Coming Up for Air...kinda

It is 11:30pm. I am trying to blog since it's been, what, almost 2 weeks. I can't really see straight and if I randomly throw in some Spanish, well, do your best. I've meant to blog, really I have. But as soon as you read what's been going on the last few weeks, you'll likely understand, or not or whatever. Am I sleeping yet?


Here are the promised photos of the first day of school:


Los Once outside the gate at Colegio Municipal Benimaclet




















Parents rejoicing that children are IN SCHOOL! I just realized, as I'm looking at this photo, that we are all wearing khaki pants and the hubbies are wearing blue shirts and Ann and I are wearing white shirts. Really, this is an accident...or is it? Are we ALREADY living together too long? Scaaaary.










Here's some of that rain I am so thankful for...walking Kerline to her first day of school in it.






In the middle of the intersection at Avenida Primado Reig. It takes 8 minutes to walk to Kerline's school, including this stoplight. It takes 9 minutes to walk to the elementary school in the other direction.



Kerlinie-Weenie-Beenie turned fifteenie on the 16th! Here she is with her gift from Maman and Papa, an mp3 player with loudspeakers for her to play her gift from Granme and Granpapa, the High School Musical 2 CD. Yessiree Bob, she can now play that High School Musical just as much as her little heart desires, 10, 24, 39 times a day even! Hey, when I hear her singing in English, I'll take it.

Can that birthday smile get any bigger??? Bel ti fi mwen! Well, not so 'ti' any more. *sigh*


Kerline decided that she wanted a pineapple cake for her birthday and that she wanted to go to the beach. It was one of the last beach-able days of the summer. The kids spent a good couple of hours in the water.

I can't tell you how good it felt to have here with US for this birthday, finally!

She's so cute. Every night at bedtime she has started giving me 33 kisses (one for each year of age) and she wants 15 from me. She is growing closer to us every day.

So, where have we been the last couple of weeks? Weeeell, let me tell you about our new schedule. Basically, the kids go to school at 9am and come home in shifts between 1pm and 3pm depending on the day. So, at this point anyway (it all changes next week) we have from 9-1 sans kids. What are we doing during this time? Normal household stuff, shopping, cooking, laundry, bills, sanity check. At this point I'm starting to get the feeling that I need to start scheduling massages, manicures and such during that time because once the kids come home, homework hell starts. We usually eat comida shortly after they all come home and then, begrudgingly, we dig into homework. From about 3-7 each evening we are working on homework, Ann and Matthew with their kids, and us with ours, and all of us reaching new realms of frustration.

Do the math. Each child needs help, that equals 7 kids. Four adults are available to help. Four does NOT equal seven. Matthew apparently fell asleep in a DINING ROOM chair this afternoon, head cocked back over the back of the chair out of sheer exhaustion probably from dealing with the science diagrams in Valenciano.

Let's do a quick summary of the issues:

Jolie has essentially skipped second grade and is starting third grade in a language she doesn't speak. This combined with the "I don't want to" attitude that puts up her stubborn stone wall where nothing gets through, well, you get the picture.

Eva, who we knew was even "too young" for Kindergarten last year, but fearing they would put her in first grade this year, we had her in K last year. Now she's in first, essentially behind and now combine that with the language issue...oy vey.

Kerline...she's the icing on the cake. All her classes are in Spanish. She's taking English and French too. Oh, did I mention she has 10 different classes? English, French, Biology, Math, Language, Ethics, Religion, Valenciano (well, obviously we got her pulled out of that language too...I mean, come on), PE, Art, and they are pulling her out for Spanish. She doesn't understand what they are doing in class, but the school is preparing a more individualized program for her.

Subject area challenges:

Math - division done in this weird upside down and backwards way, which I only almost get.

Writing - cursive taught in kindergarten, so both J & E are behind.

Reading - Many school books are written in this standard cursive script. Hmm, Eva wasn't even reading in block letters yet.

Science - This is taught in Valenciano. We have the Castellano (regular Spanish) book, but the teacher speaks in Valenciano to the class.

English - The kids are doing AWESOME in English class. Jolie says she gets to correct the teacher! WOOHOO! Somewhere where they can kick butt!

OK, it's after midnight now...must sleep. Trying to teach Eva cursive 'u's today for an hour and going through 3+ hours of homework in all wipes me out. And I'm too tired to proofread, sorry.

In our next episode, Amy tries putting in extensions! Jolie and Eva have extensions a la white mama and they didn't turn out too badly. Kerline gave me the thumbs up to do hers. Also, Eva has three missing front teeth and new glasses. That, and with the extensions, she is a little lovebug for sure! I'm doing Kerline's extensions this weekend, so I'll post pictures of all three of them after. Well, we'll see how Kerline's turn out first! ;-)

Buenas noches..............