all aboard

Here is Boo being Boo today.

"Tittet, peas!"

Then the ticket-taker raises the stick and you may pass.

*

Last night during dinner, Boo, who normally chatters away nonstop and at high volume, 

but is largely un-understandable, 

was scooping up some corn onto his fork with his fingers and piped up:

"All ABOOOOOOAAARD!!!"

It took a minute to register the little joke he'd just made, but more importantly, 

that I'd understood it.

Finch and I looked at each other and then completely cracked up laughing.

*

Later, we were marveling over it.

Firsts, especially at this point, are pretty exciting.

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I think we are all ready to be done with "Speech Berry".

Boo has taken to cheering on days when he realizes he doesn't have it.

Zee grows increasingly bored with my attempts at making the wait time more fun for her.

Only a few more months and then hopefully it will just be a part of school.

Boo is certainly benefiting from it, so we keep on keeping on.

It's just been a long road and we're a little tired of late.

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"Look, Mama."

"They are sooo excited about their party today!"

"What party is that, sweetheart?"

"Their blagawabalabadabachaba party, of course."

"Got it.  I'd be excited too, baby."

How do you say that in Russian?

We have this Playmobil stuff now.  The kids LOVE it.  Boo especially.  The role play options are endless given how similar the zillions of teeny tiny pieces look to real life stuff they recognize. 

It's also a little known fact to outsiders, but Finch likes to regale the kids with his impressive command of the Russian language, since it's the only chance he gets to practice it nowadays.  They love it.  To wit: the following conversation was overheard one morning last week while I nursed a bottle of DayQuil in a nearby room. 

Boo:  What my do wif her now?

Zee:  Put her over there.  On the chair.

Boo:  Why? 

Zee:  Because she has die-arena. She needs to be in the baffroom.

Boo:  Huh?

Zee:  Die-uh-REE-nuh.  That's Russian.  You don't know, but I do. 

Boo:  Otay.

Of ballerinas and lipgloss and batting your eyes and things

Lipgloss...ahhh...lipglossssss...

Oh how she loves thee.

Zeefa has entered the wide, wonder-filled world that is lipstick. 

We are only dipping a toe in the shallow end, but still I get a little misty-eyed

with the unavoidable evidence of her moving farther and farther away

from being our little cuddlebug of a teeny, tiny baby.  

She is very insistent on doing it herself, of course,

so we end up with much more lipglossy awesomeness

than a more restrained ballerina might allow.

Then, since more than more is always better,

we wipe it off on our tutu and give it another go. 

Like star dust glistening on fairies' wings

Little girl dreams are magical things.

-S. Larson

Our 'favit favit duhtuh' (favoritest doctor)

This beautiful person is the cub's Pediatrician, Dr. B.  We had our annual Well-Child visit today.  Boo got a frillion shots in between climbing all four walls of the tiny room and Zee was more bashful than her usual shy-violet-self, but all in all, it went, er, well. 

And, since my go-go-gadget arm had on the camera attachment (as seems to be the norm nowadays), I snapped a picture, for posterity. 

Let me just take a minute here to say that we LOVE this woman.  If I could take the almost certain rejection, I would ask her and her family over for dinner.  But, I am not that brave.  And, I digress. 

Allow me to explain.  Upon our arrival home as a new little family, fourscore and a million days ago, all four of us were very, very sick.  I happened to be the sickest, tragically, so I called up our regular doc's office and begged to see someone, anyone, who could help me feel a little less like a bag of barf.

So, on our first full day home from Africa, I escaped hobbled into our doctor's office (whom I was no huge fan of), was ushered into a little appointment room, and in walked Dr. B, the newest physician on staff.  Upon realizing she was a Family MD/Pediatrician, my head summarily exploded.  I asked if she was taking new patients?  Yes, yes, she said.  Therefore, as I was a new (quite ill) Mom with not one, but two very sick babies at home, and to put it bluntly, very-brown-like-her-babies, I burst into tears.

(You see, we had not yet found a pediatrician to take over after the adoption doctors had finished.)

Then, she gave me a pack of Cipro, and in the cheeriest and most patient of ways, answered the fivethousandeighthundredfortynine questions about the kids that I had hastily scribbled on a scrap of paper before leaving the Den of Snot and Ooze.  Oh, were we ever a gigantic, hot, ugly mess back then.  (Apparently reading hundreds of books/articles/websites/blogs/seminars on adoption and parenting and adoption parenting does almost nothing to prepare you for the actual burly reality of it.  Go figure.)  As I think about it now, it still gives me the shivers remembering how profoundly awful those first several months home were with so many medical issues and sleep issues and comfort-zone-obliterating issues that we were absolutely drowning in.

There were more doctor visits than you could possibly imagine over those first 18 months, and many, many, many doctors saw the kids.  But, but, she was the glittering superstar.  Boo put her through the fiercest tests (he screamed bloody murder from the time we hit the parking lot to the time we left it---as he faithfully did for all the doctors), but she persevered.  Well, actually, I probably put her through the ringer the most, what with my laundry list of questions at every. single. visit.  But, seriously, look at that picture.  Those are a couple of happy, healthy kids who love their doctor friend.

For my part, I'm certain it is mind-numbingly annoying to answer the litany of questions most new mothers have.  I am certain, because I felt the annoyance from other, too-busy-or-important-for-a-new-freaked-out-and-profoundly-exhausted-mom, physicians.  So, inasmuch as my feeble heart can pray, may God make her tribe increase and bless her in the most exceedingest of ways for helping our little camp get healthy and putting our minds at ease over and over and over again as we got our bearings on the bumpy, crater-strewn road that early familyhood was for us.

We adore you, Dr. B.  You are one spectacularly, brilliantly, amazingly awesome M.D.

Entirely too much homework for a little boy

So.  We just got back from Speech Therapy.  The Lovely & Amazing Miss Cara has been hard at work it seems preparing a "few things" for us to work on during the break over the next month. 

I just have one question. 

Am I being punked?

Busy man

Oh how Boo loves to role play.  He used to have this "cell phone monologue" as we liked to call it.  I think he was 20ish months old.  He'd walk back and forth from the kitchen to the living room with a cell phone clamped to his ear.  He'd be talking jibberish while gesturing wildly with his free hand, then he'd throw his head back and burst into pretend amusement: "Bawhahahaha!  HA."  Then, as if the conversation had run its course, he'd bid farewell and slam the phone shut.  

Bagu may be many things, but boring, he is not.    

On taking turns

The following conversation took place last night as I cuddled with Zeefa before bed.

"Mama...Bagu got a long turn being Bagu.  I want to be Bagu now.  Him gets to be Bagu all the time and I think it mines turn now."

"Umm...baby doll, it doesn't work that way.  You don't get to take turns being other people."

"Well I still think him not being nice not letting me have a turn to be him.  He can take a turn being Zeefa!" 

"Could you possibly be referring to the fact that Bagu gets to go to preschool and swimming lessons, and it's not your turn yet to go?"

"Um, no.  Um, well, maybe."

According to Zeefa

At the park this weekend, the following conversation occurred after dinner and playtime, on the walk back to the car:

Wow...that's a huge stick there Zeefa.  It's bigger than you are!

Call me Grandma please, Mama. 

Okay, Grandma.  What are you planning to do with the stick?

It's my walking thing.

Ah, I see.  Grandma?

Yes, Mama?

Why do you need a walking thing?

For my yogurt.