The school year so far

As usual I have many huge topics in my drafts folder, and I'm not sure when I will be able to sit down and finish those off. But no one wants to read long posts anyway, right? So maybe it's better to write about everyday life.

Home education:

David is 6 years old, kindergarten age for Russia but in U.S. he might be in first grade by now. At any rate, he's not going anywhere at the moment. It's partly the school system and partly his complexities. Let's just say he thrives most in a one-on-one environment (as opposed to the rumored 30-person class sizes at local schools). Although I wish he had more friends his age, I can also think of many wonderful adults in my life whom he would find very entertaining. It's just a matter of being open to the right opportunities. So, we aren't really worried about socializing him. It just might look different.

We thought about signing up for more classes at the cultural center down the street. But David did not seem eager about it. And since he's only 6, he's still within his rights to say no. ;) But we did decide to prioritize speech therapy at this point. There are many times when I've thought other parents were overzealous in terms of helping their children develop, but in this case I guess it's not just naturally going to get better. The exercises with a professional are clearly helping. A Canadian friend was helping David with his English last year, and he's added some sounds that were missing before. Meanwhile, he goes to a Russian lady now for speech therapy, and always gives a positive report when he comes back. I'm trying to picture myself as a child, going to see a lady for tutoring...I think I would have HATED it. I would have much rather stayed at home and read a book. But she obviously knows what she's doing, and he must enjoy the attention. They are working on pronunciation, reading, and pencil skills-all in a 30-minute session!

So...if we end up homeschooling for a few years (beyond preparation work we're doing now), I might just decide to employ some tutors OR find a group to join. I'd always pictured myself just preparing the subjects myself and presenting them. But I'm coming to accept that 1) I'm NOT an expert in all areas and 2) Other adults sometimes get a better response from my child.

On a side note, I've been reading a lot about Charlotte Mason. I like that there are lots of resources online, makes it quite doable from abroad. However, I'm just kind of exploring at the moment.

That's about all I have time for!

P.S. I decided it would be fun to fiddle with my blog theme to reflect the changing seasons. Everyone was saying a lighter background is better, anyway. Well...back about 10 years ago, I used to do all the changes to my blog design from scratch. Search around and find out how to change the html, etc. Just now I decided to switch the header photo, and it took about an hour getting it to the right size! I'm used to taking photos with Instagram squares rather than something long and narrow. And sadly, the quality is lost. That must mean my phone doesn't take very good photos...certainly nothing that could be enlarged to go in a frame. Very sad! I'll have to investigate further. And do something about my poor header. Another day.

Flying, continued

 I suppose I'd better finish my tale!

We made it to the hotel with all our baggage and family members, and tucked in for the night. I set my alarm for breakfast ahead of the 11 am checkout.

The kids slept in fairly late and we let them since there wouldn't be anywhere to put Sophia down for a nap preceding our 7 pm flight. I waited and waited and finally just went down to the lobby to get breakfast since we clearly weren't going to all be ready.

On the way up with the breakfast, I asked the concierge about the airport shuttle as far as the 11 am checkout. Well, the "last" shuttle was at 10 am. Until 4 pm. Huh. I couldn't quite wrap my head around that one...11 am checkout...shuttle until 10 am. It was too late for the shuttle, anyway. I headed back upstairs to finish packing.

We were downstairs and checking out by 11, and the hotel mistakenly put the charge on my debit card. Nope, DELTA will be covering that one! Luckily I caught it and got them to fix it. Meanwhile, they ordered a taxi for us.

From bits of conversation that I'd overhead, this hotel was a relatively new branch and they were still ironing out the kinks. We were certainly glad for accommodations.

We headed to the airport first (the cab driver was great) since we wouldn't be able to get far with all our suitcases. The terminal was a totally different scene this time. I first went and inquired about checking our luggage. There was no room where we could store them temporarily, but they could be dropped off up to 6 hours ahead of our flight.

Next I went to the machines and started checking in. I hadn't had a chance to try it at the hotel. As usual, I went through the whole procedure and got an error message. But in this case there was an actual agent standing there ready to help people who had questions. She took our passports and visas and checked them all and got us boarding passes. If there had been such an agent the day before, we could possibly have made our flight. Of course, it still took time and would have been more difficult at a busier time of day, but we were able to obtain information and results more easily.

We hung around until we could check our bags, and then we were free for a few hours. I had just connected with my second cousin, exactly my age, who lives in the area. She was still on summer break from teaching elementary school and cleared her schedule to hang out with us! After a little investigating, we found the public transportation pleasantly easy to use, and were meeting up with her at the aquarium in no time.

Flying by the seat of my pants

Have you ever missed a flight? Now I know what that feels like. Read on...

After spending a few weeks with my parents in the U.S, it was time to fly back to Russia. We had arranged with a transport company to be picked up 5 hours before our flight, leaving 3 hours for the 2 hour drive, arriving at least 2 hours before our flight.

It was our standard time to leave, but none of us checked the road conditions or had any idea that a MASSIVE construction project had been underway for the past few weeks. We certainly would have planned to leave earlier if we'd known! And the transport company definitely should have checked, too.

Still blissfully unaware of impending disaster...

Soon after we got underway, the driver checked his GPS and realized we needed to take a detour. So off we went on the scenic route. I figured our extra hour would help, but the situation was more serious than that! We were creeping along on country roads. When we finally neared the city (Boston), we hit bumper-to-bumper traffic. I was avoiding looking at the GPS, but I saw how it kept recalculating. We were "10 minutes away" for about an hour! It was definitely torture knowing we were that close, yet stuck in traffic. There was absolutely nothing we could do.

Probably the worst part of the whole ordeal was the feeling of suspense as we waited helplessly to see what would unfold. My mom and I were texting the whole time and she had a lot of people praying for us. I knew nothing bad would happen, but I still didn't want to be in this situation. Even if we were going to make our flight, I didn't want to deal with the intensity of rushing. "I don't want to be here! I don't want to deal with this, Lord. I just want it to be over!"

Breaking up

I've written some about our church conflict, and sometimes an interesting development comes up that would be good to share, but then I run out of time OR it goes downhill again and I can't find the words anymore.

I will share eventually about the "dating" side of this period, but unfortunately right now we are still seeing relationships break down.

We have to say goodbye to being in close fellowship with a lot of long-time friends.

-they were my family for years when I was alone in a foreign country
-they walked with me through numerous trials
-they rooted for us when we were planning to marry
-they organized and witnessed our wedding
-they saw us become parents for the first time

Part of me doesn't even want to look at the wedding photos, or birthday cards from over the years, various gifts in my possession that came from these friends. Breaking up does that to you, right? You just want to erase the memories? I look at our different personalities and wonder what on earth held us together in the first place. Surely our friendships had the wrong foundations if they could disintegrate at the first sign of conflict.