Home from the Hospital / Photos from Atlantic Beach

1. Ana in her room at UNC Children's Hospital a few hours after surgery. Note her pink monkey on the IV stand.
2. Sleeping angel.
3. Beaufort waterfront.
4. Atlantic Beach.
5. Ana singing unknown song as we drive over Radio Island.

[Phil]
Just a brief update about Ana. First of all, thank you to everyone who sent their good thoughts and wishes for Ana's surgery and speedy recovery. So far she's doing just great. She definitely seems to have some occasional pain in her mouth, but the oxycodone every 4 hours works wonders, especially on her mood! The only real side-effect of the surgery that I've noticed is that she has to blow her nose A LOT. We've probably been through a couple of boxes of tissues already. Ana has been mostly good-spirited through all of this, but as a child who loves her food (and is picky about what she eats), she is definitely tiring of soft foods like apple sauce, mushed-up baked beans, yogurt, etc. I think she's even tired of ice cream. We're going to have to get creative with our cuisine if this food prohibition is going to last for another 10 days. We were also warned repeatedly to keep Ana from touching her mouth, but so far this hasn't been a problem. We tried to put the soft arm restraints on her at night (they just keep her from inadvertently touching her mouth during sleep), but she really couldn't sleep with them on. Instead, Robin put her hands in mittens that she pinned to her pj top. This seems to be working well and during the day she's fine without them. So overall I would say things are going much better than I expected.

I have also included a couple of photos from a fun beach trip that we went on with our friend Carmen the weekend before the surgery. It was Ana's first experience seeing the ocean, and the look on her face was priceless. I could only describe it as "awe". I'll let Robin tell more about the beach trip. Right now I have to go puree some more beans. :-)

[Robin]
Ana, not unlike many children, was really frightened by the waves at the beach. She spent much of her time trying to herd us away from the ocean with "Careful, Mama!" She also was very apprehensive about getting her hands and feet "dirty" in the sand. She finally came to grips with it once we put a bucket of sea water next to our sand castle area, allowing her to dip and rinse as the mood struck her. The one ocean-related thing she really did like was searching for seashells. We had a great time picking them up, washing them off and selecting the winners to come home. She now has a beautiful selection of shells on her nightstand.

She also really enjoyed the State Aquarium. She loved watching the fish darting back and forth and the river otters swimming up to the front of the tank to say hi.

Lastly, clam strips were a surprise food hit with Ana. She ate them like popcorn and went through an enormous amount.

[Phil]
(I also liked the clam strips)

Surgery was Successful

Ana's doing fine. She's in bed at the hospital with Mama. I came home to feed Lola but will be heading back there soon. I should have an internet connection there if anyone wants to email.

More details later,
Phil

Belated Update

1. Ana's preschool class
2. Ana lifting weights with one of the Carol Woods residents
3. Ana and Papa dancing at the first Carolina Inn bluegrass show of the season
4. Ana and her friend Cole
5. VIDEO: Ana singing her ABC's


[Phil]
Okay, so we haven't really updated this in a while. I suppose we've been too busy with work and parenting. The good news is that Ana has been doing great. She's speaking a lot more English now, the downside of which is that she seems to have forgotten a lot of Russian. The only Russian words she ever says now are "konfyetka" (candy) and "soak" (juice). It's kind of odd, because all the rest of the food words she says in English. For example, on the way home from school the other day, I asked her what her favorite foods are. She replied, "pasta, cheese, pizza, konfyetka, banan (I forgot, she still says that in Russian as well), apple (pronounced "ah-POOL"), and chicken." She's definitely not on a low-carb diet! In any case, we're able to communicate much better with her these days, except that her new favorite word is "why". For example, we had this conversation when I picked her up at school yesterday:

Ana: Where's Mama?
Me: She's at work.
Ana: Why?
Me: Everyone has to work.
Ana: Why?
Me: To make money.
Ana: Why?
Me: To buy food to eat.
Ana: Why?
Etc., etc.

People tell us this is typical 4 year-old behavior.

Ana has also learned to recognize and name all the letters of the alphabet, thanks to Robin. Every night they read the Dr. Seuss ABC book and every morning they go over their letters during breakfast. It's totally amazing to me, considering that she didn't even have a concept of an alphabet just a few months ago. Now we're moving on to actually writing the letters and making words. Since she'll have one more year of preschool, I'm confident that she'll be ready for kindergarten next year. The next thing we need to tackle is arithmetic. She can more or less count to 20 and likes to count things, but we haven't attempted to teach her addition and subtraction yet. All in good time!

As for fun, Ana has really been enjoying gymnastics, and her coaches are really impressed with her strength. She's not too crazy about the other kids, however, so it's usually just she and I playing together. Her favorite things are the rings, the trampoline, and the springboard (or vault, or whatever you call it). She also really loves putting chalk on her hands, although I'm not sure she knows the purpose of it! Besides gymnastics, she also enjoys riding her bike, walking Lola, kicking the soccer ball, blowing bubbles, and playing with her toy golf set. She's also crazy about jigsaw puzzles. Her first one was a wooden puzzle of the United States, and she's gotten so good at it that I swear she could do it strictly by feel. She doesn't even really look at the colors of the states anymore -- she knows the shapes instantly. It's a humbling experience to do the puzzle with her! She also likes books a lot. She often mimics her schoolteacher and pretends to read us one of her books, to the point of shushing us when we talk and making us raise our hands, I kid you not. Robin has been the main one involved in the reading, so I'll let her talk about Ana's favorite books.

[Robin]
Ana and I usually read three books each night before going to sleep. She picks the books out and then we snuggle on her bed and read them to one another. She particularly likes Harold and the Purple Crayon, the Dr. Seuss ABC book, Messy Mark, a Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book, and a "scratch and sniff" Christmas book. Phil and Ana went to the library recently and he let her pick out some books--it was funny because she came home with a number of dog-related books. I guess that is a good indication that she really likes Lola.

Ana's school is really great. It is so ethnically diverse -its like a little U.N. She tells us her favorite friends are a little Russian girl, Marina, and a Chinese girl, Claire, in her class. She comes home every day with art projects to share with us --most go on our fridge as display items. On Mother's Day she brought home the cutest card for me. They apparently asked her a series of questions and her answers were written on the card...it went like this:
How old is your mom: 27 (!yes!)
What does she do for work: She drives a car.
What do you like to do with your mom: Ride bikes.
What do you like about your mom: She makes me pasta. She loves me.
It went on..it was so heart-breakingly precious.
One of Ana's teachers had a baby recently and this was super curious to the kids in her class. Ana spent a lot of time playing that she was having a baby--- showing us her belly and putting "babies" under her shirts.

[Phil]
Finally, we should mention that Ana will be having surgery next Wednesday, May 21, to repair the remaining gap in her palate (called a 'fistula') and to put tubes in her ears. The reason for the tubes is that her hearing is being impaired by fluid buildup in her ear canal, which is typical for cleft palate children. In fact, the ENT doctor told us that tubes are used in 99 out of 100 cleft palate children. Right now her hearing is impaired to the point that she would need hearing aids if she were an adult. Once she has the tubes installed, her hearing (and consequently her speech) should improve dramatically. Right now we don't know the details of the surgery, except that she will only stay one night in the hospital. We have a pre-surgery appointment the day before, so we'll update the blog then.

Speaking of the blog, we'll probably change it to 'invitation only' pretty soon. Once that happens just send me an email and I'll send you an invitation. We just want to avoid the spammers and other riff-raff.

Ana's First Easter

Here are some photos. Details to follow soon.

"Over There"

1. Ana and Papa at Pepper's Pizza
2. Ana and Aunt Helen and Grandpapa's birthday party
3. Ana kisses Melany at Danny's Dissertation-Defense Party

[Phil]
We haven't really updated in a while, but I can't say that there's a lot to tell. Ana continues her progress learning English, and one of her favorite things to say is "over there", thus the title of this post. She also says "thank you", "no", "yes" (which sounds more like "yesh"), "Lola, no!", "sorry, Mama" and "Harold" (when she wants to watch "Harold and the Purple Crayon" on TV). She also says "what?" a lot, and we're not sure whether it's because her hearing may be impaired (as with a lot of cleft palate kids) or if it's just kind of a knee-jerk 4 year-old thing to say in response to any statement.

We're continuing with gymnastics, and Ana got very wide-eyed today when a somewhat older girl (maybe 6) was in our class and did a cartwheel on the balance beam. Our class is kind of a do-it-yourself thing, however, so she'll have to wait until she gets in a more regimented class to actually learn how to do things like that. For now we jump on the trampoline, do somersaults on the mat, swing from the parallel bar, etc. It's just to get the children acquainted with the concept of gymnastics.

Preschool continues to go well. She seems to have made a number of friends there despite the language barrier. I suppose it helps that we have a very international preschool -- there are a lot of kids from Asia and Latin America, and even one from Russia in her class. The Russian girl doesn't seem to remember Russian very well, but she did say "Privet!" ("Hey!") to me the other day.

[Robin]
She has really being learning new things every week. Ana now knows her way around town and can tell when we are on the way to school or going home ("doma"). She also surprised me the other day when we were on the way to the grocery store and she pointed out the window and said she wanted to go swing and she was pointing right at the driveway of the community center.

When we can get her distracted from wanting to play "Mishka" ("Bear" - where she either chases us or one of us chases her), she has really enjoyed playing games on the computer (she has gotten to be very good with maneuvering the mouse) , completing a US state jigsaw puzzle, dancing to tunes on her boom box, and braiding/arranging Mama's hair.

She loves going over to Carmen's house, and it has been a joy to watch her develop a relationship with her. Now when there are five objects in a book to be "divided"-one goes to Papa, one to Mama, one to Lola and one to Carmen. This bonding has been so easy that last night when we wanted to help another couple get ready for their adoptive trip to Ukraine, we had Carmen jump in to take her for an hour---Ana had no tears, or even sadness at this prospect-- just "bye Mama!" when we dropped her off.

Here's one funny story about Ana. Last night when we were getting ready to go meet the couple, I was looking around for my purse. Ana was excited to be going over to Carmen's and was ready and waiting with her coat on at the door. She asked impatiently "Carmen?" And I said, "Yes, as soon as Mama finds her money." Ana said "Oh" and dashed off to another room. She came back a few minutes later and said "Here, Mama" and handed me a few coins she had squirreled away for her piggy bank. It was so cute and smart.

Best of Breed

In non-Ana related news, here's a photo of Ch Koppertone's Classical Minuet , who won Best of Breed for the vizslas at the Westminster Dog Show. I still think Lola's prettier!

-Phil

The Next Yuliya Beygelzimer?

[Phil]
Robin's out of town, so I had to entertain The Bean today. One way was to take her and her tiny child-sized tennis racket to the pitiful court at Umstead Park for some intros to the game I love so much (and am not very good at). She did really well, hitting about 1/4 of the balls I hit to her. Still, I couldn't help getting all Richard Williams on her once in a while: "Ana, look at the ball, don't look at me!", "That attempt was just pathetic, I'm sorry", "Ana, run for the ball. It's not going to come to you!"


But afterward I told her she played very well and would be a great tennis player. She seemed pleased.

-Phil
PS. Re the title: see here