This will officially be my last post. Really. I'm quite certain everyone is tired of reading about our daily trials and tribulations anyway. I'll try to end this last post on an up-note. This past weekend was great overall. Only a week home and everyone is settling in nicely. The weather was warm for April, and the kids played outside most of the weekend. They hiked, played basketball, played lacrosse, played soccer, rode bikes, shot squirt guns, etc. etc. Really, 5 boys are no problem when it's nice out. In fact, Connor had several friends over too, and we even entertained two other families Friday night for dinner. Our friends all have kids too, and we ended up with quite the houseful of adults and children. Emily (my friend's daughter) stayed overnight and half the day Sat. too. We have found that since we are outnumbered now, it really doesn't matter how many kids we have anymore. As David says, "Once you switch from a man-to-man to a zone defense, it's quite simple." The excellent weather makes it a ton easier though, I will admit. Now, I will take one minute to be negative and complain about our local public school. Both John and Ben expressed an interest in attending school right away. We were going to wait until Sept. to send them, so that they would have time to learn English. However, they both told Cheng (our exchange student) that they are bored and they really want to meet kids and start school. So today, the day after spring break, I took the boys to register for school this morning. I did an hour of paperwork, and then they made me take them home. The school wants a day to "prepare" before the boys actually start school. I feel terrible for the boys because they had themselves all psyched up to go to school, and then we were sent home. It was like a slap in the face to them, just one more rejection. It about broke my heart. What exactly are they going to do to "prepare" anyway? Learn Chinese in a day? They have an ESOL teacher, and I know they have had lots of other students admitted who don't speak English. Mostly, the kids will just listen until the summer, since it is the last marking period. Ben will be in kindergarten, which is just organized play-time. Then, to top it off, this afternoon,I received a call that Mrs. Sleggs class is "full" and therefore Ben will be with Mrs. Bennett. I adore Mrs. Sleggs, and I don't even know Mrs. Bennett. I'm sure she'll be fine, I am just a little frustrated. Later in the day, I received a call that the school can't accept John until next Monday, because they are just not prepared to admit a new student at the end of the marking period. Since I told the school that we were adopting before we left for China, I would have thought there would be a plan in place. They have had lots of non-English speaking students before!! They have an ESOL teacher! Grrr.. It's quite frustrating. Ok--back to being positive. John had a exceptionally great day today. Cheng was at school all day, so John HAD to work to communicate with me, with no translator handy. He really tried hard, and he made a concentrated effort to be part of the family group today. I took John shopping to buy some shirts at Wal-mart, and he was just thrilled to be able to pick out his own clothes. He was disappointed about school, naturally, but his "good thing" at dinner tonight was "Mom." Whoo hooo! Ben continues to delight us more every single day. He still has his little tantrums sometimes, but even then he is just adorable. He's sooo very funny, that one of his first sentences is, "You're so funny!" David(unfortunately) has taught Ben to say "You fool!" --which is the literal translation of you silly boy. Now, Ben loves to tell Connor, "Connor! You fool, go brush your teeth!" And yes, he knows what he is saying because he laughs and laughs when he says it (as he makes the motion of a toothbrush by his mouth). So, for my final blog I can honestly say---WE DONE GOOD.
