Snow White and her Brother

This morning we met our new little ones. The big sister will be turning 6 in less than two months. I'm going to call her Snow White as her blog nickname because when the girls were playing dress up downstairs Daniel came up to tell me that in the Snow White costume she looked exactly like the real Snow White from the movie (just with longer hair). Her little brother looks exactly like my little brother, Ricky. I'm going to call him Brother on this blog because that's what his sister calls him. She doesn't use his name at all. He is four, exactly two years older than Kevin.

The two things that immediately surprised me about Brother is that he has stud earings and he barely speaks. He uses a few words, but mostly points and makes sounds. Both of them will be in speech therapy soon. I'm supposed to enroll them both in school next week. The caseworker told us that Brother will have to be in a half day pre-K program so that he can get the speech help he needs. Personally I think he'd do better here with less kids and Daniel and I to help him. Daniel says we should do it their way until Christmas break and then we'll be able to say whether the pre-K class is helping any. In his last foster home he was the only child there and I don't think he was required to speak much. He seems to be bright and able to understand us, so it may just be that he needs lots of encouragement to use words.

All the kids have been getting along well. I told Kevin it was almost his nap time and he patted Brother and said, "I play cars with him. Let's go! Run, run!" They've been playing together all afternoon. Brother and Snow White are so happy to be back together again. They hadn't seen each other in almost a month since they were in separate foster homes. They hold hands, hug, and kiss each other a lot. I'm glad we were able to help them be together.