Wordly Wise for vocab and spelling. (really like these workbooks) $12 per student
We are sticking with Math U See for mathematics. $75 and $25
Both boys are playing a sport. Evan is playing football since this is the last year he can play for the Rec dept. and Austin is playing Basketball with the homeschool athletic league. We decided that sports can play more of a vital role when kids are homeschooled for the purpose of physical activity, time management and responsibility to the team, and some time spent with peers in a controlled environment. I love Austin's basketball coach and felt that he was an asset to Austin's character development. Evan just really wanted another go at football.
We will be one of those families that I never thought we would be. (the running like a chicken with it's head cut off kind.) With the 2 younger ones in public school still, I will be a slave to their schedule, while still running my own school.
So that is our coming year in a nutshell. I didn't even mention that I am trying to find electric guitar lessons for Evan (since he bought himself a guitar) and that Austin wants to take drum lessons or do martial arts. The martial arts are out for now, but I would like them both to have the music if possible.
My first big plunge was that I finally decided to go with Sonlight for the core curriculum. They are pricey, but my reasoning behind this was I wanted the 2 big boys to be able to do a lot of the same stuff, so that they can do school together. Evan loves to read and I wanted some really good books for him, and Austin was totally burned out with his textbooks, worksheets and boring and random reading. I found the perfect package with Core W. It is one year condensed world history and I purchased the Lang Arts package that corresponds with the material. Core W is good for people new to Sonlight, and it fit their ages well. So my Sonlight includes Bible, Lang arts, strong History, Literature and Poetry, Reading(there are about 50 books that they will be reading), Vocab and Spelling(small amount so I am supplementing) and Geography. This is costing around $650.
The second plunge into icy waters was my Rosetta Stone Latin American Spanish 1,2,3 homeschool edition. This I found on sale through Sonlight for $350. The boys and I decided that this was going to have the most beneficial outcome, because Grandma speaks Spanish and we live in an area that has a high Spanish population, so there are many people to practice with, which helps cement a foreign lang.
Our third plunge is Science. As of yesterday I signed the boys up for classes in the neighboring town (25min away). Austin will be doing Apologia Biology, and Evan will be doing Apologia Physical Science. Evan is on the younger side (usually this is a 8th grade class with some 7th graders participating), but they were not offering a general science class, and since he was a good student I am hoping he can handle the class. The class runs for 28 weeks, starting next Thursday and cost $360 for each student, plus the student Textbook for $43 each. Thankfully they are on the same day, so that I don't have to expend so much gas driving that far twice a week, but it will be a long day. Evan's class is from 9-11 and Austin's is 11-1pm. I am going to pack lunches and do school in the car or at McDonald's with the kid not in class. Science in the upper grades is one of those hard classes to teach (IMO). It is hard to make it interesting unless you love it, it can be pricey to do all the labs, not to mention incredibly time consuming making sure you have supplies on hand, and I think it is much for enjoyable to do it in a group.
They are also doing Wordly Wise for vocab and spelling. (really like these workbooks) $12 per student
We are sticking with Math U See for mathematics. $75 and $25
Both boys are playing a sport. Evan is playing football since this is the last year he can play for the Rec dept. and Austin is playing Basketball with the homeschool athletic league. We decided that sports can play more of a vital role when kids are homeschooled for the purpose of physical activity, time management and responsibility to the team, and some time spent with peers in a controlled environment. I love Austin's basketball coach and felt that he was an asset to Austin's character development. Evan just really wanted another go at football.
We will be one of those families that I never thought we would be. (the running like a chicken with it's head cut off kind.) With the 2 younger ones in public school still, I will be a slave to their schedule, while still running my own school.
So that is our coming year in a nutshell. I didn't even mention that I am trying to find electric guitar lessons for Evan (since he bought himself a guitar) and that Austin wants to take drum lessons or do martial arts. The martial arts are out for now, but I would like them both to have the music if possible.
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