Kira had her routine check up at 15 months. She remained in 95% for height but dropped on a chart for weight. She didn't gain anything in 2 months since her last check up where she was 25-50%. So now she's 10-25%. She is increasing her Russian vocabulary and she likes repeating words. We started learning shapes and colors and she is getting better and better with matching wooden puzzles. She loves doing whatever Aaron is doing and often tries to immitate his behavior which is why I often remind Aaron that he's responsible for whatever behavior she learns.
Aaron continues going to preschool and enjoys it very much. God has blessed us with Aaron's good health this winter and he only missed 1 day of school earlier in the year because he wasn't feeling well. We signed him up for 4 days of pre-K for the next year and I am hoping Kira will be taking 1 long nap a day by then so I can spend one-on-one time with each of them.
I had a parent-teacher conference a few weeks ago with Aaron's teacher and received a great report on Aaron. The teacher showed me his work with coloring, tracing, following direction, cutting. She said Aaron does excellent on those tasks. He loves doing crafts and experiment. He's patient and not impulsive. I asked her to elaborate on that one. And she said that when someone does something wrong, like takes a toy away from him, he doesn't hit but tries to resolve the issue peacefully with words:) He likes to help and is very independent (hmm, not sure about the last one:))
Here is a sweet story about Aaron:
One day we went to the park with Aaron and Kira. Aaron was running around and I was following Kira everywhere. She wanted to play on a dinosaur where 3 other boys (about 3 y.o.) where playing. They told her she couldn't play there because there wasn't room for her. When the boys moved on to another swing I put Kira on the dinosaur. The boys came back and basically pushed her out of the swing. As she was walking away (careless about the fact that the boys took over the swing) Aaron ran up and I said: "See Aaron, Kira was playing there and the boys pushed her out". I wanted to see his reaction. I looked at Aaron's face. There was definitely some extensive thought process going on in his brain:) He looked at Kira, then at the boys, then back at Kira, picked up some mulch and headed towards the boys. I knew exactly what he was going to do:) I said: What are you doing? And he answered: But they hurt Kira! I said: Drop the mulch and tell them not to do that anymore. He put on his angry face and approached the boys: Do not every push my sister again, do you understand? To which the boys answered: Yes. We won't do it again:)
Aaron's Russian has been suffering some in the past month. For no apparent reason he started speaking more English (even to me!) than Russian. As Cliff reminds me every now and then: Russian will NOT be his primary language because he lives in America. And I agree with that. But my fear is that eventually he looses his Russian completely if nothing is done right now. So, I have been working on that.
On Saturdays I take Aaron to a swim class while Cliff watches Kira, who is most of the time asleep. It's been so good to spend morning with my boy. He does really well at the pool. We're taking the class together but I think the next class he will be ready to do by himself.
The weather has been beautiful the past week and we spend a lot of time outdoors. I need to start preparing my garden for planting some tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers and herbs. Just need to find time for that.
