Pre-school, Kindergarten, Medical, Oh My!

Wow - I'm way overdue to post on this blog and so much has happened in the last month that at this point I'm not even sure where that month went.

Thankfully I've finished tax season at work, with the exception of finalizing all the returns we extended, but at least it's not a mad rush anymore!

During our ever busy tax season, in which I worked so much overtime, including several Saturdays and from home, we had a bit of a pre-school day care issue. Daniel's pre-school is considered skill based and they move the children up based on their reading abilities. Daniel started out in the Beginner Class last April. In order to move to the Advanced class, the children have to pass their letters which are given to them in sets of 5. The class ranges in age from 3-5, but mostly contains 3-4 year olds. Daniel was 3 and 1/2 so we thought this was perfect. A few months later, I contacted the school with concerns that Daniel had not passed the first 5 letters. They assured me everything was fine and a few weeks later he passed. Then about 6 weeks after he passed the second set. Then nothing.



Fast forward to about 2 months ago and I started questioning the pre-school again as to why Daniel had not passed the third set. We'd been working really hard everyday on the letters at home and Daniel was flying through the entire alphabet. To make a long story short, after going round and round for 2 months, including me going in and watching a lesson, I got the director to agree to test him and in one day he passed 10 more letters. On to the last set...no pass. I waited a week to give the benefit of the doubt and still nothing. Finally I asked the director to test him again and she said he mixed up about 5 of the previous lower case letters when they did the entire alphabet review. In toher words, he passed the final set, but when they gave him 52 letters to identify (they split lower and upper case) he confused 5 of them.

5 out of 52. Isn't that like a "B"? Isn't this pre-school? Are we applying to Harvard or Yale at this point? My main concern was getting him into a class where he wasn't bored out of his mind and with children his own age.


Even after emailing them and offering to continue the work at home on those 5 letters, they refused to move him.


After much debate, Troy and I decided to pull him. We realized he just wasn't going to mature in time for Kindergarten if he was forced to hang out with 3 and young 4 year olds day in and day out.


He has 5 days left and then he is sprung! He'll be spending about 6 weeks (3 days a week) with family members, until he starts....


SUMMER DAY CAMP!!


We're really excited about this! It's through a martial arts center and he'll get 2 classes a week on karate! They also go out each day whether to the park or to the local police stations, fire stations, Lowes, you name it!! They get to play dodge ball, kick ball, have water gun fights, arts and crafts, and lots of organized fun. He'll be with children his own age and a bit older. The director assured me he would come home exhausted every day! This boy is the Energizer Bunny so I was happy to hear this - it's just what he needs on the days I work!

As for Kindergarten, I've visited two different schools and we'll be applying for one outside of district but closer to our home. We're praying Daniel gets in there.

Finally we have a large medical appointment for Daniel Monday that I'm dreading. It involves sedation, a cathedar and lots of imaging. I'll get to be with him the whole time weighted down in the heavy lead gowns, but with him nonetheless. Please continue to pray for his bladder and kidney to continue to heal. I dread telling him about the appointment since he understands so much more now.

And finally, finally...we celebrated our 3rd anniversary of our court date on April 15th and our 3rd Gotcha Day on April 16th! Our final PPR read that we "have satisfied both our state and the Russian Federation requirements" for our adoption. I almost cried when I read the last line!!

Life may be extremely busy, but it's good!