Hi Friends,
Well ... here I am ... at Starbucks ... enjoying a hot cup of coffee on a "cool" September morning. I'm glad for the cooler weather ... so I can sit outside and enjoy hot coffee again! (those of you who know me well know that "hot" and "Mary" DO NOT go together well.)
Where are the little ones? Well, they are at preschool. We started at a new school this year (2 weeks ago) ... where they are both in the Pre-Kinder class (ages 4 & 5) ... but they offer two classes ... so each of the girls have their own classroom, teacher, activities, etc. They do share their "Bible time" and recess together. And they tell me each school day how they miss each other ... and how they hugged each other in Bible class and on the playground. I think it's good they have an opportunity to miss each other ... as the saying goes ... absence makes the heart grow fonder! I know that's true for me and my precious "sisters" (friends) whom I miss.
The girls are in school three mornings a week and it seems to be just the right amount. Still lots of time at home with Mommy ... but they are being challenged at school to learn new things and also connect with other kids and other adults.
One of the greatest blessings over the past 5 weeks has been having our other "daughter" ... Kaysha with us. She was waiting for her big career break and we invited her to come stay with us and help me out while Chris is traveling (which is a TON!!!!!). So she has been here since the middle of August ... but I'm sad to say our days with her are numbered ... b/c she has been offered an amazing job in LA (Los Angeles) ... so we're going to be saying good-bye rather soon (well I'll actually say "see you later" b/c I'll cry too much saying good-bye). The little girls LOVE their Sissy Kaysha and I'm not looking forward to leading them through letting her go.
A few weeks ago we started speech therapy for Juliya with a private therapist. She really does seem to be wonderful and so far it's going really well. We had been offered services through our local elementary school and we tried it last spring ... but it was a 25 minute appointment, 1x week, with two other children. That just wasn't going to be enough to help Juliya bridge the gap. One of the misconceptions people have is that children adopted from another country are learning English as a second language (ESL) ... but that's actually not the case. As in Juliya's case ... she has completely lost her first language (Russian) and is replacing it with English. That's much more difficult ... b/c she doesn't have a "known" language to rely on in her brain ... while she's learning the new language. We feel like some of the difficulties Juliya struggles with stem from the fact that she's not communicating well with others (ie: she's difficult to understand ... if Mommy doesn't interpret ... and God save the moment when I don't "get it" either!!). She usually resorts to just being shy or pretending to be a puppy or horse or something that will keep her from engaging with others ... children and adults. So, we felt that we needed to be much more intentional and even aggressive with her speech therapy. God has led us to a very qualified therapist and Juliya is enjoying her time with her and working really hard on the things she has her working on.
Nataliya is back in gymnastics ... with Mrs. Cheryl ... her beloved coach. She is a wonderful lady ... loves Jesus, loves my girls, great gymnastics coach and ... the reason we're there! Nataliya had taken the summer off from gymnastics and Cheryl called to see if she was coming back b/c she hadn't seen us around. I said "only if you'll be her coach!" So, she was convinced to come in an hour early on Tuesday's and coach a class for Nataliya's level. Cheryl doesn't teach "little" kids anymore ... b/c she was promoted to coaching the competitive teams at this gymnastics club. So I'm really glad we have her during this time. I love having her influence in Nataliya's life!
In my world ... I'm involved in a women's Bible Study on Wednesday mornings at a local church. In addition to learning more about the book of James ... it has been nice to connect with a few friends there and enjoy going for lunch together ... without the little girls.
One of my happiest moments recently happened when our friend Paul V. from Madison was able to recover all of our pictures off of the hard-drive that was toast! Now I need to upload the summer pictures onto the computer and post some new pics for you ... but I'm at Starbucks and the camera is at home ... so that will have to be another day. The picture I did post is from March at our niece Chelsea's wedding. This picture is being blown up to a 16x20 and will grace our family room wall.
Ok, I must go ... there is much more to do before picking the girls up from school. Drop me a note ... I love to hear how you're doing too! (thanks Kathie for reminding me to post a new entry!)
Lots of love and hugs!!!
Mary :o)
2 comments:
Sounds like things are going well for you all.
What a frustrating feeling it must be for our little ones, being stuck with thoughts they can't express because they don't have the words yet. William turned 6 in May, and he's lost almost all of his Russian. In July his language skills were evaluated to be at a 4-year-old level. But it's obvious that he gets frustrated when he's having 6-year-old thoughts and ideas, yet can't figure out how to express them appropriately. The speech therapist at the local public school admitted that our guy doesn't fit the mold of most of the children she works with.
Your girls are so beautiful. Can you believe it's been almost 2 years?? Our one year is coming up soon!!
We're looking into speech therapy for Dima too. Our boys have also lost all of their Russian, but Dima still has "eta" and "tam", which in English are "this" and "there". He can't say the "th" sound yet (hard when you don't spend the first 5 years of your life learning it--Russian doesn't have a "th" sound) so those are the two words he still has, but we're working on that. It's so hard to know if he needs speech therapy or just more time with the language.
Post a Comment