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.

Back from the daily run

Vanie doesn't run but he has to have the right outfit...

19 Months old and 6 Months Home

I can’t believe it’s been half a year since we brought Vanie home. It feels like he’s always been with us. It feels like he’s been living the life he lives with us as the only one he knows.
Sometimes I wonder if he would every remember anything from the home in Vladivostok?

Vanie and we all are doing great. Here are a few new or funny things he’s done over the month (all bad):
• His grandma has a hard time catching him when he runs off while in the park, which apparently is a daily experience lately, but that’s because he has an enormous amount of energy… the kid just doesn’t stop.
• One of his favorite things lately is to somehow get himself in one of our bathrooms and to throw things in the toilet or the tub (whatever he can find). Just a few days ago, his grandma caught him half in the toilet, climbing in to take a bath. Yes, you read it correctly, the toilet, not the tub.
• The words “Vanie, stop or you will be sent to the corner” is heard quite often at home now. The corner is our version of “time out”. So what does Vanie do now? When he hears me say that, he stops doing what he is doing, looks at me, gives me a big smile, comes over and starts hugging me and giving me kisses….no more to say…
• Another new thing is to hold Zorro’s leash during the walk. It’s very cute but I have not been able to take any pictures yet
• Vanie finally knows to call himself by his name, except it sounds more like “Nanie” – he can’t pronounce many of the letters yet. – but at least he knows to say it when he sees himself in pictures
• His new favorite video to dance to the World Cup anthem by K’naan
• Still loves to dance – will try to post a few unsuccessful clips I was able to record.
Who knows what else I am missing… right now we are just getting ready for a relaxing 4th of July long weekend… will post updates soon.

In the park after getting scared from a pony ride (before getting to the ride):



Posing for a few pictures - that's the face he makes when he sees me holding the camera:

1st Father's Day Picture

Enjoying the Doctor’s office … NOT SO MUCH

This is actually from a the beginning of the month. Vanie had his 18th month checkup. Everything was great until we had to go in. he cried hysterically even when they were taking his measurements… what am I saying.. he was crying hysterically even when the nurse would look at him. It’s probably because he gets shots every single time we are there.
He starts saying “bye” and blowing kisses as soon as he sees his doctor - his way of saying “go away”.
The good thing is that Vanie is growing like crazy:
-Height: 82.5 cm or 32.5 inches – 56% - this is almost 5 cm (2 inches) in 3 months
-Weight: 10.6 kg. or 23.6 lbs. – 19% - less than 2 lbs in 3 months – not great but he runs a lot so it’s hard for him to gain weight even when he eats well
these are from a month ago and he has already grown another centimeter since then.

We are back at the doctor’s office in 2-3 months for blood tests to check if he been cleared of the hep C antibodies.

Vanie hates going to the doctor’s so much that now he cries even when I try to measure him at home. Here are a few shots from a month ago:

While waiting to be seen


Waiting for the doctore to come in:

Enjoying the Beach

Lately we have been enjoying a lot of things and as “true” Californians who live less than 10 miles away from the beach we have been trying to go to the beach as much as we can.
Here are a few pictures from Monarch Beach.
The water was freezing (and yet still warmer than most places here) but we couldn’t get Vanie out of the water.