akopp2003 said…How much would you say they are understanding?
A lot. They both understand A LOT. We need to be careful about using certain words and using the same words every time, but doing that, we have little trouble communicating. I’m going to post some videos at the end and I think you can see how well Ilya understands me, when I ask him to sing and I ask him a few questions. I always try to show them something if I can. Like today, I showed the kids “jumping”. 


Anonymous said…I’m curious about Lena’s language acquisition. Did she speak much Russian? Is she naturally shy or is she just having trouble learning English?
She’s just at an 18month old level. This is normal for a kid from an orphanage to be very far behind. It’s possible there are other factors involved in it. She did not speak much Russian, but she understood a lot. The truth is, she understands a lot of English and even tries to speak it, she just can’t speak it well enough for us to understand her. Today, I asked her “movie” or “play” and she kept saying “pa pee ta”. That didn’t sound like either choice, so I was really confused. Until I realized that she was trying to tell me “Puppy town”, her favorite movie. 


Maydelin said… Well how is the relationship between them? they love? or they are so jealous of each other?
They’re both. They’re very normal, sibling wise. They have so much fun together and chose to play together most of the time. They often fight over toys, but it’s just normal sibling fighting. They celebrate with each other too, like making a big deal when someone finishes their dinner or whatever. Ilya especially loves having a playmate and will sometimes change his mind and chose to do what Lena is doing, even if it was not what he wanted to do in the first place. 

they go soon to the preschool? you know the character of each?

One of my favorite things that Ilya says is “I don’t know.” I asked him a ton of questions, thinking he’d say it, but then I just had to ask him to say it. Please ignore my loud voice.

Ilya loves to sing. He was singing a song called “Let’s Go” from an awesome video a blog reader sent us. I forgot how it goes, so I made him sing the Puppytown theme instead. And then you’ll hear Lena singing it when I asked Ilya too, but he would not, around 14 seconds. You’ll also notice how he is obviously all silly 4yo boy and if you pay really close attention, you’ll catch my dogs being all weimaraner. Also notice how I don’t respond to Ilya’s singing quick enough and he says “YAY!” himself.