This and That

I have some great photos to share from last week's international 'play group'... unfortunately we forgot to turn our new camera off of the "RAW" setting and Cydil needs Nathan's help to convert them because her software doesn't recognize this particular version of RAW! [There are some previously unpublished Easter pics at the bottom if you want to skip the text and go straight to the good stuff]

It's been a busy week or so. Like most everyone else, we've been enjoying unseasonably warm temperatures... except that our AC is not working in our apartment and it was 85 inside most of the weekend. Instead, we've been enjoying more meals on our porch and last night we gave up and slept in the basement. Right now Ellie is thrilled to have her little blow up pool back in service and is pretending that the garden hose is her pet giraffe. Gotta love her imagination.

Speaking of Ellie, we had a couple of meetings with her teachers recently. There was some concern that she's had unusual difficulty transitioning back to school each week over the past month. Between our spring break, her spring break, and Easter weekend she's had a lot of transition. Sometimes I think we forget she's not as flexible as perhaps our college friends we've worked with for the past ten years. Last week seemed to be a departure from the trend and her first day back wasn't as traumatic, they reported. Still, we are learning to follow a strict routine in getting her prepared for the bus each day with plenty of time so she doesn't feel rushed. It's just hard to know when the bus is coming until it's practically at our driveway (the street is curved), so even if we're on the porch reading a book, we still have to scurry to gather Ellie and her backpack and dash to the street. But even that doesn't seem related to her behavior or happiness in school. Even on the days when she's a little more preturbed to be on the bus, we'll sometimes get the best reports on her at the end of the day.

The second meeting was one previously scheduled and it was an opportunity to discuss her recent testing scores. We will be getting a copy later when they are released to all parents at the same time, so for now, I'll just have to rely on my memory that she demonstrated improvements in nearly every area save one or two that remained unchanged. She will stay with the same teaching team next year for which we are grateful. And of her 18 classmates, all but 4 or 5 others will be going on to kindergarten. That explains why I thought she seemed really young for her class!

We continue to see her struggle with focus and concentration on longer tasks, but it was interesting to hear the techniques her teachers had devised so she would be able to stay on the carpet with her classmates during 'circle' time as it increased from seven minutes in the fall to twenty minutes (today). Some of those included giving Ellie her own copy of the book that Miss K was reading or giving her a magnetic board to hold in her lap with her own calendar or magnet pieces related to whatever was being pointed to on the wall. They pointed out that even though at times she doesn't seem to be paying attention to something in particular, she will reference it later in conversation, much to their surprise. (She has a memory like nobody's business).

I need to wrap up, in the mean time, enjoy these photos from Easter Sunday's Egg Hunt at Nonna and PaPa's home in Ohio.

We don't know where she got the idea, but whenever she would find an egg (and only for eggs), she would run and slide into the ground, much like someone stealing 2nd base. Very interesting.

opening presents inside...someone was paying attention that Ellie is VERY into Peter Pan right now. (And like a southerner, most of the time it's "Pan" with TWO syllables, not one: pay-an)

very cool. another 'fuzzy' which she named "Bob"