Saturday, November 28, 2009

Thanksgiving



Well we are thankful that some of us could celebrate Thanksgiving today with the LCC crowd. It does not work so well on Thursdays being that it is a full work day in Lithuania. (Though we did the crazy American thing with other LCC crazies- McDonalds, the only American restaurant in town to feel like it was a special day)

David has been sick since Thursday night after we got back from McDonalds, the sore throat started. Then fever during the night. Gregg has been fighting a GI virus this week as well. SO the 2 of them stayed home from the Thanksgiving meal.

Nice that there were some special activities for kids too. And we brought home an extra turkey headdress for David who was waitin for something special since he could not go. (Thanks Alene!)

Monday, November 23, 2009

Mysterious LEGO story

Saturday David came to me crying and holding his throat with the story that he has a small LEGO piece in his mouth and swallowed it. He had just been playing with LEGOs. He had quite a few small pieces and showed what kind he swallowed. It was small enough that is was not clear if it would cause a problem. A friend called the children's hospital for their advise. At this point just watch, unless there starts to be trouble breathing or something. (Afterall, the flu epidemic has just hit and it could be dangerous from another perspective to take him to the hospital)

Then he threw up- no sign of the toy. And later he started crying again with pain in stomach and throat, threw up. Started playing again. Meanwhile the story changed, he did not swallow a LEGO, just an old cracker. The story kept changing so I still don't know what happened. He did not want to eat, gave him a bit of tea. But the tea came back at night too. No fever at all.

And the next morning (yesterday- Sunday) he started playing like no problem. He did not eat very much, but everything seemed to return to normal.
So today he is back to preschool!

Meanwhile I am also gradually adjusting to the information we got last week about Erik's allergy to dust mites. We had a different doctor than with David and she gave written instructions how to adapt the home. It will keep me busy to wash and iron bedding 1-2 times per week, wash everything down with damp cloth every day, open and air out, not let them in the apartment for 2 hours??? Not likely when outside is damp wet and cold almost consistently this time of year. Then we should have covers on our furniture that we wash often in hot water. And get rid of everything that collects dust.... plants, carpets, curtians, stuffed animals... Well, we will have to find a reasonable compromise I think.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Celebrating Family Day 2009


A larger group of pictures is on my facebook page.

We decided to start celebrating on Saturday since we had a free day and we had a few things to do! One was to put together a new piece of furniture for storing their toys- rather than an overflowing cardboard box where they forgot most of the toys!

We also went to get some baskets to store the toys by kind, and we went on to McDonalds and this time they could get the happy meal and toy of their choice of course.

David did not have to take a nap and he did better than usual under those conditions.
He has started to complain more lately about nap time but usually he really does best to have a nap even if just for an hour.

We stopped on the way back for their heilium balloons, our coming home tradition from the first day- 2 years ago.

We had a gift for each to upwrap at home and some family fun playing "Twister" and putting a puzzle together.

And the boys took to wrestling on the floor on more than one occasion. For now it seems good that we have the space for their active needs!

Friday, November 13, 2009

Family Day is coming

On Nobember 16 is will be 2 years since the boys came home to live with us. We celebrate this with helium balloons and a couple of gifts. So, now the boys are counting the days. It is nice that they can now understand the concept and also have a little more concept of time now that they can count.

We actually will do the celebration on Saturday since we have more time for it then, and we have gotten a piece of furniture to put together for storing the boys' toys- rather than just a huge cardboard box!

Both boys are getting the idea of counting toward 100 and Erik can get to 30 almost by himself.

There has been a new interest in games of different kinds recently too. David is better able to concentrate now on a game like UNO for example. Erik would play games for an hour! This is certainly great to see since Erik has been natured to seek out the TV first before anything.

Maybe for Erik it is also a sign of his introvertedness. He is also good at saying that he is "shy" now when we ask him to interact or greet others.

There is one family that we are starting to get to know from LCC who has a 4 year old boy and 6 year old girl. They came to our place this weekend and the children had a really good time after they got warmed up to each other. Erik even made a point to say goodbye at the door which he has not usually done without coaching from us.

Perhaps this friendship will develop more as this family plans to be around for 3 years. Some others at LCC come and go more often. it also helps that Lars, the 4 year old is a fun boy for them to play actively with! He and his sister are also blonde so they make quite a group of blondies.