School

It's been ages since I last posted about school on here!  But that's not to say that nothing of note happened in school.  On the whole, it was a very good year for Daniel.  Not so much in terms of academic learning, although more of that happened than I would have predicted.  But Daniel learned lots of English, began to internalize some American social mores (that one is still a work in progress!), made some real friends (all girls), and developed a more positive self-image.

Some things that I loved about school (besides that I didn't have Daniel attached to my person 24-7!):

Although Daniel couldn't begin to do what the other kids were doing academically, his teachers let him develop a classroom niche as a helper.  He was the one who turned lights on and off for class videos, passed things out, and helped the teachers troubleshoot their technology when it didn't work as expected.  So Daniel felt useful and competent, and got a great boost in self-esteem from peers thinking he was really smart to figure out the tech stuff.

In choir and gym, by the last half of the year, Daniel was just a regular student.  He did what the other kids did (and was good at it!), was held to the same expectations as the other kids, and got actual letter grades.

Teachers, peers and administrators genuinely enjoyed Daniel.  (Well, most of his peers--he would come home from time to time talking about "bad kids" or "annoying kids" who would trip or push other kids (apparently not just him) or try to get them in trouble.  I offered to call the school about it but he would have none of it.)  Teacher reports about Daniel frequently contained sentiments like "a joy to have in class."  And whenever I was with Daniel in school there would be kids calling out, "Hi Daniel!" every little bit.  One day I had to get him for a dentist appointment, and as he walked by the gym on his way to meet me at the front office I could hear girls from inside the gym class screaming his name.  It sounded like a whole contingent of fans, but he told me later it was just two.  :-)  Daniel can be charming and exuberant at home and apparently is charming and exuberant almost all of the time at school, which may help to account for his popularity.  Tim commented at one point, "That probably explains why he comes home so tired every day, if he's 'on' all the time at school."  I know Daniel's teachers also appreciated his curiosity, his genuine interest in understanding things, and his helpfulness.  And I suspect his classmates responded to his great sense of humor and his "realness."

Some things that happened the second half of the school year:

After the incident in which Daniel walked home from school by himself despite explicit and repeated instructions not to, I asked his vision teacher for advice.  She promptly got him an evaluation for orientation and mobility services, and he now has a special teacher who meets with him once a month and teaches him skills for walking safely within the community.  He does not yet have the green light to walk home alone, but that is the goal.  Have I mentioned how much I love his vision teacher???

During the winter, Daniel's geography class studied China.  His teacher asked me if he would be interested in doing a class presentation about China, maybe with some pictures of his city.  At first he didn't want to do it, but I insisted, and he ended up getting really invested in the presentation.  We looked through pictures together (some that he has gathered of his social welfare institute and school; others that Tim and I have from our two years in Jinan) and picked out some that we thought would give Daniel's classmates the flavor of Jinan, then practiced what to say about them.  I accompanied Daniel to his class for moral support.  He did a super job!  His classmates didn't have any trouble understanding his English, even if it was a little creative, and they were riveted.  Afterwards they asked lots of questions.  Daniel's teacher was so pleased that she asked him if he could come to her other five periods of 7th-grade geography and do his presentation for the other students!  So pretty much the entire grade got to hear Daniel present, plus a couple of administrators made time to come in for those few minutes.  He got great feedback on how interesting his life story is and how good his English has gotten.  (He told me afterwards, "Mama, I'm the kind of person who doesn't have to prepare to speak in public; I just get up there and talk!"  And truly, he has great public presence, although the extemporaneous thing will only take him so far.)  Daniel's teacher asked him a little bit more about his social welfare institute privately after his last presentation, and according to his account, he brought her to tears with the following definition of a fuliyuan (social welfare institute): "Mommy Daddy no want baby, uh, put-it-back baby in-a street, uh, police hug baby, uh, put-it-back baby in-a fuliyuan."  The students in at least one class also caught on that many of the children who end up in social welfare institutes have disabilities, and apparently there was a pretty passionate discussion about how unfair that is to judge somebody like Daniel based on their disabilities.

A couple of months before school finished, I asked for a meeting with Daniel's teachers.  I wanted to know what Daniel was actually doing in classes, given that his standard answer to "What did you do today?" was "I played on the computer."  I know Daniel well enough to take such answers with a grain of salt, so I really wanted to hear from his teachers.  I was delighted with the results.  Daniel's teachers reported that he participated in group activities to the best of his ability (his science teacher reported that he tried to tell the other members of his lab group what to do!), and that even when he did not seem to be paying attention, he would be the first to notice that they were getting ready to show a video and he would jump up to turn off the lights and go up to the board and watch.  (He cannot see well enough to see a video from his seat.)  His math teacher also said that he was attempting the same problems the other kids were working on in class, including some stuff that is way more advanced than anything I had done with him.  They all agreed that Daniel is very bright and wants to learn.  I think that myself, but it was nice to hear that he had made the same impression on his teachers!

School behavior, on the other hand, was not always angelic.  Daniel spent the last 23 days of school trying very hard not to get a detention, because he was only one lunch detention away from a day of in-school detention.  Mind you, it is not all that difficult to get a detention at his school; two of Daniel's detentions were for "disrupting the educational process" (by disassembling a classmate's mechanical pencil when he had nothing else to do) and for "failing to exit in an appropriate manner" (because he was running loudly through the hall in sandals after a previous reminder that running and loudness are not permitted).  Not that the above are desired school behaviors, but I was glad he escaped in-school for this year!  

At the teacher meeting, I met Daniel's new long-term substitute math teacher for the first time.  She was very sentimental about Daniel and what a great kid he is and how inspirational he is, to the point that I was mildly irritated.  I was more than mildly irritated when Daniel came home saying that she said he could call her his "school mama" and he wished she could be his mama.  Obviously Ms. Starry-Eyed Math Teacher has never heard of attachment theory!  (I found out later that he took to addressing her as "chocolate mama" and the other kids picked up on it, so by the end of the year she was everybody's "chocolate mama.")  Since it was almost the end of the school year and I doubted she would be encountering recently adopted kids on a regular basis in the future, I elected not to say anything.  I was not disappointed, however, to hear that she will be at a different school next year.  (I should clarify that I don't bear her personal ill-will--I'm confident her intentions were good--but it wasn't helpful for our family at the place we are at.)

There were a couple of tragedies at school this year too.  One involved a student in Daniel's grade, and it hit some of his classmates pretty hard.  The day they learned about this situation, it was the main topic of conversation in choir class.  According to Daniel's account of events, somebody decided that they should pray for the girl involved, but then was too nervous to do the actual praying.  So they asked Daniel to pray.  And he did.  Out loud and in English.  As best he could remember it to tell me, his prayer went something like: "Dear God, please give [the girl's name] peace at your side and tell her that students love her and [our family] loves her."  I thought it was very appropriate for the situation.  And it did make me wonder what Daniel has been doing or talking about in school that his classmates thought to ask him to offer a public prayer.  We are proud of him being able and willing to step up and offer that kind of leadership.

The end of the school year finished with a bang.  Two days before school ended, I got to go see the 7th-grade awards ceremony.  I hadn't been sure what to expect, but it turned out to involve presenting certificates to any student who had accomplished pretty much anything.  The students were pretty good about clapping for all of their classmates, and from time to time a cluster of them would stand up to cheer for a particular friend.  Daniel got a certificate for "faithful attendance"--and more than half the student body gave him a standing ovation.  I just about started crying in the middle of the auditorium.  Then on the last day of school Tim and Esther and I all went to the final assembly.  Part of the assembly was a talent show, for which Daniel had auditioned and was one of ten students chosen to perform.  (Like with his geography presentation, he was very diffident at first, and would probably not have gone through with the audition if I had not insisted.  I'm thinking that next year I will insist more often!)  The performances were all good: a gymnastics routine (done by somebody Esther recognized from her gym); an original rap on the topic of bullying; an original song performed on the piano; a drum solo; an a cappella duet; and several more traditional musical numbers (mostly current love songs).  Daniel sang one of the songs that had been written for him when he was his orphanage's chief P.R. kid.  It is called "Mama," and ironically is addressed to the orphanage caregivers, describing how the orphanage is the "family" that the speaker needs in order to grow up well.  But since it is all in Chinese, nobody but Daniel's one Chinese-speaking classmate was any the wiser.  Daniel spent the several days before the performance insisting that he didn't want us to come, and that he would be embarrassed if we showed up.  We told him that was tough, we are family and family come to each other's special events.  Then he called us shortly before his performance to make sure we had gotten the video camera ready!  :-)  When Daniel was called to the front, his music teacher got ready to introduce him, but he grabbed the microphone away from her.  Then he told the students that he wanted to sing this song for his mommy because June 13th is his family day and last June 13th I came to China to get him.  He went on to nail the performance.  I think his voice was still changing when we met him, but now he is much more confident in his new tenor, and performing that very familiar song, he sounded amazing!  He got a standing ovation that time, too.  Later, as we were getting ready to leave, several of his teachers pulled us aside to say how much they had enjoyed getting to know him this year, and to give him a group gift: a motion activated soap dispenser!  He had been greatly admiring the soap dispenser in his science teacher's classroom, and I don't think they could have gotten anything that pleased him more.

And then we brought him home and began summer vacation.  :-)

Finally!

Remember that loose tooth that Esther discovered at three in the morning during a visit to Grandma's house?  You know, about six weeks ago?  Well, it's finally (finally!) out.  I don't know if loose teeth normally take this long, or if this one went slowly because Esther didn't want to yank on it (although she did enjoy wiggling it from time to time), or if it had to do with how the permanent teeth were coming in.  Both of her permanent lower front incisors have already erupted, behind the loose baby teeth.  So the missing tooth actually doesn't change her smile much, since there's already another tooth there.  It's amazing to me how tiny the baby tooth is.  The permanent teeth aren't huge either, which is a good thing if she's going to get them this early.  Her little mouth doesn't have space for big teeth yet!  I still can't believe she's getting her permanent teeth this early, but I guess it's within the range of normal.

Esther is, of course, excited about her tooth coming out.  Daniel suggested that she throw it up on the roof, like he did when his lower baby teeth came out.  (I've heard of this Chinese tradition; lower teeth are thrown up to make the new permanent ones grow upwards; upper teeth are buried in the ground to make the new permanent teeth grow downwards.)  Daddy mentioned that if she put her tooth under her pillow it would be changed into quarters.  But, although the quarters held some mystery and allure, she decided that the very best thing to do with her tooth would be to keep it.  So we now have a large plastic baggie containing a tiny tooth, labeled with Esther's name and the date and the precise original location of the tooth in her mouth.  Her other lower front incisor should follow soon, but I've told her that she's not going to keep every tooth.  So the next tooth will likely go to the tooth fairy.

Happy Birthday, Esther!

In our family, we now have three birthdays within two weeks.  First Daniel, then me, then Esther.  (Poor Tim has to wait until September for his.  I tell him that our next child needs to have a September birthday; he tells me that two is plenty!)

Esther celebrated her 5th birthday this past week, while we were still in Phoenix visiting Tim's family.  We started out by all swimming in the hotel pool.  Esther could stay in the water for hours and not get bored.  Then we went over to Tim's mom's house and Esther spent the afternoon playing with Grandma and Daddy and the dogs and kitten while Daniel and I helped Tim's sister with a bookcase replacement project.  In the evening, all of Tim's siblings and their families came over for dinner and an ice cream cake, and both the kids got their birthday presents from that side of the family.  Esther liked everything she got, but the funniest thing was her reaction to her gift card from Amazon.com.  She was beyond thrilled with it!  I don't know if she had any clear idea what she could use it for, but Daniel is crazy about Amazon and also had gotten an Amazon card, so Esther thought she was big stuff to have one of her own.  She thinks she is going to use it to buy a pillow pet.  She has been asking for one for months, and I have been refusing to buy it for her because I think they're a pointless fad.  But I remember how fun it was to have a grandparent buy me something that my parents had declined to spend their money on, so I will admit I was the one who suggested a pillow pet as a use for the gift card.  I suggested some other possibilities too, but the pillow pet was the idea that she loved.  (She also wants an iPie--aka iPod--but there is no way we are letting a five-year-old have a personal $175 electronic device!)

Esther is very proud of being five.  She is working on a mental timeline of her life, and will frequently ask me things like, "How old was I when we did X?  Could I talk then?"  Since X is often an event within the last year, her questions can come out sounding pretty funny.  She loves to talk about what she did when she was a baby, but is a little less invested in being a baby than she was even a few months ago.  She does, however, still love her green blankie and still love to be picked "uppy."  But even green blankie is fading slightly in importance; one day we went to look for it at bedtime and were shocked to find it still in her bed where she had left it when she got up in the morning!  That was just a one-time occurrence, however, and blankie frequently keeps her company while playing or snuggling, and comes along in the car with us when we go to church or on outings.

The world is blessed that there is an Esther in it, and we are especially blessed to have been entrusted with parenting her.  Happy birthday to our sweet, almost-grown-up-but-not-too-big-to-snuggle five-year-old!