Another Year Older

We are able to communicate with the kids more and more; not just words, but they understand sentences. Bethany is quite chatty. Andrew speaks more, mostly still sounds, but partially speaks a handful of words.

People often ask about their Russian language. As far was we can tell, they have never spoken any Russian to us. I assume that they were both speech delayed before leaving Russia. In Moscow when our host, Mila, and others spoke Russian to Bethany she did not respond. Using what little Russian we did know did not seem to have an effect. We’re pretty sure that even being fluent would not have made a difference.

I’m sure the change in language delayed development further as they would have been trying to learn Russian words, and then suddenly had to start over in English.

It would have been helpful, however, to learn some common words used with the children in the orphanage. If we could have used those specific words at first and matched them up with the English equivalents, transitioning may have been accelerated.

Andrew has received an initial assessment for speech development therapy as part of the state coordinated Arizona Early Intervention Program and has been determined eligible for the program. We are waiting for contact from a therapist.

Bethany was screened by the Kyrene school district pre-school assessment folks to see if she qualifies to participate in their developmental program. She did not. They said that, though she is delayed, she is learning quickly. We agree.

They are both doing well in daycare. Less incident reports. Andrew still comes home very tired. We struggle with whether to put him in for a nap as soon as he gets home. Hate to do that, but he gets really cranky, cries a lot and wants to be held constantly.

Bethany comes home from daycare exhilarated. We think that she socializes well–picking up some bad habits along the way. “My/Mine” is one of them. Even before daycare, she was quite possessive of things, but now she verbalizes. So we hear over and over “my shoes”, “my book”, “my ball”, “my cup”. All the toys belong to her, apparently. Should we have gotten Andrew toys also??? She does share “her” toys, so Andrew has fun too.

When I pick her up from daycare, she always announces loudly “My daddy”…so we’re her possessions also.

Had a lice exposure reported at the daycare. We stopped on the way home to buy the treatment, but found nothing on either kid, so didn’t need to use it.

Stretch-n-Grow company is offering an exercise program at daycare. If we sign up, the kids will be taken out of class (to another room) for a half hour a week to participate.

Bethany gets booboos too. This one is from a stumble at the playground.


She is being transitioned from the Twos room to the Three room. She has enjoyed her Twos teachers very much, but the staff says that she really likes the Threes room and it will be more challenging for her than staying with the younger kids. So onward and upward.

They say that her potty training is near complete. At home it is not the same situation. They told us that we need to ask her every half hour if she has to go.

Bethany continues to gain a little weight, but slower than desired, so we are starting her on a PediaSure supplement drink. Andrew has passed her on weight and is almost the same height now.

Bethany’s birthday party was fun! About twenty guests attended to make her the center of attention. She started off slowly, but in the end was running wildly on pure adrenaline. She was tearing through those packages with such abandonment that we decided not to have her open the mommy and daddy gifts. We just set them aside to quietly introduce over the next few months.

Our main gift did not arrive in the mail until the next day anyway, so we had a more relaxed time for assembling it–a plastic, play kitchen from Step 2. We knew it would be a big hit, as we’ve seen her play with them elsewhere.