NY Crooks update

I decided to jump on the update bandwagon. Below are a number of pics that I uploaded of the girls, our new car (2007 Jeep Liberty) and Scott's latest handiwork, the swingset. He put it together all by himself and did a great job. The girls love it!

The girls have been doing great. Sophie starts kindergarten in the fall and Talia starts pre-school at the same school that Sophie attends now in the fall. They're both really excited.

The two of them have a lot of fun together lately. They're very different in some ways--Sophie is rough and tumble, loves bugs, races with the boys and doesn't mind getting dirty--Talia is a bit more girly, hates bugs, prefers to avoid dirt, but still loves to run around and play. It's a lot of fun to watch them grow.

One thing with Sophie that is a new thinngis that her school district does pre-kindergarten pre-screening and places a good percentage of kids into "young" kindergarten, essentially holding them back one year. (Personally, I'm not a big fan of the idea of screening my kid at such a young age, but oh well).

I had expected the screening to go without a hitch, but Sophie can sometimes surprise me. But, then again, the screening itself surprised me, and Sophie as well, so I can kind of see why she behaved as she did. It was held in a cold, stark room and the screener didn't really make S comfortable and just launched into the rather clinical testing. It seemed strange to me that they didn';t make it a bit more fun so that the kids would be placed at ease a bit more.

S initially went along with it, albeit reluctantly, and built towers with blocks and drew shapes on paper. But I saw her starting to furrow her brow and become more and more suspicious as the screening went on. About half way through she sat back and scowled and stopped responding to the screener. She refused to answer any questions asked re: her life, parents, animals she could name, etc. And, that was pretty much that.

In retrspect, I don't blame her. The whole thing was kind of strange. Hopefully they'll recommend placing her in regular kindergarten based on the first half of screening and the report submitted by her pre-schoool teacher. Evenif they don't, we've already decided that if they recommend young kindergarten, we'll veto it and have her placed in regular kindergarten, since we (and her pre-school teacher) think she's more than ready.

Lorraine--do you think she's ready as well? I'd appreciate your opinion on this, since I know that parents can sometimes be blind to their kids' faults.

Anyway, aside from that, we've been really busy as a family lately. Scott continues to work f/t plus an overtime shift and I've been working approximately 3 f/t days per week as well. My business has really picked up. I'm now of counsel to a local firm, Fiandach & Fiandach, which provides me with a great source of regular and interesting work. I also have a number of other regular clients and am paid to write a weekly column called Legal Currents for the daily legal newspaper for Upstate NY, the Daily Record. And, I've been speaking at a number of legal seminar lately about blogging, including one in NYC last week, so needless to say, things have been a bit hectic for the NY Crooks.

But, things should become a bit easier this fall when S starts kindergarten and T starts pre-school. At least then Scott and I will each have a little bit of time to ourselves on occasion.

But life is good. And, it's great to hear that everyhing is going well for the everyone else, as well.

We're looking forward to our trip out West in a few months. Can't wait to see you all!