Shopping and Aleksa's Potty Emergencies

I'm completly exhausted today. We've been on the go busy all day long. We all took John to work this morning and then after that we hit the books doing school. One of the vocab words in the curriculum is "mitten" so for reading time I hauled out the book "The Mitten" which is a Ukrainian folk tale. They finally let on to me that they actually know that story in Ukrainian, so I hauled out the camera again and had Adam tell it to me. He was really struggling for words here and there and occasionally it seemed like he was even inventing words.

We went grocery shopping this afternoon. This was the first time I've taken them grocery shopping by myself. No problem. They were perfect angels. In fact, there was a mom with two little boys that was shopping about at the same pace we were, so we were always in the same aisle with them (it seemed.) The two boys were being *reallllly* naughty. At one point, Adam and Liana stopped and just stared at them in awe that their mom let them get away with their behavior. They kept saying, "Naughty boy! Mama said, 'stop!'; boy naughty." I took the opportunity to praise them for their good behavior and to remind them of how you act in the grocery store. They were sure to tell John all about it tonight. Still no begging at the grocery store. They are very ready to "help" though. If I tell them we need three gallons of milk, the milk is in the cart before I can scratch it off the list. Another thing that really struck me was that when the kids weren't holding onto the cart on each side (as usual), then Adam was holding Liana's hand and she was holding the cart. You sure don't see most American 9-yr-olds holding their sister's hand in public! (I'm sure not going to tell him that!)

On the way home from the store/getting John from work, Aleksa announced that she had to go potty. We were in the middle of the highway, and there was no way to stop, so we told her she had to wait. (We were only a few minutes from home anyway). She started screaming and then Adam got mad at us for being mean. He calmed down when I pointed out that there were no toilets around, and then asked him where the toilet was. He quietly consoled his crying sister for the next few minutes 'til we got home. She made it! But barely! Adam is going to make a really great dad some day. He's a real nurturer. (Don't get me wrong, he can fight with his sisters really well too, but by and large they get along great.)

Speaking of potty... Tonight at church just as the service was about to start, Aleksa announced that she had to "Pissit." I instantly swept her up and she said it again just as we passed a man on his way to his pew. He said, "Oh, you want pizza?" (I really hope that he actually thought that's what she said!) That's one word that I won't be sad to see go! Oy! (It's POTTY, Aleksa! Potty!!