Karate Kid

E started pre-karate at O2B a few weeks ago, and is doing great! He just got his gi and his little white belt. Here's our little karate kid in action...

Bronchitis, Birthday, and Butterflies

Ah, what a weekend! Poor E started it off Friday night with a bad fever to go with this cough. Saturday morning the Doc confirmed that he has a bit of bronchitis. He did get a great cough suppressant and slept 13 hours last night! I think he's getting better, slowly. Sick or not, he still went to Alex's 5th birthday party at his lake house, where he saw a bunch of old friends from his old school. He had a great time!

We had our first house guest this weekend too! Carla, from UNT, was the first to use the newly decorated guest room. She's great guest, and Elijah has enjoyed having someone new to play with. We all went to the Natural Science museum and butterfly rain forest, where we saw new butterflies take their first flights, and a few thousand others flying all over the place!

FABA '07

This year FABA was in Jacksonville, which made it pretty non-FABA like (no beach). The presentations were excellent this year, as we had many big names returning to Florida to celebrate their mentor, Dr. Iwata. Our own presentation went well, and I have to thank Cristina for making sure I had enough time to get through my long-arse presentation. Elijah enjoyed this years FABA, and for the first time sat through a couple presentations with us. Here's to the Ipod for making this possible :-)We also attended a wonderful presentation by Murray Sidman, who presented his recent article, "The Analysis of Behavior: What's In It For Us". For those of you reading this blog who aren't Behavior Analyst, and you've always wondered what the heck Carole and Han do and why they like it so much, read this and all will be explained! For Behavior Analysts who haven't heard or read this, it's awesome :-) http://vancampc.googlepages.com/Sidman.pdf

Little Surprise at Littlewood

So, I don't know who that Dr. Van Camp chick is, but I bet she was pretty surprised to see her name up on that board! Perhaps surprised enough to nearly crash her van as she passed by...thankfully only going 20 MPH. And I'd bet that spaghetti is pretty nervous now, why with all the attention and expectation.

9/07 Referral Update - 584 LIDs to go

Sadly, this was a only a 4 day "batch"; the CCAI matched through November 25, 2005. In the past year, they matched 4 months worth of LIDs.

Average rate of LIDs matched per month: 6 (3 month ave) to 5 (6 month ave)
Tend in days of LIDs matched: 2, 6, 6, 7, 7, 4

Days in between our LID and the latest matched: 584
Estimated wait time: 8.1 to 9.1 years from now
Estimated referral date: 10/11/2015 to 10/15/2016

I hear the CCAI is expecting to return to ~15 day batches after January of this year. That will speed things up (maybe then we'd only have a 3 year wait??)

Here are this month's cute babies:
http://chinaadopttalk.com/2007/09/04/babies-3/

O2B V-PK

Today was Elijah's first day at O2B!

He had a great day! He was a little shy at first, but apparently he really broke out of his shell as soon as they turned on the music! He "moved to the 8's" (he said, "you know, 8 jumping jacks, 8 skips..."), learned about living vs. non-living things, practiced writing numbers, and something called elephant soccer. A very full and interesting day :-) They are having a book fair, so we got him a few more books for home. He also completed his first homework assignment this evening: a collage of things he likes.

Goodbyes and Kiais

Friday was Elijah's last day at A Child's Academy. It was his home away from home for over 4 years! They took really great care of him, and we were sad to say goodbye to everyone. We asked the teachers to take pictures of E and his friends on his last day. Unfortunately, we gave them a disposable camera that a) sucked, and b) had a flash that was rarely used. So, we only have a few decent pictures:

Also, I had a Karate test on Saturday (blue w/white belt). Han used up the rest of the picture from the disposable camera...but he also forgot the flash. So, the little red marks points to me. Note: when the disposable camera is used without the flash, making the pictures black/white might help make the people stand out a bit more.

On Monday Elijah starts at O2B for pre-K! We meet his teacher today. Although she seems nice, she didn't seem altogether with it when it came to his food allergies (blank stare...) So, we practiced giving E food and having him ask "does it have allergies?", just in case she handed him something he can't have. Then he added: "I need something with soy, without any cows milk or eggs or nuts". So, I suppose he's more prepared than I gave him credit for!!