My Life with Anya: Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toast, Knees and Toast…

Yes, being quite a mimic, Scott teaches Anya phrases when she is in her leaning mode. Earlier that day she was frustrated that we didn’t understand she wanted her bread toasted so we taught her “toast” and she learned it well. So, of course that evening when Scott was taught her “head and shoulders, knees and toes” she heard it as “head and shoulders, knees and toast, knees and toast”.

There is another funny thing she says too. Scott taught her that same night, “I don’t speak English.” She came out and said it once, then it turned into “I… don…spenglish!”

Anya got to meet all of her cousins, but somehow we only got pictures with the two teen cousins, two and three years older than her.She was quite the teenager while they were here. We went to the park and she nailed kicking the soccer ball. She zeros in on it and runs toward it and bam, kicks it straight on. Even is she were from my gene pool, I’d have to say she didn’t get that from me. I cringe and duck for cover when a ball comes my way. We also visited Dave at the firehouse and played with a handball on the racquetball court. Same drive and determination-throw your body down to get the ball. To me, that is a completely foreign idea!

Anya and two of her ten cousins.

On the drive to the firehouse, I had a local radio station playing Christmas songs and Anya seemed to be just staring out the window and not really paying attention to anything else. I heard a newer rendition of “Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, the very next day, you gave it away.” I don’t even know the title or who originally sang it, but I kind of liked this newer rendition by the cast of Glee (I am Showtunes lover, so I like the way they sing some of their songs, but have never actually seen the show). On the way home, the original version of the song, which I don’t consider classic Christmas song at all by any stretch of the imagination, began playing. I heard this soft addition to the song and looked in the rear view mirror to see Anya, in the sunglasses I bought in Riga, Latvia and look a bit like cat’s eye glasses, singing, “This Christmas……..give it to someone special, special.” It was so funny and also sad for this idealistic mother’s heart that the first Christmas song she chose to sing was that one! Later, I heard her singing to herself, “Jing Boo, Jing Boo” which by the tune a similarity of words must have been “Jingle Bells”.

Anya gets tired from all the new stimuli and sleeps a good 10 ½ hours a night. She loves to eat bread with butter and milk still and I can’t believe how quickly we go through those items.

Last week Dave’s brother was in an accident and had a major head trauma, requiring the ER to do an induced coma so he could rest and heal instead of thrash around. I had the translator tell Anya that her uncle was in the hospital and that Mama needed to go there for three hours to be with her aunt. Matt and a dear older friend who lived in Russia for three years stayed with Anya, but she was quite concerned when I got back. We called the translator again who told her that her uncle had very bad headaches and Anya told her that he needed to take his temperature and take all his medicine from the doctor. She was very concerned, but now things are better and he is walking and talking and actually coming home today!

That’s all for now as we are getting ready for our first trip to the pediatrician-could be fine or could be…interesting! I told her we were going today and she put on her “I’ll buck up and do it” face.