I may be biased, but I am going to give Jacinda the "Gold Star Award" for all of her academic achievements in the last six weeks!
My girl is ROCKING the vocabulary! Before her arrival I did some research and decided that the Smart Talk System would be a great way to get her started and my co-workers were generous enough to surprise me with one. Jacinda uses it almost everyday.
If you aren't familiar with Smart Talk, here's a description of the system.
This smart and affordable English Language Acquisition Program uses crystal-clear audio, flashing lights, and fun sounds to guide English Language Learners. Students SEE a photograph, HEAR the word, and the REPEAT it, practicing their pronunciation until they've added the word to their spoken English vocabulary. Students then hear the word in context and are asked questions about the target word. By emulating Smart Talk's speech, students learn to use standard English grammar patterns in sentences and questions. By answering simple questions, students reinforce their ability to construct sentences with the new vocabulary and hone their listening comprehension skills.
Through it she quickly learned words like paper towels, salt and pepper and other household items. I got the Home and Family card set before she came and just ordered the School and Community set yesterday!
Jacinda has mastered the skills of picking out what object is different and rhyming. She can sort, do mazes and work my computer like a pro! She is a skilled mathematician with her addition and subtraction skills!
And two weeks ago, my girl started reading! Yep, we're doing sight words! So far she has mastered: a, and, in, the, to, green, red, three, ten, is, it, of, that, you, blue, yellow, six, nine, look, play, fun & run.
I am so proud of her. She constantly amazes me! This weekend I could tell how excited she was with what she has learned since she was pointing out these words on some posters in the church Sunday School room. She also likes to quiz me and is quick to scold when I get a word or two "intentionally" wrong.
Again I may be biased, but I think my girl is brilliant!
Monday, July 13, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Adjusting and Honesty
In the one month that Jacinda has been home, I would honestly say that 97 percent of the time things are picture perfect. However, this post is going to focus on the other 3 percent...
Throughout my adoption journey I had heard other parents talking about the famous Ethiopian pout, so the first time the pout came to visit, I immediately recognized the signs. You really must experience this to get the full picture of it, but I will try my best to describe it.
Jacinda's pout goes something like this. First her always present beautiful smile disappears as she purses her lips together. Then her beautiful brown eyes halt their dancing and become empty pools of darkness as she stares right above my head or directly through me as I speak to her. Next her thin, but strong little arms that are usually hugging me or tickling me, become paralyzed and find a frozen spot crossed in front of her chest. She stands defiantly, ignoring me and everything around us.
Now honestly in the six weeks that I have been with her, we have only had four or five instances of this, so I count myself blessed as I know families who have much more frequent visits from the Ethiopian pout. But during one of my bouts with the pout, that is little consolation to me.
A few times school work has been the culprit. Usually she works on her vocabulary words and does book work with zeal and no complaining, but a time or two, she obviously doesn't "feel" like doing it and prefers to goof off or haphazardly write nonsense answers and when I call her on it, she instantly shuts down. The other day her regular tutor was out of town, so I had a substitute come in to help. Honestly I thought it would be fun for Jacinda because it is a young teen girl that she absolutely ADORES. However, Jacinda immediately thought it was going to be a play day and when that didn't work out for her. She shut down and the pout came to visit for a couple of hours.
Another time, I won the worst mother of the year award for trying to slip a sliver of egg into a breakfast sandwich. She looked at me with detest and snarled "Egg." In my defense my darling daughter ate eggs while we were together in Ethiopia. She had turned her nose up to them a few times since we had been home, but I honestly thought combining them in the folds of a sandwich would be a good way to get her to try them again. Boy was I wrong! I advised her to follow the same rule with the sandwich as we have with everything else...take two bites and if you don't like it, no problem. Well evidently that was a problem for her. What ensued was a battle of the wills...she took a bite of egg, but then held it in her mouth like a 2-year-old. She seemed shocked that I knew what she was doing and swallowed the egg, only after I told her to open her mouth. She did take two bites and I was true to my word and removed the offensive egg from the sandwich. When I asked her if she just didn't like eggs, instead of answering me...the pout took over and she pretended I didn't exist for the next few hours. She even found a way to button the back of her church dress and tie her bow without me. It was a lovely Sunday morning.
While we talk about the pouting afterward and I pull out an Amharic chart of feelings to get her to tell me what is going on inside of her head (just in case the culprit is frustration at not being able to express herself. She will NEVER say she is angry, even though I know she must be.
As I try to get Jacinda to work through her feelings and understand that part of life is sometimes doing things that we don't really feel like doing, I have also discovered that I too suffer from frustration. As I said months ago, this would be a process and now I am learning that I am not merely a guide or spectator to her transition, because we truly are on this journey TOGETHER!
Throughout my adoption journey I had heard other parents talking about the famous Ethiopian pout, so the first time the pout came to visit, I immediately recognized the signs. You really must experience this to get the full picture of it, but I will try my best to describe it.
Jacinda's pout goes something like this. First her always present beautiful smile disappears as she purses her lips together. Then her beautiful brown eyes halt their dancing and become empty pools of darkness as she stares right above my head or directly through me as I speak to her. Next her thin, but strong little arms that are usually hugging me or tickling me, become paralyzed and find a frozen spot crossed in front of her chest. She stands defiantly, ignoring me and everything around us.
Now honestly in the six weeks that I have been with her, we have only had four or five instances of this, so I count myself blessed as I know families who have much more frequent visits from the Ethiopian pout. But during one of my bouts with the pout, that is little consolation to me.
A few times school work has been the culprit. Usually she works on her vocabulary words and does book work with zeal and no complaining, but a time or two, she obviously doesn't "feel" like doing it and prefers to goof off or haphazardly write nonsense answers and when I call her on it, she instantly shuts down. The other day her regular tutor was out of town, so I had a substitute come in to help. Honestly I thought it would be fun for Jacinda because it is a young teen girl that she absolutely ADORES. However, Jacinda immediately thought it was going to be a play day and when that didn't work out for her. She shut down and the pout came to visit for a couple of hours.
Another time, I won the worst mother of the year award for trying to slip a sliver of egg into a breakfast sandwich. She looked at me with detest and snarled "Egg." In my defense my darling daughter ate eggs while we were together in Ethiopia. She had turned her nose up to them a few times since we had been home, but I honestly thought combining them in the folds of a sandwich would be a good way to get her to try them again. Boy was I wrong! I advised her to follow the same rule with the sandwich as we have with everything else...take two bites and if you don't like it, no problem. Well evidently that was a problem for her. What ensued was a battle of the wills...she took a bite of egg, but then held it in her mouth like a 2-year-old. She seemed shocked that I knew what she was doing and swallowed the egg, only after I told her to open her mouth. She did take two bites and I was true to my word and removed the offensive egg from the sandwich. When I asked her if she just didn't like eggs, instead of answering me...the pout took over and she pretended I didn't exist for the next few hours. She even found a way to button the back of her church dress and tie her bow without me. It was a lovely Sunday morning.
While we talk about the pouting afterward and I pull out an Amharic chart of feelings to get her to tell me what is going on inside of her head (just in case the culprit is frustration at not being able to express herself. She will NEVER say she is angry, even though I know she must be.
As I try to get Jacinda to work through her feelings and understand that part of life is sometimes doing things that we don't really feel like doing, I have also discovered that I too suffer from frustration. As I said months ago, this would be a process and now I am learning that I am not merely a guide or spectator to her transition, because we truly are on this journey TOGETHER!
Friday, June 19, 2009
One Month Ago Today...
One month ago today I met the little girl who changed my world forever! In some respects the month has flown by and it seems like yesterday and on the other hand I can not really remember my life without her. Jacinda Hope Bizunesh is the light of my life! She has a killer sense of humor! We laugh, giggle, play and dance most of the time. She isn't perfect. I am not perfect. But we are perfect for each other. Here are some month one tidbits I wanted to capture about this little girl who has captured my heart! Jacinda loves color coordination, almost as much as I do. In fact the other day, she came prancing into my bedroom with an orange t-shirt in one hand and her other hand firmly on her hip, proclaiming..."Mommy, no orange underwear!" I had to break it to her that it was OK for her undies not to match her shirt, since no one would be seeing them. She looked at me in disbelief and finally settled on a pair to wear. My girl is borderline addicted to High School Musical 3. I have no one to blame but myself on this one. But it is hysterical to hear her singing "The Boys are Back" in her bedroom. She has also started singing "Getcha, Getcha, Getcha, Getcha Head in the Game." This child is so very loving. She constantly amazes me with her affection. In fact one of our repeated conversations goes something like this: Jacinda: "I love you." Me: "No, I love you." Jacinda: "YES, I love you!" And then we dissolve into laughter!
And her sense of humor is in a word...HYSTERICAL! She loves to pretend to be me, sleeping, talking on the phone, etc. etc. She likes to tease, pretend she doesn't understand English when it suits her and sings almost constantly (right now she is singing an original song she composed about clean underwear!
We also dance like there's no tomorrow. Of course sometimes my goofy moods leave her in a pile of giggles on the living room floor, but secretly I know she is looking forward to the Saturday High School Musical Sing and Dance Along on Saturday! (And on a personal note, motherhood has been great for my waistline...I am down almost 15 pounds since my journey to Ethiopia!)
Here are a few snapshots showing the silly life that we live!
And her sense of humor is in a word...HYSTERICAL! She loves to pretend to be me, sleeping, talking on the phone, etc. etc. She likes to tease, pretend she doesn't understand English when it suits her and sings almost constantly (right now she is singing an original song she composed about clean underwear!
We also dance like there's no tomorrow. Of course sometimes my goofy moods leave her in a pile of giggles on the living room floor, but secretly I know she is looking forward to the Saturday High School Musical Sing and Dance Along on Saturday! (And on a personal note, motherhood has been great for my waistline...I am down almost 15 pounds since my journey to Ethiopia!)
Here are a few snapshots showing the silly life that we live!
Friday, June 5, 2009
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