Drew and Demitri...

Drew playing with play-dough.

I like it when he does something quiet for a change. He loves to carve it up with a plastic knife. Today we played Memory, the card game where you match up two cards. We made a set, cut out from a Click magazine of animals and their homes and laminated them. He caught on quite fast, but... mom won. He learned to wait his turn and to pick up only two cards. When he picked up two that didn't match he said, "nyet", and put them back down.

Note Drew's new"padaruk" shirt (the little that's showing), that Rachel made for him. A padaruk is a gift (accent on the "da"). Come Sunday, we'll try on his "padaruk" pants that his aunt Asnath made for him. He wanted to put them on right away, but it was at the end of the day, and ... um, you know, it wasn't the best time of day for little boys to try on new clothes. Drew takes his "padaruks" very seriously, he carries the packaging around for days (til we throw it out), and it's always called his padaruk shirt or pants.

Demitri, like Drew loves it outside, no matter what the weather or temperature. This morning we played peek-a-boo behind that two-trunked tree.

Demitri learned two new words and he is sooo proud of himself; he is constantly looking for opportunities to try them out. They are: "bye-bye" while waving and "eil, eil" (hurry, hurry), while beckoning towards himself with his hand. So while he is walking away he turns around every 5 seconds and says, "bye, bye".

Lately Demitri has been taking a morning nap. He wakes up at 7:00 am, sometimes earlier, but never later, then he gets quite nasty and irritable a little after 9:00 am. So one day he took me by the hand, with his teddy bear, led me to his crib and said, "Hah-hah" (time to sleep). He sleeps for an hour and is totally refreshed until afternoon naptime. I'm glad he knew what he needed, cause I sure didn't.