Joseph has had a long streak of good behavior at school lately. Yay!
Zoya, on the other hand, is having lots of behavior problems for her teachers. She is not aggressive or defiant, but just seems to flit around the classroom doing whatever she darn well pleases, not paying attention to instructions or being fazed by consequences.
We have never really dealt with a child with these kinds of behavior issues and I am really at a loss as to how to address it. It doesn't help matters that the school is completely limited on the kinds of consequences they can give to the kids. Even some time out situations are considered 'restraints' and are not allowed in a school setting.
If anyone out there has had these kinds of problems and would care to share what has worked for your child, I would be ever so grateful. We have tried tempting her with rewards at the end of the day for good behavior but she doesn't seem to even care.
Joseph IS doing so well though, and that is certainly something to celebrate. Now if he would just teach Zoya how it's done!
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Adolescence is coming on strong in the Urban household. Boy do I feel unprepared.
There was a moment today that left two Urbans (one being me) in tears, in a public setting. I know I handled things all wrong, despite being halfway through with this great book:
I pray every day that I am not screwing up too badly. I often try to imagine what kinds of things my kids will say someday about their childhood. Is it too much to hope they will only remember the good things about their mother? :( I miss the days when they were super forgiving of my imperfections as a mother (and when they could be bribed with Tic Tacs and such). I am thankful for the friend who told me long ago that it is our imperfections as parents that should direct our children to their need for their Saviour. (Thank you, Kirsten for that nugget of wisdom)
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Remember all the problems we had last summer with our floors? Well we are still living with no carpet or baseboards. The money we spent trying to seal our concrete, we found out much later, SHOULD have been spent installing a french drain around our house! It turns out that all the issues we were having were related to moisture problems. If we would have invested $35 in a moisture test in the first place, we would have saved ourselves about $10,000 in contractors fees, ruined carpets, cabinets, walls, and baseboards. And yes typing that out just made me want to cry all over again. I guess nobody we hired thought to do it, and we didn't know to ask. Ugh.
Anyway, looks like we are getting back a nice tax refund this year, and guess what we are going to do with it?
NOT fix our concrete and baseboards or replace our carpet! We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take another vacation this summer, and we all agreed that the floors can wait until later. :) My parents have offered to come up and bond with the three newest additions, while we take our big kids somewhere special. And the generous friends who gave us their time share in Virginia have offered it for the rest of the year. We would never turn down an offer like that!! Hmmmm. Where should we go?
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We finally got a return call from the doctor while we were on vacation. He said that although the HIV test did come back positive, he is willing to allow Zoya to take a holiday from her medications. He felt it was worth trying, to see if her appetite will come back. I am happy to say that we have noticed a teeny tiny bit of an appetite increase. Not that she is necessarily eating like other children, but a couple of times she has actually asked for food, which is a first. Also, we have changed the tube feeding schedule around a little bit, mainly increasing her lunch and dinner portion, and discontinuing her morning feeding. I am thrilled to report that she hasn't thrown up in about three weeks or so. This is so huge. And the best part is she weighs just over 26 pounds now!!!
We are now seeing a dietician regularly, and tomorrow will be the second visit with a feeding specialist. We are trying to figure out the source of Zoya's food aversions.
June, my friend who is an NICU nurse, came up with a theory, and actually it makes the most sense out of everything that has been suggested. She said if Zoya was a preemie (which she was by 13 weeks), she would have been fed by naso-gastric tube, probably for several months. She said for this reason babies born prematurely in the US receiving intense feeding therapy in the first several weeks or months of their lives. Most likely this kind of therapy was not available to a little orphan girl, thus the aversion to food. Makes sense, doesn't it?
Regardless we are determined to figure it out, and we pray that the g-tube is just a temporarily solution to get her over the hump.
By the way, her cleft palate surgery is scheduled for April. If the surgeon feels she is healthy enough, we are absolutely going through with it. Boy it will be nice to have that over with!
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I guess that's today's family update. Hope YOU are doing well!
There was a moment today that left two Urbans (one being me) in tears, in a public setting. I know I handled things all wrong, despite being halfway through with this great book:
I pray every day that I am not screwing up too badly. I often try to imagine what kinds of things my kids will say someday about their childhood. Is it too much to hope they will only remember the good things about their mother? :( I miss the days when they were super forgiving of my imperfections as a mother (and when they could be bribed with Tic Tacs and such). I am thankful for the friend who told me long ago that it is our imperfections as parents that should direct our children to their need for their Saviour. (Thank you, Kirsten for that nugget of wisdom)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remember all the problems we had last summer with our floors? Well we are still living with no carpet or baseboards. The money we spent trying to seal our concrete, we found out much later, SHOULD have been spent installing a french drain around our house! It turns out that all the issues we were having were related to moisture problems. If we would have invested $35 in a moisture test in the first place, we would have saved ourselves about $10,000 in contractors fees, ruined carpets, cabinets, walls, and baseboards. And yes typing that out just made me want to cry all over again. I guess nobody we hired thought to do it, and we didn't know to ask. Ugh.
Anyway, looks like we are getting back a nice tax refund this year, and guess what we are going to do with it?
NOT fix our concrete and baseboards or replace our carpet! We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take another vacation this summer, and we all agreed that the floors can wait until later. :) My parents have offered to come up and bond with the three newest additions, while we take our big kids somewhere special. And the generous friends who gave us their time share in Virginia have offered it for the rest of the year. We would never turn down an offer like that!! Hmmmm. Where should we go?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We finally got a return call from the doctor while we were on vacation. He said that although the HIV test did come back positive, he is willing to allow Zoya to take a holiday from her medications. He felt it was worth trying, to see if her appetite will come back. I am happy to say that we have noticed a teeny tiny bit of an appetite increase. Not that she is necessarily eating like other children, but a couple of times she has actually asked for food, which is a first. Also, we have changed the tube feeding schedule around a little bit, mainly increasing her lunch and dinner portion, and discontinuing her morning feeding. I am thrilled to report that she hasn't thrown up in about three weeks or so. This is so huge. And the best part is she weighs just over 26 pounds now!!!
We are now seeing a dietician regularly, and tomorrow will be the second visit with a feeding specialist. We are trying to figure out the source of Zoya's food aversions.
June, my friend who is an NICU nurse, came up with a theory, and actually it makes the most sense out of everything that has been suggested. She said if Zoya was a preemie (which she was by 13 weeks), she would have been fed by naso-gastric tube, probably for several months. She said for this reason babies born prematurely in the US receiving intense feeding therapy in the first several weeks or months of their lives. Most likely this kind of therapy was not available to a little orphan girl, thus the aversion to food. Makes sense, doesn't it?
Regardless we are determined to figure it out, and we pray that the g-tube is just a temporarily solution to get her over the hump.
By the way, her cleft palate surgery is scheduled for April. If the surgeon feels she is healthy enough, we are absolutely going through with it. Boy it will be nice to have that over with!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I guess that's today's family update. Hope YOU are doing well!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Spring Fever
Today it was decided that we needed to ease up on our homeschool schedule and take lunch to the park with our friends, the Wrights. I brought my camera to the park to take pictures, but instead the moms sat in the nice warm van and visited while the kids froze their tails off enjoyed playing outdoors this fine spring day.
You know you are a homeschool mom when you have an hour and a half to catch up with your girlfriend, and you spend the whole time talking about sentence diagraming, cool math websites, and interesting facts about presidents.
So why did I take my camera all the way to the park on a chilly spring day but not take any pictures of kids playing?
I have no idea.
But I did take this photo:
We went to Wendy's for lunch. Liesel ordered a chicken sandwich----with the lettuce on the side to share with a certain someone peeking out of the carrier. And yes he did come to the park with us. I have to say Prince is one spoiled rodent!
You know you are a homeschool mom when you have an hour and a half to catch up with your girlfriend, and you spend the whole time talking about sentence diagraming, cool math websites, and interesting facts about presidents.
So why did I take my camera all the way to the park on a chilly spring day but not take any pictures of kids playing?
I have no idea.
But I did take this photo:
Earlier I had decided to run up to the school and rescue Hope from her peanut butter and jelly sandwich; I took her out to lunch instead. I feel as if I am always up at the school dealing with tube feedings or behavior problems , or taking one of the kids to the doctor. I wanted to make sure Hope knew that she is special too.
She wanted to go to the "Pat-a-Cake Pat-a-Cake Baker's Man" as she calls it (otherwise known as the sub and deli shop just up the street).
She asked me why the baker painted on the window looked so surprised?
I told her maybe a busload of people just showed up and he didn't have enough food for everybody!
She said.......
"Maybe he just saw his girlfriend kissing his cousin!"
Hmmmm. That WOULD be quite a surprise!:)
Love that girl.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Virginia pictures
Virginia Beach
Colonial Williamsburg
Jamestown
Washington DC
Yorktown Battlefield
There! Did it work that time?
Colonial Williamsburg
Jamestown
Washington DC
Yorktown Battlefield
There! Did it work that time?
Monday, March 21, 2011
Technical difficulties, but we're back!
Due to technical difficulties, the Urban Spring Break picture post has been postponed to a later time. I worked hard posting them last night and this morning they had disappeared. Will try again soon.
We had a wonderful time in Virginia and would like to thank our very dear friends who so generously donated their time share so we could have a once-in-a-lifetime family vacation. Thank you Friends!!
Driving straight through 22 hours each way really wasn't as bad as we feared it might be. Joseph and Ava tie for first place for the Best Traveler Award!!
Pictures coming soon....
We had a wonderful time in Virginia and would like to thank our very dear friends who so generously donated their time share so we could have a once-in-a-lifetime family vacation. Thank you Friends!!
Driving straight through 22 hours each way really wasn't as bad as we feared it might be. Joseph and Ava tie for first place for the Best Traveler Award!!
Pictures coming soon....
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
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