Merry Christmas!

Paul as the Christmas "elf", Alexander the scribe and Lucas as the Mad Middle Eastern Cow

Lucas wearing my headband and Paul's snowboots

Well, I guess it's been a little while since we've posted!  Pretty hard to believe we are just 5 days from the end of 2010.  We've had a great but very, very busy year. So, what's been going on since the last post?

Alexander began 1st grade and is *loving* it.  What a difference from this time last year.  For the first several months last year pretty much every day began with "I don't want to go to school" and "school's boring".  It was mostly the shock of having to do "work" all day as compared with preschool and still adjusting to having a new little brother.  Now, we haven't heard the evil 'boring' word once this year and he usually finishes his weekly homework within a couple days. He especially likes math but his reading is also really coming along.  Alexander also played outdoor soccer for the first time this Fall and just started playing indoors as well.  Alexander's shyness is slowly departing as well...although a very social and chatty kid, he tends to not want to be center of attention (pretty normal) but in the past couple weeks he had a speaking part in our church's Christmas pageant and was in his school's holiday show without any hesitation or clinginess.  But for all his maturity, he is still my little sweetheart...crying at the hint of sadness in movies and sleeping with the light on (and not to mention he still loves sucking his thumb - can you spell orthodontics?)  

Lucas began the Fall starting a new preschool/daycare and has really thrived.  Although his former school was supposed to be topnotch and we were verbally reprimanded for removing him and not allowing him to reach his full potential, if he was any fuller in his potential we'd be in serious trouble. At 2.9, he knows the alphabet and their sounds, how to spell his name and a couple other words, has a vocabulary of a 4 yo, and I could go on. Yup, too bad we had to move him.  He is also coming more and more into his personality - which is very determined, creative, and funny.  He has an awesome imagination - the other day he was removing stings (I assume beestings) with a sparkly wand acting as a "stingivator".  Our days are filled with such 'luc-isms' and other similar wonders living with a toddler. These moments are, of course, balanced with the opposite - whining, raving screams of protest for any real or perceived injustice. And then, a moment later, he is laughing about something so hard that he needs to catch his breath. I often look at his lengthening face and wonder what aspects of his current personality will be retained into boyhood.  Hopefully his strong spirit and easy, deep laughter. 

His strong spirit unfortunately doesn't help him when it comes to fighting illnesses. If there's a germ in the air, he'll get it.  A few weeks ago he developed conjunctivis, an ear infection and a cold following by the croup.  He's currently healthy but not sure if this will last until the New Year!  Lucas also had a little stumble in early Dec - riding his little bike in our house (without helmet, of course) and fell off finding the one nice sharp corner for him to gouge the area above his left eye. Several hours in the ER and a few stitches later he was fine.  Alexander's words to Lucas when he was picked up from school and told the news "Lucas, you and I now have something that's the same - you and I both had stitches on our heads!"

As fas as Alexander and Lucas together, let's just say we're beginning to see the light at the end of the constant parental-entertainment phase. Up until VERY recently, one or both boys would constantly chant "Can you play with me?" but only to an adult. Awesome fun, yes, and I know I will be praying to hear these words again in a few years but I love the fact that they are now turning to each other, brothers, for play. We had dinner guests last night for Christmas and at one point we realized the boys had been upstairs for the better part of 30 min building towers, playing with race cars, etc., without a single yell or "MAMAAAAAA".  Let's hope some of this continues through the next 9 days of holiday vacation.....

What does 2011 have in store for the Knights?  January will bring our annual holiday celebration with my (Laura's) Russian side of the family for Orthodox Christmas and then we get ready for some major work in our house. After living in our house 12+ years we've finally decided to finish our large walk-up attic to be used as a playroom/den.  Not a moment to soon considering my previous paragraph!  I'm so looking forward to a little breathing room.  The year will also bring Paul one year closer to finishing his Information Mgmt degree and hopefully in the summer we'll be taking a family trip to DC.  And, hopefully it won't be the end of 2011 before I post again!

Best wishes to everyone for a healthy and happy 2011!

Laura

Summer's end

Well, I guess it's not *technically* the end of summer, but even though the weather is still warm, "what-should-we-do-today?" is a phrase we won't be hearing in our house anytime soon - probably not until next summer!

And, oh, what a truly wonderful summer it's been! Can't you tell by my lack of blog posts?? The only painful part will be trying to recall 3 months of events and adding in the associated photos. But, hey, there's an idea...maybe I'll let the pictures tell the story of our summer and keep the words to a minimum.

One of Alexander's last days of Kindergarten...crazy hat day..he was the Space Shuttle Atlantis on it's last voyage. Fitting, eh?
And the acutal last day....wee bit excited for summer vacation!!

Lucas' end of school show...

Paul had a birthday...

We went to the beach close to 20 separate times...compared to ONCE last summer.  Be glad I'm only posting 2 pictures :)

Decorating bikes (and strollers) and participating in our neighborhood 4th of July parade...that weekend we went to 3 different parades and fireworks events. We had some tired kids!

Our annual trip to Storyland...

With a side trip for Thomas' Day Out...

I took the boys camping in Vermont with friends...

Alexander playing in his first year of Little League (he was on the Detroit Tigers)...

Alexander turned 6 with a party at our local bowling alley!

We went on an amazing whale watch out of Gloucester and saw tons of humpback and minke whales!

A couple trips to Drumlin Farm...

A fun day at Funtown (amusement park) / Splashtown (water park) in Maine with Kalima...

Alexander learned to ride a two-wheeler! (Although he's now nervous about falling and hasn't been that interested lately :(  )

Lots of time at local playgrounds...

And the start of a new preschool for Lucas and FIRST GRADE for Alexander!  Both had an awesome first week...

Through it all the boys have continued to grow (much to my efforts to the contrary) and flourish.  Lucas is a wild, crazy, yet sweet and cuddly toddler who speaks at a 3+ level and wants to do anything and everything "all by myself" and is quite vocal when he can't quite manage it. Mr. Independence though can't quite make it through the end of the day without saying "mama" at least 2,438 times.  His favorite things to say these days are questions...specifically "Are you happy?" (especially when anyone in our house seems anything but) and "Can I play with you?".  There is also the "no, it's not" in response to almost anything and in the past few days the "why's" have started.  It's amazing watching him transform into more and more of his personality. As of September 1st, Lucas has now been in our family longer than he lived in the orphanage...the amount of time that "they" say is usually needed for proper attachment. I think we're all set there and have been for some time.  As to his physical growth, I'll let this photo from day 1 in Moscow compare to one a couple weeks ago say it all...

Alexander is tolerating Lucas quite well for a 6-year old, and they play so much more together than they used to, but I think Alexander is still waiting for the day when Lucas isn't Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde and can really play with him on somewhat the same level.  Alexander is also much more mature in many other ways, and aside from the occasional tantrums and pouts, is definitely a "boy" and I rarely see the little guy we once knew.  I love watching him sleep as only then do I see glimpses of "my baby" in this BIG boy who now stands over 4 feet tall. 

I guess I could say I will try and be more frequent with posting...but if we have half as great of a Fall, you might not hear from me until after the holidays!

Cheers,
Laura

Happy Family Day Alexander!

Four, yes FOUR, years ago today, Paul and I stood in a courtroom in Ekaterinburg, Russia, prepared for almost anything. You see, we had just gone through a very brutal 8+ months of paperwork, 8 doctor's visits, redo's of expired paperwork, new judge, new requirements, back to the original judge, more expired paperwork, more 8 panel medicals (ended up doing this a total of 3 times!!) and thinking we just might not see again the sweet, blond, blue-eyed little boy we met almost 9 months earlier. We met Alexander in September 2005 when he was just 13 months old, drooling profusely and walking only with assistance. We had hoped to be back in 3 months but knowing what we know now, we are LUCKY to have made it back in under a year. This was, and still is, a very difficult region to adopt from, but although it was very challenging we would not change a thing.

We were in court for over 2 hours answering questions (compare that to the 15 minutes for Lucas) but, ultimately, the Judge (whose name we will never forget) declared us to be Alexander's parents. I remember crying tears of joy through her final declaration - Alexander was finally our son. We had had a big scare, while in Russia, a couple days before court about whether things would go forward, so hearing those words was such an immense relief. We spent nearly a month in Russia and unexpectedly got custody of Alexander just 2 days after court. We spent the next few weeks getting to know this now 22-month walking toddler before making the long-awaited trek home.

Life has never been the same! Alexander was a very anxious child for quite some time; freaking out if I left his sight. He would cry if strange women would come into our house and was extremely shy for a very long time. He would cry for the longest time when we started him in daycare after my leave was up. He would have nightmares at night and would cry out during naps for months. But after a couple years of attachment parenting, sometime around age 3.5 or 4, he finally felt secure and his real personality was able to come out. Since then there has been no looking back and he has been this friendly (overly at times), chatty, goofy, and happy kid! We've had our struggles (most notably due to the arrival of you-know-who) but Alexander has proved to be a very resilient, sweet and extremely caring and sensitive kid throughout. The latter is the one personality trait that his caregivers at the orphanage relayed to us when we met him at 13 mo - that he exhibited strong empathy towards the other babies and would go stand in a corner if other kids were being disciplined. He is very emotionally aware and honest and has explicitly stated several times that his less than satisfactory behavior is due to his tiredness, boredom or merely wanting attention - ha!

Today, at "5 and 3/4", he is 3 weeks away from finishing Kindergarten, loves books, is reading better and better everyday, loves playing T-ball in Little League (especially as Paul is a co-coach), still sucks his thumb at night, likes to collect flowers, feathers and rocks for me (I'm glad he's not yet into insects and frogs), smiles constantly, asks a million and one questions (mostly about bees right now), can sit and attend to something for hours if he's really into it, wants to have 845, 633 kids when he grows up, eggs his brother on constantly, is a perfectionist (uh-oh, I hope that didn't come from me), still wants one of us to play with him, turns into a zombie in the vicinity of any television, has a frighteningly accurate radar for any food substance containing sugar, and exhibits a maturity at times that stuns me. I just can't imagine our lives without this sweet little guy or imagine him in any other family - crazy how this all works out huh?

We celebrate Family Day as the day Russia officially blessed us with the immense gift of being their parents (aka their court dates). For Lucas this was May 18th and Alexander's was today, May 31st. Since the dates are so close, to avoid sibling rivalry with Lucas going "first", and more importantly to accurately reflect our 'family', we are celebrating on one day but acknowledging each day in a small way. In the future the combined family day will be somewhere in between their two days, but this year we celebrated today on Alexander's since we just had too much going on the past week. We had a little cake with a '1' candle for Lucas and a '4' for Alexander and we gave them each a teddy bear made by a friend - the same size of course, but one blue and one brown to match their eye color (A and L, respectively). We also retell their stories and review pictures. Alexander has an early years lifebook that I made that tells his adoption story that we frequently pull from the shelves...I need to work on Lucas' asap. But in all honesty, I didn't make Alexander's book until he was almost 3, so I have a little time before Lucas suffers from 2nd child syndrome!

Happy Family Day Alexander and Lucas! We love you!

Meeting Alexander 13mo - Trip 1, Day 1 - 9/27/2005

Meeting Alexander again 22mo - Trip 2, Day 1 - 5/28/2006

Alexander's first day at 'home' - 6/21/2006

And today - 5/31/2010

Has it really been a YEAR?

Visiting Lucas after Court - 5/18/09
Visiting Lucas after Court - 5/18/09
and today....
NE Aquarium - 3/10
Being silly...
Being sweet...

Is it really possible that it's been over 2 months since I've posted to the blog? Yikes. But more astounding is that one year ago today, in a Moscow courtroom, after a short and painless Q&A, we were declared to be the parents of one Lucas Dmitry Knight (also known at the time as "Dima the Mouse"). I can't believe we've been his parents for a YEAR. Although he didn't come home until June 6, he was legally our son and it felt like abandonment to leave him as we returned to the US. We really wish we could have stayed in Russia for the 10-day wait, but Alexander was waiting for us at home, we wouldn't have been able to get custody of Lucas until the wait was over anyway and we wanted to save our vacation time for when he did come home. Regardless of these reasons, it was still very difficult to leave.

So what is Lucas up to these days? Well, for sure, he's no longer a mouse. More like a lion. The kid who wasn't on the growth charts upon coming home is now 40% height and 50% weight. His vocabulary is amazing...he's been speaking in full sentences for months. He repeats anything and everything and with the best inflection and imitation. He yelled up the stairs to me this morning as I got out of the shower: "Mama, are you OK?" in my exact tone of voice as I must frequently yell this up the stairs upon hearing unidentified thuds and yelps. And my little mouse has found his lionly roar. His favorite word these days is 'no'. At first though he wasn't sure about how to say 'no'. His previous favorite words were 'I want' and thus his first utterance of dislike resulted in 'I want no'. But he quickly realized he could cut right to the chase and this is where we are. It is so beloved a word that it is the de facto answer for everything...regardless of whether he really means no. 'Lucas, would you like some blueberries?' 'No. I mean yes'.

His lionly roar at times is a scream. He seems to have only one volume these days: loud. He gets so excited playing certain games or telling you about some aspect of his day that I think he feels he needs to match his excitement with sound. We've been holding our hands over our ears a lot lately. Lucas has also learned to make the most amazing facial expressions. It all started with 'Good Night Gorilla' and the page where the zookeeper's wife realizes she's not alone in her room and turns on her light. Her face on that page is basically Lucas' face these days for any new or surprising situation. It is beyond fabulous. He has a few others too but that's my fav.

He continues to be very vocal and clear about his fears. After MONTHS he finally went down into the basement again and seemed OK but then something spooked him again. Today he came down 3 steps with me and then said "No, the basement is too scary". We've had the city tearing up our street to put in new water lines using all sorts of cool diggers and trucks. We got a little too close to one the other day and he tensed up and said it was too scary for him.

He is fearless with his body...leaping off any stool, chair, or lego table that he can find. We took the gates off the stairs this weekend when we realized we were using them more for crowd control than for safety as Lucas hasn't tripped or fallen yet on the stairs. What else? Oh yes, the nap. Lucas is in that oh-so-pleasant stage of maybe, kinda not needing a nap. On the days he does take a nap (aka in school), he takes forever to go to sleep at night. If we weren't tied to schedules and him needing to get up at a regular time for school a few days a week, this would be fine. So it sets up a bad cycle. He goes to bed later, has a harder time getting up, is cranky, etc. However on the days he doesn't go to school and w/e, we let him sleep in, he won't usually nap, is somewhat Mr. Cranky pants after 5p and then crashes around 7p.

And one last Lucas tidbit for now (maybe if I didn't wait so long between posts I wouldn't have to write so much at once eh?). Now that the weather has warmed up, he LOVES being outside. I think this is his 2nd favorite word after 'no'. We had a problem for a while when he learned how to open the lock on the screen door and get out. But I think we (I) sufficiently freaked out enough that he learned quickly to wait for one of us. His current fascinations 'outside' are the water table where he proceeds to get completely soaked each and every time, puddles, or the drains in the park where he drops mulch, sticks or other misc items into the water to see what happens. Picking up on the theme here? I guess those astrological signs might actually have some merit to them.

All these little glimpses are just pieces of his amazing little personality. The most important ones to me are his sweet and happy laugh, his determination, his exhuberance for life, and the fact that he now seems to trust and love us heart and soul. He feels like he has always been here and I'm so thankful that those initial months of figuring each other out are over. We are just a family now and I love it.

Look who's 2!

Today, February 28th, Lucas turned 2 years old!!! In some ways it seems like he just came home and how can he already be 2? And in other ways it feels like he's been here forever. We realized last week, though I forgot to mention it in the post about his dedication, that we received his referral on February 20, 2009. We didn't have a name or a photo, but just that there was a little boy waiting for us to go meet him at the end of March. Little did we know that almost to the day a year later that little boy would be dedicated, and his birth joyously celebrated a few days later.

It's truly astounding the changes a child goes through in such a relatively small amount of time. Lucas is speaking in sentences now a majority of the time and remembers and repeats all these phrases: "Elmo, it's so good to see you!" (on seeing Elmo first thing in the morning), "I said no, no" (upon opening the freezer and starting to pull out all the contents and usually my cue that he's doing something he shouldn't), "Lucas turned on the machine and Papa turned it off" (in telling everyone he meets about the evil wet/dry vacuum that has kept him from wanting to go into the basement for the past month). He also is extremely curious and wants to get on top/under, turn everything on/off (see the above picture playing in the bathroom sink) and explore all those different buttons on the you-name-it. Spring can't get here fast enough.

Lucas has a huge appetite lately, usually far outeating his brother at most meals and is sleepy soundly every night. Yup, another growth spurt is ongoing. Not that he's been lacking in that area...currently close to 30 lbs. He is also SO much more expressive emotionally...on the whole spectrum! He's always been a happy little guy, but lately he seems to laugh hysterically at the silliest little thing and we find him sometimes cracking himself up in his crib or the other night at the dinner table. On the other end though, until a couple weeks ago, I would have said that Lucas doesn't get upset or demanding. Ha! There's a new high-pitched sound in our house these days and we're actively trying to turn it down :).

And as mentioned previously, the fears are still cropping up. We went into a small store this past week and the mere sight of the proprietor sent Lucas into tears. I can't imagine what brought it on...he was in my arms the entire time and I've never come close to handing Lucas over to a stranger. He is apprehensive now about strangers and uncomfortable situations...evidenced by this new humming sound he makes and saying 'hi' repeatedly and nervously. We also had a hard separation at school on Friday...a place he usually is jumping out of his carseat to get to. He's keeping me on a short leash these days and although we're encouraging his independence we're also recognizing that something is going on right now and giving him all the snuggles and comfort that he needs.

Back to the birthday. We had a small family celebration today; just the immediate family, grandma's Yaya and Kalima, and Lucas' ever present buddies these days...Elmo and Ernie. We brought out the Elmo party supplies that we used for Alexander's 2nd birthday (runs in the family) and had fun blowing up balloons, hanging streamers, singing and wearing silly hats. Lucas wasn't quite sure what to make of the fuss, especially when the lighted candle came in front of him ('but Mama, I thought I had to stay away from fire?!?'). But the ice cream was a big hit with Lucas while Alexander was quite thrilled we also had cake. Lucas bday gift from us was a beautiful adjustable chair that he can easily get in and out of now and that he can also use as he gets older. A couple board books and a silly monster bowling game from Kalima and he was a happy camper.

Although this was a joyous day, at present in our minds was the news we received early yesterday morning that Paul's grandmother, Nanny, was hospitalized in NC and not expected to make it through the weekend. Paul spoke to her on the phone, telling her that we loved her and thought of her often. We then decided Paul should try to see her and scrambled to get him on a flight that afternoon. However this was not to be. After waiting in the airport for 4 hours through multiple reschedules Paul returned home and ultimately decided a trip wasn't practical for many reasons. Through the day we often thought of Nanny and wished she could have met this newest light in our family. So far today no news is good news from NC and holding on to hope for a different outcome.

Happy Birthday Lucas Dmitry...you are so very loved and cherished and looking forward to this coming year of endless experiences with you.