Bonding with Steven

Vocabulary Lessons

Over the past few days we were allowed to spend an extra hour a day visiting Steven since we are not allowed to visit Evan because of his cold. It’s been nice to spend 2hours a day with Steven rather than just an hour that we’ve had since we’ve been in Cherkasy. The hour always flew by and never seemed like enough time. Since we’ve had some extra time with Steven we have been playing games with him that would get him more familiar with the English language. We have a doodle drawing board that I would have him draw different objects from the picture cards that we have. As I hold up a card with an object on it I repeat the name of the object as he would draw it on his doodle pad. Steven doesn’t mimic us when we say a word over and over like Evan does, but he will catch on quick enough.

Steven is very active and loves to play with balls, balloons, cars, and just like Evan and Andrew, he loves to climb. The director, Maria, of the orphanage wants us to keep him as calm as possible since a couple of days when we returned him to his groupa he was sweating. She is afraid he will get sick right before we take him out of the orphanage, therefore, she has asked us to keep him from being so active.

So we have been doing the best we can to keep him calm by putting Legos together with him, painting ornaments for our Christmas tree, putting Christmas decorations together, putting jigsaw puzzles together, playing with the LeapPad and we have also brought our computer to show him a 30 minute educational dvd. We are teaching him to count in English, along with the dvd. As we count in English he counts in Ukrainian/Russian. He is saying Hello, Bye, Please, Yummy, Mama, Papa and Andrew in English. It’s adorable when he says Andrew’s name because he rolls the “r” in Andrew’s name.

As soon as one activity ends, Steven is up running around, climbing on and under the furniture and Andrew is right behind him. As soon as this happens we do our best to distract the boys and lead them into the next activity. It’s a little difficult to keep 4 and 5 year old boys still, therefore, the last 10 minutes we just let them play. Andrew and Steven had a ball playing together and hiding under the youth beds.


Gone Fishing

Two Peas in a Pod


Silly Boys


Mirror Image

Robert bought a remote controlled Shelby Mustang car that has the controls on a watch. Alla showed him the price that equaled $20.00 US dollars and Robert just smiled and said that he wanted to buy it anyway. Robert being the kid himself, especially when it has to do with Shelby Cobras or Mustangs cars used the excuse of Andrew and Steven when he bought the car. Of course, I knew differently and had to smile. As Alla would say, “Boys will be boys and they have to have their toys.” Boy is she right on that. Robert brought the remote controlled car so Steven and Andrew could play with it during our visitation time. Well of course it was a big hit and both boys couldn’t wait for it to be their turn again.

Driving Lessons

Daddy Demonstrating

We shared our photo album again with Steven to get him familiar with our immediate family members as well as pictures of our home. This way he will feel a little more comfortable when we arrive home and have a sense for who’s who in our family. When we showed him pictures of his grandmothers we told him Babushka (meaning grandmother) and then the grandmother’s name Andrew calls his grandmothers….such as Babushka Nana, Babushka Mom mom, and Babushka Grandma. So to all of our children’s grandmothers, don’t be alarmed if Steven and possibly Evan call you Babushka.

We then showed him a picture of Evan again to see if he would respond this time. He didn’t respond even when I said Evan’s name in Ukrainian. When I showed Evan a few days ago, Steven’s photo and said Steven’s name in Ukrainian, Evan responded by saying, “Da”, which means yes. So Evan seems to remember his older brother Steven, but we are not sure if Steven remembers Evan or maybe Evan has changed a bit in his facial features in the past year and a half where Steven doesn’t recognize him. We’re not sure, but we will definitely video tape the boys meeting again for the first time in a year and a half. It surprises me that Evan somewhat remembers Steven and that Steven is not responding at all regarding Evan. I pray that the reunion of the boys will go well and that the union of our family as a whole is a peaceful, smooth, joyful and successful transition for all of us.