Blog changes

I'm going to try blogging full time over here.

Fav Foto Friday

My mitzvah girl (just a little late)

An interesting encounter.

Just posted over here.

Wordless Wednesday

Conversations with Ruby

When I was just the mother of one, I always told Ruby she was my favorite girl in the whole world. Obviously, I can't tell her that now so I tell her she's my favorite Chapina in the whole world.

Me: Ruby, you're my favorite Chapina in the whole world.

Ruby: Thanks Mom. (not sure where she gets such good manners but she has them for sure)

Me: Do you know what a Chapina is?

Ruby: Yes.

Me: What is it?

Ruby: ME!!!

So to everyone else out there who thought you had a little Chapina in your home, think again. Apparently there's only one and she's living with me. ;-)

(Oh, and on the Medina front, her OK birth certificates came today. Yay!!! Now if we could just get that darn letter from CIS so we could go turn in her green card and get her COC.)

Thinking about privacy and again

So I've been thinking about safety and privacy again. I really hate the fact that blogger doesn't allow you to password protect individual posts. I don't think I want to go totally private but there are some things I'd prefer not to share with the entire world. I'm going to start playing around with my old wordpress blog that I tried last winter. I'm not going to make the immediate switch right now. I want to try to figure it out a little more first. We'll see how it goes. Anything on there that is password protected will be the old password that I used back then. If you don't have it and see something you want it for, let me know. I will only be giving it out to people I know or those who tell me why you want it and it makes sense to me. Feel free to ask if I post anything that way but if all you say is "I read your blog and want your password", I won't send it. I need to know a little more about you and why you want it. Otherwise, there's no point in password protection, right?

Just to be clear, I'll still be posting here too. I'm just going to be testing the waters over there.

Bubbles - I ♥ Faces

This weeks theme over on the I ♥ Faces blog is bubbles so I decided to enter this picture of Medina from earlier this summer.

School

Medina had her first day of school on Thursday. After all of the problems with the principal at her old school last year, Medina is in a new school this year. It's a small private school. She is one of 9 kids in her class. I'm so optimistic for the year. Medina's teacher and the principal are both aware of the age situation and willing to help Medina in any way they can to catch up to an age-appropriate grade. The plan is to do 1st and half of 2nd this year. Then, I'm hoping we can finish 2nd over the summer. That will get her to one grade behind. If we could do the same thing with 3rd and 4th, Medina would be on grade level. I'm not holding my breath for that though. I'll be happy if she can get to one grade behind. Honestly, I'm okay with her staying 2 years behind if she just can't catch up. I really just want her to have the opportunity to try. That's how I've tried to emphasize it to Medina too. I tell her that whatever grade she's in is fine but the principal should have given her the opportunity to try to be in an age-appropriate grade. As long as she tries her hardest to learn, wherever she's at is okay. Still, she came home the first day and told me she was the oldest kid in her class. She asked me if she'd always be the oldest in her class. Even though she doesn't stand out physically - she's the same size as her classmates - she knows that all her friends who are her age are 3rd graders. Medina has a huge advantage over many children adopted at early school age in that she had 1 1/2 years of school before she was relinquished and then had some schooling in the various orphanages she was in. She had some basic reading skills in Amharic. Even though she's forgotten Amharic, I think that gave her some foundation for understanding reading in school last year.

Anyways - that's the scoop...we're at a new school where the staff is understanding and able and willing to work with Medina to give her the help she needs to try to catch up.

Fav Foto Friday