Growing pains

You have to know that after I post we're having great days that there are going to be a few rough ones. But the rough ones now are still much better than the rough ones we had a few weeks ago. Dima and I have been working on the idea of what it means to be a little boy versus a baby--that little boys do not throw temper tantrums like babies do. He seems to understand, and he regularly comes up to me and says "Mama, Dima boy" very seriously. When I smile and say yes, Dima is a boy, he smiles at me and goes off to play. I'm not sure he's ever felt that he could start to grow up--to take responsibility for his actions. And honestly, I'm not sure he's ever felt that taking responsibility for his actions would make any difference because he never had any influence over his environment. Now, his actions have definable consequences and he has the ability to make good and bad choices which affect his environment differently. (Not that I think a 5 yo reasons through it like this, but unconsciously he knows that nothing he does makes a difference so he stops trying to do anything.) It's fun watching him figure out what it means to be a person who has influence (however slight it may be!) in his own life and start the process towards growing up.

This past weekend the boys met Mark's parents, who are the last grandparents to meet the boys. I think it was a really good visit and the boys did great. It takes more to get them overstimulated (it definitely still happens) and they are beginning to learn to control themselves when they are losing control. Very important social skill to have (and one which many adults in our society would do well to work on). LOL

Our kitchen is newly decorated with the boys' artwork from church. Originally it was hanging on the fridge, but that proved to be too big of a temptation. I'm all about removing temptation, so I hung their artwork on the upper cabinets. They did some construction paper cutting and gluing in their class so I decided to throw caution to the wind and try it at home. Amazingly enough, they are fantastic at cutting and gluing. Dima can sit and cut for hours, which is great because it's one of the skills the OT wanted him working on at home. Zhenya has been cutting on and off for hours as he finishes, gets up and plays with something else, then sees Dima cutting and decides he wants to cut some more. :) :) **Okay, they're sitting here cutting while I type at the kitchen table, and I'm having the hardest time not laughing since Zhenya's mouth opens and closes WITH THE SCISSORS! LOL**

This morning I went back to the social security office to fix the boys' status. Painful though it was (we were there for almost 2 hours), the boys' status has supposedly now been corrected. I took snacks, books, and flashcards to pass the time and the boys did really well. I'll call in a couple of weeks to check and make sure they're listed as US citizens. In regards to the incorrect spelling of their last name on the certificate of citizenship, they were so busy that she didn't even notice and I certainly didn't point it out. We weren't supposed to need the CoC for them to be registered as US citizens anyway. So now I need to send back the CoCs for correction and send in for their US passports. We're also going to get them MO birth certificates so I need to send in the forms for that. That should cover every possibly piece of paperwork we could ever need (and yes, that's tongue-in-cheek since I know there'll be more!).