Olia takes flute lessons at school.  She does NOT practice often.  Up until about a month ago, I insisted that she practice 10 minutes per day.  She always argued and found an excuse NOT to practice.  So I decided that the flute was not for her and haven't made her practice.  Her band teacher got on her case and she practiced once or twice in the last few weeks.  Now the elementary schools are having a combined band concert.  All of the BAND players went to the high school and practiced together.  There are four elementary schools in our district and band students from every elementary school practiced together last week.  Olia is only interested in staying in the band because they go to McDonalds for lunch when they are transported to the high school for practice.  There are a total of three practices..  She rarely gets to go to a fast food place so she doesn't want to miss the opportunity to go there.  So I will just allow her to be part of the band for the rest of this school year.  It is hard to believe that she only has about one month of school left and then she will be finished with fourth grade! The school year is winding down and she is excited about the summer.  She keeps asking Dan to open the pool.  Our pool cover has hundreds of tadpoles who are growing daily.  Dan tries to catch a few and then take them to the stream out back.  I think they become automatic fish food.  We are hoping that they are almost big enough to be frogs before we drain the pool cover.  I had taken a few of them to one of my fifth grade students.  He loves tadpoles and wants more so I will try to take more for him in the next few weeks. 

   Yesterday Olia smart mouthed me and I put her on the chair for ten minutes.  Every once in a while she needs a reminder that I AM THE MOM!  Today she wanted to have a friend sleep over and I told her that I would think about it when I got home. She was home with Dan and on the phone with me.  She carried on like crazy  on the phone so I said NO.  I will not ever let her get her way by carrying on when she wants something. 

   Olia gave me a cute Mother's day card that she made at school. The front of the card had a pasted on paper flower vase with brightly colored paper flowers inserted into the paper vase. The card said to pick a flower and you will see the jobs you pick this week for me.  I picked a flower that said...I"ll do the dishes so supposedly Olia has to do the dishes this week.  I guess that didn't count the dinner dishes because Dan did them. I asked Olia if there was a flower that said.......I won't be cranky this week!  Olia also gave me a hand decorated container filled with growing zinnias that she had planted and grown from seeds.  Zinnias are one of my favorite flowers!  And they look so cute growing in the pot.

Dan and Olia went to Chuckie Cheeses which is a kid arcade place.  Olia loves to play skee ball.  Dan was tired and I told him to just say NO, but he took her anyway because he felt that she had been cooped upall week.  I said "Dan, Mon. Olia had a softball game, Tue., she had a Bible school family picnic, Wed. she had gymnastics, and Thur. she went to her cousin's house after school.  That hardly sounds like she was "cooped up" all week."  But he took her anyway! At the Bible school picnic, one of the other adoptive moms asked me how I picked fourth grade for Olia.  I told her that I just picked that grade because of her age and the school district didn't argue.  Olia actually never attended third grade.  She had only completed second grade in Ukraine, but I just thought that she would be too old for third grade.  And she did fine in fourth grade.