Wow..did we mess this one up. Melissa and Ashley went away for a retreat this weekend and we didn't think anything of it. Well... we didn't think ANYTHING of it... like it is the first time Dennis has been without mom overnight since they left the orphanage on Jan 11th.
It took me until about 4p today to realize the reason he majorly regressed this afternoon was likely that he was having a hard time with that. It was a weekend for just those two and they had some important stuff to get done so we hadn't taken time to call them.
Dennis just got off the phone with mom and understands she is coming home after church tomorrow. He has a big grin.
We will have another shot at this to do this better next month with the girls (Ashley, Melissa, and two hosted girls) going away for a girl's weekend.
But wow... the only thing I can say in my defense is that we forgot cause Dennis has so well integrated into the family.
Today Sam ended up in urgent care for a sting/bite he got on Thursday. It got worse last night... whatever it was spread fast. It went over 2" down his arm from the time I left home to when I got to urgent care. The doctor still couldn't explain the clear blistering at the edge of the swollen area... that was just weird. He blamed it on poison oak or something but I seriously doubt it... I guess the only way to know for sure is if someone else gets it too -- but it won't be me as I'm not allergic :)
As a second part of Sam's birthday present we got more fish... at first that is a crazy idea but the Platys' haven't bred as aggressively as the Swordtails so we were down to one platy and 40+ red velvet swordtails. I had also let the water ammonia level get a little high which inhibits their breeding and makes them die off quicker so our population dropped from the 80-90 fish. So we decided to add some color to the tank.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
School wrap-up
Thursday was the last day of school for the kids so we started summer vacation. Playing outside, sleeping in, catching up on cleaning out rooms, etc. We are preparing for the girls to come in 1.5wks.
We never did get ahold of Snezhana. I have had a SMS on Skype going 24x7 for a week. Skype will retry for 24hrs at a time and then fail... it'll also tell you when it was successful. Unfortunately this means S' phone is off... I doubt she got a new SIM card as they are at camp. Hopefully it's just that she lost the ability to charge it. It's hard as D wants to talk to her every day now that his mornings are free and the last time we talked to her she was really sick and couldn't really talk. Right now we just ask for prayers that everything is ok and she'll be able to come for hosting.
If there is something wrong with the phone we'll have to find a way to get her a new phone... for both the girls actually assuming things go as planned. We'll also have to figure out a way to get more minutes for the phones as we only have 7wks of minutes left. With the SDA shutdown in July for a while it gets a little more complicated but God will work things out.
Back to Dennis... we have an educational meeting on Friday where we understand the school is going to try to put him in special education at a different school because he's so far behind. Um... a kid who was NEVER really in school, is 4 months in a country with a new language, and you are concerned that he's not ready for 3rd grade?
Yes, he certainly has learning difficulties but NO ONE knows what they are or how severe they are. All the standardized learning tests are meant for people who know English, were born in America, and are educated in America... he scores at essentially a preschool level "floor level" for nearly all categories. As an example of the culture bias, the tester made a big deal of pointing out he thought he was 7 and he didn't know his birthday... well, he was supposedly 7 when he went to the orphanage and the kids there lose sense of time. Even his sister who is quite intelligent had lost track of the age of her siblings and still thought Dennis was 7 until I walked her through it. On the birthday... he didn't even get a birth certificate until 2007 and we actually don't believe it is accurate... but more so, he was in a culture where he probably had never had a birthday celebration and would not have a reason to remember the day. The tester dies not on nearly every test that it is potentially invalid.
In American after 2nd grade he'd have a [hopefully] stable home, 2 yrs pre-school, 1yr kindergarten, and 2 yrs elementary... not 4mo of school. Anyways... I rant, please pray that the administrators will listen... even the specialist we saw told us NOT to let the schools push him into anything yet.
On a humorous note on his evaluation... they asked him what an oven was for in both English and Russian. His answer... "chicken!". I burst out laughing when I read that in the report. If you'd read previous posts, he LOVES chicken... he'd eat it every meal if he could and starts asking if he can have chicken when he wakes up. He KNOWS an oven is generally for cooking but from his perspective it only serves one important purpose... I bet he'd say the same thing about the BBQ.
He impressed us this morning... he was reading the brand on the cheap sunglasses we bought him that he loves. He's never been asked to think and simply looks at things (letters, colors, shapes, etc) and spits out whatever he wants. With reading it's always "D E N N I S". So I decided to see how well he's doing retaining what he knows since it has been a week since he really did anything in school... "P L A C E". Right the first time... so Ashley grabbed the alphabet cards and he only missed 1 after an initial review. That's really good... we were all impressed.
We never did get ahold of Snezhana. I have had a SMS on Skype going 24x7 for a week. Skype will retry for 24hrs at a time and then fail... it'll also tell you when it was successful. Unfortunately this means S' phone is off... I doubt she got a new SIM card as they are at camp. Hopefully it's just that she lost the ability to charge it. It's hard as D wants to talk to her every day now that his mornings are free and the last time we talked to her she was really sick and couldn't really talk. Right now we just ask for prayers that everything is ok and she'll be able to come for hosting.
If there is something wrong with the phone we'll have to find a way to get her a new phone... for both the girls actually assuming things go as planned. We'll also have to figure out a way to get more minutes for the phones as we only have 7wks of minutes left. With the SDA shutdown in July for a while it gets a little more complicated but God will work things out.
Back to Dennis... we have an educational meeting on Friday where we understand the school is going to try to put him in special education at a different school because he's so far behind. Um... a kid who was NEVER really in school, is 4 months in a country with a new language, and you are concerned that he's not ready for 3rd grade?
Yes, he certainly has learning difficulties but NO ONE knows what they are or how severe they are. All the standardized learning tests are meant for people who know English, were born in America, and are educated in America... he scores at essentially a preschool level "floor level" for nearly all categories. As an example of the culture bias, the tester made a big deal of pointing out he thought he was 7 and he didn't know his birthday... well, he was supposedly 7 when he went to the orphanage and the kids there lose sense of time. Even his sister who is quite intelligent had lost track of the age of her siblings and still thought Dennis was 7 until I walked her through it. On the birthday... he didn't even get a birth certificate until 2007 and we actually don't believe it is accurate... but more so, he was in a culture where he probably had never had a birthday celebration and would not have a reason to remember the day. The tester dies not on nearly every test that it is potentially invalid.
In American after 2nd grade he'd have a [hopefully] stable home, 2 yrs pre-school, 1yr kindergarten, and 2 yrs elementary... not 4mo of school. Anyways... I rant, please pray that the administrators will listen... even the specialist we saw told us NOT to let the schools push him into anything yet.
On a humorous note on his evaluation... they asked him what an oven was for in both English and Russian. His answer... "chicken!". I burst out laughing when I read that in the report. If you'd read previous posts, he LOVES chicken... he'd eat it every meal if he could and starts asking if he can have chicken when he wakes up. He KNOWS an oven is generally for cooking but from his perspective it only serves one important purpose... I bet he'd say the same thing about the BBQ.
He impressed us this morning... he was reading the brand on the cheap sunglasses we bought him that he loves. He's never been asked to think and simply looks at things (letters, colors, shapes, etc) and spits out whatever he wants. With reading it's always "D E N N I S". So I decided to see how well he's doing retaining what he knows since it has been a week since he really did anything in school... "P L A C E". Right the first time... so Ashley grabbed the alphabet cards and he only missed 1 after an initial review. That's really good... we were all impressed.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
2 more days of school
All the kids were up early and excited to be off to school. They were all ready more than 20minutes early.
Ashley was impressed that when she said "G U M" that Dennis knew that spelled gum. We went through spelling a few words like STOP -- which seems to be his favorite new word to recognize -- and he knew some of them. On the way to the bus stop he started counting by 10s out of the blue... 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 .. 20. Ok, some work to do but I'm good with it.
Tonight Ashley has 5th grade promotion as next year she goes to the middle school. It is going to be a LONG ride. Right now they are the last stop for pickup and first for drop off and the school is maybe 2miles away. Next year the school is quite a bit farther and we are the first stop for pickup and the last for drop off. So will go from an 8 minute bus ride to a 60 minute bus ride each way... and the bus picks her up 15minutes later. In winter it'll be sunset by the time to get home and she'll still have to do her school work. I'm hoping she can get a lot of it done at school or the bus ride.
Dennis will move into 3rd grade with the same teacher he has this year. Sam will be the big brother helping him with Ashley at the middle school.
For now, we are less than 2 weeks before the girls get here. I think Dennis' Ukraine sister will be impressed with his progress and that he's the same old silly Dennis she knows. We plan to have a lot of fun.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Slowing pace
I've noticed my blogs generally slowing down. I guess that is a good thing in most ways. We are just about to be done with school for the year and we have two weeks before the girls get here. WOW! Lot's to do :)
The boys and I got to wash the van and clean out part of the garage yesterday. They were big helpers and we got a lot done... with a lot of fun leaving us all soaking wet.
Dennis has had maybe 3 difficult times in the last 7wks. Not even bad days... just that he got a timeout on the bench. But the last 3 days have all had melt downs. Ashley is away for a week and I didn't realize how much she means to him. It makes sense as Ashley is filling the role of the big sister who didn't come with us. On top of that, Skype calling to Ukraine is broken now so we couldn't connect with her on Saturday or Sunday.
It's been a long time since he was crying hard giving me a hug when reconciling and even longer when he couldn't bring himself to apologize to mom. So a bit of regression over the weekend but hopefully we'll be back on track today.
The boys and I got to wash the van and clean out part of the garage yesterday. They were big helpers and we got a lot done... with a lot of fun leaving us all soaking wet.
Dennis has had maybe 3 difficult times in the last 7wks. Not even bad days... just that he got a timeout on the bench. But the last 3 days have all had melt downs. Ashley is away for a week and I didn't realize how much she means to him. It makes sense as Ashley is filling the role of the big sister who didn't come with us. On top of that, Skype calling to Ukraine is broken now so we couldn't connect with her on Saturday or Sunday.
It's been a long time since he was crying hard giving me a hug when reconciling and even longer when he couldn't bring himself to apologize to mom. So a bit of regression over the weekend but hopefully we'll be back on track today.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Perspective
Got the transcript of D's last conversation with S... well mostly S' aunt and boyfriend.
Aunt as expected was great. D says he "Love it here" and he's doing well in English. Her cow had a baby and she's going to milk it after the call. That was pretty funny but you can tell she really tries to engage him. She made sure he's going to get a hug and kiss from S when she gets here.
Boyfriend... well, that is a different story. He seems to be a nice guy with no ill will but D really wasn't nearly as engaged and you can tell it from the conversation. Starts out good saying S is coming and D confirming he really misses her, and that he's "fed well" with "ice cream" -- followed with boyfriend chuckling -- ... then it goes to where the perspective is key and it is hard for boyfriend to understand. That mixed with not paying attention and responding with "yes" as an american child would whenever his name is mentioned (like by me prompting him to pay attention) or a mix of English "what?" leads to some rather humorous nonsensical exchanges. The oddest one...
B: "What else will you tell me?"
D: Nothing
B: How come nothing? Do you want back home?
D: yes
This one can really irk you on face value. Is he saying he wants back to Ukraine? Well... you have to know D and remember he just told Aunt explicitly that he "Loves" it here -- not a yes/no answer that you can't be sure of. First he may be responding "Yes" thinking that he was asked if he was doing nothing... ignoring the second part of the sentence... or responding to me and ignoring the entire question all together. Second he thinks of OUR house as his home AS HE SHOULD. He's never referred to any other location as home -- well, except the fort he and Sam made of their bed--. You can ask D, THIS is HIS home. So obviously he wants to be home. Third, boyfriend may be thinking he's on vacation as the conversation talked about that a few times and home is home... I would expect boyfriend to say "Ukraine" or "School" if he meant going back there.
Anyways... if he's even responding to the actual question, I classify this like the "Are you learning English" -- "No, not at this moment" --, "Are you going to school?" -- "No, not at this moment" --, "What are you doing?" -- "Nothing but talking to you at this moment" --, and such questions where he just doesn't get the implicit context. So wanting "back home" leads to "why" boredom questions...
D says he's bored but his siblings play with him and he's excited about the checkens... yes, at this point he is really bored on the phone... he wants outside and off the phone. I don't think boyfriend got that and D doesn't get the temporal question. I kept having to prod him to talk.
D says he's been swimming in the ocean... heh... he can't swim and we haven't been in the ocean since last summer.
D says his favorite thing is cartoons. We don't watch TV (no cable, no antenna) and nearly never see cartoons... that comes from left field. The question was about what he's done recently and likes most.
Anyways, it is mostly humorous if you step back and S will see what reality is with him happy and home. She missed most of the conversation as she was sick and seeing the doctor at the time.
BTW he is still behaving and responding well. He is fully integrated into the family.
Aunt as expected was great. D says he "Love it here" and he's doing well in English. Her cow had a baby and she's going to milk it after the call. That was pretty funny but you can tell she really tries to engage him. She made sure he's going to get a hug and kiss from S when she gets here.
Boyfriend... well, that is a different story. He seems to be a nice guy with no ill will but D really wasn't nearly as engaged and you can tell it from the conversation. Starts out good saying S is coming and D confirming he really misses her, and that he's "fed well" with "ice cream" -- followed with boyfriend chuckling -- ... then it goes to where the perspective is key and it is hard for boyfriend to understand. That mixed with not paying attention and responding with "yes" as an american child would whenever his name is mentioned (like by me prompting him to pay attention) or a mix of English "what?" leads to some rather humorous nonsensical exchanges. The oddest one...
B: "What else will you tell me?"
D: Nothing
B: How come nothing? Do you want back home?
D: yes
This one can really irk you on face value. Is he saying he wants back to Ukraine? Well... you have to know D and remember he just told Aunt explicitly that he "Loves" it here -- not a yes/no answer that you can't be sure of. First he may be responding "Yes" thinking that he was asked if he was doing nothing... ignoring the second part of the sentence... or responding to me and ignoring the entire question all together. Second he thinks of OUR house as his home AS HE SHOULD. He's never referred to any other location as home -- well, except the fort he and Sam made of their bed--. You can ask D, THIS is HIS home. So obviously he wants to be home. Third, boyfriend may be thinking he's on vacation as the conversation talked about that a few times and home is home... I would expect boyfriend to say "Ukraine" or "School" if he meant going back there.
Anyways... if he's even responding to the actual question, I classify this like the "Are you learning English" -- "No, not at this moment" --, "Are you going to school?" -- "No, not at this moment" --, "What are you doing?" -- "Nothing but talking to you at this moment" --, and such questions where he just doesn't get the implicit context. So wanting "back home" leads to "why" boredom questions...
D says he's bored but his siblings play with him and he's excited about the checkens... yes, at this point he is really bored on the phone... he wants outside and off the phone. I don't think boyfriend got that and D doesn't get the temporal question. I kept having to prod him to talk.
D says he's been swimming in the ocean... heh... he can't swim and we haven't been in the ocean since last summer.
D says his favorite thing is cartoons. We don't watch TV (no cable, no antenna) and nearly never see cartoons... that comes from left field. The question was about what he's done recently and likes most.
Anyways, it is mostly humorous if you step back and S will see what reality is with him happy and home. She missed most of the conversation as she was sick and seeing the doctor at the time.
BTW he is still behaving and responding well. He is fully integrated into the family.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Work day
I guess it was more of a me work day and the kids tag along. Picked out new carpet for the living room, Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmart, Michael's, Costco... and wjatever else I'm forgetting.
We are on well water and had a really bad period of "rust" so rust off and CLR almost have that resolved. The problem is limited to kids showers/tubs which I suspect has something to do with their tendency to let the water run for long periods of time whether or not they are in it. Need to actually repair some tile and grout tomorrow. Worked on "tuning" the drip irrigation system as a couple of plants look like they aren't getting enough water... the gardenia blossoms smelled really good though.
Dennis and I did call Snezhana. She's at the Black Sea camping and she didn't sound excited about it last week. Her boyfriend actually answered and when she got the phone she sounded awful. She nearly immediately 3-way called in her aunt to talk to D... D talked quite a bit to her, she seems very nice. Then back to boyfriend who chats with D sometimes and D doesn't mind. Then briefly back to S who said she was sick and the phone dropped... probably due to battery.
Dennis had done better responding in Russian than usual. Though he did say "sleepy on floor" on one occasion which I'm sure was not understood... which is probably best as it means "camping" as Dennis can't seem to remember that word.
Dennis has built himself what he calls his "Doma". He and Sam set up blankets and comforters so it encloses the bottom bunk of their bed. They both enjoy hiding out in there playing. He's had a really positive attitude this week stating he really likes his family and house. Ashley did really well today with a good attitude too so it was an enjoyable day even if it included scrubbing tile with toxic chemicals. I personally can't wait til school is out... that means I get to sleep in and, frankly, I didn't like school and homework when I had to do it... it isn't any more fun working with the kids to get theirs done... that's Melissa's thing.
We are on well water and had a really bad period of "rust" so rust off and CLR almost have that resolved. The problem is limited to kids showers/tubs which I suspect has something to do with their tendency to let the water run for long periods of time whether or not they are in it. Need to actually repair some tile and grout tomorrow. Worked on "tuning" the drip irrigation system as a couple of plants look like they aren't getting enough water... the gardenia blossoms smelled really good though.
Dennis and I did call Snezhana. She's at the Black Sea camping and she didn't sound excited about it last week. Her boyfriend actually answered and when she got the phone she sounded awful. She nearly immediately 3-way called in her aunt to talk to D... D talked quite a bit to her, she seems very nice. Then back to boyfriend who chats with D sometimes and D doesn't mind. Then briefly back to S who said she was sick and the phone dropped... probably due to battery.
Dennis had done better responding in Russian than usual. Though he did say "sleepy on floor" on one occasion which I'm sure was not understood... which is probably best as it means "camping" as Dennis can't seem to remember that word.
Dennis has built himself what he calls his "Doma". He and Sam set up blankets and comforters so it encloses the bottom bunk of their bed. They both enjoy hiding out in there playing. He's had a really positive attitude this week stating he really likes his family and house. Ashley did really well today with a good attitude too so it was an enjoyable day even if it included scrubbing tile with toxic chemicals. I personally can't wait til school is out... that means I get to sleep in and, frankly, I didn't like school and homework when I had to do it... it isn't any more fun working with the kids to get theirs done... that's Melissa's thing.
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