Back in the zone...

For the first time since the four of us have returned to the States on the 12th, I've finally managed to sleep in until 6:00 am.  AND the boys are all still sleeping and it's now nearly 8 am!  Woo Hoo!  

First morning at home (Max slept in his
travel clothes), discovering Evan's
collection of Bakugans.

In our four days back, we've spent the time getting ourselves settled back in at home.  Max has explored practically every nook and cranny of the house and I've learned that I need to do some "Max proofing" and put some things up high and out of reach.  We've discovered that Max LOVES the swimming pool.  Every day we've gone and in four days, he's practically swimming on his own.  He's fearless in the water.  He stays close to the stairs, until he's bored, and then will "monkey-on-the-wall-himself" around the entire pool if we let him.  There have been a few times where he tip toes himself in too deep and we've had to pull him back to safety.  Never once has he freaked out.  He loves to wear his goggles and looks around under water while holding his breath.  I've seen him experiment with letting his body float to the top.  Seems he's part Russian, part fish.  

Trying on the pirate face.

He and Evan are having a great time together with normal brotherly spats and some big fun in between.  We've experienced some meltdowns still, but they seem to last less each time and we're down to about one a day.  Max loves to run off and hide in the closet of his bedroom.  


He's met lots of our friend's kids and seems to be falling right into the fray.  Last night we had a birthday pool party to attend.  In order to prepare him for what we were doing, I looked up the phrase "We're going to a birthday party" on google translate and played it for him (in Russian of course). His eyes lit up and he got a big smile on his face.  When we got there he took some time checking out all the kids and jumped right into the pool.  He had a great time playing squirt guns in the pool with the other kids.  It was funny to watch some of the other kids try to talk with him or see the looks on their faces when he started speaking with them in Russian.  I am so grateful that we had this party to attend last night.  It helped us keep the boys awake until 9-ish and I'm convinced that's why they're still snuggled up in bed.

Now that I'm beginning to feel human again due to some normal sleep, it's beginning to feel pretty normal with the extra little monkey here in the house.  We have yet to establish a bed time routine since the boys kept falling asleep wherever they were.  One night at 6:45 pm, Max fell asleep on the bathroom floor after throwing a tantrum about not wanting to brush his teeth.  Another afternoon at 4:30, he fell asleep on the couch watching a cartoon with Evan.  (Evan wasn't far behind, he too had to be carried into bed).  Two days ago, we took the boys to see Cars at the theatre, thinking that would keep them awake.  Poor little Max got blasted into a frigid state by the extreme air conditioning used by the movie theatre.  He crawled into my lap to warm up and fell asleep.  Luckily we were able to wake him for a side trip to Five Guys (we were hungry and I did NOT have the energy to cook)...  he stayed awake long enough to eat a few french fries and fell asleep again on the way home.


We're hearing a few more English words tumble out of Max each day, but it's slow going in that department.  We're watching shows like Sesame Street every day and I've been reading to him from our collection of board books that have been pulled out of the dusty crate.  So glad I decided to hang onto them.  I know that this immersion thing takes time, and we'll be entertained along the way by some things that will inevitably be spoken.  I can only hope the destination of being fully linguistic in English will be reached quickly.

Life is progressing back in the zone