Day 7: The challenge continues

After another night of hot temperatures, we headed to the orphanage to see the boys. Sergey is still being a sweetie pie. He smiles and runs to me when I go to the door of his classroom. He wants to put everything in his mouth, and unfortunately did manage to bite off a piece of crayon that made his teeth orange before I figured out what he was doing. Good thing these are not toxic. After that he got so used to being told not to put things in his mouth that he started bringing both Sue and me every little scrap of paper that fell to the floor. Of course now putting things in his mouth is a game that gets attention, but we do want to save his teeth and internal system. Sergey, for the first time, said Mama when looking at my picture.

Lonya continued his big brother routine, alternating between sweetly offering treats to Sergey and stealing Sergey's toys and piling them in a corner Sergey cannot reach. Lonya now has a small repertoire of English words, including Mama, red, yellow, blue (if prompted with goldfish crackers), up, again, and monkey (the last in honor of the stuffed monkey I brought). He also said Sergey's name for the first time, however we don't know what he mumbled under his breath after he said the name. He is really acting out to try to get more attention. For example, climbing on the boot cupboard gets immediate results, so he is doing it over and over. He had two time outs of about 20 seconds in a corner with Candace. He wimpered the whole time, but modified his behavior for the next 2 minutes at least. He is showing a playful side. He has good pretend skills. He likes to sit at a table and pretend to eat and drink. He also has his monkey kissing him, us, Sergey, and pictures in the book. He hides toys in the cupboard, closes the door, turns to us and holds his hands open wide, saying, "Gdyeh?" This means where is it? We say, "I don't know. Where is ______" Then Lonya will triumphantly produce whatever it was and laugh and laugh.

Both boys love books. It doesn't matter whether or not they have pictures or whether they are upside down. They like to hold them and turn the pages. They don't even rip the pages (yet).

At lunch we went with Anita and her mother and our translator to the notary and signed a number of documents. Then to the mall and The Mickey Store (a giant toy store). Sergey now has several days worth of outfits. We need to return to pick up a few things for Lonya.

In the afternoon, it was more of the same. Lonya is especially challenging in the afternoon. By the end of the day, we are both exhausted. And that's only 4 hours with the kids!!! But there is no way to burn energy off them in the 6 x 10 little room, so I think things may be a little intensified. Every day is something new. Tomorrow we take the children for their passport pictures!