100 Days!

Brendan recently celebrated 100 Days of Kindergarten!  Technically, since he started school in September in Okinawa, he hasn't reached 100 days, but that's okay.  He was really excited about the celebration and feeling a little sad about missing the celebration in Okinawa.  He's settled into his class nicely here and seems to really like his teacher and classmates.  He doesn't say much about missing Okinawa, but every once in awhile, he says something that reminds me that moves are hard on little guys too.

For the celebration, the kids each did a project using 100 of something they collected (we used sea glass) and made crowns to wear.  The kindergarten classes all assembled out on the field and counted together to 100 and then popped their balloons!  I think the kids all really enjoyed it-and I know Brendan did.  I was glad that I was able to make it and watch-I might not always have the luxury in the future.

He's a little hard to find, but you can see him between the girl in the white shirt and the girl in the blue shirt/black skirt.

Heading back to class

Brendan's 100 Day Project- we collected 100 pieces of sea glass from the North Shore and glued them onto a wooden sailboat.

"That" Family

Yes, that's us...."that" family.  The one with the kid who just can't seem to behave all the time.  The one who you look at and say, "if he were my child, I would....."

You probably assume we never say no.

You probably assume we are afraid to discpline.

You probably assume we don't spank enough, or spank too much, or are aren't forceful enough, or are too forceful or don't pay enough attention, or pay too much attention...

Well, you know know what they say about assumptions.

Perhaps surprsingly, we do have rules.  We do enforce them.  We do have high expectations of behavior.  But, we also have a son who seems to be wired a little differently.  Not badly, just differently.

We're working on it-finally.  We finally have resources available to help us and doctors willing to listen and think, rather than dismiss us.  It's a great feeling.

But most of all, we're doing the best we can the best way we know how.  If you've been here, you know what I'm talking about.  If you haven't been "that" family, think about what might be going on next time you see a child throwing a tantrum.  Sure, there's a chance it's bad parenting, but there's also a big chance that it's really parents doing the best they can.

Tomorrow is a big day...

Tomorrow, we will finally have a more formal evaluation done on Brendan!  As many of you know, he has presented quite the challenge to us for the past few years.  He's amazingly curious, energetic and intelligent-and also quite the challenge to parent. 

We have yet to discover just what will click for him and we're really hoping that tomorrow will give us a better understanding of what exactly goes on inside his head.  We had a glimpse of a wonderfully cooperative child tonight-lots of smiles, no arguments, no defiance, no tears, he read a book to me! and we had a wonderful night.  I can only hope that we figure out how to elicit more of these nights from him. 

Working on settling in

We're slowing settling into life in Hawaii, though we are still in a slightly temporary situation.  We plan on living on Hickam due to the extremely high cost of living and heavy traffic in Honolulu.  Unfortunately, the only available house won't be open until early February.  Luckily, we were able to do a month-to-month rental of a Navy privatized house, so we are living in a house instead of a hotel!  It's still a place full of borrowed furniture, dishes, and even linens, but it is still so much better than hotel life.

Our home until Feb.  It's a duplex.  (Picture taken from the park across the street)

Brendan has started back to school.  He is attending Nimitz Elementary, which is located right outside Hickam AFB.  This is the school he will be attending when we move to Hickam.  His teacher seems very nice-her family is Okinawan, though she has never been there.  We've gotten a crash course in budget cuts.  Brendan has art and PE, but no music-there just isn't money to have all three.  Art and PE are only once every other week, as the teacher has to be shared by the whole school (K-6).  Ms. Iramina (Brendan's teacher) told me that some schools have music teachers, but no PE teachers, or perhaps foreign language teachers, but of course, that replaces on of the other options.  We were very spoiled with DoDDS.  Brendan began kindergarten in Okinawa with having classes in art, music, PE, Spanish and Japanese culture, along with the regular kindergarten curriculum.  In any case, I have hopes that school will go well here and that budget cuts will not get worse.  It's truly sad that so many cuts are made in programs that benefit children.  How can we expect them to become good, productive citizens of society if we refuse to give them the resources they need and deserve?


Since we've been to Hawaii before, we've not done as much exploring as you'd expect, though we have done some.  We took the kids to one of Brendan's favorite places, the Pacific Aviation Museum and got yearly membership.  I expect Jason and Brendan will spend quite a bit of time there. 

We've ventured up to the North Shore a few times to watch the surfers.  The winter months are when the big waves come and it's almost comical seeing all the surfers out at once.  I don't know how they don't all run into each other! 

Not too many surfers out this time.

Today we went up to the Pali Lookout to see the jungle chickens and look at the windward coast below.  It was surprisingly not too windy up there-so very different from last time.

We then headed to Kailua Bay to walk along the beach and look for seashells for Brendan's 100 days of school project.  While we did find stunningly blue water, soft sand and beautiful views, we did not find seashells.  So different from the coral and shells on the beaches of Okinawa!

We finished off our day today with dinner from Coco's-an Okinawa favorite.  It is a little different here.  The pork cutlet tastes different and they don't have naan bread.  But...it's that same Coco's sauce and that's the important part!

I realized I didn't post anything from Christmas, so that's next time.