Random tidbits

Mark installed the new toilet in the downstairs bathroom! Woohoo! This will make potty training at least a little easier...I hope. ;) He's still working on getting the vanity and sink in. The one that I loved, and that he went to two stores last night to find, and that he hauled into the house by himself...doesn't fit. So he's returning that one today and we'll have to go choose another one. This time we'll pay a bit more attention to where the pipes can go. :)

Dima is not going on his school field trip today because he ran off when they returned and got off the bus on his last field trip (on Tuesday). Several teachers yelled at him to stop, he turned around to look at them, then kept right on going--straight into the school parking lot. Um, no. Not safe. So until we know we can trust him to listen and obey at school he will not be going on field trips. I'm guessing missing one will probably be enough to help it sink in that we're serious about this.

Zhenya has developed a cough--again! This is the second or third cough he's had in the past several months. I'm wondering if it's allergies. The coughs always go away after a few weeks, and they don't keep him up at night so I'm not sure how much to medicate him for it.

A conversation with my son

Last night, a whispered conversation while tucking Dima into bed...

D: "I love you, Mama."
M: Looking him straight in the eyes, " I love you, too."
D: "And I love God and Jesus...(long pause)...I not want go to heaven, Mama."
M: "Heaven is a nice place. You get to be with God all of the time."
D: "I not want go to heaven...I stay here."
M: "Yes, you'll stay here for a long, long time."
Big, big smile on his face.

When he first said he didn't want to go to heaven, I tried to reassure him that heaven was nice. What he meant is that he didn't want to leave us, not that he didn't want to go to heaven.

He gets it.

He gets that this is home. That he gets to stay here. That he's not leaving.

That he belongs here with us.

We'll work on wanting to go to heaven another day. ;)

Unusual discipline

Mark and I are big believers in having the consequences match the infraction (more commonly known as having the "punishment fit the crime"). Lately we've been having a few issues that just have not seemed to resolve through our traditional discipline methods.

Dima decided he'd had enough towards the end of the day Saturday and had no desire to cooperate any more. Because of some of the things we did on Saturday, the boys had had a pretty substantial snack in the very late afternoon (at 4:30, and we usually eat dinner at 5) so that we could do one more thing and then come home, have a light dinner (really more of a snack), and put them to bed. Unfortunately, after the first snack and extra activity Dima decided he was done attempting to behave or obey. So he went to bed without "dinner". This is something we've never done with the boys before, and we wouldn't have done it had he not eaten already, but the fact that he thought he was missing dinner was enough to convince him to change his attitude the next day. And he was asleep within 10 minutes of crawling in bed, which convinced me that he needed bed more than dinner anyway.

Besides which, he didn't miss much. ;)

Zhenya lately has had a very difficult time chewing with his mouth closed. He can do it, and when he chooses to he has very nice table manners. But lately no amount of reminders have been able to help him keep his mouth closed while he's chewing. I was so fed up with it at lunch on Saturday that I told him the reminders obviously weren't working, and if he couldn't chew with his mouth closed I would mix up all of his food so that he didn't need to chew it. He apparently didn't take me seriously.

That was a mistake on his part. :) :)

For dinner, Zhenya had pureed cheese quesadilla with cucumber and carrots. It made for a very nice soup. Mark was a little concerned that Zhenya would like it and would want all of his food pureed, and at the beginning that appeared to be true. But after a couple of spoonfuls Zhenya decided he wasn't so fond of having his food all mixed together. That seems to have gotten the point across, as he has been doing a much better job of chewing with his mouth closed.

Now, before you fire off any nasty comments, let me add a few things. One, I would never do either of these with children who were not secure in the fact that they will always have food, or who were incapable of understanding what was being offered as a consequence. Two, I would never do this with children who were medically or otherwise incapable of doing what they were asked to do (for example, having a jaw or mouth problem that prevented them from chewing with their mouth closed).

Please don't bother commenting about how you would never do this to your child and you can't believe I would do it to mine. That's fine, and I appreciate that parents have different discipline styles. I only hope that your child is not the one at a community gathering shoveling their food in, talking with their mouth open, and spitting their food back out on their plate. I expect my children to have good table manners consistent with their age (my boys are not expected to be able to cut food that requires a knife yet, because they don't have the motor skills to be able to handle the fork and knife concurrently) and to be learning and attempting to mimic the table manners they see in adults (which, sadly, I often actually don't want them to mimic because they are so horrendous).

It is my job as their parent to be training them into the skills they will need later on in life. True, they may never need to eat off of silver or need to know how to use a table set with multiple knives and forks. But if they do, I want them to have had the training to be able to handle those encounters with grace and dignity and a confidence that they are well-equipped for whatever situations they end up in.

A busy weekend

Saturday morning we all walked over to the local doughnut shop. It's maybe a mile from our house and quite a nice little walk. We all got doughnuts then sat outside on the curb eating them. It was fun and may be something we try to do regularly as a family.

We got so much done this weekend I hardly know where to start! I guess I should back up a little...several months ago (maybe even a year ago or more!) we picked up a dining room table off of Craigslist for $20. It didn't come with any chairs and could stand a good refinishing, but it could easily seat four or six, plus it has the mechanism to pull apart and put leaves in (the leaves were not included when we bought the table) to add another 30" to the length. We never used it in our old house because we didn't have space to set it up, so it stayed in our basement. Now we have a dining room, and room for a real table! Unfortunately, the chairs we had would not work for Emily as they are folding chairs and we couldn't safely put a booster seat on them for her. Thursday we found two wooden (non-folding) chairs on Craigslist for a great price which will work for Emily. Mark and Zhenya picked them up while Dima and I were at therapy.

Friday night Mark and I set the table up with the new chairs plus the folding chairs. Saturday we went to Walmart to pick up a booster seat for Emily. While we were there I decided we might as well get boosters for all of them as I though it would help the boys to be a little higher at the table too. Saturday night I put the boosters on the seats for the boys and they are great! I love the extra lift it gives the boys plus they can't slide back in their seats and slouch now. ;) The boosters do work with the folding chairs, but not in a way that could have been used for Danielle and Emily (I don't have the back strap around the back of the chair) but the boys are stable enough in their chairs that it's not a problem. The girls will be using the boosters in the new non-folding chairs.

We also went to Lowes and picked up stair treads for Mark to make leaves for the table and snagged a great deal on a dishwasher. Energy Star appliances were 10% off this weekend and had no state sales tax, plus we had an additional 10% coupon for our entire purchase. We also bought a manual lawnmower (you know, the ones without a motor? :)) and a medicine chest for the upstairs bathroom since Mark's been shaving without a mirror for a few weeks now. ;)

Today Mark installed the dishwasher (his first time doing that--and it works!! Isn't my hubby awesome?!?), mowed part of the lawn, and hung the medicine chest. I helped where I could but mainly did laundry, vacuuming, and other necessary cleaning. :)

It was a busy weekend but we got so much done and a lot of the little "to-dos" off of our list. Tomorrow Mark's going to be demolishing a wall in the downstairs bathroom so that he will hopefully be able to put in the toilet and sink this week. I really want that toilet in before we get the girls home--I'm thinking potty training while having to run the girls upstairs will be no fun! LOL

The search for a van

With the addition of two more little ones, we have officially run out of room in our car (or will, as soon as they're home). In the decision for what type of vehicle to get next, it was decided that our best bet was a minivan. While some of the SUVs seat 6 (4 of whom are in carseats!), most of them do not then have any room for the 2 dogs that travel with us on many of our road trips.

Thus, the minivan search began.

We (really, Mark) researched several different vans, test-drove a few, and decided our top choice is a Toyota Sienna, with seating for 8 (just in case, you never know ;)). Since our decision, we've been hounding dealerships and Craigslist looking for our new van (which will not actually be new, but new to us). We've found a couple of good candidates (one of which sold yesterday and we were supposed to go look at it tonight! :( ) but have yet to find the one.

If we can find an older one at a good price, we can buy it before we go back to get the girls. If we have to buy a newer one (2007 or 2008) we'll need to wait until we get back since we're not willing to shell out the cash before our second trip. While we're pretty sure we know about how much money we'll need for the upcoming second trip, it would be horrible to get to Ukraine and find that we are a few thousand short because we bought a car!

We're not completely limited to the Toyota Sienna, but it meets our needs, plus it has a few bonus features, one of which I'm in love with. :)

It has blue dashlights.

What?!? I can hear all of you saying that, by the way. See, the problem is that I've gotten a little attached to the Volkswagens which have blue dashlights. Now I'm a little too partial to that feature, and since I look at the dash quite regularly when I'm driving I'm having a hard time reconciling myself to another color of dash lights. But hey, if it drives and it fits our family, I'll adjust.

I have been highly amused by some of my calls to the dealerships regarding postings on Craigslist. I called two different dealerships yesterday to find out if the vans they had were 7 or 8 passenger. Both of them had the same response:

"How can you tell if it's 7 or 8 passenger?"

In general, you can count the seats. ;)

Speech therapy

Yesterday was Dima's first speech therapy session. I loved it! Even more importantly, HE loved it!

His speech therapist has picked a starting sound for him to work on--"t". He can say the "t" sound, and he can say it in words, but it tends to get lost in conversation. So for example, Dima can say "cat" but a phrase like "Where is the cat?" comes out "Where ca?" This is part poor motor planning (being able to get the muscles of your mouth to work the way your brain is telling you to) and part poor speech habits developed most likely through neglect at a young age. Speech therapy is going to work on strengthening and training his mouth muscles as well as helping him listen and plan his speech correctly.

Dima's speech has already been improving remarkably over the past few months, and I know the social environment at school is a big factor in that. While I'm not fond of all of the behaviors he picks up at school, the sheer amount of verbal interaction is a huge help to him. In fact, this week at dinner was the first time I have ever heard him use the word "the" correctly in a sentence, unprompted.

Most of Dima's speech is hard to understand because he leaves out so many articles and other words that to him are minor but make a huge difference in the clarity of his communication. We are, in many ways, somewhere around a 2-3yo speech pattern. "Mama, cat!" "Look, truck red" He has made tremendous improvements, and when he's paying attention and not tired he's getting closer to a 3-4yo in his speech. But we've still got a long ways to go.

I think that most likely without speech therapy he would eventually have normal or near-normal speech. But why would we withhold a resource from him that can do nothing but help him? So for the rest of the school year, he will be doing speech therapy 1x per week, and once school is out he will be going 2x per week. Pray for me, if you don't mind. I'll have 3 kids in the waiting room with me during one of those sessions. ;) Perhaps I can get Danielle's and Emily's therapies scheduled at the same time. :) :)

Which brings me to a question. How do I explain to Zhenya why he doesn't get to go play at therapy like the other kids? He already asks why he doesn't get to go like Dima, but it's only going to get worse when he's the only one not going. He's going to think he's being punished. :) :)

The important things to know

Dima's (kindergarten) class has been doing the Stanford Achievement Test this week (nice going...we bring him back after a 1.5 week vacation to a week of testing!). His teacher said he's done really well, but he struggled a little bit with the "Environment" section. Being that it's been awhile since I've been in kindergarten, I wasn't quite sure what "Environment" meant. So I asked.

Sample questions from the "Environment" section of the kindergarten test:

"Who was the first president of the United States?"
"Which is farther from the Earth: Jupiter, the moon, or the stars?"

I had a hard time controlling my laughter. Ummm...my son has only been speaking English for a year. I'm not even sure he knows (okay, I'm pretty sure he doesn't know) what a president is. And I'm absolutely positive that he has no idea what Jupiter is (he does know what the moon and the stars are, but I don't think he's got a grip on their distance from the Earth yet).

Thanks, but I think we'll keep working on his reading and math and let the science and history fall into place later. ;)