Oh, Grandma....

Luka saw Grandma driving around in her little red car the other day. We didn't know it but she was driving around Portland in her little red sports car with Oregon plates-specialized Oregon plates with Oh LaLa on them.

Grandma, we just have a couple of things to say to you: First, I know that when you drive a Ferrari you can probably get to Portland from Texas in a couple of hours, but it would still be nice to tell us you will be visiting for the day, we would invite you over. And second, if you think it is ok to drive around town, just having fun without your grandchildren, do you really need to do it in a car that costs the same as a house in NW Portland? Surely you could trade it in for a little red Miata and be just as happy and then we would have a WHOLE HOUSE. You might not be able to make it to Portland for lunch, but you didn't call anyway!

Kid Talk Overdue

Niki the red hot chili pepper eater. I guess I have to officially admit that his first words are 'no-no'. He does hear them a lot being the 3 child and a baby who loves to explore, taste and climb everything he can touch. He's really coordinated in that he can do something he shouldn't while saying no-no and shaking his head with exaggerated side to side 'NO' movements.
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Alyosha goes to school in the morning. I (Roma) tell him to zip up his jacket because it is cold. Alyosha mumbles something while trying to zip all the way up.

"What is it that you are saying? - I ask him.

"Oh, I am just saying that my touching buddies are going to be OK with that." "What touching buddies?", - I ask casually, trying not to have any alertness in my voice.

"You know, those touching buddies."

"No, I actually, don't know who are you talking about, but what is it
that they will be OK with?"

"With me having jacket zipped up all the way!". By now I am very interested in our conversation and thinking in my head of how to approach this subject carefully.

"So, are these buddies of your, do they go to your school?", - I ask again casually. "Well of course they do! How can they not?! Look, they are right here!" - Alyosha points to his chin.

"Oh, you mean taste buds on your chin?!!" - I exclaim after a few seconds of processing the intricate logic of a 5 year old thoughts.

"Well, yeah, I am saying that the taste buds on my chin are OK with me
having jacket zipped up all the way, because sometimes jacket rubs against it,
but right now they are fine with it!"

Phew... That was close!

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Yesterday we were walking from CHAP a block away and Alyosha was running the block and circles around me. It was sprinkling/almost raining and Alyosha squeezed in between breaths while still running circles around me that he is so fast that he isn't even getting wet! When we got home he said, "look how much I ran, I am soaked from sweat!"

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Ice Skating class began last week--the boys are in snow bunnies level. It will take some time to get balance down, but they are both closer to the ground and unaware of any kind of danger so that allows them to learn much faster. We (Jen and Rome) on the other hand put the skates on and skate smooth circles around the rink. I'm sure the kids will be spinning around us in a matter of weeks.

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Grandma took us to the airport in Texas by herself when we flew back to Portland after Christmas holidays because Grandpa still had the awful stomach bug we all went through the couple of days before we were set to leave. So, Grandma dropped us at the gate, we took our 4.5 hour flight and landed in rainy Portland. When we stepped off the plane to head for our taxi, Luka said "Where's Grandma?" fully expecting her to be still at the airport waiting for us after we had a day of just flying around in the air.

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While in Texas the kids got to watch some extra PBS TV because it is so easy to just turn on PBS and it worked! (I guess that is what you get when you pay for cable, or in this case satellite TV) Anyway, Sid the science kid is about a bunch of kids who do science experiments and ask the teacher a lot of questions to figure out whatever theory or mystery they are exploring. While we were eating dinner one evening, Alyosha asked me how old I thought Sid was. I said he may be 7 or 8 years old. Alyosha's reading buddy is 8 years old in the 3rd grade and Alyosha immediately responded to my answer that it wasn't possible for Sid to be 8 because that would mean that he is in 3rd grade and Sid doesn't know everything yet. He asks too many questions. To clarify, I asked him what he meant and he said "Third graders already know everything, they don't have to ask questions anymore. Sid couldn't be in 3rd grade yet because he asked too many science questions." I used it as an opportunity to tell Alyosha that he only has two and a half years left to learn everything there is in the world so he should keep studying hard!

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Back to weekly OMSI visits (Thank you Auntie Trish for the nice Christmas present). Niki loves it, he feels like it is his own place. Luka and Niki both love the sand area. Luka was sitting filling up the garbage truck with sand to recycle when he looks at me and asks "Mama, do I have Pampers on?" I said, "No, Luka, do you need to go potty?" He replied no, and went back to work. About 10 minutes later, the same question...and I gave him the same reply, he just went back to his play. He was just making sure, I guess. On a positive note, we are out of daytime diapers!! Yeah!!! AND no accidents yet.

Luka's world is special I think. He is really smart and he is even more determined. If he knows the answer to something, then his answer is the only correct one--when he doesn't know the answer he comes up with it himself and holds fast. Alyosha mentioned something about wearing his school shoes or his new cowboy boots, I don't remember the exact conversation. But Luka jumped in, not to be left out saying that we should also include his Music School Shoes because it is important to keep them nice and clean.

One more: Luka likes his green apples (favorite color green, by the way) NOT five-and-a-half. What does that mean, you might ask? Well, if you are Mama, you had better know, because if you give him an apple five and a half in any way he will fall on the ground and have a huge fit-HUGE. Does he mean not five and a half apples? No. Does he mean not five and a half pieces of apple? No. He means he wants his apple cored but not cut in half.

It will be a Texas Christmas

A couple of weeks ago we told Alyosha that we are going to Texas for Christmas. He is very excited about that, but I have to share the very first question and the resulting thought process he had after realizing that we are going to be away from home on Christmas morn. The obvious question is how will Santa Claus know where we are. That is easy, just write a letter, right? But, think about it, if we don’t write a letter and Santa leaves our Christmas wished presents at our home in Portland, then he sees some extra kids in Texas, he will have to leave presents there too—as long as there are cookies and milk set out— we will all get double presents! So, Alyosha asked if we could make cookies before we leave for Texas and put them in the window.

Although, he informed me today that he has way too many toys and he does not want any for Christmas. He only wants real science equipment-like a tele-microscope to look at fossils and he wants a dinosaur claw and/or tooth (real). Alyosha made sure that we know that LUKA wants a racecar with a track and extra train tracks. But, no toys for Alyosha. In fact he wants to go ask the homeless people who have built a camp a couple of blocks away if they have any kids so he can give his extra toys to them. (We ride our bikes by the camp every day-no kids though)

Other than just scheming for Christmas presents we have been busy little bees. Luka and Niki and I did the fall Polish the Pearl, picking up what little trash there was laying around our Tanner Springs and Jamison Parks. Roma and Alyosha were at Emanuel donating blood-we get the good citizen of the day award for that Saturday. (Alyosha doesn’t donate blood, by the way. He just goes with Roman once a month as support.)

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We also attended the Portland Art Museum’s free Family day that showcased the China Design Now exhibition. There was Chinese dance, music, food, art-making, and cultural activities. The kids really did have a good time, despite the looks on their face in the picture!

Luka and Claudia enjoying a walk on a beautiful Saturday morning. This was how we chose to wear the kids out before going to the Symphony in the evening. It worked for Luka, but Alyosha is too old for resting and naps now.

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Here we are walking to the Portland Youth Philharmonic. Yes, we walked all the way to the Schnitzer (basically across downtown) pushing the kids in strollers. Classy! I love living downtown! The kids earned the tickets from the library during summer reading—No parking, no problem! But, speaking of Luka’s nap earlier-he fell asleep during the performance. The sleeping part would have been ok, but he snores. Not just a cute baby snore; Luka snores a full blown hipposnore. Alyosha always tries to fall asleep first so he isn’t bothered by our little hippo. When Roma stepped out with Luka so we didn’t disturb the adagio, Alyosha said that it was ok because it was boring anyway. “Not the whole thing, just the music part” We thought about our time leading up to the symphony: reading this summer and talking the kids into taking symphony tickets rather than another water squirt gun as a prize; waking early for a full breakfast so we could hike just enough to wear them out for a good nap; cleaning up and dressing up for a fancy night out; walk across the whole town (in heels); patience waiting for the thing to start; snoring during the performance; the kids waiting in lines during intermission to try out each instrument (Alyosha has perfect ‘mouth pucker’ for the French horn and Luka rocks on the harp); 10 pm pizza because everyone is starving; bed at 11 only to still wake up at 7am the next day….is this cultural experience worth it? 110 percent.

We had a pre-visit from Cheryl. She is coming to have Thanksgiving with us next week, fun! She doesn’t give small kisses—only really, really big ones.

P.S. on this post….Roma has an interview! Yeah! I don’t believe in bad luck sharing this before it happens. In fact I believe in good luck because now all of you will pray and think positive things for Roma and if he is meant to get this job he will and if not, we will wait for the right one to come along! (Don’t bother him with questions though-it is an interview for a job he will like and that is enough for you nosey people. We will share more at the right time- patience is a virtue :-))

Yoka and other Fiction

This morning I drove Alyosha to school. He usually rides his bike with Roman, but Rome was up late working so I took the car. It was raining…Anyway, Ms. Ansell, Alyosha’s teacher, sends out a letter every Monday saying what they will be doing during the week. This week’s focus is real versus fantasy stories. I told Alyosha about fiction and non-fiction and he thought about his interests for a moment. Then he said that he couldn’t read fiction yet because he didn’t know enough facts. He is a scientist and facts are important! Thinking about the books he has chosen on his own at library time from school—they are all the same type: Snakes, Fossils, and this week Eagles. He said we should go through our books at home and arrange them into fiction and non-fiction—putting the fiction on the lower shelves because those are the kind of books Luka likes. Kindergarten has taught him so much but obviously not enough. The other day he asked me if he thought OMSI would want him to come in and talk to the other scientists and paleontologists. He said that he knows that he still has a lot to learn, but he is a scientist already and they might need the help. I told him it wouldn’t hurt to ask.This is the picture that Alyosha drew in school today. The purple is his heart—a purple heart is very special and Alyosha knows all about it. We told him how important purple was when he refused to use a purple toothbrush. Now either purple hearts or purple rain, Luka’s favorite, come up anytime you say the color purple. Try it out on Luka next time, just say the word and he will start singing “Purple Rain, Purple rain” You might not be able to read but the words are “time stone” Alyosha told me he learned what that was from the Halloween Arthur book—it is the stone that is in the cemetery that says your name after you die. The person in the picture is Pra, Roma’s Babushka. It is actually a picture of her spirit.

Alyosha has a spirit house night light in his room that he made at art camp over the summer. Now, we have been talking to him about spirits for a long time and he said many times that he knows that the spirits of Big Fish and Stop and Go and Pra come to the spirit house and he is really glad that he has it. Sometimes it seems like he knows more than me, I hope I can get him to talk more about what he is thinking.

Meanwhile both kids are on a ‘yoka’ fit. They want to do yoga every day, and honestly so do I. Luka’s favorite is the tree pose and Alyosha loves Warrior III, or he calls it flamingo pose. I think that we are going to do some Yoga videos soon. I hope that will make it easy for us to fit it into our schedule.

Alyosha’s School Picture

Isn’t he so sweet that you want to cry? Roma thinks he looks like he is fake smiling but I think it looks like he is laughing.

Here are some ‘kid talk’ tidbits from the past week:

Sorry for the potty talk, but Luka was hilarious! He runs out of his room desperately saying where is the potty, I have to poop! Then he makes a little Luka toot, and says “oh, it’s just toots!” and he goes back to his room to play.

Luka “Mama, it is clocked—can you please open the door, it’s clocked.”

Alyosha came in scratching his leg: “Mama, something is porcupining me in my leg.”

The best: Occasionally when Luka looks in the mirror at himself he says. “Look, I’m happy!”

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Перевод:

Он на фото такой милый, что хочется плакать, правда?! Рома думает что он фальшиво улыбается, но мне кажется, что он просто смеётся.

Вот несколько последних высказываний наших деток:

Извиняюсь заранее за "туалетную тему", но Лука очень рассмешил нас. Выбегая из своей комнаты, Лука в отчаянии пытается спешно найти свой горшок: "Где горшок?? Мне надо покакать!!!" Бегая в поисках по дому, он вдруг останавливается и пукает. Поняв что тревога ложная, он говорит: " А, это только газики", и спокойно удаляется дальше играть в свою комнату.

Идёт Алёша и чешет свою ногу: "Мама, что-то дикообразит меня в ногу".

Лука смотрит на себя в зеркало: "Смотри, я счастлив".

Playground talk

Who knew seven kids could fit on one tire swing?

The other day Alyosha woke up in the morning and the first thing he announced was that he didn't sleep all night long. I said that was too bad because his body won't be able to run and play so much because it needs to sleep every day. After that, he amended what he said to say "My body was sleeping, actually, just my brain was awake all night. And in the morning (at 6 am--the new normal) my brain started screaming at my body to wake up."

Luka always defends me to say that my eyes are blue while Alyosha and Roma make fun and say they are grey/green. Luka was mad at me for some reason or another the other day and he said with a squished angry little face that " Your eyes are NOT blue!"

On the slide after school today I heard Alyosha say "I am so tough I beat up a seven year old and now he is afraid of me" The friend he was playing with on the slide said he was 5 and a half and he is the oldest and toughest in his family (he has a 2 year old sister and a 10 month old sister). Alyosha said he was 5 and a half and the biggest and oldest brother in the family too. Why do little lion cubs have to prove who is the toughest?

Luka came up crying and saying "my elbow, my elbow!" I looked at both of his elbows and there was nothing there. He continued to cry and say he got a bobo on his elbow. Finally he pointed down to his knee and with a sly smile and tears still running down his face he said "my elbow has a bobo!" He calls his legs his 'arms' and apparently his knees are 'elbows'. But, with the smile, I know he knows the difference, it is just his joke. I tell you though, he can keep it pretty straight because he consistently calls them his 'arms' and now, 'elbows'.

Alyosha got in a wrestling fight today--it was playful but his necklace broke. He has gotten into a habit of fighting on the side of his friend Amelia against an other team of boys. They wrestle at soccer practice and, as I learned today, at recess too. When his necklace broke, the participants helped him pick up the beads and they are all friends now; especially Amelia, she might even be his best friend right now he said. On the bike ride home Alyosha had a question that he almost didn't ask me because he thought it was too funny. I got him to ask and he said "Mama, do you think it would be funny to marry your best friend?" I said that I thought it would be a great thing to marry your best friend--but asked him what if his best friend was a boy. He said, no that isn't possible then started naming off the names of all the girls he knows. "Amelia, Hailey, Sofie, Milana, Danicia--I have five girlfriends!" He was so happy that he ran into a parked car--no damage done, physical damage that is!

Smart stomachs

Alyosha is eating breakfast.
Alyosha: I am sooo full, I can't eat even a tiny bit more.
Papa: Would you like a candy?
Alyosha: Oh yeah, sure!
Papa: So, that means there is some room in your tummy...
Alyosha, without thinking: Yes, there is, some, there are two extra stomachs located here and here (points to areas on his sides), but regular food is not allowed to enter there, these are "candy only" stomachs.
How can you argue with that...

At the end of the dinner, we are playing guess-a-word game.
Alyosha: It is in our salad, it starts with letter "K", but it is not nuts.
The answer: "K"ranberries

Kids Talk

Alyosha has completely worn out 2 pairs of shoes in the past 2 weeks. I made him say goodbye to them and that was where the mourning began. He cried giant tears of sadness because he had to say goodbye to his beloved fast shoes. Then he got the idea to take pictures to be able to remember them forever. He does not let go easily!

Here are the boys looking over every inch of the shoes--Luka has a micro view.

The photo montage of his beautiful tennis shoes. From top to bottom, inside and out, not an inch was missed.

Photo attempt for the passport photo--Niki doesn't know you aren't supposed to smile!

Other kid sayings:

Alyosha called me into his room to look at the castles he built with the blocks and said "Mama, look how I have just gone wild with my imagination!

Luka asked me for a drink of water before bed so I brought him one. Before I handed it over Alyosha announced that he should get a drink first because he asked me inside his brain first for a drink, he just didn't say it out loud.

Britney Spears song came on the stereo "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman" And Luka began to sing "I am just a boy. That is just Nikolai and that is just Mama and just Papa and just Alyosha. I am just a boy"

Camping at Timothy Lake

The boys are off on a journey to explore Timothy lake. These are three fossil hunters on the search for deep sea, high mountain lake, ancient sea monster fossil ekletons (skeletons in Luka language). You will not believe how much evidence of their existence in this lake there is on the shore. Did you know that there were THOUSANDS of million year old rocks to look at?

Niki is a little skeptical of the million year old rocks. He prefers sitting in my lap to going out on the expedition. Maybe he is the CEO direction all operations from shore.

Here is the stash of the million year old rocks with evidence of ancient life. Every one was carefully chosen and 'scienced out' as Alyosha puts it. Only 3 made it home, much to the fossil hunter's chagrin.

Here they are. Always looking forward to their next expedition.

Israel Called On To Stop Settlements

Alyosha overheard the news this morning about Obama's Cairo Speech and Israel:

June 4, 2009 · President Obama was addressing Muslims Thursday, but his speech in Cairo was closely followed by others. One of his most pointed messages was directed at U.S. ally, Israel. Obama called on Israel to halt all construction in West Bank settlements as a step toward reaching peace with the Palestinians. Obama also addressed Palestinians, saying they need to abandon violence.

Alyosha said "Mama, can you believe it, the Israelites are still walking! Where are they going, to Estonia?"

What Luka likes

This morning, Luka woke up and told me what he likes in this order:

#1 Clippord (Clifford the Big Red Dog) #2. W (D.W. from Arthur)

#3. Papa

#4. Monkey (Curious George)

Kids and their thoughts

I was telling Alyosha that the books I was reading to him were the books I had when I was a kid. And this house is the place I lived when I was a kid. And he said "yeah, it is sooooo old"

Every time Luka sits on his potty or stands in front of a tree he announces "it's coming, it's coming!"

On the way walking home, Alyosha asked me out of the blue if he looked brave. I said why? And he said because he was making his brave face.



Swinging in the swing while waiting for the hot dogs to be hot!
We picked Turnips from our the neighbor Elmer's garden. Nothing fresher than that!

Религиозные устои

Вечером все устали после долгого жаркого дня, детям пора спать, но папа хочет ещё попить чайку. Чтобы сделать это в тишине, папа предлагает детям сесть и посмотреть новости, что, естественно, встречено детьми с воодушевлением и мгновенно установившейся тишиной. Устроившись удобно с чаем и детьми на диване начинаем смотреть новости, после первых же секунд симпатичная дикторша замолкает с раскрытым ртом на полуслове - техническая задержка связи интернет. Папе лень встать и запустить новости заново, вместо этого он сидит и смотрит неотрывно на дикторшу, попивая чай - в конце концов он только лишь хотел тишины и он её получил. Дети, однако, хотели действа, поэтому терпеливо подождав минуту, они начали ёрзать и Алёша спрашивает папу, чего мол там смотреть на эту даму с открытым ртом.

Папа: Я может быть влюбляюсь в неё.
Алёша: А как же мама?!
Папа: Ну теперь у нас будет другая мама, может она тебе разрешит смотреть мультики целый день. Согласен?
Алёша, посерьёзнев игнорирует мой вопрос: Папа, ты должен прочитать эту книгу, она называется Библия. Ты читал когда-нибудь Библию? Там есть отрывок про жен и мужей, читай прямо сейчас.
Папа с удивлением: Отрывок? А что там сказано?
Алёша: Там написано, что мужчина женится только один раз и только на одной женщине.

Папа посмотрел на маму с выражением и сообщил, что вообще религий есть много и каждая по разному смотрит на этот вопрос. Алёша ушёл спать в раздумьях.

Утром следующего дня мама говорит за завтраком о том, как один папа заботиться о диете сына, старается, чтобы она была здоровой прежде всего. В тоже самое время его бывшая жена, с которой он делит воспитание сына, делает всё наоборот, кормя его в Макдональдсе. Речь заходит о разных верованиях, не только религиозных, но и мирских, как например в этом случае папа был фудофобом (от слова фууд - еда), а маме было безразлично. Речь заходит о толерантности, о том какие бывают религии, что каждый выбирает себе сам. Тут папа вспомнил Высоцкого с его песней о переселении душ, а Алёше очень понравилась концепция индусской религии.
Вот оригинал с 1975 года. Замечательная песня!

Niki the Laugher

Niki has so many emotions. Yesterday I was reading a story to Luka and there was a scary part where we both gasped. Niki was also listening to the story and when he heard us gasp his eyes filled with tears and his lower lip curled under down to his little chin. We quickly told him that it was ok and he squeezed out a smile while his eyes were full of tears. See the video...he is just starting to laugh all the time!

By the way, Luka doesn't have fifth disease. He had a bad reaction to the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine. It gave him a slight measles rash and a cold, which he is now getting over. This was a vaccine that he was supposed to get when he was 1 year old, but I waited until two and a half because that is a serious one--I'm glad I did. I know the vaccines are good, but it is important to follow your own common sense rather than just depending on what others tell you. Doctors give advice for the general crowd, unfortunately, and each person is an individual.

Ta'i Chi

The other day we were walking in the park on a beautiful day and there were some ladies practicing their Ta'i Chi out in the grass beside the park. Luka looked at them, smiled, pointed and said "look Mama, Robots!"



AND...A lady was walking her puppy, this little cute poodle mix puppy, down the sidewalk right when we crossed the street. Luka SCREAMED and ran down the sidewalk all the way to the next corner, hiding himself behind a bike rack. When I finally walked up to his hiding place, he gave a slight smile and lifted his little shoulders while clasping his hands (his pretend frightened pose) and said "scary puppy!"

Kids talk, with 2 now...

Alyosha listens to the radio news, where they talk about swine flu outbreak and the how Egyptians are planning to eliminate all pigs in the country. With loud voice Alyosha gives his summary: Mama, mama, Pyramid People are going to kill the pigs!

Alyosha saying:
"Mama, look at this rock. It is cool, can I take it home and science it out?" (that means examine it at home with a magnifying glass and put it in his paleontology collection box)

Luka saying:
Every time we leave friends, Luka departs with "Bye, Bye, thrend"

Alyosha saying yesterday evening:
"Mama, now that I am growing up, I like to watch the news. Luka still likes cartoons."

Death of the Terrible Creatures

Alyosha's story of how two kids drove around in their motorcycles and, without the knowledge of their papa, watched a knight kill various terrible creatures and finally save a treasure from the pirate--and protect the treasure with a dangerous rattlesnake.

These are the happenings at our house on a daily basis. Yes, we live in a magical world.

The Bible

I have been reading the Bible to Alyosha during nap times. We have a really good Children's Bible from 1965--the same one I remember Grandma having. I don't know if it was Daddy's or John John's originally, but I remember it myself. I found a never opened one at the thrift store a year or so ago and bought it for $2. Alyosha looks at the pictures all the time and recently asked me to read him some stories from the pictures. It tells the real stories, not all dumbed up like some newer children's bibles, but also not as complicated as the adult version. We just finished reading about the 10 plagues and are still reading the Exodus story with Moses and the Israelites.

Does anyone know what the 10th plague is? The plagues really interested Alyosha; we read them a week or so ago and he is still asking questions. The 10th plague is the one where God comes for all the 1st born of the Egyptians but passes over the homes of the Israelites. So that God knows the people who live in the house are faithful, he asked them to sacrifice a lamb and paint its blood on 3 spots of the doorway and the first born of that household will be saved. Guess what today is? Passover. I told Alyosha that today was passover and he got a very serious look on his face. He said we need to go get a lamb right now and paint blood on our doorway. He is the first born child in our household, I understand where his concerns come from. We haven't gotten to the Easter story yet!

*Speaking of things children say, while we were at the dentist Alyosha asked what they were going to put in the holes where the cavities were. The dentist said either white paint or silver paint. He told the dentist "My daddy's teeth are all painted silver!" *The kids were eating ice cream and it started dripping over the cones they made. Alyosha said "My ice cream is Kapping!" (kap kap kap is the sound drips make in Russian)




Happy Easter weekend to everyone!

The goodest and the knockerdowniest.

We all are sitting at the dinner table finishing meal, Mama Zhenya asks who is going to clean dishes. Alyosha stands up and claims the job. Papa Roma tries to compete with him and says that he is going to clean instead, these days jobs are tough to find, after all. Alyosha contends, saying that he will take the job because he is the "goodest" cleaner of all times. "Knockerdowning good".

Kids Talk

On the way to the car Alyosha overheard in the hallway a mom threating her son that if he doesn't stop having a fit they were not going to go to the store and get the new toy he wanted and that she would give all his toys away to the homeless kids.

Alyosha didn't say anything until he was strapped into the car. Then he asked me

"Mama, why does that boy have to give all of his toys to the homo kids?"

Treasure Island

Well, we finished reading Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson tonight. Alyosha understood a lot of it, there were some parts that were beyond him, but he hung on every word. He loved the entire novel! Tonight when he was playing in the bathtub he had a little boat, that he made into a pirate ship, naturally. He called me in there have a look at his boat. He said he "beached it (on his legs) when the tide went out." Then he said, "what does that mean?" (they beach the pirate ship Hispaniola when they lose the anchor)

So I told him this story: When I drop this sponge, where does it go?
Al: It falls down.
Mama: Why does it fall down and not up?
Al: Because gravity. What is gravity?
Mama: Gravity is what pulls everything down to the earth. And the moon has gravity too, but the Earth is stronger. The moon tries and tries to pull things up to it, as hard as it can, but it can't. It doesn't quit trying though. The moon isn't strong enough to pull you up, but it does pull the oceans a little bit. It pulls and pulls at the water and the water rises up toward the moon a little bit. That is when the tide goes out and you can see more of the beach. The water is being pulled towards the moon. Then the moon gets too tired and the earth pulls the water back to where it belongs. That is when the tide comes back in and there is more water on the beach. That is why you can beach the pirate ship. If you put the ship in the water close to the beach when the tide is in it will float, but then the moon pulls at the water and the ship will be stuck on the sand since there won't be any more water. And that happens all the time, because the moon never quits trying to pull things from the earth.
Al: That is the coolest book ever!

Video for download here
Alyosha playing his new guitar (a real one) and singing like a pirate--click play!

The Sun and the moon

Alyosha: Mama I don't want to go to bed it is still sunny outside.

Mama: Well, it's spring and soon it will be summer, the sun stays out longer and longer.

Alyosha: But it is still sunny, I don't want to go to bed when it is sunny. I want to go to bed when it is moony.

Pirates, sharks and Bananas

There was a homeless man in the park today, sleeping by a stump. He was snoring and the kids thought he was a bear—but he turned out to be a man instead. I guess that really made an impression on Alyosha because he mentions it every time you ask him a question about what he learned about in nature school today… He asked why the man was homeless, and that is a hard question to answer…but I told him one reason might be because the man doesn’t know that he has any skills so he doesn’t know what job to do. That is why we are helping you learn lots of skills like reading and writing and about bugs and nature and bike riding…

He said that if he could read he would read lots of books about pirates and learn everything about pirates that he could learn about—and I told him that if he learned the skill of writing then he could think up of his own story and write it down and share it with grandma and grandpa and all his friends. This is the story he helped tell and when it was finished he told me to go write it down because it was soooo funny and he wanted to show his friends….let’s see if I remember it!

There was a pirate on his pirate ship. The pirate was standing on the very top of the mast of his ship looking out to make sure there were no sharks around. Especially one shark—a shark as big as the pirate ship who could eat up that ship in one gulp. He was looking and looking but didn’t see anything, yet he kept looking out.

All of a sudden he saw THE shark. He yelled down to all the other pirates “the shark is coming, the shark is coming” All the other pirates started running around figuring out what to do. The pirate yelled again “THE SHARK IS COMING” He yelled so loud that the pirates ears popped off their head and then popped back on.

They couldn’t decide whether or not to jump off the ship and swim or just try to go as fast as they could. So they saw an island and started sailing towards the island. The propeller on the ship was spinning as fast as it could and the pirates had paddles helping the ship go even faster.

The ship was going so fast that when it got to the beach of the island the whole ship just popped up on the land! And it was a good thing it did, because if it stayed in the water the shark surly would have gulped it up.

The pirates jumped out of the ship to have a look at the shark in the water. He was so upset because he wanted to eat the ship up. The pirates were laughing and laughing because they got away. They saw some banana trees on the beach and pulled down all the bananas and threw them to the shark. They said “Shark, you should be a monkey because we can give you bananas but we won’t let you eat us!”

And that is Alyosha’s story (mostly his…)

Что такое "бюджет"?

Всей семьёй едем в машине, Женька и я разговариваем о чём-то и упоминаем слово "бюджет". Алёша, которому 3 года и 10 месяцев, оказывается внимательно слушал весь разговор.
Алёша: А что такое "бюджет"?
Я беру на себя нелегкую задачу объяснить это понятие ребенку. - Это, когда ты планируешь как потратить деньги, которые есть у тебя в ограниченном количестве. Например, у тебя есть один доллар, а тебе хочется мороженное, шоколад и покататься на лошадке. Но, всё вместе это стоит больше, чем один доллар и тогда ты выбираешь то, что тебе больше всего хочется или то, тебе очень нужно. Понял?
Алёша: Нет. Ведь, если у тебя кончились деньги, то ты можешь просто достать карточку и расплатиться карточкой...

Where's the fire breathing dragon?

Alyosha: Mama, tell me story, tell me story, tell me story!! Tell me a story about mushrooms and blueberries....(where he gets the ideas, I don't know)

When I was a kid, I was 8 years old and we lived in Alabama on the top of a hill. And all around the hill there was a forest. And when you looked out over the edge of the hill, you could see all the city lights--it was very beautiful.

One day, I was very sneaky because I wasn't supposed to go to the forest at the bottom of the hill since it was very far away and it was a very dark forest. I snuck down there with my friend Aleuts on my bicycle. We were so excited to walk on the trail in this forest!

We got off our bikes and started walking on the trail. As soon as we walked into the forest it got so dark, like the sun disappeared. We walked right out of the forest and the sun was shining brightly! We realized that the sun didn't disappear, the forest was so thick that it seemed dark as soon as you walk in. We were excited and afraid to start walking on the trail.

We walked just a few steps into the forest and found a huge patch of blueberries. Those were the most tasty forest blueberries we ever tasted. We just sat down right there in the middle of the blueberry patch and started eating. Then, my friend found a beautiful mushroom. She said "Look! a forest mushroom, I bet it is even more tasty than the forest blueberries. Let's taste it"

I wasn't sure, because I knew that it was safe to eat the blueberries, but I never saw that kind of mushroom before. My friend said, "Let's just have a little bite, it won't hurt us!" Finally I said OK...and we each ate half of the mushroom...

It was totally not tasty!

Then, all of a sudden, we heard a "Crash, Rooarrrr" so we got up and ran out of the forest as fast as we could.

We hopped on our bikes and started riding them up the hill, but our fingers started tickling...then our arms, and our elbows all the way up to our shoulders. We were both just laughing and laughing and our back started tickling down to our bottom and our legs. We could hardly ride our bikes up the hill because everything was tickling so much and we were just laughing. We figured out that we ate a poison tickling mushroom!

By the time we got home to our moms and dads everything was tickling from our fingers down to our toes...everything except for our nose!

My mom and dad asked me what was wrong and I told them my friend and I had eaten a poison laughing mushroom in the forest that we weren't supposed to go to--

They said "oh, no!" and took us to the Emergency Room. There, the doctors gave me an awful medicine that made me throw up!! Yuck!! but finally I got all of the poison laughing mushroom out of me and I stopped tickling all over my body from my fingers to my toes, everything except my nose.

Oh, my goodness! I knew that it was not right to eat something from the forest that I wasn't sure about--but we were so silly and did it anyway.

Alyosha: Mama, why did you do that?
Mama: Because I didn't know what it was a I was curious to test it out.
Alyosha: Like Curious George?
Mama: Yeah, but that sure can get you in trouble sometimes?
Alyosha: Why?
Mama: It would have been better to pick the mushroom and bring it home to ask my mom and dad if it was ok to taste it...before I just tasted it myself. It can be dangerous to eat things from the forest if you don't know what they are.
Alyosha: Yeah...but what about the fire breathing dragon?

Three flying bears

Every night I hear the same question:

Alyosha: Mama please tell me a story! The one about three flying bears in the forest, and make it scary. (He has never heard a story about 3 flying bears before, he just assumes there is one...)

Mama: One time there were 3 bears. They were quite unusual bears because they were city bears. They had jobs and everything. Their job was at the very top of the highest building in the city. Every hour, they had to stick their heads out of the window and roar what time it was. So, right now it is 8 o'clock and this is what they had to do...

roar....1 roar....2 roar......3 roar.....4 roar.....5 roar.....6 roar.....7 roar.....8

Imagine, every hour, they had to roar that many times. So when it was 12 o'clock they roared 12 times! After a while they decided that their throats were sore and they just couldn't roar like that any more, so they decided to give up their jobs and move to the forest. They came down from the top of their very tall building and started walking towards the forest.

It was quite a sight to see 3 bears walking along the highway. Cars were stopping and staring at them and the joggers turned around and ran in the opposite direction. It didn't bother the bears at all; they were just ready to get to the forest!

Finally they made it to the wonderful forest, there was peace and quiet and no people around for miles and miles. They just loved it! It was a lucky time of the year too, summer, right when there were tons of berries to eat. The bears thought they were in bear heaven! Fresh air, quiet, blueberries and raspberries to eat and a running river close by. When they got tired they just found a comfy tree and curled up at the bottom of it and went to sleep.

One night they curled up by a very short tree--it was short, but it had large roots that made a very comfy place for a bed. After watching the stars for a while they fell asleep. After a few hours, they were awoken by some loud music!

They thought, where was this music coming from, there are no people in the forest!! So they decided to get up and search around to find it and ask them to turn it down a bit. They looked and looked around and finally found where all the racket was coming from! There was a fairy party going on.

Fairies are little flying creatures who love to have parties at night time under the trees between the roots that stick up above the ground. And this was a huge fairy party! These little fairies had a tiny light on their bottoms that was shiny when they fly around, so you could see hundreds and hundreds of tiny lights flying in and out of the fairy house they built for the party.

The bears nicely asked the fairies to turn the music down, but no one listened. They said again "Please, please turn that music down, we are trying to sleep here. But the fairies acted as if there were no bears around! Finally the bears said ROOOAAAAR, and the fairies did pay attention to that, but just replied..." You bears are in the fairy forest! It is summer and we have lots of parties. We think you should find another forest to go live in.

Well, the bears were not happy with that suggestion, they loved the forest that they had found. There were tons of tasty berries and a fresh clean river and beautiful trees! So they decided they were not going to move, but didn't want to listen to the loud music every night.

Ok, this is the scary part...

Those three big bears, walked right over to the fairy house and just ate up all of the fairies....

Alyosha: Wait, I wanted them to be little bears...

Mama: Well, they are little bears, they are little like the size of Luka. But a fairy is smaller than your pinky finger so to the fairies, the three bears were gigantic. So, the bears ate up every last one of the fairies at the fairy party! They could feel the fairies flying around in their tummy, then all of a sudden the bears grew wings and became flying bears! Now they were three flying fairy wing bears and they flew all around looking at everything.

Alyosha: And they had a fairy light on their popka too! (popka is bottom in Russian)

Super Alyosha

Alyosha: Mama, first I will tell a story, then you tell a story. Ok? Up on one time, there was a Super Alyosha. And he would fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly until he saw a pirate house. There was a pirate flag and a pirate door and pirate toothpaste and a pirate toothbrush and a pirate cup and there was batman toothpaste too. And Super Alysoha would walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk until he saw a spider man. And spider man and Super Alyosha would go to the store and buy pirate toothpaste and pirate toothbrushes and batman toothbrushes too. That is all. Isn't that a wonderful story? Now it is your turn...

Mama: One time there was a Super Alyosha. And he had 3 super powers: the power to fly, but fly very slowly, the power to run very very fast, and the power to help.

Super Alyosha decided to take a trip to a place very far away. He decided to take a trip to Egypt, but not only a trip, he would fly himself to Egypt. Since he was a slow flier, it took him 5 days to get there, but it was a wonderful trip.

As he was flying over the Atlantic Ocean he saw all of the fish and the dolphins. It was beautiful to fly over Morocco and Tunisia, and finally after 5 days he made it to Egypt. He went to the capitol of Egypt, Cairo, which is right on the sea.

The next day he decided to get on the tourist bus and go with all the tourists to the Valley of the Kings and to see the pyramids at Giza. No one on the tourist bus knew that he was Super, and Alyosha didn't tell anyone...he wanted to be a tourist just like everyone else.

The tour bus took everyone to the Valley of the Kings and let them off the bus to explore the pyramids and the sculptures and the artwork of the ancient Egyptians. Everyone had a wonderful time because it was such a beautiful day and they were in a very special and ancient place.

In the evening when it was time to get back to the tourist bus, everyone started looking around and it was as if the tourist bus just disappeared! Everyone was getting worried because since it was evening, that meant it would be night soon and all the desert animials would be coming out of their hiding places. The desert snakes and scorpians would come up from under the rocks. The desert foxes would come from their dens. The desert lizards would come from behind the cactus. Then the desert would be a scary place for a bunch of tourists!

Super Alyosha had a plan. He told all the tourists to go look on the other side of the pyrimid because maybe the bus is just hiding to play a trick on us. The tourists thought that was a good idea, so they went over to have a look. In the meantime, Super Alyosha ran to Cairo to look for somthing to carry all of the tourists in. It only took him 2 minutes to get to the city because of his super power to run very fast. It would take a normal person all day to run that far!

The only thing that Super Alyosha could find was a big wagon to fit all of the tourists in. So he grabbed it and ran back to the Valley of the Kings. By the time Super Alyosha made it back, the tourists were just beginning to come back from the other side of the pyrimid. They told him that they didn't find the bus hiding back there and they were all very worried. Super Alyosha said not to worry and told everyone to climb into the wagon he found.

They were all very skeptical because he didn't even have a car or horses to pull the wagon. But they climbed in. Super Alyosha said hold on, and he started walking slowly--then he took off. The tourists were all amazed!

Since Super Alyosha could only fly slowly, he decided to take everyone on a wonderful trip. He flew over the Valley of the Kings and saw all of the pyrimids and the sphinx from the sky. They saw all of the desert animals crawling and playing around in the sand. Then he slowly took them back to Cairo where they flew all around the city, looking over the city lights and the tall towers. It was very beautiful. Then, finally, Super Alyosha landed in front of their hotel safe and sound.

All of the tourists said "Thank you, Alyosha, that was so great!"

That's all.

Alyosha: Mama, that was an amazing story.