No word

We haven't yet heard of our facilitator has received our dossier, although it was delivered last week. She has at least one other family in-country right now, so I know she is busy! Wouldn't it be great to get confirmation that it was not only delivered but also submitted? LOL A girl can dream. :)

In other news, Dima has been making progress like nothing I've ever seen. His reading is making tremendous leaps and he can read short sentences now. I'm not sure he always understands the full sentence--he bases most of his comprehension on words he considers to be key words. In other words, I think for him the sentences "Sam is a cat" and "Sam has a cat" have the same meaning. All he's really getting from the sentences are "Sam" and "cat", although if there are other verbs that he knows those do factor in (i.e., for "Sam sat on the cat" and "Sam jumped on the cat" he would know the difference). I can't be sure of his comprehension, since his expressive language isn't good enough to explain to me what he understands, but that's my hunch right now.

Last Thursday his OT decided to try some therapeutic listening with him during his OT session. Basically therapeutic listening involves having a child listen to specially programmed CDs twice a day for 30 minutes each time. I can't go into all of the details of TL here, but it sounds interesting and if there are additional therapies that will help Dima we're all for it. We haven't started the program at home yet; the OT wants to try it a couple of times in therapy and see if she thinks it will really help him first.

Both of the boys are loving gymnastics, but especially Dima, who last week told me "Mama, I love gymnastics lots lots lots!" They are always asking when they can go again. :) It is amazing to see Dima's coordination improve, and I'm always surprised when he can do things better than Zhenya. Even though Dima's older, his coordination and strength are less than Zhenya's so it's easy to forget that he's older when they're running around. But he is much better at backwards somersaults than Zhenya! Last week they worked some on a floor balance beam and both boys did really well. It's amazing to see how much Dima's balance has improved since he came home.