Before I get into my day...
Congratulations to my sister, Stephanie and brother-in-law, Grant, on the birth of their 4th child!!
So I learned some personal things about Vladik today.
To tell the truth, I'm surprised he was willing to share.
We were talking about names. Middle names in particular. He didn't know what I meant at first, so on google translate, I typed in Joe's full name, then Kyle's, mine and Rick's. He laughed at all of them.
Turns out he does have a middle name.
Then, all of a sudden he started "talking" (typing) about other names. After working with the translation a bit, I discovered he has 4 brothers. Huh.
One is younger.... younger than Kyle, the other three are older than Vladik. I got the impression that the older three are old enough to not be in an orphanage... and in truth I don't know that they ever were. Just because Vladik is, doesn't necessarily mean the others are/were.
He said he doesn't get to see them much. I don't know if that means "never" or "rarely".
I think it was a difficult admission for him; so I told him, truthfully, that I also have family I rarely see because they live so far away.
Vladik had his eye exam today with Dr. Denbow. He passed with flying colors. No glasses needed. YAY! Even with the language barrier, it went surprisingly well. Of course, I spent quite a bit of time this morning explaining some of the specifics about the exam, showing him pictures of some of the equipment, and giving him an idea of what to expect. If he was nervous, he hid it well. He did a great job!
Before we left for town this morning, I asked Vladik if, after his exam, he would rather go play at the park or come back home.
He picked the park.
Unfortunately, it was pretty much a repeat of the spray park. He played for about 10 minutes and then sat on the bench until I forced Joe and Kyle to leave.
I got "How to Train Your Dragon" from Netflix today. We watched in this afternoon. Vladik said he'd seen it... and from what I can tell, he's seen A LOT of movies- certainly all the current ones. He said he goes to the movies often. That REALLY surprised me! I guess if I'm going to find something he hasn't seen, I'll have to go back to *my* childhood/adolescent years.... The Neverending Story, The Princess Bride, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Goonies, Candleshoe, Crocodile Dundee, etc. Or I could go WAY back... Summer Magic, Apple Dumpling Gang, Shaggy Dog, Flubber....
Can you think of any others?
Great job preparing him for the eye doctor, I never would have thought of that!
ReplyDeleteOur boy had also seen many current movies. One cute memory of hosting was when we watched "Home Alone" and my brother quoted the lines in English and Sasha was quoting them in Russian right along with him! Too funny!
Speaking of the middle names, most Russians/Ukrainians don't have middle names like us, it is usually their father's first name. You can bet how that can be a challenging topic for orphans... :( That's great he's sharing things with you, those are definitely moments to treasure!