A day..

A day full of a little bit of everything.  My alarm woke me up, I got up, dressed, put my watch on.  I glanced at my watch and it was much later than I thought.  I looked at my alarm clock and it was a half hour slow.  I quickly wake up the twins, entreat them to get out of their beds, then start making lunches. I glance at the calender, YIKES!.   They're supposed to be at band at 7:15, and it's 7:15 now!  My dh wanders down in his p.j.s and I attack him with "Quick, get in the car and drive the girls to school. Girls, get your backs packs, lunch, instruments and coats, and out the door."  dh just stood there like deer in headlights.  I look at him, "Go!"  He starts toward the door.  I want my coffeeeeee.

I start to make my coffee.  Again glancing at the calender, oh no.  The girls have an after school activity and I didn't write their notes.  Now I need to write them and drop them off.  Phooey.

I have a meeting at the Middle School about my older daughter.  I got there a few minutes early so as to 'catch' some people to discuss changes for my new daughter.  I grab a word with the principal, (she doesn't quite 'get it'), with the Guidance Counselor (somewhat tuned in), and the reading specialist  (who was quite open to listening about my daughter's concerns).  Now let's see what happens. For the meeting they decided not to continue the 504, and see if she still needs it in a few months. I'm disappointed.

In between all this I'm trying to solve an Immigration problem.  Going through the airport's immigration, the Officer took a document he shouldn't have, and gave me the one he should have kept.   Let me see, I called, my adoption agency, NBC, NVC,the local USCIS, the Boston USCIS, CPB.  No one seems to know who's jurisdiction this lies in. Total frustration, I will keep trying tomorrow.

My new daughter comes home and I explain to her who I spoke with today. I proceed to pry out more information from her.  I shared with her that the Principal didn’t believe me when I told her you were sad and frustrated.  Her comment was, I always see her smile and giving a giggle.  I explained that it was a cover up, that you were taught not to complain.  The principal disagreed with me no matter how many times I said she has been coming home with a very dark face on, and crying.  Her response was, ”Just this morning I saw her come in with a big smile.”  Yes, that is because she hadn’t started the day yet.  She was oblivious to what I was saying.  I was very annoyed.

As I was speaking with my daughter my deaf daughter kept coming up with her little pieces of paper with Chinese characters on it, (I don’t know how many times I have told her, I don’t read Chinese!), then she walks away.  I’m just about to get good info from my daughter when she comes up again, with a picture she drew.  I couldn’t quite make out what it was.  So we played charades with drawings, the dictionary and Bable Fish for about 10 minutes.  Grass, she wanted to know how to spell ‘grass’.  This scene played out several times, with ‘hay’, 'egg', etc.  Then we got to 'pig', and she made the smelly sign, and held her nose and shook her head. The she wrote down the word, in English, ‘lovely’.  I looked at her to see if she understood the sarcasm in that word related to a smelly pig, and she had a huge smile on her face.  She never ceases to amaze me.

My other daughter and I finished going over her schoolwork.  Now I understand what she is working on.

Then after her shower, my deaf daughter comes down in a loose cotton dress.  I signed, “You’re not wearing that to bed?”  “Yes, it’s hot.”  “But you don’t wear a dress to bed.”  “Yes, it’s hot when I sleep.”  I took her upstairs and looked for her other p.j.s, and asked her, where are all your pajamas?
She pointed to the laundry. Now we haven’t been home THAT long that she would have run out of pajamas, and I’ve already done her wash recently.  I asked, “How many times to you wear p.j.s before you put them into the laundry?”  “One”, she replied. “ONE!”  OK, we need to have a little chat...

Drat, I just realized I’m on night duty tonight, sigh.