Learning new thngs every day

Learning how to work Legos.

Learning how to drink from a cup.

It is past bedtime, so short post today. I wish I had more videos to show you; back in Znam’yanka, we didn’t have water service part of the day and we didn’t have an oven or air conditioning, but we had blazing fast Internet. Now that I’m home it takes forever to upload videos again. I promise to upload some cute Alex videos when I have a few hours to sit on the upload process!

Alex seems to hit new milestones every day. Today the big one I noticed is that he actually tried to stick the Lego blocks on his Lego table, instead of just removing them or taking them apart and putting them in the bins. (He used to throw them until we took away the table several times.) It was weird to watch a kid his age struggle with something so basic, but he eventually managed to make three different blocks stick. He had to experiment to see which side would stick to the table. I don’t think he quite realizes intuitively that they have to be at right angles to the pattern of dots on the table, but he managed to make them stick accidentally anyway. We cheered and cheered! He is still more interested in taking them apart…we will see whether he tires of that developmental task and moves on to the more complex building process.

He is also learning how to use a cup. There is lots of spilling and choking involved, but he is getting better; he practices with a bit of water in the cup, and he practices in the tub and the pool.

He has also mastered the word “no,” thanks to his younger brother, but still uses the Russian variant when speaking to us.

We are off to the Twin Cities tomorrow to visit the International Adoption Clinic with Alex Friday morning. Extra prayers are appreciated. We will not be able to post until we return, probably Sunday.

Before I go, I’d like to plug another adopting family. They are trying to adopt two more girls; they have already adopted this little girl….

…and now they are trying to adopt her sister and another girl. You should see the before/after pics of their daughter! What a difference! My own sister has been advocating for this family for some time now, and has asked us to put a call out for some extra help for them to get them over the hump on their matching grant; if you’re able to pitch in, please do.