Changes

We've had a lot of changes in the past few weeks. I have been extremely busy and as you can tell I haven't blogged for quite some time. I even shut the blog down for a bit, but I know my family keeps up with me here so I put it back up.

Meskerem is doing very well. She has fit into our family like a glove on a hand. She's full of life, energy, affection, and happiness.

The first week she was with us though, it wasn't going well, for me. She was having the time of her life, while I thought, "What have I done?" again. I always get like that the first few days of a new adoption. I did that with one of the littles when she was a baby. I thought she hated me and wanted to give her back. Now I can't imagine my life without her.

I cried and cried the first week. I thought I couldn't do it, go through with this adoption. Her behavior was so over the top. Not that she was naughty per se, but very brash and prickly. Not at all what I had conjured up in my mind. My praying friends from church, online, and homeschooling all started praying for me.

It's better. But for my sanity and for the good of the adoption I enrolled six of my children in public school. I tried homeschooling one day with all the kids even Meskerem. That went downhill fast. So many needs at so many different levels and I can't even form a word right because of my Bell's Palsy.

I have four make that five that are learning to read. I have some older kids who are behind academically who are very distracted by all the noise in the house when trying to study. I have kids who come from extreme malnourishment and poverty. I have given all I have for in the home education realm for twenty-three years, but I needed a break. I still had two at home.

But then one wanted to come back home. He was too far behind academically to feel comfortable in a class.

Then another wanted to come home. She is a loner and really didn't like the classroom setup.

Then I brought our oldest daughter at home back home. I helped her one night with her homework and she had to answer questions on The Federalist Papers and learn the first twenty elements on the Periodic Table of the Elements.

Ummm....I'm NOT GOING TO SCHOOL!!! I didn't understand the questions and the content, how was she going to understand it? How would I ever be able to explain to her in a simple enough way for her to understand? I couldn't!!! She's learning at a fourth grade level right now, she wasn't ready to jump up to eighth grade learning. Someday she'll be there, but not now. I do have to brag on her just a little. She just finished her grade 3 math and science and started her grade 4 learning. She hasn't even been here four years and she's already learned how to read (simply), do math, science, history and language for grades K-3. Pretty darn good if you ask me!

So now I have three at the school. It's a little charter school on the local Indian Reservation by our house. Abi absolutely loves school. She loves everything about it. Meskerem who goes by the name Amy at school loves school and is smart as a whip, but somedays wants to stay home because Addis and Anna are home. Adah loves school, but misses momma. The principal has said she is a very smart girl and medical school could be in her future-that's how smart she is. Addis & I think she's going to be cop because she loves to make sure everyone is following the rules and lets us know if there is any kind of infraction!

We've had a young friend get into a situation that affected our family very deeply. It's a tragic story, but God is in control and He knows best.

We have a close friend who has been diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma. This was within a week of our younger friend's situation. We were grieving for about two weeks and I think we're finally coming out of it.

There is no news on our Ethiopian adoption. We're getting quite frustrated on our end that nothing is happening (that we know of) on her case. Adoptive friends tell us they see her and play with her, but she was supposed to be here months and months ago. We need to update our homestudy, but that's another $700+. We feel as though we're chasing our tail and continuously going around in a circle.

After the thousands and thousands of dollars we put into adopting Meskerem the homestudy update and travel fees needed for Little A seem very out of reach right now. I'm taking some curriculum and cookbooks to sell at our co-op to raise some funds.

I'll post pics in a few days.