Living In Sicily

Wow, I can't believe it has been two years on the island. Where has the time gone? We are in the process of looking into orders of when and where we will go next. I will post another blog on that later.  Lately I have been spending my time at home with the boys, going over photos of the past two years. I have several photo albums and slide shows that are not finished. One day I will sit down and finish them, LOL.  Looking back and seeing how much Seb has grown from an 4 year old to an 7 year old going into the second grade. The saying is true, you blink and they are grown. I am so very proud of my oldest, he has over come many challenges living over here. I have work very hard with him, and I feel now all the hard work is paying off. I just need to work harder and spend more time on his reading. Seb and I have been through a lot over the past couple of years, and I feel we waded the storms OK. We came to the island in March 2006. I was so excited about coming to Italy, I wanted to submerge myself into the culture and learn all I could from the Italians lifestyles. I bought the Cd's to learn the language and books to read. I came here with great ambitions and wanted to be here. I had goals of what I wanted to accomplish while living overseas, and expose my family to another culture. Even though I was nervous about getting our family set up over here, knowing I would be alone for most of it. I also felt the timing was good for us. The company I was working for decided to venture out on their own and I saw cut back coming. What great timing for me to turn in my notice. Seb was also in an educational Pre-K school, that had a long waiting list. I finally got him in and he only spent a few months there. But I saw a big difference and was sad he had to leave. But before we did, I sat down with his teacher and asked what I can do at home to prep him for kindergarten. So Seb and I went shopping for all kinds of home school type of items. I didn't realize how much they push onto the kids in kindergarten now a days. So we started right away, and he loved it. He was so cute, I would try and set up a few hours a day for us to sit down and work on different things. I would say, " Sebastian, you want to work on your workbook." And he would go and get it and a pencil and we would begin. In the beginning, he did great, no problems with anything we went over. His writing was neat and his letters were correct. I was proud as a parent on helping him get ready for school. I had no idea that when he would start school that he would have so many challenges. He didn't show any signs at home, I even showed his workbook to his teacher before school started on what he was working on and how well he was doing. She was impressed and didn't foresee any issues either. I will blog later on Seb's school experience. I will also post our first adventures on the island.