This is what I wrote yesterday.
This morning I was going to wake up at 7 and shower before school, but it didn’t work out. I woke up early enough for a normal day, but all of us woke up at 7 and tried to shower. When I found out that everyone wanted to I decided that I would after school.
On the school bus Aliona and I were looking at her princess book, and she told me that she had a Peter Pan toy(she had to show me in my dictionary the word for toy, because I didn’t understand that one), so I said “u menya yaest Peter Pan koneega(I have a Peter Pan book)”. That is the most that we have ever talked on our own, I was so excited. It was actually just a couple of days ago that I learned how to say I have, so even last week that was more than I would have been able to do. I haven’t been being good about my Russian lately, but I am trying to do better. I am going to study for an hour every day, flash cards, reading, translating, and trying to speak to Jamie in Russian as much as possible.
Breakfast this morning was lemon, cheese cake, puffy, pastry stuff. I don’t like it at all, so I just ate the bread and bologna.
Jamie and I spent most of the morning trying to come up with things to do with the preschoolers. We came up with several ideas, but none of it worked. They still ran around, they still didn’t pay attention, they still screamed, and they still didn’t learn a whole lot. At one point I was holding Max in my lap, we were trying to make crafts, and he didn’t want to sit in my lap. Mark came over and started pulling on his arm, then he said something in Russian, and Jamie laughed. I asked what he said, he said “let my beloved Max go please.” I was really annoyed with them at that point, but I have to admit that was so cute.
In kindergarten since it is St Patrick’s Day we had a party. Yesterday we told all the kids that today was a holiday in America, so they all had to wear green. They all had special outfits except Timur. He was wearing the same thing that he wore yesterday, but it was a blue green, so we called it green. The party was so much fun. First we played St Patrick’s Day memory, with things like gold, clovers, and rainbows, then we did a craft, a picture of a rainbow with a clover and pot of gold at the bottom, and in the pot of gold we gave them chocolate gold coins, then we had a dance break, we just danced around the room, then we watched a music video, read green eggs and ham, then we played St Patrick’s day bingo, then musical chairs. It was so awesome. At one point some kids came through our room in a line, and Timur looked over and said “sprasneecom”, which means “with the holiday”. I was so insanely happy that I knew what that meant. Kira was making her picture, and Louisa asked her which glue she wanted, and she said, without it being modeled, “I want blue glue”. That made me so happy. When she got here just a few weeks into this semester she couldn’t understand or say anything. She is doing so much better, it is just amazing. I love her so much. While reading green eggs and ham I tried to get the kids to beg the guy to try the eggs. The other kids all did it, clasped their hands in front of them and begged, but Timur just rolled his eyes and said “please eat the eggs” in an irritated voice. He has such an attitude problem, and he is only 6.
Lunch was pot roast, potatoes, and chicken noodle soup.
After lunch I didn’t really do anything, just typed on the computer. After a while we set up for our party for the older class and got started. We went up to meet the kids, then while Sarah and Louisa were taking them down I went to get cups from the cooks. One of Aliona’s friends, Onya, has decided that she likes me. She will sometimes come down with Aliona when she comes down, and lately has started hugging me. Well, today I found out that she knows English, at least some, I am not sure how much. She translated for Aliona and me for a couple of minutes and did ok. Well, as I was trying to get the cups her and Aliona came in. I asked her if she would help me get some cups. I told her that we were having a party and asked if she could help me. She asked me if she could have some candy. I told her yes, but that my candy was downstairs and they were having class, so it would have to be later, but could she help me get cups. She again asked for candy, and I again told her after class, and repeated my request for cups. She told me no and left. I managed to get the cups without her help, but I was a little bit annoyed with her.
The party was fun. They all remembered to wear green, which was great. We had all kinds of green candy. We did the same things with them as we did in kindergarten. The book went better. Since I had read it once I was able to make it more interesting. We did more acting, and I over acted the lines more and they had more fun with it.
After class they all went upstairs. While I was cleaning Sophie came down and started crying. It took me a while to understand what she was saying, but she said Onya’s name, then candy, then mimicked taking it away and eating it. I finally realized what she was saying and asked her if Onya had taken her candy. Yeah, that was why she was crying. I was so mad at her. I went and got her more, but I was pretty upset. I was kind of glad that I didn’t see Onya again that day, I was not sure what I would have done.
We were all the first ones on the bus. I sat down by Sarah, and the others kind of laughed and said that I would have kids fighting over me. Sarah wanted to try something, so she put me by the window and her on the outside, to see what the kids would do. Aliona gets on the bus and goes to sit down beside Caitlyn. She actually puts her stuff down beside her, then looks all over the bus, and finally sees me. She reaches out, behind Sarah, and says my name. I take her hand and she gives me a sad look, so Sarah says “alright” and gets up.
At home we didn’t do much, just kind of hung out. Jamie had had a bad day, so we had some ice cream and watched a movie. Louisa let us borrow She’s the Man, and we watched that. At first it was just Jamie and I, but Sarah joined us after a while. It was a pretty funny movie, but not one that I would watch over and over again.
Jamie agreed to help me with Russian, so that I am actually learning the things that I need to speak, not just learning what I need to get around.
