I have been kind of quiet on here and on Facebook because we have had a lot to think about. The agency that processed Sefan ,s adoption followed up for us with Sefan.s actual birthdate. We did not get to meet a member of Sefan's birthfamily in ET because their was some communication breakdown. I was told several times the first week that she would arrive on Thursday....Thursday came and went and they said that they forgot to call her. It is 360 miles from Sefan,s birthplace to the orphanage in the capital city so I was told it would take a few days for her to arrive after they made contact. Unfortunately she never made it to see me. I am very sad we missed this important meeting because we have so very little background information on Sefan. Seriously at this point we have 2 sentences and now a birthdate. I am thankful, however for the birthdate and thankful that the agency did follow up as promised with this very important information.
Now for the complicated part. Sefan,s birth certificate says that she turned 3 a few weeks ago. We knew from the start that this was incorrect but thought that maybe it was just a year off or so. However, come to find out Sefan is really exactly 1 year younger than Carter....EXACTLY...the same birthdate but one year later. So that means she is almost 5 and a half.
There are several ways that this is complicated
1) 2 of the 4 kids now share a birthdate!
2) 3 of the 4 kids now have an exact birthdate which means that 1 doesn,t
3) According to the estimated Birthdate of Wubitu and the exact birthdate of Sefan, Sefan is 6 months OLDER than Wubitu.
4) Wubitu may actually be older than Sefan but since we do not have an exact BD for her we may never know.
5) With her age Sefan should be entering Kindergarten in the fall for sure. She will turn 7 before the end of Kindergarten next year. If we wait another year she will be 8 in K and 16 in 8th grade (biologically)
6) Sefan has a LONG way to go to catch up to Wubitu as far as language, academics, fine and gross motor skills.

So all of this has me in a panic of sorts. We haven,t really shared this with the kids yet because of #2, #4....Not sure what do to exactly...

So last week we started to do some very formal letter teaching to try to catch Sefan up. And well....she can recognize 3 letters but she cannot write them at all (the fine motor issues again). It is so overwhelming for both me and HER. She is still learning the difference between up and down, front and back, bread and english muffin, toe and finger....and somehow in the midst of all of this she has to learn the alphabet, what these strange things are, what they look like, sound like, etc. I feel bad for her really....I just hope we can make the strides we need to make in the next 11 months.