Updates--again

I've had a few people e-mail questions about things I've mentioned in past posts, so I'll try to answer those questions here. These pictures are of the kids playing with the mindflex. We got it at Walmart for full price before it was $30 less on black Friday at Target : ( I'd heard it might help Tyler get focused to do his homework. He hasn't used it for that yet so I'm not sure if it's helpful or not.

On to the updates....

Kayla is starting to learn her letters. She has trouble putting names to the letters and numbers. For instance, she can count 8 objects but then when she has to write a number 8, she has no clue what it looks like. But she is learning, just as a slower rate than others. Her social skills have come a long way at school.

Kaleb is catching on quickly to letters and numbers but his social skills are poor. He did a speech screening and is now going to do the full test. I don't know why they couldn't just do the test since everyone has trouble understanding him. His articulation is poor as is his usage, but of course his usage will improve with time. He's only been speaking English 10 months. He should start speech after Christmas. It's frustrating how long it takes for screening, testing and getting services.


Jasmine should be having surgery on her neck Dec 22 and again in March. But we're having insurance troubles as usual. I am going to be really angry if they have to delay her surgery because it was planned for Christmas vacation or she would have to miss two weeks of school otherwise and that is not possible. As it is, she is failing math. No one, including the teachers, like the new Sunshine State math curriculum. It's ridiculously hard.

Jasmine and I are taking off for the weekend together for some mom-daughter time. Adding the twins to the family has been harder on her than the others. She pictured sweet little playmates and that's just not how it is. They very much have minds of their own and social skills learned in an orphanage competing with 125 other kids.

Many of you have wondered about Adam and sports. After we worked through the detention situation, I told him he could go out for basketball. However, his grades are so low that he was not able to do that. So at least I'm not the bad one here. He knew what was required, but he didn't work at it. This is a child who is very, very capable of A's, not D's. He was also chosen to be an intern all day Monday with the PE teacher at the middle school. I found out today they had to end that because of inappropriate interactions with several of the middle schoolers. He knows what is acceptable and not acceptable. He would have been pulled from the program at semester break for his grades anyway. So that's where we are at with him.

Jeff only has geometry to finish before he graduates. Hopefully he will be able to complete it within the next month or so. He will come home then, and hopefully go into the army. He wants to go into the marines, but with the program he was in, he doesn't have the right credits. He can start army and go into the marines later though.

Jessica is trying to do too much as usual. She has a lot going on with church orchestra getting ready for the Christmas program. She also has several events with Explorers/honor guard/swat including mall duty, the parade, a gift giving party for underprivileged kids and more.

Tyler is still somewhat involved with Explorers but not as much as Jessica. Age-wise, it's his last year. He doesn't have an interest in criminology anyway but it was a good program for him to be involved in community affairs.

Tyler should be going away to college next fall but is having cold feet about leaving home and the community college. I think he'll be fine once he gets there.