English Kindergarten.

Michael is moving to English Kindergarten.  (My ipad told me to spell it kindergarden and this laptop tells me kindergarten.  Take your pick.  I'm sure you'll pick the correct one.)

I had a meeting at school this week with some fabulous women who are educating and working with Michael.  After these first three months, they feel that because he doesn't have a nice strong and solid English background and because he is has some delays, it would be best to move him out of Manderin immersion and into full time English class.

This is hard.  It is hard because I've been thinking about this for the past couple of weeks (even before it was brought up).  I began to sense that maybe Michael would be better off in preschool and learning English.  I shoved that aside knowing that the school would have told me if that was the case.  They told me.  They told us.  Another hard part is that Michael is going to lose his Mandarin.  I know that this decision is the best one for him long term, but I remember watching Simon lose all of his language and it broke small pieces of my heart.  Now Michael will do the same thing.  Statistics show that it will take about 6 months.  We'll try our best to fight that by having our other kids use their Mandarin with him.  It is hard because I love the kids in his class, I love his teacher, I love Michael's smile when he talks about the kids in his class, I love I love I love.  Loving sets us up for heartbreak, so we are doing what is best even though it hurts. Plus, it can make me really selfish.  And I am selfish and need to fight against it.

Once again, Michael is going to be moved into something different.  (Four months ago he moved into a different family, culture, country, school, bed, eating structure, language. . . quite the shock!)  I believe he will be o.k. because I've seen him work through it.  I'm so glad that I get to be with him this time. . . I was with him last time too but this time he trusts me.  He loves me and I love him.  Last time we weren't kissing on the lips yet.  :)

We don't know when this is happening, but we completely trust the school leaders to plan and let us know.  That is one thing that makes this much easier.  I completely trust the leadership of Zeeland Christian School.  It is wonderful that I don't feel the need to contradict.  I'll ask questions of course, but I trust the answers.

God has put Michael into our lives for purpose and into our school for purpose.  We are just following His lead.

On a side note--Michael had a big specialist appointment in Farmington Hills a few weeks ago.  The results of the CT scan of his ear canals was very discouraging.  The canals are so small, bones are fused together, pockets are tiny. . .after looking at the scan and visually inspecting his ears they talked to me about hearing aids.  Surgery didn't fit at all for how Michael's skull is shaped.  They wanted to give him a hearing test because they didn't trust the results of his other hearing test.  (I didn't either.  Michael cheated.)  After the hearing test they entered the room in disbelief.  Against everything that they can see, Michael can hear out of both ears.  It isn't stellar, but it is good enough that he doesn't need a hearing aid right now.  Gary and I praised God for the miracle that only He could do for Michael. 

Michael's eyes are also getting better with the patching we are doing at home.  God continues to be faithful in so many ways and I have no doubt that this will continue.  I'll be waiting and watching and enjoying God.

Penny just got up (napping twice a week these days) and I promised that I'd teach her Wii bowling.  We are enjoying our second snow day off from school this week.