Four Months Home!

Has it been four months already? Or should I say, "Has it only been four months?" Haven't we always had our crew? What was life like BEFORE these kids? I can hardly remember anymore!

Last month at the 3 Months Home date I remember thinking, "boy was this month easier than last month." Well, this month has been the same. Much easier than last. The kids are much more at home or something. They are getting into the groove of us being their parents and vice verse. They know what to expect, and for the most part, so do we. We are all much more relaxed, and frankly, we're all just plain enjoying each other now. I've gone to sleep telling John, "Wow, we have great kids," more times this month than all the first three put together. I loved them the first three months, of course, but this month, we are all so much more in sync with each other, that we're just plain enjoying being a family. Hard to put my finger on it to fully express it. We've had some surprises, (water in the trashcan, for example), but nothing alarming or terribly stressful. In short, we have got to be the luckiest family in the wide, far world!

The Four Month Home date is supposed to be the date that new adopters look forward to as the time when their kids finally speak all English. Ours are doing great, but they ain't there yet. Undoubtedly it is because we are homeschooling and because we have NEVER insisted that they speak only English. Their Ukrainian has been lost soon enough, and we haven't wanted to stress out the kids even more than they already were. So, those first weeks home, we didn't mind speaking what Ukrainian we knew to them, and them to us. If we had been "English only" from day one, I'm sure they'd be further along, but I don't regret what we've done with them for a minute. I'd rather have their English prolonged a few weeks than to have added the stress onto the kids of being put into school right away, and not having anyone around them speak something familiar to them. Our goal is that they are feeling emotionally safe and happy, not stressed but speaking English. Don't regret a thing.

Adam started really using the pronoun "I" today. Major breakthrough with him, though it isn't yet consistant. John and I both about fell over. He said a few complex sentences in perfect English today, and we made a major deal out of each. He's still frustrated with his English, but it is coming, and he's made great strides.

Liana's English is really, really remarkable. She uses "me" where "I" should go a lot of the time, but she usually does put in the pronouns, and is using the word, "and," which was a really tough one for her to latch onto. Very seldom will she ever speak any Ukrainian at all, but her English grammar is pretty rough yet.

Aleksa's English is pretty good, but there are a few words that she just can't shake yet; mostly pronouns, but she forces herself to say, "and" and "when" instead of "ee" and "cagdah." She has the thickest accent of the three. I finally put my finger on why. She was the only one of the three that could roll her "r's" in her native language, so when she says her "r's" now, they are rrrrreally rrrrrolled. The other two sound like American kids who say their "r's" like "w's." (Well, I guess it's only Liana, not so much Adam.) I've laughed several times listening to Aleksa. She sounds like a stereotypical Norwegian lady. Her vowels are very exaggerated (the "o" and "u" especially), and she pass for a little Norske girl easy as pie. Her grammar is pretty rough around the edges too, but it is quickly falling together. She has her own words for things that I can't bring myself to correct her on: "Candy-cakes" for "candy-canes" (already mentioned elsewhere, I know), "prettiful" for "pretty/beautiful," (but it sounds like "PREE-ly-ful").

I already mentioned the other day that the kids are finally starting to reject their Ukrainian/Russian. It's weird, and I hate it, but I also knew it was inevitable.