Thursday, June 10 - Glory, glory, mama got to go to the gym today!! I took Scott, Cooper, and our 6 yo next door neighbor, Olivia, whom Scott really enjoys, to the YMCA late this morning, hoping, hoping that Scott might be willing to play in the nursery while I worked out for an hour. He did great and man, do I feel better with some serotonin moving in my body.

OTHER PROGRESS - he refers to himself as "Scott" now and not Kirill or Scott Kirill and seems very proud of this. He wanted to practice (hand over hand) writing his Scott today and had to put several pieces of his "sticker art work" with his name up on the frig. Also, I do think he is beginning to grasp that my "No" means no and that there will be consequences (ie. we leave a fun place, I take what he is banging something with away, ect.). He is still continually testing me and literally "pushing buttons" (answering machine, locks on doors, emergency heat on thermostat, shower faucet, light switches, car horn...) but he handles being corrected a bit easier now (doesn't have a complete melt down that lasts for 10 minutes (now only briefly). If I am able to hold him in my arms firmly, yet gently and talk softly to him after he's had his little meltdown, he transforms into a sweet little boy, like the one we were with at the baby house, and better. He was fine being left for the last 30 minutes in VBS tonight as I stepped out of his class during snack time and greeted me with a smile when I returned to his room. Another biggie - I was able to talk him into putting his paper bag of treasures/goodies back up on the shelf tonight at VBS with all the other children's bags and wait until the end of the night to get it.

Tonight was a firefly catching night (don't think they have fireflies in Kazakhstan). He was so excited about his fist full of fire flies (he told me he had "four"(not cheteeree), which he did), but they weren't moving so well (translation - sort of squished) in his tight fisted hand. His plastic jar of squished fireflies proudly sits by his bed tonight!