Growing Up Fast

“When am I going to turn thirty nine?”

“What is wire made of?”

“What is inside the toothbrush?”

“When is tato’s hair going to grow long?”

“When am I going to turn two hundred and fifteen?”

I can officially say that Mark is my little Mr. Why at age four.  His questions are so entertaining sometime. And his favorite one is “Am I behaving today?”. It is a true fact that he is trying really hard to be the “obedient” child.  So while I am in another room disciplining the big kids about something they were doing, all Mark wants to know at that moment if he is in trouble or not.

His first questions EVERY day are: “Is it morning now?” and “What day is it?”.  He knows that he goes to school (playgroup) every morning except Thursday (well, and weekend), and he always tells me how much he wants to stay home with me. Of course, by the time we are at playgroup he forgets all about wanting to stay home, but still, it is so sweet that he misses me. I will definitely miss him when next fall comes and he is at school full time.

One thing I need to work on is taking more pictures of my everyday life with kids! So here is a couple I snapped the other week. Mark, the policeman.

This uniform belonged to Alex who was so into police officers when he turned four. This guy, actually, doesn’t dress up very often, he is more “playing with animals/dinosaurs/bad guys/cities and pretend” kind of guy. Cannot wait till we can play outside more!!!

Guess who else is growing up? Yes, our Alex. He is seven and half now, but by the way he looks, you’d think he is ten. I still have to keep reminding myself that Katya and Alex are NOT the same age. Alex still loves to cuddle with me, endures all my hugs and kisses and enjoys me tucking him in at night. Right before he falls asleep, he loves to talk about one thing—planning of his birthday. His birthday is not until July…and we’ve been talking about it for several months already. This year he is hoping to have a big bowling party on base (with some American and some British friends), have a piñata in a shape of the planet Earth and a cake that looks like a flag of the Maldives.  He also talks about his one-on-one time with Robert ON his birthday, when just the two of them are planning to go to an amusement park.

Alex loves to dance and I wish I could give him an opportunity to be on the stage somewhere. He’s got quite the moves…

Soon his class is going to put up a production at school, so we’ll see how Alex does-haha. I believe he has two lines.

Katya took these pictures of him, so I am not even sure what he is doing here.

And Katya, of course…oh, Katya. “Sugar and Spice”—that is so Katya.  Some moments of her playing and helping nicely around the house I want to cherish in my memory forever (and I want HER to remember that she does like her brothers and parents).  Other times, I have to stop her and point out what is happening with her mood or attitude and take a deep breath hoping for a lot of patience. She is the sweetest girl! She is also very good at sensing what is right and what is wrong, and that has been a great challenge for her at the new school. Some cultural differences between kids she used to play with and the kids that are her classmates now are very drastic, so she is bombarded with some of the negative influences at the moment. She has been getting better and better though at being able to ignore those things that sour her day and try to focus on her new friends. Some days she really wants to go back to the American school, and we absolutely understand why….our Misawa school was just such a safe friendly environment, surrounded with the sweetest memories for her. We hope that this year Katya will be able to start making good memories at the village school as well, and it will only get better before her Year 6 (5th grade).

Well, there was a quick update on the kids. They are happy, healthy, fed and loved.  And they all want to see you come visit!

Lyana.