Summer Forever!

Oh I wish summer could last forever. I love everything about it (minus the mosquitoes).  We are well into summer up here in the great north and are probably going to have our hottest day of the year today as it is supposed to hit 80 degrees.  We spend a couple hours on almost every hot day at a park just up the road from us that has a wide and shallow creek with a great swimming area. My little Minnie Mouse gets braver and braver in her pink life preserver, venturing out into the deeper water and swimming around.  Duke makes a new friend nearly every day. Surprisingly to both of us. He struggled a lot with relating to his peers when he first came home and would typically alienate them quite quickly.  The funny thing is he seems a little perplexed with these new kids that want to play with him and join his fun adventures, almost like he's not sure what to do with them.  He has taken to catching tiny fish with a little net and putting them in a bucket to swim around in. He has gotten very quick at it and can scoop them up in no time.  Of course they are safely released when he is finished.  Junior doesn't care much for the water and prefers to spend his time playing in the sand and constructing castles.  I usually join the two oldest in the water for a while and then relax in my camp chair watching the fun antics of all the kids in the creek.

Duke catching fish.

The boys having a float.

Minnie helping her fisherman brother. It's so beautiful here.

It's so nice to have all the kids home. Even when the boys won't stop bickering. I almost don't want to send them back to school. But Duke needs the expert help in reading for sure. His learning disability is quite baffling to me. I just can't figure out how his brain is processing words and letter sounds.  I'm on the fence about sending Minnie back to school or homeschooling her. She has learned so much this past year at school but not all of it is good.  She can actually write her name which I am quite shocked about. Probably no one who doesn't know what it is could read it but the fact she can do it at all just amazes me.  She knows most letters or their sounds and can count to 10 easily. Almost to 20 with a little help. I am so happy with her progress. However, she has also come home with some not nice behaviors and words. And I admit I send her into the clutches of virtual strangers with much trepidation in my heart. While I loved her teacher last year and I know she has a female aid with her most of the time, she would be the perfect victim for those who take advantage of children and the thought of her being somewhere that I can't protect her weighs heavily on my heart.  So we will see. Junior will continue in homeschool due to a variety of reasons. Perhaps I will delve deeper into those reasons in a later post.  And it's off to get ready for the day as Duke has a swimming lesson late this morning.

IEP's and wrestling life

I had my oldest sons' IEP meeting this week. They have been testing and testing him for the last several months. Poor kid comes home exhausted and sometimes with headaches from all the testing but the results are finally in.  He has been found to have a learning disability and is now eligible for the services that he needs. We've all known it for a while, in fact he was already unofficially getting some of those services.  I wish we didn't have to wait two years for him to get the help he needs.  I have no doubt he will be a reader and a writer in the future because he is a determined and eager to please young man. He is also going to start speech therapy which is greatly needed.  I had thought he was getting it already but I guess I was confused with ELL services.

In other Duke news, he joined a wrestling team two months ago and has been practicing hard four times a week. He is in a large and very competitive age group competing against kids who have been wrestling for one, two, three, even four years already.  He is definitely at a disadvantage but has kept plugging away, showing up to every practice and competing almost every weekend without complaint.  Well he has finally seen that dedication and hard work .

pay off. Last Saturday he won his first ever match, pinning a kid that had pinned him in a different tournament the night before.  He only won one out of three matches that day but we were so so proud of him and it gave him a big boost of confidence.  The state championships are coming up next week and while I don't think he will medal I will be so happy for him if he can win at least one more match.  He's such a great kid and wrestling is such a great sport for him.  We are hoping to get him into a wrestling camp or two this summer which will really help with his skills. I think next year will be his year to shine on the mat.

On top of winning his first match he got honored by his coaches yesterday at practice.  They awarded him with the Warrior of the Week honor for all his hard work and dedication.  He is a kid that just shines with positive attention and it makes me so happy to see it.  

Spring for real!

Spring has come and its early. Record breaking warm temps for this time of year. The snow is nearly gone, holding out in ice solid lumps left by the snow plows only. I see green grass shoots poking up everywhere in the park. We're still getting a few below freezing nights but afternoons in the 50's feels so warm.

 Duke has been waiting all week to try out the roller blades I found him at a second hand store. Papa and I dug our blades out and loaded some scooters and a tricycle into the truck and we drove down to the bike path.  He gave it a good try, it was of course more difficult than he anticipated. The blades were also a bit small, his feet have grown incredibly long over the winter.  I will have to keep an eye out for a bigger pair, although it won't be long before he can fit into mine.  

Now we are spending our after dinner hours in the long sun light down at our favorite park so that Papa can test out some new lures he made in the open creek water.  The lake is still iced over but it's not safe for driving anymore. A few more weeks of this warm weather and it will be gone.

Spring!

Last Saturday morning I woke up and FB was announcing the first day of spring. This is what spring looks like at my house. The view from my bedroom window of a fresh four inches or so.

My family

My family consists of my husband and I, six furry doggy children, and three of the human variety.  Our kids (the furless ones) were all adopted from orphanages in Eastern Europe.  My son Duke (8), my daughter Minnie Mouse (7), and my son Jr. (5).  The oldest two will have been home two years on May 7 and the youngest has been home one year.  We live in a tiny house in a northern state but dream of moving south to beaches and ocean and hot weather.  My husband works full time and I currently stay at home with the kids. I homeschool my youngest and the older two attend public school where they get resource help for their special learning needs. All three of our kids have special needs. Some of their special needs are obvious and some are invisible. They are amazing, smart, beautiful, loving, and talented, and we love them very much.