On Wednesday, we were back in the swing of things with lots of activities. The day started with Tim bringing Vanya to meet me at school and to discover our cool playground in the back. My friend, Amy, brought over her "almost" 7-year old daughter, and her twin 1-1/2 year old twin girls. While the "big kids" had a great time climbing, swinging, and running around, the twins weren't happy not to be included. Add in some annoying little black bugs that were attacking us, and it wasn't as much fun as we thought it would be.
However, it wasn't a total lost cause: they brought Vanya some awesome stickers AND several temporary tattoos. He knew immediately what the tattoos were for and wanted them applied right away. We put them on when we got home, and it was a great way to sneak in some English counting skills: "Vanya, we need to count to 20, so let's go!" He loved the counting and of course, the discovery of the tattoo when the backing was removed. I was excited that one of them was an IPFW tattoo-- my 3rd college alma mater. (That's Indiana University, Purdue University, Fort Wayne for all of you "out of towners"!!!) After playing outside, we came back to my classroom, and Vanya was happy exploring on the SMARTBoard while I worked on my room some more. Below is a picture of Teagan (in case you couldn't figure it out!)
Today's lunch menu did not meet with Vanya's approval. So, in desperation, I tried the ol' standby, peanut butter and jelly. Now, I know you are thinking, "why didn't you try this much sooner???" Well, we were told that most Ukrainian kids think PB&J is the worst, so I was amazed when it got the big "thumbs up." Now, even though Tim does the majority of the cooking at our house (what am I saying, he does pretty much all of it!), Vanya thought "Mama" was the BEST! I am thinking he was comparing it to chocolate-- it rates that highly!!
Later that afternoon, we went out to the front yard to throw around the baseball, football, and the "phlat ball" (you can click on that word to see what it is-- too hard to explain!) The boys from across the street came over and, despite not being able to verbally communicate, everyone got along exceedingly well. Play has no language barrier!
We finished up the day with a cookout at our friends, the Meintels. They have three boys and a little girl, all who seemed very excited to meet Vanya. I think Vanya found the playland "mecca" here-- he got to swing, play foosball, pinball, the drums, and probably other things I just didn't see! He loved it all! While one of the boys was more than willing to trade his younger brother for Vanya, I think Vanya was thinking, "why don't we have all this cool stuff????" I guess we'll just HAVE to go back and visit when we bring Vanya back for good. (Oh, and he also got a PB&J here, so he thinks Elizabeth rocks too!) We took lots of pictures of Vanya playing the drum set because my dad was a former part-time professional drummer. I am hoping my sister will print out some of the pictures and take them for Dad to see soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment