It's Been Awhile ...

So many things to say. Such a hard week to say them in. So I'm a bit wary of posting anything. A good rule of thumb for me is to never post facebook statuses or blog posts when I am hormonal or in the middle of a crisis (a rule of thumb that many people should adopt, I think). Who knows what will come out of my mouth? Whatever it is, it usually isn't good, and I am sure to regret it. Well, I'm not hormonal, and I'm not in the middle of a crisis, but I am feeling terribly melancholy today, so it might be just as bad. We'll see.

Let me start my worried post with a funny (to me) story, and maybe that will put me in the right frame of mind to share the latest Minsy news. Here goes:

As I was driving Katie, Hyrum, JoJo, and Minsy to school today the One Direction song, "That's What Makes You Beautiful," came on.


(Just as a side note ... it kind of bugs me that the girl in this video who doesn't know that she's beautiful is super, duper model cute. Couldn't they have picked someone a bit more ordinary? I know the beautiful people struggle with self-image issues too, but geesh.) Anyway ... I know this song is so last year, but the kids do love it a lot, so they were singing it loud and proud. It was super cute to see, especially JoJo. He belts this song out. When the song finished I turned around and told JoJo and Hyrum that they would be super good husbands someday if they made sure that their wives always knew that they were beautiful to them. I thought I was being a super wise mama right then. But Katie made sure to clarify things a bit. She said, "Just make sure you aren't like One Direction. Harry thinks that in order to be a good wife you have to have a nice bum." Good point Katie. Good point.

So, with that little digression ... Since my opening paragraph I got a call from Herman. He's driving home from a consulting gig he did in the southwest part of the state and was calling home to say hello. I told him my concerns about my Minsy meeting today, and he talked me off the ledge. Everything will be fine. So now I can tell the latest Minsy news without getting all depressed about it.

Today  I had a little meeting with the school district about Minsy. They are in the final stages of testing her to see about where to place her (regular PACE preschool or the Early Childhood Special Ed program). The last thing to test was her behavior at home. I came in and answered lots and lots and lots of questions about things she can do at home. I had to answer questions about her gross and fine motor skills, her social interaction, her language development, her intellectual development, etc. All of the questions are set up according to age appropriate behavior, so as the activities became more and more advanced it should show her performing at her age level. Needless to say, she was far below the level of a five year-old. Our big meeting with the district assessment team is next week, so Mrs. Anderson couldn't really give me any solid results today, but she said that all of the testing so far seems to indicate that Minsy will be on an IEP track for her schooling. This means that she will progress through school with her peers, but she will not be expected to learn the same things they are learning. She appears to have significant cognitive delays that are not related to her language transition from Chinese. The more we talked, the bigger the mountain we were facing seemed to be. I was getting more and more freaked out. Mrs. Anderson was actually wonderful. She was trying to talk realistically without killing our hope. She said that lots could change in the coming years, and we were all going to do our best to help Minsy to progress as much as she could. Who knows how things would eventually turn out? But still, I just saw that mountain. I still feel like there is so much in the air. The age thing is huge. If she is five, she is severely delayed. If she is younger, she is still delayed, but it might not be so bad.  It looks like we are very likely to change her age to be a bit (maybe quite a bit) younger after we see our endocrinologist in a few more months. That will make her assessments look a lot better. The big question is whether we are just delaying the inevitable, that Minsy will never be able to perform in a regular classroom. Or maybe she truly is delayed and only needs exposure, meaning that a couple extra years of preschool will help her get ready for regular school. Only time can answer that question, and I am horribly impatient. I sure don't want to do anything to harm Minsy. I want to do what will best help her make the most of her life. As Mrs. Anderson pointed out, we have already given Minsy more opportunities than she would have ever gotten in China. So that's good. And now we are off to move that mountain ... one teaspoon at a time.

I've got to end this one on a lighter note as well. Minsy had her first kiss today. An on-the-lips kiss. Right in front of me! There is this boy in her class, Connor. Minsy calls him "My Connor." I don't know why, but she has totally attached herself to him. I have always thought it was sweet because Minsy always runs after him at the end of class and yells "BYE CONNOR!!!!" over and over and over. Connor will say goodbye to her once and then gets visibly annoyed when she won't stop talking to him. He always looks to his mom and says, "Mo-om! I already said goodbye to her!" Well, today I was a bit late picking Minsy up, and Connor and Minsy were the last to leave. Connor was quite a bit further down the hall, and Minsy saw him at the door. She yelled, "CONNOR!!!" He turned around and waited for her. She ran as fast as her little legs would take her until she arrived right before him. He looked at her. She looked at him. She said, "Bye Connor." He said, "Goodbye Eliza." He reached for her. She reached for him. They hugged. Then Connor stopped, gazing into her eyes. Before either Connor's mom or I could realize what was happening, Connor leaned down and gave Minsy a quick, loving kiss. I have to admit, it was the cutest thing EVER. Still, we can't really encourage that sort of behavior, so that's not happening again. But it was a sweet little moment in a hard morning. Ah ... young love!