Why do you love me? (and other things)

Today we were driving to a friend’s house for a play date.  I’m not exactly sure how it came up, but Oleg asked me, “Why do you love me?”  If you think about this, it’s kind-of hard to answer.  It’s not always a tangible answer.  But, I thought about it and told him that I loved him because of his laugh, his great sense of imagination, his cute toes and fingers (not sure why I said this exactly), and his bright blue eyes.  Then he asked what I didn’t like about him.  Again I thought about it and said that I didn’t like when he talked mean to me (like he had been doing this morning) and I didn’t like when he hit or bit me (which thankfully have not happened in a long time).  I let that settle for a few minutes, then I asked him why he loved me.  He said he didn’t know.  I accepted that because I know it’s hard to answer.  Then I asked what he didn’t like about me.  He said that he didn’t like when I yelled or was angry.  That makes complete sense.  Finally I asked why Oleg loved Papa.  He said because Papa plays with him and helps him brush his teeth (which Papa specifically did this morning).  Then I asked what Oleg didn’t like about Papa and he said that he didn’t like when Papa couldn’t play with him, when Papa got angry, and when Papa didn’t help him get dressed (again, specific to this morning).  It was a cute and interesting conversation.

So… going back to fill in the past couple weeks (what I can remember).  My parent, my sister and her family came to visit Feb. 13.  We took the kids out to McDonald’s and let them get some energy out.  Of course food at McDonald’s is always a hit.  They had lots of fun running around the McDonald’s play area too.  Oleg found a couple boys to run around with, climb, and play.  Lana was much more tentative.  She was more of a stay on the ground and mother the other children type of girl.  She did bravely climb up a couple levels before claiming that was plenty though.  After that we hung out at our house for awhile before piling on the snow gear and heading out to do a little sledding.  It was Grandma, Colleen, Oleg, Lana, Jackson, and me plus 2 sleds.  Well, we only ended up using one sled and it was a longer walk than Colleen or Grandma had anticipated, so Jackson soon got taken back to our house.  Lana was the melting marshmallow when sitting in a sled by herself — she just couldn’t seem to hold herself up, but when an adult went with her, she really enjoyed the sledding.  Oleg got a little jealous that he had to share, but he did pretty well.  We didn’t stay out too long, but it was fun.  Back at the house, we warmed up, visited, and the kids played.  It was fun.

Mid-February I had a preschool conference with Oleg’s teachers.  Going into this school year I told everyone that I didn’t think Oleg would be ready for Kindergarten at 5 years old and would probably do another year of preschool.  Then somewhere during this school year, I became very proud of the progress he has made and without saying it out loud I began to think he would be going to Kindergarten.  Well… at conferences, they said that he was basically right on the line right now.  He definitely has attention issues and they are concerned that with Kindergarten being a full day without a nap/rest, it might be too much for his already short attention span.  They said that it could change between now and August so we could watch and see.  Basically they said to sign up for both the preschool 5-year-old program and Kindergarten and then see which one he is ready for.  While I know they are right and I had said that I would listen to what they recommended, my “Mama Bear” pride was a little bit wounded at hearing this news.  Now that I’ve had time to digest it and think about it I know that they are right and I’m leaning toward the preschool 5-year-old program again.  I would rather he start Kindergarten at 6-years-old, than start it too early and then hate school because it frustrates him.

A little thing I’ve noticed in the past couple months is Oleg’s smell.  When he first came home, he smelled like us because he was using our soap and eating our food, but there was one individual smell that I could pick up on whenever he got close for a hug or kiss.  It wasn’t bad or good, just something different that I would pick up on.  I don’t know if the smell has disappeared or if it has blended into my known scents now, but I haven’t noticed it for a couple months now.  It seems like such an odd thing, but also very interesting to me too.  I thought at the time that I would always smell it and recognize it as Oleg’s scent.  Maybe still I do and it’s just ingrained now.

Finally, we got a second dog on Friday, February 19.  His name is Thaddeus and he is 8 months old now.  Oleg was pretty excited to add a new member to the house.  I thought Oleg would be jealous that the dogs would play more with each other and he would loose his sort-of playmate Stella.  He seems to have taken things in stride though and likes “this new dog” (as he calls Thad when he forgets his name  :-)).  Every morning Oleg comes in to wake me up and then he always says hello to both dogs, pets them, and gets them woken up as well.  I’m kind-of afraid that having two really good dogs will make him not fear dogs quite enough, but we’ll have to work on that later.  Thad has eaten some of Oleg’s toys that were left out and I don’t think Oleg likes it, he also really doesn’t get mad either.  He just states that Thad ate his toy.  Stella seems amazing on a leash compared to Thad now, so Oleg has gotten to walk Stella now and I think he loves that.  He always wanted to before and I was afraid that Stella would drag him down the street or he would drop the leash.  She definitely still pulls and gets Oleg walking faster, but I think he loves the new responsibility.  I do have to say that adding a new “child” to the family left me a little frazzled at times this past week.  It’s just an adjustment to watch 3 moving bodies and especially make sure the newest (Thad!) doesn’t have an accident.  So… Tuesday morning I left Oleg in charge of getting himself dressed (which he does just fine) and took the dogs out to go potty.  What I didn’t realize until we got to gymnastics though is that while he had picked out a good outfit for most days, it was not a gymnastics appropriate outfit.  He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeve t-shirt.  Poor Oleg had limited flexibility, a button to dig into his belly on the bar exersizes, and a warmer than usual shirt.  He didn’t seem too troubled by it, but I felt guilty for not paying enough attention.

Funny stories

Apparently I’m in a sharing mood lately.  Here are some more funny stories from yesterday:

We were eating lunch and Oleg had to go to the bathroom.  He set his half eaten sandwich on his napkin and got up to go.  I said, “Why don’t you put that on your plate?”  His response was to tell me that it was just fine on the napkin.  I had to laugh.  Okay, you got me, it is just fine on the napkin.

Later we went out to dinner and Oleg got a lollipop as we were leaving the restaurant.  (He always remember which restaurant has which toy or candy for him!)   Michael and I were being silly with him and asking him if the lollipop was yummy in his toes, fingers, elbow, eyes, etc.   He quickly caught onto this silly game and kept exclaiming, “Nooo!”  Finally I asked, where it was yummy expecting him to say in his tummy.  He said, “It’s yummy in my mouth.”  Duh!  Well, yes, yes it is. 

Finally, not really a funny story, but something I noticed this evening.  Michael went to watch the Superbowl with some of his friend and Oleg and I were eating dinner together.  I noticed that we were both quiet and thinking about our own thing.  Not too long ago, he would have chattered away through the whole meal.  My tendency on the other hand is to be quiet.  Apparently I have had some affect on him since we had a rather quiet meal.  I like that he doesn’t think he has to fill every silence anymore.  Hopefully I don’t make him too quiet though.  So far, I think he’s still on the chatty, out-going side.

Doctor, friend’s move, and book

We went to the doctor’s today and he said that Oleg had croup and now have a minor ear infection.  We are supposed to watch the ear infection over the next couple days to see if it gets better on it’s own or if it gets worse and we need to get an antibiotic.  The doctor said to check Oleg’s temperature and see if he complains about his ear hurting.  The temperature we can definitely check.  The ear hurting is harder.  Oleg really, really still does not complain if things hurt.  He does a little bit more now, but really not much.  We will see.

The move of Oleg’s friend Mike has continued to come up in conversations on and off.  It is obvious that Oleg misses his friend Mike, but it also seems that he is trying very hard to figure out where his friend went.  Today I made the comparison between Oleg living in Russia before and Ohio now to Mike living in Ohio before and Florida now.  We will see if that helps with Oleg’s understanding.  The one good thing that a fellow adoptive mother told me is that Oleg’s concern shows that he truely has made attachments and cares about those around him.  It was nice of her to tell me that because it put things in a positive light for me.  Another positive that has come out of it is that we seem to be having more conversations about Oleg’s birth family and where he came from.  I was very concerned when books said he should be asking those questions and he wasn’t, but he is starting to ask them now.  Some questions are easy to answer and others are more difficult.  I feel bad in the cases where I don’t have an answer for him because one was never given to me.  I plan to be honest (but age appropriate) with all his questions and I hope that he always feels like he can come and talk to me.

Speaking of thinking about Russia, I am reading a new book called “The Boy from Baby House 10″ and although it is a well written book, it is so hard for me to read.  There are so many things that I want to think have changed from when the boy in the story was in a Russian orphanage to when Oleg was in an orphanage, but I can’t completely make myself believe it.  Some of the recollections in the story make me wonder if that is how things were for Oleg at the orphanage.  I wonder if the reasons they gave us for Oleg being in an orphanage are true.  I wonder more now why were not allowed to see where Oleg ate or slept.  I think that I may have Oleg read this book one day, when he is older, to help him remember or understand that part of his life.  Overall, it makes me so thankful Oleg is here with us now!

Sassafras, bump, and empathy

When I went to pick Oleg up from preschool on Monday one of his teachers was laughing and told me they had a story for me.  Uh oh!  Well, I shouldn’t have been worried, it was quite funny actually.  Apparently either Oleg forgot his teacher’s name or was just being silly and he called her Sassafras.  Michael started the whole sassafras one day just using it as a silly word and it has definitely stuck.  She was laughing about being called Sassafras and I’m sure Oleg fed off that and decided to call his other teacher Coco.  They said they couldn’t stop laughing, which I’m sure egged him on all the more.  My silly boy!

Yesterday morning when Oleg came into our room in the morning, he tripped on some clothes on the floor and bumped his head on our bedframe.  Poor guy has a great big goose-egg on his forehead now!  He used to get so many bumps and seems to be getting less and less now.  Of course he still has bruises on his arms and legs from who knows where (he is definitely a boy!), but the head bumps have not happened in awhile.  I’ve also had a couple friends recently talk about their kids getting concussions.  So I got a little freaked out yesterday and was shining the flashlight in his eyes.   Then last night he starts telling me his stomach hurts and when I checked, he had a fever.  Ugh!  This is the second fever in 2 weeks and he just finally seemed to be getting rid of his lingering cough.  Poor kid.  So today I’m trying to get him to rest and take it easy (not as easy as it sounds).

Yesterday we went to the library’s Move to the Music program again.  It’s so much fun!  At one point a little boy was by his Mom, looked sad, and wouldn’t join in.  Oleg always seems to notice these kids.  He said to me, “Mommy, that boy is sad.”  I said that he could ask the boy to come join him.  Oleg did try, but the little boy didn’t want to.  Oleg seemed a little sad that he couldn’t make the boy feel better, but he seemed satisfied that he had given it is best try and he went back to singing and dancing.  It just makes my heart happy when Oleg shows empathy toward other children.  He notices when other boys or girls are sad and he wants to try to help them somehow.  My sweet boy!

Moving to the music and other things

On Thursday mornings we started doing a program called Move with the Music at library.  It’s only a 4 week program, but it’s lots of fun.  The woman who does it has lots of energy and really gets the kids moving and having lots of fun.  There are lots of simple songs for kids to sing and do motions to, there are a couple stories, and there is usually at least one prop for the kids to play with (ribbon, sticks, etc.).  I have to say I love our library!  They have great (and FREE) programs.

Yesterday we had a busy morning of running around and a couple times Oleg told me “I want to go home.”  This is the first time he has asked/told me this and I felt really bad.  I’m not sure what was wrong either because we were doing some fun things for him.  First we went to Walmart where I was letting him spend his “chore” money.  He has a jar and has been collecting money and I thought it would be fun to let him get a toy.  He was excited about it, but as we were walking toward the store, he said “I want to go home.”  The only thing I could think was that maybe it was because we were going to a different store.  We usually go to Target, so Walmart was a new place for him.  I asked him if he was worried because it was a new store and told him I would stay with him the whole time.  In Walmart, he picked an Imaginext Batman plane that shoots disks.  He was pretty excited about it and disappointed that we had to wait to get home to open it.  (They make those packages impossible to open without heavy duty scissors!!)  After Walmart we were off to soccer practice.  As we were walking in, Oleg again said “I want to go home.”  This time all I could figure was that he wanted to play with his new toy.  I don’t know.  He had a good time at soccer.  He still lacks focus a lot of the time, but he has fun and that’s really the point.  Right?  I could tell his cold affected him a little though because he laid down with the soccer ball under his head at one point and he was holding the soccer ball more yesterday (where he has been better about kicking versus holding it lately).  During rest, Oleg got to have his new plane had he enjoyed that.  Plus this morning we stayed home all morning and he got to play.  Hopefully that helped.

Lastly I have to share some of Oleg’s imagination so that I can look back, read this, and smile one day.  One of Oleg’s matchbox cars is shaped like a shark, so he occasionally says that when he gets bigger (or when he was bigger) he is going to have a shark car.  He has also started to say that he is going to have a shark house as well.  I tell him that will be pretty cool.  I don’t think it will really happen, but it does wonder what kind-of “cool” car he will want (need) when he is a teenager.  I wonder if he will want a shark car then? 

Visit, daddy, food, & sick

Last weekend Grandma and Grandpa D. came for a couple days to visit.  It was really nice for Oleg to get to play with them.  They came around 4PM on Sunday and left after lunch on Monday.  It wasn’t a long visit, but it was fun.  Oleg went a little crazy showing them all his toys.  It was almost like he felt like he had to entertain them versus just play with them.  On Monday we all also went to a “Cabin fever” play time at our church and we had fun playing with some different toys in a bigger space.  It was interesting that on the car ride there and back, Oleg was talking non-stop about all the cars he saw.  This is something he did with Michael and I when he was first home.  It was odd to hear him do it again.  I’m not sure if he felt like he had to say something and wasn’t sure what to say or if it was a nervous reaction.  Asking why he does things does not get a well thought out response, so I didn’t even try asking.  Overall, he really enjoyed having Grandma and Grandpa visit though.

As part of his make-believe, Oleg now makes up words for things.  It’s funny to be talking to him about something and he’ll respond with an answer that includes a made-up word.  He has a couple stand-by’s — “ezzo” and “sassafras” but then other times he’ll just blurt out whatever comes to mind.

At school Oleg is learning his address and phone number.  Do you believe that one of the preschool state standards is that he is supposed to know that information?  I don’t!  We are pushing kids too hard.  Anyway… the teachers were asking him and at one point he told them that Mike didn’t live with us anymore.  The teachers took this as Mike = Michael = Daddy, but Oleg meant his neighbor friend Mike.  Well, the teacher’s apparently finally figured out through a series of question that he was talking about his neighbor friend Mike.  In the series of questions though, they asked Oleg where Daddy lives and his response was, “Work.”  I guess that’s kind-of rational for a 4-year-old since that is where Daddy is most of the time.

In talking about his neighbor friend moving, Oleg told me the other day that Mike had died.  We have talked about death since we had to put Loki to sleep and it appears that Oleg is still trying to figure it all out.  I told Oleg that it might feel like Mike had died because we can’t see him anymore, but he just moved far away.  It is interesting how kids minds work.

At dinner the other night we had pierogies with broccoli and cheese.  Sounds like something a kid would like, right?  Well, Oleg informed me that he didn’t like them.  I didn’t quite understand why since he likes all the ingredients until I told him what was in it.  He asked me again what the green stuff was — broccoli, took a bite, and then informed me that he did indeed like the  pierogies.  Apparently green is not an appetizing food color, so I need to remember to identify green items for Oleg that he actually does like.

Oleg got some shots yesterday.  I waited until we were on the car ride to the doctor’s office to tell him where we were going.  He is definitely not brave about shots anymore!  He started crying as soon as I told him.  We talked about the good things — band-aids, sticker, pretzel, and toy that  he gets afterward, but he still would whine occasionally.  He was good at the doctor’s waiting room and only mentioned it once.  He happened to pick a book where Winnie the Pooh had to get a shot at the doctor’s office.  Pretty neat.  He did good in the exam room (because I kept him entertained with an “I Spy” book) until the nurse came in with her gloves on.  He fought it and cried, but he stopped pretty much afterward to check out his new band-aids make sure he had his coin to get a new toy.  I had him thank the nurse, which made her laugh.  He picked out a ninja with green cloths for his toy!

Oleg is sick again.  Poor kid!  It started Thursday with some sneezing and coughing.  Yesterday his nose started to run, he lost his voice a little, and the coughing really sounded like it was in his chest.   Last night at 10PM I heard a noise that I thought was part of Michael’s video game.  When I listened closer I realized it was Oleg upstairs.  When I went up he was crying a coughing.  I can only describe the cough as a kind-of barking cough.  We gave him something to drink, gave him to honey to coat his throat, checked and found out that he had a fever, gave him some Motrin, and put him back to bed.  He was in our room around 2AM and slept with me for awhile before I put him back to bed.  He was up again at 5:30AM and I got him to (restlessly) lay until 6:30AM, but then he wanted to be up.  He has been coughing and blowing his nose all day, but he has not lost much energy.  He cough seems to get worse when he runs and plays though so we’ve been trying to keep him doing some calmer activities.  Right now he is resting and I’m praying that he will fall asleep.  Poor guy!  The cough scares me.  Now I sort-of wish he had this cough yesterday when we were at the doctor’s office where I could have easily asked about it.

Snow day, dreams, imagination, and lost friends

Friday we had a snow day.  I’m so used to our routine that I was a bit thrown off at first, but we had fun.  There are several houses at the end of a coul-de-sac that have yards dropping down into a good hill.  Last winter a neighborhood boy saw Michael pulling Oleg on the sled around the neighborhood and told him about it.  We have been there three times this winter already.  Oleg will be saying he is cold while “helping” me shovel the driveway, but as soon as I’m done and we go sledding he is not cold and never wants to stop.  He has become afraid of some things this year and I was wondering if sledding down a big hill would be scary for him now, but he marched right to the top of the hill and sledded right down.  He LOVED it!  My little dare-devil.

One evening I went to tuck in Oleg for the night as I was heading to bed.  He woke up a little and has mumbled at me.  Other nights he has not been to clear, but this evening he was more clear.  He said something about “Guys.  Guys, help the little girl.  She has a heart (or hard).”  Then he turned over, sighed, and went back to sleep.  It really made me wonder what he might have been dreaming about.  He is active all day and now it seems that he might be just as active when he sleeps.  No wonder he stays so slim and trim.

Every time I think Oleg has a big imagination he just seems to up it to the next level.  He is full of imagination and pretending right now.  Yesterday I asked him about something and instead of telling me what really happened, he started making up a story.  I had to tell him that I wanted the real story, not the pretend story.   He also loves to watch movies and then that is usually what he pretends he (and I) is for the day.  The other day he watched the movie Iron Giant.  It has guns in it, which I don’t like, but it ultimately has a good message that guns hurt people.  There is a scene near the end where the Iron Giant intercepts a nuclear bomb in space to save the people from getting hit.  The movie then implies that the Iron Giant was blown up in the process.  When we previously watched the movie, Oleg always seemed to miss that implication.  The other day he didn’t though and he got very sad and kept asking me what happened to the Iron Giant.  For good and bad, Oleg is becoming more sensitive and paying more attention.

Related to the above about Oleg becoming more sensitive, one of his neighborhood friends, Mike, moved to Florida at the end of December.  I was really afraid that Oleg would take it badly, but initially it didn’t seem to phase him at all.  Maybe it was because of the holidays or maybe it just needed time to sink in.  Over the past couple days, Oleg has said a couple times that he is sad that his friend Mike had to move away.  He has asked me if his girl friends (4 girls are too many to name individually  :-)) are going to move now too.  He really liked playing with Mike and is missing him.  I know that this will pass and he will meet new friends, but for right now I’m trying to get him through this loss.

Yesterday “No!” and today 1-2-3 and stealing

I wrote this all up yesterday and once I had gotten it all typed up I didn’t know if I should actually post it.  Then I sent it to Michael to read and he reminded me that the blog is a way for us to look back and see what really happened.  So…

“No!”  Every time I seem to want to go somewhere or do something lately, that is the response I get from Oleg.  It is so frustrating to think that it will be fun for us to go to COSI (or anyplace else) to have him scream, rant, and say “No!” about it.  Yesterday he didn’t want to go to school (again).  Thankfully it was not a full out tantrum about going, but it was a repeated “I don’t want to go” all morning and all the way to preschool.  Then I ask how his day was and his teachers say he did fine and seemed to have fun.  Sigh!  Today he didn’t want to go to gymnastics.  He told me all morning.  Dad tried to get him excited about it and that worked for a little while and then he told me he didn’t want to go again.  At gymnastics I expected him to excitedly run out onto the floor like usual.  Nope!  He continued to tell me he didn’t want to do it and refuse to go join the others.  It was one teacher he knew (and one he didn’t).  It was one child he knew and three he didn’t (never been a problem before, he likes to meet new kids).  I tried to ignore him.  It didn’t work.  I tried to reason with him.  It didn’t work.  I tried to comfort him when he said it was scary.  It didn’t work.  I tried to distract him by taking him to the bathroom.  It didn’t work.  Finally, I said fine, let’s go.  I was done, I was frustrated.  Then he started to fight me on that.  I was going to loose it so I told him I would wait over by the door and he could come over when he was ready to go and I walked away.  He took off his boots and came to find me.  I told him that it was his choice we were going to stay or go, period.  He walked away saying he was going to stay.  I stayed where I was for a little while continuing to calm down and seeing what he would really decide.  I went back over and he had joined the others finally.  Argh!  It is so frustrating.  I really can’t make him do anything (I realize), but he is really also not good at talking and reasoning through things yet, so we both just end up frustrated and butting heads.  Sigh!  And he moves on and I can’t seem to let it go.

Now I have to mention that I wrote the above in the morning and at rest time yesterday I watched a parenting video called “1-2-3 Magic.”  I had gotten the video from the library and hadn’t watched it right away for some reason.  Apparently I was meant to watch it yesterday when I did because watching it made me laugh and feel much better!  The psychologist describing the 1-2-3 method hit the nail on the head in so many ways.  I started 1-2-3 right after rest and it made me feel so much more empowered which was just what I needed.  Of course I started before I had finished the video and when I watched the rest last night I realized I started a little wrong, but it served the purpose.  Today we have used 1-2-3 some more and although Oleg is working his hardest to test the system and look for weak points, I continue to feel it is working well.  Michael started watching the video tonight and will be the second “expert” in the house soon.

Stealing today… So, I pick Oleg up for preschool and we’re walking up the stairs to leave and he is playing with his sweatpants.  I figure the just got pushed up and he was fixing them.  We step off the sidewalk toward the car and he starts hopping around and requesting I help him get the toy.  Toy?  I get him to come back to the sideway (instead of in the parking lot driving lane) and help him retrieve the toy in his pants.  I know this isn’t his toy so I ask him where it came from.  His classroom.  Why is it in your pants?  I wanted to keep it.  Well, I told him that it wasn’t his toy, it belonged to the classroom and we needed to take it back now.  He asked if we could just keep it and I told him that we couldn’t because it didn’t belong to us.  He walked back down the stairs with me holding the toy (a Lego guy).  We got near his classroom door and he started balking and saying he didn’t want to.  I said he had to give it back.  Then he asked me to take it in and put it on the desk outside.  By this point, he had his teachers’ attention, so I them he had taken a toy and turn around and Oleg had gone to hide.  I feel like it was good that he felt such great guilt and wanted to hide, but I wanted him to understand what he did.  One teacher came out and talked to him.  She was very nice and told him a story of how her daughter had done something similar and she was older than him.  She told him she wasn’t angry but he said she had an angry face.  The whole time he was trying to hide behind/beside a wall or behind me.  I finally had him say he was sorry and we left.  As Michael mentioned he is probably not the first or last kid to do this.  I selfishly hope that the guilt from today is enough to ensure that it is the last time he does something like this.

Christmas and New Years review

Christmas was spent in Indiana with Michael’s family.  We were there December 24 - 27, so it was a nice, longer visit.  Oleg got to meet his Great Uncle Steve and Aunt Linda.  He knows all his immediate and first level family, but is still meeting Great’s and once-removed’s.  I think his continuous energy entertained Steve and Linda.  Everyone asked if he opened the presents from us at home and maybe we should have done that, but we hauled them all there.  I never considered opening them early.  Maybe it would have worked or maybe he would have wanted to bring lots of things with us on the trip.  What we did was to open stockings Christmas morning where we stayed (with Laura & Wes) and that gave Oleg some small gifts to play with until everyone was ready to head over to Grandma & Grandpa’s house.  Poor Oleg, we ate breakfast before opening gifts.  I didn’t realize we were going to do that so I didn’t fully prep him for that.  I’m not sure it would have mattered though.  He did pretty well, but he didn’t want to eat and kept asking why the others were eating and then why they were eating more.  Poor guy.  Finally we opened all the gifts and he was very excited!  He did a really good job thanking everyone for each gift.  He was more than willing to lend a hand if anyone wanted help opening a gift.  :-)   Then he got to play and that was the best part.  He does make me laugh though because he wants to play with everything — new toys and toys he has previously played with in Grandma & Grandpa’s closet.  I kept telling him that we weren’t getting the toys out of the closet too, he had plenty of new toys to play with.  Then Grandma and Grandpa babysat while we went to a movie and he got them to let him play with the closet toys.  Grandparents are much nicer than parents. 

On the trip home, we planned to pick up Stella at the kennel.  I’m not sure where we planned to put her, but we were trying to save ourselves a trip.  Well, the main roads were okay but an accident had us stopped for awhile (45-60 minutes?).  Then when we got off the highway onto some smaller roads, it was much slower travel as the roads were not cleared as well and were quickly getting covered in more snow.  Finally we got to a point where we realized that this trip was taking longer and we were not going to make it before the kennel closed.  We chose what we thought would be a shorter route and then ended up getting lost.  We finally made it to a town (after lots of farms and empty space), found our way to the highway, and headed home.  A 4.5 hour trip took us 7 hours.  Next time we need to check the weather first!

We spent New Years, as usual, in Hinckley, OH with college friends.  It a good way to spend New Years because we get to visit with friends and it’s kid-friendly.  Oleg had a blast playing with the 7 other children and we had fun catching up.  We rang in New Years playing some board games.  Some of the kids made it to midnight, but not Oleg.  We did let him stay up later — 9 PM and then he was up at 5:45AM.  I had been up until 3AM so 5:45AM came much too early!  Oleg did play pretend until around 7AM, but it still was not enough sleep for any of us.  Unfortunately, when Oleg is tired he gets very, very cranky and it takes him several days to get back into his right sleep routine.  Thankfully he took a nap January 1, but we woke him up because we didn’t want him to be off schedule and up all night.  It’s hard to try to do something nice — letting Oleg play longer, and then have it turn into a grumpy-fest for 3 days.

I almost forgot.  When Michael and I went up to bed Oleg was not on the air mattress on the floor.  At first I saw the covers on the floor and thought he had just rolled off.   Then when we looked closer, we saw that he had crawled up into our bed.  We decided that we would just let Oleg sleep on the bed with Michael (so he didn’t fall off again) and I slept on the air mattress.  Well, he woke up at 5:45AM reliving what had happened when he fell on the floor.  He was crying and saying he had fallen and hurt his foot.  It took a little while for us to console him and get him to calm down.  Apparently he had missed that we were not there to cry to the first time it happened.  Poor guy!

Bat family, haircut, & snowball fights

Last weekend, Oleg asked us to make him a Batman mask.  Michael made it then ended up making a Robin mask for himself and a Batgirl mask for me.  Along with a black cape (from a Darth Vador costume) Oleg was thrilled with his costume.  He loved playing Batman with us.  Although his favorite thing to do was to hide from the “bad guys” in the front closet.  After about 3 times of this Momma and Papa were done, but Oleg continued it for days.  A couple days later, Papa also made a Darth Maul mask (as scene in Lego Star Wars) mask for Oleg.  Oleg had originally asked for a Jarr-Jarr Binks mask and Michael had no idea how to even start that so he got Oleg to compromise on the Darth Maul mask.  Can you tell he’s into super hero’s now?

On Friday Oleg got a haircut.  I have to add that he wore his Batman cape there and told the woman cutting his hair all about his favorite super heros.  At home Oleg went into the bathroom at one point, looked at his reflection, and said to me that he was a “new boy.”  It was just so cute.  Michael did comment that Oleg does look a lot different after he gets his hair cut.  Michael thinks he looks younger.  I think it looks less wild (hence the reason I take him).  Now he’s ready for Christmas pictures.

We had our first snow fall on Saturday and we spent an hour outside having snowball fights.  Oleg was so excited!  One of the neighbors (father of one of Oleg’s babysitters) even got into it and threw a snowball at Oleg from across the street.  Oleg tried very hard to throw one back.  A friend driving by stopped to talk for a minute and Oleg almost threw a snowball in their car as well.  He was into his snowball fight!  It was also perfect weather for a snowman.  Ours is on top of the table on our deck.  I built a small one because Oleg got bored with it quickly.  The neighbor’s snowman is 6 feet tall, complete with scarf, hat, nose, eyes, mouth, and arms.  But we’re not keeping up with the Jones.  :-)   I see our cute little snowman whenever I look out the window and it makes me smile.