Tuesday Afternoon

   This afternoon was great, too.  We started out with the legos as I’d said before.  Then, before too long, while all of the pieces were still spread out in the floor, the orphanage director came in with Shelley’s little girl, and Susan’s little girl.  Some people will know who I’m referring to here, but for those of you who don’t, 2 other families are adopting children from this same orphanage.  They’ll come back here with Toni in a couple of months.  Actually, Shelley’s family has already adopted a little boy from this orphanage.  He was Teodor’s friend; they used to ride the school bus to school together.  It’s thanks to Shelley that we even got Teodor’s file in the first place!!

   Anyway, we had to quickly get the legos out of the way, and play with the girls for a few minutes.  I had brought my measuring tape along, and before they left, I quickly measured the girls so that Shelley and Susan can have an idea of clothing size.  While I had it out, I decided to measure Teodor, too.  (When we come back for our second trip, we’ll have to bring a suitcase of clothing for him because he won’t take anything from the orphanage …. The clothing is all “collective,” and they’ll need it for the other kids his size.)  He was MORE than ready to get back to the legos, and again, he tolerated me.  Ha!  Now I was the strange woman who wanted to hug him AND measure him.  Pretty weird in his book!

  After they got all finished and played with the fire truck, he wanted to play ball.  But…., the strange woman strikes again!  In the meanwhile, someone had come in with Teodor’s school books, and I had been looking through them.  I wanted him to show me how he could read.  He tolerated me!! … and read a little bit (this is where we saw the need for glasses again).  So, I asked him which subject he really likes the best.  He said math, so I got out his math book.  He started warming up to the idea when I decided to bribe him with taking his video.  He told Toni he’d say the 2s times tables.  I got the cutest video as he said both the 2s and the 10s.  So, we clapped and cheered (I was VERY impressed!)  Then I asked him to sing a song…. And another bribe—I’d video again!  He sang Dashing Through the Snow and on through 2 choruses of Jingle Bells!!  SO cute!  But, we ran out of time for playing ball.  Oops.  I’m not winning brownie points.  I’m hoping to do better tomorrow!!!  But, I so love watching him play with Dan, that I don’t mind a bit.

   The school books opportunity was quite an answer to prayer, though.  Right away I noticed things that I really needed to know in teaching him math.  Several of the symbols that they use (for ex., for “times” and “divided by”) are different than the way we write it.  I really need to know things like that for home schooling purposes.  And, it did answer other schooling questions, too.  So, I was really glad that I could see them.