This morning I took Elisey to the playground with his toy, child-sized basketball. He enthusiastically went to the full-sized hoops and spent a long time shooting hoops, making a surprising number. He also seemed to enjoy it for itself and not just because an adult (me) was watching. This is tremendous progress for him. When we first met Elisey he was almost at a loss what to do with any ball and quickly lost interest. To spend half an hour or more shooting hoops was amazing. It was spurred by his watching guys play pick-up basketball games at playgrounds and then some practice with his child-sized hoop at home.
And this is what life is like with them--simply teaching them how to play.
Following a discussion with our social worker, Nicole, we bought the boys, of all things, their own dustpans and handbrooms. They love them and have already spent a lot of time sweeping things up. This is probably because they were made to do chores at the orphange and/or watched the staff clean up. They even asked if they had to give the dustpans back to the orphanage and were thrilled that we wrote their initials on the dustpans to show it was theres. Elisey can't really read but he knows his letters and recognizes (in Bulgarian at least, and is learning in English) the letter E for Elisey, D for Dimcho, M for Mama, and so on. From our discussions with Susan, we hope we can use these as a gateway to using other toys. For example, sweeping up blocks might lead to playing with blocks, and so on.
