Boys round-up

It's been a while since I've posted on the boys. Maybe two months? Since the last time I posted, Ivan's vocabulary has expanded, but not very much. His talking consists of combining consonants (mainly b, p, c) with the letter "a." And he gets frustrated when he (surprisingly) is not understood. For example, yesterday morning, we were looking out the window, and he was saying "ca." I thought he was saying "car", but he actually meant Karen, our neighbor. I think Nikita had more words by his age (20 months), but I'm not worried because Ivan can understand what we're saying, regardless of the language. And this week, he finally learned how to nod in response; he learned how to shake his head for "no" months ago.

The other thing Ivan started doing this past week or so is quietly calling out to me "Mama" when he wakes up. This is much better than him screeching. He also started holding his pee through the night. These days, I only EC him when he wakes up, and sometimes his diaper is completely dry.

As for Nikita, I'm happy to report that his cough has finally subsided somewhat since I started him on FloVent. Igor and I really didn't want to give him this steroid inhaler, but we're nearly done with the 2-week treatment, and Nikita's down to a dry cough and able to sleep through the night.

Both boys have been "helping" with my recent flurry of cooking and baking. Nikita made his own pelmeni the other day, but usually Nikita is in the kitchen with me, standing on a chair by the sink. We usually fight over how much room he takes because he "needs" to see what I am doing, and I need access to the sink. There is then the issue of him playing with the water. Meanwhile, I keep Ivan in a sling despite the obvious dangers to him - and the soreness of my own shoulder.

Both boys also love music, particularly a German children's CD given to us a few weeks ago by a friend. Ivan is more demonstrative: when his favorite tunes come on, he'll start singing ("coo coo") or dancing - bouncing on his knees or moving his arms, bent at the elbows (like a chicken flapping its wings). And Nikita can actually sing some of the words to the song. The other day, Igor brought out a microphone so that Nikita could sing along, karaoke-style.

Bringing out the microphone reminded Nikita of the electric piano my parents bought him a few years back, so we had to bring out the piano as well. And then, he started a show, introducing songs to be performed. The first song was about an old car that got broken, smashed and crashed (we recently read a book called Smash! Crash!), and a bad artist who didn't write very well. The second song was about a boy who loved his papa very much (although Igor said that in Russian, Nikita said that the boy respected his papa); the boy sent his papa mail and gifts - trains, of course. The last song was about a bear who killed some parachutists.

Obviously, these songs are not on the German children's CD.