It's been so long I almost forgot my password! Well, I'm just going through a tough work-life balance thing right now (read: stressed out and grumpy). But want to give ya'll an update before I get too far behind around here.

1. We had a meeting with Rita's teacher, school psychologist, school speech therapist and learning center coordinator about two weeks ago. This was a follow-up to the "kick a boy and get kicked out of school" episode.

We spent an hour (with a huge whiteboard) discussing Rita's strengths, areas of weakness, current teaching & discipline methods, things that can be done now and over the summer to get her caught up, etc. Her teacher was very pleased by her academic performance so far ... she's working at a kindergarten level right now (math and reading) but believes that Rita has the intellectual capacity to learn quickly and get caught up. Behaviorally and socially she is doing fine and has some good friends at school.

The teacher did recommend that her teacher for next year works in a structured manner, yet has a nurturing style. Rita does best when she is kept busy both at home and at school. We were impressed by the discussion - everyone in the room seemed very engaged and well informed about teaching and discipline styles. And they discussed various situations where they had children with similar backgrounds and behaviors and how they dealt with them.

Of course, this meeting was bittersweet since we recently learned that Rita will be able to attend the school that we were originally trying to get her in. We are unsure how this new school will support her (especially hard since we know her current school is great), but feel that it's important to get her transferred now since she has another five years to go in elementary school. What we love about the new school is that she'll be able to walk to/from school and many of the neighbors have already transferred there. Academically it also scores very high and has a nice campus.

2. Rita's teacher caught "P" (Rita's kicking post) poking and trying to trip her in class last week. So, Rita's past behavior may have been "self-defense". We are joking about whether we should go to the principal to clear her record, but in the end she did kick the boy which isn't acceptable. Rita's teacher made it clear to him that she's upset with him for "setting her up" and that she's going to tell the principal that he hasn't been an innocent victim. We haven't had any issues since.

3. We saw The Cure last week and they were fabulous. They played for 3 hours! We stayed out until midnight. Rita stayed at Kristin's house. It was nice to have a normal evening!!!

4. We've got our vacation to Portland and Seattle coming up next weekend. Then I will traveling to San Francisco and Boston the first two weeks of July. Michael is in Chicago next week. We have a big conference in town next week, the George Michael concert on Tuesday (I think Rita is going with me), and my company just announced a $6.7B acquisition deal that directly affects the area of business I am in. In a good way. But, it's just a little crazy right now.

5. We had our social worker over last Saturday for our first post-placement report. It will be six months in August. Our agency is on top of it, aren't they?

6. Plus, we have some cool news. A project we've been considering and working on for about a month. But I'll save that for another post.