20 Questions, Part II

My interrogating Misha on his day has started to pay off. It's quite exciting, actually.

Yesterday, I picked Misha up from nursery. He was happy to go, of course. Really a good thing. He is happy to go to nursery and happy to leave. No complaining, either way. Anyway, I digress.

As we were leaving nursery, walking down the hall to the room where Ira teaches, Misha pulled his hand out of mine and stopped. I stopped as well. Misha then started signing to me. He signed "play", so I confirmed/asked him if he played in nursery. He responded verbally with "ball". Then he signed food, so I asked him what he had for snack. He usually doesn't respond to this one without prompting, but this time he signed "crackers" and said "nana". That is marked improvement.

This is unique in that he is not asking for something. He is volunteering information without prompting. This is great.

Monkey see, monkey do

As an aficionado of music, Misha will jump through hoops to listen to music he likes. Alisa reported the other day that Misha had tried to play a CD in the stereo. He must have observed Kiril doing this cause the downstairs is often turned into a discotheque.

Evidently, he procured a CD from one of the disc books hanging around. He walked over to the stereo "blowing" on the CD. Misha is working on blowing and so far puts his upper-lip over his lower and blows down. We are still working on that. Then he pushed the Open/close button, and put the disc in . It wasn't in correctly so it didn't close all the way, so he further attempts at getting it to play were foiled. But it's just another case at how observant Misha really is.

20 questions

Misha is enjoying his school experience. He is progressing steadily in their curriculum and that is nice to see. So when I get home from work, I try to get some interaction going by questioning him on his day. There is kind of a format on getting Misha started with these kind of things. This usually involves prompting him with pointed questions that I generally know the answers to.

So it started out with something like "Misha, did you play at school today?" And Misha would then sign "play". Then we continued on to the next question.

Now I ask Misha what he did and he will sign "play". I can then ask him what else he did and he will answer. I am still prompting him about doing puzzles and color sorting but since neither of us know the signs for those, it's hard to get him to do that one. But I will ask him about his lunch and what he ate.

The same tactic I approached when teaching him to pray. Sometimes I would/will ask the kids who would like to pray. Misha started answering "Yah!" (russian for 'me'). So I started verbally "assisting" him to pray. Then I thought, "Wait a minute, he can sign!" and so I started trying to teach him some signs for praying. At first, it was all prompt, but lately he has got a hold of the concept and is doing stuff on his own. This usually cracks the kids up. For instance, last night he was in the "thanking" part of his prayer. He signed "thank you" then "food", then "mama", "food", and then said "Baba" (grandma), said "Mama", "Bya-bya", and "Ga-ga" (see last blog). Then we bless the food and he signs "Jesus" and said "Amin'".

So now I need to work on my signing vocab, so that I can teach him some more school and prayer words.

Misha strips!

I was thinking of what kinda picture to post with this, but it didn't think I would risk doing a search for something along the theme while on a lunch break at work. So this one will be without an image.

The good news is that Misha is beginning to undress by himself with some verbal prompting. It's easiest with the pajamas. They are loose and stretchy and he manages to get them off without much problem. We are also working on getting dressed with some hand-over-hand help. He seems to enjoy this especially when it's his Elmo clothes.

I recently found Elmo's Adventures in Grouchland for a couple bucks and brought it home. Misha loves Elmo, but hasn't quite warmed up to this yet. He watches a bit, but then wanders off.

Misha is making progress in school. He is learning color sorting and puzzles, which he seems to enjoy doing according to their daily progress reports. The new school is a good thing.

Misha and Nikolai are still trying to work on their relationship. There is a bunch of toy sharing issues and book sitting issues (Nikolai sits on the books Misha is looking at), and parental attention issues. But Nikolai is also starting to see in Misha a playmate...or play thing. He has started grabbing Misha from behind and hanging on. It is certainly entertaining to watch.

Misha's bedtime routine includes me telling him that it's time for bed and him starting on a list of people he thinks should also be in bed. It goes something like this:
"Misha, time for sleep." (This is after putting him in bed and singing a song or something)
(Misha signs "sleep)
"Be-be."
"Nikolai is already in bed."
"Elmo."
"Elmo is in bed, too."
(Misha thinks for a minute)
"Baba." (Baba Liza)
"Baba will go to bed in a minute."
"Mama."
"Mama will go to be in a while."
"Ga-ga." (???imaginary friend???)
"Ga-ga is in bed already."
"Bya-bya." (???too???)
"Bya-bya is asleep."
(Misha starts again)

Updates, updates everwhere and not a thought to think

Well, it's been a bit. Have been busy. So, here are the updates.

Summer is over. Although not much has changed. Ira decided to home school the kids using a virtual elementary school. Our local district was out of places, so she signed them up (it uses the same K12.com curriculum) in a neighboring district. She likes it, though it makes her busy. She is going to be even busier when Dasha starts waldorf.

Ira -- Crazy Russian mom. Homeschooling the kids (her angle is that she gets to learn all this stuff too). She is going to be teaching 3 part days a week at the pseudo-waldorf school. I tell her she is going to be so busy she will drive either herself or me into the nuthouse but she doesn't believe me. Oh, why doesn't she believe me.

Asya -- Started home school. Math still takes her a million years, but she adores history. Can't get enough. Still reads like she is dying of thirst. Get's a kick out of Ira's faux paus when dictating ("singers??? of the Declaration of Independence").

Kiril -- Also started home school. Everyday he whines about how he hates it, whines when Ira makes him correct his mistakes, but still gets done in time to play half the day.

Dasha -- Enjoying life like only a 7 yr old can. She loves playing and can entertain herself for hours. Put her together with Kiril and they get silly really fast.

Bo-ba -- Nikolai is a normal 1 yr old. He is toddling all over the place. Ira finally decided she was tired of him waking up to snack in the middle of the night and got him to sleep through the night in just two or three evenings. He is also building a vocabulary: Mama, Papa, Baba, Allo (when the telephone rings), hamburger (he got that from Misha), Asya, Dasha, Aff-aff (dog, also from Misha), etc. He is a handful.

Misha -- Me-me started school this week. He seems to really enjoy it and is learning. The autism structured class seems to be a beneficial thing. He is learning to sit still, put his feet down, etc. A guy that served in Ukraine the same time as I is one of the asst instructors in his class. He is getting clever though. He can open the doors, if they are not deadbolted and escape, which he has tried. He took off from Baba the other day in the park and headed for a busy street on the far end of the park cause he wanted to see the cars. Baba finally caught up with him right at the street. We gave him a talking to and now he knows that cars can give him owies.

Me -- same ole same ole. Work, work, work.

Nightmares?

Off and on for the past few nights, minus the night we were "camping", Misha has been getting up a few hours after going to bed crying. I haven't quite figure out what it could be, unless he is having nightmares.

After he wakes up and tries to leave the room, which is bad enough cause he would certainly wake up Nikolai, and who needs two screaming kids in the middle of the night, he won't calm down unless someone is in the room with him close. One night I was trying to get to sleep (I don't get enough as it is), and he started screaming. So I put him back in bed and tried to go back my own. As soon as I closed the door he was crying again and trying to leave his room again. Finally I pulled Kiril off his bed and told him to sleep on Misha's bed with him.

Last night when it started I put him back in bed, which of course didn't work cause he started screaming again. I finally decided to not let him leave, but not chase him back to bed. So I held the doorknob. He screamed and screamed and would run back to bed and then back to the door screaming and crying. After a couple minutes of that though, he gave up and went back to bed on his own.

So I am left wondering if he is having nightmares at night. Does he dream of a big bathtub of water and him behind a fence, or of me coming at him with a pair of hair clippers and some eye drops.

Misha and the haircut

We finally gave in and gave Misha a haircut yesterday. His hair was so long, it was getting in his eyes. Based upon the past couple times we have done this, I was expecting the worst.

Misha had been outside playing in the water and was all wet and probably dirty, so Ira put him in the tub with Nikolai. Then she called me upstairs to do the deed. When she told Misha that we were going to cut his hair, he began to get excited/agitated. It usually takes a presidential order and some physical force to get him out of the tub, but when she announced a haircut, Misha stood up, climbed out of the tub and made a run for it. I caught him before he made it out of the bathroom and have no idea where the streaker was planning on hiding, but he was determined to escape.

It actually didn't go so bad. He didn't like it, of course, but I didn't have to tie him in knots to get him to sit still enough to cut it. And it turned out fairly even.