We Have a Monkey on our Hands!

Today was the first day of the day camp. The day started out fine with Vanya eating a good breakfast and playing with the dog. Our drive took about 25 minutes to the NE side of town, and the minute we got out of the car, Vanya threw up! He had good aim so nothing except the parking lot got messy. :-) I had given him some motion sickness meds about 30 minutes before we left, but I may try giving it to him earlier tomorrow morning. Poor little guy! However, no accidents on the way home. Yea!

At the day camp, Ivan had an hour of English lesson fun. They learned how to say, "My name is Vanya," and the American kids learned how to say the same in Russian. Ivan did a great job, though he's still pretty quiet. They also started teaching them the ABC's, and with some encouragement, he did repeat the letters. He has a hard time pronouncing some of the letters, but it was a good effort. After that, the kids sung some songs, and made some leather-tooled beaded bracelets and keychains. Vanya made himself both, and without prompting, made Tim and I both one. He asked me what letters to pound into the leather.

The highlight of the day, by far, had to be when Vanya said, "Mama?" Be still my very happy heart!!!! Another hosting parent overhead and immediately pointed at me and said, "who?" He repeated with "mama", and then she pointed to Tim and said, "who?" and he said "Papa." Everyone who spoke English around us was grinning ear to ear with us! Now, keep in mind that almost all the orphanage kids call adults, "mama" or "papa." But, we hadn't heard him call us anything, so we are pretty excited. He's definitely speaking more (although we can't understand most of it.)
After a sack lunch and some fun with balls in the gym, the group enjoyed an ice cream social. Ice cream is definitely a universal treat, and Ivan loved every bit of it! It disappeared very quickly.

We finished out the afternoon with time at a local gymnastics studio. Here he was in his element!!!! He wasn't willing to try all of it right away, but he'd watch others, and then be ready to try it on his own. The most astonishing point of the day was when I looked away for about 20 seconds and he was climbing the rope to the top. He was the first kid to reach the ceiling! I think some gymnastics lessons are in his future.

Well, it's almost time for dinner. I think we'll play outside tonight with some neighbors. Stay tuned for some pictures tomorrow.