Whole lotta busy

Since Mother's day we have celebrated Mim's 16th birthday. I treated her to a field trip with her classmates to Six Flags Great America along with going out to eat and believe it or not, another dog. She has been asking for a puppy since last fall. I thought why another dog when we already have 4, but she really wanted another, and one that would be more bonded to her rather than me...most of the animals we have are really attached to me and sort of to the girls. So we picked a 7 week old blue heeler mix puppy up from a local humane society (same one we got DaVinci from 3 1/2 years ago). The puppy was way laid back, which is the only personality I would allow for Number #5. He is being spoiled silly by Mama Mim. She is amazing with him, doting on his every move and want. Mr. Zamboni will surely be spoiled rotten.

I also finally picked up our 3rd kayak, the tandem, and so we went kayaking Friday night for the first time. The girls did ok, and then again today. They did much better Today we also took Heathcliff and Einstein (they are pros at this since they use to go kayaking with me all the time pre-kids) and we also took Zamboni (new pup) so he can learn to go while he is young. I will attempt to teach Rem & DaVinci but since they are older  and bigger it will be a challenge. But a challenge worth taking since there is nothing like kayaking with your family and your dogs among nature. So far the girls like it. Tuki, me, Heathcliff and Zamboni are in the tandem and Mim and Einstein are in the bigger solo and Ve is in the smaller solo that is tied to Mim's boat so she doesn't feel like she gets too far away from us. It has been fun so far and we intend to go weekly for about an hour to 1 1/2 hours at a time. We have a pond/lake about 10 minutes from us.

Saturday, we picked up Zamboni, then hung around the house, Sunday, we started real slow, then we cleaned up the garden, still need to till the second half but the till is in the shop, then we cut the grass and then went to Pam's house to celebrate Mim's birthday. Today we got up, did chores, ate, did some reading, then kayaked, then had a cook-out. Now I am blogging, Mim is studying, Ve and Tuki are playing outside with the neighbor girls. It has been a real sweet weekend all around. I also did manage to plant the squash (summer and butternut) and the pumpkins (knuckle, jack and pie) on the side of the garden that is tilled.

The girl's have 8 days of school left, I have nine. We then have one week left, and then I start my internship and the girls will attend summer school. Mim in Panther fitness, Ve in remedial math, and Tuki in the Invention enrichment class. All the girl's will have swim lesson again for one month, plus softball for them as well. Mim also has a four day endurance running camp the week before summer school.  We will all have off of all activities by the 3rd week of July. So about one month of no activities before the next school year...finally.

 DaVinci meets Zamboni

Nose to Nose

Mother's Day

The girls were so cute last night quietly planning my Mother's Day breakfast. It was yogurt with pumpkin seeds, almonds and peanuts and a side of fruit cocktail. It was oh so good. Then I opened the cards and gifts. What really touched me was how much planning went into the whole event. I and Mim then went back to bed for a nap and the wee ones played dress - up in the living room. I got up really refreshed, we ate spaghetti for lunch and then tilled half the garden. The second half will be finished Wednesday night. I have plants that are ready to go in the ground but it is predicted to freeze tonight so it wont hurt to wait another week.

This week we will be busy with softball practice and games on three nights, and then 2 games on Saturday. Ve and Tuki are on different teams this summer, so I may be running in three different directions on any given night. I am still deciding whether I plan to let Mim play or not,..it has to do with teenagitiis, she is on a team, has a uniform, but I am still undecided whether her behavior deserves the fun of playing softball all summer.

Right now, and I blame myself because I allowed her to do it the minute she came home, she plays 4 sports a year. I allowed her because she is always playing catch-up in skills, so she really didn't have much time to wait. But, the problem is she thinks this "normal or typical". All kids play this many sports every year. She doesn't realize that she is actually an exception to what most kids do. But then again what does she have it to compare to, nothing....so she tends to take it for granted and doesn't realize the sacrifice we make as a family to get her to everything she wants to do and support her in the events...so I am starting to pull her back a little hoping she learns some appreciation. She isn't liking it, but oh well, better to learn now that you can't have everything you think you want in life.

Mim doesn't like consequences when she behaves badly, it sometimes even rolls over into her school life. She doesn't like consequences at school either, and she has even stated that I could get her out of them if I wanted to. Which is true, but I won't, and she hates that. Somehow she has a disconnect that it was HER behavior that got her into trouble, not my lack of helping, that landed her the consequence.

She also demands to have her 16 year old rights, but as two very close friends told me immediately upon me sharing this with them.."She has no rights until she moves out of the house"....so again it is being obedient, respectful, and appreciative to the rest of us even when she doesn't have a consequence hanging over her head. We will get there some day, hopefully sooner than later.

Hopefully my last pre-op appointment is scheduled for tomorrow. On June 11, my "nip and tuck" surgery is scheduled. I fondly call it this because it is the surgery in which I will get all my "parts" back and the surgeons will do a final construction on my breasts and clean up the old incision lines where they took the previous grafts. I will only be in the hospital a night or two, not nearly as long as the previous surgeries.

Dominoes and Tuki's 7th year home

 We try to play a nine round every weekend, to help make it a tradition, plus dominoes is really a great strategy game. I am teaching the girls each round strategies and the full nine round strategies.

 So far each of the girls have won a round or two, but none of them have won the entire nine round. The round always goes to the lowest number, and so far it has been me. It is a great way for Tuki to learn in a confined environment to lose, she is a terrible loser, but on the flip side she is also a terrible winner...brags etc., so hopefully she will learn to relax and not be so moody when or if she loses and win with grace. Life is full of winning and losing, as we all know. Mim and Ve are ok either way, but they play to win too. I tell the girls I will be happy when they beat an all out, then I know that they are playing with their minds, with problem solving, some strategy etc.,and fun as well  Once three months are up, the overall winner will pick the restaurant of choice. Then we will start another game session with another game, maybe garbage, maybe trouble, whatever the girls pick for three months.

You can see how hard they focus..plus it is something we all plan for so we plan to spend this quality time together in a busy schedule.

Today was Tuki's 7th year home, we celebrated after our semi-annual Ecycle drive this morning. We went out to eat at the Golden Corral....Tuki's favorite..all you can eat.

Lexile Levels

Mim's new lexile reading level is 738, which is a low 7th grade reading level (just 2 grade levels below where she should be)...she jumped over 300 points since the end of last year. She is making great strides in such a short time, I just wish we could get Ve motivated to do the same, or again like I have stated, it could be learning disabilities.

Mim's

Access score is 5.2, amazing when considering the fact that a year ago it was a 2...she jumped 3 whole levels in one year. We talked and we both feel it is due to her reading. I require it. Why? because studies have proven that people who can read and read well and are able to do math are quite successful in their life endeavors. If only we can figure out the lack of short term memory, and lack of problem solving strategies.....in time..I hope.

Ve's score didn't even go up 1 level from a year ago and I think it is because it is a daily battle to get her to read..thus she hasn't made the gains Mim has in a shorter period of time, at a much older age.

Question

for those that have children that were born in Haiti, do you notice a lack of problem solving skills, areas, ideas, actions that seem so common sense, if you only thought about it for a second, seems to not be obvious to my two daughters born in Haiti. It is like they can't connect the "dots" ideas together in their heads. Then once I take the time to explain it in length with great detail, almost exhaustively so, they still don't retain it AT ALL. Plus their short-term memories are terrible at best. Mim refuses to write things down so now she is on a check system with me and at school, but her memory is still bad at home and I'm working on what to do with her there. Some sort of accountability system for her to write things down. She thinks she is too old for this, though I model it by having  several planning calendars around, one very prominent by being on the refrigerator. This is just one example of her stubbornness. Something we deal with almost nearly every day in one shape or another.

Now for Ve, I still believe will some day be diagnosed with a learning disability, and her short term memory is as bad as Mim's.

To be honest, this is has been one of the most exhausting areas for me in this whole adoption process, the daily teaching of the exact same things...every day..it reminds at times of the movie "Fifty first dates" or something like that, except I am not always as patient as the characters in the movie.

It worries me too, because if they don't develop a strategy to help with their memories or problem solving skills, I fear they will struggle with employment some day. I can't imagine an employee allowing for some of the mistakes made by my two forgetful daughters.

I wonder is this just an English learning thing, a bonding thing, a malnourishment thing, is it permanent or temporary. Is it just a maturity thing, will they outgrow it and do I expect too much, but then there is Tuki who at times functions at a much higher level than Mim when it comes to problem solving or decision making. Believe me this causes a great deal of friction between the two, who BTW are very similar in personality.

Mim hopes to be driving soon because in few short weeks she will be turning 16, but she won't be because she just isn't mature enough to handle it nor is she aware enough of her surroundings to handle it. I tell her this and we duke it out, yet again, her pushing against the confines of the family and me holding her to them and telling her that once she shows me that she has the maturity and sense of responsibility to allow for driving, we will discuss the possibility of her learning to drive.....I fear this won't be for sometime.

Case in point we usher at church once a month, I am the head usher for our team. Mim and I have been on this team ever since she has been home. We need 5 people for each service and about half way through the year our fifth quit, so I had been getting a filler volunteer every time we ushered. So I finally asked the head usher of all the teams if I could trade off every other month with Ve and Tuki as the fifth. He said that he thought that as long as they could handle it, why not. So today I had Tuki do it, yes before Ve, because honestly I wasn't sure if Ve could handle it, but I knew Tuki could. It took Mim many tries, many tries before she could handle it seamlessly.....why, she wasn't observing the others as they were ushering and so not picking up the little nuances (problem solving and observation) of ushering. That is why I had Ve watch this week and hopefully with a little training in a month she will have retained how to do it. Tuki notices all these little things, all of them sometimes to the point of annoyance, but notice she does, and learn she does...so yes she pulled it off perfectly today...So one could say,  they are different people and you can't compare kids to kids, and that is correct, but Ve's personality is unlike the other two, and she exhibits the same issues that Mim does, and Tuki's personality is very much like Mim's and she exhibits none of the same issues as the other two, so I have to think it is somehow related to their birth country of Haiti..but how exactly..this I don't know..so any suggestions or ideas are welcome. Thanks for reading my rambling.

Weekend Update

All the coops are cleaned, the manure is now on the garden, the 5 trays of seeds have started to germinate, the sun is shining..who could ask for more. We are all really tired and sore today because we worked really hard yesterday to get the cleaning done quickly so we could go to Grandma Jill's retirement party last night. It was a very busy and full day.

Today we are ushering in church, and then around 2 we are going to my niece's piano recital. Then I have to get home and finish my paper. Hopefully sneak in a bike ride some time today as well.

I received word this week, that I had was awarded the funds for a grant I wrote. It is to offer one section of STEM class in 7th grade. STEM means Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. This class will focus on the areas mentioned in STEM while working on community projects so the students will have real life experiences.

On Wednesday this week I had a doctor appointment with my Lyme doctor, I am progressing well and feel great, he thinks that if I continue to do well I could be running by August without sore feet. I also found out that I am one of those rare individuals who has NO food allergies. I was tested and I am fine on all food accounts. He said this almost never happens...

After the appointment I drove 1-1/2 hours to another city and purchased the kayak rack (holds 3 kayaks) and had it mounted to the top of the van. All I have to get yet for our summer kayak adventures are two life preservers. This investment in our fun family times cost me about 1500.00..not too bad....considering what I had bought. I ended up getting the tandem kayak at our local store for 499.00 plus tax...that is 500.00 less than the one I had on hold at the other store.

In just four days time, the Phoebes had their nest built..exactly where it was last year..on the side of garage..amazing little birds....

Ve's new Access score - her level of English learning is about 4.2 out of 6. They exit out of ESL (English as a Second Language) support once they score a 6 on the evaluation test. I haven't received Mim's yet for this year.

Photos from the retirement party