Baking Punkin Bread for Daddy

Tima

I’m sure you’ve heard the idea that children only live up to your expectations of them. Tima has turned that on it’s head. He’s more into reverse psychology. When I say, “I know you can do it!” Tima almost always responds by saying, “No I can’t.” But if I say, “I don’t believe you can …put on your coat/take off your shirt/put on your pajamas/turn the faucet on…” then Tima says, “Yes, I can!” And he does! The game never seems to grow old. Only occasionally will he agree with me and say, “Yeah, I’m too little.” Today he tucked his pants into his socks, put on his bib-snowpants, boots, coat and mittens. And my favorite is when he says, “Mom, say, ‘You can’t put your boots on yourself!’”

With some practice at preschool, Tima has suddenly found his singing voice. Not so much following the tune, but he’s really into singing now. His favorites are We wish you a merry Christmas and Jingle Bells. Both songs lend themselves to a lot of repetition, usually only of a few lines…

Tima is an encourager. A few times a day, I hear him say, “Good job, Danya!” He is also very affectionate, loving to be held and hugged more than ever before.

However, lately he has also been bouncing off the walls. I don’t know if he’s getting too much sleep or not enough, or maybe too much sugar? Or not enough exercise? But often it seems that he literally cannot hold still. He’ll be listening to a story at bedtime, and bouncing between my lap, the floor and the bed every page. Of course he’s always been active, as any toddler is, but this seems to be a new level of antsy-ness.

Tima’s mental development has also been progressing. We have been playing the Memory game (where you find matching cards) and he’s really learning. When the number of cards is small enough, then he remembers very well. But more than about 16 cards, he hardly pays attention, and follows his previous pattern of turning over the same two card each time.

He and Danya are really playing together well. They play many pretend games, acting as lions or dogs (Mugs and Bear of course) and penguins and seals. One day, Tima drew blood by scratching Danya’s back. It turns out that he was the falcon, and Danya the mouse. (I thought a scratch was pretty much a natural part of such a game! Two days later, while wrestling, Tima bit Danya and broke the skin again. So with the still-scabbed-scratch and the open-bite, Danya’s back looked pretty bad.) Tima often asks questions like, “Momma, do you want me to be an airplane, space shuttle, rocket, or owl?” And whatever I respond, he takes off as.

Danya

“Mom, I can’t say, ‘walk’.”
“What? What do you mean you can’t say ‘walk’. You just said it.”
“No, ‘waaalk’. Listen. I don’t say it right. Waalk.”

I finally figured out he was trying to say ‘rock’. He understands that he doesn’t really say ‘r’ but replaces it with a ‘w’ sound. I’ve tried to help him put his tongue in the right spot, but so far, no luck. It seems a good sign that he can hear it, though!

For Thanksgiving at school, Danya made a wind sock with streamers on which he filled in what he was thankful for. The spelling is his own, so I added some interpretations:

I’m thankful for :
Mamam (momma. Do you think he knows French?)
My budthr (my brother)
Daddy
My sistr
Tis glos day (This glorious day. I had to ask to know this one for sure!)

It’s been very interesting this fall, how after starting school, Danya has started to really value his playtime. It’s just hard to fit it in! In fact, he doesn’t even choose to watch videos sometimes. One day, when Tima had requested a video, but Dnaya wanted to dance to music, we chose to dance for 10 minutes. After a bit, Danya said to Tima, “See, isn’t this better than watching a video?”

He’s also picked up a lot of very grown-up phrases. Two that we hear all the time as we look for Christmas lights on houses are, “I see some in the distance,” and, “Now that’s what I call decorations!”

Danya’s school is a math and science focus school. And I am amazed at how much math and science he is learning. Right now their focus is on the north and south poles, with emphases on polar bears and penguins. I must say I’ve really learned a lot about all the different kinds of penguins, and many facts I never imagined about emperor penguins!

Danya is very into facts, and this contrasts sharply with Tima’s fantasy world! Here’s a recent conversation, with “…” marking pauses for emphasis:

D: Did you know that emperor penguins can dive underwater for 15 minutes?
T: Did you know that .. I … can… swim … underwater… for …. 60 … miles!
D: No you can’t.
T: Yes I can!
D: People can’t swim underwater that far. Not even penguins can swim that far.
T: I can.
Me: Tima, what are you?
T: I’m Bob the penguin!

Ella

After a month of runny noses and ear infections, Ella has been well for at least a week. She seems to get the worst of the boys’ illnesses. I think she hasn’t slept through the night for two months, now. But with a late-evening feeding and a middle-of-the-night feeding, she sleeps until about 7:30, which is nice. Last night I started to cut back on how much I feed her, but then she woke at 6:00am. Since we’re leaving in a month, I’m not too motivated to wean her of the night-time feeding. Maybe it’ll make it easier for her to adjust to the time change!

Fast crawling—we’ve hit the point of crawling out of the room, down the hall to wherever others are. And crawling so fast to the ‘off-limits’ areas that we are shocked when she’s suddenly there. But, she is doing well at responding to ‘no’, at least some of the time. We put the tree up two days ago and decided to not block it off. So far, she stops at the edge of the tree skirt when we say ‘no’. However, I’m still expecting her to one day get a hold of an ornament or branch and discover how much fun it is to shake the whole tree!

Talking—We’re debating if she’s actually saying “Ella”. She says it almost like you would pronounce it in Spanish—with the LL sounding like ‘ya’. She often repeats it when we say her name. Is it possible to have your first word be your own name? Is that a bad sign? She also says “aye” while waving, leading half of us to claim that ‘hi’ is really her first word. She has added ‘n’ to her vocabulary, as in ‘na-na-na-na’ usually as a whine.

Signing: Ella has learned to sign ‘all done,’ usually! Sometimes she forgets what she’s doing and ends up clapping. When I say, ‘please’ and do the sign, she always stops what she’s doing and looks at me, usually smiles, and sometimes takes another bite.

Standing—yes, pulling up on everything, and delighted when she’s standing so tall. We’ve had to re-designate the coffee table as no longer a safe place for the boys’ things. And a few other places. It’s kind of hard, with Christmas decorations, too, we don’t have a lot of space for things like drawing supplies, or fire-truck accessories. Today I took a lego-man’s diving knife (about 1cm long) out of her mouth. Usually she just has gravel from the boys’ shoes, or cheerios from under the table.

13 December 2007

Eric returned from a 17 day trip on the 1^st of December. We were all very glad to be reunited. Tima said over and over again, “I missed you so much Daddy. I’m so glad you’re home.” The kids and I were sick a lot in his absence, and it took us a good week of recovery to feel we had any spare energy! Eric, as usual, recovered from his trip easily. In fact, he got up with the kids and let me sleep in every morning for the first week! Alas, then his middle-of-the-night meetings started up again and now we share morning duties.

We have reserved tickets for the 14^th of January. We will travel to Budapest a few days before our conference starts, so that we can start the time-adjustment. (Haven’t found a place to stay yet, and we’re hoping to avoid hotels so that we can have our own kitchen…) And after a week with all the Campus Crusade for Christ staff members from Eastern Europe and Russia, we will gather all of our belongings and move on to Kiev. (Haven’t found a place there, either…) In fact, this week we have ‘lost’ a place to stay (the ‘hotel’ turned out to be a houseboat with inside temp about 20C) and a babysitter (who already got another job). So we’re praying and trusting God to provide!

Images of early December

Our favorite canine friends finally come home.
Here are Bear (Tima) and Mugs (Danya):

Tima and Ella

With Family on Thanksgiving Day

Papa Coe with his Colorado grandkids

My parents and all their granddaughters.

22 November 2007

When I last wrote, I said we would be moving to Ukraine in mid-December. Well, we have decided to wait to move until January. When Eric left last week for Russia, we still didn’t have the support in to pay double rent so we decided to delay. As we discussed the idea, we realized that we would both love to stay for the end of Danya’s school year, and for Christmas. As we explained over and over again to others why we were leaving one week before Christmas, we were not even convincing even ourselves!

So, this will be easier now, but harder later. The options are complicated, but basically we hope to move to Kiev either one week before our January conference in Hungary, or arrive right after that conference. The complication comes in the fact that Eric has to be in Russia for a week after the conference. So either option would include finding a decent place to stay—either while we look for an apartment before the conference, or afterward for me and the kids while Eric is in Russia, and continuing while we search for an apartment once he returns.

We know this might be a hard time, but if we can find a decent living situation, I think it will be the best option. There are other options that we are exploring as well, so nothing is set. At this time, we’re hoping to leave around Jan 10.

Eric is currently in St. Petersburg. He has already met with the other ministry leaders, our campus leadership team, and the local leaders of campus teams across Russia. Now he’s spending Thanksgiving with our team before a few more days of meetings with them. He had planned to go to Kiev for 2 days, but will not as I explained above. And then he’ll finish with a few day conference in Hungary for all the National Campus Directors from the countries of Eastern Europe. He returns Dec 1^st.

This will be a long trip, but so far, I feel God has provided the help I’ve needed. Starting off sick is hard, (another sinus infection) but I think it makes the rest of the time feel easier! Danya and Tima had no school or preschool all week, but it hasn’t been as hard as I expected so far. My parents have been very willing to help a lot, and we have a new middle-school babysitter who is very well liked by the boys. Also, friends like Rachel Culbertson have volunteered a lot to help. And as usual, our neighbor walks Danya to school and home every day. I feel so blessed to get so much help, since I know I couldn’t do this without it!

Ella

She is 9-months-old now! Here are her stats from her well-child-check (at which she was sick with her first ear infection)

Wt 18 pounds (40^th %ile)

Length 28 inches (65^th %ile)

Both percentiles are down slightly from her 6-mo check-up

Waving. Ella loves to wave, but not good-bye. She sits in her highchair and waves at the boys. After watching visitors for awhile, she cuddles up on my shoulder and waves at them. And when people wave back, she smiles and waves even more.

Ella’s favorite sound is still ‘ga’. Occassionally she makes other consonant noises, but rarely. She is into a kissing motion, ‘pah’ smacking sound.

Now that she’s crawling, she’s very content to explore, or to sit and play with toys. She loves rattles, musical toys, and mirrors (where she claps her hands and waves at herself with a big smile)

She is learning to obey ‘no’. The one place that’s not allowed, but we’ve left purposefully reachable, is the bookshelf. She likes to pull loose papers out of our recipe files on the bottom shelf. But about 30% of the time, she’ll stop if I say, ‘no’. The boys are very vigilant, “Oh, no! Ella’s going for the bookshelf!”

Finger foods—Ella loves cheerios or peas. She’s okay with pieces of cooked carrot or potato, but has trouble getting them in her mouth. Often, she fusses when I sit her in the highchair, but she calms down with some Cheerios, enough for me to start feeding her with the spoon.

I have done a poor job of introducing new foods. Between her sickness and ‘testing’ her for continued dairy and coffee sensitivity in my diet, there haven’t been many periods of time in which I can start new foods and watch for allergic reactions. She eats mostly rice cereal and vegetables. Last week we finally added potatoes. I try to feed her from our foods when possible, whether cooked peas or veggies from our soups. But I know that as we travel and especially live at a hotel for a conference, I’d like for her to be eating a wider variety. (Actually, I know she will eat a wide variety there, so I’d like to try to introduce as many foods as possible earlier so that I know if she is sensitive to them. I am more paranoid than usual because of her continued dairy and (possible) peanut sensitivity.

When I wrote last month, we were all recovering from a bad cold. Then we got another, and another. All together, someone has been sick for over a month. Ella’s latest was a 10 day cold that ended up with an ear infection. She has been sleeping poorly, with at least one nighttime feeding for the last 5 weeks. Sometimes she is up for three feedings. That’s a lot for me! But she’s on antibiotics, last night was good, and I’m hopeful.

Adding to her fussiness this week was two vaccinations, and her 7^th tooth emerged.

Tima

When I hug him in my lap. When I can see the boys are needing extra attention, I’ve started to blatently tell them, “I’m going to fill up your love tank.” Then I jug and squeeze or tickle them. Yesterday, Tima was sitting in my lap as I read a book to him. I was holding him tightly, and when I let go, he said, “I’m not filled up yet!”

With the first snow fall, we find that we’ve lost our favorite expression from last year. Yes, we’ve been trying to teach him to say ‘s’ sounds. But it’s a little sad when there are no more ‘nowy days. Tima still has to pay attention and put extra effort to get the ‘s’ in there. He elongates and emphasizes the ‘s’ or ‘sh’ of most words. But strangely, his ‘th’ has degraded to ‘sh’: “Shank you!”

Tima is less angry and aggressive than he was when I wrote the last update. But he still is the aggressor when playing with Danya. He often takes toys from Danya, or if Danya does something that Tima doesn’t like, Tima just strikes out. He even bit Danya once this week, in a race to turn off the t.v.

For some reason, Tima loves to take baths in Ella’s inflatable bathtub. He curls up in it and pretends to be a baby. Last night he told me to sing a song, then leave him alone so ‘the baby can sleep.’ He’s pretty cute curled up in there.

Danya

Danya received good grades on first report card. It’s surprising to me that he’s already getting grades, but I guess that’s what they do ate school.

He’s reading more and more by sounding out words. He learns words by sight quickly, so that by the 2^nd or 3^rd page of a book with a lot of simple, repeating words, he’s not sounding them out anymore. But there are still very few books he can sit down and read. His teacher told us, though, that by this time next year, he’ll be reading chapter books by himself.

Today Danya is excited to set up a ‘book fair’ at Thanksgiving dinner. He will display his books for all the relatives to see (but not buy, apparently!) We’ve gone through the old ones and written words on every page. It’s interesting to see how Danya’s drawing has progressed from stick figures to people made of circles, ovals and rectangles, with details like hair and fingers.

Both boys were very happy for our first snow fall. (Can you believe we got our first snowy day on Nov 21^st?) But Danya is enjoying it most of all. He was begging me to go outside and play by 8:00 that morning!

Well, I’m going to keep this short as far as the kids update so that I can send it before we leave!

Love

Kara

November 4, 2007

Have you noticed that suddenly, it’s November? How did that happen? I’ve jotted down notes during the last few weeks, so this might feel like an outline….because it is!

Suddenly, we have six weeks until we plan to leave for Kiev. And it seems pretty short, since we have basically 2 weeks until Eric leaves, 2 weeks with him gone, and then 2 weeks to pack and move! Our last few weeks have not gone as planned, so we feel very behind on all fronts. Eric’s Grandpa Ward passed away last week, and Eric spent the week in Ohio with his family. It was hard, as expected, to grieve his grandfather’s passing, but also good to be there together. We are grateful that we’ve been in the States for both my grandmother’s funeral (last year) and Eric’s grandfather’s. There are times when nothing can take the place of simply being together.

Unfortunately, we’ve also all been sick a lot. Eric had a bad cold before he went to Ohio, and Ella and I came down with it right before he left. Danya and Tima seemed to just get runny noses, and didn’t even miss a day of school. I ended up with a sinus infection, and just today I’m feeling better. And Ella seems to have turned the corner as well. She’s had some really rough nights, pretending she’s a newborn again. (I still contend that she’s jealous of her twin cousins and wants the same attention.) Yesterday was hard until about 11pm, but the night was good. And this morning she wasn’t leaking goop like usual.

Ella
crawling 10/15—the object that prompted her to crawl was a shiny metal-looking toy pistol. Before that, she would rock on her hands and knees, and scoot a little by falling forward from that position. But there was a gun across the room from her and she stayed on hands and knees, moving them in tiny steps, but not stopping until she reached the object of her affections. Since then, she’s continued to crawl, still pretty slowly, and only when she’s motivated. Her own toys never motivate her. But anything of the boys, or any piece of paper, is like an Ella-magnet!

We knew the house wasn’t thoroughly child-proofed, and she’s daily showing us what else we need to do. We closed the cabinet doors with a rubber band, and now one of her favorite activities is to try to open them and watch them bounce back. (Maybe that’s why you’re not supposed to use rubber bands to child-proof!)

A few times a day I hear calls of, “Mom, can you get Ella?” or, “Mom, I don’t want Ella to touch my cars/toys/spaceship.” For Tima, especially, this is a new era of sister-relations!

turning front to back--10/20. (Ella had never done this before, though I think normally babies do it much earlier.) She always rolls from a crawl or scooting position, so she basically falls over onto her back.

sat up from a crawl --10/25.

Peek-a-boo 10/17 After last month starting to wave bye-bye and clap her hands for pat-a-cake, she surprised us again with exuberant games of peek-a-boo. She’s been laughing at us when we do it for months, but a few weeks ago, she figured out how to hold something in front of her face and then drop it down. Now, she does this constantly, even while I’m singing her a lullaby. She pulls back from my shoulder, lifts the burp cloth over her face, then lowers it quickly and giggles. When her diaper’s being changed she also will use anything she can get her hands on—clothes, diapers, toys, to cover her eyes.

She started closing her eyes to play, as well. It’s hard to tell what she’s trying to do. But when Eric walks into the room, she often squints her eyes shut, wrinkles her nose, and shows her teeth. It looks like a toddler learning to do a fake smile for a photo. She does the same when I hand her a new toy.

Pincer grasp noticed 11/1—she’s eating Cheerios for finger food, and they occupy her very well. Just this week I realized she no longer does the raking claw action to pick them up.

Nuzzling, cuddling, tickling—Ella loves snuggling into our shoulders, being held and tickled. Often, she’s content to sit on my lap for 20 minutes after a feeding, just playing with my hands, buttons on my shirt, or being tickled.

Looking upside down—She often leans backwards to see the world upside down. And laughs.

Temper tantrums. Can a 8-month-old have temper tantrums? Ella has a certain angry cry that is a lot like a two-years-old’s. The strangest times are at late-night feedings, when I think she’s hungry, but screams when put to the breast (or bottle), or picked up, or carried, or put back down.

Loud! Shrieking all the time. Sometimes when I’ve left her to play in her crib, I can’t tell if she’s crying or having fun. She can be really loud with happy screams. She loves to bang anything that makes noise. It’s my theory that she thinks roaring is a normal way to communicate. After all, her brothers are lions.

Bathtub—loves it. Last week (10/27) she was blowing through her pursed lips while leaning her face toward the water. Two times she blew bubbles. Two times she choked as she accidentally inhaled. She often is happy for a long time. But sometimes she tries to get on her knees and then falls in the water. And she loves to splash.

Tima

Tima also has some angry moments. Two weeks ago, he got into throwing toys and books. When we took the books off his bed as a punishment for throwing one of them, he promptly threw his water cup. And therefore lost his privilege to have that on his bed, as well. The last week has been better. His negative emotions are more whining and crying. He’s been building a lot out of big legos, and will get upset when he can’t make something like he wants it. He says that it used to be a certain way, but no matter how I try to rebuild it, he claims it’s not right. And he wails.

The day after he was punished for throwing things, two of his preschool teachers independently said that he is so sweet and they won’t let us take him to Ukraine. I feel repetitive writing about how sweet and affectionate he is. But we never get tired of it! He spontaneously tells Eric that he loves him around 5-10 times each day, and loves to play a game where he tries to kiss Eric, but Eric won’t let him. He loves to sit in our laps for stories, loves to be ticked or carried. He loves to help me cook, clean or do laundry, and always wants to go with Eric on errands. When Eric returned from Ohio, he tells him over and over things like, “It’s fun to be together,” and “I missed you, Daddy.”

Speaking of ‘missed’, Tima’s ‘s’ sounds are really coming through. Some words, like “Spider-man” still often lack them. But he can do at least a ‘sh’ sound on those words if he tries. And words with an ‘s’ sound in the middle he almost always says correctly.

Swimming lessons—For the last four weeks, the boys have gone to lessons twice a week. Tima has really progressed, learning to float (with assistance) on front and back, and starting to gain forward movement by kicking and some paddling. He loves to practice in the bathtub, asking for it to be deeper so that, “my head goes down and my body goes up.”

Taking care of Tima largely involves following instructions. “Mom, say, ‘Bear, come here.’” “Mom, say, ‘Danya, come pet Bear the dog.’” Whenever I ask him to do something, he asks if I can pretend he is Dash (the Super-kid from the Incredibles) or Bear (the dog our friends own). “Mom, say, ‘Dash, please clear your dishes.’” “Mom, say, ‘Dash, get your shoes on.’” Somedays, when he is dressed in his Dash costume, he reminds me that he is still Bear the dog, but that Bear is pretending to be Dash today. So it can be very complicated!

For a Halloween fun-house at the local high school, Tima didn’t want to wear his Batman mask because it might scare people. We had to convince him that everyone would be in costume, so they wouldn’t be scared by him.

Danya

“I love writing.” Danya spends hours each day writing. He often has little tantrums when it is time to eat/get dressed/go play outside, or anything that involves stopping writing.

We are amazed with his progress in school. He can read a lot of words that he’s learned by sight, and is sounding out a lot of others. When he writes, we mostly have to ask him what letter he thinks comes next, and (except for words like ‘through,’ ‘bright,’ ‘our’) he usually knows what it is.

Books books books. He draws 4-6 pictures, then staples the pages together, then writes the words to the stories. We have about 30 of these books now. (Would you like one? I’d love to send you one!) They are much more readable now that he puts spaces between the words. Punctuation is pretty hit or miss. For awhile, he was putting ! after each word. Interesting effect.

Sometimes they are narratives:

Cover: “Danya’s trip to the Pumpkin Patch”
Danya riding on the bus The driver had to slam the brakes to stop for the red light
We are there. This is going to be a lot of fun I hope we have a field trip
I picked the biggest roundest pumpkin I could find
I tried the hay bale maze. I got to the middle
Now its time to go back to our school
Now we are in the bus

And sometimes not:
Brown tree with brown leaves.
Brown tree with yellow leaves.
Brown tree with orange leaves.
Brown tree with red leaves.
(of that, I helped him with the first sentence. Then I reminded him that he has all the color words in a poem he memorized for school. So he looked up the rest in his poetry folder and wrote it all without asking for help.

Harry

I’ve been busier than usual this last month, taking care of our 4^th child. You didn’t know? Well, he lives in books, so I don’t have to do a lot. But at certain times, he gets himself in a lot of trouble, and whenever my kids are sleeping, I have to go take care of Harry Potter. I knew it was stupid to open the 5^th book when Eric was gone, and I was sick. But I still managed to read it without staying up all night. The 6^th book, though lasted just 30 hours. (Although I haven’t stayed up too late reading, I know I should nap during the day instead of read. And there was one time I made lunch while reading…not very effective at either activity.)

I’m thinking of submitting a question to Word Fugitive, about a word for “when you’ve finished a book and feel lonely because it’s as if your friends aren’t hanging around with you anymore.” Or, “the feeling when a fictional character dies and you spend days as if in mourning.” And they say that computers have invented the ‘virtual world’. I think whenever I read a good book, I have trouble staying grounded in the real world instead of living in the fictional one. (My dad pointed this out when I was 10 or 11, I think.)

So, I’ve committed to wait a full week before starting the 7^th book. I’m trying to go slowly, because I know after that, it will be all over. And I’m already sad. (I know for those of you who read all the books as they came out, with years in between, my week-long Harry-fast will seem pretty trivial!)
Love
Kara

Images of October

Pat-a-cake in actionWith Danya...














...and Tima

15 October 2007

Cousins

We have new nieces! Meredith Leigh (6 lbs 2 oz) and Adeline Dee (5 lbs 14 oz) were born Sept 28^th to Dani and Dave. They are doing well, gaining weight like crazy (more than an ounce a day) and keeping their parents busy! You can see their photos at my sister’s blog: http://pointfiveseven.blogspot.com/ . We haven’t gotten to spend as much time with them as we would like, since our kids have had runny noses, and we don’t want to expose the newborns. But I sneak out every few days to go visit.

We are enjoying settling into a routine now that Eric’s home. I am really enjoying having Danya in kindergarten every day, and Tima in preschool two mornings a week. However, Ella hasn’t been napping well, so my dream of two-hours of rest on preschool days hasn’t been realized. But it’s still nice and quiet to have just her at home.

While enjoying the present, we are also looking to the future. Our move to Kiev is just over two months away. We’ve been working at sorting the boxes we used to have in storage—there’s a lot of high school and college memorabilia that is easy to throw away now! And I’m looking around our house constantly evaluating every item—take, send or give away. Last summer we rented a small storage unit for a few months, and then unpacked it when we realized we would be living here for awhile. Now I’m little paranoid that we have acquired too much stuff this year. It seems impossible to estimate how much we have to store—until the storage unit is rented and filled and … oops…too much, too late! I look at everything in light of the cost of even a small storage unit. If we’re gone 5 years, that’s a lot of money we could just use to buy new things. It is really a challenge to know how much to take to Ukraine--whether kids’ books and toys or our down comforter. We are praying to have wisdom and a biblical perspective –to bring the things that will help our family’s transition, but not to worship our stuff! We are not planning to get much from Irkutsk until we move to St. Pete, so we hope to rent a furnished apartment in Kiev.

Our Korean teammates just moved into our apartment in Irkutsk, and since they had an apartment-full of their own furniture, we are going to sell or give away most of our furniture there. A few friends have been bringing suitcases of our stuff from Irkutsk to St. Pete. But, as Eric found last November, our stuff has been moved around there so much that we don’t even know where things are. And of course it’s a lot of work for others to go through our things, and choose what to send. But, I suppose it’s a good way to get rid of the clutter—since we can only ask for things we remember, which are the most useful or sentimental…the only things that matter.

Tima

“I gave it to he, to Ella.”

“I can run so fastly.”

“That’s just pretendly.”

Grammar is so interesting, isn’t it?

Tima loves to wear shirts that button up. When he enters a room or any new situation, he pulls the collar down with both hands, showing off his collarbones. In his mind, he’s showing the Superman (or Incredibles) logo on his chest. Except, of course, he doesn’t have a superman costume on. So the effect is usually puzzling to those who don’t know about it. When Eric said, “Don’t do that, you’ll stretch your shirt out.” Tima replied, “But that what Incredible do.”

Tima started swimming lessons this week. At first, he told his teacher he wouldn’t put his face in the water. He would just lower his chin until it got wet. But by the end of the lesson, he was putting his head down and kicking and squirming forward. The teacher was so excited that she had him get back in the pool to show me after the lesson. (I wasn’t surprised, since he loves going underwater when we play at the pool, and even in the bathtub!)

Tima loves to pretend. He is always a superhero of one sort or another—usually Mr. Incredible or Dash. And after staying with friends who have dogs (Jeff and Amy Miller in Colo. Springs) he is now always crawling and barking. When I ask him to do something, he insists that I address him by his dog-name, either Mugs or Bear. “Mom, say, ‘Mugs, please get your shoes on!’” Or, he asks for us to play along: “Mom, say, ‘Danya, come and pet Mugs.’” This morning he was racing his cars and then got tired of being on hands and knees. He stood up and was flying the car around. “Lightning McQueen (the car) has super powers!”

Ella

We’ve finally finished a few weeks of fussiness, nasal congestion and resulting night-time feedings. At times, I thought she was empathizing with her newborn cousins. She’s still waking a few times at night, but usually can be resettled without feeding. However, her morning wake time is early—5:45 today. And I consider 6:30 sleeping in!

Tooth #6 erupted Oct 8. (She now has four bottom teeth and two top.)

Oct 7 – In the morning when Ella was fussy, Eric and the boys played pat-a-cake over and over with her. That evening, she started banging her half-closed fists together. The funnest thing is that she gets really excited when doing it. Now she initiates playing sometimes, calling out ‘ga-gay’ while banging her fists together. We debate whether she is actually imitating the ‘cake’ sound when she says “ga-gay”

That same evening, my mom was helping her wave good-bye, and Ella started to wave her other hand. She then would wave her hand whenever we said, “bye-bye.” Again, she was giggling and shrieking, so excited to be waving. The motion is very similar to when she’s clapping, and she is shy about showing either off in public.

Scooting around, lunging from all fours to reach out. She’s getting faster and faster. This morning I sat her in front of her toy in our room while I got ready. But three times I had to pull her away from the books magazines piled under the bed. And for the first time, she got into the boys’ toy box in the living room. We are still a little lost about what to do with some of their stuff…. I suppose we won’t take babyproofing too seriously until she actually starts getting into stuff. Somehow we think she just won’t do it!

Danya

Every day each family member shares ‘one-good-thing, one-bad-thing’ about their day. Danya’s good thing is almost always that he went to kindergarten, and his bad thing is often that he didn’t get to stay for a long day. He’s loving it. And learning a lot, both academically and socially.

At recess he plays football with a small group of kindergarten boys. One day some first graders were teasing them. As Danya says, “They were making fun of us, but we just laughed and ran away.” Another day, he told me how Nick used to like Davis, but now always sits with Danya. And he and Nick were laughing at Davis’ book. As he told me this, he didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with that. But, when we talked about it, Danya readily came up with an example of how he felt when he is made fun of. (Our neighbor girls provide plenty of opportunities.) And it seems he is motivated to not laugh at Davis or leave him out anymore. We’ll see!

Danya is also in swimming lessons, and doing well, having a lot of fun…and maybe learning something? He can swim about 3 thrashing strokes, until he has to take a breath. Then he stops.

Drawing—his pictures are becoming more and more sophisticated, with smaller people and more details. He no longer draws stick-men, but rather his people are formed with ovals or rectangles. The markers are almost always out, and we go through reams of paper these days, because Danya loves to draw and color. (In fact, all that high-school and college memorabilia makes great scrap paper, and interesting reading for the recipients, too!)

Images of September

Tima said goodbye to Daddy before his first day of preschool.Ella learned to sit.

Danya met his third cousin in kindergarten.

Our nieces Meredith Leigh and Adeline Dee Coleman were born!

Sept 27, 2007

Since I last wrote, we had one week with Eric in Russia, and one week with him home. The last week of his trip was hard for me, as we all got colds, bad enough that Danya had to miss school one day. Tima was only sick for one day, and my sister babysat while I went to a morning bible study. It wasn’t too hard for her, though, since he slept 2 hours of the 3 I was gone! The kids recovered much faster than I did. Though I was never really sick, I didn’t feel well for about a week. Eric caught it within two days of returning, and that made our ‘re-entry’ difficult. It’s usually hard when he’s dealing with jet-lag and needing recovery from his schedule while gone. And I’m trying to recover from being a single-parent for a week. Add to that both of us not feeling well, and there were some hard days. But, I can’t believe he only arrived a week ago. For a few days now life has felt normal. This helps me to look forward to moving to Kiev, where Eric will take shorter trips, and have no jet-lag upon return! It sure is nice to be back together!

My sister has amazingly not given birth to her twins. Because the ‘first’ one is breech, she will have a c-section tomorrow! I am so excited to meet our new nieces. (In fact, I decided to write today, as I hope to spend a lot of time with them in the next few weeks!)

Here’s the update on our kids:

Danya

“One day at k Care, a whole bunch of girls were chasing me and trying to kiss me. And it was rough. Julianna, Natalie and Natalie’s friend.”

“Not Allie?”

“That was a different time.”

“Chichai helped me. One time I wanted John to help me. He speaks Spanish. He’s so strong, he would be like three boys. He’s five, but he’s so very strong. I’ve been asking him, I bet if he helped, a whole bunch of girls would start crying. He’s even stronger than me. Actually, he’s like four boys. I’m so strong, I’m just like two boys.”

“I don’t really want to help feed Ella, but I know that it will help you.” Danya has continued to be very helpful, and responds well when I tell the boys that I’m having a hard time doing everything. This is usually because I’m frustrated with Ella’s crying, or trying to get everyone’s food ready and on the table while Ella fusses. Danya switches his attitude and starts asking, “What else can I do to help you?” I appreciate the help, but I also worry that he’s trying to earn my favor over Tima. One day he was hardly eating because every time Ella fussed, he would go to entertain her. I finally told him to sit down and eat, and let me take care of Ella. I don’t want him to feel that he is a third parent. But I do need his help!

“At my preschool in Russia, nobody wanted to play with me.” I think that the contrast with his current kindergarten class has made him aware of the contrast to Russian preschool. We talked about this, and even about being scared about moving to Ukraine because it will be like Russia. It’s a good chance to learn to trust God with our needs, and let me tell you, I’m praying for good friends and school situations in Kiev! Danya is still loving kindergarten, learning a lot of words by sight, and bringing home a lot of new facts. He saw a very bright ‘star’ this morning, and went to get his library book, about planets. He told me that he wanted to “discover what that bright light” was. He’s full of information about tadpoles, frogs, clown fish and anemones! (His school is a math/science focus school, so he goes to science lab every week, and there’s a lot incorporated even into his reading curriculum.)

Ella-

If I can say anything about Ella’s emerging personality, it would be that she’s quite sensitive to noise. She startles easily, which we’ve noticed since she was about one month old. Once when she was in the highchair, I coughed. She started crying, and never calmed down. Sometimes, when a stranger looks at her, she bursts into tears. But most times, she smiles right back. Her ‘stranger anxiety’ is also becoming stronger… she cries when I leave the room, and notices when I say ‘goodbye’. When she’s fussy in others’ arms, she’ll calm down when I take her. (I know that sounds normal, but I felt that the boys never really noticed who I was until later! Ella has been calmed by me since she was a few months old.)

5^th tooth 9/16 (surprise! Another one--bottom R)

Green beans- 9/15 liked well from the start even though they must be the grossest looking baby food. Will eat them and other veggies straight now, though reacts better if I start off with some mixed w rice cereal

Oatmeal- 9/19 Real oats. She kind of gagged on the texture. When mixed with sweet potatoes, she ate it okay. The second day I mashed it a little more, but she didn’t take it so well.

9/17 carrots as finger food, cooked soft and cut into chunks. She played with them some, I don’t think she put any in her mouth.

9/19, I gave her sweet potato chunks and she actually tasted some when I held them to her lips. She seemed to like it, but hasn’t gotten the idea of how to get them from her tray to her mouth. When I feed her them with a spoon, she’s very interested. It’s a good way to calm her down when she’s fussy at the table.

Her reflux seems just as bad as ever, perhaps worse. I’ve realized that she is very sensitive to caffeine. Her symptoms are not like when she was a newborn. Now, I can tell she’s having problems when she chokes a lot while feeding, coughs a lot after feeding, and is generally fussy. We’ve increased her medicine as she’s grown, and I’m wondering if I need to take her to the doctor again before her regular check-up, which is still 2 months away. I want to test her dairy sensitivity, but every time I think of it, she gets fussy for other reasons (teeth, sickness) or her reflux seems to be bothering her (caffeine)? The one day I accidentally had cheese in a meal, she was very fussy later, her reflux seemed much worse. But there are so many days when I don’t know the ‘trigger’ that I’m not sure it was from the dairy.

When she’s on her belly, she pushes up to her toes. But starting 9/15, she was actually on her knees instead of toes. 9/20, she was spending a lot of time there, rocking, and somehow moving herself backwards. She only seems to do this when she’s fussy, so I don’t usually leave her there long. She still often scoots herself off of her blanket, especially when there’s something that she wants! There’s no real method, but she just somehow seems to move.

Tima

“Th-th-th-th” There is a small motor running in our house all the time. Eric thinks it sounds like the machine-gun noise, but quieter. It took him only a few hours at home to ask, “Tima, why are you always making that noise?” I’ve been asking for days. He also seems to have an abundance of saliva. I remember when Danya went through a stage like that; I was worried he had some disease because he ws always slurping saliva back into his mouth. It seems to have resolved itself, so I’m hoping Tima’s will, too. But the percussive th-th-th-th doesn’t help him keep it all in!

On the pronunciation front, Tima’s ‘s’ sounds are becoming more and more common. And he is really exploring a lot of new words and phrases. One of my favorites is the word ‘none’ used incorrectly. “I don’t have none of those toys.” “We have none time left.”

“Mom, watch me. Mom, want to feel my muscles? Mom, watch this. Mom, help me.” I feel that Tima is an attention sponge, and is always a little dry. It was hardest when Danya was sick, as Tima seemed to get especially needy. He was upset that I was giving any attention to Danya. Also, when we do ‘homework’ Tima demands attention constantly. Danya doesn’t need as much, but as soon as I turn away to help Danya with anything, Tima starts interrupting and complaining.

The boys are continuing to play well together, making up games and activities. They love playing, “Lion King” and various super-hero games, which involve a lot of running, jumping, tackling and ‘dying’. Tima often makes a grand entrance, jumping and landing with legs wide apart, arms extended and cries out, “Batman!”

He and Danya also are fighting a lot. One day they were together upstairs while I was cooking, and I heard Tima crying. I decided to wait, and sure enough, in a few minutes they both come down the stairs, wailing. Tima wanted more of the little disks they were shooting, so he started pushing Danya. Then Danya kicked Tima’s toys over. Then Tima whacked him with the plastic gun. That’s the typical scenario. I was just happy that Tima hadn’t bitten Danya. (Can I blame the violence on letting them play with toy guns?)

Tima still loves to help me around the house, especially when it’s just the two of us. He helps with laundry, food prep, dishes, and loves to scrub the sink. We clean bathrooms and mirrors while Danya is at school, and Tima likes to help vacuum with the lightweight vacuum. However, when I need help to get a meal on the table, or when I ask both boys to clean up, Tima is very resistant. He is not listening well. But it is hard to know, as sometimes I think he doesn’t understand my instructions—like the day I was saying to put something on the rug by the door, and he was milling around the door, seeming to not know what the ‘rug’ was. So I can’t tell if he doesn’t understand or just didn’t pay attention. But there are enough times that I know he understands that I am usually confident that he just didn’t listen. After giving him the benefit of the doubt for weeks and repeating myself over and over, I’ve finally decided to start punishing him even if I can tell he didn’t listen and has no idea what I expect. We’ll see if this works to teach him to actually pay attention.

My dad bought some new markers for the boys, some with scents. When I got home, he constantly had me smell them and guess what the scent is. Then he tells me what he thinks it is.

From my mom after babysitting that day:

I had a great time with Tima. He's such a different person when Danya isn't around (and somewhat when you aren't there, too).

Today he was so grown up. It was funny when he told me about the play dough, the brown being Danya's and the blue his. He got Danya's out and wanted to play with it, but when I said "No" he was very accepting. He told me Danya got a new poem today, and that he (Tima) had a poem, too. He said his was in the cabinet, and then got out that spiral preschool book where he had to pick out the things that were different in each row and put an x on them. He said that was his poem (he must have meant homework). He showed me the spiral thing and explained all the directions and then did it. Everyone he did was correct, and then he colored all over everything. Oh, did you notice the marker set [that my dad bought] had 5 pens that were scented? Tima noticed it first because he wondered why those 5 were black and the others white. That's how he got marker on his nose and lip, by smelling them.

Tima calls any homework or preschool activities his ‘poem’ because Danya’s homework everyday is a poem to memorize. The two words are synonymous in Tima’s mind. (He has also memorized all the kindergarten poems. Too bad we won’t be here…he’d be way ahead!) Everyday when Danya works on his poem, Tima works on a preschool book. He has surprised me with his ability to follow directions and do the similar/different activities. But any ‘word’ activities, even picking out rhyming words, seems too much. He does occasionally make up rhymes, though, substituting words in songs or poems that rhyme with the original. Speaking of songs, Tima has really learned some songs. Head-shoulder-knees-and-toes and the alphabet song are his favorite. “I just can’t wait to be king,” from the movie “The Lion King,” is also a popular one. He loves saying pat-a-cake to Ella (and it really calms her down, just like it did Tima at that age). And one of the books we have from the library he has just about memorized, and loves to say the words. His favorite books are “Where the Wild Things Are” and “Teremok” (Russian fairy tale). Eric bought some fun books when he was in St. Pete, and Tima is often requesting me to read it. He loves to count, so we count the animals in Russian. And he’s actually attempting to repeat them! That’s exciting, since he’s been pretty negative about anything in Russian.