To the park...

What a beautiful day we had yesterday! Sunny and 60 here in the Chicago Area...after a quick dinner last night we took the kids to the park.

Hearing from the little guy....

Well I had to post this...on my way to work this morning I called Gloria on the cell. She has a blue tooth device in the Durango and of course my call was blasted on the car speakers...I said "hello?" and I get back a very loud and clear "HI DADDY!". What a great response on this beautiful Saint Patrick's Day in Chicago where even us Polish and Russians are "Chirish" today. What a long way we have come since we all got home back in October...No more Papa, just lots of Daddies. Have a great Saint Patrick's Day everyone!

How soon we forget..........

When John was getting ready for his first day of pre-school, I pulled out his "Spiderman" backpack. This just so happens to be the backpack we brought with us to Russia filled with toys and books for the long plane ride. He was very excited to see it and wanted to use it for school. Kristina on the other hand, got a different backpack (Blue and pink) for when she started school. Well when she saw that he got to use his Spiderman backpack she wanted to use her Princess backpack. If I had known that she would be so excited about the Princess backpack and want to use it we would have used it a while ago. She walked all around the house with it and said "Kristina go to school now".

Well this is where the funny begins................as the kids were walking out of the house this morning with their "Russian" backpacks on, I said "Hey you guys look like you did when we were in Russia getting on the big plane to come home to Papa and Keegan". Neither of them had a response but when we got into the car to go to the sitter's house, Kristina says to me, "In Russia it is spasiba. She says that over and over again. I say to her, In the United States it's "Thank you". It took me a few minutes to respond to her because I had to think what "spasiba" meant. I almost told her "please". I just thought that was really cute.

First day of pre-school

Yesterday was John's first day at pre-school. The bus picked him up at the sitter's (Lisa) house at Noon. He has been very excited about riding a "school bus" since we told him that he would be riding one to go to school. We were not sure which he was more excited about, riding the bus or going to school. Lisa and John were outside waiting for the bus to come and it rounded the corner and out of John's mouth was "Oh My Gosh!" "That's mine" "For Me". Lisa said he was so excited and was smiling from ear to ear. She has to put him on the bus and buckle him in. She said he turned and looked at her and said"Bye Lisa!" and never looked back.

I spoke with the director of the program this morning and she said John did great. She said at first he was a little reluctant to join the group and was happy to just look around and check out the room and everything in it. She did get him to join in the activities on the rug and he sat quietly and listened and watched what they were doing. Then she checked on him a little later and he was playing with blocks and interacting with the other kids very well. Later in the day, they were in the gym and he was running around and playing with the kids and having fun. She told me she was impressed by what she saw for his first day.

The ride home on the bus was uneventful and by the time it got to Lisa's house, John was sleeping in the seat. When Lisa got on the bus to get John off, the bus driver commented that he had a great time and was talking to the other kids and everything. Lisa told her that he would probably fall asleep most days because if they go anywhere in the afternoon for any length of time in the car he falls asleep but will wake up as soon as they get home. Which is what he did when he got to her house. He changed his school clothes and went out to play.

When we picked him up from Lisa's house, he was really excited to tell us about the bus ride and his teacher, Miss Becky. Also said he played with boys but not much else but wanted to go back today.

What a difference love, care and American food can do.....

The first time our little guy saw the doctor was on 11/11 about 2 weeks after arriving here, he was 41 pounds and was 41 inches tall.

Yesterday our little guy was not feeling so well so I had to take him to the doctor. He weighed 43 pounds, that's a gain of 2 pounds. We believe it is a little more than that because he had not been feeling well so he has not been eating like he normally does. His height is now 44 1/4 inches. That is a whooping 3 1/4 inches growth in 4 months. WOW!!! Can you believe it? I was shocked.

Kristina has also grown too. On her first doctor visit (11/4) she weighed 44 1/2 pounds and was 45 1/4 inches tall. Just the other day we weighed and measured her. She is now 47 pounds - a gain of 2 1/2 pounds. She is now 47 inches tall. That is a growth of 1 3/4 inches in 4 months.

WOW!

I guess what they say is true................

What a difference love, caring and American food can do for our kids!!!

The four month mark......

The Moscow Circus was a very nice but we can't post any pictures because they did not allow us to take any. The kids really enjoyed it. Kristina was very interested in the music. They both thought it was really cool and liked it very much when their big brother went up on the stage with the clowns and did a little skit. Keegan on the other hand was a tad embarrassed.

On Tuesday, I took John to his new pre-school. He really liked it. He will be going 5 days a week for 2 1/2 hours a day. A school bus will pick him up and drop him off each day. We know that he is excited to be going to "his own" school but we aren't sure which excites him more - school or riding a school bus. He is going to start this week.

We had Kristina's parent/teacher conference on Thursday. The teacher said that she is so impressed with her and how quickly she is learning new things. She says that Kristina is ready to start learning to read. We are so super proud of her. Kristina has also been involved in an after school tutoring program to help her with her language skills. This is done with a junior high student. We were a little worried about it because it took her almost three months to be sure enough of herself to say new things to her big brother so we were not sure how she would do with a stranger. But again, they say she is doing very well. On a side note.....the school tested Kristina for her reading level. Needless to say we laughed when we got the letter that stated that she scored a zero. What did they think she would score? Because of the zero, she qualifies for additional reading help. Come on now we could have told them that before they tested her. But anyway, she will now get extra help in reading two days a week. That's all that really counts - is that she gets the extra help so she can succeed.

On Friday, we signed John up for kindergarten. He will start in the fall. We won't know until then whether it is morning or afternoon. By then, he will have at least a few months in pre-school so it won't be a brand new experience for him.

My birthday was Saturday and I decided that what I wanted for a present was a night away with the family. So we went to the Mayan Adventures Waterpark in Elmhurst, Illinois. We had a blast.

Enjoy the pictures!

By the way..........we have a camera shy fifteen year old. But we were telling him that he needs to take John to the local water park by us in the summer. John is a real ladies man and had all the lady life guards "helping" him out of the slide. He would hold up his arms and say "help please" and they would pick him up and help him out. We tease Keegan that he is going to need to teach John to say "Hey that's my big brother - want to meet him?"

The kids have come a long way in such a short time. This past four months have flown bye. We have been truly blessed. We actually have been thinking about the kids language. If we were to guess, we would say that there might be about ten words left that the kids still say in Russian, everything else is in English. One to three word answers mostly but they are improving every day.

Thank you for following along with us on this wonderful journey! More to come I'm sure........

Recent Stuff.............

Last Friday night, we took the kids to the Monster Truck Jam. They had a blast. Kristina rooted for the "dog" truck. John rooted for Grave Digger (because he got a hat of Grave Digger when he got his cotton candy). Keegan rooted for Nitro Circus. Kenny and I didn't really root for anyone in particular just wanted the kids to have fun. We heard things like....."that was cool" "did you see that?" "Wow - look at that" and so many more. It is fair to say they had fun! And cotton candy is good stuff.

http://www.moscowcircus.biz/

We have tickets to attend the Moscow Circus this weekend, but we had a very good friend that passed away and we have to attend the funeral on Saturday, but we are hoping we can still make it to the circus. If we do, we will post pictures next week.

Today we had pre-school screening done on John. Where to begin? I guess there are just people that will never get it. The two ladies in charge were very excited to see him and knew that he was adopted from Russia and has only been in the states since October 28th. But I guess they forgot to tell all the women doing the testing. The first two tests, cutting with scissors and matching went very very well. This is where it all goes downhill. The next lady was showing John pictures and wanted him to say the words. They called me in to the room to see if I could help her out. The first picture she showed John was of a bed. She of course wanted him to say "bed", well John didn't. Instead he said "sleep". The next picture was a teacup and she wanted him to say "cup", instead he said drink. She got frustrated with him and looked at me and said so he doesn't speak English? He's Russian? So he doesn't understand the directions I told him? I told her yes he speaks some English. Yes he is Russian. And yes I believe he understood your directions, he just doesn't know the word for those pictures but knows what to do with them. In the meantime, John was touching the cards that she was using to quiz him and she raised her voice and said you can turn the card after you say "cup". John went into defensive mode. Shoulders up, head down and completely turned away from her. I looked at her and said "you lost him". The lady in charge came over and said maybe we can try again in a little bit. I told her it was useless now, since she raised her voice at him, he was not going to have anything to do with her again. So I took him out in the hall and got ready to leave. The other lady in charge came out and tried to apologize and say "she came in late and did not realize he had been adopted from Russia". I told her what difference did that make, she should not be talking that way to any child. She then gave me her card and told me that John was eligible for services due to being adopted from Russia and that he could attend the pre-school for 2 1/2 hours every day Monday thru Friday. She wants Kenny and I to bring John there to check it out. I asked her if the lady doing the testing was one of the teachers and she told me "no". I told her we would come check it out because we want only what is best for our children and if extra services were available then we would check it out. But after leaving, I realized that there are some people that will just never get it, but that's why we have to be our children's biggest advocates and fight for them. Don't worry guys..................mom and dad will always be on your side and fight for you no matter what!