Misha's eval

The past two Mondays, Misha had an evaluation with the local school district to see if he qualified for Early Head Start and, if so, for which services. We were shocked, surprised, and utter gobsmacked when they told us he qualified. And if you believe that, I got some prime beachfront property in Siberia I wanna sell ya.

We knew he would qualify and for anything/everything they have to offer. The eval center was located in the basement of Kids on the Move (local early intervention) so Misha was upset, I think, that we went there instead of class. In fact, while we were waiting in the foyer, he kept signing bye-bye and trying to escape. On both occasions, he acted out somewhat in the beginning by trying to get down, doing his frustration yell, and dropping stuff on the floor. He did settle down and go through the evals. I would tell him that it was time to "work" like he does at kids on the move. And he had them trained very well to keep him supplied with goldfish and cereal for "working". He scored from 1-8 percentile in the various categories (gross and fine motor skills, cognative, speech, etc.).

I thought that maybe I would feel sad or disappointed or something about that, but I haven't. I came to terms with the whole "special needs" thing a long time ago. Misha is a fun and wonderful kid and I have seen great progress in him, especially of late. Kinda like the IQ tests you can take, these scores are not indicative of what he really can do. His vocabulary is increasing greatly. He is gaining confidence in climbing on things. He runs quicker and more stable. His jumping is actually looking somewhat like a jump instead of a squat. He is able to reason things out better, like how to escape from the backyard while his sibs are supposed to be watching him.

Still, I came away from the evals with things to work on. Jumping is one, some fine motor skills like picking up a coin and putting it into a slot. Bigger-smaller concepts, colors, accurate pointing. The list goes on.

I also came away with the understanding that Misha needs more English. So I decided to start talking to him in English instead of Russian. Some things he understands when I say them to him, but others he looks at me like I am speaking gibberish. I am excited for him to start school in a month. He will get a big kick out of the school bus, and I hope likes the class. It will be a big growth experience for him.

Asya has turned out to be a great help with Misha too. She is old enough to be able to watch him, unless she is distracted, which isn't that hard. She can take him on walks, play with him in the park, read him stories, and turn on Signing Time. She even changes an occasional diaper and last night got him ready for bed (including brushing his teeth) while I was doing piano with Kiril.

The pic above is a retro Misha. A few months ago, before we got the bunk beds, Misha would crawl into bed with Kiril every night and occasionally scoot Kiril or himself right off. Ira likes this one cause Kiril is hanging off the side of the bed.

Math with children

I have grumped before about doing math with the kids. Most of the problem was mine. Although I think any parent who has helped their kids with math can understand the frustration of explaining the same thing over and over every day that math is done. But I have make a concerted effort to calm myself down and not get over-excited about it. Patience has been long in coming, but I am doing MUCH better.

Sometimes though, math is funny. Yesterday, Kiril was doing some homework. It was a story problem with several parts, so I helped him with the first bit...actually doing the problem. Then his page had a second section asking him to explain how he got the answer. This is what he wrote:

At first I was thinking.
Next I asked my dad.
Then I subtracted. (there was no subtracting)
Finally I did it!

Needless to say, I had a good laugh before making him rewrite it.

Misha Moments

Misha is a joy. There is no other way to put it...except around midnight when he is crying. Not sure what happened, I was in a hazy fog of sleep, but for some reason he woke up and was crying at his door. So I got up, gave him a smooch and a hug and put him back in bed, which was NOT what he wanted cause he started crying some more. Usually you just have to leave him there and he will go back to bed on his own. For some reason, Baba Liza decided to go in there which caused more crying. What I really need in there is a comfortable arm chair so can sit there in comfort until he goes back to sleep.

Quite often now when we put Misha down for the night, he tends to get upset that he is going to bed and everyone else isn't, especially Kiril who shares the room. In fact, since he can open doors now, we had to put a child-safety knob on the door so he can't get out. So when he isn't ready to go to bed, he will sit by his door and cry or whine. Passing by you can see 3 or 4 stubby little fingers sticking out under the door. Of course he gets a big kick out of it when you start playing with his fingers under the door.

The other day, the kids put on Signing Time for Misha while I was fixing dinner. I finished before the DVD was over and called the kids to the table. Misha was still downstairs watching, so I called him. He came to the bottom of the stairs a couple of times but returned to watching. So I called him again and signed "Eat". He signed "music" back and went back to watch. Like he was saying, "Dad, my video is still going."

Another day this week, I was practicing music with Kiril and was running him through his note cards. Misha was over playing on the piano bench. Kiril hit a note he couldn't remember and was "hmm"ing and "uhhh"ing when Misha piped up "B". He was right. He did it again a few seconds later with "B". Not that he was looking, or even knows notes, but it was funny that he was right.

Bus training

Misha starts school this fall. He has his evals the next couple of weeks, but he will definately get in. I think Ira is going to have him ride the bus, which will be fun for him.

Yesterday, I took him and Baba Liza for a test run to her ESL class which starts today. The bus runs right down the street with a stop around the corner from our house, so she wanted me to do a dry run with her to show her where to get off and how the system works. We decided to take Misha along for the fun of it. He had been cooped up inside all day. As soon as we got on he started grinning and when the bus took off, he started laughing. It was only a 5 minute ride, but he was giggling the whole way. When we stopped to let someone off, he complained and signed "more".

Recently, Misha has had some behaviors toward Baba Liza. I am not exactly sure why, but he has began to show some aggressiveness towards her. For instance, he likes to hit her on the arms and on the face. In any case, Misha doesn't hit hard, but its the fact that he is. He also has tried to bite her arms. The other day, Baba Liza was telling me about him trying to bite her. I told her that he may try to gum her, but he doesn't bite. Misha heard this, walked up and tried to bite her. Kinda blew me away. Whenever I see this behavior he does get a verbal reprimand telling him that he should not hit or bite and that it hurts. And I make him sign "sorry". He usually comes over and tries to hug/snuggle after that, but sometimes he gets really offended and starts to cry. And he cries and cries and cries. I am not sure if its affection of some sort, and attention getter, or that she doesn't reprimand him when he does. It's not like he doesn't like Baba Liza. He hangs around her all day. She takes him for walks and takes him outside to play, and really takes care of him well. She scolds him but less severe than I would or Ira. I think I need to make sure she consistently reprimands him from now on so he will learn not to do that. The last thing I want is for Misha to develop any kind of permenent aggressive behaviors.

Hep-bi beh beh

Last night, we went to a birthday party for the daughter of one of Ira's acquaintances. I think I may have seen her once. They held in a local park with broad spans of lawn, a fish pond, a couple fountains and the like. They had some Russian food I haven't tried in quite a while: plov (rice, meath, carrots cooked stir-fried) and the equivalent of a chebureika (meat filled pastry). Quite tasty. When they hauled out the cake for the little girl, they gathered the kids and sang happy birthday.

Immediately after finishing, Misha signed "again" and "music" and I asked if he wanted me to sing happy birthday. He then sang to me "Hep-bi beh beh". I was drop-jaw shocked. He has tried singing before, but this was the clearest. The rest of the night was having him repeat it. Amazing.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to the Thanksgiving point discovery park. It had a bunch of flowers and some other things for kids to do, but the highlight was the wading pool. It had Noah's ark in the middle with various animals, elephants and goats that blew water, and Noah and his wife. Misha loves the water. Whenever we pulled him out, he squawked tried to get back in at every chance. I didnt want to go in and tried so we just used his monkey harness. Didn't help though. Some little punk kid walked over and kicked water all over me. I didn't even know him. I have the leash to Baba Liza so I could film him. He was so upset when we had to leave.

Bloomin' Misha

Misha has been blooming again.

I mean, that he has been making some great progress on his speech. Instead of laughing at us, he actually tries new words and sounds. Side note: his signs are progressing as well.

He picked up "cookie" about a week ago. Ira just thought he might be able to pronounce it and sure enough, he did. Yesterday, I was lounging on the couch and Misha was sitting on my belly and I ran him through the English alphabet. A bunch of the letters were garbled or not pronounced very well, but that was the first time he has sat there for so long and been willing to try new sounds. Of course, he got tired of it as soon as I got to the Russian alphabet.

Hopefully I will get un-lazy and get a blog with a vid of Misha from a recent activity this evening. We'll see.

It's been a couple of busy weeks. I haven't found the time to pull pics from the camera and blog. Even now, while I am just getting started, Ira is trying to get me to go play with a sprinkler. She is never happy with how the sprinklers are sprinkling. sigh...So this will be a photo blog with comments.

This is Misha's new favorite activity. Whenever he gets a chance, he climbs into the bathtub to play. At least he isn't splashing around in the toilet.
Ira had just had Kolya (Nikolai) and shooed me out of the house with the kids that weekend to go to Family City, USA festival. As usual, when the carnies arrive so do the freaks. But Misha took a rest in a firetruck while the kids where getting motion sickness on the carnival rides. Misha and I didn't right, but hung around the play area and distributed tickets to the munchkins.





Misha had a field trip with Kids on the Move one of the local attractions--Thanksgiving Point's Animal Farm. Ira kicked me out of the house again and told me to take pictures. So trying to get a picture of Misha and the cow, I had Asya take a picture while I held Misha. She got the cow's nose and Misha's elbow. Then Kiril tried and got Misha's elbow and the cow's eye. Finally I had Kiril hold Misha while I snapped this one. While I am taking the picture and Misha is making a funny face, Kiril is getting licked up side the head by a friendly jersey cow. Now he really knows what a "cowlick" means. Goo all over his head.

Asya had her first competition at the Utah Fies. We were worried that she wouldn't do well cause she wasn't practicing as she ought ta'. But she actually did well. She pulled 1 gold for her 3-hand team, a silver for her 8-hand team, a gold for a single jig, and a silver for the slip jig. And she got two medals for it being her first fies. It was a long two days. Friday night was the group competition in SLC, then Saturday morning was the singles competition. Then we had a wedding in SLC that evening, then Baba Liza flew in (was supposed to be her at 11 p.m. but arrived at 1:15 a.m.) At any rate, WAY TO GO, ASYA!

She, of course, forgot her shoes at the competition which we had to hunt down later.



Our traditional zoo photo on the rhino.