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The sibling set who we adopted recently have finally adjusted to being here in America. Both Yoshi and Shinju are rapidly picking up English, Shinju although has caught on much faster. My husband, my son, Glykeria (whom we adopted 3 years earlier) and I have become bilingual, and we can now all speak English, Greek, and now Japanese fluently, (my husband and I speak Spanish and French as well!!!(and the kids are eagar to learn other languages.
Yoshi is an entergentic 6 year old who holds far to much knowledge and exerience for a child. Yoshi is the type of child who acts as if he knows nothing, when if fact he knows too much. When he fist arrived in our brand new home, we let him pick out his room color, and bedroomset. After so many hours os looking over and over the colors he finally chose an array of blues, greens, reds, yellows, and purples (that we splatered around the walls) and his room set was just as colorful as his walls. Yoshi doesn't like basic colors, I think because he finally sees in more than black and white. Yoshi's hair is a jet black (which almost matches his dark brown eyes) and my husband and 8-year-old son had a ball spiking it for his first day of kindergarden several weeks ago, and he loved it, so now every morning and 7:23 in the morning the three of them sit in the bathroom fixing his hair, while the girls and I do the same thing in Keria's room! In school Yoshi struggles with anything writen down because of his dylexia, but if something is told to him or if he watches soemthing he will remember it, which we realize will come in handy if he never quite catches on to learning to read and write. At school though he loves the ESL teacher who also had helped Keria when she arrived at the school, and he also loved drawing, coloring, painting, anything to do with arts. My husband has offically declared him the artist of the family, although Keria is close compation! Yoshi also loves to run around in our large backyard, swim in our neighbors pool, and play soccer with my 8-year-old and the neighbors.
Shinju is the opposite of her older brothers and sister. Shinny is the quiet little girl we never had, she prefers to watch us and gain secert little knowedge then to be hands on. Being the baby of our growing family, she is overprotected by all of us, especially my oldest, who has become quite fond of being the oldest and protecting his three adopted siblings! Shinny picked light pinks and purples for her beautiful room, with a balerina comforter and sheet set. Shinny has come to love playing dolls and make-believe with Keria and myself, and on occasion even my husband and our boys join in! Shinny adores Barney, Dora the Exporer, Rugrats, Zoom, Fairy Odd Parents, and Care Bears. She attends preschool-daycare daily and loves it. Shinny has learned so fast and as soon as she gets home she will tell us all about what she learned that day, which recently has been counting up to 20 and repeating the alphebet, in 3 differnt languages (English, Japanese, and Spanish!) She also has dance class twice a week and can barley stop danceing and singing at home. Shinju prefers the safe inside to outdoors, but when we go out she loves to ride her trike, play on our playset, swim in the neighbors pool, be pushed in our red wagen (my husband got after he too got adopted!), and being held while we sit in the grass! Her straight long gorgeous black hair goes just down just belowe her shoulders and is often pulled up into sloppy pigtails! And her small but deep, dark brown eyes seem to search their way into other's souls. Shinny is a remarkable 4-year-old who we all love dearly.
Our oldest daugher who was adopted 3 years earlier when she just turned 4 is now 7 and starting the second grade. Glykeria, who we simply call Keria is a brilliant little girl. Her wavey brown hair has natural blonde and strawberry highlights which flows well down to her mid back. She often has a headband on, or glittery barets, but also loves me dolling her up! Her bright green eyes show of her kindness and love. Keria is an attention seeker and is the top of everything she does. She is a top student and all her teachers love her to death. She is also in girl scouts (which we plan on putting Shinny in next year), 4H, and a church choir. She take horseback riding on Mondays, dance-jazz, tap, and ballat on Wednesdays, karate on Friday, singing and piano lessons on Saturday, gymnastics on Sunday nights, swim club on Tuesdays and Thursdays, play practice on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and she still has so much more that she is begging to be part of like playing fulte, being in soccer (again, she quite after being knocked unconcious by the ball), and basketball. Keria loves everything and everyone, which you can probably tell and everyone loves her in return.
The 6 of us (Me, my husband, my son, Keria, Yoshi, and Shinny) all thank you for bring us all together!