Remembering five years ago

 

Krassi's rings, part 4

 Krassi's still going strong with his things in rings theme! Here are a sampling of  what he's been up to since the last post I did on the topic.

A bit on Bobbi

 I'm grateful to all of you who have asked me to post. I've wanted to, but with the myriad of things waiting for my time, not everything gets done. :) But, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, right? And there's been enough of you "squeaking" to make this worth my time!

So, today is a little tidbit on Bobbi, who graduated from "Branch Out," which is our school district's transitional program for young adults with disabilities. She had quite an interesting tenure there, with all of the COVID lock downs and distance learning impacting much of her time there, but we made it through, and she had some beneficial experiences through her years there. She now has officially earned her high school diploma, and they had a nice, small graduation ceremony in the spring.

With Rose and one of her favorite paras.

Each student had a little framed description of themselves that they put together with their teacher for the back table to display next to their photo.We thought Bobbi's was pretty representative of who she is!

(She's making decent progress on her dreams, since Dad did get her ceiling fan installed soon after graduation! Maybe not the biggest of dreams, but achieved nonetheless...and much appreciated in our un-air-conditioned house!)

Moving forward from here, she's hoping to find another part-time job. She's still going strong at Kwik Trip as a Food Product Demonstrator, getting close to her two-year anniversary there, and although the 9.5 hours a week that she works can sometimes drag along for her, she is a faithful, committed employee, and is well appreciated on the job. She (and we!) know that she doesn't do well with too little to do, so we're hoping that a lead her job coach has on a job at Goodwill will turn into something real. I'll (hopefully!!) keep you posted on what comes of that. Ideally she'd be able to put in two 4-hour shifts or something like that, which would give her something productive to do almost every day.

18 years old

 First of all, thank you to those of you readers who keep gentling prompting me to post something! This isn't much, but hopefully enough to show that we're still alive around here. :)

Anyway, today is a milestone day! Krassimir is...EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD today!!! I snapped a photo of him as he and I were waiting for his occupational therapist at the therapy center this morning.

Looking pretty good, huh? I'm so proud of how big and strong he has gotten. (Well, "big" is a relative term, as he still weighs just around 70 pounds as a bona fide adult...) But he is definitely so much stronger than he's ever been, and look at how he's just grinning right at me and the camera! That is a skill that, nearly nine years into this, is still emerging and developing.

I'm so dreadfully behind on keeping you readers anywhere near up to date on everyone, but hopefully this is better than nothing! And I'll share one more photo - kind of fuzzy, but it captures a moment from after supper when Krassi was opening his presents from his siblings:

Lucky guy got not one, but TWO cools rolls of duct tape (his sisters know what he likes! See his still-favorite hobby if you click HERE...and HERE and HERE) and the littler girls made him the neat cardboard bracelets that you can see him wearing (by the yellow tape) and holding (under the striped bag.) He had a hard time leaving them behind when it was bed time, but when Dad reassured him they'd be waiting for him in the morning, he was able to take them off and set them down. That's my boy. :)

He is such a confident, contented go-getter. His world may be small and severely limited, but he's the king of his world, and he's good with it, and that's something that all of us are better off being able to do!

Mira got a hair cut

 Mira got her hair cut today. We haven't really CUT cut it since she came home, and it's so long and pretty...and more than she really needs right now! Even though we've kept the bottom third of it trimmed right up to her head for the last few months, she's got enough volume that there was more than enough to donate.

So this morning, we did it! Look in the mirror on these two to see the before, then the pony-tailed prep...

And the final result is VERY cute.

And look what we get to send off to share with a child who's lost their hair!

I think it's pretty neat that Mira, who has so little ability to actively contribute to the world around her, is able to share something really beautiful that she made.

I've spent a lot of today thinking about Toni, the adoption lawyer on the Bulgarian side that we worked with on all three of our adoptions. She is no longer living, so we can't share this with her, but I'm certain that she would have been more than pleased to know that Mira's beautiful hair is going to improve the life of another child! As Toni and I spoke on the phone one night during our week in Sofia waiting to get visa to bring the girls home, she told me that while with most of the children she helps place, she's excited to hear about all of the new milestones they'll reach and the accomplishments they'll have, but with Mira, her single request was that we make her hair pretty - to symbolically show the world that this little child is worth caring for! Well, that girl definitely has pretty hair, and now it's not only pretty for her, but it's going to be pretty for another little girl who is going through a tough time!

Things in Rings, round 3

Two sets here!

Ha ha! (Though this only happened once - not quite as satisfying for him, apparently.)

I thought this was a pretty clever adaptation!

He always likes it when I photograph his work!

There's three of them in there!