They made it to China

Cool school bus

Luke in the kindergarten classroom
John called me late Friday night to say they were now in Qing Dao with the professors. It was a grueling trip. Flight left Springfield at 2:30pm Thursday and after a 7 hr layover in Beijing airport from midnight-7am, they caught the flight to Qing Dao and arrived Saturday around 9am. Luckily he was not expected to teach on Saturday. His teaching began on Sunday. Because the Dragon Boat Festival takes place Monday-Wednesday, the kids were going to school on Saturday and Sunday. Luke met his kindergarten teacher on Saturday and John enjoyed all his favorite Chinese dishes prepared by the professors.
John said that Luke woke up at midnight but he was able to get him back to sleep and they got up at4:30a to start the day.
John dropped Luke off at school and said he jumped right into things, not a shy bone in that boy's body. His day went well and he said he was excited to go back. It is a Montessori school and it looks like they only have around 10 students and three teachers. He goes all day, has lunch provided all for $100 yuan ($7.8 USD) What a deal. Lily will join him next week. So with the festival this week there is no school until Thursday.
John wrote a quick note to say something did not settle well and he is sick, no details, just sick. I would not go into the specifics anyway but at least he is off for the festival and will have time to recuperate. Sun Li is taking Luke to an amusement park Monday. I'm sure he is having a ball with all this attention from the professors.

Close to China

We are just two days away from half of us leaving for China and the time is flying by. Passports, clothes,medicine, shot records, entertainment for Luke...what am I forgetting? Hopefully nothing we can't live without for three weeks. It's not like we can't get it in China if we do forget something. Luke is excited ands asks everyday if this is the day he leaves for China. I did ask him if he is going to miss his Mama for a week while we are apart and he said yes. It will be strange not to see his bubbely, smiling face each day. Lily, on the other hand is looking forward to having Mama all to herself. She has already asked if we can go to Incredible pizza together while Luke and Daddy are gone.

MRI

The test results came back from the MRI and everything is NORMAL! We were very happy to hear that bit of news.
Luke was back at school on Tuesday and seemed back to normal for Luke. John and I met his ELL teacher for next year, Sarah Henderson-Lee and we like the program. I am not breaking the news to Luke about the change of school and the return to kindergarten until probably the week before school starts, it would just be too much for him to dwell on all summer. We will sell the cool stuff about next year like the brand new school with a very cool playground and play down the repeat part. I think Lily will show some empathy for his situation (we can only hope) and not be a source of discontent.

MRI

Tomorrow will be a big day for Luke. He is having an MRI at the hospital on his brain. He had an EEG about 2 weeks ago which revealed that he has been having seizures off and on day and night, hardly noticeable but sharp waves on both the left and right side. He is now on medication to control the seizures but we have not really noticed a change since we were not aware of them before. The EEG was a sleep deprived test, they try to stress the body to see if it will seizure. This meant Daddy had to keep him awake until midnight and I had to wake him at 4am and keep him awake until the test was conducted. Luckily big brother Steven brought over Wii and we played that downstairs. Lily joined us at 4:30am much to my dismay. He did great at the testing but I could tell there were problems when the analyst said he would call the neurologist and had us wait around. The neurologist had us in his office at 7:15 the next morning. I really like the Dr. and he was optimistic that this is something Luke will grow out of. We will know more after the MRI. Suddenly we have to worry about Luke climbing up big slides and being in the bathtub without someone right next to him. Luke has been a trooper about taking the medicine and is working up to his full does over the next three weeks. He is such a sweet, sweet boy. We also have to make sure he keeps on a routine schedule for sleep as much as possible. Luke is the first one to jump into the middle of a bunch of kids playing and just join in, his laugh is contagious and he is always joking around. He loves to cuddle with Mommy and still begs for me to carry him even though that has slowed way down now that he is over 40#. I'm just glad we have the resources to get him the care he needs, not sure what would have happened in China.
Luke has also qualified for the English Language Learners program for next year. This means he will be at a different school than Lily and we have not explained that to him yet. He will repeat Kindergarten as he needs more work on his comprehension skills and writing. Of course the seizures were probably a hindrance in his learning. If once a minute your mind blanked out and came back missing part of a sentence, it may be hard to keep up. I'm so thankful he has the teacher he has this year. Mrs. Moran has been wonderful with Luke and keeps us posted on his progress. We will be meeting Sarah Henderson-Lee this week, his ELL teacher for next year. Luke will be in a regular class most of the day but for one hour he will be out in a small group with Sarah perfecting his English. I really want him to have a strong foundation before moving on to 1st grade. Since his birthday is in April, he is one of the younger ones in class.
I'm trying to remain optimistic about the MRI, kind of scary though. More later.

We say good-bye to Grandma Prescott

John, Logan and Grandma Prescott

Carol Prescott-Grandma
Last Monday morning John got the call that his Mom had passed on from this life. It had been expected at some point since her health had been so poor for the past four plus years but still came as a shock. Plans had already been made to transport her back to the North Carolina house in May to spend the summer in the coolness of the mountains just like she had done for years. John was worried that the summer weekends were quickly filling up and did not know how we would find the perfect time for all five of us to go visit Grandma and Grandfather mountain. Now the plans have all changed and we will be driving down to Fort Lauderdale to attend a memorial service. The kids will get to see their Florida cousins and we will get to stay at a hotel on the beach. John had to make a quick trip to Florida this past week to make the arrangements and he had been busy writing the obituary, practicing his speech and the music that he will perform. It has been a time for him to bring out all the old photos and reminisce about the time in Grandma's life when her body still let her live a full life, enjoying her Grandson Logan. How cruel it was that her body gave out just at the time when the next four grandchildren came along.....It is a time to celebrate her life and wish her well in the next.

Birthday Girl

This was Lily's week, her birthday was on Thursday. That meant cupcakes for the class. Saturday was the princess party at our house. We only invited the girls from her class and Jada, so in all we had 7 little girls. I had decorated the basement with a castle wall backdrop, a table with gold chargers and princess plates, pink table cloth, balloons and streamers hanging from the light fixture. The girls all got red buckets with suckers, lip gloss, pad of paper, chocolate kisses and princess gloves in a variety of colors. We ate lunch as everyone arrived. Fruit salad, cheese cut in the shape of hearts, turkey, peanut butter and jelly, cheese puffs and punch made with raspberry sherbet and 7-up. We practiced our extended pinkie technique while sipping punch, Lily made loud slurping sounds! I was proud of her though for playing the hostess, she helped fill everyones plate and was the last to sit down. After lunch we played good old fashioned games with a princess twist. Instead of musical chairs, we played "poison apple." The girls passed around an apple while the music played and when it stopped, who ever had it in their hands died a dramatic death in the middle of the circle of chairs. The last princess alive won. I had picked up great prizes at a 75% off sale at Penney's. Fancy purses and princess shirts that had been $20 were marked down to $5.00. We continued playing until everyone had a prize. Then it was time to open the gifts. That took all of 10 minutes as Lily anxiously tore through the wrapping to reveal three barbie dolls (one mermaid barbie), two zhou zhou pets, nail polish, Fancy Nancy book, princess clock for her room, hair bows and pocket Polly. She was thrilled with everything. We then sang Happy Birthday and cut the cake. Meanwhile the manicurist showed up to paint the princess nails. The girls took their turn getting their nails polished in bright colors and white flowers on the thumb. They all agreed that this was the best part. Mom's and Dad's started arriving as the party came to an end. I think everyone had a good time. Even my friend Jodi who dressed as Belle, seemed to enjoy herself. The girls all behaved very well and got along with each other. I certainly was ready for some rest after it was all over. Thanks goes out to Aunt Kim and Aunt Michelle for helping out as well, they had the mess in ship shape very quickly. Aunt Kim took 86 photos as I was too busy entertaining. Luke and Daddy escaped during the party but now it is time to focus on Luke's Chuck E. Cheese party next month.

In the meantime piles of stuff are collecting out in the garage for a garage sale. The kids are going to help and all proceeds will go to Lily's orphanage when we travel to China this summer. I told the kids they could set up a lemonade/cookie stand. Hopefully the health inspectors won't be looking!

January brings the snow

Luke as Max


Lily as Fancy Nancy


Fancy Nancy


Baby Elyse Marie Hartley 1/27/2010-Grand niece

The kids went back to school after Christmas for three days before nasty weather set in and it was two more days without school. This creates the problem of what to do with the kids as work goes on. Luckily Aunt Kim was in town and between she and John the kids had a nice long weekend. Back at school one day was dress as your favorite storybook character. Lily chose "Fancy Nancy" and wore an outfit with lots of accessories including feathers in her hair, actually not so much different from what she typically picks to wear. Luke made the perfect Max from "Where the wild things are" with the fur wolf hat we got from Yue Jia several years ago.

Lily has had the dream of wearing glasses. Now when I was 7 and found out I had to wear glasses I cried my eyes out. The first day I wore them to school I lost them. Mom tells the story of how poor they were and had just purchased the pair of glasses for me and then I lost them on the first day. She went to the school yard and looked until she found them. They were gray cat eye glasses, no wonder I didn't want to wear them. I bought Lily a pair of Hello Kitty clear glasses with pink frames to wear to satisfy her desire. I decided to have both kids eyes tested just to be on the safe side. I had been told about a year ago that Luke was slightly far-sighted. I figured as long as I was having him tested I might as well take Lily. Surprise, it was found that Lily is also far-sighted and her right eye turns slightly inward. She was thrilled to hear the doctor say, "you need glasses." Luke gets to wait another year to see how his eyes progress. Meanwhile Lily picked out the cutest (most expensive) purple glasses. She was confused as to why she could not wear them home that day as they already had lenses in them. We are still waiting for the glasses to arrive. I wonder how long it will be before they are lost? Hopefully longer than it took me to lose mine. I have already warned her teacher that this pair of glasses is real and they need to stay on her face during school.

This week brought more snow, about 6" of it. My great niece was born in a snowstorm in Amarillo Texas on Wednesday. They got 12" of snow and of course have no real snow removal equipment. The family got to spend three nights in the hospital with baby Elyse Marie Hartley before being sent home. The kids got out of school early on Friday and we have had two days of playing in the snow. Today I showed them how to make a snow fort just like I did as a kid in Minnesota. We had a lively snowball fight and Luke caught me good under the chin. Lily got mad when I got her in the head but after a minute of pouting was out again in full force.

It was a very rough week for my Dad. I called him last Monday night and during the conversation he mentioned that he thought Mom had gone off the deep end. She has had demnetia for several years now and her window of reality gets a bit smaller at each visit. This time Mom had wandered off outside without Dad knowing. She went out without a coat while he was out in the garage. She made it up the hill and out to a busy road before a woman picked her up. How she remembered her phone number is a miracle in itselt but Dad got a call from a woman who was on her way to work when she found Mom walking along the road. I traveled down to Bella Vista the next day to help Dad and we ended up admitting her to a special program called Resolutions for a complete evaluation. The time has come when Dad can no longer care for her. It wouldn't be so bad if he was in good health but his COPD has him on oxygen 24/7 and even the act of walking to the front door is a major undertaking. What to do with a man who is so determined to stay independent during the last days of his life. I am the closest living relative at 2 hours travel time. Mom will probably be ready to be released sometime this week and my sister from Wisconsin is coming down to figure out where Mom will go. In reality both need to be under constant medical care but that may be a hard sell with Dad.