I have been a little too tired to post recently. The past couple of days I needed to have coffee around
5:00 p.m. just to stay awake.  But I have accomplished withdrawing my daughter from school.  Researching to all hours of the night for lesson plans and information for teaching ESL (English). This is my 3rd day homeschooling.  I cover vocabulary, grammar, spelling and sentence structure.  Today I asked her if this is what she wanted to learn that she wasn't getting in Middle School.  She replied "Yes."  And so far she has really enjoyed all the lesson plans I have thrown together.  I even make her laugh a lot.  I believe that someone can learn a lot faster and better with humor.

I have also started teaching my deaf daughter.  We cover new signs every day, and now I test her on spelling, which in turn will help her to learn English and read.  I sign a sign, and she has to spell it.  She has balked at studying longer than 10 minutes at a time.  I think this tells me that no one ever forced her to work, or take responsibility for anything because she has shown this pattern in other instances.  She now knows I am s-e-r-i-o-u-s, and when I give her an assignment, she knows doing her cutesy stuff will not get her out of it.  Sigh, such a long way to go...

I made several strong phone calls yesterday demanding a PPT for my deaf daughter, and I got one for next Friday. Yeah! This is THE meeting that will let me know if they are going to fight me about busing her and paying tuition to the school, or they might insist that they can provide all the services for her. If they go that way, it will end up being a huge battle with possible litigation.  I do not want that, it would be so draining.

In the midst of this and the 16th b-day party, my twins had also gone to a sleep over b-day party. Well, one of the twins lost a tooth at that party. That was on Sunday, I forgot about it, I'm a bad Mommy.  And I forgot about it Monday night as well, bad Mommy - again.  Tuesday morning as I woke her for school, she reached under pillow and opened a box, and said, "Oh, she didn't come again."  Gulp, darn!  I said quietly, "I heard a crash last night."  But that was all I said.  The back story to this is, for all their losing teeth life, I have had the Tooth Fairy write notes in green calligraphy on special paper that has leaves, flowers and grasses pressed into it.  So as I was running around preparing breakfasts, lunches, and feeding rabbits, I tried to sneak into my room, dig out the paper, run downstairs, and quickly type up a note, print in before the girls come down, and of course the printer took forever.  I grabbed it and ran into the mud room and put it in her back pack.  Then, "Oh no", I thought,  I need a quarter.  I looked in my purse, no quarters.  I looked upstairs on dh's desk, nothing.  He always has has tons of change lying around.  I run down the hall, meanwhile the girls are heading downstairs.  I run down the hall, wake up dh and ask frantically, "Where are your quarters?"  He mumbled, I ran back down the hall through my deaf daughter's room, who was asleep.  I grabbed a quarter and ran down into the kitchen, the girls are there. "OK now what?" I thought.  As they were busy with morning things, I nonchalantly dropped the quarter on the couch, in between the the arm and cushion.

As she walked into the room I started adjusting the lamp shade on the lamp next to the couch, and asked, "Were you playing with this lamp, the shade is all crocked."  "It wasn't me." she replied.
"O.K., so", I asked, "what backpack are you taking today?" "The big blue one." she replied.  "Well, you better pack it up now before you eat because we're running a bit late."  She goes out, and I hear her yell. "She left me a note, look, she left me a note!"  ("YES!", I thought.)  "What?  Who left what?" I asked.  She goes into an explanation about the note, which read:

Ow!  My dear  (her name),

I am sorry to have missed you yesterday.  You see, I had a flying accident last week and my wings still hurt.  I knew you would be disappointed, so I tried to get to you last night.

I hope I did not wake you.  I am still not flying straight and I crashed into a lamp and dropped your quarter.  My fairy friend needed to help me fly home.  If you can’t find the quarter that I dropped, I will have my friend bring it tonight.

Love,

The Tooth Fairy

"That must have been the crash you heard last night!", she said to me.  "Probably, I said, "I just thought it was one of the rabbits."

"Let's look for the quarter!"  She started looking around trying to figure out which direction she was flying in to hit which side of the shade.  I didn't want to say maybe you should look on the couch, luckily the other twin said just that!  And she found the quarter!  

All that before my first cup of coffee, and it happened between 6:00 am and 6:20 am! If I have to keep thinking this fast on my feet until they all grow up, I'll never get dementia.  Talk about having my very own brain gym.

Kelly, I took your advise and sent the letter to the Chair of the Board of Education.  Thank you.
I just overheard my 9 year old twin say,"I want a limousine, and a driver, and a 24 hour chef".  Now where the heck did she get that from?!  There is no way she experienced having that nor saw it on TV because TV is only one day a week, and I monitor what it is.  She's definitely better choose a career that could afford things like that.

I survived the 16th birthday party. The girls arrived and I took them for a manicure and pedicure. I arranged a special price with the owner before hand, and the birthday girl was free. I only paid for 3 girls.
I bought on line 'Margarita' glasses that have two light up functions all the way up the stem. You can choose one color out of 4 or press again and it all changes from color to color. Then I got straws that light up in colors.  And the cool thing was, when you sipped from the straw the color moved up and down.  And of course there were the glowing bracelets that were in unusual colors, and the earrings that lit up in different colors, and the bracelets.  All this in a darkened room with a strobe light going and Japanese rock music blaring (don't ask...).

All the glow and light things that I bought were incredibly inexpensive.  I also borrowed one of those Dance games.  You know the ones that show up on the TV and you have to step in the direction of the arrows?  A good time was had by all, with very little financial out put from us.  Dinner was a BBQ, and snacks after were made by me or bought at Trader Joes.  I also made a huge amount of punch with floating lemons & oranges with sparkling apple juice, frozen lemonade, and bubbly water.  The girls wiped out at least 3-4 gallons of punch.  They watched "Hair Spray" until 1:00 am and then they all went to sleep.  They slept until 9:30.  We gave them home made crepes for b-fast and cut up fresh fruit. They were originally supposed leave about 10:00, but they got up so late I called the parents and said their girls would call them when they were ready to be picked up.  Ahem, they all left around 1:30. in the afternoon.

Today was the first day of home schooling.   In an hour and a half she learned more than the 3 weeks at she had at school .  I also worked with my deaf daughter.  I taught her 119 signs in American Sign Language.  I also had her start to learn to spell the words, and learn English.

 Not the best timing, although it never is, we had to replace our water tank at $675. We have another problem which is either a $1200 bill or a valve which is $50.  We'll find out tomorrow.

It's official.  I delivered the necessary letter to the Superintendent of schools to day to officially withdraw my daughter until they put in place the appropriate program for her.  With "The Letter" I also included a three page letter and a notebook with 9 dividers in it.  Each divider contains information on:
 *    Internationally adopted children are not bilingual
·     Internationally adopted children learn English in a different way
·     Adoption and school issues
·     Modes of learning that are effective for an Internationally adopted child
·     Communicative language and cognitive language
And so much more.  I have asked them to read and learn about Th International adopted child before the attempt to teach my daughter again.  They think they know everything about children, yet this is a whole new area that many educators and medical personnel know nothing about.
I normally wouldn't do this, but I will reprint my letter here in case some adoptive parent is going through the same fight I have been going through. This type of challenge is always emotionally draining and can really flatten you. So perhaps my letter can give another parent some ideas and support on how to fight the school systems.  I will eliminate names.

I have withdrawn my child, her name from Middle School, until such time a satisfactory program can be established to teach her English vocabulary, grammar and sentence structure.  Attached are documents explaining the difference in learning a language for an Immigrant child and an adopted child.  Please read.

The teaching style and material chosen for my daughter is not appropriate for an adopted child.  My daughter is instructed to read a book every day and write down the words she does not know. I have looked at some of the vocabulary words that she has written down: proclamation, Musketeers, construction paper, raccoon, auditorium. These are not words that you start with when you are teaching English.  The course should start with the basics, like in 1^st grade through to 5^th grade.  Would you start a 1^st grader with these words?

Mrs. xxxxxx of the Bureau of Accountability & Improvement and ELL & Bilingual Consultant at the  State Department of Education, spoke with the Director of Special Services. She shared with him her thoughts on what would be appropriate training for a teacher teaching English as a second language, English Language Acquisition, and the materials that should accompany those teachings, again English Language Acquisition materials.  I have also spoken and/or sent emails to The Teacher, Guidance Counselor, the Principal, Director of Special Services, the Assitant Superintendent and the Superintendent of schools regarding this matter.  I am a bit baffled by the lack of response.

At the very least that could be done immediately until something more structured could be set up would be to take the spelling lists from the first grade thru to the fifth grade and start with those.

My decision to withdraw my daughter was a difficult one.  Every day she came home from school feeling confused and sad.  Two of my older daughter's friends asked her what was wrong with her sister.  Wednesday night she burst into tears and we sat down.  She had not shared with me previously because in the Chinese culture you are not to question adults nor complain.  A child’s opinion is not valued.

Her English is minimal so it took over an hour to fully comprehend what she was trying to explain.  She basically said the following; ......

‘I go to TAP and I read a book I don’t understand and write down words I don’t know. It is frustrating looking the words up in the Chinese dictionary.  I don’t know what I am supposed to be learning.  I go to History and wait for the bell to ring because I can’t understand, and in Math I don’t know what is being said.  The math that is being done I learned two years ago’. 

This is a child that had her Mother die, six months later her Father was killed in a coal mining accident.  She lived with her Grandmother for several years until she became too ill to keep her.  When the orphanage people came to take her, she didn’t understand why she was being taken away from her Grandmother.  She has suffered loss three times in her young life, which at those ages is internalized as abandonment.   Coupled with learned orphanage behaviors, this presents a child that the system needs to adapt to, instead of the child adapting to the system.  Please see attached articles.

My daughter is frustrated with not learning English and not being able to participate in her classes.  I’m afraid the ‘immersion’ method of learning English is not how to educate an adopted child.  A side note.  I have heard stated that my older daughter is a success story with the present teaching method.  I would like to finally dispel that myth with the following reasons.

1.  My daughter was tutored for 4 months, 2-3 times a week by a Chinese woman licensed in teaching ESL. That I paid for.

2.  For several months she had a Chinese interpreter in class with her.

3.  She went to Summer School and was tutored in English.

4.  I worked with her at home.

All this happened BEFORE she went to Middle School.  By then she already had been here a year and had a strong foundation in the English Language.

My daughter started school being in the country only a few weeks, so comparing her with her sister is inapplicable.

I would like my daughter to return to public school, and that will happen when a program can be established to meet her needs.  I look forward to working with you towards that end.

Sincerely,

Oh my gosh, I do believe my deaf daughter would be a perfect candidate for the show "What Not To Wear".  It is a new episode every morning when she comes down.  I have learned not to to expect 'normal', whatever that is. This morning she came down in pants 2 inches too long, and a belt scrunching large amounts of material at the waist,  AND a turquoise long sleeve shirt underneath a short sleeve white and yellow t-shirt!  And every day she comes downstairs with her pants  stuffed into her socks so that she looks like she's wearing pantaloons, (did I just date myself?).  It is never ending.
The other day I hit my limit because the coping many times a day with her finally was too much. She didn't like the label in a shirt because it made her itch so she ripped it out leaving two large holes in it, I was not happy.  She had asked for scissors several times before to cut out labels, so she did know better.  The same day I discovered that she had ripped the glued-in inserts out of her new shoes. This is just a small bit of many things that occur every day.  She has also broken several things as well.  It is SO hard not to become frustrated with her!  She has lived isolated all her life with no auditory input to learn what you do and don't do. No one cared enough to correct her or try to communicate with her.  I need to gear myself to think of her as a toddler and watch her at all times, (that will be exhausting), which will be hard to remember because she is almost 12 years old.

A friend informed me how to withdraw my daughter from school legally so they don't come after me.  I have completed the necessary letters, now I just need to include back-up documents of why I think how they are teaching my daughter is inadequate.

Since I must complete everything today, I'll leave off for now, but I will be adding more tid bits as the day wears on.


AND to top off all that, my dh was walking through her room, and I heard him say, "What are you doing?  What were you going to do with that?"  I called, "Do you need me?"  "Yes, you better come."  I walked in and my dh said that she had her shirt raised and a pencil in her hand.  She was about to draw circles on her stomach!!  I asked her, "Where you going to draw on your skin?"  She nodded.  "WHY?" I asked. She shrugged.  "Why were you going to draw on your stomach?"  She replied, "To play."  Oh heaven help me, she IS a toddler in a 12 year old body.

I have worked all day on the paperwork that I am assembling for my other daughter to give to the Superintendent tomorrow.  I think I'm permanently stuck to this chair.  And I got nothing done for the birthday party today. This is so not like me.  Before children (B.C.) I was a type A, now I'm a type Z.

On the lighter side...My daughter who is deaf is eating massive amounts of food.  I am not exaggerating!  The least she eats is 3 helpings at dinner, but her usual amount is 4 helpings, large helpings as well.
Here, she finally grabbed the serving bowl to finish everything off!.  This was her 4th.  And according to her Doctor, in one and a half months, she has gained seven pounds and  almost 2 inches in height!  I have no idea what to expect her final height will be at this point.

Driving today I pointed to a deer crossing the road, she let out such a long loud scream of delight that she scared me! I was not prepared for that kind of reaction. With all the wild life around here and Spring practically here, perhaps I should invest in some ear plugs...
I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what to do with my daughter's Sweet 16 party.  She's invited 10 girls for the night. When she first arrived three and a half years ago she was so emotionally and socially immature that I put her in 4th grade at 12.5.  It has worked out beautifully because the group of kids in that grade are so nice.  So she will be 16 and her friends are 12/13.  It's kinda hard to plan for that age range and make everyone, and the birthday girl happy.  My daughter is finicky, and doesn't like the usual things.  But I may have found a solution.  I'l  share with you once I solidify the details.

Anna if you would like to contact me further, it would be so interesting for me.  So please email me at:   nicoj5473@yahoo.com.
Now, to catch up quickly. I am dismayed at our school system.  I went through all the proper channels to get the appropriate teaching resources for my daughter to learn English. And as you remember I even had someone from the State call the Director of Special Services with her "thoughts" on what would an appropriate instructors training should be and the that should be used.  I even had a strong conversation with the Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent of Schools.  Nothing has happened.  Thursday my daughter broke down in tears, she was miserable.  Here is a typical day for her, in her words. She goes to the teacher who is supposed to be teaching her English, in fact she is a reading teacher.  The teacher asks her what book she wants to read.  Of course it doesn't cross her mind that she's only been in the country several weeks and hasn't a clue to what book to read.  Next she is given a book and instructed to write down words she doesn't know, like proclamation, cactus, Musketeers, construction paper and  asteroids. These are not the type of words you use to teach English as a second language. She has yet to learn grammar, sentence structure and appropriate vocabulary. 


Thus I have informed the powers that be, that until they provide a n appropriate English program for my daughter, I will be home schooling her.
She also had said that in history she just waited for the bell to ring because she could not understand what was being said, and in math she is at least 3 years above what they are teaching and she was bored. She was so frustrated she said through her tears, she couldn't understand what she was supposed to be learning in English as it was being taught to her.  I have taught her in two days more than she has learned in three weeks.
 And did I mention, we got in today another foster bunny? 

I am so sorry, I never got to write today.  I had major house cleaning today, search out a few recipes, and run to the store with a list and have guests arrive at 3:30 for a BBQ.  They have two children.  SO by the time they left, we had 10 people around the table and tons of food, and we finally cleaned up it was late.  I needed to sort out a few things, put in a laundry, and now look what time it is.  Never mind, tomorrow is another day.

I will update on Saturday early afternoon, instead of midnight as I usually do.  I'll also have a picture or two to share.

A message to one of my visitors who has been a regular for a long time.  They are from ICELAND - Reykjavik, Gullbringusysla.

I would like to know how you are fairing with the eruption of the volcano.  How have you been effected?  Please let me know if you are alright.

Just a note to say I'll fill you all in tomorrow, but bottom line, I'm pulling my adopted daughter out of school until they set up an appropriate English course and schedule for her. She has been suffering for several weeks and it all came out tonight.

Today I subbed for 6th grade (Math!), then drove to the next town to pick up my 90 year old Mom to bring her home to visit with her grandchildren then back to where she is staying (about a 40 minute drive one way).  Then between 6:00 and just getting home now, 12:20 am, I went on a call for a 86 year old male who fell, to a school where the fire alarm kept going off even though it was reset numerous times (had to keep searching the building) and finally to a two car motor vehicle accident.  I'm tired.

A quickie update tonite, it's after 11:00, I just got home from a call to a new born, born at home not breathing.  So I was on scene by the time he was 45 minutes old. Very interesting for me since I have never seen a baby that young before.  Although the infant was breathing a bit by the time we got there, he was blue.  By the time we got to the hospital he had pinked up but still had grunting sounds.  I believe he is going to be fine.

I am going to list a few things that my deaf daughter has done, definitely keeps me on my toes.
Walked by her room and saw her tearing pages out of a book I leant her.
Still trying to wear the same clothes two days in a row.
Walked into the dentist's office and proceeded to walk right past reception into the back rooms.
Purposely was going to 'steal' a magazine when we left the office. I stopped her and signed that's not yours, it belongs to the office. She looked at me with a "So?" look on her face. I again signed you do not take things that are not yours, it belongs here.  She looked at me like I've got to be kidding.  Finally I said, it is stealing and you do not ever do that. You never take things that don't belong to you....  Nothing. ... I signed "Put it back."   She got an attitude look on her face and sauntered back in and put it down.
Then she washed her gardening gloves that should not have been washed.
We all went out for a walk after dinner and I told her to stay on the left side of the road, and explained why.  I also asked her to either walk next to me or behind me, not way out in front of me.  Well she did, and on the right side, and a car came along and she was just about to weave over into it's path.  I ran and reached out and caught her hood and yanked her back just as the car went by.  Was I angry (and a little bit scared) you betcha.  My fingers were flying at her.  It was quite frustrating not being able to say everything I wanted to because her ASL is so limited.  But I got my point across.  And she cried.  When we finally got home, I had a very long talk with her through Bable Fish.  I explained how being scared also looks like anger, was I angry, yes, but not as much scared that she might be hit by a car.  And so on...  It took about 40 minutes.

I have come to realize that she has grown up in a very sequestered environment with very few reality checks, learning what common sense is or how to use it and very little awareness of how the real world works.  Yes, it is going to be a long road.

"My cheeks hurt I smile too much."

Is what she signed to me today.  We had installed a video phone connected to our TV.  So if someone calls her that also has the video phone installed, the screen is spilt, with my daughter on one side signing and the person calling on the other side signing.  Now is she wants to call a hearing person, she just pushes a button on the remote and it's connected to the relay service.  This service appears up in the corner of the screen signing to my daughter, my daughter gives the number that she wants, the hearing person answers "Hello", and the person signs "Hello", then my daughter starts signing and the interpreter voices it to the hearing person, and everyone can see everyone else.

And what's really cool, that my daughter went bananas over, was with the remote she could make the camera go up or down, right or left, zoom in or out.  It also has an instant connection to 911, which is important.

Also today, that Chinese woman that I told you I met before that knows Chinese sign, came for a visit today bringing her two roommates.  They are all teaching Chinese to students here for one year.  While two of my daughters chatted in Chinese with two of them, I sat down at the table with my deaf daughter and the teacher who knew Chinese sign.  Now I could ask all those questions I have been wanting to ask.  We spent two hours  talking and signing.  I found out SO much about her that would have taken me at least another year to know.  There were times while I watched them signing I felt teary because for the first time I felt I was really getting to know my daughter.  I encouraged her to ask me anything, but she couldn't think of anything.  So I prompted some questions.  "What is making you cry, when nothing really is happening at that time?"  She signed that she didn't feel like she was good enough, that I was disappointed in her and she didn't feel she could be like her sisters...  And through this tears started welling up in her eyes.  Oh, as a Mother can you imagine what I felt?  I wanted to say so much so fast, but I needed to find a reply that could translate and be understood.  The teacher explained to me, that deaf Chinese children in 3rd grade do not understand abstract concepts nor how to express their emotions.  (That explained a lot).  So I explained that she didn't have try to be very good, or very smart, or do extra work just for me to approve.  We picked her to be in the family just the way she is. We love her as her.  And if one of her sister breaks a rule, or disobeys, our love does not go away.  That is how we are with you, our love will never go away.  Each sister is different, older sister is good in art, twins are not, you are good in making crafts, your sister is not.  Each sister is different and special, and that is good.  She seemed to understand.

I also found out about several abusive situations that she received from a couple of her teachers, and from a couple of older girls in her orphanage.  THAT made me very very angry.  I made sure that she knew that no one will be allowed to EVER touch her again.  Because if anyone hurts my daughters with their hands or words, I will personally deal with it (and I punched my right fist into my left hand for her to get the idea that I meant it). She did understand and was impressed.

I know that she understood me when I explained about 'our love never goes away' because tonight I was firm with her when she wasn't in bed by 8:00. At 7:24 I told her to remember that in 30 minutes you are in bed, lights out.  She signed she understood.  Well she came downstairs at 8:20. "Why aren't you in bed?" "I don't know."  "It is 8:20, you are 20 minutes late to bed.  It is your responsibility to watch the time to get to bed at 8:00."  "I was talking with a friend." (on QQ)  "Talking with a friend is not O.K. to be late for bed time."  I realized at this point it was too complicated to explain with limited American sign.  I went to Bable Fish, wrote a paragraph explaining the whole thing again, and why she needs to follow instructions.  Once she read the translation, she looked at me sheepishly, and I knew she knew, but she thought that she could get away with it.  Don't think that this hasn't happened before.  So I firmly said that she was not to miss 8:00 again, and talking with a friend is not a good reason to miss bedtime.

Now usually at this point she would be in tears as she had in the past, but she wasn't.  She signed, "Should I shut down the computer?"  I signed, "Yes, go to bed now."  I waited about 15 minutes and went upstairs, and, as in the past, she would be crying.  Her light was off, I went into her room, she was facing the wall, and I peeked over at her and she was talking to herself.  (Don't ask...)  I leaned my head on hers, she smiled and moved close, I kissed her, and she said and signed "Good night," with a big smile.  That's how I know she understood that she was unconditionally loved and accepted because she didn't get upset.  WOW  a huge leap for our relationship.

She hears sounds!!!!!

This is one happy girl.









There's a ways to go with adjustments and such.  She did hear me voice and dh's AND she heard her name for the first time. She even tried to say it!  She also said bye, bye, Papa, pingua (apple in Chinese).
She now has another world to explore!  In 10 days we will go back for frequency adjusting.  These hearing aids can hook into FM devices to a speech teacher can speak directly with her.  It can also be hooked to a phone, music, computer.  This is quite exciting.

When all my girls got home form school today they had a lot of fun interacting with her.  It was a great day.

I need to cut this short, I am on night duty tonight, and I'm on duty tomorrow at a 10K run until 2:00, then we are having a family foto taken, then to friends for a BBQ and older daughter off to a party.  Which is also where she is tonight.  At a b-day party sleep over.

Regarding those papers that Immigration messed up at the airport... everything was being tracked and processed until today.  I got two letters saying since both my daughters are over 14 they have to go to the local Homeland Security office and be sworn in!  NEITHER are 14 years old.  Here we go again!

Tomorrow we get her hearing aids and she should be able to hear something.  I am very excited for her, and me.  Does this mean that perhaps I don't have to go upstairs any time I need her, or go running after her to say something or stop her from making the wrong choices??  Oooh, that would be nice wouldn't it?
She picked the color blue for her hearing aides so this should be a nice contrast against her black hair.

Sometimes, I admit, she drives me slightly crazy.  Like getting ready for bed at night she brushes her teeth then pops an Easter candy in her mouth. Then I discovered this brown stain on her bottom sheet. I asked "What's this?":  She points to all the empty candy wrappers and boxes from Easter.  She ate massive amounts of candy within 3 days  of the Ester Bunny coming.  I never thought to tell her that she needed to ask me before she ate all of it.  She still comes down every morning morning in p.j.’s.  I tell her “change”, and she comes down wearing what she had on the day before. It’s a process...

I tried to arrange her clothes in categories so she could understand how to put things together.   It took me over an hour the first time.  About a week later I go to get a shirt from the closet and everything is in a mish mash.  I search her drawers, and find a skirt, a dress, and all sorts of unrelated clothes in various places.  Her closet no longer has rhyme or reason to it.  A sweatshirt is in the pants area, a shirt was with the dresses, half the pants had been taken off the hanger and piled on a shelf, I didn’t know where to find anything. So, I start again and explain to her each section and why it is organized this way and how it can help her.  She nodded the whole time, but she nodded the last time as well.  I’ll go and check in another week or so.

I did my pro-active Mom thing again today.  I got an appointment with the Superintendent of Schools for Monday.  I will walk in with an agenda to deal with several important issues, 4 to be exact.  I do expect to have a successful outcome.  I also sent a strongly worded, but nice, email to my daughter’s teacher who is supposed to be teaching her English, but doesn’t because she is a reading teacher and just has her read. No vocabulary of consequence, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etc.  I copied, the Principal, the Guidance Counselor and the Director of Special Services with this email.  I need to create a paper trail of my requests and communications to bolster my case, which I will present to the Superintendent.  You see it is all connected.

Time to bolster me with some sleep to tackle a very busy weekend.

Don't you hate forgetting things that you usually never forget?  Like Dentist appointments?  I cannot believe that I completely forgot this one.  You might think that it was only a dentist appointment, but this took a lot of calls to get.  I also had to send x-rays, charts and a referral letter.  It seems my deaf daughter has such a crowded mouth that what 12 year old molars that have come in need to be taken out, especially the one that grew in horizontally. The molars that are about to come in are right over teeth already there.  AND when her wisdoms come down, they have to come out as well, because they will also be coming down right on top of other teeth.  Gee, another place to spend money, that we don't have extra of...

We should be hearing by the end of this week about her hearing aids coming in.  That will be quite exciting.

I have heard back from Senators office and they actually are using all their contacts to track down my paperwork that the Immigration Officer took by mistake at the airport.  Hmmm, perhaps I will be voting for him in the next election...

I walked into the Department of Education and asked for an appointment with the Superintendent.  I need to resolve these issues of my daughter not being taught enough English to enter HS in Sept., my twins entering Middle School that has no gifted or Enrichment classes - which presents problems such as boredom, not paying attention and losing interest in school.  In 4th grade they are on a 6th grade level for math, writing, reading and vocabulary.  And I would like to give him a heads up to my deaf daughter's situation, in case at the PPT they decide that they can handle her education at the Middle School.  The last task I will be taking on are the issues that are getting out of hand at the HS, I won't bore you with the details.  I do so look forward to this meeting.

And last, but not least, I will leave you with a picture of 'the girls' taken on Easter.

Ah Monday,

A new week, perhaps it will bring good news.  And perhaps it will bring my deaf daughter an understanding  of her new life.  I can see how very difficult it is for her to try to fit in in an environment that has strange rules, creates boundaries when no one cared to give them to her before and expectations that since she is now part of a family she can trust, she can care, she can be loved.  She has so many emotions running through her, I sometimes think that she doesn't know how she feels.  She has had several crying episodes that none of us could figure out why.  We ask, and we ask, and she won't share. She will also get tearful if she doesn't want to do something you ask her to do.  That can be quite frustrating at times.  She will flat out refuse to do something. It is obvious that when she did this in the past, with tears, she often got her way.  I finally end up signing, "When Mommy says no, it is no,"  And she will then come around.

If it isn't the tears she will so some cutesy behaviors and I have no doubt that they worked most of the time.  Because they are cute.  But when I don't aqueous, she becomes sulky.  It definitely the testing time.  And I can see where she is slowly starting to understand what she can and cannot do.

Well the new daughters were totally blown away with receiving an Easter basket from the Easter Bunny.   Especially my deaf daughter, she was SO excited and in awe.  When she asked, "How did bunny come in? I signed, "I have no idea."  That just made her giggle with excitement.  My other daughter responded in quiet amazement, not sure what to make of all of it.  And of course my twins wrote a note to the Easter Bunny and left candy for him.  Part of the note said, are you a girl or a boy, what color are your eyes, are our bunnies some of your helpers...?  It was quite cute.

Maybe this week we can have the "meeting" to decide where my deaf daughter should go to school.  Of course I know where she should go, and where she will be going.  But this is a process I must suffer through to get what I want.  So be it.

HAPPY EASTER

Look what hopped by me as I was on the computer.  It came out of nowhere!

Guess I took a little more time off than expected..  I seem to be getting a little discombobulated lately.  Not sure why.

I have heard back from a few people that they have tried to leave a comment, but were unable to.  I imagine that can be quite frustrating. So here is an address  where you can leave the comments or questions.....  nicoj5473@yahoo.com

Interesting news, the woman from the State did not wait for the Director of SN to call her, she called him!  She said that she suggested some 'ideas' of materials to help support my daughter's English program.  Guess he knows now that I want the best for my daughters and I'm not afraid to go to the top to get it.

I know that a couple days have past since I wrote, but for the life of me I just can't remember what I did on those days.  I know I went shopping to fill 5 Easter baskets, and while shopping I had one of those ''six degrees of seperation' experiences.  I will briefly share.  On Sunday night I went out on an EMT call, it was for possible diabetic shock. It in fact was very timely that we arrived when we did.  It was about 11:00 at night, and the noise had woken up the daughter. As things were being taken of, I would turn to chat with the wife to temporarily distract her.  When the little girl came down we had finished so I went over and talked with her and her stuffed animals because she was scared.  Fast forward to Wednesday.  I was planning to go shopping for Easter baskets, but I kept on being delayed for a variety of reasons.  I finally got out the door and to the store to start shopping.  I go in, grab a shopping cart, go down a short isle and turn the corner and see this woman, I looked at her and pointed, she looked at me and pointed, then she gave me a wonderful hug.  It was the wife of the man we had treated!  She thanked me for being there and helping. Then her little girl came around the corner, and with a tiny bit of prodding she remembered me and gave me a huge smile.  The wife and I just started talking and talking. We connected immediately we had so much in common.  It turns out that she is in the same profession as my dh and me! (Although my career has been on hold for some time).  What is amazing to me is that we actually ended up in the same place at the same time, and I had been an hour and a half late getting started.  It was a definite meant to be.  It really makes you feel the the world isn't that big after all.

Tomorrow I will post some funny pictures of my deaf daughter, she always catches me off guard with her sense of humor.  Until then...