Wilson’s World

…a day of peace. Yes, I babysat today but we finally had a day of peace. Preston helped bring the toy kitchen down last night and that seemed make everyone happy. Plus Kyla and the little boy were cooperating with each other better today… they still had their moments but MUCH better!

At school today Preston was excited to see if they had caught a Leprechaun…. they didn’t ;0). But I believe he left some “gold”…. candies, which was exciting enough for Preston. They also made some St. Patty’s Day hats. He had a good day. But I think the best part was being able to wear short sleeves again. His treatment of his bumps is healed and his other arm isn’t that bad so we put band aides on them and he was happy. He usually hates band aides but I guess it was better then long sleeves!

Tomorrow we are headed to the gym and then to Preston’s friend’s house and then that afternoon I think we are going to My Gym. Bit of a busy day, not bad though.

I emailed our social worker at CHI a week or so ago and she had just returned from Haiti :0)!

She had nothing but great things to say about the Créche(orphanage) which is good to hear because everyone that I’ve talked to about this particular Créche says the same awesome things.

As for the new law, not much. It’s still at a standstill but the Director at the Créche is hopeful and positive that it will move forward soon. But as I’ve stated before we are in no hurry. We are perfectly fine if we don’t start until the beginning of 2009. I know it will all fall into place when it’s suppose to! So in the meantime we’ll work on our pre-adption education, yes, we have to take online classes to help understand the transition of the adopted child and having a blended family. Which, hey, I’m all for, the more we learn the better :0)!

Oh, here is the letter that Kathy from CHI sent out to the families that are already in the process of adopting from Haiti after she returned to the states:

“Bon Jour Haiti families!

As you all know, I was very fortunate to visit the creche in Haiti this past week.

Even though the photos on C4C’s web site and forum of this place look nice, I’ve learned that photos are not typically a true picture of what an orphanage is really like.  That being said, I have to say that Crèche Enfant de l’Jèsus is so much better than all the photos!

The children truly get lots of quality attention and great care. You can tell that as soon as you arrive.  There are many beautiful smiles and bright eyes!

There were so many things that amazed me.  Did you know that your children are bathed at least twice a day?  I could not stop touching their skin and hair.  They feel so smooth and smell so good! I can tell you that this NEVER happens in other orphanages.  It’s a habit for me to breathe through my mouth when I visit orphanages…but not there!  As soon as a baby needs a diaper change, they also get another bath.  I never did get even a whiff of anything unpleasant. ;-)  And they keep the whole place very clean.  My tile floors would be jealous if they knew!

We observed several mealtimes and were impressed at the nutrition the children receive.  They are required to clean their plates and I didn’t see any having a major problem doing this, even though the portions were very ample. Unfortunately, this is no guarantee that your child will not evolve into a picky eater once home!

For those of you with children in physical therapy…this is money very well spent.  We watched the therapist every day working with the little ones. She spends a lot of time individual with them massaging and exercising their limbs.  This early intervention will make a huge difference.

The children also receive and greatly enjoy preschool from their teacher, John.  He obviously loves these children and knows every one of them well.  He puts a lot of emphasis on teaching them English, which will help them (and you) transition easier once they come home. He is also the person who translates/writes the monthly reports you receive.  When he is not teaching, he is perched at the computer writing the monthly report for each child…alone easily a full time job!

Another thing that is so important for these children in transition is structure and they also have this.  With the changes that the children have gone through in their little lives, it’s so important that they have this.  Combined with the genuine care they get from the aunties, having a set routine has a very calming effect on them.

There are several families who are still in the early stages and have not traveled to visit yet.  I am attaching the travel information from C4C, which is excellent.  When you do travel, it is so wonderful if you can use as much luggage space as possible to take donations down with you.  These donations of everything from baby formula to peanuts help insure that your children have what they need.  Many of the items on the donation request list are not available in Haiti.  The donation wish list is updated frequently and will be sent to you before you travel.

In the 15+ years I have been working with adoptions, I have had the opportunity to visit hundreds of orphanages in many parts of the world.. Crèche Enfant de l’Jèsus is by far the best one I’ve seen!  Even though your children are not yet in your arms, you should rest easier knowing that they are in the next best place!”

I finally put my notice in to the little boy’s family that I Babysit for. I’ll be hanging up my Babysitting gig as of June 1st and honestly I can’t wait. We will have so much to do this summer and I won’t have to think or plan for someone else’s kid, it’ll be nice. Plus I won’t have to deal with the on going battle between him and Kyla. This week was crazy. If you came to my home on a day I don’t babysit vs a day when I do you would be amazed at how my kids act. The house is so calm vs absolute chaos. No matter what or how many projects we do it’s still chaos. Kyla likes to play on her own and the little boy just can’t leave her alone and it’s just an ongoing battle all day. It’s very tiring! Not having the extra money won’t be fun but I’ve been working on this sinario for a while so we’ll be fine, we’ll just have to watch how much we do during the week. Plus we got some bills paid off which is always good :0)!

Besides all that, Preston was suppose to go over to his other classmates house yesterday morning but got his heart set on doing an art project and didn’t want to go, even with the suggestion that he could go after the project. We’ve been trying to get the boys together for a couple of weeks now and Preston says no, that’s Preston for you. He’s like, “I play with J_ at school”. He’s getting to smart for things lately, no more simple tricks!

Speaking of Preston’s mentality. He’s picking up sarcasm very good… he has no choice, both his parents are VERY sarcastic! He already has a great sense of humor and says witty things. Example… I was getting ready to go to the store last night and asked him if there was anything he wanted from the store, without missing a beat he replies, “eyeballs” pauses and then goes on asking for an actual item from the store. AWESOME!! He does stuff like this all time, it’s so funny!

Oh, Thursday afternoon Preston went over to his friends house from school. It was really nice to have a Playdate with one of his classmates. The family is really nice and Preston had fun. Though I’m not sure if he’ll be going to K with Preston or not. I want to say hi Mom said he is going to go to Westford but I have to double check on that.

After playing with his friend we tried out a new Gymnastics place, much better! They are much more about teaching actual gymnastics then the other place we go, it’s more fun with a little bit of techinique. Preston likes both of them but this one is a bit more expensive, though I do see why. We may switch over in a few weeks but we also might just cut it out. He will start soccer here next month and I want to get him signed up for some Summer Camps, so we’ll see.

So we went to K Registration this morning… nothing really. We got to the school, Preston was sooo excited, we were guided to the Cafeteria by signs, okay one sign, the cafeteria is just around the corner from the front door. We got a folder with the paperwork and sat down at one of the lunch tables. Just shortly after we sat down one of the teachers came and talked to Preston for a couple of seconds and then took him to a classroom. Meanwhile I stayed where I was and started the oh so fun paperwork.

About 15 - 25 minutes later I was done with the paperwork and Preston appeared back in the Cafeteria with a different teacher and that was it. He said he likes his new school and that it’s much bigger then his school now, which it is!

I have no idea what kind of evaluation they did with him in the classroom, as parents don’t go in. He said she talked to him and asked about colors and shapes, he had to make a pyramid and got to jump on one leg while she counted to ten. That’s all he’s shared with me so far. He might decide to tell me more later, I don’t know :0).

Either way, he’s excited and happy to go so that’s all I care about… an easy transition :0)!!

So tomorrow is a big day.. Kindergarten Registration. Wow, I can’t believe it’s here already! Do I really have a 5 year old?! Seems so surreal sometimes… I’m not that old am I :0).

Anyways, tomorrow we have K Registration. They will evaluate Preston and see where he’s at and if he needs anything “special” to help him succeed. While he’s doing that I get to do the fun part…. paperwork, wooohoooo!

I’ll let you know how it goes!

So Monday was pretty boring.

Preston had school and had a fit because he had to wear long sleeves. He has issues with changing his “routine”. We had a huge ordeal when summer was over and it was time to start wearing pants…. not fun! He also has issues with getting hot, he hates it. Especially in the summer when we get in the car and it’s all hot cause I haven’t had the chance to turn on the air yet. He will completely FREAK OUT! Hopefully he’ll have a bit more patience this year :0).

Other then that I babysat but the little boy had to go home early because he was sick. He was completely miserable, I felt bad for the little guy.

Oh speaking of sick, I think I’ve got another cold. Kind of a head cold but my body will ache too. Hopefully it passes soon!

We made our way to the gym this morning, I got a good work out in. Jarod had his second baseball practice this morning. They’re just hitting in the cages for now and meeting everyone.

Kyla had a better drop off and even went potty while was working out. I stopped by the kid area to check on her, they have those one way mirror things so us parents can take a peek without upsetting the kids, and she was hanging out by the bathroom door and one of the girls took her, yay. She’s been doing great with her potty training, though it’s not really training, she’s pretty much done. She’s even waking up at night to go, staying dry all night!!

Anyways, after the gym we met my friend Rachael and her two kiddos at Burger King, the perfect post-work out food ;0). The kids had a blast playing in the tunnles. Preston has been begging me to go there for at least a month. It was nice, I always try to avoid McDonald’s because it’s always crazy busy and feels dirty. Burger King is a bit more low key and a bit cleaner or at least this one was. We were there for two hours!! Amazing how time flies sometimes.

We headed home and Preston played some XBox and Kyla literally crashed out on the couch. She’s never fallen asleep on the couch for a nap! She was probably wiped out plus I don’t think she’s feeling that great. She’s got a very inconsistent cough and her tummy seems to be upset every now-and-again… weird winter bugs, I’ll be glad when they’re gone.

Speaking of, we can actually see part of our front yard now. The snow is melting steadily giving everyone some hope of getting outside soon to enjoy Spring.

Well, that’s about it, gotta clean up a bit, I have a a playgroup here tomorrow morning.

I feel the pain for my parents now…. Our car rides lately, “Mom I can count to 100, 1, 2, 3….100, 101, 102….”. I vagely remember doing this to my own parents. At first it’s awesome knowing he can count so far and that he grasps the concept of counting after he reaches 100 but wow, 100 is a long time :0)! I love him anyways!!

Preston is really good with number, just like his Dad! We were stuck at a train yesterday and Preston is talking about this and that while the train is passing. Then says he doesn’t like this train because it’s too long. Finally the train passes and we start to move on…”That was a long train, it had 86 boxes” says Preston. I’m like, “You counted all of those?”, he replies, “Yeah”. I’m thinking how the heck did he keep track counting all those boxcars and talking at the same time… I couldn’t keep track if I was alone in the car and writing it down!!

He’s always done a lot of number work in his head, just like his dad… addition and subtraction. It’s really neat, I still don’t know how Jarod does it.

It’s amazing how their little minds work!!

So we finally got to play outside yesterday!! It was nice and Sunny and the snow/ice on the driveway was melting so I worked on that with some help from Preston while Kyla rode her bike and wondered around. Preston then joined her and they had a blast outside for the first time since November!

Tonight I’m hosting Game Night at my house so I’ve been cleaning in-between keeping the peace between Kyla and the little boy I babysit. They’ve been having it out this week hopefully it passes and we’ll be back to the norm next week… oh wait, this is the norm :0)!

OH, so we got Jarod’s car on Wednesday. Yes, they had to keep it over night… there was something else wrong with it. Even though it cost a small fortune to get fixed Jarod is really happy with how it is running… like a new car!! YES, we will be taking better care of it from now on! Don’t worry my car is fine we had it serviced before we hooked it up to the trailer.

We also had gymnastics yesterday. Both kids did great! Kyla finally decided to participate in almost everything :0). She’s doing really good and enjoys it. Preston loves it! Oh, I also got him signed up for spring Soccer, he’s soooooo excited. He hasn’t played in a while and is very much looking forward to it.

After gymnastics we had to go to the dermatologist. Preston has some bumps that he got his first treatment for. Luckily he cooperated. Last time we went the Dr. barely got a glimpse of them. So we had to do a home treatment and he HATED it so he was ready to cooperate this time. He got a little scared when she was ready to put the cream on them but overall did awesome. He now has some yucky spots on him, some have turned into blisters but she said they might do that. This was his first treatment, only his left arm, next time we have to do a different section and so on until we get them all…. fun, fun!!

We also started doing more pages out of his Preschool books that I have had but he really didn’t have much interest in them. Then after reading a friends blog thought, oh yeah, I have those books. He’s loving them!! We do pages beyond pages at a time. It’s really nice to see him interested in all of this especially since we have Kindergarten Registration next week.

While we work on his books, Kyla has entered the world of coloring. She colors about 4 different times a day. I’m thinking I might have to get more coloring books. I only have a few since Preston was never really into coloring but that seems to be changing too, he’s been coloring more lately.