Rachel

Since I'm so far behind on blogs...and I have so much I'd love to post, I figure I'll start with Rachel and some things about my beautiful teen.

She loves to take self-portraits...here are a few!

• She loves all things princesses...especially Cinderella.  She's OBSESSED with princesses.  I am SO SICK of princesses and princess movies.  Sigh.
• Her English has improved like you would NOT believe!!!  You can even understand her on the telephone now (something I was not able to do for a while).  She really is doing marvelously at English.  We're waiting to get the results from a test she took in early April that measured her English skills to determine her eligibility for ESL services.  They tested her in reading, writing, speaking and listening.
• She LOVES science.  In fact, she is doing so well in science that she is doing the same work that every other 8th grader is doing and she's doing well!  She's getting As & Bs.  In fact, she's doing well in math as well.  They do make some accommodations on word problems, but they have reduced the number of accommodations (at my request) in there and she's still doing well.  She's still struggling in Reading/Language Arts (duh!) and social studies as is to be expected.  However, she's very, very, very smart.  It can work in her favor in that she can do really well...but it can also work against (me!) in that she works the system when she doesn't want to do the work.  And sometimes she doesn't want to do the work.
• She loves dresses/skirts/girly-girly things.  She would love to wear make up, but I say no way. I do allow mascara and lip gloss, but nothing else.  She really does not need it...and she already looks so grown up, she really doesn't need it (besides its sometimes difficult enough to get out the door to school as it is!!!).
• Boys...she is NOT interested in boys at all.  And is the exact reason and argument I make for her not wearing any more makeup.  I'm very grateful she's not interested in boys...however, they don't feel the same way (and it drives her crazy that they are interested in her!).
• She loves to fix her hair.  Its not uncommon for her to fix her hair in at least 2 (or more) different styles (that I see!) before school.  On the weekends...there's no telling what her hair will look like after spending some time in her room! :-)  I suspect a potential future in cosmetology.
• We've figured out that she needs a lot of sleep.  So, bedtime for her is typically around 7:30pm.  We figured out that the amount of work her brain does to translate everything is tremendous.  When she doesn't get to bed as early, she will say that when she's in school the teachers just say "blah, blah, blah" and she doesn't know what they are saying.  However, when she has had enough sleep, she can understand what they are saying.
• She's loves mom time, but has really started loving time with dad, which is great.  In fact, we've moved to a period where she prefers to talk to dad about things over mom.  Kind of surprising, but I see this as a good thing.
• Rachel loves food.  In fact, there are no foods that she does not like.  Literally every meal she says "this is my favorite!"  Seriously.  Everything is her favorite.  We've had for the longest time problems with her overeating, which has lead to her gaining nearly 10lbs in the past year.  No, she's not overweight and we're not worried about that right now.  In fact, her having gained a little weight (while a pain that none of her clothes now fit!) makes it easier to find pants that do!  What we do want her to learn, however, is good eating habits.  We want her to know what are proper portion sizes as well as knowing that even though something tastes really good it does not mean that she should keep eating it.  I think--knock on wood--she's figured it out.  She's asking less and less for 2nd helpings.  And when she dishes up her own food, she's actually dishing up a reasonable portion.  I'm very proud of her progress in this area in the last few weeks.
• She also really, really, really loves sweets.  In fact, we don't typically have many sweets/candy/ice cream and this has been an issue for her.  So, we created "mom & dad's candy shop".  Since we have lots of candy from an Easter egg hunt at Megan's school and Megan's valentine's party, she can use her money to buy candy.  They are small, single serving helpings and she's learning how to decide how to manage her money as well. So, its a double positive here!!!
• I'm so not ready for her to be in high school next year.  And honestly, I'm not sure she is either.  But, she will be.  We hope that next year we will have moved because if we stay in this school she may just have to learn YET ANOTHER LANGUAGE.  I did not specifically ask, but to graduate from our high school students have to take either French or Spanish.  I would sure hope that ELL students would be exempt from that requirement...but common sense does not always rule here.  So, there is no telling.  Also, if we move to the district we want to, she may be able to take Chinese to improve her reading/writing of Chinese.  She's started becoming concerned with not remembering how to read/write Chinese.  I'm thinking the problem is more like there were a lot of words she NEVER knew how to read because her school was so horrible, but she's not at the point yet where I could say anything bad about the orphanage or about China. Yet.  One day she will, but its not yet.
• It depends on the day you talk to her, but she says she would like to go back to China as a translator.  Other days she wants to say in the US and do something else.  So, it's hard to say.
• Friends...this is one area she has really struggled with.  I think in China she was highly popular.  In America, she's "odd" and is not.  Its been a rough transition for her.  We had a very rough patch about Feb/Mar, but she seems to be handling it better when she realized she is not the only kid who doesn't have 100+ friends.  After we told her a million times--and she polled many, many people--she realized that people can be fine with only having a few people as friends in 8th grade.  Life has been better.

Okay, that's the most I can think of right now...I know there's many more things I can write about our teen...she's blossoming and overall doing fantastic.