Caleb got asked out on a date. How about that? He politely told her no, and didn't press the issue with us at home. We all had a little chuckle over it--- but what is this world coming to? Maybe I am totally old fashioned, but what happened to waiting till you were older, or waiting till the guy asked the girl out? Caleb is only 13. I shouldn't be surprised in this day and age, but I will continue to raise my kids the old fashioned way thank you. My biggest concern was finding out if Caleb had hurt the girl's feelings in the process of telling her no. He assured me that that he didn't, and for the future, I encouraged him to blame his "No" answer on me.
Andrew is doing great in school this year. His teacher is a male and for some reason this has made all the difference. Absolutely no goofing off-- and he turns in all of his assignments and homework on time without hardly any reminders on my part. He is one of the highest kids in his class and doesn't mind having 10 extra "much harder" spelling words or being pushed to do things that will challenge him so he doesn't get bored. Very different from last year where I was beginning to think that he couldn't take school seriously. Yeah for Andrew!
At night, Andrew and only Andrew, will have night terrors at least twice a week. This is so disruptive to his sleep and mine that we have specifically been praying them away for the last five days and God has been faithful. Andrew was the one who reminded me tonight to pray them away again-- which was pretty cool.
Andrew continues to take piano lessons every Thursday and as I heard him play today, I couldn't believe that my seven year old could sound so good! Way to go Andrew!
Speaking of music, Adam continues to play in the worship band-- this Sunday he will be playing guitar instead of bass. How exciting! He enjoys it very much and is getting lots out of his weekly lesson. Julia is working on, "Breath of Heaven" which is coming along great. They are both so musically talented and practice without even being asked. Exactly how it should be.
Rachel is pretty talented herself. She is enjoying soccer and the coaches are impressed with her despite this being her first year. She is doing just as well as her peers who have been playing soccer for the last 7 years! Her team is undefeated still..........
Sveta is working on learning to count money this year. While we both easily become frustrated during her homework, I made up a chart that is helping her to keep track of how much money she has while she switches the value of the coins in her head. This is proving to be a challenging thing for her to say the least, but she continues to make baby steps, which is all we can ask for. Her ability to come up with a sentence using her spelling words has improved a lot too!
According to the doctor, Dennis now weighs as much as Alex! Can you believe it? What a little chunk! Dennis has one ear infection so I started him on antibiotics. Hopefully, Dennis will begin to feel better now--- in plenty of time for his next surgery which is scheduled for November 16th.
I had to mention one last thing before I hit the sack. Thank you for all of your prayers. Ever since my, "I am Human" post, Alex and I have had much better days concerning his bowel management program. I am not stretching the truth at all when I say that he has not had any accidents outside of the window of time when he does his daily sit. I have definitely felt the prayers! It has made life so much easier, and Alex feels more like a big boy who goes poo-poo in the potty just like his brother Dennis! It has taken some adjusting to figure out what works, but I think I am finally getting the hang of it. Thank you again! And Alex thanks you too I am sure! And so does his teachers (I'm sure)! Now I know that there will be ups and downs in the future, but being able to remember that it is possible to have such good days will be such ana encouragement.
14 inspiring thoughts:
When I used to work with FAS and Down Syndrome kids, while they struggled with things Sveta has greatly improved in, one of the easiest math concepts for them was money. Of course the coins in that country are not called "funny names" as my son calls American change.
A good thing for Sveta is that in this age and time she will not really need to rely on cash that much. In a time of gift cards and debit cards and SMS notifications of your balance when using your card makes life a lot easier for people who have problems with counting money. So between that and the awesome work you all do together, she should have little problem! Now budgeting is another problem, but that is something that I have problems with, too!
You should post more vids about your kids playing music!
Your kids are sound like they are geting on well. How are Anna and Annalyn? We haven't heard much about them for a while.
I found a couple of websites that might be fun for Sveta to practice counting money.
http://www.webmath.com/cmoney1.htmlhttp:
//www.enchantedlearning.com/math/money/coins/ this one has lots of worksheets
Have lovely week!
Hi, Ive been following your blog when you were getting paper work ready for Dennis. Now, after adoptiing 4 from South America, we are in the process of Adopting Dania from RR. And my 14yr old daughter was just asked to the prom! She knows she cant date until she is 16 (her dad says 30!) Its hard to see how fast some of these kids are growing up these days! You have a great family and you are a great mom!!!
Prayer works wonders! I am also feeling the prayers of others and know they are making a difference. Like one of Michael W. Smith's old songs says "Pray for me, and I'll pray for you..."
Go Sveta!!!I am sure the homework time is very frustrating but you are doing a good job. My mom used to set up a pretend grocery store and made me the cashier to learn. Dealing with severe ADHD it was tough, but at least it was fun when she changes things up. I also have the fealing that Caleb is going to break some hearts one day! He looks just like my brother did at that age. God bless.
great update post. Hey how are the growth hormone shots going? Is she growing?
Wow, I havent been over in a long time and it sounds like you are all doing well. I skimmed through your previous posts and saw Dennis. I cant believe how much his eye has improved!!! He looks wonderful and happy. Congrats on the success. The rest of the kids look well also.
Have a wonderful week!!!
It is so good to read that everyone is growing and doing well. You sound very peaceful in the post. So happy for you.
Did you have Alex checked out for things like giardia yet?
That can give you dreadful bayhroom problems with going all the time.
If he checked out OK the first time maybe they can check again.
Great news about Alex!!!
Yeahhhh!
As regards Alex....I think that it is so easy to forget that there are usually a couple of months when things...some things, are just hard! I suppose that is true about most new relationships... It seems long and difficult at the time, then even a year later you look back and think, "What was all that stress about?"
I agree with Heval about money. Money is hard for some of us. That and time were hurdles for me, too. But, nowadays neither one is a big deal.... I was just glad I had Ilya and Sergei to help me with making change in Russia!
Wow. I must be getting Internet famous to get a nasty comment on another, way more popular blogger's blog. I now feel validated! The lesson I learned from my years on LiveJournal was that you don't count till you get hate spammed at least once.
That said, when any of the things you or another venomy Anon listed happen (trouble with law, teenage pregnancy, rebelling against whatever, or, oh my HaShem, a kid coming out as gay) Christine and John will do exactly what every other loving parent would do: learn to live with it and help their child.
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