Spring is here

After the crazy week of mid-80s and another week of 40s, spring finally came, and the girls are having a lot of fun playing outside. Every time I see them on the swing set (luckily, we have 2 swings for both of them!), I think how lucky they are to have a built-in playmate for each other! It was different in Ukraine. Alex was an only child for 14 years, but we’ve never felt that he was missing out by not having a sibling. We lived in a big 9-stories building with the huge "dvor" (courtyard), and at any given time there were at least 10-15 kids playing outside, and at least 3-4 Alex’s age. So he was never bored and always had somebody to play with. Even when we moved to the States, there were a lot of Russian immigrant kids in our first apartment complex, and Alex made a lot of friends there. By the time Victoria was born, we already lived in the suburban development with virtually no people outside at any time. Luckily I have friends with kids, and we do a lot of play dates, but yet I felt that Victoria missed out on not having a sibling. Not anymore! Now the girls have each other, and it works out great!

Lately their favorite game is "dochki-materi" – daughters and mothers. It was my favorite game when I grew up, but Victoria never seemed to have any interest in playing with the dolls before. But now it all changed! Their favorite dolls are baby dolls ("pupsik" in Russian), and they are taking a very good care of their babies, making sure they are fed, have their naps, baths, etc.

Most of the time the girls speak Russian, but I can hear more and more English phrases from the playroom :) For example, a couple of days ago as they were getting ready for the soccer practice, I heard Victoria saying in English "I love soccer", and Rachel immediately replied also in English "Me too"! It’s also funny to hear how they repeat whatever Oleg and I are saying :) Though we speak Russian at home, our Russian is very americanized. For example, some words we say in English only, such as "All set", "Let’s go", or "Have fun". We also have a habit of mixing both Russian and English words, and we had to carefully watch what we say while in Ukraine because our friends couldn’t understand the English words we were throwing here and there. When the girls can’t answer my question, or don’t know something, I usually say: "What do you mean ti ne znaesh?" – meaning "What do you mean you don’t know?". Well, yesterday, Victoria couldn’t find one of her toys, and I heard Rachel saying with my tone of voice "What do you mean ti ne znaesh?" It was very funny.

Rachel continues to improve academically. But man, it’s not easy to be a tutor! When I worked as a math teacher in Ukraine, I supplemented my income with private math lessons, and let me tell you, one hour with one student is as tiring as 3-4 periods with the whole class! So 1 – 1.5 hours is the top of my ability working with Rachel, usually I’m beat up after that :) But recently Victoria surpassed Rachel in reading, so now she’s my teacher’s assistant! It’s really great because I can do something else, but still listen to Rachel’s reading, while Victoria corrects her if needed (Rachel needs to be corrected for most of the words she reads, so she really needs somebody to sit with her all the time).

The other day Victoria had a picture day at her dance studio, and Rachel had a chance to see the studio and all the great costumes. She’s not taking the lessons now because I don’t want her to be overwhelmed with so many activities, but next school year she’ll definitely start the dance lessons if she wants to.




What else is going on? Victoria had a preschool field trip to the Butterfly Garden at the Strong Museum. They had a lesson about the butterflies’ life cycle and then went to see the butterflies.




I can’t say enough good words about her awesome preschool teachers this year. She learned a lot – they had "Show and Tell" for a different letter every week, which attributed greatly to her ability to read. They had a restaurant unit, a post office unit, learned about water lifecycle, and even grew butterflies in their classroom! And yesterday they had an amazing Mother’s Day Tea with an awesome performance, gifts for Moms, treats, etc. Thanks to my Mom, who drives her to preschool, Victoria was able to benefit from this amazing program – not all working parents are so lucky. And even if I was a stay at home mom, I would never be able to create such a curriculum for her, so I’m very happy Victoria had such a great enrichment opportunity.

Here is one of the songs from their performance:


And this is Victoria with her wonderful teachers: