Our First Parent-Teacher Conferences!

As Dusty and I were walking into the Altoona Junior High, I said to Dusty that this is our first parent-teacher conference and we laughed that we skipped to 8th grade! We first visited Dima's English teacher since she is basically the facilitator between Dima and his teachers.  She told us how he has made improvements the last few weeks.  We are so excited to finally see him open up a little to her more! With the help of Liliya and the teacher having a lot of patience he is not as upset to have the class by himself.  He just wants to be like all the other children.  He can be stubborn and not talk to her when he feels the content is too easy, but since he wouldn't talk to her, she had to continue with the basics.  We met with Dima's other teachers and all have said the same thing about him being very shy and will not say much to them, but that he is doing very well.  They are noticing that he is starting to be more social with his peers which is good.  We wish we could record how much Dima speaks to us and let his teachers hear how much he really does know.  Sometimes he will talk so much that Dusty and I can't get him to be quiet!

We have been in touch with all of Dima's teachers but to see them face to face was really nice.  They have all been extremely wonderful and patient with Dima.  We are very pleased with the Altoona Junior High School system.  I have to admit that I was a little hesitant at first since it was a big school and was afraid that Dima would just be a number to the school, but that has not been the case at all.  Maybe that would not be the case for the other children that are adopted or being adopted, but Dima has bloomed into such a young man since he's gone to school.  My advice to those trying to figure out about a school is to think about the child and what would be best for their personality.  Even though Dima is shy, he is very brave and social so he is doing well in this school.

Dima also started track last week, what a brave boy! We are so proud of him for getting out of his comfort zone again to try out for track.  It took a little coaxing and explanation from Liliya, but he wanted to do it.  The morning of the first day I noticed he was grumpy so I figured it was because he was nervous.  We picked him up after the first day and he had his big ol' smile on him again, phew!

Before track started, he would run with us for about 30 minutes with little problems so Dusty and I thought he'd be better at the distance events.  Yesterday when I picked him up from practice, I asked if he went with the distance kids and he said..."no, did lots of sprints".  It didn't dawn on me until I talked to him more about it and he said that he switched to sprints! I laughed and told Dusty that he and about every other kid on the team are doing sprints.  We thought if he'd do distance he'd have a better chance making the away team, but we will see.  He likes to sprint and we think having his new friends doing sprints was the main reason he switched.  The main thing is that he is enjoying track and it helps him to be more social and confident with his English.  I think it has worked because my Dad dropped him off the other day and he said Dima saw his friends going into practice and he jumped out of his truck and ran up to his friends!

Last night we all went to see "Annie" that the Altoona Junior High students put on and it was really good! I was so busy before the play that I didn't think about the play being about an orphan.  As the first scene starts and all the girls are sleeping in one room, it hit me like a tone of bricks! I really had a hard time not letting Dima see me as it brought back so many memories of what Dima went through.  Just to think a few short months he was in an orphanage with no family! I then started to worry that he was going to be upset, but again, he was a brave boy and enjoyed seeing a few students that he knew. 

Tomorrow is the big day that Dima will see his best friend Artyr! He is so excited to see him again and I can't imagine how excited he is going to be tomorrow.  I will make sure I take some pictures of the reunion!
Thanks for reading!
Tina