Back to school....

Several weeks have passed since Christmas break for me and the boys and several things have changed.  First, they moved my dorm.  We lugged all of our stuff and their beds, mattresses, clothes, books, toys, skateboards, furniture, etc into what used to be a brightly painted purple girls dorm.  It took a week to get it painted to a very soothing green color but now it looks pretty nice.  Coming back from break and trying to get the boys into the swing and rhythm is hard enough but changing living spaces only added to the adjustment.  We are however, doing just fine.  Back to the usual - tantrums, fights, fits, defiance, and me being forced to put up with professional wrestling on the TV.

At school, the boys have struggled - that's an understatement.  The number of bad behavior reports from the principal in the past 2 weeks alone almost exceeds the past 2 months combined.  Please pray that a miracle would occur and my boys would decide that it's a good idea to at least try to respect their teachers and principal.

In more uplifting news.... the boys just keep reading, reading, reading.  They read so much that several are now getting in trouble at school for reading instead of doing math or whatever assignment is being presented.  This is a "problem" that I can put up with.  They are currently into the Big Nate series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, professional soccer player biographies, and SpongeBob books.

Here is my sweet boy after he finished his 6th Diary of a Wimpy Kid book.  He has now read every single book that has been translated into Spanish in the series.  A year ago, I would have told you that it'd be a miracle if he finished one of these books in 6th months but he's far, far exceeded my expectations and then some.  

Above is one of the boys pretending to be grossed out by a fake moldy cheese on the floor.  In the series of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, if someone touches the piece of rotten cheese outside by their school, then they are said to have "The Cheese Touch" which is a type of cooties.  It goes on to describe that one can pass this "Cheese Touch" to someone else if they touch anyone.  We have a replica of the one in the movies and books and the boys have now taken to play tag with it.  What I just love is that the boys can relate some kind of written word in print to their everyday lives.  They make jokes about something they learned in a book.  God bless this series.  I pray they translate more into Spanish.

Please pray for patience, clear communication, and healing for the boys as they try to process past abuse and neglect.

The boys have a new soccer season starting next week and I'm excited to return to my post as resident soccer mom of a lot of kids.