Starwberries, Pools and Progress?

No pictures since the charger for the camera battery seems to have disappeared. If it doesn't turn up soon I'm going to have to break down and buy another charger.

It seems that maybe summer is here. We have been to the pool twice so far and everyone has had a wonderful time. The strawberries are ripening and it is quite an adventure to take all of them out to pick strawberries. I usually end up giving Andrew a couple to eat so he will let the rest of us get the work done. He will pick anything, as he is not very discerning about what is ripe and what is not. Juan and Maicol are very good helpers tho. They have been very excited to see the strawberries grow and finally get to eat some.

We have had rain and more rain the last couple of days. Over the weekend we made a simple sandbox. We put a tarp over it to keep the cats out and with the rain we now have a little "pool" consisting of the tarp filled with water in the sandbox. Juan and Andrew had a lot of fun yesterday playing in it. They would stand on the corner seat and jump all of about 4 inches into the water. They put their hands up as if they are diving. They even insisted on goggles. They came in soaking wet, but at least they kept their clothes on. Evidently Andrew didn't the other day and Juan wanted to take his pants off to get in the "pool" yesterday, but I quickly nixed that idea.

Funny Andrew stories - 1)we were out walking and saw a police car chasing someone. Maicol was very interested in what was going on. I explained that it was probably someone who had done something wrong and didn't want to be caught by the police (because they are bad they will go to jail - according to Maicol). Anyway, as Andrew is listening to this in his own version of things he tells me that it is a bad guy and the police will stop him and say "go to bed". Can you tell what happens to Andrew many times when he misbehaves? Don't criminals wish all they were told was "go to bed"! 2) I came out of the shower yesterday and he was sitting on the kitchen floor with a container of parmesan cheese. Actually the container was pretty much emptied - all over him and the floor. Not that funny at the time, but in retrospect it is. Honestly, we feed the boy - he just seems to be at the stage where he wants to "get into" things.

On the other hand Juan has spent very little time on his bed lately. He has been doing his schoolwork without hardly any complaining. He has been listening much better to Mami. He has changed in that if he is corrected it seems to hurt his feelings. Before he just got mad, now it really seems to matter to him that he does the right thing. He was very proud that he shared part of his dinner with Andrew last night without being prompted. Maicol has had a hard time lately. He had been becoming increasingly rude and mean to me and to Bethany also. It finally was enough to really punish him about 3 days ago. After he got done crying I sat with him in the rocking chair (he was very reluctant) and talked to him. Since some of this seemed to start around Mother's Day I asked him some questions about his "other" mother. Initially he refused to say much, but finally did talk a little. He has said very little about his biological family and his life before they came to us. His only real question for me was "Where is she?". I answered as honestly as I could since we don't know for sure. Dan and I repeated again how much we love he and his brothers, we are so glad to have them in our family, they are here forever, etc. In the end he seemed to be reassured and went off to bed happy. He has been much happier since then. Wish I knew for sure what was going on in that little head of his. He's a smart little boy and I know there have to be alot of things going on up there.

Not much else to tell. Life flies by for us just as it does for everyone else.

Karen