Takin' the bad with the good...

I’ve always believed that a person can’t truly appreciate a beautiful, warm sunny day until they’ve had a week or clouds and rain. I think its God way of telling us no matter what we endure here on earth, our life with him is 10000x better. And so, to that end, after the night from you know where with two cranky, whiny, teasing, fighting boy, we had a great morning without conflict or time-outs! Yesterday I decided I need to start serving our big meal at lunch time, and the lighter meal at night. For starters, right after school time, both boys are eager to play so it gives me time to concentrate on cooking, and secondly, our afternoons were feeling rushed since in the back of my head, I still had to cook something of a nutritious meal for them. And thirdly, since we get little to no physical exercise later in the day, it just makes sense.

We had a skillet chicken & rice casserole I devised from the spices and veggies we had available, and though at first glance, Harry zeroed in on a pea and gave me a long-winded explanation that boiled down to, I know, he doesn’t like peas. I simply told him that okay in Russian, and to begin eating. He ate the whole plateful, peas and all, without any further objections. That means tonite we’re going with PB&J for them, and some leftover soup for me. I like not having to worry about dinner, so this is working for me!

He’s really starting to understand a lot of English and even though he can’t say all the words, he clearly understands. For example, this morning he was talking to Levi on the phone, and then tried to hand the phone to me to talk. I was in the middle of doing dishes, so told him, in English, “tell Levi, wait one minute” knowing he understands and can say Levi & wait” and figuring he’d repeat those words. Instead, he put the phone back to his mouth and said “Levi, Mee-noo tash-koo” meaning “Levi, in a minute”. We have quite a few of these conversations now – where I tell him something in English, and he responds in Russia, having fully understand what I said. Given he’s only been out of the Baby Home for 10 days, it’s great progress!

Skip is anxious for him to learn to speak English and is always telling him to repeat things. Yesterday Skip counted from one to twenty, prompting Harry to repeat. He does well until 10, then the words are quite fun “abbin” (11) ‘derdee” (13) etc. So yes, Skip is my big helper in that respect. And so, thanks to Skip diligence, Harry can now say both “toe jam” as well as “tooted”…the later being the polite word we use in our home for passing gas. Boys, gotta love ‘em.

On the other hand, Skip is learning lots of phrases in Russian as well. A few days ago they were outside on the slides, running, and laughing and communicating as best they can. Harry said something in Russian we didn’t understand, and Skip responded with “Minya Cor-mi”. Nicely executed, but what he said was “Feed me”. Ah, it’ll all come together sooner or later – and in the meantime, they’re giving me lots of laughs. And after nights like last night, I’ll take all the laughs they provide.