Boy Posse

A trio of neighborhood boys rang our doorbell a few minutes ago and asked if Thea could please come out and play.  Oh, and could she please bring her five light sabers?  And her Beyblade?

Eager, hopeful little faces, wanting my daughter to come out and (play) fight.

I am feeling very old at the moment.

And when airhead daughter returned home, she had a blond moment and could not find three of the light sabers.

Photo Catch-Up - Spring Break 2011

April 15:  Micah in the audiologist's booth at appointment with his ENT, wearing his soccer uniform and thinking he's all that and a bag of chips.  He had the debris removed from his ear canals prior to the audiometry and his audiogram was one of the best since his surgery.

April 18 at Oma's Special Park, running off some energy after being in the car for four hours.

April 18:  at OSP, Thea's haircut, from a different perspective.

April 19 at Baltimore's Inner Harbor, on the dragon pedal boats.  Thea's favorite part of this days.

April 20 at the Westmoreland Berry Farm in Oak Grove, Virginia, feeding corn to the goats.

April 20, feeding the goats without use of pulleys.  Micah wanted no part of getting goat spit on his hands.

April 20 at on the porch at Westmoreland Berry Farm with Oma and Marlyce, while Thea was feeding the goats.

April 22, visting our cousins, photo minus one (Emma was napping and missed the egg hunt.)

 Micah putting on his karate face, Thea enduring.

Elise and the cherry blossoms

Soccer, Worms, Reading and No TV

The spring soccer is mixed teams divided up on the day of the practice, with boys and girls playing together.  One of the boys on Thea's team took a direct hit from a well-kicked soccer ball right to the privates.  All the other boys erupted in laughter and Thea just looked at them and said, "I know why you think that's funny..."  I was proud of her because she walked right on to the field and started talking to the coach and told him right away, "I like playing defense better."

Right before soccer was the OLSAT test.  Poor little first-graders had to endure testing from 9:00 am to noon. The second- and third-graders just had to suffer through an hour.  Other than going to China, Egypt or Oman, I've not spent much time being a minority, but at the drop off for the test I think I saw maybe four other Caucasian parents.  Thea was pretty unperturbed by the test.  As all the other kids were being herded up the sidewalk to the school, she was stopping to pick up earthworms that were on the sidewalk from the rainstorm the previous night.  So not to be outdone by my sensitive child, I had to pick up some of the worms too to save them from being trampled.

Thea is reading the Young Reader's edition of Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, one of my all time favor books.  She has been incentivized by the promise of a reward when she's done. The good thing is seems to like the story and it's leading to good vocabulary additions:  meningitis, epilepsy, baptism, seizure, though it's a brain strain for me to get the concept of epilepsy into an explanation to fit a seven year old's frame of reference.

Thea and I are doing the Television Turn-Off week that started last Friday and goes through Thursday.  Today is the halfway mark and neither of us has touched the TV remote or our Nintendos.  After getting our passport photos done on Saturday, I let her have a look at Game Stop and she asked them to hold Pokemon Revolution (for the Wii) for her and we picked it up yesterday (she paid), and she didn't even waver about putting it in the box to be held until the reign of terror is over.

Little Brat in EDP

In Thea's years at Ying Hua International School, I think all of friends and all of the teachers knew she was adopted.  I don't think anyone, child or adult, every really commented on it, questioned either Thea or us.  There were several children who were adopted internationally and a couple who were adopted in the US.  Adoption just wasn't all that much of a big deal.

Friday I went to pick up Thea at Wicoff School's EDP (extended-day program), and she was sitting at a table with a bunch of girls (somewhat of a shock because she usually seems to hang around boys more), and as I snuck up behind her, I hear one of the the EDP ladies addressing the child sitting across from Thea, saying "You don't know the reasons for Thea's adoption."  It seems this beast told Thea that she was adopted because her birth parents didn't want her.

None of this seemed to faze Thea in the least, she was busy making hand-drawn Pokemon cards, but I wanted to shred that little future social misfit into a million tiny pieces.  Thea knows all about the day of her adoption, and what few details about her finding that we know.  We talk about it on and off at home, if it comes up, but we've never really had any conversations about what to say to people outside of our family. (And there will be those readers who say give the little cherub the benefit of the doubt, forgive, blah blah blah.  I saw her face, her expression was prissy, supercilious and mean.)

So while Thea got her lunch box, backpack and coat, I told the little beast, in as calm a tone as I could muster, that she could not presume to know the story of Thea's adoption because there are details that even we don't know and that what for me was the happiest event in my life was in all likelihood preceded by the saddest days for her birth family.  But of course the little girl didn't seem to be paying attention, but since I'd already turned to leave, I heard the EDP lady say to her, "Kayla, did you hear what Thea's mother said to you?" and began to repeat what I said, but by then we were out of the room.

Little Miss Kayla, you have a lot to learn, and if you don't get a little more sensitivity in your soul (if you even have one), the next mother whose children are adopted may not be as Gandhi-esque as me.  For now, you live and I'm glad that I only pick Thea up from EDP a few times per month.  And so much for wishing she had a few more female friends, she has her friends in Brownies and can hang with the boys for now.  All they seem to care about is video games, Pokemon, Bakugan and soccer, which is just fine.

Passports & Microtia

Everyone's US passport has expired (except for Micah's and that's because I haven't applied for one for him yet.)  Yesterday after taking Thea to the OLSAT testing and to soccer practice, we went to the UPS store to get new photos done. Then my evil plan is to send Steve's and my applications in to the Passport Agency and make an appointment with the post office in Princeton Junction to get the kids' passports done.

Right now Thea is in between haircuts, so her bangs are a little low and her hair is long enough to push behind her ears.  While in Maryland in February, Miss Tammy, who gave Thea her very first haircut, trimmed the bangs, but Thea's bobbed/wedged style is the creation of Miss Flo at Snip-Its. Her hair had to be forced behind the ears, in addition to slicking her bangs off to one side with a little water, so that her eyebrows and ears were visible in the photo.  It's a rule, according to the guy taking the pictures, so while we are satisfying whatever regulation the US government (the lovely people who brought you the Shut Down That Almost Was) has for biometric data, we have now a passport photo that looks absolutely nothing like my child.

And I won't even begin to bore you with mine, other than I would not use water on my bangs to get them out of the way, and the guy took about five shots before he got something he thought was acceptable.  (I was in "whatever will get it through the renewal process"-mode.  Do it, I look like this every day and there is precious little a UPS store clerk with a digital camera could do to make me look like Heidi Klum.)

What bothered me was that the photographer kept saying, I have to be able to see the ears.  OK, fine for Thea and me, that's a little bit of fussing and pushing to get hair out of the way.  Good luck seeing Micah's ears, looking at him face to face, you might see a bit of ear lobe off to the side, and then what to do about the BAHA.  People wear their eyeglasses in their passport photos, why shouldn't Micah wear his hearing aid?  To be safe, we had one set of with and one without done and we'll see what happens.

TV-Free for 7 Days. . .

. . . .thanks to a flyer from Thea's school.  Thea said she wanted to participate yesterday, and did well this morning before school, but the facade cracked a bit during the after-school / pre-dinner hours as actual withdrawal set in.

But she held firm, and we got back into the final chapters of The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, which we've been working on since before the move to Plainsboro.  Micah got two Llama Llama books read to him, one by me and one by Thea.

All in all this TV-free, electronic-game free thing is not so bad.

Just don't touch my laptop.

Another IEP Review . . . .

. . .all geared toward making sure Micah is ready for mainstream kindergarten.  Unfortunately, I don't think he will be making the cut as far as being eligible for Extended School Year and the speech services that would go along with that.  He's already met his occupational therapy goals as far as fine motor skills, his general education teacher, special education teacher and speech therapist all seem to think all is well.

But. . . .

Micah's tympanic membranes and ear canals are created, not indigenous. and they could change due to scar tissue, growth or whatever and that could affect his hearing.  We work daily to make sure that everything is done to optimize his hearing:  a steroid nasal spray, Claritin, Children's Sudafed, ear drops after baths or swimming.  He is still choosing to use one BAHA to help him hear better.  When he is in a classroom with twenty other little kindergarteners, he will likely need an FM system.

Go ahead and try to cut us loose.  I've had the card of a special education attorney tucked away somewhere for almost four years.

If the school district tries to say that Micah is no longer in need of an IEP (individualized education plan), it has another thing coming.  I already bear a grudge related to the whole charter school issue, I would love to be a festering little thorn in its sides.