Growing up ... Happy 2 Yrs Old!

Our little Vanie turned 2 this week!!! Jason and I can not express how much we love this sweet, happy, and genuinely good, and charming little man and how proud we are of what he has accomplished so far. The past year has been filled with yes, a lot of work and getting used to a very different life style for us, but at the same time the most exciting and happiest days of our lives.

We love you so much, Vanie! You are the sunshine of our lives and we can not imagine our lives without you and wish you the best of everything! Mommy, Daddy and Zorro!

Sooooo... how do you know your kid’s 2nd b-day is coming up? Here are a few clues Vanie has been dropping:
- He’s been singing “Appy beduh” for a month now
- He has been saying “two” and showing one index finger on each hand (for 2 years old) as soon as someone asks him how old he’ll be
- He starts singing “appy dudah” any time he sees a cake, wrapped present or we light a candle for dinner
- He asks “appy?” every time he sees his toy story fork b/c the last b-day we went to was in the soy story theme (so now toy story characters mean happy birthday)
You just got to love how little kids interpret things…just adorable!

Vanie’s b-day party will be this Saturday – nothing major just a few kids and friends at the local park. I will post pictures after the party.
In the mean time, it was a very exciting Tuesday. I bought all kinds of balloons, mini cake, wrapped his present and had them all on the coffee table in the living room waiting for him as a surprise.

He was stunned in the morning when he got up. And although we got him a train as a present he was most excited about one of the balloons with Spidernam (his new obsession, a story for a separate post).
We spent most of the morning with all the grandparents, aunts and cousins, my aunt/ uncle and great grandma on skype so they all can get some of the b-day boy. My parents even had a cake with candles for him on the other side (in Sofia, BG) and blew out the candles for him while video conferencing with us.

This all was way too much for Vanie, I think, and although he didn’t cry on the way to daycare, he started once we got in, he even tried to run out. Even bringing one of the balloons (the puppy) with him didn’t help. I left mini cupcakes for all the kids to enjoy on this special day.
I worked from the Newport Beach office that day (just 10 minutes drive from home) and left early in the afternoon to get Vanie from daycare so that we can do some of his favorite things. We went to the park, then off to the mall to ride the holiday carousel (we even saw Santa from far – Vanie is afraid of him), and we rode the mall escalators a few times (until I thought it would become suspicious to the security guards J) and spent time in a few toy stores. More picture posts to come very soon…

23 Months Old

Vanie's 1st Halloween

It took an entire month of refusing to put the monkey costume on and finally on the day of the event he somehow tricked himself into putting it on...

There was some crying at the 1st house but once he realized he is getting "stuff" for showing off his outfit there was no stopping. He was even pushing people's hands so that HE can pick out the candy he wants and not the candy they are giving him. :-)

Posing with his pet friends Zorro and Bruce

Checking out what he's collected at the end of the "party".

Oh look...and it's all mine!!!

More September Pix

22 Months Old - more Pix

Looking at the talking tree in the Rainforset Cafe store...not sure sure he likes what he sees...



Yet another day at the zoo looking at monkey... we are now members



trying to cross his legs like mommy



C'mon daddy, the petting zoo is THIS way!

22 Months Old and 9 Months Home

It's been another VERY busy but also filled with news month...

The big new change this month is that my father in law is leaving for Bulgaria this weekend. This is 4 months earlier than planned and we are a one full time babysitter short. We had to act pretty quickly and enrolled Vannie in full time daycare on the 17th. Let me tell you, it he is not easy on change.
We left him at the daycare for just 3 hours that 1st Friday. While we were getting all the paperwork ready and discussing everything with the director, we left Vannie in the room with the other kids and the screaming and kicking began as soon as he realized we left him there. It took two of the teachers to wrestle him down. He is a small but pretty strong guy.
Everyone was warning him to cry in front of him but honestly, I didn’t want to cry I just wanted to throw up – that’s how nervous I was. It left like I am taking the GMAT again.
So now almost 2 weeks later, he is doing much better. He will cries out here and there in the morning but overall is getting used to the new environment. Of course, he doesn’t eat there unless it’s some kind of figure food. Also, I visited him (without him knowing) during lunch one day, all kids in the group were sitting around the table and pretending to be eating, our Vannie was walking around gathering toys….it will take him time to get used to complying

A few other updates:
•Vannie’s vocabulary is exploding- he still doesn’t pronounce words well but he is definitely getting better and starting to use more words. We’ll have to see how the daycare English speaking will impacting. I’ll post a list of the words he knows and their Bulgarian and English “translation” in a separate post.
•Labor Day will always be a special holiday in our house. A year ago on that weekend we got the call for a potential referral (pending hep C blood test results) and just a few days later we got to see the picture below of our little boy. We were actually in Vegas with close friends of ours. I honestly don’t even recall how Jason or I felt at that time. I just know that I couldn’t stop opening and closing and staring at the pictures once we got them…and the rest is history…

•Growth: not much on the weight front, if anything Vannie is still about 24-25 lbs but he’s grown about 2 more centimeters in the last 2 months. I will have to measure him at the doctors office next month when we go for the flu shot.
•Halloween is coming up and Vannie will be a monkey since that’s one of his new favorite animals right now. The only problem is that he is refuing to put on the monkey jacket. He keeps hugging it and kissing it as he thinks it a stuffed monkey. We have it out in the living room hoping he will get used to the costume before we have to put it on.

I am getting busier and busier as budget season started but I will have to figure out what we w Right after that I only have a month before our sweetheart turns TWO. I will have to make plans for his birthday.

21 months & 8 months home

More 20 months old pix

Bening silly with daddy at the OC fair.


Waiting for more animals to come out -
OC Fair.
Vanie was too short to get on any of the rides so the petting zoo was the main event for us.




Is this a face of a kid you would see at Disney? This is at Disney downtown - Vanie was NOT impressed with some of the dressed up characters walking around.




Enjoying the buggles at Disney Downtown

The hair is getting longer and the curls bigger.

Playing with water at our friends' Jeni & Stilian.

Posing after the evening run with daddy (vanie goes in the stroller - need to clarify as someone asked me how many mls Vanie runs :-)

You probably can't see it - but this is Vanie's 1st black eye - he ran into a chair and his left eye (just under his eye) got quite big.

drumming - he drums on everything...

We are not there yet

Why was i thinking potty training would be easy? Maybe because i was trained at 12 months? Maybe i just assumed that b/c Vanie is from Russia and from an orphanage he would pick it up faster??? Not even close, at least he doesn't cry any more when he sees the potty.
It took him just a few minutes to take the potty apart and find out where the music comes from and how to play it manually. Training is on hold again fro now.

20 Months old and 7 Months home

I can’t believe it took me two weeks to get to write the 20 month post. I am in FP&A and this is supposed to be our slow and easy time before budget season starts and yet it’s been quite crazy busy.
Doing the hourly drive every morning and evening is starting to get to me even though I only do it for 3 days out of the week and work out of the Newport Beach office on Thr and Fri (only 10 min’s from home). It’s tough knowing that I spend less than 1 hour with Vanie per day during the week. Jason’s been great and taking care of the kiddo after work during the week most days and of course Vanie loves being with his daddy. Well, enough whining, now on to the updates…

Vanie is getting bigger and bigger by the day and not to mention stronger and more energized than the Energizer bunny.
Changes/ Updates: grandma’s six months of babysitting were over last week and she left for Bulgaria (Thank you for all your help, grandma Vera). Grandpa Simon came in at the end of july to take over the next 6 months of baby sitting. Vanie didn’t even need an adaptation period., he was great with him from day one.
Activities: Our kid just loves being outside (but when I think about it I did, too, when I was a kid). He could be outside at our lake or in the park all day long and it’s still not enough and he cries when going home.
He runs really fast now and continues to run rather than walk. As of July he started attempting to jump. The jumping is pretty comical for now. He spends so much time getting into position and preparing and gaining strength and then the actual jump is him barley lifting one of his feet from the ground and then him falling on his but. His gotten better over the weeks but still needs practice. I will try to film him and post a few of his jumps on the blog.
Feeding: Eating is still a hit a miss. One week is great and another he’d barley eat his lunch and dinner. My mother in law cooked for him every day and I am continuing with that trend. Some of my backup plans for “refusing to eat the cooked meals” days are: hot dog franks, string cheese, oatmeal, bread, warm instant pudding (vanilla or chocolate), french fries, pizza bagels. He loves to eat these and they all have enough calories so they tend to make up for a lost meal.
He still doesn’t like to drink any kind of juice and is on water and milk only (I am not complaining at all). Still not a big fan of fruits so I try to sneak them blended with his oatmeal. It usually works.
Teething: He officially has all teeth except the 2 yr molars. He is still drooling like crazy and I am starting to think I need to consult with his pediatrician. We go through 3-4 t-shirts in one day just because he gets them all wet. I tried checking if the 2nd yr molars may be coming out but that’s not an easy task…got bitten severely several times (and of course, it’s all an amusing game to Vanie).
Talking: Hmm, he is definitely blabbering… A LOT, very vocal but it’s all baby talk. Bulgarian is a farily hard language (I didn’t realized it until I saw how much he struggles with the pronunciation of some of the letters - we have 30) but he is trying. He is starting to say (or try to say) more and more words… he probably has about 20 words and we noticed as of this week he is repeating many of the words as soon as he hears them from us (one of them is “trash”) so we keep reminding ourselves with Jason that we have to be careful what we say.

That's about it on our little temujin for now. We are exhausted and yet oh so happy to be able to say why. It doesn’t matter how many time-outs I may have given Vanie during a day, I still go bed with a big smile knowing we have him. He’s definitely what we’ve been waiting for all these years.
Oh yes, and apparently he now says “I love you” but it sounds like “babili bab” .

As for fun activities from the last month – I will post separately with pictures.