The days are becoming more routine!

Today was a good day, because the routine held!! YES!! With Brenna and Rox safely off to work and school respectfully, I got in a workout, and then spent the rest of the morning shopping at the Pulau Tikas wet market, mostly for fruit and veggies, I really love getting stuff this way, fresh, inexpensive, and the whole experience is just better! So back home with my purchases, and I am noticing that our ant problem is getting worse, they are those little "ghost ants" that we used to get in Florida, i think they call them sugar ants also, really tiny and move really fast...gotta get some traps or get an exterminator in here! so after a bit of porch time with the paper, I headed to Brenna's school to do the guided reading and also meet with Brenna's teacher to go over her progress thus far. The guided reading went great, the kids in her class are so smart and so respectful! The meeting with the teacher went off really well, main points...Brenna is doing very well academically, she is even in the teachers assessment a bit above the work they are doing, the "but" to that is when she actually chooses to put in her best effort! I am sure any of the Grace folks who are following this blog, will know this of Brenna first hand...She struggled in the beginning, with "playing" Mrs. Msaka, mostly the drama game (again Grace Lutheran folks, hello). Mrs. Msaka had no part of it and generally ignored it, reinforcing the expectation, or sending her out of the classroom...It has worked, as it always does!! the interesting part is that Mrs. Msaka was out for  a few days and Brenna tested the sub, for about a day...and then that was it, so I think she is finding that just as it was in Grace, the Brenna game is a no go! We are very happy that she had Mrs. Msaka as her first teacher, and although it is very different than it was at home, we have had to adjust also, Brenna seems to be adjusting well. the summer, and then the transition to year 4 next year will be interesting as there are quite a few kids that are in her class and the other year 3 class that will not be there, so although there will be a few left, most if not all of the girls that she has befriended will be going home...This we expect will be hard on our little girl, she is stronger than we think sometimes, and we have to remember that next year she wont be the "new kid" anymore, and Brenna LOVES to play host,teacher,cruise director,supervisor...pick your position of authority (it is a kind gentle authority) and she will have a chance to do that with the new kids that begin next year...that will be good for her, she will be the one to show them around and help them to get adjusted, like the kids this year did for her. Another interesting thing is that next year she is very likely to have a male teacher...she has never had that before and we are curious to see how that goes. Well with our meeting at school done, home was the destination, Rox had some work calls to make and take, Brenna had homework and I had dinner to cook...Well I ended up asleep on the couch and the hour grew late, so we scrapped the original meal plan and went with pasta, cooks up easy...again, you can see the routine beginning to shine through, we are more relaxed here every day. So that's it for today gang, another Good day in Penang...hope you had a good day too!! Goodnight!!