Monday, March 24, 2008
Outside Rita's 1st grade classroom Thursday before school (second day). Since the classrooms open to the playground, the children leave their coats, backpacks and lunches on the rack outside. No lockers! Rita's is the "Hello Kitty" backpack.
Rita had another good day of school on Thursday. Her teacher said that some of the highlights of the day were using the classroom computers, playing Dodgeball and learning an Irish jig. Her teacher commented that she wished we were there to see just how cute she was. Her only "no no" of the day was jumping off the stage towards the end of dance class and since she wasn't following directions she was given a timeout.
On Friday, I was able to attend the easter party. The children got to have a special snack while playing bingo with jellybeans. Then the class had an easter egg hunt in the garden. Rita's classmates showed her what to do, and all the kids shared their eggs with each other so everyone had at least 12 eggs. Of course, the highlight of the day was sorting through all of their candy and goodies from the eggs (and the special treats from the teacher).Rita's teacher has been extremely impressed with her behavior and socialization and has surpassed her expectations! Everyone at the school knows about Rita... the librarian came by and gave her some books (to keep) to practice her reading and numbers. We met her future reading teacher (by chance) at the local playground and she's looking forward to starting her extra-help sessions in a couple weeks (probably after spring break - mid-April).
Kristin has been coming over on Fridays. This week she had an extra special, custom-made gift for Rita. We went to In-N-Out Burger for dinner. Yum!
On Saturday, the city parks department was holding an "Eggstravagaza". We went so Rita could jump around the bouncy equipment. I think there's a few pics of me in the bouncy obstacle course somewhere (conveniently non-accessible for posting on the blog).
On Sunday we joined Michael's second cousin Anne (from Milwaukee), her daughter Samantha, and her parents down in Coronado. We went for brunch at Hotel Del Coronado, and then spent a couple of hours swimming in the pool at their timeshare overlooking the ocean. It was a beautiful and for the afternoon we felt like we were on vacation too!
Rita in her easter dress...and very excited that the Easter Bunny stopped by when she was out on a walk with Michael and Thani.Z came by on Sunday night. Rita loves school and is very excited about her eye surgery on Thursday. We also learned a few more things....
- A new rule in our house... Rita cannot go into any room that is dark. She needs to find us first before she goes in a dark room. She is afraid of wolves that might be in the room.
- Rita is afraid of Baba Yaga. Surely fueled by this book I recently checked out from the library. Noted here on the blog for my "Mother of the Year" award.
- Rita have me a thumbs up and "mahl- ah- DYETS" for coming to school by myself (without Michael) to pick her up on Thursday and Friday. (You can't get anything by this girl... I can't believe how she knew that I was nervous about school!)
- Rita says that some kids at school buy lunch, and some even go up for seconds. She doesn't think this is a good idea because they will get fat.
- When asked if I give her enough food for lunch, she said "Yes, too much" (in Russian). She says that she only wants to eat until she is full otherwise she will get fat. (Cute, true and something her mama should do more often! lol)
We are having so many firsts I really need to blog everyday. Rita is understanding alot more of what we are saying, and throwing in a few english words here and there. She loves to spell out anything that has letters. And uses her english numbers (first) to count anything. 1 to 10 is no problem, and we almost have 11-20 down. She also knows how to count to 100, but needs prompting for 20, 30, 40, etc. (she usually says 20 - 10 for 30, and we remind her it's "thirty" and when she gets to forty, it's 30 - 10). It's really cute.
6 Comments:
Adopt A Child.orgAdopting from Russia
Eastern European Adoption Coalition, Inc
Embassy of the Russian Federation
Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption
Karen's Adoption Links
Older Child Adoption
Russia Adoption Blog
Russian Adoption Medical Services
Russian Family Search
Russian Toys
Vernissage Press
She does look adorably happy in all her pictures. You must be doing SOMETHING right (mother of the year! :)).
Funny about the eating too much and getting too fat (which is NOT GOOD). Katya says the same sort of stuff. (and she's SUPER skinny). Wonder if they teach them that "over there".
Yes, I vote for daily blogging. It's fun reliving the initial transition moments vicariously through you.
Good luck with the surgery thursday!!
Leslie