The First 100 Days...

While it may not be as important as Barack Obama's first hundred days, Joshua's class celebrated their first 100 days of school. We never celebrated "100 day" when I was a kid but it is kind of fun and the Kindergartners all seem to enjoy it. I was thinking about it on my drive to work today, and realized that the first 100 days for Josh have brought about great change for him..."change we can believe in"...hahahaha!

I see in him a new found maturity and a far greater level of responsibility than I ever would have expected. He adores school, is madly in love with his teacher, and is proving to be a good little student even at the Kindergarten level. The child who was least interested in anything scholarly is suddenly fascinated with letters and words, and is trying to read literally everything he sees. Watching him blossom has been such a kick!

100 days from now, I wonder what we will be doing? Ski season will be behind us, the end of the school year will be in sight, and maybe...just maybe...we will be close to a travel date.

We are coming off a rough couple of weeks with Kenny since returning from Chicago. Not horribly bad but Mr. Control reappeared and we have spent the better part of the past two weeks trying to curb his desire to run the show again. He got in trouble in class for a minor moment of not paying attention which unfortunately just had to happen right in front of the principal and a district rep. who were visiting the classroom at the time. He refused to stop making snowflakes rather than pay attention to his assignment, and after being talked to twice still wanted to just do what he wanted to...because after all, hadn't they figured out that Kenny was the "Man in Charge"?? haha! Upon learning of his misadventures that day, he had to come home and write an apology note to his teacher to be delivered first thing the next morning.

We had another incident where he elected not to tell us he had lost a book loaned to us from his teacher from her personal collection and we only found out when Josh innocently shares his secret (Warning: NEVER tell your 6 year old brother something unless you WANT it to be told immediately to your parents!). When asked about it, he shrugged and said "I didn't want to tell you, I didn't want to get in trouble.". Hmmm....I guess he never got far enough in his thinking to realize we were going to eventually discover the lost book when we had to return it. Luckily, he left the book at our friend's house, but sadly he ended up spending what was going to be a homeworkless evening writing 100 sentances about telling mom and dad the truth.

It's all little things, and the subtle control stuff is mainly him trying to tell everyone in the room how we are going to do something, or take over a conversation. We are still working on learning more appropriate manners for interrupting, monopolizing a conversation, etc. It is interesting that all of this is so cyclical, and I think that maybe the last day or two we are on the upswing and all will be good for the next couple of weeks. It does seem to be slowly improving, each time we go through this it is a little less difficult, a little more toned down.

We are done gathering the documents that had to be redone, and are awaiting their translation so we can move forward with the apostille. How I hope this will be the last of the documents we have to recreate!! Kenny's readoption is now done and we need to get going on his US passport. We are still awaiting Matthew's renewed Kazakhstani passport. There are moments when I wonder if we will ever be done with paperwork in our life! Doesn't completing an international adoption qualify one for some sort of Congressional Medal of Honor or at the very least as "Paperwork Pusher of the Year"??

I am still trying to claw my way out of a bit of a funk over a lot of things, today was not the best as I am awaiting news about a dear friend who is experiencing some medical concerns that we just learned about. It just seems at moments right now that I can't handle my usual multi-tasking mountain of stuff, like my head isn't in the game or something. Sort of on the verge of shut down I guess. And I am feeling old...arthritis in the hip and back are slowing me down a little, making sleep elusive. I used to laugh at that old adage about being able to feel a storm coming in your joints, but I sure am not laughing anymore.

I did have a wonderful visit with a friend last night, someone who always helps me see things from a fresher and more positive perspective. It was nice to take some time for myself, to sit in a dimly lit restaurant slurping several Diet Cokes and yacking with abandon.

100 Days. I'm going to mark my calendar and see where we are when we next mark 100 days.