Independent body parts?

Lana: The eyeball is sad!!

Huh.

Lana: I am snuggling with Jordan! (referring to a photo) he loves snuggling and E is for Emily!

Bubble bath?

Lana: I'm a nice dragon. Go to a bubble bath in me!!

Identity problems.

Lana: I want to be a girl forever!!
Sveta: I want to be a birdie!

Nighttime.

Lana: I like Santa. He likes to come to my house and pllaayy with mee and all that stuff!

Olives

Me: Hey, Lana, would you like some more olives?
Lana (gleefully): Shit! Shitshitshit! Oh shit! That's how you say it.
Dad (trying not to laugh): Lana, it's pronounced 'shot.'
Lana: No it isn't! Shitshitshit!
Me: Umm?
Dad: As long as she says it correctly....

Moo.

Lana, toy horse in hand, "you're a moomoo and I'm a singer!" She then ran after Sveta hollering for her to stop with a chorus of, "I just met you and I love you!!"

The week after...

Sveta wrapped a long piece of toilet paper around her head and squealed, "SANTA CLAUS HAT!!"

Happy holidays! From Lana...

Lana: Thats it! My tail is talking to me!!

Uugghh.

Today Lana drew on the wall. It's not funny but it's certainly another phase of battle.

What are you?

Lana: "I'm not a puppy or an anything! I'm a dolphin girl and that's it. I'm also a little girl fish!"

She said while sitting on the toilet as I listened from the playroom.

Mean puppies

Lana: "no more mean puppies." she said with a very sad voice.

Fetch

Sveta is now playing fetch with Lana. I mean really. Lana is being a puppy and Sveta is throwing a ball for her to retrieve. It's amazing! Though I really shouldn't be surprised. Sveta waasss walking her through the house with a slinky as a leash.

PS. I forgot to tell you that on Friday as I was getting ready to leave, Sveta came runnin through low riding her pants (with full plumber crack) an shouting "IMA LADYBUG!!!"

Hippo

Lana: I have a lot of names. I'm a hippopotamus girl and a dolphin girl and a fish girl. I'm a hippopotamus girl...daddy said so!

Heavy lifting.

I went to move a little teeny table and heavy a big groan when I did and Sveta exclaimed, " That sounds like Daddy!!"


Then we were discussing how we weren't going to rough house and i said that we don't want to make anyone sick and sveta said, " I want to make everyone sick!!!"

Dragons smoke.

Lana ( pretending to be a dragon): I'm smoking Sveta!!

Yogurt time.

Me: Lana, you like feeding your sister like a baby, huh?
Lana: Yes. Like, having a baby is a good fear. Mommy and daddy can feel like a baby.

Tall

Lana: In four day I get big! Because I need to be strong enough.

Hide and seek

During pretend little kid hide and seek...

Lana: I cannot found Sveta!
Me: Then you better keep looking!
Sveta: And don't give up!!

So much for hiding!

Santa

Me: So Lana, what did you learn about Santa claus?
Sveta: The train went really fast!
Lana: And he not wanna get mushed!!

Um.

Lana: "what are you doing in my flum?! Get out of my flum!!"

Projects

So I walked in the room carrying a pack of foam and Sveta said, "what is that?" and I said, "it's for a project later." and she got wide eyed with a giant smile and said, "I not can believe it!!"
She doesn't understand sentence structure and it's awesome.

Potty.

Me: ok girls! Time for a potty break!
Lana: we might be peepee in our panties! We don't want that.

The cat

Sveta: Mario is taking a baf!!
At which point she lifted her leg toward her face and mimed licking her knee.

Channukah

So I was telling the girls about channukah and said, "Girls, do you know that you are Jewish?"
To which Lana replied, "I love Jewishes." in a sweet and matter of fact voice.

I had to give a timeout to Lana for something and afterward we were discussing what had happened and I said, "Who is the grown up?"
She mournfully replied, "Emily."
And I said, "Who is the kid?"
An again mournfully she replied, "Daddy."

Pens

The letter E as created by Lana.






It's a good try haha.

Snow or rain?

Sveta was gazing out of the window today and said, "maybe I can have snow in my face?"

Awesome.

Return from the north

I haven't been at work for more than 10 minutes and Sveta is tellling me about the doll sitting inside of the block house she built.
Sveta: he's in the kitchen!
Me: what is he making?
Sveta: pineconnesss!!! .......and cherrrriieesss!!!

Delicious!

Later that day...

Lana: I'm a banana muffin!!....and a dolphin.

Fish and pudding.

Today over our snack of vanilla yogurt Sveta announced that she would like to be a "big big biigggg daddy." she meant that she wants to be tall but Lana and I were confused and so Lana just stared at Sveta and said, "I want to be mommy........" but then ahe hesistated and said, "AND daddy!"



While laying under a table...

Lana: "I'm a fish! A....a...cricket fish! I'm a cricket fish. A white cricket fish!.........mommy and daddy are going to see, when I'm not doing anything, that I becomed a fish................don't touch my tail. I'm a fish and that's my tail. Don't touch my tail..........I like to stay in the ocean. I'm a fish to stay in the ocean."
"I'm a girl fish. I'm a like to swim and and annndd I'm a fish!"
"Stop kicking my tank!!! I'm a fish! Be nice to me!"
"I sing like a fish 'i'm a fish! I like to swim! I swim with my tail! I love my tail to swimmm and my tail doesn't sing! I like fish!!!! I'm a one fish!'"
"C'mon Sveta I'm a fish! You can learn me to swim!"

Emily: "Sveta are you a baby fish too?"
Sveta: "No I'm a daddy fish."
Lana: "I have a mouth!"

It kept going! Forever! Just laying under the table and rambling about life as a fish.

Glup glup.

I'm back!

I was out of town for a few days so I was out of the weird-stuff-they-say loop for awhile. Fortunately they're doing quite well today.

For example.

We were walking in the freezing cold back from from the park and Lana just flopped belly down in the mud (this is following a conversation about not sitting in mud). When I asked why she flopped inthe mud and told her to get up she said, "But I'm an alligator!!" Prior to this there had been no mention of alligators. Weird.

Lunch time

Lana comes barreling into the room to annouce....."I made a REALLY big ca-ca!!!"

Thanksgiving tomorrow!!

While watching Yo Gabba Gabba earlier (which is immeasurably strange...imagine a kids' show written by Bootsy Collins) Sveta turned to me, put one hand on her behind and said, "Sveta need a tailllll." the show is about robots so it made no sense.

Later on their dad was leaving to run errands and he told the girls that he's taking a train. And Sveta kindly said, "Daddy don't wanna be mushed by the train."

Thheennn we had the trauma of their mom leaving her office to run errands and so Sveta had a cow and so I was swinging her and Lana around to get them happy again and Lana got the hiccups and they made her barf a little. Awesome.

Um. A better comment for your parents.

Me: "Man, you girls are filthy!"
Lana: "Yeah...my wahini is a little bit dirty..."

Wahini. Use your imagination.

Skinny wings are lame.

Lana: "Wow! Look at my fat wings!" as the voice of a winged mermaid.

Today? Tomorrow?

Pointing at a window decoration Lana exclaimed, "I did those tomorrow!!"

Painting

Lana: " I fell so I don't like those colors. I only want black."

That was in regard to painting the construction paper ornaments they're making solid black.

Sveta put her toy pony in the toy oven and I asked what she was doing and she just sweetly said, "he's sleeping." I guess it'll be a long sleep.



Those are some of Lana's black ornaments.

Potty

So the girls like to hang around while the other is in the bathroom. They're 3 & 4 so it makes sense. Sveta likes to hand Lana toilet paper, they like to both wash their hands afterward, etc. Yesterday Sveta evidently forgot to flush the toilet, as 3 yr olds are wont to do, and I know this because Lana went to go potty and I heard her shout, "Sveta made a big, big ca-ca!!"

Gross.

Forts

These girls like forts. I mean really, really like forts. Today we built what i believe is a really excellent fort. Lana disagreed. She likes attention and was in the mood to test me to the point of timeout. The point is that I was carrying a blanket she tried to grab and I said, " I don't think you're listening Lana." and her response (to my shock!) was, "I think I am listening!!!" and to try to snatch the blanket. And then there was timeout.

The nose.

Lana just wiped a booger on her placemat and then looked surprised when I told her no no no!!

The park

So we went to the park and played and slid and ran and climbed and on our way to another park Sveta exclaims, "the whalleee!!!" and Lana ran after her. They got to "the whale" and it turned out to be a cement slab near the park that they both began to loving pet and coddle. Then they decided that the whale should run away with them and they both motioned to the slab to run with them and as they took off Sveta looked at me to say, "Look! They're coming with us!"

Whale...cement slab...I can see it.

Cowardly Clyde

I was reading a book about a knight and his horse and Sveta stared at the pictures intently before deciding that, "He have mean shoes!" what exactly are mean shoes?

The girls went to hand me my shoes so we could go out and Sveta gave the toe of one a really good sniff (she smells everything.) and I said, "eeeewww! What's it smell like?!" and sveta gets all wide eyed and crazy and screams, "COOFFFEEE!!!"

They'd been playing together nicely and all of a sudden Lana was laying on the ground meowing mournfully and upon hearing this Sveta exclaims, "Lana needs help!!" and proceeds to grab her sister's arm and drag her to "safety." This was all as if the meowing was a normal human exclamation of a need for help. I wonder if I meowed if the parents would come help me...

Behinds.

Lana said, " Sveta's tushy is too small."
Sveta said, " Lana's tushy is more bigger!!"

Toy house

The girls got a plastic playhouse today and after hours of going in and out and around it they noticed a pretend gas pump on the outside of the house. Presumably this is intended to pretend to fill up their toy cars and all. However, they both saw it as a garden hose. So, hose in hand Sveta shouted after Lana, "Lana!! Come here! I need to rinse the soap off of you!!!" at which point Lana, who was pretending to be a puppy, came back and went to sleep inside of the house while she wimpered.

There's nothing like the sight of a little girl with a gas pump in hand hosing down her puppy-sister.

I love this.

Lana and Sveta are playing in a blanket fort and Lana is being a puppy and she's whimperig and Sveta said, "Quiet!.......QUIET!!...." the wimpering continued until she finally said," Quiet goddamit!!!" how do you not laugh? Laughing only eggs them on but she's a tiny tiny ( the girls are really small thanks to pre-adoption malnutrition) person who's swearing at her faux puppy sister! It's really funny!

Lana is now singing a song whose priciple line is.."Slleepp like a diinnoossaauurrr..."

Yes.

It begins!

I am Emily and I am a nanny for a pair of girls (aged 3 & 4) and they were just adopted together from Russia one year ago. They are darling, happy kids but like all children they're totally nuts and they say the strangest things. This is partially an age thing and partially due to the fact that they have only been English speakers for a year. I think I'll give the girls pseudonyms for the sake of anonymity. Let's call the older one Lana and the younger we'll call Sveta.

This blog will be the story of me and the girls and the battle for absolute truth and understanding or just for good behavior and that ill someday understand what Sveta is saying to me! (she mumbles so much that she sounds like Van Morrisson circa Astral Weeks)

I figure this will mostly be a log of the weird things they say and do. So brace yourselves. This will be a bit odd.

For example, in the last three days we've had the following...

Sveta chased her dad through the house shouting "Eat my ear!! Eat my earrrr!!!"

While watching Sleeping Beauty (Which is waayyy over their heads) at first site of Aurora's distress Lana exclaimed, "she wants her man!!!"

Some of Lana's play has been aggressive lately so we've encouraged niceness so while playing with a toy snake (which she used to call the mean snake and punish with timeouts liberally) she said, "Nice snake...YOU'RE GONNA BE MUSHED LIKE THE PUPPY!!!"

Currently the girls are reprimanding their own reflections in a mirror. "come right here! Right now!" etc.

Oh well! More later.