Journal

The Terrible Twos - January 06 to Present

Dec 10, 2006...November came and went before we knew what hit us.  Can you believe it is almost Christmas?  My sister, Nikki, and her family (Jay, Blakeley, and Ryan) drove up from Georgia and spent Thanksgiving with us.  We had a great time together.  Christy cooked a big traditional Thanksgiving dinner and we just hung out around the house playing with Max.  Max's 3-year old birthday was Nov 28th, so we rented a bouncy thing for him.  He loved it.  It was bigger than we expected, it took up half the backyard and stood above the house.  It was shaped like Clifford the big red dog.  Now Max says "Jump in CliffordBigRedDog" He says it like one big word.  He had a Disney "Cars" Birthday party.

Max is really into Christmas this year.  He loves the trees and the lights.  He runs over to the Chimney and screams "SANTA COME OUT CHIMNEY!"  It is pretty cute.

Since Max turned three, he is eligible for the state's early intervention program's preschool.  We made the switch and he really loves it.  They keep him very busy.  It goes from 8 am to 1 pm and he is so tired that he can barely get home in time before he falls asleep.

Well, we have done most of our Christmas shopping and can't wait for Santa to get here.  This is going to be a great Christmas.

By the way, it is still not definite if  we are moving to D.C., now there is talk about moving to Oak Ridge, TN.  We should know something after the New Year.

Oct 29, 2006... Another two months have passed without a journal update.  It is so hard to keep up.  Max is still growing like a weed.  He is really starting to out grow the terrible twos.  I think a large part of his change is his language skills are finally developing.  He still struggles putting together more than a few words at a time, but I think his speech therapy is helping him catch up.  Early in the month Nana and Papa (Christy's Dad and StepMom) came to visit for the weekend.  Max loves them so much!!!  He started calling Papa, TACO!  That's Papa's Dog's name.  I think he does it just to make us all laugh.  We took match to a pumpkin patch and got some great pictures.  Max is really into Halloween this year.

Last weekend Christy took Max down to Atlanta and spent the weekend with her Aunt Bobby and other relatives.  Christy's Mom, Dale, (also known as "Mandy" another dog name Max came up with) flew to Atlanta for the weekend.  They had a great time.  Max got to play on the farm and ride a horse.  He is in his element when he gets to run around outside.

Last night we went to a Halloween Party at a local church.  A friend of ours, Connie Brown, invited us.  Max won the costume contest!  He is the cutest little Pirate you have ever seen.  Christy painted his fingernails black and I think he likes it.  After the party we went "Trunk or Treating".  That's where everyone decorates the trunks of the cars and the kids go from car to car and trick or treat.  We had a lot of fun and Max behaved very well.

Well, we have some new family news.  It looks like we are moving again.  I got a great promotion at work and they want me to move to Washington D.C.  It is an opportunity that I just can't turn down.  I am very excited about the work aspects, but nervous about moving to the big city.  I think we will really like it once we get settled.  The biggest fear is the price of housing in DC.  It's ridiculously high.  Anyway, I will start working and traveling a lot right away, but we probably won't move until after the Holidays.  Christy is in the middle of building a house (She's Max's personal "Bob the Builder"), so we want to get that finished before we move.  Anyway, things are always changing around here...

Sep 10, 2006...  We just got back from a great vacation.  I think this is officially our first family vacation.  We have taken lots of "trips," but none just for us to have fun with Max.  We flew from Nashville to Orlando to take Max to the Nickelodeon Hotel.  He was in kiddie heaven!  Christy's Mom met us down there and we all shared a big suite.

The hotel was all painted in Green and Orange like Nickelodeon and everywhere you look there was either Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob, or the Rugrats.  They had a great pool area with a small waterpark at the hotel.  We spent most of our time just letting Max swim at the pool.  Both mornings, we ate breakfast with all the Nick Characters.  We got lots of pictures with SpongeBob and Max's favorite, Dora.  He loved every minute of it.

On Friday night, the hotel set up a huge movie screen at the pool.   Max got to experience his two favorite things at the same time... swimming and watching a movie!  Saturday, we went to Sea World.  Max fed the dolphins, but I couldn't get him to touch the stingrays.  At 11:00, we went to watch the Shamu show and they had the space shuttle launch on the big screen in Shamu's stadium.  They showed the launch live on TV and the speakers were really loud.  It felt like you were at the launch.   Everyone in the stadium was cheering and then you could see the shuttle taking off over the horizon.  It was pretty awesome.  Max just grinned from ear to ear.

We all had a great time.  Max was as pleasant as I have ever seen him.  He traveled great on the airplane and was wonderful even when we probably took him on too many events.  He had a lot of fun with grandmommy (who by the way is now officially known as "Mandy").  I guess there are worse names Max could have picked.  It seemed like every time we turned around, "Mandy" was giving Max a toy or some candy.

Well, it was a great trip and we have some good pictures to post.  We think that maybe next year we will take a family vacation to "Jamaica".  One year worth of Nickelodeon is probably enough...    

Aug 20, 2006... Well, it has been a great summer.  You can see that we must be having fun because our journal entries are getting further apart.  The pictures that have been on the home page for the last couple of months are from our trip to Six Flags in Louisville, Ky.  We drove up and met some of our friends for a quick weekend,  Michael, Malisa, and Mindy.  We all had a great time.  We took the kids to the "Spaghetti Factory" and then spent a day at Six Flags and the water park.  It took Max a little while to get used to all the excitement, but after a while he really had a great time.  Just look at his face on the car rides!

We hit another big milestone during the week of July 4th...POTTY TRAINING!!!  Christy read this book "How to potty train in 1/2 a day".  It was written in the late 1970's.  We followed it exactly and believe it or not, by the end of the day Max was self initiating and going potty all by himself.  He has done awesome.  We have only had a couple of accidents in the last two months.  They usually occur when he is really playing hard and just forgets, or when we give him too much to drink.  He sleeps all through the night and doesn't wet the bed!  We are very proud of him.  We still struggle a little bit with going "Poo-Poo".  He gets a little constipated and then doesn't want to go, so we have to work with him a little bit. We use "Hershey Kisses" as rewards...He calls it "BIG CANDY" or "POO POO CANDY".  I know this potty talk is a little gross, but its life.

Max is really growing and talking a lot these days.  He is still a little behind in speech, but we understand what he wants most of the time.  He is still in Speech Therapy and I think it has really helped him this summer. 

He started back to Preschool already.  He is in the same class again (last year he was only 1 1/2, but they had him in the 2 year old class).  This year he is one of the biggest kids in his class.  He is doing great. 

This weekend was Christy's Birthday, so Max went to stay at his baby sitter's house for the night.  He stays with a local couple that treat him like a grandson, Sherry and Joe.  Max loves them so much.  When Christy drops him off, he jumps around with excitement.  He pointed at Christy and said "OUT...OUT".  He wanted Christy to leave so he could play with Sherry and Joe.  They give him lots of junk food and let him do whatever he wants.  We are blessed to find friends that take such good care of Max.

Anyway, I will update the web with a few more pictures.  We have a "Family Vacation" planned for early September.  We are going to Orlando.  Max is a little young for Disney World, so we are going to the Nickelodeon Hotel and just hang out around the pool.  It should be a lot of fun.

Jun 25, 2006...Ok, traveling with a two year old is not fun.  As I was trying to keep up with Max in the Atlanta airport, I kept asking myself, “WHAT WAS I THINKING BOOKING A TRIP WITH A TWO-YEAR OLD”!  It might not have been so bad if Byron had gone with us and I wasn’t carrying a diaper backpack (stuffed full), a laptop, DVD player and car seat/stroller!  I felt like a pack mule.  Even though the travel was exhausting, the trip to see my Dad & Jackie was well worth it!  Max had the time of his life!  Dad & Jackie took all the grandkids to see Cars, cooked Sloppy Joe’s (Max’s favorite), bought him new “Car’s” toys, golf cart rides, and had Brooke & Ryan over to play, play, play!  Max loves spending time at their house.  He loves the fact that there is ALWAYS something going on at Nana and Papa’s house!

Yesterday was Max's "HAPPY ADOPTION DAY!"  It has been exactly two years since we were standing in a Russian court room trying to convince a judge that we knew what we were getting in to.  That seems like another life.  We are trying to celebrate his adoption day each year, so that he grows up knowing everything about his past.  This year we took some Ice Cream to his Day Care class and they sang Happy Adoption Day to Max.  Then Christy got Max a few presents.  He really likes Dora the Explorer these days, so she got him some figurines and a Sit and Spin.  Yes I know Dora is a girl and that the sit and spin is pink and purple!!!  I just tell everyone that he likes "Boots" the Monkey (Dora's sidekick). 

It's starting to feel like summer here, so we joined the local country club to give Max a place to swim.  We were afraid that he would be scared of the water this year, but he isn't afraid of anything.  He is swimming really good.  He loves jumping in the pool (over and over again!).  He won't even go to the kiddie pool anymore, he likes to be in the big pool with the older kids. 

Well, next weekend we are off to another trip.  We are meeting Michael, Melisa, and Mindy Artelli in Louisville, KY.  We are going to go to Six Flags and a water park.  Hopefully we can find enough stuff for the little kids to do. 

May 12, 2006…So much has happened since Easter.  We have all been very busy so here goes the condensed version…Max is back in Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy.  We had him tested several weeks ago and the conclusion is that he needs some fine-tuning.  Max is just barely delayed in speech.  You can understand him when he speaks one word sentences, but when he starts putting 2-3 words together, you can’t understand what he is saying.  He is also having some trouble with receptive language skills and expressive language.  Max’s OT evaluation focused on his sensory perceptual processing skills in regard to proprioceptive and vestibular stimulation.  In a nut shell, Max is still exploring his world with his mouth and has trouble transitioning between activities.  Yes, I can hear my Mother now, “Leave the poor boy alone and let him be a kid!”  Somebody asked me the other day that if I was not aware of Max living in an orphanage his first 7 months of life, would I be having him evaluated and seen by an OT and ST?  I probably would not.  But I am extremely sensitive to Max’s past and as a parent I must give Max every opportunity to flourish in life.  Max’s evaluation included several other areas.  He tested on target for Physical Therapy (Gross Motor), only one month delayed for Cognitive and above target for Social/Emotional and Adaptive skills.  Max is doing better than we could have ever hoped for!  We anticipate only a few months of OT and Speech to get him caught up (age appropriate skills or on-target, it is called). 

Max had a first this month…a trip to the dentist!  With him having some oral sensory issues, we wanted to make sure there was nothing wrong with his teeth (however, the dentist did prepare me that he would need orthodontic work for his cross bite).  So, off to the dentist we went.  I was so nervous.  Not because I was afraid that my baby might be scared or could get hurt…I was afraid of how he would act!  I had pictured him running around the office screaming and not cooperating and becoming that mother that can’t control her kid!  Well, he did better than expected (the office was very prepared) and I only had to lay on top of him once!  Can you believe that the dentist wants me to start flossing his teeth?  Not on your life, I’d like to keep my fingers!  Oh yea, we are taking up a collection for the future orthodontic work!

Uncle Trey and Sherry (aka Santa and Mrs. Claus) came to visit.  You should have seen all the toys they brought Max.  It was everything that Trey always wanted as a child, but never received!  They all had a BLAST playing.  Trey told me that he was now covered for up coming birthdays/Christmas!  It was a great visit and Max really liked Sherry.  Every time she would get out of his sight, I would hear him yell, “Sherry! Sherry! Come on, Come on!”

Be sure to check out all the pictures.  Especially the Easter photos with the bunny.  His preschool had those made…I was so impressed that they went to all the trouble.  Speaking of preschool…Max has graduation from 2-year-old preschool on Thursday.  His teachers don’t know yet if he can participate.  It goes back to his sensory issues and transitioning.  Max has a hard time processing a new environment.  The graduation ceremonies are taking place in the auditorium and they have practiced only a few times.  Well, Max is not cooperating and is having a difficult time in this new place.  So, for now we will not know until the last minute!  BUT REMEMBER, Max is in an advanced class.  Technically, he is not old enough to be in a 2 year old class.  Max should be in the 1-year-old class (because his birth date is at the end of Nov.)   So, we are not too concerned and can’t expect him to be mature enough.  Byron is secretly hoping Max will not participate.  The ceremonies last over an hour (in the evening) and he’d rather be at home relaxing!  We have next year, Max will repeat 2-year-old preschool and be with kids his own age.

It will probably be June before we update our journal again.  So, we hope everyone has a great summer beginning!  We’ve got several trips planned this year so the journal entries should get fun!

Apr 16, 2006... Happy Easter!!!  We had a great weekend.  We decided to be spontaneous, so I tool off work on Friday and we all went to Nashville.  We spent most of the day at the Opry Mills Mall.  They have a lot of stuff for Max to do.  We fed the Stingrays and Max loved the Aquarium Restaurant.  It was a little too exciting for him, we couldn't get him to sit down and eat with us.  All he wanted to do was look at the sharks.  After his nap at the hotel, we went swimming in their indoor pool.  This was the first time Max has been back to the pool since last summer, so we didn't know how he would react.  Just like last year...no fear.  He jumped right in, went underwater, and swam like crazy.

After swimming, we went to eat at Macaroni Grill.  Max had a great time slurping his spaghetti.  Then to top off the day, we saw the new Disney movie "The Wild".  The movie wasn't very good, so we left after an hour.  By then Max had seen enough.  I think we might have over done it for the day.  He was really good all day and very enjoyable.  I think we all had a great time. 

Today, we went to church for Easter and then just spent the day at home.  Christy made a great home cooked meal (sweet potatoes, green beans, ham, rolls...and mississippi mud for dessert).  Max just liked the marshmallows on top of the sweet potatoes.

Max is still doing great.  We had him evaluated by the Tennessee early intervention program.  He tested above average for physical therapy and a little behind for speech therapy.  He still needs to see an occupational therapist to complete the evaluation.  He probably won't qualify for any help from the state program (which is good news, that means that he is not really behind), but we may take him to a speech therapist anyway to make sure he gets all the help to stay ahead in life. 

Mar 7, 2006... We have finally got settled in our new house.  We moved in a couple of weeks ago and have been trying to get everything unpacked.  We have all the boxes unloaded and most of the house is livable now.  We still have a lot of decorating left to do.  Of course with us it never ends (need to add a backsplash, buy more furniture, install cabinets in office, organize garage, etc).  With all this change, Max has done really well.  I think he likes his new house.  His latest thing is crawling in our bed and watching "Teletubbies."  Now that is a show I just can't understand.  My mom came to visit for a few days the first week we moved in, and then Christy's mom came to visit last week.  Needless to say, Max had been getting plenty of attention.  He is still going to his preschool two days a week and then he goes to Mrs. Pat's a couple of days.  He is learning new words everyday.  He can count to ten (with a little help).  Hopefully, we will get our fence up in the next week, so Max can start playing outside more.  He loves to be outdoors.  We are still going through this temper tantrum stage, but I think it is just a phase.  We probably spoil him too much...  Oh well, it's good to be an only child!

Feb 7, 2006… I had been out of town for over a week, so this Sunday we decided to drive to Murfreesboro, TN to take Max to Chuck E Cheese.  It is about a 45 minute drive, so by the time we got there, Max was starting to get cranky from riding in the car.  As soon as we drove up, he caught a glimpse of the Chuck E. Cheese sign and started squealing “Chucky! Chucky!”  (it actually sounds more like “Chowry! Chowry!”).  He has only been to Chuck E Cheese a few times, so we were surprised at how excited he got.  He had a blast running around and playing with all the games.  He doesn’t really like to ride the rides anymore, but he loves to put money in them.  There were several birthday parties going on, so Chucky came out and danced with all the kids.  Max wouldn’t get too close to the mouse, but he loved dancing.  A little girl came up to Max and grabbed his hand and they jumped up and down holding hands with all the kids dancing.  It was the cutest thing.  He already has all the girls and he’s only 2!

Jan 30, 2006…Byron has been out of town so Max and piled up the car and drove to Atlanta.  We had a great visit with my aunts, uncle and many cousins.  Most of them met Max for the first time.  They all talked about how amazing his little life has been.  When they see him, they completely forget he was adopted from Russia. 

My aunt Linda has a piano and Max loved playing and singing.  He would gently tap on the keys and belt out this adorable little song.  I can’t tell what he is saying but he repeats the same words over and over again.  He knows what he is saying!  On Saturday Linda had everyone over for dinner.  My cousin Scott and Michelle drove up from Butler, GA   with their kids, and my cousin Beth brought Max some matchbox cars that he thinks are very cool!  Most of the younger cousins are too old for Max but Lilly Claire drove Max around the driveway in the battery-operated jeep.  He really liked her!  Of course, Max was a best friend with anyone who would pick him up so he could touch a light switch.  Aunt Bobbie and Paul are still trying to find the switches to turn off those floodlights!  Max was a little trooper that weekend.  I am so happy to be living this close to family.  We are only about 3 hours from Alpharetta (It took us closer to 4, thanks to the GPS!).  I had to call my cousin Melinda several times to find my way!  It was so great to everyone again.  I didn’t realize how much I missed everyone until we all got together again.  I wish we could get an annual cousin reunion organized (hint, hint).  Maybe with us a little closer, we will stay in touch better!

Jan 19, 2006… I have just completed my first week of work.  Even though we are living in a hotel room,  I think we are all happier than we were in Slidell.  I think this transition is probably the toughest on Max.  He just doesn’t have a lot of space to run and play.  We brought his little riding car that my mom gave him for Christmas.  I didn’t want to bring it because it was big, but Christy insisted.  He rides that thing everywhere in the hotel room.  I take him out to the parking lot and let him ride up and down the hills.  He loves it.  He seems to be doing well at Mrs. Pat’s.  He doesn’t cry when we drop him off.  I am not so sure how well Mrs. Pat is doing though.  Max runs circles around everybody.  Our house is coming along, hopefully it will be done by Feb 15th.

Jan 14, 2006…We have landed safely in Tullahoma, TN.  It is so beautiful here.  Last night it snowed and this morning Max got to throw his first snowball.  He would touch the snow and shout “HOT”! We kept telling him “cold”, but he never got over the word “HOT”.  Max seems to be adjusting well.  We are in a hotel until our house is complete (Feb 15).  We were able to get two adjoining rooms, so we have a little room to spread out…not much.  There is not a lot to do here, but we got Max enrolled in a private daycare that he will start Monday.  It is a very nurturing environment and I think Max is going to really like Mrs. Pat.  She has four grandchildren and has been running this small private daycare for over 20 years.  All the parents we talked to compared her to a saint.  I just hope Max doesn’t drive her to drink!  He has so much energy and can be a handful!

Max is starting to put two words together.  His vocabulary is increasing everyday!  He can just about repeat any word you say (so be careful what words you use around him).   He’s also getting very big.  He’s one of the biggest kids in his class and when people ask his age, their next response is, “He’s a big boy”!  We keep joking that his bio-parents are probably Russian Power Lifters.

Jan 1, 2006... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!  2005 was a rough year for us.  As we look back, there were many life changing events, but we ended up closer as a family and more blessed than ever.  We are starting the new year off with a fresh start.  We will be moving to Tennessee in a few weeks with a new house, new community, new job, and many new friends.  We can already tell that 2006 is going to be a great year for the Bright family.  God has blessed us more than we deserve.  Max is growing like crazy and gets more adorable every day.  It is amazing to watch him as he learns something new each day.  He knows his basic colors and he is starting to count to ten.  He repeats everything you say and do and is just starting to put two and three word phrases together.  I think we are going to have a lot of fun with him this year.