Summer Reading 2018

The girls have successfully completed half of our public library's 8 week summer reading challenge.  Ella reads out loud anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes a day and someone reads to her for 10 to 20 minutes daily.  Emilia reads between 60 to 80 words per day in leveled books. This is a huge accomplishment for her and I am so glad to see her be less reluctant which allows her reading skills to shine.

The girls have received some cool prizes for their reading efforts, including free cookies from a local bakery, free books, free tickets to the Reds, and some card games.  Summer reading is fun!

P.S. Craig and I are doing the challenge, too.  The family that reads together succeeds together (okay, I just made that up).

Proficient

Most people who know us are aware that we don't put much stock by standardized tests in this family and that we measure progress quite differently from a great majority of parents in this country.  With our neuro-different children, standardized test results only show that they are not good at taking standardized tests. Throw in the fact that they're English language learners with a host of other challenges, and you have a perfect set-up for failure. That doesn't mean my kids aren't smart, it just means they show what they know by other means that cannot usually be measured, timed, or quantified nor are they generally noticed or valued by educators.

Because our eldest was the recipient of an academic scholarship through the Department of Education for the 2017/18 school year, she was required to take the statewide standardized test given to all third graders.  She knew that we wanted her to try her best, but also that we would not be upset if she didn't pass the test.  In fact, she was not expected to pass the test by her intervention team at the public school who began to prepare us for this possibility just a little over a year ago.  It was one of the reasons we decided to home school as we did not want Ella to work in an environment that was already assuming limits for her and thinking of ways to work around academic proficiency.

Unlike her peers at the public school, our daughter spent no more than three hours total preparing for the test.  We simply took some time and practiced the mechanics of the online testing, navigating through the pages, figuring out the tools to draw shapes, using the mouse, and so on.  She did not take any practice tests other than the required one in October before sitting for the real deal in April.

A few weeks ago we received the results of our home schooler's testing and she is proficient in all tested subject areas.  She scored well above the Reading Guarantee and showed some advanced skills in writing.  I can tell you that she was very proud to see a tangible representation of the hard work she has been doing this past year.

For us as parents, the test results were a confirmation that home school was the right choice and that we focused on the correct academic areas to drive our child's education into the right direction, even if those areas were not always part of the third grade curriculum.  Despite the demands that it places on me as a mother, we will forge forward into fourth grade with home school now and allow our child to learn at her own pace, using some methods that you're not likely to see in any mainstream classroom.  We're looking forward to this new school year which begins on July 1 and hope to continue to see growth and progress for our big girl.

Picture Of The Day

#summerfeet #kidlife #playsuccess #happyboy #proudmama

IAC Results 425-427

The following referrals were issued in IAC Session 425 which was held on April 4, 2018:

1) French dossier from February 2012 referred a female child aged 1 year and 8 months

2) Norwegian dossier from February 2012 referred a male child aged 1 year and 9 months

3) Italian dossier from July 2014 referred a male child aged 11 years and 6 months

4) Italian dossier from September 2014 referred sisters aged 5 years and 11 months & 8 years and 7 months

5) US dossier from November 2014 referred four waiting siblings (#3499-3502) with profiles on the MOJ site

6) US dossier from December 2014 referred a waiting child (#3520) with a profile on the MOJ site

7) US dossier from February 2015 referred a female child aged 1 year and 9 months with features in health status

8) French dossier from August 2015 referred sisters aged 6 years and 11 months & 10 years and 10 months

9) Italian dossier from November 2016 a waiting child (#3431) with a profile on the MOJ site

10) Italian dossier from September 2017 referred waiting siblings (#3540 & #3541) with profiles on the MOJ site

11) US dossier from March 2018 referred waiting siblings (#3069 & #3070) with profiles on the MOJ site

12) US dossier from March 2018 referred a waiting child (#3514) with a profile on the MOJ site

13) US dossier from March 2018 referred a waiting child (#3100) with a profile on the MOJ site

14) US dossier from April 2018 referred a waiting child (#3446) with a profile on the MOJ site

15) US dossier from April 2018 referred a waiting child (#3201) with a profile on the MOJ site

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The following referrals were issued in IAC Session 426 which was held on April 17, 2018:

1) French dossier from November 2011 referred a male child aged 3 years and 1 months

2) US dossier from August 2013 referred a female child aged 1 year and 5 months with features in health status and a family history

3) French dossier from March 2015 referred a male child aged 3 years and 10 months with features in health status and a family history

4) German dossier from November 2015 referred a female child aged 1 year and 9 months with features in health status

5) US dossier from November 2015 referred a male child aged 2 years and 4 months with features in health status

6) US dossier from January 2016 referred a male child aged 2 years with features in health status

7) Italian dossier from November 2017 referred siblings aged 8 years and 9 months & 6 years and 6 months & 7 years and 4 months

8) US dossier from April 2018 referred a waiting child (#3262) with a profile on the MOJ site

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The following referrals were issued in IAC Session 427 which was held on April 24, 2018:

1) French dossier from November 2011 referred a female child aged 5 years and 10 months with features in health status and a family history

2) Italian dossier from December 2011 referred a female child aged 2 years and 4 months

3) French dossier from May 2013 referred a male child aged 7 years and 8 months with features in health status

4) US dossier from June 2014 referred a brother and sister aged 6 years and 10 months & 8 years and 9 months

5) Italian dossier from January 2015 referred sisters aged 8 years and 6 months & 7 years and 4 months

6) Italian dossier from March 2016 referred a female child aged 1 year and 8 months with features in health status and a family history

7) US dossier from May 2017 referred sisters aged 10 years & 8 years and 6 months with features in health status

Drowning In Awareness

My oldest daughter is nearly ten.  She's smart.  She's observant.  Her memory for certain things is a solid steel trap.  And she's drowning in awareness about her own (adoption) story.

My oldest daughter has been in our family for three and a half years.  Prior, she spent six years in an orphanage.  She has ongoing contact with her birth family and has met them in her birth country.  And she's drowning in awareness about her own (adoption) story.

The last few months have been hard for my big girl because she has begun to let go of the illusions and the more easily palatable way that she had framed her own story.  She has come face to face with her feelings of loss, anger, and sadness about the adoption and its why and how.  She's drowning in awareness.

Our family is trying to keep her afloat by giving her every opportunity to talk about her thoughts and feelings.  She's working on a life book and has a trauma-informed therapist to support her as well.  As her mother, I find myself in a precarious position of being a listener, the middle man between her and her birth mother on many occasions, and someone who wants to help her find peace about it all at some point in the future.

While speaking with her, I am often reminded of the sentence that was presented to us over and over again when we were preparing for our adoptions, "Your parents couldn't take care of any child."  This sentence is presumably intended to let our adoptive kids know that what happened to them was not their fault and to make them feel more comfortable with their complicated histories.

In seven years as an adoptive parent, I have never uttered that sentence to any of my children because it simply isn't true for them or for the great majority of children finding themselves in overseas state care nowadays because they were born with special needs.  My other two children's birth parents were successfully parenting their firstborns when the children who now call me mama arrived.  Our big girl's biological parents are making a wonderful life for their two sons, one of whom is only 18 months younger than the girl with limb differences who was born to them first.

If I said, "Your birth parents couldn't take care of any child" to my oldest daughter, she would roll her eyes at me and respond, "Well, they're obviously doing a great job with my little brothers."  In fact, she has said these words to me because she is drowning in awareness.  She is not going to fall for platitudes or cliche explanations.  So what do I say to her?

Right now, I am trying to help her separate the people from the decision, "Your birth parents are not bad people, but they made a poor choice.  They were uninformed and misinformed and they did not do their research.  They were scared and overwhelmed.  They were under pressure from extended family, from doctors, and from society as a whole.  They regret their decision and they understand in hindsight that they could and should have parented you.  They love you and we love you and you can love all of us."

I know that understanding these things does not change the impact her first family's decision had on my daughter's life, but I hope that it will help her - eventually - to reemerge from her drowning, to see clearly the issues surrounding her adoption, positive and negative, and to work toward acceptance.

Last Day of First Grade

Today was the last day of first grade for Rex and Emilia.  I probably should have been doing more productive things, but I decided to do something special for this afternoon instead.  I decorated our driveway and...

... I made four strawberry pies, one for each family (including ours) that uses the bus stop which is right at the top of our driveway.

I hope it's a sweet way to kick off summer for the friends we have on our little street.

The Cat In The Hat

Yesterday was "Dress Like a Character from a Book" Day at school.  Surprisingly, we already had all the ingredients at home to make a pretty decent Cat in the Hat out of Emilia.  And she loved it.

“Look at me!

Look at me!

Look at me NOW!

It is fun to have fun

But you have to know how.” 

~ Dr. Seuss