Katya learned a new skill today– popping bubble wrap! She has always been afraid of the “pop” noise, but today, when I gently insisted she try with hunter’s muffs, she was brave enough to push past her fear of the pop. She is now carefully popping *all* the bubbles, and is very pleased with herself.
That’s my girlie!
Katya’s school helped organize a sensory-friendly concert. The program was “Ferdinand the Bull”, and “Peter and the Wolf”. Both were accompanied by an orchestra and narrated, and the latter was a ballet!
The venue had gone to lengths to make the morning a fun one. They had a story-board * available online; the noise level was just right; you were allowed to switch seats and move around; there were crafts in the lobby; and even two of the bathrooms had been switched to be “family”.
Chad loved it all, and especially enjoyed Ferdinand the Bull. He was so into it, I wish you could have seen him!
Katya seemed to prefer the ballet. Her favorite character was the Duck; Chad’s was the Cat.
Here we are being introduced to the villainous Wolf.
We had a real good time.
*A story board is a board or book, usually with pictures, that explains how an event should go. Like the “My First Trip to the Dentist” books you can find at the library, only more individualized. A story board would have pictures–if at all possible–of the *actual* dentist’s office and staff your child would be seeing.
When we first adopted Katya she didn’t understand the pleasure that a pile of warm towels can bring. Her first laundry day she was a bit upset when I tried to lay her down on the couch, but when she realized how nice those towels felt, she actually lay still for ten whole minutes until they cooled off. Now all I have to do is yell, “Hey Katya, towels!” and she comes running.
“Warm!” she says.
Yesterday I took Katya and Chad out for a walk, after Katya got home from school. The woods were wet, muddy, brown, and very beautiful.
Katya wanted to take a different path than usual, and so we headed up a steep muddy slope on a thin foot path. Within the first two yards, I discovered that Katya has a fear of slipping. “Katya, look at–Katya, look at me. Do you want to go back? We can go back down?” “No, no, no. There!” said Katya– I translate–pointing up the path. “Are you sure?” “Yes!” “Then stop screaming!”
But it was hard for her to stop screaming. It was a narrow muddy foot path, surrounded by bushes, saplings, grasses, and the odd thorn. Katya’s plant recognition is not sufficiently developed to the point where she can identify prickers vs sticks or stalks at a glance, and she knows that bushes can poke, so she was in a constant state of twitch, shrieking every three steps or so. The muddy path posed an additional problem, because at any moment Katya felt that she could be pitched headlong into one of the aforementioned perils. But she did *not* want to quit!
We must’ve taken a wrong turning, because we ended up on the golf course. Katya was *so* happy to be able to turn around without worrying about bushes and sticks and things.
The way back down was a challenge for me. Chad has been climbing down hills since he could walk, and has mastered the sideways “crab walk” necessary for descending steep slopes with dignity, but Katya’s early life was spent on flat surfaces. Her unsteadiness led her to grip tightly to my hand, depending on me to keep us both upright, a difficult task when she kept stepping on my foot!
Apart from a muddy shoe, we made it down without mishap. We cleaned our shoes off in a snow pile, and Chad and Katya had a snowball fight.
We arrived home at the best time–just in time for supper!
We got invited to a rollerskating party at our local ca. 1940’s rink–ugly Christmas sweaters encouraged. Our sweaters were thrifted–although I had to uglify Chad’s sweater myself, because the thrift store was fresh out of ugly sweaters.
I had a grand old hour crafting. It was really fun to make something without worrying about how it turned out. Chad loved his sweater. I asked him- “Is it everything you wanted?” He said, “No. It’s more!” 
We magic-markered his nose red, and Chad went as a reindeer! We had a lovely time, and looked very ugly!
Katya was on Thanksgiving break yesterday, I had no violin, and the day was warm. Obviously we should go to a park!
First we enjoyed the warm sunlight in the nature center.
A troop of turkeys came marching out of the woods–pity we couldn’t bag one for Thanksgiving.
Chad and Katya were very excited to watch the turkeys at the feeder.
We also checked out the specimens in the nature center. 
I had no idea that river otters were so large!
The day was beautiful, and warm enough that Chad’s asthma didn’t bother him much, so we were able to walk down to the waterfowl preserve.
We looked through the spotting scopes at the duck pond, and saw a snapping turtle sunning itself on a rock.
My camera actually worked, for once, and I got a nice picture of Katya, which is difficult to do, because she is twitchy.
Then we visited a dam.
It was really windy!
Afterwards, we watched airplanes take off at the airport, ate frozen yogurt, and then went home, while I read “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” aloud in the car.
Sometimes, when Mum needs a break from six people needing her attention, she asks Daddy to take us out for the afternoon. This time it was to The Conservatory, or the “Mechanical Garden” as Chad calls it.
The plants were, as usual, beautiful.
Due to the snow, the place was practically deserted.
I thought the geometry beautiful.
They had switched up some of the blown glass.
As for us, Kristina matched the flowers,
Katya smelled the flowers,
Chad and I saw cute things in the gift shop,
the butterflies were almost morphed,
and Katya had snow on her eyelashes.
It was a nice time.
We’ve spent our holiday quietly. Yesterday I passed my drivers test (Yay!) and Katya had a party at school. When we told her she was going to have a party at school, she was distressed, until we explained it would be a small party. Due to the many special needs and food allergies represented at her school, they don’t do food or candy at their parties, so Katya came home with her bag loaded with Valentines, stickers, and other cute things. She wore this skirt, from “Sew Sweet Handmade Clothes for Girls” by Yuki Araki. Here’s the link to the other skirt I made. (You’ll have to scroll down a bit)
Katya’s party hair, hastily taken.
Katya was very personable and “age ten” after school, and was game to take some selfies.
Today was spent more quietly, with a sleep in and then cleaning. I made rice-crispy treats with red sprinkles. It was nice and quiet. So quiet that instead of putting on my noise-reducing headphones and listening to music all evening, I sat on the couch and read a library book– “The War that Saved My Life” by Kimbery Brubaker Bradley. I thought it was topping, with a true-to-life depiction of the terror of learning to trust.
Then I popped popcorn and we watched “The Boxcar Children”. As you can see, we decorated our tree for Valentine’s Day. Katya made the heart with eyes.
It was a nice day.
It was so warm Sunday afternoon that I took Chad and Kristina for a walk in the wood.
We had lessons in creek jumping. Kristina kept getting stuck.
I was fascinated by the snowy stream.
Chad identified the tracks of a Meadow Vole– only he called it a “Meadow Vobe“, until we figured out what he meant and corrected him. How this boy knows these things is beyond me.
I found some vines–“telephone wires” we always have called them– and some seed pods.
It was a nice walk. It always amazes me how even the relatively bleak winter world is still so beautiful. The wood’s skeleton is so sophisticated.
We were sorting through Katya’s Corner, and found some nice artwork. Here you see Two Guitars. Katya’s music teacher has been teaching her a bit of guitar, which I suppose is what inspired her.
Here is a Mosaic Lion, made from snips of construction paper.
Funny story about Katya– last night while she was taking her bath we heard her thumping, so I go in to check. She’s fine, but when I ask her what’s wrong, she blows in my face. I say, “What, Katya? Why are you blowing in my face?” Katya blows some more. I think, “blow –> air –> wind –> fan” and so ask “Fan? Do you want the heater off?” and Katya, bless her little heart, says (with her mouth!) “Duh!” complete with intonation!
The Science Center was holding a sensory viewing of Frozen on Friday night, which means that they left the lights on dim and turned the sound down a bit. We all went, except Kristina, who opted to go to a sleep-over. Chad, who adores Olaf, dressed up for the occasion. He even made himself a nose!
We had loads of fun. Katya whipped her little head around when the airplane in the pre-show cartoon popped out of the screen and the surround sound took over. She was startled, but understood when I explained about there being lots of speakers. Even Todd liked it. We went to Menchies afterwards as my birthday treat, which was great because it also happened to be National Froyo day (I hadn’t even known there was such a thing!) and they were giving away 6oz of yogurt free per customer! Chad and I also got to walk around the shopping mall while Katya got some one-on-one with Mum and Dad at Trader Joe’s. The folks at Trader Joe’s are nice, and let Katya ring stuff up and bag it. We all really needed the fun.
Kristina had a birthday, and turned fifteen. Her birthday dawned cold and clear, with wood smoke over the valley. It was lovely.
Pink is so easy to do this time of year. I made her coconut chocolate pudding.
So far February has been good.
Chad pretending to be a penguin:
Chad holding his nose because someone burnt eggs:
Katya in one of her usual hangouts:
Chad with his reward for finishing a work-book:
Italian style “Meatloaf Cupcakes”:
Winter light over the valley:
The Ukrainian Christmas season is a little later than ours, which is why on the 11th we were able to go to a Carol Service at a Ukrainian-Catholic church.
It was a beautiful building. Having been raised both Mennonite and Wesleyan Methodist, the church buildings of my youth never got any glitzier than maybe some gold curtain rings. Actually, for awhile the Methodist church did have some gold glitter worked into the ceiling plaster. I used to stare at the sparkles and imagine that the reflected points of light were little pinholes that angels were looking through– hence the light. Of course, gold sparkle had nothing on this.
We made sure to sit in the back, so that we could slip out in event of a meltdown. It was cozy under the choir loft. We figured Katya would feel more secure under a ceiling.
We got there maybe 15 or 20 minutes early, but were not bored. Singers and some audience members wore traditional Ukrainian or traditional-inspired clothes, I saw some truly envy-worthy fur coats, and over it all was a soothing wash of Russian and Ukrainian. Katya happened to see some very cute children in very cute Ukrainian costume and suddenly looked a little insecure, and touched her skirt self consciously. I reminded her that she too was dressed very pretty, and was wearing great boots and a large hairbow, and Katya cheered up. She can wear her Ukrainian clothes next year.
Isn’t she cute? (Disclaimer: Mum *has* to sit like that because of her trifocals.)
The music was lovely. It was so good to hear Ukrainian and Russian again. Katya really enjoyed the music, and sometimes acted as if a song was familiar.
We really had a lovely time.
Todd and I took Chad to the park on the hill, because it was an achingly beautiful evening and we’d never been there in the winter.
Somewhere there was the hollow noise of the interstate, the whish of cars on side streets, the hum of heaters. All the noise of town drifted up to us in a vague impression of noise, the merest echo of sound. The river made continuing sounds below us, as the water ran under the ice. The crows waged turf wars, rival factions fighting over roosting realestate.
Chad, whilst running to throw his juice box away, slipped on the ice and landed perfectly.
We admired an abandoned house from afar,
then headed to the playground.
It’s a shame that so few parks nowadays have merry-go-rounds or see-saws. Fortunately our town budget is too small to go replacing all the park equipment. It’s cheaper to just repaint the thing.
We had come to play on the slide, which is very long. We brought an old rug for that purpose. Chad got a little scared, but then the rug provided such good friction that I had time to turn my camera on and take pictures before he ever reached the bottom.
Fortunately there was some old plastic sheeting laying around, which sped things up quite a bit.
Chad over came his fear, and went down several times, not even minding the bumpy part at the bottom. He said he was having so much fun it was worth the pain!
The crows kept launching themselves from the trees,
the sun set,
and we headed home.
Katya said she wanted a chocolate sheet cake. Our conversation was typical of the ones we have with Katya, and went something like this.
Me: “Katya, your birthday is tomorrow! You will be ten years old! Do you want cake?”
Katya: Signs ‘yes’.
Me: “Do you want a chocolate cake or a white cake?”
Katya: Signs ‘yes’ enthusiastically.
Me: Begining slowly, “Do you want chocolate…”
Katya: ‘yes’, enthusiastically.
Me: “Chocolate cake?”
Katya: while signing ‘yes’ enthusiastically, “Heh!” (Translated: “Yes”!)
Me: “Okay, chocolate cake it is. You love chocolate, don’t you?”
Katya: ‘yes’. Begins to turn away, done with conversation.
Me: “Wait! Katya, do you want one cake, or cupcakes?”
Katya: Looks confused.
Me: Holding up appropriate fingers, “Do you want one cake,” pauses, “or cupcakes?”
Katya: Wants to take bath. Turns away.
Me: “Do you want cupcakes?”
Katya: “Hoe.” (Translated: “No”)
Me: Surprised, “Do you want one cake?”
Katya: Briefly holding up a finger, “Hunh!”(Translated: “One”) Turns away.
Me: “One cake?”
Katya: signs ‘yes’.
Me: “Okay, Katya, one chocolate cake. I’ll make it tomorrow, okay?”
~~~
A similar conversation took place after her bath, when we were discussing candles. Katya in years past has had a fear of candles, and so the ones shaped like numbers were best. But when at lunch time the next day it was discovered that we had no “zero” to complete the 10, she was fine with individual candles.
She seemed to be a bit philosophical about her birthday this year. She kept staring thoughtfully at the cake. I’d pay a great deal more than a penny for her thoughts.
It was a chocolate banana cake, with pink lemon icing and sprinkles. Katya is very fond of sprinkles. She put the candles in the cake herself.
Katya has recently re-discovered her love for Matryoshkas, after I showed her how to open them without them “squeaking”. Katya has sensitive ears. But she likes playing with them now. Keeping that in mind, I spread the table with a white cloth and used one of our colorful Ukrainian Matryoshkas for the center piece. I was careful to not use a doll with a tiny “baby” that could get misplaced or eaten.
Katya’s favorite meal is soup, so to go with the soup I set out crackers, cheese, and tiny sweet peppers. Katya adores pickles–even her name sign is like pickles– so of course we had those. The peppers and pickles went with the color scheme nicely.
Everything was very good. Katya didn’t freak when we had the candles on the cake, and blew them out with gusto.
Katya received a shirt and sweater,
Black boots (not pictured), and 365 piece Lego set, which she put together all by herself!
She had a very good birthday, I think. And our baby girl is ten!
Cherry Tea 