Just the Usual Stuff

With college finals coming up in just a few weeks, I started a Monday night study-for-finals time. Anyone can join in that brings something to study. They have to be there the whole time 7-9 (except Ty who doesn't get home until 7:30) to share the food.

I forgot to take pictures, so here are the leftovers!


The little bacon cheeseburgers were awesome even though they slightly resembled cardboard.













The twins brought home turkeys which had to be disguised in order to escape being eaten. I thought a pirate and a cat might work out. Family members were encouraged to help so Ty was Kaleb's partner. I knew he'd be good at it. Look at the hat he made.





Jasmine and Kayla worked on this one. With the beak out the side, it didn't look very good so the beak got folded under.

Shy was supposed to help by making the paws. They didn't really look like paw prints though. More like an inky smudge.

If you've been following this blog, you know it's been an "interesting" couple of weeks here. But now I'm seeing troubling behaviors in a child I'll call boo bear. Due to Boo bear's background, it's not surprising, but I was hoping.... Boo has always had organizational and comprehension difficulties. And some lying, but it was the kind of lying where a child would say, "So and so happened at school" and Boo would jump right in and say, "That happened to me too" or make up a similar story, and I'd remind her that it wasn't necessary to make something up just to be a part of the conversation.

Then the lying progressed to saying another child did something which he or she did not do. Of course that's a problem in itself because there's always the chance that the incident did occur and someone needs to sit time out--but there's an equal chance that it didn't happen. And sometimes I'd be watching unseen and knew that the incident hadn't occurred.

Now Boo bear is "acquiring" things. Like my lip balm. And my calculator. And other little trinkets which she is addicted to. We have more little key chains and plastic junk that any one needs. Tyler saw Boo put something in her pocket and asked her what it was. She said, "Nothing." I asked to see and there was my lip balm from my room. That was a plain, outright lie.

Then there's the issue of lunch money. We recently qualified for reduced lunch. We agreed that Boo would get hot lunch once a week. I give the little ones a school budget of $100 to cover class shirts, lunches, field trips, clothing, yearbook (only $15) and so on. I sent in $3.20 for 8 lunches. She came home and said she owed $1.10. I asked her how she could owe money when this was the first time she'd had a hot lunch. I asked her right out if she'd charged breakfast any day. She started doing that at the end of last year. She told me that she had not charged anything. So I called the school. It turns out she had charged TEN breakfasts previously. Since we are a no charge school, why did they allow her to charge ten????? And not send a note or call or anything.

Boo Bear lost hot lunch for the remainder of the month, lost allowance and the weekly trip to the store and lost going out for breakfast Saturday with me while Ding dong had counseling. The reason for the triple loss of privileges was that she not only charged breakfasts which she is not supposed to do, but she did it ten times and then lied. And she needs to realize that lying is serious. So she lost her weekly privileges plus of course hot lunch. She already used up the money with her previous charges.

I'd like to say that was the end of it, but last night I picked up her jacket and the pocket was full of glass stones. She took them from school. She didn't want to tell me where they came from, but she did tell me without lying. She is returning them today.

The problem is that I'm not sure to what extent she understands lying and stealing. I'm thinking that she knows right from wrong pretty well and that she's giving herself excuses for taking things and lying. "It's okay to take these pretty stones because there are so many and the teacher doesn't need them all..." or something like that.

I am just going to be consistent and hope these behaviors soon become a thing of the past.



Book It.

I didn't think our school did it anymore because Jasmine's class didn't do it last year and they aren't doing it this year! She's read Sign of the Beaver, City of Ember, a Boxcar children mystery, a non fiction book about marine life, a Magic Tree house mystery and two other books and did reports on them but no book it coupon.


And where is the free pizza for the parent who read all the books to the twins???

Where's the Water?

I spend too many Saturdays sitting home. So I decided I would not do that this week. But now that it's too cold for the beach or jet skiing, I'm a little at a loss of what to do. Normally we would have Saturday soccer but no one played this fall.


One child had counseling, so I decided after that, we'd try out the ramps I bought. That went pretty well.

They improved greatly when I placed a dollar bill on the road and said that if they could go all the way up and over the ramp and run over the $1 without stopping or putting a foot down, they'd get the money.

Rick grilled steaks. Then some of us were set to go "exploring." This is what I say when I'm not quite sure I know where we are going or how it's going to turn out. I had looked up a state park on the Internet that has this awesome waterfall. I thought that might make some good pictures. It's a ways away but we had nothing else we had to do.

We ended up spending about twenty minutes waiting for the bikers for the Ironman because they ride 112 miles so they were going quite a ways too!



We hiked to the waterfall--anyone see the water???? Uh, yeah. The website forgot to mention that it only has water certain times of year.






Since we'd driven all that way, I did want to just turn around and go home, so we all chased each other around for a while.









Then we went to DQ, a place the twins have only been once before.









Then we came home and watched Polar Express and had popcorn and hot chocolate.

Not the most exciting day, but at least I was out of the house! (Sadly, there are days when I don't go farther than the mail box or bus stop)

Crew Updates 2

Yesterday I took a child to counseling. We'll call the child ding dong to protect his identity. Well, ding dong is very charming and somewhat manipulative. Some of you know exactly what I mean because you are there right now.



Well, ding dong told the counselor that he has C's, D's and Fs because I won't sign for him to bring a computer home. It is true that I won't sign for a computer and pay the $75 to do so. There are two reasons for that. One is that he has annihilated two computers by accessing filth. One was a lap top only a year old that belonged to sibling who bought it with personal money. All his school work was lost. (Yep, he knows to back up but hadn't). The second reason is because ding dong has a computer at school and the administrator has assured all parents that if the kids stay on task there is plenty of time to finish their work at school. But Ding Dong would rather socialize. But he didn't tell his counselor that he spends his time running questionable song lyrics and such.



He did, however, tell her that I haven't given him permission to use the shared computer in the dining room. What he didn't tell her is that he has never once asked to use it or said he has any homework that needs a computer. Why? Because he hasn't ever brought any homework home that requires a computer. But he'd rather have her think he can't do well because he is so deprived. He was sitting there in new tennis shoes, south pole jeans, a new south pole thermal shirt and a new OP jacket. But she somewhat bought his poor me act. That disappoints me. She's always been able to sort out the nuggets of truth from the lies and junk behaviors before. I pick him up and all of a sudden she's telling me, "He needs a computer to access the Internet." I told her about our shared computer that is clearly visible and can be used. That's when I found out about him saying he's not allowed to use it. And by the way, she's the one who said just four weeks ago not to let him on any computer because of his strong addiction and at that time I told her about the shared one for homework and he never at that time said anything about needing it.



Then, totally opposite from everything she's previous said, she starts with, "He needs to be allowed to do this and this and this."


What??????? With Cs, Ds and Fs? With lying and manipulating? With breaking trust? That wasn't the deal (which she helped set in place). If you can't keep up with your two chores and your school work am I really going to complicate your life by giving you privileges that require 10 hours a week extra at practice? Ding dong really worked a number on her. I don't know if he has true attachment issues or just a very strong sense of entitlement. AUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


On to other things....



Jasmine has switched from ballet to Jazz so she now has tap and jazz back to back right before church choir making Wednesday her crazy day. We have it worked out that I go and get her a kid's meal near the end of class, and she pulls her GA shirt over her dance pants and off we go. We have 15 minutes from when dance ends and choir starts. Good thing the dance academy and the church are at the same end of town.



She still has softball Tuesdays and Thursdays but it has turned out not to be a good program at all. There is so much fighting among the girls on the team. I wrote about that last time. Since then, half the girls and two out of three of the coaches quit with only three weeks left. It's rained since then so there haven't been games, and I don't know if there will be enough players to finish the season. I would NOT recommend this league to anyone. No team pictures, no end of year party, trophies etc. Jasmine seems to enjoy it anyway. I think we will stick with fall soccer and spring softball which is a much bigger and hopefully better ran program. But she can't do any spring sports this year due to the surgeries in December and March/April. She needs 8 more prayer partners for her mission trip next summer.





Having twins has been interesting. I know it's not at all the same as identical twins and it's not the same as having them from birth. But it is very interesting to see the similarities and differences. Like, both are very social and talkative. Both love books and play dough.




They are different too. Kaleb is much, well, lazier. If they go out to jump on the trampoline, Kayla jumps and Kaleb sits. If they play a running game, Kaleb will play a few minutes and drop out.



Previous to coming home, Kayla was first to talk and walk and she mothered Kaleb. He seemed much more delayed than she was. Maybe because she did everything for him? Once she came home, I became the mother and they both had to feed and dress themselves and learn the routine. Kayla learned more quickly to put shoes and jacket on and to get her backpack for school and to reverse that when she came home.








(picture is from '07)

But now Kaleb, although behind in his social behaviors at school--grabs kids, won't stay in line etc--has pulled way ahead of Kayla academically. He knows 15 of 15of the letters they have covered and the sounds. He knows 9 out of 20 sight words which I think is really good because it's a bit ridiculous to have this much work this early in the year, he can identify numbers 1-10, sort of write them (6 and 8 are a challenge) and count to 20. The teacher says he's below grade level but 9 months ago this child didn't speak English, probably couldn't have sat still for ten minutes during a lesson and didn't write anything. He could sing the alphabet and count a little bit in English when he came home though. I think he's doing great. He just needs to work on those quirky behaviors.

Kaleb has his glasses now but doesn't see the specialist until Dec 20. That's the only appt they had in a four month window because she just comes here once a month. I hope his appt is not right during his class party.


(June 07, not 04 like it says on the picture)


Kayla seems to be struggling with identifying letters and numbers. She receives 1/2 hour tutoring on letters each day and can now identify 4 of 15 and about 6 of the sounds. She can count, but can't identify any numbers by sight. I think there's a glitch in her learning somewhere, but that's something they will have to test for and they say it's too early. Time will tell.

So that's it for now!

Crew Updates

A few posts back I wrote about all the decisions, changes etc. going on. Since not much news worthy has happened this week, I thought I'd update you about some of those things.





Tyler is working hard to pull his grades up so he can get into the University of West Florida. This may be a tough transition for him with his aspergers. But I know he can do it.

Jessica is struggling with grades after graduating from high school with a 3.8 gpa. She is working to get them up where they need to be. She has started color guard and swat and loves them. They, along with gymnastics, explorers and Baptist College Ministry are ALL on Thursdays so that is her crazy day. Her classes are out at 12:15. She goes to BCM on campus then comes home for the car for tumbling and the rest. She has many options open. She found out she's old enough for police academy and to work at our local PD but that's not what she wants to do right now. Still, it's nice to have choices. She is finishing up references for leadership training for TMI next summer. She need seven more prayer partners for next summer.

Jeff just needs to finish up geometry and be done with his schooling. He is not sure how long it will take him to work through it. He wanted to be done by Christmas but math is NOT his strong point. I really, really, really wish things had turned out better with him. I wish I'd known more about attachment. I wish he and Adam hadn't worked as a team because then we might have been able to work better with the issues. I wish others would have stayed out of it and not fallen for his manipulation. I wish anyone could have given us counseling and solutions to make his placement work out. I wish things hadn't happened to him before we got him to cause the issues. I regret the years we've lost. I really hope he can get into the military and have a good career and that we can build a relationship with him as an adult. But we can never get the early years back. Sometimes I think it was just me, but he's been there for four years and he did three really serious wrong things there just in the past few months. They are letting him finish out.

Adam seems to be doing better behavior wise at school now that he knows the teachers and I are communicating regularly. Unfortunately he has four poor grades. This is a smart child. But he'd rather socialize than work so he is behind in most of his classes. His school is trying to start a basketball team through the boys club. This is the only year he will be young enough, so I really want to see him do it. But the grades have to come up and the detentions have to stop. I know he can do and I hope the desire to play basketball is stronger than the desire to socialize during class. Adam has been selected to do an "internship" helping with the middle school PE classes on Mondays. Many of the kids do internships for experience but it's usually at the hospital or other clinic or in a technology based business. Those would not interest Adam, but PE does so I'm hoping he'll do well with this. He does well working with younger children but some of these kids are barely two years younger than him so we'll see.



To be continued....

What's Cooking?

Jasmine made a Mexican beef stew. She started the meat in the crock pot before school.

Mexican Beef Stew
2 lbs of stew meat
28 oz can of whole or diced tomatoes undrained
1 cup frozen small whole onions
1 tsp chili powder
1 env. Taco seasoning mix
15 oz can black beans rinsed and drained
11 oz can of fiesta corn drained

Mix beef, tomatoes, onions and chili powder in crock pot. Cover and cook on low 4-6 hours. Stir in taco seasoning, beans and corn. Cook 30 minutes more or until done.

Easy Chicken Fettuccine
8 oz fettuccine uncooked
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts cubed
1/2c milk
1/4c vegetable oil spread (??)
1/3c Parmesan grated topping
¼ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp pepper

Cook fettuccine in large saucepan as directed on package. Drain.
Meanwhile, cook chicken in skillet sprayed with cooking spray.
Add milk and spread to hot fettuccine. Toss lightly until spread is melted and fettuccine is evenly coated.
Add chicken, grated topping and seasonings. Mix & serve.
Serves 4






Tyler made meatballs.
4lbs ground beef
3 eggs
3/4 c bread crumbs (or oatmeal)
1/2c Parmesan cheese
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tbs parsley
1 tsp garlic
1 tsp oregano

Mix, roll into balls, bake on wire rack on cookie sheet at 350F for 30-45 minutes or until done. (The recipe said one hour but ours were done in a half hour)
**These were rather bland so we are going to substitute a package of spaghetti seasoning in place of the listed seasonings next time.


Jessica made shake and bake chicken.

Last of Halloween and Start of November

Jessica and her little helpers dip pretzels in almond bark








One last festival--this one was actually on Halloween unlike most that were Saturday, and it was at Tyler's church. He got off work early so he could go.






I love pumpkin pie but don't like crust so Rick makes them in glass dishes. Guess which one is mine : )


Jessica is making advent calendars for the little three.