The Drama Queen a.k.a. The Russian Princess

We’ve had a good last few days. We are getting to know each other better. I’ve learned what happens if you tell her “no,” u huh that’s right, that’s when the drama begins. I’m not saying that my boys have always been 100% compliant, but this seems like a different technique than they use. You parents of girls are saying,”… told ya so!”
She is so funny the way she looks at the family pictures we have taped up on the wall, she points and randomly says dada, mama, dada, mama, about every picture. I have a picture of a cow up there too, since we live in Wisconsin, she points at it and says “mmmmmm” instead of “moooo” like I’ve been trying to tell her, but I know what she means.
I read a little bit about teaching babies/toddlers sign language before this trip. They say if you can teach the child 4-5 signs there are an epiphany and the baby or toddler understands the method, and quickly can learn more. We have this baby board book with signs; we’ve read it 15 times every day, at least. The signs are not quite as useful as I have planned, but when we see those stray dogs, she whips her head around and pats her leg to tell me “dog” just like we practiced. It’s so cute. She knows the signs for more, cat, fish, ball, book, baby and hat. She only does it when she wants too, it kind of goes with the Drama Queen role, it’s gotta be on her terms.
She also acts out yum-yum, boo-hoo, hight-night, hee-hee and I want mama, all from a book. We can talk about these things without the book and understand each other. Tonight a bedtime we looked at a photo album I brought from home of Craig, Louie and Scotty, I miss them so much I couldn’t help it I just started to cry. She looked up at me and made the boo-hoo face some fake crying noises, I think she was giving me empathy. I appreciated it.
Today we had some fun, it was really nice outside. I’d say maybe 20 degrees(just my skin thermometer) no wind. My friend Ken and his boy Alexi and us girls went for a little longer walk. We looked like tourist taking pictures in front of one of the old wooden house close to our apartment. The locals don’t seem to be interested in them at all. We think it’s were poor people live and we think there is no indoor plumbing. We see them caring buckets of water from a well down the street back to their home. Look at the detail in the wood work. I wish I know more about the history of these beautiful buildings. The neighborhood is a mixture of these old wooded houses and dirty cement apartment buildings. We past what I assume is a dental office, I thought about dropping off my resume’, but I decided at the last minute not to. We bought Cyrillic alphabet crackers so she can teach me a thing or two. I may have mentioned all the stray dogs barking all night, eating out of the garbage cans, running in packs…..well this one posed for a picture, isn’t he a cute Russian orphan?, honey can we keep him? No mom, of course we didn’t pet him, I told Naomi we couldn’t because I don’t think he’s up to date on his shots and I told her she already has a dog at home waiting for her!