Aaron has been working some really long hours lately. REALLY long hours.  So, it’s just the 3 of us most of the time. I’ll admit… I am totally exhausted with all that I have to do and I have a huge respect for single parents and especially my friends with a deployed spouse. I think the most exhausting is when someone is up in the middle of the night screaming… which had been pretty few and far between until the last couple of weeks. Now it is a few times a week. This morning, it was both kids, screaming.    This is a good opportunity to comfort them and cuddle, but wow, it is exhausting.

We got a nice day a few days ago, so we took a trip to the lake to get out of the house. Now it’s back to the cold and I am totally missing that 60 degree weather.

I packed sandwiches… pulled chicken sandwiches, leftovers from dinner a few days ago.

Ilya wore a lot of his sandwich.

Lena had a kind of awkward relationship with her sandwich…

The dogs came too. This sums up their personalities… Josie, longing to be running around. Nina, high on life. And Cache, angry that he’s not getting a belly rub and eating cookies.

She was full of funny faces today!

And cute ones.

A boat went by on the lake and he absolutely freaked out. Near tears freak out. I told him it was okay, just wave at the people in the boat and he calmed down once it left. And then, of course, he could not stop talking about the “buy-oot”.

This is a classic Ilya conversation. His favorite game is “Where’s Papa/Mama/Ilya/Lena?”

Someone(THANK YOU!) sent us a video called “Bounce”. There are a bunch of songs meant to help children, specifically autistic children, know what to say. “Give me”, “Help me” “Hello” “Goodbye” “I need” “Let’s go” and my kid’s favorite “I want”. Ilya sings the whole thing. Lena just sings “I want an apple please”.

(I know the pictures aren’t showing up… sorry! I’ve contacted Flickr twice now and they’ve escalated the problem and I should have an answer in a few days. In the meantime, you can click on them if you want to see them.)

Lena really likes to dance. She is also well aware of what kinds of songs are good for dancing and what songs aren’t. Put on some country music and she doesn’t react, but put on some Black Eyed Peas…

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.

I finally remembered to do the kids’ photos with the giant measuring tape. Actually, Aaron may have been the one to remember. Ilya has grown about one inch since he’s been home and Lena has grown TWO whole inches!

It has been warm here, wonderfully warm. I promised myself when it got warmer, we’d go out every morning before lunch. All 6 of us (me, the two little humans and the three big dogs) would go out for a walk. We went out on Valentine’s Day and it was SO sunny…

We didn’t go out yesterday, because some of Aaron’s family was visiting. But today, we went out again and it was a bit different!

I learned dense fog makes a lot better photos than bright sunshine!

This girl has too much personality.

She was telling me she knows that the train is that way, but she can’t see it.

Ilya has a tendency to get almost peed on during our walks. He always looks so disturbed when Cache lifts his leg while Ilya stands a few feet away. But, hey, I warn him not to stand so close every single time. (And no, he has not actually gotten peed on… yet.)

It’s not MY fault I almost peed on him.

Ilya and Lena play this game, where they look each other in the eye like this, and then one of them takes off running and the other chases…

This sums up their relationship.

Doesn’t he look like an advertisement for LL Bean? Just ignore the Nike logo and the fact that LL Bean doesn’t sell pre-ripped jeans.

I asked Ilya to make the face he makes when he doesn’t like something. It is like this, but minus the cute smile.

This is just proof for Amy that Josie is alive and well… and still muddy.