Hope

I almost hesitate to put this into print .... but we have had some amazing breakthroughs lately.

Estifanos continues to settle in and do well - his ESL evaluation - his reading ability almost disqualified him from services. LOL what a riot. The boy can read like you would not believe, but the understanding isn't there yet - happily they realized that on thier own. He has tremendous phonics skills and can read anything in front of him but doesn't alway understand it. However - once his understanding kicks in I think he may need to jump up a grade. He can do all the math that the second grade is doing without any struggle whatso ever.... really kind of surprising.

Alemtsehay - has been really settled this last week+ She has been sleeping on the floor in our room - which I wish we had done from the beginning. We didn't because she seemed so happy to sleep in a room with her sister... but it wasn't helping her to be more secure. Once we told her she would have to sleep with us until she was ready to sleep all night in her own bed - well we thought she'd flip, but instead she was totally excited about it. Now tonight she announced she'd sleep in her own room again - we'll see. She is taking her meds without a fight - I told her she needed to take them to stay healthy and grow up to be a teacher (the current career of choice) and so now she does. Of course it helps that Estifanos and Daddy take meds every morning too. And really big deal I was able to go out shopping on Sat with out her having a total and complete meltdown at being left at home with Dad and the rest of the kids. As soon as I told her I was going out she wanted to come and when I told her no - it was apparent that her stress level was ramping up. And it doesn't go up slowly it goes from 1 to meltdown in 10 seconds flat - but we were able to stop it simply by getting down to her level and saying Mommy always comes back and Daddy will do a good job of taking care of you until I do. (and making her repeat it) Then on sunday we were able to go to Walmart - the kids needed new bikes - so yes she was getting something, but even when she has gotten something before the store has provoked meltdowns, but she did amazing this time. And at the Drs on Thursday she was able to pick from the prize box - and she choose a "magic wand" like in Cinderella - and the first thing she thought of was the Becca would want one too (not something she could get 2 of), so she instead gave Becca a pink one that she already had at home... amazing. And Daddy had to travel this week - and while she was not happy about it she didn't fall apart and isn't punishing me for it either. The best thing about all this progress is that it has been a gift in stress reduction for me. I am not so foolish to think that everything is solved - because it isn't... but we are moving foward. There will be times of moving backward too - but today I will take the gift I have been given, a glimpse of what healing looks like for this precious child - what hope and a future are. Praise God.