Russian? Spanish? English?

Alex' "tour" of the high school on Thursday wasn't  tour at all.  It was basically a field trip to see a concert which she was less than impressed with.  :)  Oh well, at least she had a fun day.  After the field trip her grade pretty much just goofed off and played games the rest of the day.  A seems to be doing well in school as far as adjusting, making friends and communicating with her teachers.  Jeff and I met with her ESOL teacher on Thursday morning.  While A's conversational skills are great, she simply can't read or write in English well at this point.  Her ESOL teacher has communicated this with A's teachers so she is working with modifications in her classes.  Her math and science teachers are giving her printed instructions in Spanish which is very helpful.

After A got home from school this afternoon one of our neighbors and her 7 year old daughter came over the meet Alex.  Our neighbor is from Ukraine but has been in America for 19 years.  She is fluent in Russian and has taught her daughter the Russian language as well.  She brought with her something to make for Alex.  It was similar to porridge and Alex said she would have it with dinner every night in Ukraine.  I thought it was really good, too.  She also told us about a Russian food store nearby that we can check out and see if there is anything that A would like.  Can't wait to go!

We had our first post placement visit with our social worker tonight so that she could make sure Alex was adjusting to family life well.  The visit was about an hour and I was very proud of how engaged and engaging Alex was.  The visit is just part of the paperwork process of the adoption.  Not everyone has to do this, but it was part of the agreement we had with the adoption agency we used.  We will have another visit in a month.

Alex told us she wanted to get a summer job!  Considering the fact we won't even be around most of the summer I don't think it would work out, but it really surprised me she wanted to go to work.  I'm not sure why, other than the fact that her friend, C, is job hunting now.  Perhaps next summer she can look, but in the meantime maybe she can find a few families that would let her babysit.

Tomorrow is Saturday...the day she gets to call two of her friends in Ukraine.  She is truly happy to be here, but she really, really misses her friends.  To be honest, I miss her friends, too, and I was only there for a month!  It must be so hard for her, but she is holding together remarkably well.  There is actually a boy from A's school in Ukraine that was adopted along with his younger brother by a family in North Carolina.  He has been home since last fall.  They talk to each other a few times a week which I think is great.  While learning more and more English is really important, I want her to retain her Russian and speaking to friends on the phone helps her with that.  She is getting to the point that she sometimes can't figure out if a word she is about to say is Russian, Spanish or English.

Next week is the last week of school before Spring Break.  We are *all* in need of a break.  And then after Spring Break there is only seven weeks of school before summer vacation!  My, how quickly time is flying!