Adjusting

I apologize for being absolutely terrible about posting updates. Andrei finally got moved into his own room last night, and I think it was the first time in nearly a month that I slept more than 3 hours at a time. Maybe I can do better now. The girls are now sharing a room. The bunk beds are not going so well with Kennedi. She is having a hard time settling down and not bugging her sister. It's just too tempting not to keep kicking the upper bunk, ya know??? And from what her sister told me this afternoon, she was up at 5:00 throwing Annsley's doll house furniture all over the room. That would explain why my 6 year old was snoring on the couch this afternoon... Maybe I'm the only one sleeping now... Andrei loves to play peek-a-boo. He is now eating his Puffs using his pincher grasp and hitting his mouth with 90% accuracy. I was having the hardest time getting him to drink all his milk before the end of the day, so in a brainchild move, I put it in a straw sippy cup (I love Zoli Bot straw cups!!!) and it has become a non-issue now. He no longer screams when breakfast/lunch/dinner is over; he no longer screams when he gets his diaper changed. He now will let me rock him for long periods of time. At first, anything over 2 minutes and he was arching his back and throwing one heck of a fit. I'm a big advocate of putting my babies down before they are completely asleep, but he is actually relaxing enough to close his eyes and nearly go to sleep in my arms. Yeah! Now, the napping is another issue. He's been hit or miss on the naps. I've been changing his schedule a little by making sure he is up and adam by 7:30AM, and it seems if I have him in bed by 9:45AM for his morning nap, he will generally sleep an hour then. I've been rereading Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child again, and I so I started today with a longer "soothing" time before his naps, and it seemed to help. Both my girls were such awesome sleepers, and I owe so much of it to that book. I've finally decided not to even turn on the video monitor until an hour has passed, so that I don't get frustrated watching him not take his naps. It is certainly helping me with my attitude if nothing else. He has taken to Kennedi's old taggie blanket I had made for her. As soon as I pick it up, he pops his thumb in his mouth; it is so automatic it is frightening. I'm so excited that he has picked that up as a comfort object, as in Russia he was always "fingering" the bed sheet and holding it to his nose. I was afraid I was was going to have to cut up one of my bed sheets and have him tote that around. That was pretty sad watching that whole thing. His sisters love him dearly although Annsley is starting to realize that he is taking alot of my time. Kennedi thinks he is her doll and tries to drag him all over the house. When she takes a toy that he's been playing with, he starts babbling loudly like a mad Chinese man. I know he'd be cussing if he knew how to cuss. Annsley keeps asking if he's going to talk Russian when he starts saying words. He has learned his new name, Andrei. He will pat his chest when we ask him, "Who is Andrei?" He pats and pats his chest and just smiles. I think he is trying to say "Ball." It comes out "ga"...close enough if all you've heard is Russian all your life! (EDIT: I apologize for the lack of paragraphing. Blogger kept taking them out. I promise I had them in there!!)