Go Habtam!

Today H's teacher called us.  She has called a couple times since the beginning of school to talk about his behavior.  Today was a bit different, however.  H had an AWESOME day!  Hurray!  When I told him that she had called and what she had said, he covered his mouth with his hand and his eyebrows shot right off his forehead.  To celebrate we had some hot carob cocoa.  Tomorrow is his day to share with his class.  Each student has two days this month to share something about themselves.  He decided to bring his Lifebook.  We went through it and he decided which pages to leave, and which to remove.  Tonight he learned what the word "personal" meant.  He removed the pages which included his family in Ethiopia.  When I mentioned that these were personal, he asked what that meant.  I tried to explain it in a way he could understand, mentioning that some things were hard to talk about, and that if people asked a lot of questions about them, it could make one feel uncomfortable or sad.  

I have a friend who adopted siblings right before we did.  She told me her older son talks a lot about his original family, how he misses people, etc.  I bring the boys' family up regularly, in fact Lire has been bringing them up lately.  H says he doesn't think about them, miss them or remember them.  How much of this is true, I'm not sure, but it reopens all those doubtful and confused feelings I have when thinking about the boys' lives before us.  

I'm curious to hear how it goes tomorrow.  I will call his teacher to prep her for it, or leave her a note explaining the Lifebook.  It is interesting looking at it over time with the boys, since they understand so much more these days.  

As for Julie's question about where the ones go if they're not allowed to be carried to the tens' place.  I'll let you know once I find out!  

Comments

[Maia]

Yay Habtam! And what a cool (and kind of scary thing...) that he's going to share his lifebook. I hope you'll write about how it goes - I'm very curious to hear how the other kids react.

[Anna]

Hi, isn't wonderful how they just *LOVE* school. My almost 6-yr old is in 1st grade and is so enthusiastic about learning how to spell, write (they're beginning to write in long-hand now...oooh it's so hard MOM!) and counting that it's just so refreshing.

My son is also Ethiopian and I was curious to know whether you've noticed whether Habtam and Lire have trouble pronouncing certain letters or sounds in English. I know they haven't been in the US for long, but I'm trying to figure out whether my son's speech problems are linked to his mother tongue, as I don't know Amharic at all except for a few words I remember here and there.

We live in Italy and so my son has learnt Italian and has problems pronouncing C's and G's, P & B, S & Z, F & V...at times it's like he doesn't hear the difference (no hear loss or hearing problems ascertained). We recently had him tested by a speech therapist and a child neuropsychiatrist and they think it's linked to his knowing Amharic before Italian (he joined our family almost 2 1/2 years ago at the age of 3 1/2), and that maybe in Amharic the sounds don't exist.

Hope H has another YAY! day.