Saturday, July 26, 2008

One Year Ago Today

A year ago today, Steve and I let our agency know that we were okay with switching regions to Novosibirsk. A few hours after we let them know our decision, I got the call from Steve... Mazel tov it's a BOY! Yes, we received the referral of a sweet 14 month old baby boy in Novosibirk named Andrei.



This latest news started another flurry of activity including updating paperwork, correcting my passport, and getting ready to change our lives forever. You can read the whole story on Steve's original blog of our journey. Here's a link to the July archives since it took us a few days to write posts that were coherent enough to convey how we were feeling.

Today was a typical weekend day for us, Andrei was playing outside in his sandbox and got to go swimming, we ran some errands, and spent time with the three of us together as a family. It's really hard to believe that it was just a year ago that we found out about our little guy.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Throne of Destiny

A few months ago I asked our friends with little ones when they started the whole potty training experience and how they approached it. One of our good friends, who adopted their little girl from Russia, gave us some great info (as usual) and we decided to do a lot of what they did (btw, thanks again Nina). They also have a two-story home and made sure they had seats both upstairs and downstairs. And so we bought two of the Baby Bjorn potty chairs. They're actually pretty cheap which is quite a surprise from that company.

And Andrei has for the past couple of months been fine with sitting on them every now and then. Of course in Russia the kids sat on these potty chairs like 5 or 6 times a day, so Andrei knew immediately what it was for and wasn't really afraid of them or anything like that. However, he also wasn't all that enthusiastic about sitting on them on a regular basis and although he tried to go a few times (mostly with some very interesting facial expressions), he'd bail on the whole process after sitting there only a few seconds.

Well that all changed this weekend. Yes, our little guy decided he wanted to sit in the chair after his bath last night and after staying there for a much longer time than normal he pee'd!!!

Yes indeed, my little man let out a nice solid stream of urine that made me one proud papa. So proud that I'd be happy to share the details of the volume and "stream power" with any interested party. However, I doubt I'll get many takers on that generous offer.

Every other time he sat on the pot and did nothing we'd always say to him, "Oh good job Andrei! And you can try again later." But of course this time both Mommy and Daddy who were present at this most monumental of events couldn't help themselves from cheering and applauding. To which Andrei joined in with applauds for himself and a few "Yea's" to boot.

Of course he's only 2 years and 2 months and this training process will probably take many many many months more, but it's nice to get started. And we'll continue to take it slow and not going to press him. In fact, we probably won't even mention it at all and just continue to let him make the call as to when he wants to sit on the potty and give it a try. But being a stay-at-home-dad and thus the primary diaper changer...I AM SO EXCITED I may have to open a bottle of champagne.

Monday, July 14, 2008

First Aid - Andrei Style


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Originally uploaded by yorkiemom
One of Andrei's favorite books is Doctor Dan the Bandage Man which isn't the most politically correct book, but he loves it. It's a story about a boy, Dan, who manages his family's health care through the use of bandages.

Andrei feels he needs to channel Dan, so has started managing our family's health care based on the use of bandages. One key area of bandage usage is when you get water up your nose when swimming or participating in shower time. Oh, you must be thinking that a nose clip would be a better solution, why go nose clip when you can use a bandage.

Here's an example of the fashion statement you to can become if you opt for the use of a bandage for your water up the nose needs.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Can't believe he's grown so much in only 7 months

Andrei is really get to be a big boy in many many ways. First his physical growth is really becoming apparent. It's kind of hard to measure him with our growth chart that we put up outside his room. He either doesn't stand flat-footed, instead he stands on his tip-toes (maybe he wants to be taller), or he hunches over a bit or bends his head down.

So the way we actually measure him is similar to what they do in the doctor's office. We lay him down on his back and put his feet up against the baseboards of the wall. Then we stretch him out (yes, this is a two adult exercise) holding his head as straight as possible and mark a spot on the carpet and then take the tape measure and do the measurement. Then transfer that to the growth chart (we bought this in Russia so it's in centimeters, which we think is way cool by the way).



Anyway, he is now been home a mere 7 months and has grown about 4 inches in that time. He's moved from size 5 shoes to 8 1/2. But it's the things he is able to do that seem to marvel us. We were so excited when he was able to open a door by himself by standing on his tip-toes, now a few months later he does it flat-footed.

But his growth as a person is even more pronounced. Although his pronunciation of words is pretty rough (even we have difficulty trying to figure out which word he's trying to say), he reasons in whole sentences and is putting together two word sentences and more importantly multi word concepts. So even if he doesn't know all the words he will couple words with physical actions. For example, if he wants to put something back in a certain place he will say "Ah-ddrr" (Andrei) "ba" (back) and "Eh" (his word for something he hasn't yet learned) and then points to a shelf.

He understands the concept of time and knows if we say we'll do something "later" what that means and will often remind us of the promise (which is not always a good thing, since we use to say "later" to get out of doing something).

And his bonding with us is almost scary in both it's depth and speed. He will arbitrarily go up to Stef or myself and give us a hug or a kiss. Several times a day he'll go over to his (overly) vast collection of books and then bring a few of them to me or Stef to have us read to him. Not really for the story but just so he can sit with us and enjoy some quiet personal activity together. The kid is such a happy little boy but he is clearly most happy when the whole family is together (so when Stef comes home from work or the weekends).

The other thing I'm now seeing is how his sense of humor is expanding. He always enjoyed laughing. Usually playing silly or getting tickled. But now he seems to laugh at things that strike him funny. There's this show on the Sprout channel (that's the PBS children's programming channel) that has a cartoon called Pingu which is about a penguin. Well, he loves penguins and starts saying "peng-peng-peng" and pointing to the TV. So I start saying it just as loud "penguin-penguin-penguin" while pointing at Andrei.

He starts laughing so hard he almost couldn't get a breath. I have no idea why this struck him so funny but now days later I can say really fast "penguin-penguin-penguin" and he still cracks up.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

The latest in Toddler Fashion


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Originally uploaded by yorkiemom
Why it is safety glasses with the Hawaiian print shirt (thanks again Uncle Jon)...

Monday, July 7, 2008

Ketchup or Barbecue Sauce??


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Originally uploaded by yorkiemom
Condiment boy truly wanted to test the differences, not only between the taste of ketchup and barbecue sauce, but on their effectiveness as a skin care product.

No answers yet as the test was stopped short by evil mommy and the baby wipes.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Andrei's First Fourth of July

Yesterday was Andrei's first Fourth of July. I don't particularly care for the holiday (fireworks scare the bejeezers out of me and Chianti) so we usually just stay at home and relax, comforting the dog.

Since it was Andrei's first Fourth, we felt there should be some celebration so he got a real American toy as a special gift, a tricycle. I must say that tricycles have come a long way, this one has chrome accents, streamers, and a bell.

Here's the boy enjoying his new toy.




One of the rules is that when he's riding around he needs to wear his helmet. He takes this very seriously. Here's a picture from today during our morning snack when he refused to take the helmet off: