Cuff kids infiltrate Russia

Larisa mentioned that Lydia loves to run up the stairs. I gave her that idea. I did it once as a trick to beat them up to the top, and then I did it several times for exercise. Now she never wants to use the elevator, and when I'm with her she makes me run up while the others ride the elevator. The problem is that then she gets tired and I end up carrying her up while we race the elevator. Tyler serprised me. During one of Lydia's first times up the stairs alone I rode the elevator with him. When we got to the top ahead of Lydia he walked over to the stairs and looked down calling for Lydia. I didn't know that the whole elevator thing made sense to him and that he knew we had gone up.



Lydia is communicating a little bit better with Grandma, but sometimes the message is not what we had in mind. For example, when we left Lydia and Tyler alone with Grandma, Lydia would stand in the way of Galina with her arms outstretch when Galina was going to get Tyler to stop doing something, sending the clear message that "you're not in charge of us." I saw her do it once again the other day and scolded her (gentle). Her explanation was that Grandma's not in charge because we are. I told her that she's also in charge, especially if we are gone, and that it's okay if the person in charge does things differently than us.

Lately, Lydia has been asking us to tell her stories at night from memory or made up, but the problem is that if we don't tell the story as she wanted she gets upset. I finally figured out that I can use Disney movie summaries as bed-time stories and that pleases her. She's been throwing many tantrums here, probably partly because no one speaks her language. And she's so particular. The other day at the dacha (summer cottage) we wanted her to put on some slippers because the floor was cold. Lydia would not touch the brown slippers because they were boys slippers (belonging to Vlad). She was screaming and backing away as if they would burn her or something, and she wouldn't let up. We discovered that she does a lot better if we make her take a nap, so that's helped.

On Lydia's birthday this week we went on some rides and to a playground at a cafe where we ate. Then we went to pick out a hat for her and a necklace and a birthday cake. She loves shopping. When we were picking out hats and necklaces she wanted to try them all on and loved all of them. Especially at the jewelry store she was so excited and walked around showing me everything. That's the way she is in Galina's store as well. When we picked out the birthday cake, which she immediately identified once we walked in the bakery because of all the flowers in the icing, it was already about 9pm. Lydia looked around at the dark sky and said, "do we get to not sleep because it's my birthday?"



Tyler loves to copy Lydia. When she says something, he repeats it, even if he doesn't know what the worlds mean. He also copies what she does, even if it means climbing up the highest structure on the playground. He still won't listen to us when we tell him to not to run away, so we put him in time out pretty regularly. But he doesn't care. Sometimes he even comes to me and says "time out" and sits down even though he's not in trouble. The other day when the kids were supposed to be sleeping but we instead jumping around the room and on the beds, I came in and said if Tyler didn't stay in bed I would take one of his favorite blankets (which he usually really cares about). He walked over and handed me the blanket and said "here you go."