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