Fibro kicked my butt yesterday, like it hasn't in a long time. So I didn't even get up with my birthday boy this morning. I did leave him a birthday card and T reported that J loved what was in the card. He claims he's saving for a go cart but his money "burns a hole in his pants" and he usually spends it. Plus, we expect you to, gasp, work for your money around here and he's not overly inclined to work. So he was thrilled to find a birthday card full of money.
According to his birth certificate, J is 14 today. Of course, Haiti's book keeping system being what it is, who really knows how old he is. He acts like 10, on a good day.
He's come so far. He has been doing basketball conditioning twice a week for the last 3 weeks or so. He's doing grade level math, ESL modified science, English, and social studies. And he's reading at grade level 3.2. We didn't have time to read Tuesday evening so I made him read his book twice on Wed. and when he got done he said, "Dis is my worse life ever. My worse life." Instead of engaging him on how good he has it or how having to read the book twice is not the worse thing ever I decided to ask him how many lives he's had, since that was the way he worded it. He looked at me like, duh. And he said, "I had my life in Haiti, which was way worse den any odder life and my life here. Dat's two lives." Isn't it something that he divides his life up like that? Maybe it's a coping mechanism, dividing it like that. Maybe that's why he wants nothing to do with Haiti or anything Haitian. I don't know.
He still continually cracks us up. All the time. He watched the movie "Baby's Day Out" the other day. The girls went through a period of time where they watched that movie all. the. time. It was so funny to listen to J watch it and know what part he was at. There is one part where one of the bad guys sets his crotch on fire and T thought J was going to fall off the couch. J said, "Roasted bratwurst. Hahahaha!" Think about that. A kid from Haiti, watching an American movie and making a joke about German sausage. How funny is that? And he still doesn't say his "r's" that well so it sounded more like, "Woasted bwatwust." Too funny.
He wants to do well and make good decisions but he doesn't want to work very hard at it. He still shows a lot of empathy for other people. He still loves, loves, loves to eat and is willing to try just about anything, especially meat of any kind. He still wants to babied occasionally and definitely wants to be prayed with before he goes to bed. He has recently started sleeping with his bedroom door open. We can't figure out what that's about because he was always adamant that his door be closed until about a month ago.
He's still not good about "changing gears". If something doesn't go the way he thinks it should or if a curve ball gets thrown his way he can easily come unglued. He definitely prefers a schedule and sticking to it. I tell people if you told him that you were going to bite his head off at 4:00 on Sunday he'd be okay with it because he'd know it was coming and when, but don't tell him he can't wear the red shirt he planned on wearing or that we have to leave 5 minutes early or someone is going to be 15 minutes late. He can't handle it. And for heaven's sake, don't give him a homework assignment right before the bell rings. His world has come to an end.
J, you really are an awesome little character and it's been mostly joyful to be your parents and watch you experience new things. For you, it's all about the experience. Work hard, be good and have some fun. We hope and pray that 14 is an awesome year for you. We love you.
No comments:
Post a Comment