Picture Of The Day

While driving this evening, we saw the most beautiful, complete rainbow over our little neck of the woods.  Ella has been waiting for a rainbow ever since she learned what it was shortly after joining our family.  Today nature finally obliged and Ella couldn't have been more delighted.  We stopped and just looked at the rainbow until it started to fade away.

And just now, with the kids in bed, Craig and I saw this arrow in the clouds behind our house.

A Fantastic Resource

I am in the process of compiling an informational packet for Emilia's new teachers and therapists, sharing some of her background and the effects it has had on her overall development, behavior, and personality.  I came across this fantastic resource that I am going to include in the packet for the Kindergarten team:

http://nc.casaforchildren.org/files/public/site/conference/ho2013/e-healachild.pdf

I printed this information out and highlighted parts applicable to Emilia as well as wrote notes in the margins.  This is a pretty comprehensive, yet concise presentation that covers everything from changes in the brain structure of institutionalized children, to RAD and other attachment issues, to the effects of nutritional deficiencies, depression, PTSD, etc.  I hope it will help her educators understand her better and provide more appropriate services.

*Just found another one which is kind of like Emilia in a nutshell:
http://pro.psychcentral.com/trauma-sensory-integration-the-egg-the-chicken/008673.html

Picture Of The Day

IAC 321 & 322 & 323 Results

The following referrals were issued in IAC Session 321 which was held on June 4, 2015:

1) Italian dossier from August 2013 referred a male child aged 8 years and 8 months with features in health status

2) French dossier from November 2013 referred a female child aged 2 years and 8 months with features in health status and a family history

3) German dossier from September 2014 referred a female child aged 8 years and 3 months with features in health status

4) US dossier from February 2015 referred a male child aged 10 years and 9 months

5) US dossier from May 2015 referred a waiting child (#2622) with a profile on the MOJ site

6) US dossier from June 2015 referred two waiting children (#2682 & #2686) with profiles on the MOJ site

7) US dossier from June 2015 referred a waiting child (#2780) with a profile on the MOJ site

8) US dossier from June 2015 referred a waiting child (#2767) with a profile on the MOJ site

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The following referrals were issued in IAC Session 322 which was held on June 11, 2015:

1) Spanish dossier from October 2010 referred a female child aged 1 year and 4 months

2) Spanish dossier from February 2012 referred a waiting child (#2866) with a profile on the MOJ site

3) Irish dossier from July 2012 referred a male child aged 6 years and 9 months with features in health status

4) French dossier from August 2013 referred a female child aged 2 year and 3 months with features in health status and a family history

5) Italian dossier from April 2014 referred a female child aged 7 years and 6  months with features in health status

6) US dossier from October 2014 referred a male child aged 1 year and 6 months with features in health status

7) French dossier from February 2015 referred a male child aged 3 years and 9 months with features in health status and a family history

8) US dossier from March 2015 referred a male child aged 1 year and 7 months with features in health status

9) US dossier from April 2015 referred a waiting child (#2782) with a profile on the MOJ site

10) US dossier from June 2015 referred a waiting child (#2360) with a profile on the MOJ site

11) US dossier from April 2015 referred a waiting child (#2282) with a profile on the MOJ site

12) US dossier from April 2015 referred a waiting child (#2755) with a profile on the MOJ site

13) US dossier from April 2015 referred a waiting child (#2641) with a profile on the MOJ site

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The following referrals were issued in IAC Session 323 which was held on June 25, 2015:

1) Italian dossier from October 2010 referred a female child aged 7 years and 9 months

2) German dossier from December 2010 referred a male child aged 1 year and 7 months with features in health status

3) German dossier from December 2010 referred a female child aged 1 year and 10 months with features in health status

4) US dossier from December 2012 referred a female child aged 1 year and 7 months with a family history

5) US dossier from July 2014 referred a brother and sister aged 8 years and 1 month & 6 years and 4 months with features in health status

6) US dossier from January 2015 referred a waiting child (#2839) with a profile on the MOJ site

7) US dossier from April 2015 referred a male child aged 2 years and 10 months with features in health status

8) US dossier from May 2015 referred a waiting child (#2806) with a profile on the MOJ site

9) Canadian dossier from June 2015 referred a female child aged 1 year and 10 months with features in health status

10)  US dossier from June 2015 referred a waiting child (#2738) with a profile on the MOJ site

11) US dossier from June 2015 referred a waiting child (#2443) with a profile on the MOJ site

12) US dossier from June 2015 referred a waiting child (#2206) with a profile on the MOJ site

Reading Rocks!

Per her own initiation, Emilia and I have begun to study sight words (Dolch pre-primer list) and in the course of two weeks, she has learned to recognize ten words.  Most amazingly, it seems she only needs to be exposed to the word one time and she retains it.

Here are two videos from this morning.  She usually likes to keep her smarts under her hat, so it's not easy to get her to show off for the camera.

Emilia's expressive language also absolutely continues to grow.  She is confidently using the contraction "it's" now and has begun answering some questions with "yes."

Awesome sentences we have heard lately included, "Bless you", "I want inside.  Too hot sun", "Daddy come with me", (while reading The Giving Tree) "It's nice.  I wanna sit in tree", and (on the swing) "I wanna go faster."

Ella Nine Months Home

Well, I can hardly believe I just typed that title to this blog post.  Can nine months really have passed already since Ella set foot on US soil?  The calendar says yes.

For all of July Ella is in summer school and I am so glad we signed her up. I am quite pleased with the work the class has completed and know that it has helped Ella solidify her basic skills.  Her summer teacher sent me an email mid-month and said, "Ella is an amazing girl, and I am very impressed with what she has accomplished in the short time she has been in this country.  I know that she has come a long way, thanks to her parents and to her teachers, Mrs. H. and Mrs. O."  And Ella's summer bus driver told me, "I just love her. She's such a fresh ray of sunshine."  Ella also had a follow-up with our IA Clinic and the written report we received from the team there afterward described her language acquisition as "remarkable" and noted that she "speaks English fluently."

We are still doing academic work at home as well.  Sight words continue to be a focus and Ella is up to recognizing over 60 now, nearly a third of the Dolch words she is supposed to acquire by the end of third grade.  We have also been working on counting to 100 and on recognizing/naming money and understanding its value.  Ella will begin receiving an allowance when she turns seven, so we knew this was an area we had to address now.

Physically, Ella is doing well.  She has gained height (+3 cm), but no weight, so that's being monitored. She is very active and loves to ride her bike with training wheels, despite the challenge this presents for her, and swim in the pool.  She had a check-up with her orthopedist and continues to have no restrictions from movement or weight bearing.  As we expected, she is not a candidate for orthopedic surgery and the doctor actually believes that surgery would do more harm than good.  He predicts that Ella will have nearly full, life-long mobility and that her body will naturally accommodate for the limb differences, as it has been for the past seven years.  Her estimated adult height is 130 cm.  We also asked for a referral to a hand surgeon to see if Ella's mobility and function in her non-dominant hand can be improved further, so we shall see.

Our biggest issue with Ella continues to be obedience.  She does not disobey on any major matters whatsoever, but continues to have trouble with the small daily things.  For example, we usually have to tell her multiple times to pick up her clothes or to turn down the volume on her Kindle.  I know it's so minor, but we realize that her obedience in these small respects is the precursor to her obedience with bigger issues in the future.  So, we repeatedly stress the importance of obedience as a vehicle to learning and being safe and to impose consequences for what we call bad listening skills with Ella's least favorite being going to bed early when her sibs get to still stay up.  We tell her that her brain must be too tired to listen and follow instructions and an early bedtime is necessary to help her brain rest and think.

Another area of focus is pressure grading for physical touch.  Ella can be a little rough in that department, so we are doing some easy sensory/OT activities at home to give her a better feel for her own body in relation to others.  I certainly love the affection from my little girl and she loves to give it, but I would be happy if this wasn't accompanied by as many unintentional ouchies for the recipients.

We continue to have frequent contact with Ella's birth family in Armenia.  I believe this has been a very positive experience for Ella.  She understands more and more of her story and owns it with confidence.  When classmates at school asked her this month where she got her necklace, she told them it was a gift from her birth mother and then, as her teacher told me, explained that a birth mother is "the mom where I was in her tummy before I was born."

All in all, Ella is doing super duper, as she likes to say, and we are so lucky to have her in our family.

Picture Of The Day

Our girls completed their summer reading program through the local library.  We're proud of their dedication to reading over the last two months.