teamMarius

Hi Team,

I thought we'd share just a couple of things with all of you about Marius and Ionut. We wanted to let you know what was happening in their lives, their schoolwork and their playtime! The most exciting to us is the abundance of pictures and video and slide show entertainment we've added to the site. So come and browse!! www.teammarius.org

On the School Front: Marius has a homebound teacher who comes twice a week for two hours. Her name is Maggie Gercheck and she is just delightful. She is always bringing such stimulating things for him to try and seems to catch on quickly to what he enjoys. She has come up with some great things for Marius to learn english and tailored the whole program exactly to him. We have talked with the principal here at my school and she is incredibly supportive. We are thinking about integrating him into specials like music, pe, computers hopefully after he recovers from his first surgery. We're hopeful that we can find just the right class for him to be with and are hoping to present something to the school children in general introducing him so that the children will feel they know him a little more and the transition for both sides will be good. The school district has contacts with Banner Hospitals and we have also talked with the organization that runs the burn camp here for children and they have also volunteered to come help with re-entry and transition. So we will have experts to help with the transition. That should be great. His teacher wants him to show the children the things he can do so they will be able to see he isn't so different from them. We thought about full schooling in January with the homebound during surgery recovery, but we're just going to watch and see how he does.

Ionut is enrolled with Nate at the high school and has 4 hours of english a day and one pe class. It has been difficult as his english isn't very developed and he feels lost most of the time. If any of you have been to foreign countries, you know that it can be trying. But he is determined and though it's frustrating, he comes home cheerful for the most part. We had the tylenol ready the first few days! He likes his PE class and lunch with Nate's gang. He and Nate went to ask out Ionut's Homecoming Date a week or so ago. They went boating for their day activity and had a ball! Ionut came home with a HUGE smile on his face and Nate said all of the kids (12 of them in the group) were particularly inclusive, especially Nate and Ionut's dates. Dinner was at a friends and the dance was at the High School on Oct. 4th. Ionut borrowed a black suit of Nate's and wore a green tie match her dress. They seemed to have a great time. When we get all of the pictures we'll upload them to the website.

The fireman theme has been the latest phase here. We live right across the street from the elementary school in a cul de sac and I noticed the fire truck parked there in the morning. I walked over and asked if they had a break when I could bring Marius over to receive a quiet tour. He said they had a break but they would drive over to us. So we get a knock on the door and Marius ran to answer it. There were 3 of the sweetest firemen! They were so tender with Marius, giving him a FULL tour of the truck. He was even aloud in the drivers seat! And they proudly flashed their lights and played their siren for him when they left. He got stickers and a plastic firemen hat, which he has worn for hours on end since they left!! I love that things excite him like that.

Halloween came early for us this year. McKay dug through the dress-up box because Marius wanted to be Peter Pan. He got all decked out and ran around the house for several hours with a knife in his belt and green tights on his legs!! There are some pictures capturing his enjoyment on the website!

A cute thing happened a few weeks ago I thought I'd share. Marius had gone to run a few errands with me and started saying something and then counting "1 ... 2 and 1 ..... 2" then he would say "no no no 1 2 3 4" and then he finally--after the confused look on my face--sighed "never mind." It was at that moment I looked over and saw him staring at the steering wheel and it hit me what he was trying to ask. He wanted to know if I only had 2 fingers on each hand, could I still drive?!? So we tried it! I wrapped my pinky and thumb around the wheel and showed him how you could still drive with just two fingers--I wish I had had a camera to capture the sheer joy on his face. It was elation coupled with a look that said: whew!!!-- he was going to be able to drive someday after all!!!!!!!! We decided I'd finish the rest of my errands like that (we hope no police officers are reading this) so we could prove to ourselves we could do it. It was so much fun!

This past sunday we had a ball. Ionut started giving Marius a horseback ride down on all fours. He gave each of the littler ones a ride and then McKay--who is blessed with the creative gene in our home and a real knack with duct tape-- decided to create stirrups around a belt so Marius could steady himself better. He cinched up the belt and had these duct tape stirrups hanging down while Nate (our other son) ran to grab dad's cowboy hat. Marius already had on his poncho (a blanket tied in a knot at his neck) and with McKay now down on all fours, had a heck of a pony ride!! That of course wasn't enough so they created some more and now had shoulder holsters for guns made out of the tape. Well one thing led to another and by this point all three big boys, loaded with nerf gun, etc. grabbed the two little boys, Marius and Jeremy, and began a game to capture the treasure! It was hysterical! I'm glad there is so much goodness in these three older boys! They take great care of Marius and are kind enough to include my little ones as well!

The last fun extravaganza is to watch Ionut with Madison or Elena dancing the tango. He watched it done on a movie and now is hysterical to watch as he adds all of the feet moves and head throws! If you are ever in for a real treat, ask Ionut to tango! In the meantime I'll try to discreetly capture it on film!

Enjoy!

Kristin