First Thanksgiving

Ethan loves playing games. We’ll be driving down the road, and he’ll want to play “I spy”. Or, at the dinner table recently he wanted to play a game where we had to go around in a circle, each of us saying an animal that people keep in their houses (a surprising number, I discovered from his game). Or, one of us will say a letter, and the others will have to think of words that start with that letter.

It’s also gotten to the point where I can play actual board games with him. The first one was a Zingo game my friend Trish gave us, which is a type of picture bingo. Ethan understands the concept of taking turns, and who wins, etc. I also bought Ethan a memory matching dinosaur card game. I’m really terrible at finding the matching cards, so he usually wins. I was doing so badly the other day that he started giving me cards, or making me take extra turns so he wasn’t getting all of the cards (very typical of Ethan to want to share things).

Recently we’ve been hiring a 9-year old boy who lives next door to come over and be a ‘mother’s helper’ and play with Ethan. He’s really wonderful, and Ethan adores him. Ethan spends most of him time with any of his babysitters asking them to “pretend this” or “pretend that” with him. The other day I overhead Ethan telling the boy, “I’ll be Wonder Woman, and you be Super Girl.” Or, they’ll pretend some of the cars are good cars, and some are bad cars. Or, they’ll pretend to go on an adventure. At one point I saw them pretending to be skating in the hallway, slipping along in their socks, their hands held high, humming along.

Yesterday we had our first Thanksgiving with Ethan. He was a bit nervous beforehand, which has taken me a while to understand – even though we told him it was just a meal and eating turkey, he didn’t know exactly what to expect. Why should he? He’d never observed it before, and didn’t know if there was something else involved too that we hadn’t told him about.

It’s hard to fathom, but this time last year we were here in the U.S. preparing for our second trip back to Kazakhstan, and Ethan was waiting at the baby house for us to return, asking the translator if she would take us if we didn’t come back.

Visiting School

Ethan keeps on growing. Everyone is commenting that he looks taller. The pants that seemed impossibly long on him last year now fit. And it’s sort of scary how much he’s been eating. For example, the other morning he consumed between 450-500 calories at breakfast. He’s been eating everything I put in his lunch box most days, which is a lot since I always try to over-pack it. When he comes home, he’s been eating big snacks, and lots at dinner. Luckily, he still eats lots of fruits, between 3 to 5 pieces a day.

Last Friday I volunteered to help at his art class at school. The poor art teacher has quite a job, setting up all the materials before the kids come in, and then cleaning up afterwards. They’re only in there for half an hour, so everything is speeded up. Before they go to the paints, they sat around in a circle and learned that you can make grey by mixing black with white, and pink by mixing red with white, which they then practiced quite successfully themselves.

I didn’t realize how much it meant to Ethan to have me come into his school until he broke down sobbing on Thursday night. I asked him what was the matter and he said, “You weren’t in art class today!” I pointed out to him that he didn’t have art class on Thursday, and that I’d be there the next day.

On Friday, he grabbed me when I came in the class room, pointed to me, and told the other kids that I was his mom. At one point one of his classmates called “Ethan’s mom” to have me help her, and Ethan jumped up and said, “No, she’s my mom!” I pointed out to him that she was saying “Ethan’s mom”, and that she knew I was his. I was very glad I volunteered, and will try to do it again, since it’s also a great way to meet all the other kids in his class too.

First tooth, Halloween, and Tr. conference

This was a big week for firsts! Ethan had his very first Halloween, and went Trick-or-Treating for the first time. He loved it. The holiday combines two of his very favorite things in life: candy and costumes. Ethan dressed up as a Ninja “with three swords” as he tells anyone who asks. We went trick-or-treating around the block with our neighbors Nicholas (skeleton) and William (Spiderman). Here's a photo with them and two neighbor girls, Ninja Ethan is on the far right. All the kids had a blast, and Ethan is still working on his candy collection (he dumps out the candy on the floor and sorts through it to pick out one piece to eat when he’s allowed).

Ethan also lost his first tooth this week. It’s been loose for about a week, and finally came out at school. I thought it was cute that the nurse has a handy collection of little tooth boxes to give out to the kids so they don’t lose them. Ethan put the tooth under his pillow last night, and the tooth fairy gave him three little cars in exchange, which he enjoyed very much. (Guess the tooth fairy figured he’d enjoy cars more than money.)

We had our first parent/teacher meeting with his kindergarten teacher this week. She said that he was doing very well, and keeping up with the class. The teacher said she found it hard to fathom (as do we) that one year ago he was half a world away speaking a completely different language. She said that he’s well behaved, is helpful, and makes friends easily. I was very happy to hear that she thinks he’s doing so well.

Ethan has been learning a lot in kindergarten. (Kindergarten, by the way, is the new first grade. No more just playing – they work them pretty hard the whole time they’re there). Things he can do now that he couldn’t in August: recognize most of the letters, pronunce of half of them, and hear a word and often figure out what letter it starts with.

We also met Ethan’s “English as a Second Language” (ESL) teacher who he sees twice a week for 30 minutes. It quickly became clear to Mark and me that, ironically, Ethan speaks English about as well as she does. (What could Concord possibly have been thinking by hiring a non-native English speaker to teach ESL? Reminds me of the “blind leading the blind” style of language instruction that we saw in Kazakhstan.) Strangely, when she showed us the assessment tool that was used to place him in ESL tutoring, it showed Ethan to be slightly above average for a kindergartener in language skills. Hmmmmm. Even more strangely, we have to actually sign something and go out of our way to not have him in ESL instruction with a non-native English speaker whose comprehension levels are comparable to his own.