Splish, Splash, Splosh…

This week, the dog days of summer have given us tremendous amounts of rain….torrential rain at times. You would think that we moved to some place tropical…hahaha…

This week, we officially registered Victoria for school, where she will be starting next month! She was able to meet her principal again and is getting more excited about starting school. This coming week, Victoria will go to an open house at the school, where she will get a full tour. In a few weeks, Victoria will get to meet her teacher (whom we have heard great things about) and will visit her classroom (and desk) for the first time. Very exciting stuff!!!

One night this week, we ate some corn on the cob with dinner. Victoria really enjoys eating the corn right off the cob, but this time she seemed to have a little trouble eating it. It turns out that her left-front bottom tooth (which had been ready to come out for some time now) was really loosened. After her bath, Victoria asked “Mommy, may I pull?” (referring to her loose tooth). So, she stepped up to her bathroom sink and gave it a tug. Much to Victoria’s delight, it came right out without any pain! She was all smiles and was clearly excited. After a little inspection, we were able to see that her big girl teeth are really starting to show…this, of course, raised her level of excitement even more (she was raising her arms in a sign of victory)!! Heck, there was all of this excitement and we had not even gotten to the Tooth Fairy yet! Victoria wanted to know if the Tooth Fairy was going to come, but still seemed a little sketchy about the fact that she flies. So, since it was now just after 9pm, we assured her (as we did for her first tooth) that Mommy would call her the next day, then she would drop off Victoria’s “surprises.” The Tooth Fairy came through nicely again, dropping off a book, some quarters and some stickers for Victoria.

At week’s end, Victoria went out to dinner with Mommy, Daddy and some of their good friends. Over the weekend, we went to a zoo with friends and their three boys. We feared rain all day, but lucked out to have a long dry period that allowed us to have a great day (even though it was pretty hot and humid…go figure). At the zoo, we were all able to go on a nice train ride which allowed us to see a lot of the animals. Once back on foot, we were able to visit a few more of the animal displays, then headed inside an educational center where they had a “Touch and Learn” show. The show was about some salt water animals and Victoria was able to pet a horseshoe crab. After the show, we headed over to a very large playground where the kids had a blast!

To end the week, Victoria, Mommy and Daddy went to a county fair. The previous night, there were enormous rains which left the grounds incredibly wet (and, unfortunately, muddy). We did not let this stop us, though. Victoria got to ride a pretty pony, she saw a number of animals and she was able to pet a few of them (including a rabbit and a turtle).

This week, we had our 6 month post placement visit (the first of 4 that will take place over 3 years as required by the Russian government). This entailed having a visit from our home study Social Worker. We spoke for well over an hour about a large number of subjects…Victoria’s medical status, her adjustment to her new environment, her relationship with us, etc. There are a number of reasons that the Russian government requires these visits; they want to see how well adopted children are doing and they want to ensure that adoption agencies are properly vetting families (ensuring that only “good” families are adopting). The process proves helpful to future adoptive families and will serve us well should we decide to adopt from Russia again.

Victoria continues to make tremendous strides with her English. She is picking up on a lot more concepts and starting to form more complex sentences. She is using the concept of “I like/love” and she follows it up with “Do you like/love?” She is also getting the hang of using “me.” In the past, she would say “Vika”, she now says “me”. For instance, the other night Mommy asked her “Who looks cute?” and she responded “me.” So incredibly cute…

Here are some pictures from this week…

Showing off the book that she got from the Tooth Fairy:

Enjoying the train ride at the Van Saun Park Zoo:

Watching a newly hatched baby chick at the county fair:

Laughing as the baby chick tickles her hands:

She loved watching the bunnies drink:

It was REALLY muddy at the county fair…

…it left our shoes a little worse for the wear:

Excited to have another pony ride:

Hanging out with the cow statue at the county fair:

Happy as she gets to clean the mud off of her legs (after the county fair):