A change of scenery and The Old Maid disaster

I was glad to have a day off from school, since adding Harry to the mix, and the strange environment makes it a bit more of a challenge. Last night Irina suggested they bring us someplace fun today so the boys could get out of the house/development for a change. She & Vova picked us up around 11 and brought us to a Café we’ve been to before and has a large indoor playroom. For $1 USD per child/per 15 minutes, you can either leave them there to be tended to by the person in charge, or sit and watch. Irina & Vova were running errands in between bringing us, so I stayed and watched. They had a ton of fun. It was just them the first 45 minutes it was just them. They ran around the entire time - getting all sweaty and ending up with faces so red they looked sunburned . Then a boy a bit younger than Harry, named Koyla (Short for Nicolae) arrived, followed by a boy around Skip’s age named Sasha. For the first few mintues all the boys just ran and played, but then instinctively, Skip & Harry paired off and started scheming. In their eyes it was them against the other two. Not fighting – just chasing, and laughing. It was nice to see the two brothers work together! One girl did join them, and soon it was the girl – Skip’s age – chasing Skip & Harry. The boys would run off and try and hide, and she’d go looking of them. My mind fast forwarded about 10 years I laughed to think that somehow, a girl chasing them in 10 years would have a slightly different outcome! My favorite part of the day was when the woman in charge called to Harry, to ask him to let the Koyla get by him. Ya see when Irina signed the boys in, she put Skip & Vitaliy. No biggie. Well when the lady called Vitaliy, he responded with “Ne Vitaliy, Harry” (Not Vitaliy, Harry)! Cool stuff! When Irina came for us about 75 minutes later, we had lunch in the café. Cheese sticks with a side of cucumbers & tomatoes, and French fries for Harry. Skip ate French Fries & a big ear of corn. I had fries & a slice of pizza with a Pepsi. From there Irina brought us to a toy/book store that hidden behind a row of buildings and had no sign outside to indicate where it was. Kinda strange. But once inside they had lots of games/crafts/books, etc. Many familiar games like Hungry Hippos, Monopoly (Russian Version), Dominos, Checkers, etc. I had mentioned to Irina that lately we’ve taken to playing our homemade version of pin the nose on the Clown at night since we don’t have any Board games that Harry could play. He has NO concept of sitting down and taking turns at anything. So, she thought we might find a few inexpensive games here we can play. There were many to choose from, and we ended up with a deck of Mickey Mouse Old Maid cards for slightly over $2 USD, a large cardboard game book with five different games and electronic spinner for $10 USD, a box of wooden domino with shapes rather than dots for $5 USD, and a $2.25 USD candy-land type “Tree pigs” game made of cardboard with a dice and 4 wooden playing pieces. I’ll just need help with the game book since each game is played differently. Irina said she’ll translate the instructions for us, we just need to scan them and email them. And so, we’ll have games to occupy us for awhile. Something different than the usual craziness these two boys seem to enjoy: running, chasing, wrestling, etc. We got back here around 2:30 and since Skip was up at 6, and the boys got A LOT of exercise, I put them for naps. Harry tried to run and hide, and ended up running right into the doorway! Ouch! Right smack in the middle of his head! He cried right away. He did let me hug him and put a cold cloth on it, and so far, no lump. I’m sure it’ll bruise, but he has lots of those so it’ll blend right in! Harry fell asleep within minutes, Skip never slept, and I did lie down, and almost fell asleep – until I heard both Harry & Skip awake. It was enough of a rest to get me through the day though. Mealtimes are easier now, and since I’m trying to keep routines going, I think it is helping him. Even if he doesn’t always understand, he finds comfort, I think, in the routine. Knowing what to look forward to and what to expect…. After dinner I decided to try the Mickey Mouse Old Maid Game. WHAT A DISASTER THAT STARTED OUT AS! I figured I’d deal the cards to all three of us, play my hand, and show Harry as we went. I started by taking a card from Skip and then telling him to take a card from Harry. Poor kid was SO insulted –thinking not only that Skip took HIS card but that I was telling him to do it! If you could have seen his face! He was crying so hard, and then he got mad and threw the cards down and wouldn’t play. It took a few minutes but I shuffled again, and made sure he was watching when I took one from Skip. He took it better this time, and within a few turns, he understood – THANKFULLY! Turned out he was the Old Maid –but since he was the last one with a card, he figured he won, and was dancing and chattering away triumphantly as if he had just won an Olympic Gold Medal! He asked to play again, and I told him pajamas, cookies, THEN we’d play. He ran to get his pajamas! He has NEVER done that! So we are really making progress. May not seem like much, but it really is! I’ve no doubt that by the time we arrive home, he’ll be a very different child than the one we brought from the Baby Home just a week ago!

Here's my two sweaty boys!

Can you find my little monkey in the picture?

Such a hard day of play left him exhausted!