Quiet Commotion

Ivan likes mornings. A lot. A wee bit too much for the rest of us in fact. Maggie is usually the unfortunate soul who is subject to his newest morning ritual.

Ivan wakes on his own and I think he feels a bit lonely. He sneaks his way into the girls's room and UP the ladder to Maggie's top bunk! (I KNOW this is not good...we are working on it...) Just being up there with her is not enough. He must sit on her, pinch her cheeks, get WAY too close to her for it to be that early in the morning, and I almost forgot, must do all of this under the light of her clip-on reading light which he turns on (first we think). I told Ivan just this morning that he needed to stay in his own bed when he woke up. He smiled and said, "Maggie bed". "I know Ivan, but Maggie was sleeping..." I reasoned. He smiled and whispered, "Quiet".

Maggie does not really like mornings, but she does love Ivan. And so, groggy and mid-dream, she loves on "little buddy" and helps him down off bed via the same ladder that brought him there. And then being the stellar oldest daughter that she is, she gets her clothes on and brings Ivan to the kitchen where she GETS HIS BREAKFAST! I usually hear them somewhere between the getting down off the bed and the breakfast piece but know she has it covered and let the whole waking-up process linger a bit for myself :)

Maggie is super responsible and loves to be left in charge. She has all the makings of a great teacher in fact. She loves to teach, help, grade, etc. We do lots of pretend school in our house these days. The following sign was JUST removed from her door after a two week stay:

"QUITE!!!!! Do NOT Dizterb!!!!!! Testing in progest!!!!!"

I also saved Maggie's spelling word sentences from a few weeks ago. A couple of them are too good to pass up. I ask you, what must the teacher think of this new, "California-bred" family?

"Ivan likes to bite."

"Maryn likes to stay up late."

"I like to shake it."

"There is a lot of commotion in this house."

I love that these all simply have periods at the end. True, matter-of-fact sentences. Not even warranting a "shout mark". Just the honest to goodness truth for sweet Maggie.

Hope Floats

My Maryn.

My Maryn is usually a joyful little soul. She laughs easily, is unaffected by some of the things that unravel her older siblings, and is just an all-around fun and funny little girl.

Lately however, her emotions have been working overtime and her heart has been a bit fragile. She misses her kindred spirit Jamie in California. She is SHOCKED at the injustices which allow Barrett and Maggie more freedoms, more play-dates, more FUN. Not much feels fair to Maryn. And in reality, this move has been tough on her. She has had some hard, disappointing, lonely days.

One of those days was Wednesday. A friend was in town and was heading to have lunch with Barrett and Maggie. Maryn wanted to join them and was absolutely beyond herself that she could not. She melted into a messy puddle of tears and whimpers and a few VERY loud shrieks in the car. Nothing I said or promised helped to ease her sadness. Not even an icecream date a little later in the afternoon.

We rounded the corner just a block from our house, and saw this.

Tears turned to raised eyebrows at a balloon literally floating down our street. "Mom, there is a balloon...just floating along...what in the world?!" We slowed the van, looked around for the owner of such a treasure, and soon gave into Maryn's great temptation to rescue the balloon from a very uncertain future in the middle of the street.

Maryn's sadness lifted, her tears dried, her shrieks of frustration turned into ones of bliss. Maryn loves balloons! She and Ivan played for hours with the balloon. And she felt special. Her disappoints diminished and SHE was the beneficiary of one of life's little surprise blessings. She is still telling people about the walking balloon that she found and rescued. It didn't take much to get our silly, fun-loving Maryn back.

While I am not expecting to come across too many more lonely balloons, I will be looking for the little blessings that come floating by each and every day.

A Little Texas Thunder

We have been in Texas for 6 weeks or so now. Things are feeling more and more like home every single day. I just read my last few posts and was SHOCKED at how long ago all of those seemed. And long ago they were...months ago.

Ivan is doing fabulously well! He started preschool a couple of mornings a week and was so cute on his first day I could hardly stand dropping him off. He apparently did great--with the appropriate amount of crying when I very first left, the same amount when his teacher

dropped him off at music (which he eventually LOVED!), and a few tears at the end of the day as the confusion of kids being taken out to the carpool line unsettled him slightly.

He cried a little and so did I.

I felt thankful and happy as I dropped him off--excited to hear how his first day had gone and excited about a few hours to myself! And then the tears came at a time I least expected them. At pickup. I cried as he walked with Maryn out to the car pulling his rolling backpack that is literally as big as his body. He looked so big, so old. He had started preschool and done just fine--how far we had come in 10 short months. I imagined him heading off to his first day of Kindergarten in a few years and I wanted it all to slow down. Way down.

I have been all sorts of emotional over these last weeks. Partly because of the move, I get that. But some of it is the remembering and re-living of all that transpired a year ago. In late July 2008, we met little Ivan. In early August, we had to leave him in Russia. I remember vividly these early September days of last year, wondering if we would ever be assigned a court date...if the judge would ever return from vacation...if sweet little Vanya would be OK.

And now as I look back, I am blown away by how OK he is. How OK we all are. He has navigated the move to Texas as well as anyone in our family. He is happy and healthy, messy, and snuggly. He loves to be outside and look for frogs, rocks, and lizards. He is absolutely addicted to chocolate milk. He sleeps well, is a picky eater, and is a pesky little brother...all wonderful "normals" we are thankful for.

The biggest shock to Ivan's little system has been Texas thunder storms. The rain does not phase him. He loves water of any sort in any place. Period. But the thunder, that is a different story. The first thunder storm paralyzed him. He didn't have the words to even ask what in the world was happening. Now he has sort of a love/ hate relationship with it. He likes to watch for the lightning, but is quick to jump into our arms at the sound of thunder. "Shunder cary!" (thunder scary) he says over and over again with a winced look on his face.

I will leave you with a few photos. He changes every single day it seems--OK, I feel the need to do better at keeping track.

I will write again and post about the other kiddos soon. All in all, Texas is good. And I, for one, really like the thunder storms.