Football!

The twins were in Sure Start football. It is one hour a week for four weeks. This is the final game. Kayla has the ball. She was the best on her team.

Kaleb standing wondering what's going on.

Kayla ready to hike the ball to the quarter back.

Kaleb has the ball.

Kaleb is running with the ball, but in true Kaleb fashion he had no clue and ran the wrong way with it. I think if he paid attention even half the time he'd accomplish great things. But unfortunately he just tunes things out and is in his own little world.

Kayla grabs the flag.

Got it.

Kayla grabs the flag again. She was the one on her team that would chase the player down and get the flag.

Got it.

She would have had a touchdown but she kept looking back to see who was chasing her.

All the kids got shirts and certificates at the end.

My football champs.

Sure Start is a good program because it's just an introduction and you learn skills the first three weeks, and then play a game the fourth week. The twins had fun, but it also showed me that Kaleb is no where near ready for city football. They play for real, and he just does not focus. He spent half the game trying to catch Kayla, and they are on the same team. She did not appreciate it at all because she was very focused on the game.

The twins have come so far this year. They speak fluent English, know all their letter and sounds and can sound out three letter words. Kayla is much more advanced in social skills. She understands team work, team games, rules and so on. That doesn't mean she always makes the right choice, but she understands it.

She also realizes that there are times that you don't even dream of misbehaving or acting inappropriately or you will be leaving in a hurry. When they first came home, they didn't care who saw their poor behavior. For instances, I asked Rick to take the twins home after only twenty minutes of a music program because it was long enough for them to sit at that point, and they were starting to distract people. They screamed all they way out of the building, kicked Rick and then the back of his car seat all the way home. Then they were angry they didn't get their night snack. Now they might be angry to leave somewhere early but they would argue rather than kick and scream. And they would know that acting ugly means losing snack.

They've come a long way and we are proud of their improvements. But even though they are twins, they are at different levels socially. (Since they are not identical they are no more alike than any two siblings). And they differ in academics too. Kaleb took right off on his letters and numbers while Kayla seemed to not understand them for a long time. This was a major surprise to me because on the trips to Haiti, Kaleb was obviously behind in development.

Kayla had an in-school tutor. Now, it might be that learning letters and numbers was difficult so she just decided she wasn't going to be bothered with it. I don't think they'd been in a situation before where they just didn't have a choice about learning something. The teachers really babied them in preschool from Feb when I enrolled them until the end of the year. They weren't required to do anything because they were "refugees." Kayla may have thought she'd get away with that again. But it didn't work and they didn't let up on her.

Whatever the reason, once she started learning, she caught up in a hurry. Kaleb seems to be the more fluent reader and know more sight words, but she's not far behind. We're doing some reading and math over the summer so we don't lose ground. I'm also reading through my list of 108 picture books with them. That list is back a few posts.

Tomorrow night is the second dress rehearsal for the dance recital Friday night. The whole family will be there because it's free (and Friday night is $15 each), and you can move around between numbers, go out and eat etc. So everyone will be able to see it and if anyone needs to leave, that will happen without losing a lot of money. I will be going Friday of course.

Sunday we hope to jet ski one last time together before Jessica, Jasmine, the twins and I head to northern Indiana to see my mom and sister. We will be walking in a family walk on Friday night June 3rd in South Bend.

I hope to have dance costume pictures to post after tomorrow evening's rehearsal.