Bishara Family Blog

Wow! It’s been a long time since I’ve managed to write an entry…but we’ve had a lot going on since the last entry. I’ll keep the update brief and promise to try to write more regularly now that I have a bit more free time with both Patrick and Alex in pre-school.

Since the last entry, we moved out of our rental house that we’d lived in for almost 3 years to another rental house in our neighborhood. We had arranged for another house closer to the beach (and the boys’ preschool), but were sad to leave the neighborhood just as we’d started to make some nice friends with kids our kids’ ages…so we moved about 7 houses up the street. The house is smaller, but we are so happy to be away from our previous owners and all of their problems, drama, lying, and pettyness. It’s really nice to live in a house that the owners don’t quibble about repairs for and that the repairs are done in a timely fashion without us having to “finance” them! The drive to school (about 17 miles) doesn’t take too long (about 20 minutes) from here, Mark’s commute doesn’t suffer at all, and we didn’t have to leave our friends or all of the conveniences of living where we do!

Patrick is in voluntary pre-Kindergarten every morning and loving it. He is starting to read, loves to write his name and do “homework.” He is a super good boy, and the teachers just love him. Although he was hesitant to not attend his other pre-school, he has adapted really quickly and easily, and has made lots of friends. His class this year is mostly boys…13 boys to 4 girls, whereas last year, it was 10 girls and 2 boys! Patrick played basketball this summer and t-ball this fall, and seems to be a natural athlete. He is such a good listener that he picks things up much more quickly than most of his peers. He was one of only a couple of kids on his t-ball team that hadn’t played before, and all the parents assumed by how well he did that he had been playing a while. Alex went to almost all the games, and is eager to play in the spring, too.

Alex has come a long way since our last entry…we finally got in to see the specialist we had been waiting on, and although we still don’t know exactly what bugs him, we are getting closer. It was so nice to get a doctor who is committed to figuring it out and not one who just shrugs it off as “I don’t know” and sends us on. Alex has endured a lot of blood and urine work this year, and each test tells us something different (as his doctor says, “his labs are ‘interesting.’”). He doesn’t even cry any more when he gets blood drawn, and that breaks our hearts. He knows the drill at the hospital, when we are driving the same way as the doctor’s office or hospital, and can differentiate all of his various doctors and what happens there. He is still allergic to peanuts, unfortunately, so we are probably going to be dealing with that for a few years (his sensitivity keeps worsening instead of improving as time and lack of exposure pass). Alex goes to school 3 mornings a week with 3- and 4-year-olds and has transitioned better than we had hoped. He still has issues with his behavior every now and then, but we are confident that once we get to the bottom of what bugs him, he will be the “happy, cooperative Alex” we have seen glimpses of periodically this year. He is done with so many “baby” things - diapers, his high chair, his crib, his rocking chair (Mark and I were more than happy to get rid of that glider since we had spent so much time in it!). He has grown up so much!!!

Well, Alex is waking up from his nap, so my blogging for today is done. We hope everyone is happy and healthy!

Until next time…