We had a wonderful holiday weekend starting on Wednesday with a trip to Longwood Gardens. We went with friends and the place has a new children's garden that is like a fairy land. It's an indoor garden with pathways winding around into niches with fountains and dragon statues - one that spits blood - a red fountain - and the attention to detail was incredible. Some of the walkways are very narrow and some of the ceilings are low they're designed for the kids. I got a family pass and want to try to get back there more often. We used to go alot in the summertime especially but I guess we did the waterpark more often this past summer.
Thanksgiving Day both of the boys had the attention of both of their sets of grandparents and my sister and had a great time outside since the weather was beautiful. When asked in school about his holiday Josh said that he got to ride bikes with Pop pop. I guess he forgot all about the food, and the family and that stuff, for him it was all about the bikes. I was able to stay in Josh's classroom on Monday since it was our turn to bring the snack and when I heard the other kid's descriptions I wondered how close to the real thing they were.
Dima got some birthday gifts including a matching game with characters from the movie Cars. They boys just can't get enough of that game. Josh jumps up and down and gives high-fives to whoever finds a match and even when someone else wins but you still have to remind both of them to look at more than the face down cards that are right in front of them over and over. It does seem like a good way to get Dima to go over stuff like they're doing in school like counting out and deciding which player has fewer and more matches. Both boys seem to have pretty good memories but Josh's is almost as if it's photographic cause he's really, really good at finding matches.
On Saturday while the boys spent time going to Lowe's and doing some male bonding I went to Maryland to spend time at the Thanksgiving fest with my old dance group. It only took just over three hours to get down there and I had a great time catching up with people and doing the log sawing competition and shooting fest and hayride int the afternoon, dinner was nice and there was a short show highlighting some of the incredible talent in the group. Later we danced some of our German stuff as well as some of the international dances that the originators of the group were heavily involvd in. Over this past Oktoberfest season the group acquired a new guy who plays a zither and an acordion as well as the guitar. Several of us stayed up until 4am around a campfire with s'mores and songs and lots of laughing. When I made my way down into the bunk room I was hesitant to even look at the time was amazed at how the day and the night had flown. The drive home seemed long and I had a nap as soon as I brought my stuff inside but it was worth it.
When I got here the boys were cleaning out the garage. Well, Chris was cleaning it while Dima flitted around doing not much of anything for any extended amount of time and Josh was sitting on the floor of the garage drilling nails into the drywall. He had a hockey helmet on and his little glasses and spent hours going along at drill-level since he can't pick it up and use it at the same time and was really intent and focused on what he was doing. Now we have a line of screws in the garage, but hey, it kept him busy.
Today both boys had pediatrician appointments. The doctor we go to is familliar with International adoptees and seems to know alot about issues they can be faced with. After some consideration and after watching the boys she mentioned Dima's lack of impulse control and she gave me names of various psych people to go to and even an ADHD clinic that's affiliated with Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. I'm planning to consult with Dima's teacher next week and ask her what she thinks might best help him. The office visit today was not fun at all cause I was so distracted most of the time by trying to wrangle the boys and give them things to do other than get wild it was hard for her to get through a thought without me having to try to settle them down. On our way there Josh actually said that he was tired so that was probably part of the problem. When they have busy weekends and or skip naps over a weekend it seems to me like it takes a few days for them to recover rest-wise especially Dima. He was asleep within minutes when we got here and settled in. This coming Thursday and Friday Dima's off school and Josh is not so it should be interesting to see how he behaves with out Josh around I'll probably take him hiking at Marsh Creek park since we'll be right there to drop Josh off and it's a great way to use up his hyper- energy in a good way that won't get him in trouble.
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