Update (overdue!)

Wow, I don’t even know where to begin.  In my last post almost 5 months ago, I promised to post more often. Clearly, I failed miserably. But I will try to redeem myself by posting plenty of videos this time. I’ve spent a lot of hours fiddling with photos, videos and music. You know how you end up with all that footage that you never watch again and photos that end up collecting dust? Well, I think condensing them into little productions turns all that into something worth re-watching over the years.

So lets’ see…the Fall season was a pretty good one, full of events like Halloween and Thanksgiving. I’ll let the video do the talking.

The kids also turned 6 in November. We didn’t do a party this time as we knew that a couple of weeks after that we would be going to visit my side of the family in Malta and they were all very eager to meet them. So we decided to have a gathering there instead. Plus we were quite busy to get our act together and invite some friends over (Christmas time is not the “most wonderful time of the year” for Lori. One word: Retail!). So Lori bought them some gifts and after opening their presents, we went out to lunch. Following that, we went to watch Toy Story 3 in 3D, which was a gift for the whole family: very moving and entertaining.

Just two weeks shy of our departure to Malta, Isaac hurt his foot getting off the bus. So a trip to the minor emergency center and a (badly formed) splint later, we had to set up an appointment with an Orthopedic surgeon once again. He put him in a brace for a week and luckily, that’s all that was needed. Isaac was as good as new a day before our planned departure, which was on the 17th of December at 8:40pm. Lori couldn’t leave with us due to work, so I traveled with the kids to Malta by myself and she joined us 5 days later (but not her luggage, which showed up 4 days later!). I had already done it once again from Ukraine to the US, so what’s the bid deal, right? Well, see if you can figure out what happened from the video.

Ah yeah, it was such fun hauling two difficult kids and all that darn luggage. But I got it done once again and this time, without the aid of harnesses

Unfortunately I got sick twice while on vacation and so did Lori. And pretty much everyone else in the family (yup, they blamed me for it). Luckily the kids did not get sick, probably thanks to their flu shot. You can bet that I’m getting it next season!

We had a great time visiting everyone when we could and so did the twins. We did not get to see everyone as it was very difficult to accommodate everyone since we spent almost 60% of our time coughing and fighting fever. For example New Year’s eve was a blast. Unfortunately that same night on January 1st, I started round #2 of my fight against the flu.

We finally got better a few days before our departure and the weather, albeit a bit chilly, was calling us to get out, so we did!

So we made it back to the US in one piece and slid right into the usual routine. The first week of school was rough. Actually, Isaac’s first day back was awesome. He missed his teachers and aides, and was in great spirits. But it didn’t last long and the rest of the week was shaky. Isabella had on and off days but stabilized a bit after that. However her performance at school isn’t going so well and we’re now trying some medications to help with her attention deficit. We’re not seeing results yet but we still have plenty of legroom to increase the meds.

We had a parent-teacher conference and learned a lot more about how they spend their day. The highlight for me (and I’m sure Lori’s too) was to hear the teachers talking about how the kids in the main classroom adore Isaac and are always trying to help him when he’s having a tough time integrating in the classroom. It was actually quite moving to hear, and the teacher said the kids were asking about his whereabouts daily for the extra few days that he lost due to travel. His Special-ed teacher reported how he’s actually doing quite well academically and also how well he’s doing at learning and communicating through sign language.

Isabella’s teacher also said that the kids try to help her when she has a hard time following or understanding. She’s not being effective at focusing and conducting independent work, and the school finally realizes that she needs extra support. A few days later we had an official meeting and we’re glad that Isabella will now also have an IEP and further support in the classroom. It might not happen until next year, but at least assuming she moves on to first grade, she won’t continue to fall so much behind her peers. Here’s their first school performance. We were delighted to finally see Isaac participating with the rest of his friends, something that he was never allowed to do while in Ukraine. Thanks Miss L., Miss M. and all the team!

As you have seen in one of the videos, Isaac lost his first tooth in Malta. Isabella’s teeth keep coming off. Well, actually she pulls them out herself, sometimes quite early too. Can’t stop that girl. As she likes to say, “That’s crazy!”

As the weather got better, we finally met our friends the H’s for a great day out at the zoo. We can’t wait to go back when time permits to meet again and also some other friends which we haven’t seen in a while.

On the Speech Therapy side, we have appealed with our health insurance company and we’re now waiting for a decision. I’m not holding my breath but at least we gave it our best shot. We had to stick with the same health insurance company as last year since there was no better option. Hopefully they’ll listen to our plea for the benefit of our kids.

Well that’s a wrap: 5 months in one post. You can now rest your eyes…until next time!