Conferences!

This week the kids have conferences. At Horizons, this means each child has an hour to "present" their work to their parents. Guided by their teacher, the child prepares writing samples, math work, book reviews, art, Spanish, poetry etc. At the Kindergarten level, it's mostly the teacher gently urging the child to read, play a math game, etc., but by 3rd grade, it's all them!
Ted had a great conference. His work has certainly improved in the last few months. His writing is neat and beautiful (not all the time, but in his "edited" work), his math is spot-on (when he takes the time to do the problem carefully), and his reading is at the top of his grade level (taking into account that he began 2nd grade below grade level, he has advanced 3+ levels in under 2 years. Rock on.) We are going to have to keep him on it this summer. It's not hard to read every day (the library always does a neat Summer Reading program that we've done each year) and it should be fairly easy to do some writing each day too (a journal, a written response to a book we're reading, a letter to a family member) and math can be math games, which all my kids love. The challenge will be making time for it on camp days. Ted has 5 weeks of camp and the little ones have 3. There are only 8 weeks of summer vacation this year, so while that's sad to me that they're starting so early in August, at least they will have less time to forget what they've learned!
Sam is doing great in school, though he is very silly and needs to learn to reign that in. Heh.
Mae is also going great though we just found out today that she'll need glasses for the same reason Ted did: her eyes don't converge or track well at all. A summer of vision therapy and (adorable!) glasses for reading and computer, and she should be good to go by 2nd grade. Ted no longer needs his glasses, so I am a devout believer in Vision Therapy and the accompanying glasses. I'll have a pic of her with them as soon as we get them!
So, a summer plan for my kiddos ... should be fun!
(The pic is Sam' self-portrait. I love it!)

Pics!

I'm going to be shaking up the look of the blog a bit in a week or so ... spring cleaning always inspires a new look to things. We've moved our front room around a bit to make room for seedlings and the enthusiasm has spread to other parts of the house too. Move things around! Sweep that dust! Open the windows! (Granted, spring in Colorado does mean that it snowed today, in spite of reaching highs in the 70s with sun. We live in a wacky place.)

Wendy took the kids' pics a few weeks back, which will be highlighted in the "new" blog look. Can't wait! In the meantime, they're up on FB.

This week we have conferences at Horizons, so the week is off. Ted has a little bit of homework, but no COW so no real stress. We saw "Rio" which was aDORable. The kids each have a doctor appointment (I hate pulling them during school for doc appts) and we're having lots of fun (heh) encouraging Sam and Mae to read to us every day.

Also, we are relaxing into a stricter (ironic, no?) style of discipline that seems to be working wonders with Ted's short temper and Mae's sassing. (Sam's response to Paul's question: "Sam, why aren't YOU ever in time out?" "Because I'm the good one." Ah. So that's it.)

Happy Spring, everyone!

a very mature 5

Mae is five and a half. In February, we had a little 5.5 bday celebration for her at Kindergarten. It was my first experience with it for Mae and I was a little nervous. You tell a highlight story from each year and show a picture. My mommy guilt inspired me to make her a poster (I'll take a pic and put it up tomorrow) with about 10 pictures on it. We went through each year and its highlight. What was most interesting to me was how eager Mae was to share her "special book." She is fine with talking about the fact that she was adopted and sharing with her little friends that she has two mommies and two daddies. Noah, whose sister Elyana is from China, sang Happy Birthday to her in Mandarin (!) and everyone seemed more interested in the cookies than the details. In other words, everything I hoped for came true: Mae is comfortable talking about being adopted. And just as beautiful - her friends were very into when she walked and talked and stopped wearing diapers. Kids are amazing, aren't they? They found what was similar, while as adults we tend to notice what is different. Mae had a very happy day. And I relaxed a little inside. It's going to be OK. It's not going to be perfect, but it's OK. This is her reality, and we've been as open about it as possible, and now she is choosing to share it with her friends. Exhale. Repeat.

Soccer Season!

This past Saturday Mae had her very first soccer game. The Ice Cream Cupcake Soccer Queens had practices last Fall and this Spring are playing a game every Saturday in addition to their Thursday practices. They were really good! I usually drop Mae at practice and run Sam to get his shot so I don't see much of what is going on. There are a few girls who are really good at handling the ball, but the whole team is pretty focused and excited about it. It's so adorable. We had an amazing 80 degree day on Saturday, which is unusual for spring soccer, so it was extra fun to hang out watching and cheering on our cuties. Hooray!