House and boys

We got a counteroffer on the house, which was great since they didn't outright reject our offer, but they also didn't come anywhere near where we want to be. So...we're countering back. :) They also moved closing up 3 weeks and all of our expert advice (several realtors and mortgage people) are telling us they must really want to dump the house. Did I mention it's bank-owned? Lots of things stacked in our favor, but the biggest is that we're willing to walk away if we don't get it for the price we want. It's up to them as to how badly they want to get rid of it.

The boys are so excited about the cruise. They've been talking for months (yes, months!) about getting to go on the "big boat" and Zhenya is most excited about getting to ride on the "little boats" (aka lifeboats). We'll be tendering (using the lifeboats to get into the post) in at least one of our ports so everybody will be happy.

Dima has a speech evaluation on November 7. I'm really happy about having the evaluation done. There are a few things that just don't sit right with me in regards to his speech and hearing, and I'm looking forward to having some answers. Both boys' hearing was tested back in February when we did their full post-adoption evaluations at a local pediatric hospital and both came back normal, but I question some of Dima's results--not because of the testers, but because he didn't cooperate fully (he was playing around) and I'm not sure they got the best data. This evaluation will do a full audiology screening again, but since he's more comfortable with...well, everything...I think it will be easier on him and the testers. His speech is improving by leaps and bounds, but it's still nowhere near where it should be, and it's even WAY behind Zhenya. That's a bigger concern for me than anything else.

Part of Dima's issues stem from the institutionalization. He figured out he could use minimal words to get what he wanted (sort of point-and-grunt mentality) and that's turned into habit for him. We spend a lot of time encouraging him to use more words, especially when I know he knows the words for what he's trying to describe. Thus, the conversation in the backseat yesterday on the way home from school went like this:

D: Red! (pointing out the window)
Z: What?
D: Red. (still pointing out the window)
Z: I don't understand you! I need some mo' words, Dima.

I'm glad Zhenya is starting to correct him too. In the past when they would play Dima would ask for a car or something and Zhenya would go get it for him and hold up several different ones until Dima finally nodded that Zhenya had the one he wanted, instead of asking for the red car, or the blue truck, or something. It was a LOT of grunt-and-point. Zhenya's figured out that you get a lot more out of being able to use words. Dima's getting there, but he's not there yet. Not being able to get Zhenya to do what he wants without words may be an additional push that he could really use.

Dima HAS figured out that it helps him be able to pronounce new words if he looks at me when I'm repeating it to him. With new words, I would have him look at me while I said it and then have him repeat it back. Now he makes sure I'm looking at him when we're working on new words which is great since it means he wants to say them correctly.