It is in the nature of both weeds and children to grow

Ben Franklin said that.*

It's not unusual for kids from orphanages to experience a growth spurt after they come home with their new family.  It's probably due in part to getting better nutrition and in part easing into a lower-stress environment.  Like other orphanage kids, Elena was tiny when she was in the baby house: below the third percentile in height and weight when compared to other kids here age.  The orphanage kids will often "catch up" once they're out of the orphanage environment.

And that's exactly what Elena's done. We measured Elena recently, and in the ten months since we got home from Russia, she's grown over four inches taller. That's pretty substantial for a 2-3 year old, and it makes her taller relative to the kids in her age group, too. Now she's more like the 25th percentile: still smallish, but not quite so far out on the tail on the normal distributution.

Experiencing a growth spurt really isn't surprising, as those of you with kids know.  But it's sometimes surprising when you recognize just how much they've grown.   

Tummy troubles cause eye troubles

Elena's been generally pretty healthy, save for a couple brief there-and-gone fevers way last fall.  She got through the entire winter, spring, and most of the summer without getting sick at all.  I suspect that's due in large part to not being substantially exposed to other kids and their disease of the week.  It might also be due to having a beefed up immune system from living with other kids 24/7 for two years.

Whatever the reason, we've avoided a lot of childhood illnesses, until just this week.  Elena woke up Monday night, throwing up and with a high fever.  She had a pretty rough couple hours until her stomach settled and the Advil took effect, but she eventually dropped back off to sleep.  However, the low-grade fever has stuck around, and that means her eye surgery, originally scheduled for tomorrow, will have to wait.  So now it's all the way into mid-September.

We're not done yet

Way back when we petitioned the Russian court for parental rights, we promised to do a number of things.  One of these things was to file "post-adoption reports."  The post adoption reports are similar to the homestudy that is done before adoption, but focus on the child's development, attachment, and integration into the household.  This, for example, is a blank report form from out adoption agency, and here's a bit more information on post-adoption reports, courtesy of other adoption agencies: Children's Hope and Dove and Adoption Ark.

Russian law requires four post-adoption reports to be filed: the first is due six months after the adoption is finalized, and the next three are due at 12, 24, and 36 months after adoption.  Filing the reports cost some money: one has to hire a professional caseworker to actually write the reports, and then there's translation and mailing (although our adoption agency takes care of that).  However, there are a number of reasons to actually comply with the post-adoption reporting requirement, not the least of which is that we promised to do so, and a promise is a promise, right? 

More importantly, though, the Russian government can be understandably miffed about non-compliance with their requirements, and they can and will halt adoption proceedings from adoption agencies whose clients have not filed post-adoption reports.  So, in other words, not filing the post-adoption reports screws things up in a big way for the people behind us in line. Not that we need more motivation to do the right thing, but it does make me wonder why anyone would not.

In any case, this subject is topical, because our second post-adoption report is due in September.  Given the time it takes to write and apostille and translate and mail, that means the caseworker visit needs to take place right about now.  This afternoon, as a matter of fact.

The eyes have it

If you spend time with Elena, you'll eventually notice what's obvious about in this picture:

Elena's Russian passport picture

Her eyes have a tendency to cross - strabismus is the medical term.  With Elena, the condition is intermittent: it will be nearly imperceptible most times, but will show up more often when she's stressed, or when she's looking either askance or at something very close (when one's eyes tend to pull inwards naturally).   She has some tendency to favor the left eye and let the right wander, but which eye she uses will change (in the picture above she's actually favoring her right eye).

We've talked to a couple pediatric opthamologists about this condition, and although their opinion on the potential effects of strabismus varied, they both agreed that, at this age, the only effective corrective action is surgery.

We had a pre-surgical meeting with the opthamologist today, and Elena's sugery is scheduled for Thursday July 26.  It's fairly minor outpatient surgery, but it does involve general anesthetic, and any surgery is not to be taken lightly.

Wish her luck.

Searching for the perfect word.

I noted some months ago that Elena loves to be told (in Russian) that she's a sweetie, and she's smart: "Elena slatkaya, Elena umnia."  But she also, quite quickly, added her own request: Elena kukayaka.  "Elena slatkaya, Elena umnia, Elena kukayaka."  It's a little mantra; we'll go through the list and she'll prompt if one is missing.
Me: Elena slatkaya.
Elena: Umnia.
Me: Elena umnia.
Elena: Kukayaka.
Me: Elena kukayaka.

So we've been telling her, for months, that she's "kukayaka."  Only problem is, I didn't actually know what "kukayaka" means.  The usage here is pretty context-free; all I could tell is that the word was a noun or an adjective.  And Elena couldn't really tell us; I doubt too many three-year-olds are that good at providing definitions of words, let alone ones in a different language with no concrete context.

But, I thought, it's time to figure out what the word means.  That's not as easy as it sounds: two-year-olds (Elena's age when she learned the word) consistently add or subtract syllables, or change letter sounds, in the words they use.  Elena's no different, and she absolutely mispronounced some of her Russian words: substituting a K into "bumaga" (paper) to make "kumaga," for example.  So it's not only a hunt for what "kukayaka" means, it's a hunt for how it should actually be spelled and pronounced.

It's unlikely to actually be "kukayaka."  There is a "Denis Kukoyaka," who's apparently a Russian actor/comedian who starred in a 2012 Police Squad-style film, and has some notoriety (as seen in this odd little "Kukoyaka-style" video).  But, a) I don't think he was well-known in 2011, and b) who calls a baby by the name of a comedian?  "Oooo, my precious little Richard Pryor"?  C'mon. Nyet. Not likely.

So what's it likely to be?  I figured it's probably an endearment, similar in tone to "slatkaya" (sweetie), so I'd start there.  After a little searching, I found this list of Russian endearments for children. It doesn't have "slatkaya" or "kukayaka," but it does list "KUkolka," and that's awfully close: turn the L into a YA and it's the right word. (Pronounce both L and YA slowly and see how similar the tongue position is; an easy transposition for a toddler.)

"Kukolka" is a diminutive of "kukla," which means "doll."  (as in the title of the old TV puppet show: "Kukla, Fran, and Ollie"). "Kukolka," then, means "little dollie," in the same way that "slatkaya" means "little sweetie." 

That all seems to hang together as an explanation of Elena's "kukayaka," although when I suggest she's a "kukolka," she immediately corrects my pronunciation back to "kukayaka" (she being the resident expert on the Russian language).  So I'm not completely sure I have the correct meaning of the word, but it's at least a pretty good educated guess.

UPDATE, August 1: Elena now likes to also be called a "kukolka," although she now pronounces it as "kookagon," and considers it a seperate word from "kukayaka."  Still, "kookagon" amuses me, to the extent that it resembles an as-yet-undefined geometric shape.

My baby's so smart...

I've said before that I don't really want to turn this blog into a "funny thing our kid did today" blog, and neither do I want to turn it into a "my baby's so smart" blog, but I'm going to make an exception just this once, and for a reason.  This is really a post about language acquisition and communication, but it's also about problem solving.
I've recently been mulling over problem solving as a useful skill, specifically because of a particularly knotty issue we've had at work. For me, as an engineer and a researcher with a doctoral degree, a lot of what I do--particularly the really hardcore parts of the job description--boil down to "problem solving."  I suspect that, for most other professions, "problem solving" is part of the job to some extent, and probably a large extent.

And so it's been intriguing to me to see Elena use problem-solving skills, particularly in language and communication.  As I've said before, Elena seems to value communication pretty highly, and really makes an effort to get her meaning across.  However, her pronunciation and grammar are still pretty shaky (she's three years old, after all), and that leads to some problem-solving opportunities as she learns English.

These were most apparent last year, when her vocabulary was still minimal and her pronunciation shakier still. A couple stand-out examples:

The world is full of dadas

An interesting anecdote: Teresa took Elena shopping today.  Elena tends to indulge in a running commentary on whatever catches her eye in her surroundings; since she's three years old, her commentary is somewhat... unfiltered.  As an example, she'll loudly label interesting or odd things or people as "funny looking," which can teeter on the edge of amusing, but usually more towards being a little embarassing, as in  FUNNY LOOKING PANTS! FUNNY LOOKING CHIN! FUNNY LOOKING MUSTACHE! etc...

Today at the store, she startled both a rather distinguished looking African-American gentleman, and a Sikh with a large turban by pointing and calling them "DADA."   This is not a new thing.  Any random guy that she notices in her perambulations may be called DADA, even though there may be few discernable similarities (besides pants) to her "Official Dada".

That might seem like a troublesome indicator, but I think it's really more a problem of definitions, as well as a window onto Elena's history.  There are no men working at the orphanage, so the only time the kids see a male face is when someone visits, wanting to adopt a child.  The first time we visited the orphanage, for example Elena's friend Anna kept pointing and labelling me a "dada"--an experience shared by other potential dadas.  Women might fall into more than one category, but all men are dadas, even if they aren't THE official dada.

Elena knows the difference between random men and her "Official Dada" (that would be me), I'm sure, but her internal definition of the word hasn't yet caught up.

Update, 7/7: We had a few discussions with Elena about this, pointing out the potential social awkwardness of her off-the-cuff verbal commentary. Really, "discussion" is a bit strong of a word, because how much explanation of "the potential social awkwardness of her off-the-cuff verbal commentary" is going to sink into a three-year-old's brain, anyway?  Still, something seems to have sunk in, because now she's pointing out random guys and calling them "NOT DADA."