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.

Lukian Axel’s 3rd Birthday

The chili was made, sausages grilled, piñata lasted long enough for each kid to have a hit and there was an acceptable amount of tears-I say that the birthday party was enjoyed by all the kids, except Luka. He did warm up to the fun after everyone left and he sure talked about everyone and how they all came there for him. In Luka’s own words, he liked the piñata, the birthday cake and his presents. It takes a certain character to accept so much attention and love all at once. Even though Luka has the ability to appreciate it upon reflection, he isn’t ready to be in the spotlight. I am thinking that he pretends to be so tough because he is really delicate…..hmmmm, how to develop this potential weakness into a strength?

While we were waiting for all of the kids to show up, I set out little plastic Christmas sun catchers for the kids to paint. The 5 year olds went into detail while the 3 year olds went for a solid coat of one color.

The Mummy Races. The point of the game is to wrap your sibling in toilet paper Mummy Wrap then run around the basketball court until your wrap falls off. The sibling thing didn’t work out too well, it turned out to be a Mommy wrap, but the kids did get wrapped from head to toe and ran around like crazy creatures

Side note: Look! I finally fit into my really cool jacket that I found at a thrift store 2 years ago. It fits me and it is really warm!

Aftermath of the mummy wrap race. It was time for tp doll making, Alyosha was right on it.

It was REALLY cold. The sun peeked out at us and our December outside birthday party was cold, crisp and really nice.

Like I said, we had lunch. Roma’s fire pit grill worked like a charm, I think we are really going to enjoy for a long time. You know you’re wondering about the cool cake…well, does the shape look familiar? Airplane cake. Luka’s request was only for a green cake so we made a yummy carrot cake with a few green sparkles. He was totally happy.

It can’t be a birthday party if Papa doesn’t dress up as something and tell a good story. Roma was a magnificent flower and he was in search of the magic cloud with surprises for the kids. So many great friends came and even though Luka was overwhelmed he really did feel special. I felt special too, we have kind friends and I have a unique special little 3 year old.

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.

Active Kids

Alyosha had his last soccer practice on Tuesday and we have the Soccer party on Sunday. All in all I think all of my boys enjoyed playing soccer—Papa included. Alyosha is so active and very competitive. He was always right in there when it came to playing the games, not just picking flowers like some kids might do.

Luka wasn’t much of a sideline cheerleader. He preferred hanging out at the playground playing with the other younger siblings.

The hardest thing about soccer practice was dealing with the kids utter exhaustion after a full day with no naps then such vigorous outdoor play so late. The kids bedtime is pretty much 6:30—we put them to bed at 6 today!

Niki was just interested in seeing everything and eating the grass. Well, we all have our own interests

Soccer is over, now Alyosha asked if he could just take one Wu-Shu class. (Wu-Shu is the new Kung-Fu for those of you who don’t know your martial arts terminology.)

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".

Lukian Axel

Luka is a middle child, 100%. I know there are some disadvantages, but I think that there are some advantages to it too...you get an older and a younger brother, that is great.You get to act up sometimes and not get in trouble for it either because everyone is too busy with soccer practice or the baby OR just because since you don't get attention as much as you need it, we can't punish you for having a fit since it is kind of our fault you are having the fit. Anyway, Luka is special and here are some of the tidbits he is sharing with us lately...

Every time we walk out of the elevator, into a grocery store with automatic doors or even out of our building that has a button to push that opens the door for you Luka says "Thank you, Robot." Because it is a robot is the one opening the doors for us and you don't want to make a robot mad by not being polite. He also looks down the crack between the elevator and the floor to try and glimpse the robot--he hasn't seen it yet but he knows it is down there.

Luka has to sit and listen to Alyosha's description of his day at school every evening at dinner time. After about 5 minutes of kindergarten drama Luka says "Alyosha, stop! I want to say something." We all look at him and invite him to join the conversation. The next words from his mouth are his own version of important news: "A moo cow says Moooooooo. A duck says quack quack"

When Roma is studying late at school, Luka cries in his bed with the most sincere and sad cry saying that he is scared because papa isn't home and he can't sleep unless we are all home together. He is so sweet, only when he wants to be though.

Not to be outdone, Alyosha also has his own interpretation of the world that is being open to him. 3rd and 5th grade have lice, already! We explained a little about what that is and the advice we were given is just to check his head after school everyday so we can get it early. So while were explaining why we have to look at his hair every day now I told him that they live on his head as their house and they just eat the dirt on your hair. With the great boy logic he has he said, "That's great! I won't have to wash my hair anymore, they will just eat all the dirt away!"

One more morsel that I can tell he has been dwelling on for a while now. He asked me straight out "Mama, when I get married and you and papa move out, how will I know where you guys go?" Good question, Alyosha--I think we will be on a beach in Mexico!

Mandala of Compassion

The Buddhist monk with the kids is Venerable Ngawang Chojor and we got a special viewing of him building the Mandala of Compassion here in Portland a few weeks ago. The kids were great at such a quiet event, they were so interested in what he was doing they just sat and watched for 15 minutes. The message of the Mandala of Compassion is supposed to give us the important elements that can make us a happy and a caring person. The fact that he built the mandala here is supposed to give a special blessing for the area and for the people who live where it is constructed. Through the power of the Mandala the negative energy of the area is removed and positive energy established.

Sand painting is an ancient Tibetan art form. Until 1989, the creation of Mandalas was a secret practice. Then the Dali Lama opened the practice to teach all people the main message behind the Mandala itself. The creation of a sand mandala begins with an opening ceremony. Monks consecrate the site and call forth the forces of goodness through chanting mantras accompanied by flutes, drums and cymbals. The construction of the mandala begins with the drawing of the design on the base. The artists measure out and draw the architectural lines using a straight-edged ruler, compass and ink pen. Once the diagram is drawn, in the following days you see millions of grains of colored sand painstakingly laid into place. The sand, colored with vegetable dyes, is poured onto the mandala platform with a narrow metal funnel which is scraped by another metal rod to cause vibration for the grains of sand to trickle out of the end. The two funnels symbolize the union of wisdom and compassion. The mandalas are created whenever a need for healing of the environment and living beings is felt. When finished, to symbolize the impermanence of all that exists, the colored sands are swept up and poured into a nearby river or stream where the waters carry healing energies throughout the world.

This is the really special part. Lama Chojor saw the boys watching quietly and interested in what he was creating. He drew! them into the Mandala. Have a close look at the white sand on the red line close to the bottom of the Mandala. The one on the left is Alyosha and the one on the right is Luka. The Mandala of Compassion is made to inspire people to live with a compassionate spirit for the sake of all beings and to help end suffering for all. I think my boys are on the road to being compassionate. It was beautiful.

The Launch - Luka's first film production

Let's just say Luka is potty training. It is fun to push the button on the remote while we are biding our time waiting for magic to happen. Stop animation can entertain just long enough to get the job done.

Click to see Luka's premier--hopefully we will move on to more interesting content... video

PS. Luka helped with set decoration pre-potty. The star houses, yellow monster and blue flowers and most of the clouds are all his!

PPS. Let us know if you have problems seeing the video, Roma is trying out new techie stuff that is supposed to make it easy.

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"

Art Camp at CHAP

This is Alyosha's first masterpiece--first of many now! I will give you his description:
Once there was a bird on a big rock. The bird saw all of the salmon in the ocean and decided two of them needed to be big. So the bird said Peeee Caw Pee Caw and the Salmon in the ocean got to be huge! They were sad that they couldn't go into the rivers because they were so big. So the big salmon told the other regular salmon to swim up the river. They became the spirit of the salmon that gave the direction for the salmon to go to help them reach the start of the river. On the way there were bears and many dangers, but the strongest and smartest salmon survived and make it to the top of the river.

Here is Frank holding Niki.

The kids after their first day of Art Camp. The camp is a mixture of kids from the community and kids who got to know CHAP through the hospital program. There are great kids from ages 5-10, in wheelchairs, without arms and all excited about art. All doing the same projects and working together to have fun and experiment with their creativity. I think that kids are just amazing.

They have been so great to us letting Alyosha and Luka and myself work on the garlands for their Christmas project in exchange for the kids painting and playing in the art factory. They are learning a great lesson--Alyosha says he is doing the work so Frank can go teach in the hospital. I am so thankful for the Art camp, it has been great. The kids are making spirit lamps and hula hoops. They are doing yoga and ti chi. Alyosha loves it.

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)