Homeschooling

The twins are homeschooling. Brianna is a Montessori teacher and has taken on the role of the main teacher. They don't seem to miss going to school at all and are quite happy to join her in the school room each day. They don't always cooperate but we are only in the second week of school for us and nothing is too intense yet.

The geese won Grand Champion in open class at the county fair.

James won an award for his poster on his chicken cage at the fair.

Brianna is quite determined they will learn some life skills that they are more than old enough to learn, so she has been teaching them to clean the kitchen, do the dishes and sweep/wash the floor before they can start their "school" day. James seems to have taken to the tasks quite well. He was proud to get started without being told this morning and was done when the clock struck the hour that he needed to be done. Missy on the other hand.... tries to do the job in a slip-shod manner, is late to get started and slow to work and is pretty much late for everything. She is annoyed that I started making her smoothies for breakfast again, but we don't have time to dawdle over food when she comes an hour late every morning. She actually can do the job well, but is not inclined to take pride in the job well done.  She actually has been challenging everything and RAD has made itself quite known. She's missed out on some things though and she hates that, so has toned it down a bit. This child is rarely happy. I'm thinking of getting a respite weekend in the next month or so. The harder I try to work with her the more resistant she becomes. If I ignore her or at least keep my interactions to a minimal she is less combative. It seems so wrong.

the county fair is right at the end of our 1 mile road, so we can hear the goings on even when we are bed.

James is doing very well. You would not expect it after the hard, hard time this summer we had with him. He was a firecracker ready explode on a moments' notice. He had such an attitude and had zero respect for me. It didn't seem to matter who was here or who was not here. If he was asked to do something and he didn't want to, or if I said no about anything he went straight into a big tantrum. Sometimes up to three times a day and it seemed every day for a few weeks. Then one day he started up and I lit into him like he was not expecting and was made to sit on his bed with a very clear command not to move or get off the bed to wreck anything. After a pretty intense 5 minutes with me in his face he gave in and did as he was told. The next day he blew up over a wheel barrow load of pine shavings he had dumped in the wrong place. I had asked him to move them and when he refused he got left home by his sisters who were going lap swimming.  I was weed whacking which turned out to be a good thing. I would not let him get behind me and I revved the motor every time he got too close but I had ear protection on and I really could not hear the screaming and name calling and just kept at my job. Pretty soon, to get some attention, he threw the city garbage barrel and it broke. He hadn't expected it to break and he figured he was in real trouble now. I just told him he could pick it up and finish his work without anymore screaming and we would forget it, or he could keep screaming and name calling and trying to threaten me and he would then have to face dad. He turned and did the job. He's had a few screaming fits since, but no name calling or threatening behavior at all. 

Since school has started however - and it's been a very relaxed start, he has started wetting his pants. There's no reason. He just does it. There's not a lot I can do about it except to send him to the bathroom all the time. If he wants to pretend he's going then there is not much I can do. It seems like there's always a need for both the kids to have something they control that we don't like but can't do anything about.

  Here are some of Brianna's art students. She is doing private and group lessons of various things; art, music, etc... She has a couple of kiddos scheduled into her week for a few hours of Adventure /patherfinder club type honor classes.  We are really sad about not having the schoolhouse. The insurance company decided to be a stinker so here we are.

We did respite for nearly a week for two kiddos that used to be our foster kids. Their adoptive parents were needing a break, but it wasn't much of a break because they packed up their whole house and moved in that week. These were kids that came to use straight from their original home all black and blue from beating each other up. There are three siblings (4 now) and they were WILD!! But it is amazing how a settled home can make a difference. They have grown and changed a lot. One of them, at least is dealing with RAD, but still, it's amazing the difference.

probably our last 100 degree day of the season - last weekend.

Our little Drake and Hayden and siblings' mom went to treatment. She gets out tomorrow. She was court ordered, or highly recommended to go if she wanted lesser charges.... She is begging me to let her see the kids. I really didn't think it was wise but I put the question to their father and he said no. I still have to break the news to her. I'm sharing scripture stories with her from the life of Jesus when He healed people. Apparently she shares them with the other people in her unit.

Drake and I are still buddies

snooping around on facebook I found this picture of Missy.