1,2,3, No and Baby

This is from Sunday's visit. Sorry for the posting delays.

Today, I was able to take the kids outside to play. Ty, the translator and I were outside Maxx's room as he was getting changed. Ty was eating some cereal I brought. When Maxx came out, he wanted some and was eating it while his teacher put on his boots. He held up a piece of cereal and said in Kazakh "tasty". The teacher told me that Maxx is the most advanced child in his group. I am sure that is something they tell all the parents but it was still good to hear. I told the teachers I was very happy when Maxx started to say "machina" and point at cars in his book. It was a very good start to the visit.

I think the teachers in both boys groups show interest in the boys and care about them. I know they worked with Ty on saying "please" (which he doesn't like to do) and have worked with Maxx to say "good bye" instead of "bye bye".

We couldn't get a room today so we found some space in a lobby area and I gave the boys their bananas and yogurt before going outside. There were some pictures of babies on the walls and the boys taught me "lala" which is the Kazakh word for baby. Eventually we were saying "lala baby, lala baby".

Taking the boys outside alone was quite the experience. They wanted to go in different directions at the same time and Ty thought running off for me to chase him was an excellent game. The babyhouse director parks her car right in front of the door and both boys tried to get into her car. Luckily, she locks the doors.

Ty went to the merry go round and I spun them for a few minutes. I could tell Maxx wanted to get off and he was dizzy when we stopped. We finally got to the playsets and neither boy was interested in them. Ty wanted to go to the open part of the fence so he could see a car drive by. He also liked picking up all the trash. Maxx just wanted to explore in the gazebo. The boys still like bugs and made a point to show me ones on the gazebo walls. Ty picked up a cigarette butt and learned the word "yucky".

Ty was interested in climbing a ladder to a platform and then I would hold him, count to three and he'd jump and I would spin him around. This was a game Randy played with him. He started to repeat "one, two, three". It was very interesting as we haven't worked on numbers and since we were face to face, I noticed he was watching and mimmicking my mouth movements to say the words.

After an hour the boys were trying to get toys out of my backpack so we headed back inside. On the walk back, Ty told the translator "we will now play inside with toys". Ty played with his loto game where he matches 36 game pieces to 6 game cards. It takes him a while and I tell him the names of the pieces. He is very good at concentrating on the game. One of the cards is a pacifier so I tried to show him that babies use a pacifier. Maxx has a pacifier in his baby photo. I should add that to the powerpoint.

Maxx still likes the blocks and crayons. He also discovered the stickers in some of the coloring books. Maxx tried to eat a crayon and I told him "no" and he giggled and tried again. I said "no" and then tried to get the crayon from him. After that Ty started to say "no" to Maxx. This is the first time he said "no". At least it was to his brother and not to me. I am sure that time will come soon enough.

Ty loved to check out all the doors near our area. All of them were locked but he still wanted to explore. I took some blocks and made a pretend key and when that didn't work on the doors he decided he would play blocks with us. He snapped together two blocks in his hair. I have seen the girls in his class do this but didn't think Ty had enough hair to do it. He can only do it with his bangs.

Maxx wasn't interested in putting blocks in anyone's hair so he played with his books. I got out two coins and when he got to the page with money I showed him the coins.

Another very good visit with minimal drama. At one point, it looked like Ty was going to throw a tantrum as he turned away from me and put his head in the sofa. Then he popped his head out and started smiling.

I tell the boys that "They must be the 2 silliest boys in Kazakhstan". Hopefully, they will soon be the silliest boys on Sunnyhill Lane.

Marcia