Misha forgets words too

Recently Brady's mom worried about him losing his only word, "Yah!" Has any one else seen that with their 1p36ers I wonder. We have. I am not sure it's right to say it's "comforting" to know that they are similar in this, but it's the possibility that it is connected to the syndrome that helps categorize it. Misha has picked up several words that he uses for only 1 day or maybe even a week, then they are gone. And no matter what we try to do to get him to say them, he wont. He just garbles out his default "word".

He said "park" one day 5 times. The next day it was gone. He also said "Stiiiiinky!" for a few days. Now he just says "Aaee-eeee" (the intonation is right, just the letters are gone). I did't know why he lost that one cause it was one of his favorites. There are other words, but those are the two that popped into my head. There has been only one case I know of where he actually improved his pronunciation of a word. With the song he likes us to sing "All night, all day..." he change Awww yay to Awww dyay all by his lonesome. I don't know whether it is due to apathy, laziness, or just the switch in his head flipping back off, but it has happened.

I don't worry too much for a few reasons. He is improving and growing and advancing. He is picking up other words and signs and sometimes I have to catch up to him. He is a blessing to be around. He is healthy. I figure someday, he will reach the dev stage where he will talk. But whatever, however and whenever he does will be fine with me.

Eval for Misha

Misha has an eval at a new preschool this week. Ira signed him up on the waiting list a couple of years ago and he finally came up at the top of the list. The hours are 6hrs a day 4 times a week instead of 3 hours. Not sure how I feel about that.

His eval was at 8am and kids had school at 8.30, so I dropped Ira and Misha off at the eval and took the kids to school and came back and joined the fun paper work. The questionaires are made by the sponsering company behind the preschool which is a mental health services provider. Ira made me laugh. She was marking the funniest things because she was taking them out of context.

For instance: there was a section with a bunch of stuff on emotional problems like anger. She had marked the behavior "Runs away from home." When I asked her about it she said, "He runs away from home." I corrected her, "No he wanders off. It's not the same. He doesn't get mad at you and run off." He would have to learn to get mad first. The other was under a suicide section. She marked that he was "Detaching self from others." We got a good laugh about it.

What was nice was when we came into get him (they eval'd him seperately), he got all excited ran over saying, "Yah! Yah! Yah! Yah!" and grabbed my hand. When I got home from work, he ran over and hugged my leg. Sigh....it's nice to be loved.

Oh! Sole Mio!!!

Recently Misha has been trying to sing. What's funny is he doesn't do too bad, all things considered.

It all started about a year ago when we were are a birthday party for the daughter of a friend of a friend of a...dunno, somehow connected through the local Russian (Ukrainian, Uzbek, Ossitian, Georgian, Krgyz, etc) chain. I went cause they promised me yummy food. Anyway, when it came time to sing "Happy Birthday" Misha, who loves music, signed, "More". After a few times of me doing that, he made his attempt which I blogged about a when it happened here.

A month or so ago, Misha started singing another song from a russian movie and engaging us to sing it for/with him. The song starts, "Mama! Mama! What am I going to do? Mama! Mama! How am I going to live?" (translated losely from the russian song). Misha will try to get you to sing by getting in your face and singing, "Mama, Mama". The fun thing is that he gets the notes right.

His latest is the first part of "Angels watching over me" a gospel song. It goes "All night, all day angels watchin over me, my lord." He gets the tune right again, although he needs to work on the words more. It comes out more as "Aouu yay, aouu yay". But the point is that he is trying and I was thinking that this could be the key to getting him to talk more.

Little Dentist Shop of Horrors

Misha went to the dentist yesterday. He had a bit of decay on one molar and we thought it best to take him in. The other kids went in too. Asya has a canine that is coming in slowly through the gum, Kiril may have had some gunk but didn't, and Dasha had a little brown spot they drilled out and filled. He looked at Misha first, but decided to save his for last, so he got to watch the other kids go under the lamp. He was watching intermittently, signing "ouch" occasionally, and complaining the whole time. Then it was his turn.
The dentist, who is really good, sent Ira and the kids out. I got into the chair with Misha. I put his feet in between my legs, held, his hands against his chest with one hand, and held his head with the other. I thought I would be humane and also closed his eyes. He screamed the entire procedure which took just a few minutes. It's bad enough trying to brush his teeth, but this was torture for him. They didn't even have to deaden him. But he got a little revenge. A couple times he was able to chomp down on the dentists finger. Not that he did it on purpose, but hey...whatta ya do. He has been complaining to us about it ever since. He points to his mouth and lets us know that he knows it's all our fault that the mean ole dentist got a hold of him.

In other news, Kiril got baptised on Saturday. Yay. It was a fun day. We delayed it so that Baba Liza could attend. It went well. Kiril was excited. He got baptised with his friend Conner. And we had a banana split bar afterwards to celebrate.

I am working on putting tile in the master bath this week. Wheee. Will be so glad when it's done. Can't wait to be able to use my own bathroom and shower again. Also started biking to work again. Not too shabby after a break of a few months.

School has been good for Misha. I think it very helpful for him to be in a different environment, with different people, and a different regime. So, for 4 days a week he misses his nap. The bus comes a bit before noon and brings him back around 4. Nap time is usually around 11 a.m.. So, when he doesn't get his nap, he tends to get a bit sleepy around dinner time. The picture is after trying to wake him up for a few minutes. It took several more and sticking a plate of food under him in order to rouse him enough to eat.

But school has been good. He really enjoys riding on the bus. They send a laminated page home everyday with a report. It has the snack options he had (sometimes those are visible on his face), the activities he participated in that day, and with which therapists he had time with. At the end an option explaining what kind of day he had. Misha has never come home with anything but "I had a good day, today." He has started another round of gains. Ira noticed that he was able to put pegs toys in the foam holes without problem. He has picked up several words and sounds. He tries to sound out the letters he studies in class. He even signs more. When we went outside the other day, he started signing something and it took me a minute to understand that he was signing "snow". He also tries butterfly which is a difficult one. The other day, I was lounging on the floor doing homework with the kids. Misha crawled up on my back and was sitting there bouncing. Baba Liza asked where he was going and he answered with a sign. She didn't understand it, but repeated it for me. He was signing "horse".

All tuckered out

It's been a trying few weeks. I am ready for a break of some kind. Although today it feels like the break is going to be my knee.

We recently put an offer in on a short sale house. In the meantime we listed our own house. The geographical difference is about 4.7 miles. So hopefully, we would find a buyer and get the bank to sell us the new one at the same time.

We are also trying to get our house presentable. This means fixing chips in the paint, leaky faucets, packing up some of our stuff, etc.

This couldn't have happened at a worse time. I have projects deadlining at work and am working from home in the evenings to try to get them done. Which means that in addition to dinner, homework, music, and work, I also have honeydo projects every evening. And inevitably while trying to fix one thing, I broke another. Sigh. Then work can't figure out what projects are the important ones so they switched. Sigh. And I am not sleeping enough. Yawn.....sigh. But I do realize there are worse things that could happen.

Give me your tired, your hot, your hungry masses yearning to breathe free.

She made it...finally. Tuesday morning, we made the trek up to SLC with all the kids, some relatives, and extras to a theater near the district court for Ira's Naturalization Oath Ceremony.

So with some excitement and a little bit of sadness, she raised her right hand, repeated the oath and woohoo, is an American Citizen.

I gotta say though...it was torturous for me. What I will say is if you have the opportunity to participate in the future...leave smaller children home.

Unfortunately the balcony in the theater was about 90 degrees. The kids were dying. While we were supposed to be there promptly at 9 am. they didn't start until around 10 am. So she was sitting with the rest of the applicants, I was up in the overhot balcony with 6 hot, bored, hungry kids. At least until Mom showed up and relieved me of one of them. Then I had only wiggly Misha to take care of.

Once it started, it was fairly short and well paced. Part of the delay may have been the pregnant lady who went into labor and was administered the oath outside, then sent off in an ambulance to the hospital.

We celebrated by going to McDonalds cause the kids were starving, the Russian store cause Ira wanted to, and the stayed at home. I even got a nap. It was bliss.

All aside, I am glad we have hit this milestone. Now we can invite Baba Liza and she can get a green card. Yay.

Misha update: Misha is saying "hot"...more like "haa", but he is using it appropriately. He is also using "uh-oh" appropriately like when he drops something (intentionally or not), when someone else drops something, or when I start counting. He also started mimicing Kiril's lament, "Oh, man!"