Code Yellow Mom

Will You Do Me A Favor?

2011-02-01T13:11:00.003+03:00

My husband hates when I preface a request with that question. He says it's unfair on the one hand because he has to agree to the favor before he knows what it involves, and it's silly on the other hand because I know that he's not going to say no anyway. He prefers that I just get out with it, no preamble, no simpering, no attempt at endearing eyelash fluttering...

Anyway.

Since my last post, Henry had pneumonia, Calvin had bronchitis, Charlie and Jane are still coughing and snotting, and I can't lose the rattle / scratch in my own throat. I want to fumigate the house and never go out again, it's making me so frustrated. But a visit to the ER and a few nebulizer treatments later, I think we really are getting better. I'm not too bad a whiner, I don't think, but this prolonged viral cycle is getting me down.

Anyway, again.

I have a personal writing project that I need to work on offline with a really concentrated effort to finish this month, and then - here's where you (and the favor) come in - I am moving my blog to a new place. I have a couple online security things to tackle and I want a new flavor for my blog, so I'm working on a new platform. I'm planning to switch during February and be up and running a little more focused, a little more anonymously, and a little more regularly on March 1st.

So, after all that preamble, here's the cut and dried request: If you would like to follow me to my new digs, please email me (codeyellowmom[at]gmail.com) with the words "new blog" in the subject line and I will put you on my contact list when I get the new blog underway. I will not use your email for any other reason (unless I already do!) and I would love to have you along when I get going again. I won't be redirecting Code Yellow Mom there or publishing my new site address here, so be sure to email me if you are interested. (Grandmas, I will email you automatically.)

Happy February!::simper, simper::eyelash flutter::

"Why Be You When You Can Be NEW?!?!"

2011-01-07T08:22:00.005+03:00

We recently watched the movie Robots again...and again...

While the kids watched in the back seat and I listened from the front, I remembered the ad campaign launched by the smarmy new CEO under the direction of his diabolical mother with the intent to make millions: all based on the fact that no-one would be able to fix themselves up with spare parts anymore - they would have to completely remake themselves whenever one little part became obsolete or damaged.

Hmmm. It got me thinking the last time I watched the movie, and it got me thinking this time. On the one hand, I'm a total believer in "new" - and I love new starts and new blank books and the idea of being "made over." I think there's a delicious and wonderful true element of hope and possibility in all that.

But I also think we overwhelm and choke the essence of who we really are when the "new" we desire at any cost is someone - or more often, someTHING - that is not really our true self.

And I think there's a lot of power in using the best of what we've got, taking a hard look at what's damaged and obsolete and making it better, but most of all in loving who we really are and what we really have, enough to keep the good parts and make them shine, shine, shine.

That's what I'm going to work on more. Sometime soon.

***

And that, mys friends, was my best effort at profound and/or interesting tonight...

Since right after Thanksgiving, we have had at least one - if not two or three - people in the house sick: stomach bug (at the risk of proffering too much information, I just have to say that watching a little half asleep boy in the middle of the night try and figure out if it would be better to sit on the toilet and lean over the tub or vice versa is one of the saddest sights ever), flu/severe colds, inexplicable aches and high fevers, and pneumonia (poor David!). All of it (except the pneumonia, thank heavens) has cycled through most of us at least twice now.

Copious amounts of laundry, lack of sleep (or lots of bad sleep?), still having to be the mom even when I feel like gunk, not being able to do anything but ride it out, holding hot little whimpering babies...It's one of those times that I just must say, "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired!!"

I think we are slowly getting better - Henry and Jane are still down, but hopefully in the next day or two, we will all be on our feet and feeling good as...new?

Maybe.

New, but with all the same laundry piled to the ceiling, right? Ah well. C'est la vie.

Let's See If I Remember How To Do This...

2010-12-29T18:45:00.003+03:00

Holy Moly. It's been a while, huh? So long I'm not even sure where to begin catching up. So maybe I won't catch up. We'll just start where we are.

Which is: back in the USA, homeschooling, getting settled, bustling around for the holidays, and always...always...trying to catch some extra zzzz's.

Now, don't get too excited about me being back here...I'm still trying to carve out my schedule and work in the me/writing time that I need to have. I'm also working on a laptop with a bum space bar and a mouse button missing, which is a recipe for early onset insanity. But I'll get it fixed and I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I'm wishing you all the best in 2011!!!

In Case You're Wondering...

2010-09-20T00:11:00.002+04:00

We packed up and moved out of Kiev a little over two weeks ago, and flew 3 hours, then 11 hours, then 1 hour to Colorado. We're trekking around Colorado, Utah and Idaho until the end of this week, when we will return to semi-real life in Virginia.

We are having fun, haven't had too much jet lag, all caught and got over head colds, celebrated my birthday and Aunt JoJo's birthday, and are now having fun with cousins and lots of wide open spaces and blue, blue sky.

As far as the blog, I'm thinking through some changes while we're playing and I'll try to get back online and let you know what's up as soon as we've "landed" toward the end of this month.

Happy Autumn!

The Jane: One YEAR Old!!

2010-08-12T06:56:00.002+04:00

Another month slipped by between posts. Good thing I have a baby to document, or this blog would be completely dry, huh?

We celebrated Jane's first birthday on Monday and she is delightful. She gives kisses, has lots more smiles for everyone these days, and is walking everywhere.

The tutu is officially outgrown, so we did her photo shoot in the adorable outfit Aunt Lesli gave her when she was born. She's growing into her ~~princess~~ queen status quite well.

Happy Birthday to my spicey little girl! We love you, Jane.

The Jane: Eleven Months Old

2010-07-10T14:17:00.006+04:00

I think I caught a lot more expressions of Jane's personality with this month's photo shoot. It was a lot of fun.

Some things to know about Jane this month:

She wrinkles her whole face these days when she smiles.

She can courtesy laugh. There are few things that are more hilarious than an 11-month-old who will give you a cheesy little smile and a heh-heh-heeeehhhhh followed abruptly by a deadpan look.

She waves good-bye and does all of pattycake and understands how to give loves and kisses.

She still does not like strangers, but she's getting better and warming up to them.

She adores her brothers and they can make her laugh better than anyone.

She has taken a few steps already, but they are usually stealthy ones when no one is looking.

She will sometimes lay on her back or sit and flap her arms helplessly to show that she is just to upset to move toward you.

She tattles on and tells off her brothers in a very fierce way.

She can screech louder than any child I have ever met.

She is heavy - she looks all soft and actually even a little petite, but don't let those marshmallowey thighs fool you! The are filled with lead. She weighed 22 pounds at her last check-up.

She is absolute peaches and cream.

And here are the tutu snapshots for this month:

I got a little creative editing photos, and was rather pleased with this black and white that I made.

I can't believe there is less than one month left of her first year.
::sniff::sniff::

Just a Moment

2010-07-09T19:14:00.004+04:00

A sudden awareness of fairly prolonged peace and quiet jolted me this afternoon while I was checking my email, and that familiar "uh-oh" feeling when things have been too quiet for too long spurred me into investigating, dreading what I might find...

AND...

Jane: sitting in the hallway, happily chewing on age-appropriate toys by the bedroom door...

Charlie: busy lining up cars and trucks on the rug in the playroom...

Henry: intensely enjoying MarioKart without screaming at his virtual opponents...

Calvin: propped up on pillows on my bed, reading a chapter book.

What's wrong with this picture?

The answer?

Nothing!

Amazing! Weird!

Wow.

I just needed to appreciate and document the beauty of it.

P.S. You know what else happened today? Jane napped. Charlie napped. I napped. All at the same time. The big boys were quiet and got along and did not dismantle anything while we napped.

Today might be a good day to buy a lottery ticket or something.

Spring Reading Thing in Review

2010-06-21T15:10:00.001+04:00

Wow! I can't believe it's been three months since I started my Spring Reading Thing goal. In some ways, March seems a long time ago. And in others, time has absolutely flown by. Summer is upon us!

My original goal for this spring was to read books (about one a week for the twelve weeks of the challenge) with one stipulation: each book had to already be on my bookshelf. No buying books to read! (We're moving at the end of the summer and our books take up about half our household allowance in weight already, I'm pretty sure.) So I combed my shelves and made a list of the ones I've been meaning to get to - some for a really long time - and made my reading goal list.

I read...about half the books on it. And then I departed from the list. A lot. Thanks to a little stash of light reading at the house where we stayed in Portugal and the free library here at the embassy, I found some other reads that distracted me from my original plan. Just a teence.

But here's the thing: I did read a little more than a book a week, AND I didn't buy any new books. So I mostly accomplished my goal, right?

In case you're interested, here's what I read from my original list:

Poetry 180. I heart poetry. There are some gems here, and I thoroughly enjoyed perusing and dog-earing and re-reading some of the beautiful words here. If you don't do it already, I highly recommend checking out a good book of poetry every now and then. It's good for the soul.

Surprised By Joy. In true Lewis fashion, he gave me a lot of food for thought in this description of his childhood and adolescence. Made me fall in love with classical education more than I already am, and made me tease out some of my own philosophical and theological convictions. Nothing like reading someone who can masterfully articulate what you would like to say but can't.

The Venetian Mask. For whatever reason, this book took me a while to get into, but I ended up liking the story a lot. A little far-fetched and a little too coincidental at points, but an intriguing read set in a period of history that I wasn't entirely familiar with - never knew much about Napolean conquering Venice. Kept Venice at the top of my list of places to visit.

The Enchanted Castle. I've heard about this book from several different people as a great book to read aloud with kids. I don't know if my boys would be really into it as this point, but I enjoyed it - it reminded me of books I loved when I was a girl. I like the old-fashioned language, and the element of fantasy in this book was fun because it was written at the turn of the last century, before the era of cinematic special effects, and it charmingly depicts the real and the magical adventures of children.

Here's what I ended up reading instead / in addition to those on my original list:

The Railway Children. I decided to roll with my new interest in E. Nesbit. This is not a fantasy but a great story nonetheless. I was surprised by the Russian/espionage element in it, since it was written before the Soviet Union. I also loved the wholesome family relationships and the friendships of the children with people in a small community. Again reminded me of the idealistic things I loved to read when I was a girl - all hope for decency and patience and kindness.

Hints on Child Training. Good old-fashioned ideals and, true to its title, hints for training children. I get on little kicks in this area sometimes because I so often feel like I'm not doing things quite right with my children. I liked this book because it helped me prioritize and feel a desire to understand children a little better.

Soon She Must Die. It makes me laugh that I read this. It was written in like 1985 or something and has some funny quirks because of that time period, but the premise of the murder plot is rather clever, the British element is cool, and the result of the murder gave me the oddest sense of frustration that I've ever had reading a book, I think because it's so based in a kind of futile reality. It was like that foiled, "Doh!" feeling. I really liked that things hinged on a work of literature (even though this is hardly a deep thinking type read), and the approach to the question of "for love or money?" is awesome. Totally great beach read. Which is what it was for me.

One of Ours. I have never heard of this title before, and I love Willa Cather. Three things that I liked about this book: (1) Cather's beautiful prose does not disappoint and she describes many feelings of living in small-town/rural America (even in the present day) nearly perfectly, including why many young people might want to join the military and yearn to do something great; (2) The time of the story is the eve of World War I, and because it was actually written in 1928, the description of the first World War is not colored by the atrocities that the world witnessed just 10 to 15 years later with the advent of World War II. It gave the first real and vivid account I've ever read of how Americans viewed and experienced the first World War,a s well as its scope and tragedy; (3) quite by accident, I realized that this is the book with the character for which my grandmother was named. The whole second section is entitled "Enid" and the dates for the novel's publishing fit with when my great-grandmother would have seen or read it and decided to name a little girl after it.

The Savage Garden. This was a satisfying read while I was reading it, but I wasn't entirely pleased with how it ended, and I didn't really like the "all-knowing manipulator of events" element in resolving the mystery. The garden itself is really awesome and there are some great scenes and discoveries that make it a fun read, though, if you can suspend disbelief a little bit and just roll with it.

Steady Days. I mentioned this book in another post. Really, really like it. Will refer to it often.

Sarum. Um, I'm really on an English history kick and have pretty much read something from every era, so I was excited to pick this one up because I want to know all about Salisbury. But I didn't get to the actual cathedral part because I was frustrated by the historical fragments. It's decent writing and I might read it sometime in the future, but I quit about halfway through, which I hardly ever do, but some of the stylistic things just irritated me. It might have been just a timing thing, but I think I might also have been spoiled by Pillars of the Earth, which I read earlier this year. Now that is a good cathedral building story.

The Crediton Killings. This crossed my English history and my recent murder mystery interests nicely. It was cleverly told and interesting. There are a few more of these in this series, but this was just enough.

Northanger Abbey. I have now read every Jane Austen novel. I really, really enjoyed this one because I think it reflects a younger Jane Austen, and it's a little more saucy and sarcastic, if not as deep, as her others. I will probably read this one again soon, because it made me laugh out loud several times. Not so much has changed socially since this novel was written.

And just for fun, here's what I didn't read from my original list:

Son of a Witch. I think I reached my Maguire fill. I just couldn't get into this one. Maybe later, when I need a dark, quirky read.

Grace-Based Parenting - This was a plan to re-read, so I don't feel too bad about not getting to it.

The Cello Suites - Definitely still on my list. As soon as I'm finished reading a different book that I just gave David, for Father's Day.

Resurrection and Crime and Punishment - Can I really live in a Slavic country without reading some Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky? I thought not. But I think I just can't take any more fatalism and oppression and corruption than I'm already aware of on a daily basis. Maybe sometime when I'm a little removed from it and safe in America again.

Zorro. Not entirely interested in reading this anymore. I might just contribute it to the free library as a token of my appreciation for my spring reading.

The Pursuit of Happyness. Loved the movie, wanted to read the real story. Still might.

Paradise Lost - This has been on my list about three times. I think I'm addicted to having the goal to read this no matter what.

Special thanks once again to Katrina at Callapidder Days for hosting the Reading Thing! It's been great.

Just for Total Random

2010-06-14T16:01:00.004+04:00

Charlie turned three over the weekend.

He was born three. years. ago. Man.

The main thing that I want to say about him is that I adore the way he says "orange:" it's "oh-zenj." Oh-zenj juice, oh-zenj slices, oh-zenj crayon. I will personally maim anyone who tries to teach him the "right" way to say it. I am that serious about him not growing up. Got it?

And now here's the total random part of this post, because I'm skipping to a different child. But maybe it is not totally random because I have mentioned the color orange already, which provides the perfect segway to these photos, taken about three years apart.

Henry three years ago, on vacation at the beach:

And Henry, this year, on vacation in Portugal:

We have found that Henry chills out best on an orange couch with electronic entertainment. It gives me hope that there are some things that babies don't grow out of.

Also kinda makes me want to buy an oh-zenj couch, so Charlie can tell about it and Henry can veg on it with his Fringies, forever if he wants to.

So, this post was brought to you by the number three, the color orange, and the Mom who doesn't want her babies to get "so big."

Sigh.

The Jane: Ten Months Old

2010-06-10T16:00:00.006+04:00

Today is the photo shoot day for our Girl in residence, aka M.I.P. (That's either Most Important Person or Monkey in Pink. We're trying to decide.) She is 10 months old, and this month has flown. First, a few things about Jane, for grandparents and posterity:

Among her first ever smiles, I noticed that she did a distinctly girly thing: she grinned and then added just a smidgeon of a twinkly squint at the end. This month, the squinty smile has become exaggerated and she bestows it on anyone who makes her laugh. My favorite, though is when we all start laughing and she squints and courtesy laughs with us. She is social,. and she has social "skills" that my boys ~~still don't have~~ didn't have at this age. Don't think that doesn't scare the pee (and maybe a tiny bit of the introvert) right out of me.

In fact, because of her social skills, we had to move her crib out of our room to the room down the hall because she would wake so frequently in the night and want to snuggle and "talk" and generally waller with me. I would try to nurse and she mostly just wanted to "hang." She learned really quickly (with not too much crying at all!) about just sleeping at night once there wasn't Mommy right in the room to chat with or screech at, and we are all better rested.

And because she has her own room now, our bedtime ritual has gotten a little more structured and I spend some concentrated time with her before putting her down, singing and rocking. She sings along! I love it! She will lay on my chest and hum herself to sleep while I sing. She really likes singing and last week also started humming really loud when we sing hymns in church. It's truly delightful.

One thing I haven't documented before about Jane, is that a big eye watering yawn or a big sneeze make her smile and give a little sighing laugh when she finished with them. It's like she's proud of it, or it cleared her head or something. Also hilarious to see and I hope to catch it sometime on video.

Another interesting thing about her is her propensity for chewing on furniture. It's a little like the little girl in Series of Unfortunate Events - biting is her talent. One of her favorite methods is to pull one of the kitchen chairs around to the front of her high chair and just chew. She also likes the corner of one of the drawers on our coffee table. Um, yeah...

She continues to be a real Mama's girl, but will now play and love on Dad, which is very cute, and rather savvy, of her. Although she very clearly has moments when she only wants Mom, and she calls me by name in a low repetition: "Momomomomomomomomomomo..."

She has a definite screech button and knows how to use it. She knows how to get someone to come running to put her brothers in check. This morning she did it and as soon as she was in my arms, she leaned forward a bit and started yelling at Charlie (the offender) right along with me.

Jane and Charlie have a bit of a love-hate relationship, usually love, sometimes very, er, fierce love. I like to watch them together. It's going to be a fun dynamic in our house...

Yesterday, we received a great package from Aunt Joeli that included the most precious assortment of tiny bows and barrettes and headbands, so Jane is now accessorized. Boy, are we going to have fun!

So without further ado, here are the official tutu-fied pictures of Jane at 10 months old:

(First, not wanting to look at me or leave the curtain alone...)

(The next one is unfortunately without Grandma's quilt in it because Jane crawled off, but the look on her face is how she stopped and looked at Charlie, who was throwing a fit because he "never gets to be in pictures!"...Classic.)

(Her arms flap when her brothers come around to play and talk...)

(Serious...)

My housekeeper calls Jane "hitrulya," which, roughly translated, is "clever/sly little girl." It fits. Jane has this whole world figured out and she's taking it by storm!

You Should Live Here: English in Cyrillic

2010-06-09T14:29:00.002+04:00

You wouldn't think it would take so much time and so many starts and stops to get one little post up. It's all in my head...just can't seem to get it down on virtual paper. Or maybe the biggest problem is that it's all in my head. Ah, well...

One of the reasons Kiev was on the top of our list of foreign posts was that David and I both have Russian-speaking experience. David speaks excellent Russian, and I understand most everything that is said and can speak enough (in a pretty darn good accent, if deplorable grammar) to get by.

Language is an interesting thing and I love that in most countries of Europe, most people speak at least two languages, and one of them is usually English. (Ukraine might be the exception - lots of people study English, but it is not common by any means, and speaking it is a lot different than reading text book phrases. I've had a few occasions in which store clerks have gotten really ugly with me for not speaking their language, even when I was making my best effort.)

I think it's a little sad that most Americans don't ever learn a second language and that they are even resentful and unhelpful to people who don't speak English. The way things are said in another language can be so beautiful and sometimes more precise than in one's native tongue, and language helps a person understand culture and other people's way of looking at the world so much better. It's also a delightful experience to participate in a conversation when two people try their hardest to understand and to be understood - if we gave all our conversations that same effort, amazing things would happen.

Having said that, I have to say that I haven't been very good at teaching my kids any Russian or Ukrainian while we've been here. The school does offer it in first grade, so Calvin has had some exposure to it, but up until the other day, I thought he had pretty much only learned how to say hello, goodbye, a few colors and animals, and how to count.

There's a "mini-market" that opened a few months ago on the corner about 50 yards from the front door of our building that I occasionally go to for a soda or snack. I guess you could consider it the Ukrainian version of a 7-11.

If only they had Slurpees...but I digress.

So the other day, I needed some refreshment but the babies were crazy and I was not dressed appropriately for going outdoors, so I decided to see if Calvin was game for a bit of adventure. To my surprise, he was totally up for going to the mini market by himself to get me a soda, and some ice cream for his brothers and him.

Then suddenly I got nervous. He's a smart and capable boy, but I decided he needed some survival skills in case anyone started speaking to him and he didn't understand what they wanted him to do or whatever. (My boys have been known to get really frustrated about the communication thing, and I suddenly had visions of little American boy imploding when all the lady was trying to do was tell him his total.)

I was halfway through my advice to just start speaking English back to whatever they say so that they know you can't understand, to smile and hand them the money, and if that fails, just put the stuff down and come home without it. He looked at me with a look only Calvin can give and said, "Mom. I'll just say 'Я не понимаю русский.'* It's not a problem."

All rightie then. No worries.

He came back, pleased as punch, and was hero of the hour for bringing ice cream and soda and the correct change back. And I learned that those first grade Russian lessons do amount to something. Calvin can read any word he sees in Ukrainian or Russian, and it is funny to hear him pronounce things in a near perfect imitation of native speech.

And as Calvin learns to incorporate Russian into his communication skills, Ukraine is learning to incorporate English into lots of things. I've been amused on more than one occasion how many English words are used these days on signs and in Russian in general. The most amusing if when they take an English word and turn it into an authentic part of native speech by adding the Russian grammatical ending. (Like the verb "to park" - they take park and add "ovaht" to the end, and voila! A new Russian verb: parkovaht! Even though they do have a real Russian word that means the same thing. Hmmmm....)

Just for fun, I've taken a few pictures in the hope that you will also get a kick out of English in Cyrillic. I'm starting to think that if you learn as much as Calvin knows (or at least the sounds of the letters of the alphabet, "please," and "thank you,") you'll totally be fine in Kiev.

Wanna take a car for a тест драйв? Pronounce: tyest drah-yeev and remember to roll your "r!"

McDonald's signs are my favorite. There are words for most of the food items on the menu, but because of the charming "Mc" branding thing, in Ukrainian they keep the whole English word and just spell it in Cyrillic. The thing is, if you don't pronounce it with a Ukrainian accent (i.e., the way it's spelled), the person taking your order will not understand you in the least. I promise. So...

чiкен рол. Say it, "chee ken rrrrrohl."

бiг тейсты. They left out the 'n' for some reason. So just say it, "Beeg Tayeesty."

мкфлюры кiткат. Say it, "McFl-you-ry." And it's not "KitKat" even though it might look like it - it's "KeetKaht."

мкменю - "McMyenYou" - that's what a meal deal is called. So, you order a биг мак ("Beeg Mahk") Menu or a дабл чизбургер (Dah-ble Cheezburrgerrr) Menu, or a мкчикен (McCheeken) Menu, or a филе-о-фиш (Feelyeh-oh-feesh) or чикен макнагетс (Cheeken McNah-gets) Menu. That is, if you want a large фрай (frrry) and drink to go with it. (An interesting note on the McNuggets spelling - there is a letter in Cyrillic that makes a "ts" sound (like the z's in "pizza", but when they tranliterated it they used the "s" sound and "t" letters separately. It's funny, and I'll tell you more about it in a minute...)

Would you like to advertise on this биг борд? You can put anything you want on a "Beeg Borrrrd." Just call 489-5555.

Here's some брикет ("brrreeket") for your барбекю ("barr-byeh-kyu"). And an example of using an English word (grill) and putting the Russian declension on the end, since the briquettes or for the grill, it's грилив ("greeleev"). So cool.

My favorite for Calvin to read: супермаркет ("supehrrrrmarrrrket").

роллы. It's plural for "roll," so it's "rroley." (They're crazy about sushi here, btw - signs for roley everywhere...)

коктейли. It's not one cocktail, it's a bunch: say it, "Kohk-tyeh-lee."

Eрнст енд янг. I like how they provide the transliteration right on the building for you.

хелло раша. This makes me laugh every time I see it because they are making fun of themselves a little bit. Say it, "hhhelloah Rrrahsha!" (with a really hard -guttural? - "h"), and be sure to emphasize the "ah" sound in Russia. Bet you never knew "Russia" rhymes with "Sasha" did you? (P.S. The "ah" sound at the end of hello is not pheonetic at all, and is very slight, but it's how they say it and how they answer the phone.)

ланч меню. Say it, "Launch Myenyu."

сайт. Say it, "Site." You can buy the empty lot behind this fence by calling this number.

тип топ сервис. Probably the best thing in Kiev. Literal roadside tire repair. You seriously just pull up onto the sidewalk in front of this one. And what's it called? "Teep Tohp Sairrveece." Truly.

пицца папа. Say it, "Pizza Papa." Remember how I told you about the "ts" letter? That's it, twice, in pizza. But it's inexplicable to me why two "ts's" are needed in Russian pizza. It takes two z's to make that sound, but it should only take one "ц," right? Maybe they're just trying to compensate for making you think you can really get good pizza in this country.

мiстер снек сендвiч-бар. "Meester Snek Sendveech Bar." If you need a snek or a syendveech, this is the place. Also a fun one to hear Calvin read.

And here's a couple others that I didn't get pictures of, but are pretty common around town:

паркинг: parrrrking. Really emphasize the "g" with a slight "guh" breath at the end and you'll be saying it just right.

сайдинг: siding. Again with the g at the end. Lots of the big hardware megastores have begun selling сайдинг - a whole new concept in exteriors. I think it's especially funny to transliterate words with "ing" at the end.

йога: yoga. It's relatively new to have these kind of classes, but it's become a bit of a craze here now.

And now, for the word that started the whole concept for this post:

камтугеза. This one was brought to me in a newspaper first, by my Russian teacher. She said that she had no idea what камтугеза meant until she started saying it over and over again to herself and trying to puzzle it out. You try it: "Kahmtugyehzah... kahmtugyehzah... kahmtugyehzah..." Do you know what it says? Give up? It's "Come together!" The best ad campaign for a radio station I've ever seen. By the way, don't you love the "Radio Roks", too?

The only one that might possibly be better than камтугеза is the name of an actual financial institution here in Kiev: брокбизнесбанк. Say it, "Broke Business Bank." Heh. If that doesn't amuse you...

And now, just for more fun, let me send you on a little linky treasure hunt: My sister posted about two great links she found all about Kiev, which you can find on her blog. They are super references and might be of particular interest if you are living or planning to live in Kiev sometime. Clickety click to read some great things that other people have noticed and written about this city and Ukraine!

*That's, "I don't understand Russian," with first grade grammar. :)

I've Got Rhythm...Or At Least I'm Trying to Get Some

2010-06-03T15:52:00.005+04:00

One of the great perks and one of the great problems of being a stay-at-home mom is that every day is clear and empty of everything except the little people you share it with. I love the flexibility and the fun of being my own (and the little peoples') boss, but in my heart of hearts, I crave structure, routine, a plan. And sometimes I wish it wasn't my job to make that plan.

You know as well as I do that often the best plans are derailed before noon on most days with the littles - stuff simply comes up. But I also know that my kids (and me) are happier when there are at least some touchstones of each day that are the same - the same time, the same way of doing it - a rhythm: breakfast when we wake up, lunch and a nap around midday, a walk in the late afternoon, stories before bed. In between, things can amuck sometimes, but we can always jump back on at one of the touchstones.

My rhythm (and motivation) has been off since Jane (or even some before). You know how a pregnancy and a new baby can shake things up a bit. And I'm trying to get it back. I like to get to a point that when I say, "OK, Charlie, naptime!" He hops up from what he's doing, grabs his "softy" and we go for a snuggle and he's asleep in less than five minutes, because it's just what we do. It's a beautiful thing.

I like the thought of having days that come in and go out like the tide - lots of different things to do, but a sense that things are in motion and rolling smoothly.

There are lots of blessings and benefits of having a routine - not a rigid, unbendable schedule, but a routine. I've read several things that have inspired me lately in that direction and given me some great ideas. I just wanted to share them with you, in case you are looking for a little rhythm, too.

First, I read Steady Days, by Jamie Martin, a blogging mom of three. This is a lovely, simple book that gives lots of helpful ideas and a feeling of empowerment to do what works in your own home. Most of all, I appreciated the gentle way in which she outlines her reasons for getting organized and having structure for her and her children, with one of her primary goals being to create memories and be grateful for the magic of every day. She articulated for me something that I've always believed but couldn't put my finger on: Structure doesn't inhibit, it empowers. If you have a rhythm and routine, then when out of the ordinary things come up (fun and not-so-fun), you're not totally sunk, but you are free to enjoy the fun or deal with the crises without losing your mind.

I also believe that there are two main kinds of childhood memories: the once-in-a-lifetime-type trips or experiences, and the quiet daily feelings and simple rituals of home. Having a routine and sense of order makes both kinds of memories more likely to happen and to be truly happy.

Second, I ordered Managers of Their Homes, a planning tool for homeschooling families. This is definitely more "how-exactly-to," and might not appeal to a lot of people, but I found it immensely helpful in reevaluating how I use my time and realizing the gift of time and my stewardship over it. I know that I can't do a schedule the way that's outlined here, but I do know that I can use my time better, and I really liked the practical advice and Biblical basis for valuing time and ordering our homes in this book.

Third, I really like the ideas at Inspired to Action. You can subscribe to this blog and get emails about making motherhood a mission and a joy. It's mom-fuel of practical tips and inspiring anecdotes, plus some great giveaways.

The common thread in all three of these resources was the idea that Mom needs to get up and get going, but first and foremost, she has to give herself some quality time - for spiritual uplift (uninterrupted calm and quiet, prayer, scripture), for physical revitilization (exercise), and planning the day. All this is stuff I already know, but as I kept running into, expressed forcefully and eloquently, I started to really understand that "me" time is the best thing I can do for my family, and that's it's not selfish and it's not something to squeeze in between all my other to-dos if I can - it's something that will facilitate all those other to-dos and help me actually get them done!

So, I'm going to start this week on making my morning work for me, beginning with a little exercise and a little quiet time alone before the nuttiness of the day begins. It's small, but it's a start to finding a good rhythm.

What's something you do to help your days with children flow?

You Should Live Here: The Rynok

2010-06-02T16:17:00.011+04:00

My sister Joeli and I went on a photographing adventure to capture some quintessential and fun Kiev stuff before she left, and I meant to have this post up a long time ago, but it didn't happen. You'd think I was lazy and/or had four kids or something. I'm going to make good, though, starting soon.

But first, speaking of Joeli, she went on some small expeditions with a young friend of ours from church named Annie and was better at posting, and it's really fun to check out her perceptions (hers are a little less filtered than mine) - and pictures! - of fish, family celebrations, life as we know it, and some beautiful spring sites. So clickety-click away for other American in Ukraine stuff.

And now, I want to tell you about a place that makes me inexplicably happy every time I go. Even the times when I wrestle through it with two toddlers in a stroller, I come out in love, with a giddy little spring in my step. To me, this place is a whole mixture of sentimental value, cultural immersion, appreciation for the work of people who bring fruit out of the earth, and a sense of accomplishment every time I do it. It is a tactile and visual representation of real life in Ukraine. Who would have thought shopping for vegetables could do that?

There are lots of expats who hate the place and who avoid it like the plague, but I L-O-V-E the the рынок (pronounced "reenuk," transliterated "rynok"), a marketplace of fresh produce, other foods, and household goods. There are also several specialty rynoks in town - the book rynok, the pet rynok (I HAVE to go there before we leave, just for fun...), the car rynok, a couple of children's rynoks (baby clothes and gear galore).

There are several general rynoks in Kiev, each region has one, usually near a metro stop. The most famous is Bessarabsky rynok. Ours is at Lyukanivsky, and I just learned that it is the least expensive one in the city. I love it.

I am not unaware that I'm completely romantic about the place, and my husband assures me that there is a dark mafia underbelly to it, but I prefer just to see the wonder and interest of it all. However, even I have to laugh at the sign over this little stall: (молоко - milk, and мед - honey) We're not quite there yet, but the rynok does rank pretty highly in my book...

I'm not even kidding, while I try to gather my thoughts and write a few words about it, I'm getting all choked up. Shoot. Anyway...

We took these pictures just before Easter, when the rynok was coming alive again after a long, dark winter. It doesn't close during the cold months, but all winter long, much of the produce is covered with grey-colored blankets and tarps or kept in boxes. This winter there were some wooden crates turned on their sides with glass panes wedged on the front like a sort of display window, and candles inside to produce some warmth for the sad peppers and tomatoes people were trying to sell. I wish I would have taken pictures then because it was eery and a little sad, really. Mostly there were only potatoes and onions, and the whole rynok looked as grey as the weather.

But when spring comes, the beautiful geometric displays come again, color bursts onto the scene, people start talking and laughing more as you browse, and it starts looking like a cornucopia spilled onto every table. First it begins with citrus, available in the late winter, early spring...

There are almost always apples (they have so many varieties!). About now, there are strawberries and other berries - I remember June from my mission very vividly because women would sell little newsprint cones full of fresh raspberries. Everything is in season - I like to watch the colors of what's on sell change throughout the summer and fall.

I like the people who work in the rynok. Most of them are much more friendly than your average vendor in Kiev. I have fun talking with them and I like to listen to their Ukrainian banter with each other as I pass by. I like looking at their faces and their hands. Joeli once said that if someone had hands like that in America and was touching food, it would be a problem, but here, to me, it adds something to the value and appreciation for the produce I'm buying and eating. It makes it more personal somehow.

I also like during the cold months, the vendors wear their heavy coats but always an apron over them...

This is probably my favorite rynok picture ever: the orange lady on her phone. Don't you love her hat and her face? That is the Ukraine that I treasure. I also like the cut oranges - every vendor will let you taste what they are selling. They have sharp knives that they will cut a little sliver of apple or orange or cucumber that you just pull off the blade and taste. If it's something juicy, they will also provide a little tear of their grey toilet paper (think of newsprint about the consistency of party streamers) to wipe your fingers, too.

In a different section of the rynok, apart from the fresh vegetables and fruits, is the area where canned and pickled things are sold. Here you can get fresh shredded cabbage and carrots as well as soured cabbage, carrots po-koreisky (a shredded, garlicky salad - one of our faves!), beets, and a whole smorgasbord of eggplant, mushrooms, peppers, pickles, and onions in various salads and appetizer-like displays. They offer taste-tests here, too - with little metal tongs just larger than tweezers, they pinch up some shredded cabbage that you take off with your fingers and pop in your mouth.

Almost every vendor in the non-fresh section sells her own version of pickles. That is what I taste the most when I go...some are more sweet than dilly, some are extra garlicky, most are really yummy. You buy them by the kilo (or portion thereof), they weigh them for you and put them in a plastic bag to carry home. David loves them so much that he looked up online how to make one's own pickles and keeps threatening to get the container and start making pickles on the side. I think that would be fun.

There is also a section of the rynok that has dried mushrooms and other fruit, herbs, spices, and nuts. I haven't gotten very proficient at shopping these because the Russian is not always very specific. (If it's green, it's called "Green" - it could be cilantro, parsley or basil, although they are getting better and there are actually words for all the herbs and spices, of course. But I'm never quite sure if I'm buying the right thing. It's still pretty cool, though.)

On the other side of the food rynok, there are aisles of stalls with clothing and household goods. My personal favorite is the hardware "store:"

There are beginning to be mega building stores in Kiev, but I get a kick out of this 6x6 rynok version of Lowe's.

Just outside the official rynok, along the sidestreets and sidewalks leading into it, is what I refer to as the street rynok. These are usually smaller farmers and individual vendors. I'm never certain where they get the goods they are selling, because it varies so widely, sometimes even from day to day. Today this lady might be selling cigarettes and long underwear, tomorrow she might have bras in all shapes and sizes laid out on an overturned box or hanging from her arms.

There are also the meat sellers. This lady is selling a Ukrainian delicacy: salo, the white layer of fat part along the back of a pig. Here, people salt it and season it, sometimes whip it up so it's creamy. It's actually not too bad - my boys really enjoyed some at a restaurant once, spread on bread like butter. But it is a little shocking to see it sold like this. She was offering small tastes, sliced off with that knife, if you wanted. (I also like that this lady was also selling pickles from a bucket, as well as whole walnuts and beans.)

The other fun thing we saw the day we were taking pictures on the street were whole rabbits for sale: skinned and gutted, except for the fur left on one foot so that you know it's a rabbit you're getting. Lots of people sell chickens and ducks, too. Sometimes I get a little sad, because of the sense I get that it might be their last chicken and it was what they had to come to town to sell.

From a practical standpoint, fruits and vegetables at the rynok are less expensive and always fresher than at the stores here. (A favorite tactic of the supermarkets is to package produce on styrofoam trays to look all fresh and great and when you get home, you see that the whole back side is rotten. Yeah. Nice.) Prices are clearly labeled on everything so you never have to barter or worry that they gave you the "American" price. Once you go a couple of times, other than the stop at the rynok, it doesn't take much longer than shopping the produce section at the store (especially since at the stored here you much get your produce weighed and marked in the produce area - usually a queue that everyone cuts into - before you go to the front checkout stands).

I think one of the things I really love about the rynok is the element of surprise - things are sold in unexpected combinations (years ago, you could always count on bananas and frozen chicken feet being at the same stall, every time - I never understood why, but there they were), things come into season between your visits and change the whole display landscape of the place, and you never know the conversations you will overhear (I love it when people tell the vendors that their apples aren't pretty enough to buy). Also, there's not just one type of person who shops at the rynok - it's not upper class or lower class, it's everybody's market. So you see everyone from the toothless weather-worn grandpa in his plaid cap, to the fur and bling-bedecked "new Ukrainian" in patent leather stilettos.

Mostly, it is a hugely atmospheric shopping experience that I can't describe adequately. It is entirely different from the yuppy-ish organic farmer's market movement in the U.S., because it is not about "returning" to fresh produce or taking people back to their agricultural roots. It is not a dressed up artisan approach to apples for sale - it is the original, straightforward, we-grow-food-because-people-need-to-eat kind of market. I like the feeling that the people there - buyers and sellers - are real, and that the rynok is integral to their lives. You can read hundreds of stories looking in their faces, at their clothes, smiling at their smiles, and admiring the neat pyramids of eggs or potatoes or pears that they measure up or carry home every day.

I think I will miss the rynok more than just about anything else when we move away from here.

For something truly beautifully written, the way I wish I could say it, inspired by a rynok in Kiev, check out this essay by an exceptional young woman I met earlier this year.

Schoolwork Reviewed (and Lots of Things Tossed)

2010-06-01T22:20:00.000+04:00

I have this great list of things to post about and had a great plan to post every day in June, just to clear my mental blogwebs and be able to move forward and "keep up" and get into the blogging swing of things again, because even if you don't miss reading, I miss writing. I need it.

Anyhoo, today was not a good day for all that ambition. I had to go pick Henry up from school because of a diarrhea episode (just a little while after the teachers had helped one of his classmates with a similar situation - bless their souls).

I got the two babies to nap this afternoon, but Charlie hadn't been up from his nap for more than thirty minutes when he started vomiting. Calvin came home about thirty minutes later and vomited about thirty minutes after that.

I stopped counting after three huge barfs in the space of twenty minutes - literally turning away from one scrub job to see another heaving. The best was probably in the evening when we thought we were all ready to go to bed, David was reading stories and Calvin suddenly jumped up, threw the bowl he was holding "just in case" on the ground, and bolted to the bathroom, only to not make it and create a puddle in the same spot on the bathroom threshold that had already been mopped three times.

So, yeah. Maybe it's a sign...of something. Hopefully we can ride this out and all be better tomorrow.

But I didn't really want to write about hurling children...

Among my other ambitions, I decided to go through the vast amount of pictures and paperwork that Calvin and Henry have created over the past two years and weed it down to the truly precious. I'm a bit of a packrat when it comes to my boys' creations, but realized today that part of what makes something they've created precious is the way they tell me about it when they show me, and how pleased they are.

I often think in those moments that I need to keep it forever, when really I just need to be pleased with them for the moment, stick it on the fridge for a little while so others can admire it, and then toss it when the next thing that they are proud of needs some attention. I had so many little drawings and such that at the time meant something to them and/or me, but the boys can't remember what they were about and they mostly look now like anything any kindergartner might do, and neither of the boys have seen or cared about it for months, so why is it still cluttering our life?

There are some notable exceptions, which I wanted to record for posterity:

This year Calvin wrote his first opinion paper. He chose to tackle Ukrainian politics, mostly because the big elections were happening around the same time and it is what his dad's work is about, and if there's anything Calvin loves, it is to be a part of adult conversation.

So he wrote his opinion about the option on Ukrainian election ballots to vote "against all." If you do not want to support any candidate, you can mark the box by "against all." The election was made especially interesting this year because a man in Ukraine actually legally changed his name to "Against All," and there were actually billboards to advertise voting "for" Against All. I think Calvin had the man named "Against All" in mind when he wrote this, because he had asked us if we thought he would make a good president and we told him probably not, he was just trying to take people's votes from the main candidates. Here's what he wrote:

My Opinion
(voting against all in Ukraine)

1. If you vote against all, then you will not get to vote again.
2. Another reason is that if you are a thoughtful person, then here is why: it's not fair for anyone else. So that is why you should not vote against all. So pick someone carefully and vote for that person.

I also think that his mind had actually processed more than he could write, but it mostly just makes me smile that a first grader decided to write about this as opposed to why he likes dogs better than cats or why taking lunch to school is better than eating at the cafeteria. And I hope that it made his teacher smile, too. My favorite line is "if you are a thoughtful person."

***

I also really like the picture that Henry drew of each member in our family in their own hot air balloon. He said that Dad was in the lowest one because he is the heaviest. Har, har.

***

And the sad little note across one line of the back of a sheet of paper: "Oooo Lily, I wish you were here."

***

One of my other favorites of Henry's is a booklet he made at the beginning of the year in which he had to complete the sentence, "I am a...." on several pages and draw an accompanying picture. The first one is "I am a player." The picture is of him with his toy trucks. He is a player, all right.

***

On another project about people who help in the community, he wrote, "I want to be a carpenter in my community." And his was the only picture in the class drawn with markers and crayons because, he told me, "paints are too frustrating."

***

One of Calvin's non-school projects is a picture of life on a planet he imagined. It has a pig on a leash tied to a light post and a cigarette in its mouth. He even labeled it, "A pig smoking" and drew a little arrow. OK, then, random.

***

And then there are his poems. He penned "The Ultimate Poetry Book, by Calvin M." and included this masterpiece:

Drill sargeants are mean.
Big toads are green.
We are not mean or green,
Are we?

***

Um, I'm feeling a little green. And mean. Ugh. Not me, too. Blech. Hopefully in 24 hours we'll all be good as new.

Here's to something to write about every day in June!

Pictures and Commentary

2010-05-28T23:54:00.005+04:00

Could I have come up with a more boring title? I don't think so. That makes me the best at boring. Yay me! Just wanted to share some photos from this week: a little Ukraine, but mostly my children. Calvin is not adequately represented in this commentary, but I will just say that we had a glowing parent teacher conference with his teacher this week. Those are always nice. I like it when people like my kids.

So, every summer the city of Kiev turns the hot water off by neighborhood to "clean" the pipes - Soviet era rustifications. I missed this fun tradition last year by going to London to have a baby. I highly recommend that course of action. Our hot water was off for two weeks and while we had a back-up water heater, it only serves the kitchen and the front utility-ish bathroom in which the choice is either to bathe or to squat shower. Yeah, not fun. The hot water in the rest of the house came back on a couple days ago, but it was just today that it didn't look like this anymore:

Both Calvin and Henry had little performances at their school on Thursday. Henry has a sidekick, Andrei. They adore one another and have the same quirky imaginations and absolutely contagious giggles, and I'm sure are a force for their kindergarten teacher to reckon with.

David caught these sweet photos during their "show" that melt my heart. And I'm trying not to think of the sad, sad good-byes coming up for these adorable, spunky little guys in a couple months. It makes my heart hurt.

In case you were starting to believe that I don't have the interesting "projects" and messes around the house that I once did, I took this photo as evidence. Yes, the carnage is less now that Calvin and Henry are older (and away at school most of the day), but Charlie is doing his best to follow in their footsteps. Today, he built a climbing tower to the top shelf of the drink fridge (it's not big enough to be the food fridge for our family...) while I was nursing Jane. He didn't believe that all the CapriSuns were gone. The blue bin represents wooden train pieces dumped in the bedroom so that it could make a step on the tower. I heard that dumping, and I heard the chairs being dragged across the kitchen floor, but was helpless until I could quietly unlatch Jane and put her in her bed. Charlie is just not as sneaky as the other two. (My favorite is when he calls out from the kitchen or bathroom: "I'm not playing in the water, Mom!!!")

Charlie has gone through an amazing growth spurt recently. He got some new clothes that he didn't believe were his until I explained that we bought him some new shirts and pants because his others are just too tiny for a big almost-3-year-old. He came into the living room a couple days ago sporting this sweater on his fingers and wearing a very sad look on his face. "Mom, this got too tiny for me, too." Um, yeah. Like when you were in utero.

And yes, (in reference to the picture of Charlie and his tiny sweater) I do occasionally comb (and cut!) my children's hair. But it is not my favorite thing to do and it really gets neglected sometimes. And tell me, if your little girl had little duck feather hairs like this, would YOU comb it down?

Lastly, Henry made me take a picture of this marshmallow monstrosity of a treat that his dad let him eat for breakfast the other day. You know why he wanted it photographed? Because the bite of chocolate he took left a little white heart on the side of it. How cute is that?

I heart my children.

The Jane: Nine Months Old

2010-05-14T17:30:00.005+04:00

Here it is...

The pictures weren't as good this time, I didn't think - I had a hard time with natural light and then, too, Jane has become a very busy moving little target. But you can't hardly take a terrible picture of her anyway, I don't suppose.

Her hair is decidedly yellowy-white (isn't that a nice decided color?), even though it used to have more red. It is starting to get long enough for maybe some accessorizing. We're working on that. I'm letting the girl in me out and we'll see what happens.

Jane has all the cleverness and all the spiciness of all three of her brothers put together, plus an ample bit of girly dramatic flare. I'm afraid (and I do mean afraid) that she will likely be walking before she's ten months old. I have not encouraged that.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I'm in for it. She's top of the class at Get Exactly What You Want U.

It's because she is so squidgy and sweet, too. Amazing how someone so exhausting can be so delightful all at the same time.

I actually can't believe it's been nine whole months since she came into our world. Why does every baby grow faster than the last?

I'm a Slug

2010-05-09T22:58:00.002+04:00

Um, it's nearly the middle of May. And that means my baby is another month older. And it seems that my blog is becoming pretty much just her, every month, in the same tutu. It's a cute tutu and she's a cute girl, but shoot. What is wrong with me?

Don't answer that.

I had in mind to tell loads and loads about Portugal, and it hasn't happened yet. We were there a month ago. How can that be? You should not wait on me for the travel highlights (as much as I really would like to give them), but go check out Joeli's post about it. She's got the highlights there and some fun photos. Also, you should go to Portugal if ever you can. It truly is one of Europe's best kept secrets. And you should try queijadas in Sintra while you are there.

Joeli left this week and I miss her.

We are leaving Ukraine in a little less than four months and I have super mixed feelings. I have been known to say that we are moving back to the U.S. "not soon enough, 2010," but then again, there are a lot of really amazing things and a lot of perks that I have enjoyed here that will be over once we go back. Plus, there are people I love here. Some have also started moving on, but many will stay here, and good-byes are really sad.

It will also be not too long before I have to really consider logistics of packing, organizing, transitioning. Buy or rent? New family car or new commuter car? I'm really not good at change or big decisions that have to be made all at once. I feel like I used to be good at it, even invited it, but I think the older I am and the more little people there are who look to me for security, the less I really go for change. I roll with it, but always in retrospect I realize that I go more than a little Elphaba every time we pick up and have to resettle.

So I think right now I'm kinda in a "if you can't say anything pleasant, don't say anything at all" funk. Bear with me until I get my glasses for the brighter side fixed.

And enjoy the cute girl in the tutu.

Alone Time

2010-05-07T09:35:00.001+04:00

The other day Calvin was in need of some wind-down, chill-out, get a hold of yourself time, which I suggested he take in his room, far away from the living room, where "everyone was frustrating him."

He responded by turning a little red and saying with barely controlled extreme exasparation: "That will not help anything! Because as soon as I go to that end of the house, it will be occupied by them, because they migrate to wherever someone is."

And when I started laughing at the word "occupied" and harder at the word "migrate" and harder every time he waved his hand in a gesture toward "them," he pretty much screamed at me, "Why is any of this funny?"

I don't know. You tell me.

Home Again, Home Again...

2010-04-24T22:04:00.004+04:00

Um. You probably know already that I love our camera. We used it a lot - and I mean, a lot - on our vacation.

Which is wonderful and awful all at the same time.

I won't tell you how many pictures we snapped, but it is also the number of pictures that I need to look through, edit, label and post.

Trust me, it is a quantity that I'm sure even those of you who really, really love me and my children, do NOT want to look through until they are edited in some fashion.

But Portugal was amazing and beautiful and we all had a pretty great time. I will try to share in bits and pieces over the next little while, as I sort through photos and the laundry.

I am working on a whole series of "You Should Live Here" posts before we don't live here anymore, too, so stay with me. It will probably be more quantity than quality, but I will try to make it at least a tiny bit as enthralling as the Oceanarium was to my kids:

The Jane: Eight Months Old

2010-04-23T16:59:00.005+04:00

Jane had her eight-month photo shoot while we vacationed in Portugal...

She's crawling for real now, and pulls up to just about anything pretty fearlessly. Her feathery little hairs are getting longer and stand straight up most of the time, despite Aunt Jo's efforts at taming them. She is feisty and remains devoted to Muhmuhmuhmummm (which is truly what she calls me!), although she has taken to saying, "Papapapapapapapah" in a grainy little voice. She is working hard at cutting two top teeth (hence the slobbery front in many of the pics) and pretty much wants to eat whatever we are eating -she screeches and twists in her chair when she even sees baby food coming. Her sleep routine is getting worse instead of better, but it is hard to resist her insistence on snuggling. Ah well.

And without further adieu...Jane in her tutu on the beach:

The Fine Art of Air Quotes

2010-03-25T17:55:00.003+03:00

You know, air quotes - the first two fingers of both hands curled in rabbit ears to emphasize the irony of the word to which you add the gesture. Calvin has used them before, much to our amusement at his unique and innocent understanding of their use. He has lately expanded his talent to include sarcasm, mostly directed toward or in conversation with his dad.

Picture a seven-year-old paussing just enough to get his little rabbit ear fingers up in quote marks and raise his eyebrows at the indicated word in the following conversations...

Example #1: Last night at bedtime.

Calvin and Henry: Please, dad...please, please, please...we need a drink.

David: You guys already got your drink. Just lay down and go to sleep.

Calvin and Henry: Please. We need more. We're thirsty!! (etc., etc.,)

David: Fine. Lay down and I'll bring you a drink.

(He brings back a small bit of water in the bottom of a glass so they can each have a sip - they honestly did not need anything to drink and too much to drink leads to extra bathroom trips...you know how it is...)

Calvin: (After having his half of the sip) Yeah, Dad. Thanks for the..."drink."

Example #2: This morning while getting ready to go to school.

Calvin: Can I please wear my light coat instead of my winter one? It's warm enough and I sweat too much at recess.

David: I guess that's fine. If it's cold today, though, you'll want to wear the heavy coat tomorrow.

Calvin: Yeah. I don't think I'll need the winter coat anymore. It's getting warmer and warmer. And when it's spring and not just... "spring," I won't have to wear a coat at all anymore!

It really is fairly hilarious. I just have two questions. Where does a little boy get this stuff? And, is it spring... or "spring"... where you are?

You Should Live Here: Candy and Alcohol

2010-03-24T10:08:00.000+03:00

OK, people. This is one of the posts I have been wanting to write since we moved to Ukraine, but it has been waiting for photographic support. Thanks to my intrepid sister sidekick, I finally have some shots to share depicting one of my favorite things about grocery stores here: the extensive variety of alcoholic beverages and sweet treats.

You may wonder that a Mormon girl is so taken with the alcoholic beverages for sale, but I can assure that I only look. It is truly a phenomenon, the array and sheer quantity of wines, coolers, and vodkas that is in every grocery. We are talking multiple shelves, crates, and aisles of it all.

Now, I understand that most states I've lived in have had laws about what a grocery store can sell, so perhaps it only makes sense that what would usually be in a separate store in the US is included in a grocery store here, but still. I just think it's astounding at the stock they maintain. The following pictures are taken in one store (our love-to-hate MegaMarket), and I feel that this pretty much says it all about the priorities of the average Ukrainian consumer:

Aisle one of alcoholic beverages...(keep in mind that in each one of these photos, you are only seeing the facing side of the aisle - there is a side of the aisle to the right and behind the photographer)

Aisle two of alcoholic beverages...

Three...

And four...(Captured from the top of Joeli's purse, after we were told that cameras are not allowed in the store. Ooops.)

And to accompany your drinks, you must have sweets. Now here, I have more experience. There is never shortage of cookies, chocolates, taffies, hard candies, and other sweets. It is truly amazing.

I give you Aisle One of cookies, candies and other confections...

Aisle two of sweets...

And three (the opposite side of aisle two, but it's an extra wide aisle)...

And four...

And five...Yes, FIVE aisles of sweet treats!! And did you notice toward the back of the store? That's a small pastry cafe which also sells bulk candy from a whole wall of bins full of it.

My cleaning lady says that every Ukrainian has a sweet tooth. What do you say?

So, as you can see, what is normally one of my least enjoyable tasks (grocery shopping) is really an intoxicating and sweet experience here in Ukraine.

In the next day or two, I will have another long-awaited post on grocery shopping for you about my favorite place on the planet: the rynok. I hope you will love it as much as I do.

Spring Reading Thing

2010-03-22T14:33:00.000+03:00

I'm joining in with the Spring Reading Thing again! I really like having a goal to work toward and a record of the reading I accomplish. It's fun to see what others are reading and to see different books from so many different viewpoints. It helps my "to-read" list diversify and make me feel like I am on my way to being "well-read." Plus, it eases me get out of the winter funk and makes that fun transition into sunshiny weather even better. So, thanks, Katrina, for hosting the Spring Thing!

The perameter of the books I chose to read for this spring's Reading Thing had only one stipulation: I had to have the book on my shelf as we speak.

(We'll be moving back to the States in August, and um, books are heavy. I've gone a tiny bit crazy ordering books while we've lived in Kiev because there is no library here and the type of books on the "free" shelf at the embassy aren't always what I'm looking for. But I have to stop ordering or we'll be sunk on our weight allowance for freight going back.)

So, I committed to read some of the good books that I already own. My list is basically one book a week for the twelve weeks of the challenge and includes a pretty good mix of light reads, deeper reads that I've been meaning to wade into for a long time, and a re-read or two of books that I'd like to digest a little better this time around.

Poetry 180 - I'm interested in this anthology because it was compiled by one of my favorite poets ever - Billy Collins. I want to see what he recommends. I also like reading a poem a day and just thinking on it. I might stretch my reading of this book over the whole spring, savoring my favorites as I go.

Son of a Witch - I've been on a bit of a Gregory Maguire kick the past few months. Thoroughly enjoyed Wicked, loved Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, thought What-the-Dickens was interesting, and didn't entirely enjoy Matchless. We'll see how this one goes. I'm learning that Maguire is a good read if you don't expect everything to be tied up nicely at the end. His books are more about enjoying the telling of the tale. He does create some delectable and startling and unforgettable scenes and situations. So I'm continuing my delve into his work.

Grace-Based Parenting - I read this book a couple of months ago and can't stop thinking of the principles behind it. I want to re-read and try to digest and study and internalize and apply it better this time.

Surprised By Joy - This is one that has long been on my list and for some reason I neglect. I love how Lewis thinks and writes, so I really want to see this one through.

The Venetian Mask - The setting and premise of this book sounds intriguing and I've like other Rosalind Laker books. I'll think this will be my sit by the ocean and read book while in Portugal

The Cello Suites - Here's where I make a confession. I read The Economist, but not the whole magazine - that's David's more cerebral domain. I read the book reviews and the obituary in each issue. Then when David says he read a great review of a book he'd like to read, if it's a book that also appealed to me, I order it "for him." Then I put it on my to-read list. That's what The Cello Suites is. By all accounts, it's an amazing book. And I can't wait. Maybe I will even steal it from David before he finishes it.

The Enchanted Castle - Just have to throw in some good classic storytelling and fantasy to lighten my reading load a bit.

Resurrection and Crime and Punishment - Can I really live in a Slavic country without reading some Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky? I think not.

Zorro - Another author chase. I like Isabel Allende, so I thought I'd check this one out.

The Pursuit of Happyness - Loved the movie, wanted to read the real story.

Paradise Lost - This has been on my list about three times. Maybe my main goal should be to read this no matter what. We'll see.

I'll try to post my progress and/or reviews every week or two...Happy Spring and Happy Reading!

Drops Dripped

2010-03-19T10:15:00.001+03:00

There is a scene after rain in War and Peace that Tolstoy describes by writing, "капли капали." (Pronounced roughly, "KAHP-lee KAHP-a-lee.") The most literal translation is, "Drops dripped." Some translators have felt perhaps that the sentence didn't say enough and sometimes change it to say that trees or branches were dripping.

But I think Tolstoy was trying to capture a different feeling - it wasn't just trees, it was everything...drops dripped, from unseen origins to unseen and subtle splashes. I think that's what he meant to convey, because that's exactly what happens after a rainstorm, or in springtime, especially after a long and icey winter. And while the alliteration in English also works nicely to describe the feeling, I really like the musicality of the Russian. капли капали.

The first time I heard that sound, though I didn't know the Russian onomatopeia then to go with it, was in Rexburg, Idaho, where the streets had been packed in snow six inches higher than usual for six months or more, the first winter I went to college there. One morning in early spring when winter was about to make us all crazy, I took my journal out onto the front balcony to write and soak up what little sun we could feel. It was an odd and exhilarating feeling to feel 50 or 60 degrees of sunshine on my face and hands and bare feet but look around and see that most everything was still covered with snow and ice. Then I listened, and I heard it: drops dripping. Rivulets trickling under the cracking ice in the parking lot. The sound of sun dissolving winter. Melting. That was one of my favorite sensory experiences ever.

I walked outside today and again, though the sun wasn't quite that warm, all the same, капли капали - that was the sound, if I listened hard enough over cars and footsteps on the city streets. Things are melting, dripping, breaking up, cracking through, running down...

My reason for going out today was a call from David shortly after he left to walk to work. "You've got to take your camera out and get pictures of the icicles on the building down the street! One of them is seriously six feet long. It reached all the way from the roof to the balcony below it! The temperatures must have been just right yesterday for icicles like that. And all the icicles next to it are evenly spaced, like a curtain coming down from the eaves."

I like that my husband notices things like that and calls to share. Of course, he noticed them today because someone yelled at him about not walking under a building with icicles like that (a true and serious fear of Kievans, we've discovered), but still...

I went out and snapped a few photos. They are not the best photographic effort, but the icicles were pretty amazing - most of them at least an inch or two around at the roofline and tapering so gradually into such long frozen spears. Plus, it was just nice to mark that spring and winter are having their last battle before the months of sunshine: spring makes drips drop, while winter works more slowly now to thwart their thaw.

***

In a less poetic sidenote, you can't help but notice the construction of these buildings, can you, Uncle Scott? It never ceases to amaze me.

And for added interest: when spring first started happening this year, the sidewalks (which are often impassable because of cars and more recently because of plowed drifts) started being blocked and marked by ribbons tied to stakes. I could not figure out what it was about. But it's a sign all natives know, and they will be sure to tell you about it if you dare to walk within the ribbon: Falling ice.

Those icicles come sliding off the corrugated metal once enough water has slickened things ups for them on the roof, and crash! They are on the sidewalk, or your head, or through your shoulder blades. David says that three to five people die in Kiev every year from such a thing. So yield to the stakes and ribbon. And whatever you do, don't let your children cross under them. What kind of a parent are you, anyway? I love that people say that out loud to people they don't even know. Hey, my kids are their kids. It's awesome.

The Jane: Seven Months Old

2010-03-17T09:26:00.001+03:00

Yep. More Jane. Because she is growing so fast and she is what my days are mostly about...but seven months already?

She fake coughs and kicks her feet to get my attention and pretty much says my name already: "MMMMMuh....MMMMMuh" when she sees me. This morning she was hanging out with David while I did a couple things and was totally fine until I walked in the room and she started being anxious for me to pick her up. So I did, and turned with her to walk out of the room and - I'm not making this up! - she did "raspberries" over my shoulder to her dad. Up until now, it's just been a raised eyebrow that she gives him once she's safe in my arms, but now she's getting really sassy!

Do you like her silver shoes? Jane's giving me my chance to get a little girly, and I have to say that I like it.

Grandmas, she'll be home to visit you in August/September. Are you ready?

Getting Out of Dodge

2010-03-16T10:24:00.002+03:00

A friend of mine recently told me some advice she received when her four children were small: "Take lots of trips," she said, "because once they grow up, that's all you will remember about their childhood."

We talked and laughed about the truth of the idea, because the days when the chldren are small can turn into a blur of diapering, laundering, feeding, scolding, and picking up after. For us in Kyiv, where it is not at all convenient to get out and about with more than one child at a time and where entertainment if you do make it out is limited to walking around or the occasional indoor playground in winter, planning a trip or two seems like a very good idea.

And yet going on a trip with all the littles in tow (which is really just diapering, laundering, feeding, scolding and picking up after, on the road) is definitely not "vacation." Sometimes it sounds only slightly better than covering oneself with honey and lying down on a fire ant hill.

I guess there is all kinds of memory-making, though, isn't there? Who doesn't have at least one story of chain-reaction barfing in the backseat with the siblings, for example? Those are good times.

So I don't know if trip-taking is the key to remembering my children's childhood, because I also believe that the day-to-day small rituals of home, things that mom or dad "always" do, and the beauty of playing endless and ever-evolving made-up games with brothers and sisters every day create a lot of "remember how..." and "remember when..." conversations for years to come.

But trips really are a highlight of family life to me, and something I want to give my children. I have trip-planning in my blood - my grandpa was a lover of maps and a planner of roadtrips and a seeker of small adventures. He loved to chart things out and share the details of his plans. I loved seeing what he had up his sleeve and the twinkle in his eye as he talked about going somewhere or having been somewhere. And he always liked listening about my travels.

My husband loves to do research and find deals. We've worked out a system in which we decide the dates and place we want to go, then he finds the best way to get there, where we're going to stay, and how to get about while we're there. I work out the day-by-day details - what we'll wear (that's big when you have kids - they can't think through that yet!), what we'll see and do each day. Together, we've had some pretty amazing times already with our brood: at the beach, in and around D.C., trekking across the U.S. to Colorado, not to mention Egypt, Munich for Christmas, and London. We haven't seen as much of Ukraine and our current hometown as I would like, but we'll work that out this summer.

Right now, I've got to get out of Kyiv before my memories of this time turn grey. Not grey from fading mental capacity, but grey from the literally grey and schizophrenic weather, grungy cityscapes, and serious cabin fever. And before I start making less than pleasant memories for my children while attempting to keep them from going as berzerk as I feel.

We settled on Portugal as our escape this spring. We were originally supposed to go in late February, but it didn't happen because of work obligations, so we had to wait six extra weeks. I started thinking that getting away from winter in April was pointless since it would be all but over here, but that one thing has cooperated: four inches of snow fell night before last and it's coming down again right now. So by the time we make it out, we will be good and ready for someplace warm.

By all accounts, Portugal is Europe's best kept secret. There's a little bit of everything: beaches and the sea, caves and diving, amazing old cities, fishing villages, medieval castles and remnants of the Moors. Lots of Latin color and sunshine and delicious food. And they like big families.

It makes me feel good just thinking about it. I'm reading and marking my guidebooks and choosing a good mix of kid-friendly ways to pass the day. Perhaps at least the planning of trips while the children are small is therapeutic and memorable: it is sure helping me hang in there!

Do you have a fun travel memory from when you were little? Have you packed your kids up and gone anywhere recently? What are your strategies for traveling with littles?

The Jane: Six Months Old (late)

2010-03-03T11:35:00.006+03:00

OK. I know she'll be 7 months old in a matter of a few short days, but the obsessive compulsive in me is making me post these pictures from last month. I have to, just so a month of snapshots is not missing. Humor me.

She's getting better at posing and smiling. And she sits up mostly on her own now.

She still has a mostly pink wardrobe, which is fun, but she is a total knockout in light blue. Her eyes are sometimes blue, sometimes greenish, sometimes grey - really beautiful. And her skin is so peachy and creamy.

But don't let all the soft doll-like stuff fool you - she is a force to be reckoned with. I'm not reckoning with her all too well right now, but still. She's quite squidgable, don't you think?

Valentine's Day (Late)

2010-02-25T00:53:00.003+03:00

Our little cupid...

And a funny:

The girls from church brought heart-shaped sweet tart candies over for a treat and Calvin and Henry got a kick out of reading and eating way too many of them. My favorite part was Calvin saying, "Mom! Those conversation hearts are written in the same language that people use to text each other in!" And he cited one that said, "U R Cute." He has a talent for foreign languages.

(I've been busy just breathing and relaxing a bit this week. I have pictures to post of Jane at six months and quite a few innersting tidbits on Ukraine, mothering, sistering, reading, writing, you name it...I gotta get blogging!)

Bean Counting

2010-02-22T10:46:00.002+03:00

So, every now and then I have (get? exhibit?) a stroke of genius when it comes to making things work a little more smoothly around home.

And of course, I should blog about it when that happens, right?

Sometime before Christmas I dreamed up Super Fantabulous Magic OTOWAHA Beans. We implemented them about a month or so ago and have now polished the system. It has worked a few wonders at our house.

Wanna know more?

The Problem(s) That Needed Addressed:

1. Whining, complaining, throwing-self-on-the-floor behavior over even the smallest requests.
2. Complete ignoring of the parents.
3. "Forgetting" to do things that they know they should do, or things that they have been asked to do "eighty nine million times."
4. General unhelpfulness and demandingness.
5. Parents that were frazzled, hoarse from repeating and nagging, and frustrated that even the smallest tasks of the day (getting coats on, picking up a few toys, washing hands) took "eighty-nine million years" to accomplish on a daily basis.

The Solution:

An easy, mostly self-governing way to encourage positive behavior in order to get rid of the negative.

Namely, Super Fantabulous Magic OTOWAHA Beans!!!

How They Work:

Calvin and Henry each have an empty baby food jar for their weekly OTOWAHA beans. (Ours are dried pinto beans - you can use black-eyed peas or great northern whites or whatever).

Every Sunday, they get twelve OTOWAHA Beans in their jar.

Each OTOWAHA Bean equals five minutes of Wii or computer game time. So, they start out with an hour to play for the week, if they don't earn any more beans as they go.

How do they earn beans? Simple - it's in the name: O T O W A H A.

They get a bean every time they're asked to do something and they do it after being asked

O ne
T ime
O nly

AND they do it

W ith
A
H appy
A ttitude

They have to respond both ways - quickly and pleasantly- to earn a bean. (This because even when something is done right away, it's still a problem if it's accompanied with screaming, stomping and complaining the whole way. The whole, "if you give a gift grudgingly, it counts as nothing" principle...)

David and I, for our part, have tried to be careful to make it clear and make sure the boys are hearing and listening when we ask them to do something. We give ample response time instead of going into instant automatic repeat mode. And, we try to give the beans as immediately as possible when a job is done quickly and happily.

We also have been generous with beans when the requests are unusually helpful (they ran to get a cloth when I was covered in Jane spit-up), a little larger (putting away all their folded laundry by themselves), or when the boys have complied without conflict on something that is usually ugly (getting coats, boots, hats, gloves on in time to catch the bus).

Results:

As promised on the label that I made for the magic beans, the boys' Wii and computer time has multiplied, their parents have become much more pleasant, their days are happier, and they are well on their way to becoming Super Boys!

I can't even say how much better it makes my life not to have to cajole and plead over every little thing. I also see my kids feeling a lot better about life in general when they do tasks quickly and pleasantly - they have realized how it helps them get on with the good parts of the day if they just do something instead of fighting it. Having an immediate perk for quick obedience and a cooperative attitude has helped them stop and think before they pitch a fit.

We have tried not to make too many extra conditions on earning or keeping the beans, although a couple times it has been useful to remove a bean or two when one of the boys has forgotten himself and thrown a fit.

And we do stick to our guns pretty well about 'one time only' - they either take advantage of the opportunity, or they lose it. Often, the opportunity will get passed on to a brother, who will earn a bean for it. That serves as a silent reminder of what quick obedience gets you, with no nagging or reminding or threatening from the parents.

Overall, the boys have made the bean counting run with very little instigation on our part. We explained the rules and set it in motion, and the boys have been more than happy to keep it going, which is fabulous, and, I think, the mark of an effective system.

There are also some happy bonus side effects that I hadn't totally anticipated (I'm not that brilliant): They are learning some mad math skills. Their 5s times table is all but memorized at this point - they no longer count by fives to know how many minutes their beans equal - they mulitply by five!

We have also made it a habit for them to decide how many beans they want to spend based on how many beans they have accumulated, then set a timer for that many minutes when they begin computer or Wii time. This makes an activity that might otherwise be a mindless minute and hour vacuum into a more conscious use of time, and it helps them make a frugal "spending" decision. They can't spend more than they have, and they have also learned that it's funner to save up for a big block of time rather than one or two beans' worth.

And although Charlie isn't quite old enough to care about Wii or computer time, so the system doesn't apply to him yet, he is learning the concept of quick and happy obedience. It makes me laugh that every time he hears someone remind someone else, "One time only," he chirps the other half of the requirement: "Wif hoppy annitude!"

OTOWAHA Beans are our new kind of magical fruit.

Every Now and Then

2010-02-16T21:54:00.000+03:00

I get a little bit crazy...

No, really. I'm not sure why I do it, but somehow, I have times when I decide that...

...Valentine's Day must be observed with a bit of a party with the neighbors (because last year was the saddest ever - Calvin put his little heart so into it and what did I do for anyone for Valentine's? Zip. Nada. Zilch. Ouch.)

...AND a date with my husband (Georgian food! The most delicious veal I've ever had. OK. I don't get veal often ever. But this was mouth-meltingly delicious.)

...the "New Beginnings" program for our church Young Women (of which I am president) must happen this same week

...the Go-See-It for Tiger Cubs (of which I am co- den mother) must also happen sooner rather than later, which is to say, during the same week (luckily someone else was arranging logistics, but still, I must participate, which means covering all other bases while I am participating)

...I cannot pass up the opportunity to enter the embassy Chili Cook-off (I won a prize!)

AND...I decide to do these things in the midst of the rest of my life, which includes, but is not limited to:

...figuring out why my baby sleeps through the night not at all or at the very least, worse than she did when she was a total infant

...trying to eat right and exercise more

...giving my three older children the face time and listening time and love time that they really need

...really hurting my tailbone in a fall (I know I already mentioned that in my last post, but it hurt and it was real and I'm still recovering)

...really only wanting to be somewhere quiet, uninterrupted, and read / sleep

When I do these things, I end up rather ostrich-like, head in sand, procrastinating in a catatonic state of "what was I thinking?" and all the while knowing that I had better get myself pulled together or all of it is going to be a disaster for which I will feel a lot of frustration.

And I ask myself every time, "Why?" And I never come up with a really good answer. Ah well.

But the good news is that in one of my head-in-sand moments, I decided to go over and vote at Power of Moms. They had a photo contest - all snapshots and photographs of moms doing what moms do. And we get to choose which ones win. There are some darling pics there, and some tear-jerkers, and some real-life, down-to-earth shots of mommy life, too. You should go vote! Now!

In Need of Reprieve

2010-02-08T22:35:00.005+03:00

I'm snowed under in more ways than one - I'm working on some big projects for church and Cubs and still trying to get my grip on mothering four, dealing with cabin fever and actual headaches, and David was out of town over the weekend, which means lots of things go to pot and I play catch-up.

I fell twice within twenty minutes tonight and am pretty sure I was a cover for a very clever shoplifter between the falls. It keeps snowing and remains too cold and too ridiculous to take kids out, so I'm becoming a hermit of sorts.

Jane is scooting everywhere. Charlie is feeling his oats. Henry needs me every minute. Calvin wants interaction on a grand scale.

In more chipper news, we have a wonderful new neighbor family (well, they moved in right before Thanksgiving, so they're not like yesterday new, but they're pretty new...) that consists of three daughters and a baby son - all four children within six months of my children's ages. What's more is that they homeschool, so besides really enjoying the company of the mom of their family, I'm loving the chance to pick her brain about what it takes on a daily basis. It's great!

My sister just posted some of her reminisences about her first three months in Kiev which you might like to check out for some of the cultural/American perspective tidbits that you might find lacking lately on my blog. So nice to have someone else jotting stuff down for the blogosphere.

Some of you have asked about our next post after Kiev. We will be back in the good ol' US of A for at least a year while David works at Main State. It's a great thing. I'm feeling a little "trunky" right now. Mostly, I just need a breather. Hoping to get one in a month or so, and then it won't be long after and we'll be on our way to American home sweet home.

Sigh.

The Snuggle to Bad Dream Ratio

2010-02-05T00:15:00.004+03:00

After Calvin and Henry had been in bed for almost an hour and Henry had made a final toilet escape, he came squintily into the front room. Before I could tell him with some exaspiration to get. back. in. bed. he said: "Mom, can I talk to you about something?"

Me: (gulping back the exaspiration in the interest of letting my kids know they can always talk to me about anything) Of course you can.

Henry: Do you know that when you don't snuggle with me before I go to sleep, I have bad dreams?

Me: (looking at him with the tiniest twitch of a smile) Really?

Henry: Yeah. And did you know that the more you don't snuggle with me, the worse the dreams are?

Me: I didn't know that. Have you been having bad dreams lately?

Henry: Yes.

Me: What are they about?

Henry: (His eyes grow wide at the same time that they get a little shifty at this point.) They are so bad I just can't even tell you about them.

Me: Oh. I am really sorry.

Henry: Yeah. So, I really need you to snuggle me.

Me: Huh.

I'm sorry to say that this conversation did not result in snuggling tonight because there is a six-month-old in the house, but I did try an extra good huggy tucking in that should ward off those bad dreams.

I just have to wonder where Henry learned his approach and the "Did you know...?" infomercial-like tactics. Together with his sweaty little curls and just the right amount of earnest behind the sly twinkle in his eyes, he's pretty convincing.

I do need to snuggle him more.

I Got Nothin'

2010-01-25T15:24:00.003+03:00

You know it's bad when your husband, who lives in the same house with you, makes some kind of blithe remark about someone else who posts very rarely but still posts more than you do.

OK. I get it. I need to keep the blog up. But I've got nothin.' Or at least no way to say it in any kind of interesting way. But just for a post's sake, I'll give you a little list:

1. I'm sapped. Tired. Probably mostly lazy, but tired sounds better. And is quite possible, really.

2. Despite Item No. 1, I have exercised almost every day since the January 1. And I have lost several pounds and one inch off my waist.

3. I'm trying to fit into a smaller bathing suit by March, when we are thinking of going to Thailand.

4. My kids are cute and smart. Still. But I can't think of any specific examples right now. Just trust me.

5. It's crazy cold here right now, and the sidewalks are pure ice. You get brain freeze just by breathing. I actually kinda like it because this is what I expect out of winter in Ukraine. Last year was a disappointment.

6. I am serving as Young Women's President in our little church branch here. There are two girls, sisters, and I am clueless. This is a calling that is seriously stretching me - not because the girls are problems, but because it's out of my comfort zone (I struggled relating to teenage girls when I was one myself!) and I just want to do it right and make it a meaningful experience for them.

7. My hair is staticky and falling out at an alarming rate. I think it's something in the water. Or else thyroid again. Not cool.

8. I have fallen in love with fizzy water. If I could remember to make ice cubes, I would have heaven in a glass.

9. Only seven more months until our post in Kiev is up. Which supports my theory that a person can do anything for two years. Just put a three-month London break in the middle if you can. Heh. No, really. Kiev has been a great experience. I need to document it a little better, don't I?

10. I undecorated a couple weeks ago but our naked Christmas tree is still standing in the corner of the living room waiting for David to pack her up. Hmmm. Looks like he gets to his honey-dos almost as frequently as I get to my blog, eh?

How Do I Blog Thee?

2010-01-13T11:38:00.003+03:00

Let me count the ways...

This is my 500th post!!!

Almost four years, two new babies, a few blog identity crises, and one foreign living experience later, Code Yellow Mom is still going. I honestly never knew if I would stick to it very long and at the beginning it was with so much trepidation that I clicked "post" each time that I didn't know if I'd hold up under the self-inflicted torture of wondering if anyone would read and, if anyone did, would they like it?

You are witness to the fact that I've obviously gotten past the idea that I need to say something profound in a completely eloquent way every single time, but I still have aspirations of saying more and writing better. And I still think of you every time I click "post."

I started the blog partly because my friend Nobody convinced me to, but mostly because I don't live near my family and thought they would like a regular glimpse into my life. Only a few family members have enthusiasticlaly taken me up on that opportunity and offered support and encouragement, but I've also gained a circle of friends and family that otherwise I would never have come in contact with. It makes me feel good to know there are people who are interested, no matter how I express it.

Recording my daily snafus and observations, sometimes with humor, sometimes with apathy, and sometimes with tears, has been a fabulously rewarding experience. As I look back on posts from when Calvin and Henry were very little, I realize that this blog is a journal and a coping mechanism, a tool for learning and for going forward as a mom. I don't think I'm the same frantic and stressed, perpetually exhausted young mother I was in April of 2006. It's nice to be able to look back and see that.

500 is a big number. A super big number, as my boys would say. And I've reached it. It feels like something to celebrate, but I don't know exactly how. Except to say thanks to those of you who have read along, commented, commiserated, advised, empathized and enjoyed with me. I love you. I really, really love you.

Where does Code Yellow go from here? I'm still thinking. I'm still growing into being a mom of four, and it has overwhelmed me more than I'd care to admit. I think it's the tipping point for either becoming a lot more organized and articulate and pulled together (in more spheres than just the blogoshpere) or else falling off the deep end. I'm pulling for the "get it together" side of me. So we'll see. I'll try to blog about it...

Here's to 500 more!

And truly, thank you for being along.

Ten for Tuesday

2010-01-12T17:50:00.000+03:00

Today is just a small list of things to tell:

1. Happy Birthday to my Dad! Nothing can change how much I love and appreciate you and I wish we could spend more time with you. Hope your day is great.

2. Charlie wants everything "deep." It's his way of explaining that he wants more. It originated with wanting deeper juice in his cup, but has now grown to include snacks and toys. He wants deeper train cars, and if you only give him three chips, he tells you that they aren't deep - that means he wants at least four.

3. Henry - our family's most likely to fall, trip, topple, or stumble even from a stationery position - has a nearly perfect Center of Balance on Wii Fit. Hmmmm....

4. Calvin has been really snuggly lately. He will sit close to me on the couch or lay his head on my lap. I like it a lot, because he has always been very particular about his personal space. I think there's a leeeeetle part of him that still wants to be my baby. And that's fine by me.

5. Jane's first little tooth poked up on the bottom and another is right behind it. OK. So the process is not making either of us happy, but she looks cute. Now I just have to figure out baby food. I have to make my own because there is a totally different idea of "first foods" here, not to mention that added sugar doesn't seem to be a problem in baby foods and juices, and other ingredients on the label are not intelligible to me. Pureed carrots, anyone?

6. Overheard: (After Henry started some potty humor monologue and Calvin was laughing hysterically, Henry was trying with all his might to get Aunt Jo to crack up, too.)

Aunt Jo: Yeah, girls don't really think that kind of thing is funny.
Calvin: I do!
Aunt Jo: You're not a girl.
Henry: But it is funny!
Aunt Jo: And you'll think it's funny for the rest of your life. That's the sad thing.
Calvin: (all serious) Why is that sad, Aunt Jo?

The other sad thing is that most guys also wonder why that's sad.

7. I turned Aunt Jo into a brunette.

8. Overheard:

Charlie: I want some juice, stupid-head!
Dad: No way. I don't get juice for people who say ugly words.
Charlie: OK. I want some juice, nice head.

9. It has snowed and snowed and snowed. And neither sidewalks nor streets are plowed here. The main roads are mostly driven and melted clean, but the road on the little hill in front of our house provides continual amusement. Video footage coming soon. I'm also a bit home-bound because of the snow - we've gotten stuck several times coming or going to the store and church. Not fun with littles along.

10. David and I went on a date on a blizzard night. After getting stuck trying to get out of our alley drive, we decided to leave the car in the garage and walked to a sushi place a few blocks a way. It was eery quiet and foggy and dark and very Soviet feeling out as we took one step, slid a half step back, all the way. But it was fun! He has a very busy (late-night working) few weeks coming up, so we were so glad ot get out a while, just the two of us. (Thanks, Jo!)

And now, boys are back in school and my life can settle just a little during the days. We'll see what that will do for Code Yellow Mom.

P.S. I've lost 15 pounds since Jane was born. Trying not to psych myself out because I want to keep on it, but I feel really good. None of my pants stay on very well.

The Jane: Five Months Old

2010-01-11T12:58:00.008+03:00

I'm not sure what it says about my life that the only thing I manage to post on the blog is a monthly photo shoot of the baby.

Maybe it says I have SO MUCH going on and I can't find time to blog?

Maybe it says I have TOO LITTLE going on and I can't find anything to blog?

Maybe it says my blogginess is waning? Because certainly three little boys in Ukraine should supply plenty of blog fodder, one would think.

Maybe it just says I have a fourth baby. And that says it all.

Well anyway, here's Jane at five months old.

She cut teeth this week, which accounts for the copious amounts of slobber in some of the photos and some funny little smiles. I actually think she's been teething since birth...She is the only one of my babies who has absolutely loved teethers and rattles and rings to chew on at this age. (All the boys chewed stuff later, after they had teeth. Oh wait, they still do it. Like puppies, really.)

Jane rolls over like crazy and practically crawls, if she could coordinate the arms a tiny bit better. She can pretty much scoot and roll around the whole living room, but she doesn't sit up on her own yet!

She answers back with funny sounds, trying to copy whoever is talking to her, and her best smiles are still reserved for her brothers. (Calvin helped with this month's photo shoot.)

She is outgrowing her 3-6 months clothes more quickly than I would like, but she is not outgrowing her need for mom and only mom. It is seriously uncanny how I can put her down to sleep soundly and decide to run to the pharmacy on the corner and the minute the door clicks shut behind me, she is wailing unconsolably until I get back. She knows when I leave her. And no one else will do while I'm gone. I'm not exaggerating, either. Sigh.

It has been nice that Aunt Jo is here to snuggle and bathe and rock Jane a little - she's a good substitute a lot of the time. And Jane is trying to give Dad a chance, too. Someday I will be able to go on an errand without the haunting feeling that my baby is screaming the whole time I'm away.

In the meantime, I'm all Jane's. Or so she (and the blog) would have you think.

Code Yellow's 2009 in Review

2009-12-31T14:09:00.003+03:00

I haven't been as prolific blogging this year as I have been before, but this year has been amazing for me, so I thought I would put a little recap up for the last day of the year before we move forward into a whole new one.

(But first: I added a couple posts from earlier this month, for the grandmas: Jane's four month photo shoot. And Calvin's birthday post.)

January: We started 2009 in Ukraine (after moving here three months earlier) and started getting our heads around expecting a fourth baby. Wow.

February: We traveled to Egypt - a dream come true for David and an unforgettable experience for all of us.

March: Waited for spring

April: We learned we were having a GIRL, and knew for sure our lives would never be the same!

May: We took a little road trip to Khamenyets Podilski and saw some of the great old fortress ruins in Ukraine. It was fun to drive through small villages and get out of the city a bit.

June: We invited a wonderful young American volunteer teacher to stay with us after her semester ended. I needed help with the kids and someone go to London with us since David wouldn't be able to stay the whole time. Megan became such a great addition to our family - I thoroughly enjoyed her, and the boys, especially Charlie, loved her. She was the best combination of peacemaker and wrestler and teacher and friend. She intuitively saw what needed to be done and just did it, including a lot of dishes. I still miss her. Charlie turned 2 and at the very end of the month, we left for a three month stay in London and awaited Jane's birth.

July: Henry turned 5 and we spent Independence Day in our favorite colony (Britain) and enjoyed a beautiful summer month in London.

August: The boys went back to Virginia with Auntie S on the 9th and Jane arrived on the 10th. Kinda sad timing, but the boys were beyond thrilled to be back in the States for a while and when they came back, they brought my sister Lesli along. It was so great to see her! I also got to see Billy Elliott, Les Miserables, and Wicked while in London - something I totally didn't think would work out. It was fabulous!

September: The boys started their school year back in Kiev and I spent a few more weeks in London with Jane and Charlie. A friend and her daughter watched out for us and even took us on a roadtrip to Oxford, Stonehenge and a little beach in Wales. It was perfect. At the end of the month, I took the littles back to Kiev and our whole family was finally together agian.

October: My sister Joeli came to Kiev to live! We love having her here.

November: We settled into the grey cold of Kiev and hoped for snow. It didn't come, but we were also busy planning for the holidays and enoyed a Thanksgiving with the International Rotary Club.

December: We took a Christmas trip to Munich that was beautiful and Christmasy and perfect. Joy to the world! And just in time for the new year, about two feet of snow and a good amount of ice and slush has covered the streets and rooftops. It FEELS like a Ukraine winter now!

This year has been full of so many blessings and adventures. I am so happy that our family has been healthy and feel so fortunate to have such precious kids and a terrific husband. I know I am truly lucky to be able to be at home with my children and be able to watch them grow. I love seeing the world through their eyes and being taught by them every day.

I look forward to the prospects of 2010: We'll be back in the good ol' US of A sometime in the summer or fall for at least a year, I'm going to dive into homeschooling, and we might even buy our first home. I'm especially excited to see my parents and grandmother as well as David's family and to get together with my brothers and sisters for some fun times - it's been way too long!

I wish you and your family a wonderful celebration tonight and all the best in 2010!

A New Traveling Tradition

2009-12-28T17:32:00.002+03:00

On our way to Germany, the boys tired of the in-flight entertainment which they had packed themselves in their own backpacks...(they learned a few things about what will come in handy on a plane and what will not...) So I got out my in-flight entertainment, which I rarely get to on a flight with the family, and which consists of a notebook and pen.

I asked them, "What do you think we might see while we are in Germany?" I prompted them with things I wanted to see, things that aren't in the guidebook, things that weren't necessarily what we would or should see - trying to keep it somewhat whimsical and unexpected, with a few Christmasy things and a few stereotypical Bavarian things, to preserve the flavor of the trip.

For the whole week, the boys would point out things that were on the list that we should cross off and things that they thought we should add to the list because it was fun or unusual. We ended up seeing almost everything on our list, and it passed not only the time on the rest of our flight there, but some considerable time as we walked around the markets and rode the train to Nurnberg and Bad Toelz and the bus to Neuschwanstein. We talked about our list and got excited about seeing things wherever they happened to be.

(One rule that evolved was that we could use sculptures or tapestries to find some of the items, but not advertisements or photographs - everything had to be more or less "real." That made it more fun to cross things off our list, and a bit like "I spy" when we were in museums and castles...)

I think we just might make a list like this any time we travel. Perhaps I will make it a "take a pic" list next time, because some of the things we saw really should have been photographed, and I think the kids would enjoy either taking the pictures with disposable cameras of their own or occasionally getting to snap pictures with Mom's good camera. We'll see...

If you're interested in pictures of what else we saw and did, you can check out my album on facebook. We really enjoyed our trip as well as our list!

Anyway, here is our Munich list. I think it tells a lot about our adventure, too. Items with an asterisk indicate those that we didn't see, but still hoped for. Any guesses as to which items were added by whom?

three little pigs

an angel with wings made of feathers

a fish

a golden star (we actually saw 28 of them, Calvin kept the tally)

a silver bell

a big blue ornament (more difficult to find than you would think)

someone on stilts*

a wooden baby Jesus (woodcarving in Oberammergau is amazing)

a metal baby Jesus (we counted one made of gold)

a sailboat (the Deutsches Museum has quite a collection)

a cuckoo clock

a real, live baby lamb* (not one included in the live animal nativity we saw in Nurnberg)

a red train

a snowdrift taller than Dad* (although we did some serious playing in the snow!)

a knitted scarf, hat and mittens that all match

a soldier

a rooster (part of the mosaic on the floor od King Ludwig's throne room)

a golden bed (Calvin thought of adding this and then was not that impressed when we actually saw one!)

candles that clip on a tree

a castle made of gingerbread (actually, it was made of marzipan...but quite impressive)

a castle on a mountain (we saw two, and one palace on a mountain)

a fountain (it was frozen, but still spitting water out of its mouth - most of the other fountains were covered with little wooden huts to protect them from the cold)

a big black mean stray dog*

someone riding a bicycle (in the snow!!)

a lady with a red fur coat

a sweater crow like in Kiev*

a menorah

a ruby or sapphire (amazing collection in the treasury of the Residenz)

a butterfly ornament*

a Santa Claus with a real beard (who happened to be riding a bicycle in the snow!)

a sausage that looks like this: (a drawing of a spiral)

a tower

a rocket

a bird smaller than Mom's hand

a man wearing lederhosen*

a grandma with red cheeks

a building with purple stripes (the stripes were created with Christmas lights)

an elephant

a bridge in the mountains

a horse-drawn carriage (we rode it!)

a fairy

a man in a turban

a snake

a big frothy mug of beer

a 5-mile tunnel (going 190 miles an hour on a bullet train!)

orange Christmas lights

a feather pillow as wide as Calvin's arm span*

a string of jingle bells*

a music box

a drum

a man with a Peter Pan hat

a serving wench (ours weren't as buxom and young as one might like, perhaps)

a monster truck (three!)

a camel

a four-horned goat (which WAS included in the live nativity we saw in Nurnberg)

a giant Christmas tree

Where Did Everything Go?

2009-12-27T21:51:00.002+03:00

December?

2009?

My blog?

Everything has gotten away from me. Facebook highjacked my blog, but as for the month and the year and most of my sanity, I have no idea...

We spent Christmas in Munich. Just got back tonight. Pictures and more later. It was wonderful.

Jane turned four months old, learned to roll over and scoot pretty much wherever she'd like to go, and celebrated her first Christmas. She has also completely overwhelmed her dad because she refuses to be consoled by him. It's sad because he is so loving and has always been able to handle the other babies, and she will have none of it. It's strange for me to have a baby that is soooo into me and only me (and sometimes Aunt Jo). A bit exhausting as well.

The older boys have two more weeks off of school for the holidays. That makes six weeks off in the last two and half months. On one hand, it's nice - I really enjoy them, and I haven't lost my motivation to homeschool next year. On the other hand, it's a lot of work coming up with things to occupy them and pacify them and contain them. I think urban apartment living is the main problem. So we'll have to solve that sometime in the new year.

I'm working on catching up with everything and finding everything, including some time to blog more regularly.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a new year filled with wonder and joy...in case I don't find my way to the blog again before 2010 is upon me.

The Jane: Four Months Old

2009-12-10T13:34:00.000+03:00

She's celebrating her first Christmas this year!

Her boots are courtesy of Auntie S. This little girl is going to be so hip, even with a fashionly clueless mom, thanks to her very stylish extended family.

Jane is so intent and aware...

Always thinking and trying to figure stuff out...

This month, she realized that her hands were hers. However, she still used one to catch the other and put it in her mouth.

She likes the lights and ornaments, and she truly is crazy about red. (They say that babies especially like red, but out of my kids, she and Calvin are the only infants that really seemed to be attracted to it or to fixate on red things at all.)

More and more of her (very strong) personality is coming out. FOrtunately, I think she is also developing a little sense of humor.

A Note By Any Other Name...

2009-12-07T12:13:00.003+03:00

Calvin and Henry were playing some kind of secret note passing game yesterday in which they would write funny notes to one another and have Charlie deliver them and then they would laugh and laugh over the silliness of what their notes said. I wasn't privy to any of the contents of most of the notes, and I'm pretty sure they contained potty talk (because it is HILARIOUS to write "poopy," you know), but the boys were having fun and it was keeping Charlie occupied as well, so it went on for quite a while.

I'm not sure if Charlie tired of being delivery boy or if Calvin just suddenly had an idea, but he brought me a Fanta bottle with a rolled up note stuck in it and whispered, "Give this to Henry when you see him." So, I complied and handed the bottle to Henry when he came into the kitchen.

He opened the bottle and unrolled the note and read it out loud at the kitchen table:

Dear Henry,
You are a rose to me. I love you.
From: Mom.

And Henry looked up with a big smile and said, "Did you write this, Mom?"

He was so happy to get a nice, non-potty-topic note that made me so sad to tell him no, that Calvin had written it to be tricky. So I added that it was true, he was a rose to me. Then it made me laugh, because who tells anyone that they are a rose? And how did Calvin even think to write a note from me and then so easily get me to deliver it? And did Henry really think that I might have written it when it was obviously in Calvin's handwriting? And then I realized that Calvin's trick really was tricky. And funny but a little sad, and that's what made it such a good trick. The stinker.

My First Baby, Seven Years On

2009-12-03T21:46:00.006+03:00

Oh, Calvin. My beautiful, beautiful boy. You were first to show me the miracle of being a mom and first to make me love like I didn't know I could. You are smart and strong and healthy and happy and inquisitive and tender and serious and intense and loving. One of my deepest joys is watching you grow and one of my greatest satisfactions is seeing the amazing boy you are. And the way the years are flying by, I know you won't always be my boy, and I won't always get to mother you, but every birthday you have is one more year that I am blessed to know you and have you in my life. Happy Birthday, my sunshine.

More Jane: Blessing Day

2009-11-30T07:52:00.000+03:00

These pictures are on my facebook, but I wanted to share them with my friends (and dad, grandma) outside of Facebook.

Jane was blessed yesterday and here is our little after-church photo shoot.

Potty (Training) Talk

2009-11-29T08:02:00.004+03:00

I wait to potty train until the boy has the verbal and/or motor skills to understand and be able to do most everything that needs to be done. (With the exception of wiping - that motor skill doesn't catch up for a good long time...) But I think it's important for the boy to be able to communicate that he needs to go and for me to be sure that he is understanding what's going on.

So I think it's time to start potty training Charlie. He had a brief removing-of-his-own-diaper phase, but now he is really into announcing each time he "goes" in his diaper. Only he says things like, "I just went peepee on the table" (because he was sitting on the coffee table, fully dressed, at the time) and "I just pooped on my train track" (again, just sitting on the train track). He thinks it's hilarious when I come bolting into the room to make sure he didn't really...

My favorite, however, is when he announces proudly, with a sly little giggle, "I just burped in my diaper!!!" We usually call them toots, so he came up with the burp analogy on his own. And since he is my third boy and I have resigned myself to regular conversations about bodily functions until they are married and their wives can listen to them, I laugh every time he lets us know he "burped."

At any rate, I'm pretty sure he knows and can verbalize what is going on well enough to train. Sigh. Not my favorite thing...Although getting down to one child in diapers again is a nice thought.

Dr. Cal

2009-11-21T15:41:00.003+03:00

Last night I had a strange attack of a fever and chills and body aches and was certain that I was on my way to a serious illness of some sort, just in time for the swine flu quarantine to be lifted and the kids to go back to school.

I was in bed trying to get warm when Calvin came in, unable to sleep, and wanted to snuggle. He asked me if I was OK and I answered that I didn't feel so good and (in my not serious tone of voice) maybe I had swine flu.

Calvin: If you had swine flu, you would have a lot of symptoms. Like you would have a headache and a fever and you would be coughing and sneezing and maybe even throwing up.

Me: Hmm. Well my whole body hurts and I'm pretty sure I have a fever.

Calvin: (unimpressed) That's only two.

Me: My head just hurts really bad and I feel like I'm freezing. Kiss my forehead and see if it feels hot to your lips.

Calvin: Yeah, it's pretty hot. But you can't really know if it's a real fever unless you actually take your temperature, Mom.

Me: Are you a doctor or something?

Calvin: No. I just read a lot of non-fiction books.

Dryer Full of Pink

2009-11-18T00:13:00.006+03:00

This sight just made me smile tonight. You know laundry is my arch-nemesis, but it is kinda fun to open the dryer door and see it full of baby girlness, all Drefty smelling and softy soft.

I also loved this the other night. Henry is my note-writing, loving and appreciating boy. And it makes me smile that he always puts "realy" and "serislee" at the end of his declarations. He wants there to be no doubt that he means it.

Jane has definitely turned thumb sucker. She can almost console herself and it's adorable to look at besides that.

In other random tidbits, I now "have a Facebook." I don't know what I was thinking. I'm too old for peer pressure to be a driving force in my life, but there it is. I couldn't ignore the incredulity of ~~everyone in the modern world~~ my friends any longer.

I am really happy that it has connected me with my two older cousins, who are part and parcel of most of my childhood memories. And I will try to be up on it and answer back, Uncle Scott. (Although I don't want you to quit reading and commenting on Code Yellow Mom!)

One other thought is that maybe my blog can become my substantial, "real writing" (witty, succinct, meaningful, addictive to someone besides me) effort, and my facebook can be the random keep in touch stuff that my blog has become. I'd like that. Although I've not been very good at either since putting my social network self out there. (Life is what I'm doing when I'm not online.)

And speaking of blogs, my sister has launched a blog (I'm good at dishing out the peer pressure myself!) and you should check it out. She is cute and related to me and if that's not enough, she is telling all about HER life in Ukraine and tattling a little on me. Undeniably Gypsy. Go tell her Hi and let her know that even though my kids often smell bad, they are still the cutest nephews and niece in the eastern hemisphere.

The Jane: Three Months Old

2009-11-13T09:12:00.009+03:00

Time is flying - I just barely posted Jane's 2 month photo shoot, and not much else in between. That would be because my life is mostly about Jane. She's got my number.

Other than baby doodling, we've also been homeschooling. It's like a trial run for next year, which is a good thing, I guess. The boys are doing well and the school has (or at least the boys' teachers have) done a remarkable job setting up a distance learning program online so they don't fall behind in their progress and don't have to go to school for three extra weeks in the summer. The only part I'm not liking is the scanning of the work they do at home to send in to their teachers. My attention span is lacking or something.

Calvin and Henry miss their friends. I am getting a feel, though, for how they will function for homeschool and what things I need to do so they get social and physical stimulation in. It hasn't been as rough as I thought, so I won't complain too much about swine flu nonsense, which is the reason we are basically locked up at home, but I think we will all be glad when we can get out and have the routine of going to school again.

But without further ado, the reason for this post: Janekins.

She is a magnificent night sleeper - usually from 9 p.m. until 4 a.m. and last night from 9 p.m. until 6:30 a.m. (and right back to sleep after feeding, which is why I am blogging right now...) We can't seem to get a daytime routine of naps and feeding and playing going, but the nighttime rest helps a lot to compensate for the snuggling, holding, rocking, soothing that goes on for most of the day.

Jane startles easily. And by startle, I mean that her face registers complete panic and she holds her breath and then wails until she feels secure again. That's been fun with all the boys home all day. Everything about them is loud and sudden. Jane doesn't like it much.

I do love how she looks at me...

She has started finding her fingers and thumb to soothe herself. It is pretty adorable. She puts her whole hand on her forehead and slides it down her face until her thumb slips into her mouth. She sucks for a second until she accidentally pokes her own eye with her still extended fingers. Then starts the process over again. We'll have to work on it a bit.

In general, she spends a good amount of time trying to figure out her arms. She was literally born with her hand on top of her head, and she still puts it there a lot. Lately she's been pausing to look at her arm as it makes its way up and she studies her hands a lot. It's funny how interested she is in it - it seems to be a longer phase of doing this kind of thing than the boys had. The whole time we were trying to take pictures, she had one or the other of her hands in front of her face...

She is starting to have longer times of playing or looking around without crying and that is nice. We're also getting a lot more smiles out of her. Her personality is showing more and more...

She continues to be a champion breastfeeder and is definitely not missing out on any of the good cream...

She seems to be getting so big, but she is really still such a tiny little thing.

Her babyhood seems to be lasting a lot longer than my other babies. That is a good thing, because sometimes I can hardly remember when they were tiny and that makes me sad. The baby years are the hardest for me so far, but they really are so fleeting, and then gone forever.

And although I feel like I'm seeing and appreciating a lot more of her baby-ness, three months has definitely flown.

Halloween

2009-11-02T04:53:00.004+03:00

The boys were off for a week for fall break last week. And now, thanks to ridiculous swine flu panic they get three more bonus weeks at home. Just in time to go back for two weeks and then have three weeks off for Christmas. I really should have just started homeschool this year...

But anyway.

Here are some pictures of our Halloween fun. The boys helped me and Aunt Joe paint the backdrop for the embassy kids halloween party and they were super excited to be ghosts. (After a week of trying to figure out how to do a mummy costume that would stand up to the "I've got to go pee...NOW!" test. We never figured it out...)

Aunt Lesli sent Jane her first halloween outfit...

And another mom here swapped me baby costumes so that her daughter could be Eeyore this year and Jane could be a screaming jack-o-lantern. Super cute.

It made me miss the U.S., though. Halloween just isn't the same, since there's no explaining what kind of holiday Halloween is or really why we "celebrate" it. It kinda misses its mark in a different country. Ah well. We did get a bunch of American Halloween candy from the commissary and we ate chili and watched a spooky movie at home. We'll do some real trickin' and treatin' some other year...

The Jane: Two Months Old

2009-10-21T09:15:00.000+04:00

I didn't post it!! I took the pictures and edited them and then...my brain! Where is my brain?!?

Anyway, about Jane at two months...

She continues to prefer (and now demand) me above all others. Although my sister Joeli (who just moved here!!!) can get her to be calm, and a professional grandma in our branch can settle her quite well. She has added a little girly scream to her cry now. It's cute and scarey all at the same time.

She also already tries to get her brothers in trouble with her zero-to-hysterical tendencies. I will walk out of a room where one of the boys is cooing and talking to her and she's totally happy, then suddenly I will hear her scream and hold her breath and start crying like crazy so I rush back in thinking that the brother did something to her and expect to see the bouncy seat overturned or teeth marks on her face or something. And then I remember - she doesn't wind-up fuss. She just lets you know right away when she's done being pleasant. Poor big brothers.

If I didn't know it before, I definitely know it now: a baby is born with personality and preferences and character traits. Jane is spicey and baffling. At two months.

She is growing fast and I already had to retire a few of her littlest clothes because she started looking like she was exploding out of them. So sad.

Her little bit of hair is decidedly strawberry blonde in hue and her eyes are very much like Henry's - blue/grey/green. Her looks surprise me all the time - I took it for granted that I would have a brown-haired, brown-eyed girl. She has beautiful porcelain skin and is soft and squidgy all over.

And now for the pictures. She does smile - mostly for me, occasionally for her dad or brothers, but never for the camera. But who needs to smile? Those thighs speak for themselves...

To Jane From Henry

2009-10-12T22:52:00.003+04:00

(On an orange piece of construction paper folded in several directions. The "J"s are backwards with giant dots on the top of them...He gave it to me to give to her to help her stop crying.)

you'r very couht jane

I. love you jane

serislee

You Should Live Here: Moonbounces

2009-10-05T16:14:00.004+04:00

We're getting into our routine again here in Kiev. That includes at least one trip a week to a park or playground. We went to Marinsky Park on Saturday, which was really beautiful. But it did make me miss London a bit.

One of the very, very best things about London is that they have amazing parks. Beautiful gardens, paths, fountains, ponds and lakes. Green. Clean. Perfect. We spent a lot of time in Regent's Park and some in Hyde Park, St. James, and Kensington Gardens. I love not only being outside and strolling through the parks, but I love the atmosphere, the people, the feeling that is there. The boys loved feeding the huge variety of birds (although Charlie did equal parts feeding and chasing) and discovering the playgrounds, which were safe and clean. It's the little things, you know. So nice.

But almost every time we left a playground or park in London, Charlie would start a steady repetition: "Ah wanna doe on moonbouse...Ah wanna doe on moonbouse..." It took me a while to figure out what he was saying and why it always came up when we were leaving a park. Then I realized it was: "I wanna go on the moonbounce."

(We call them moonbounces - I'm not sure what they're called in general. In Northern Virginia, people not in our socioeconomic bracket rent them for backyard birthday parties and they usually are just a contained place to jump like mad inside a huge air-filled cube. The ones here are the same huge inflated things, but they are slides instead of air-trampolines, and they usually have some kind of chicken/barnyard theme to them. Do you call them moonbounces, too?)

Yeah, they don't have moonbounces in every (or any?) park in London. But they do in Kiev. For less than $1, your child can climb, bounce and slide like crazy for ten whole minutes. Charlie loves the moonbounce and apparently considers it an integral part of his going-to-the-park experience. The other boys were discerning enough to appreciate London's parks for what they were, but Charlie felt they were distinctly lacking.

But now all the boys are thrilled to be back in the land of the moonbounce parks. Considering the state of the playgrounds and the broken-glass-strewn paths in a lot of the parks here, the moonbounce is heaven.

A Cuppla Sweet Things

2009-10-04T21:47:00.004+04:00

Jane will not take a bottle. She did a bit in the first few days of her life (thank goodness) but now she will have none of it. Breast only for her, whether I like it or not. Also, she truly prefers me over any other person in the world.

And when I feed her, if I am not looking at her, she gets restless and latchesonlatchesofflatchesonlatchesoff. This means no talking to others (which was a problem when I had to feed her today while teaching the young women at church, which is another crazy phenom: I can actually breastfeed in public without indecent exposure), and no watching TV. She does tolerate me reading, but only sometimes.

None of my other children ever did breastfeeding this way (I was seriously considering not even bothering with Jane because of past experience) and all of them were consolable by their dad. It's just wierd, sweet, and somewhat exhausting to be so much in demand.

And Charlie. We have worked out a special bedtime ritual since all my other time with him during the day usually gets interrupted or multitasked in the wake of Jane. (He says, "I want Mommy pway wif you" and I have to tell him, "Not right now" so much it breaks my heart. But the topper was the other day when his dad asked him for a kiss and he said, "Ahm bissy wight now." Ouch. I think he's heard that a little too much.)

So at night he now insists that I "hing hongs and hay pwayohs" (sing songs and say prayers) with him and only him. Oh, I love those five minutes with him snuggled on my shoulder. And I love it that he likes to hear me sing - my other boys love music, but my singing is not their fave, and they never got hooked on it as something soothing when they were little. Charlie is the one and it is precious to me.

And that is all for now. I like my babies. The end.

The Ukraine I Know and Love

2009-09-24T21:44:00.004+04:00

Today I went downstairs to wait for the boys to come home on the bus and busied myself translating - roughly, as my Ukrainian is very poor - a printed announcement that was taped to the front door of our building.

It said that the people who live in the apartment on the floor above us are in arrears on two of their property taxes / utilities to the tune of a total of 170 THOUSAND grivna (about 19,000 US$). Interesting, huh? I mean, interesting that among other things they're still living there with that kind of problem.

But even more interesting was the part of the announcement which said that because of this debt, the Kiev utility company will not be turning on the heat FOR THE ENTIRE BUILDING for the 2009/2010 heating season unless they receive payment in full.

Hmmmmmm. Very interesting indeed.

I do wish that I had posted more about our neighbors above us, because this really is just the culmination of lots of fun stuff. Like that the building super turned off the elevator button that goes to their floor because they owed maintenance fees or something. So they walk down from their floor to ours to catch the elevator. Doesn't bother us at all, but sometimes causes them an awkward wait for the lift.

We're trying to decide (amongst the other neighbors) if we should pass a collection plate around or show up at the debtor's door on the night of the first freeze with pitchforks and torches?

I'm competely not worried - we won't go cold. There's just so many levels of ridiculousness here: the residents, the utility company, the apartment building that wasn't set up to allow separate meters and valves for each apartment, the fact that there's a heating season...

Charming, really, in its absurdity.

Home Sweet Home

2009-09-21T15:30:00.002+04:00

A long time ago, when David and I were engaged and living in different parts of the country, he sent me a love letter. He included a poem that said:

Although I conquer all the earth
Yet for me there is only one city.
In that city there is for me
Only one house.
And in that house, one room only.
And in that room, a bed.
And a woman sleeps there:
The shining jewel and joy
Of all my world.

When I was expecting Calvin, I wrote out this poem in lettering that matched the small things we had collected for his room and put instead, "my little boy sleeps there." In the same frame, I put my favorite picture of David when he was a little boy, sleeping with a baseball cap on, arm flung across the bed, cheeks all rosey. We still have the poem and the picture, hanging in Charlie's room now.

A week and a half ago, I was standing on a beautiful beach in Wales. The beach soothes my soul like nothing else and the ocean never fails to inspire me with awe and peace. I watched Charlie play in the sand with my friend, I gathered a few unusual shells, then I sat with Jane on the retaining wall as the tide came in.

Suddenly, as I looked out, it was so beautiful to me and I just started aching for David to be with me. I was thoroughly loving the moment, but it felt somehow sad to enjoy it without him.

It was then that I was ready to come back to Kiev. London was perfectly wonderful in every way (I have a post on that for later...), but suddenly I knew that I wanted to be with my husband and my little boys, sharing the world I have with them, rather than simply enjoying the beauty and wonder of the world and one of the greatest cities in it, without them.

So I've been back in Kiev for two days now. I'm tired and getting back into the swing of things and a little of the old humdrum, but now all the shining jewels and joy of my whole world are here.

Truly, there's no place like the one city, the one house, the one room where they are.

The Jane: One Month Old

2009-09-11T13:53:00.004+04:00

Jane and I shared a birthday this week: she turned one month old and I turned 35 (gulp). Years (!). Old (sigh).

I was missing my boys and husband madly, but I actually really scored for my birthday: I saw Wicked with my sister Lesli a couple weeks ago when she was here (an early birthday treat). This week I went to Oxford, Stonehenge, Chester, and a beach in Wales with my babies, and came home to lots of sweet emails from family. I also happened to be visiting Nobody's sister who lives in England (and is the one who toted us around the English countryside), and she had a birthday cake for me! So, aside from the aging bit (which only gets to me on an occasional birthday, this year being one of those times...), my birthday was great.

Today is my baby sister's birthday! I was just a little older than Calvin when she was born, and she is the first baby that I distinctly remember wanting to care for and love on. I rocked her and sang to her when she was tiny, and I have loved and admired her all our growing up. I love it that she was almost born on my birthday. Happy Birthday, Jojiemo!

And now about The Jane. We are unabashedly girly when it comes to her, and Auntie S gave her this adorable tutufied onesie (the tulle on it is so surprisingly soft!), which I almost immediately decided would be Jane's first year outfit. (I accordingly took it upon myself to order the next two sizes in it so she can don it each month for a growing-up photo shoot.) And if you'd liek to, you can skip the following blah, blah, blah and go straight to the pictures...

Here's the background: I've been wanting to take monthly photos for the first year of each one of my kids and the closest I got was taking a picture every second of Calvin's life and then assembling a calendar for Henry, but the photos were never organized and even Henry's calendar is missing two months. I also wanted to find a cool toy or prop that would always be in the photo with Jane for a size comparison, but couldn't find anything that thrilled me enough.

In the end, I decided that the quilt my grandma made would be a lovely backdrop and the pictures will show how she changes and grows even without a size reference.

So we entertained ourselves with a little photo shoot earlier this week. I know I will eventually have to choose just one photo for the month, but for the grandmas, here is our one-month-old being pink and soft (in several pictures):

This shot is to show off her luscious arms:

This is Jane's "thinky" look. It is a little more intense at times, but she is a very serious girl. Her brother Calvin had this look on his face basically at birth. It took Jane a week or two, but she's got the intensity of figuring out the universe in her, just like him, I think.

The next two pictures are Jane being distracted by Charlie. I think she recognized and followed him with her eyes even before she knew me, but it is precious how much they are interested in each other.

(No babies or two-year-olds were harmed in the taking of this photo shoot. I stopped them before the arm of the sofa turned into a vault routine...)

And here Jane is modeling her Babylegs - the best solution for cold-weather dressing of babies ever. I love them and almost can't wait until the weather in Kiev really warrants them.

And this is Jane letting us know that enough is enough. No more photos, no more questions, please! She's very assertive that way.

Things are settling a bit now, and Jane is starting to console better and sleep a little longer at one time. It looks like we will be headed back to Kiev next weekend. I'm getting myself together a bit and hope to be blogging more regularly (as much for me as for anyone who might care to read) soon.

Happy September!

Just a Bit

2009-08-31T00:57:00.004+04:00

Thank you, thank you...for the advice, prayers, empathy and support you all expressed on my previous post (and in emails!). We are getting a little more sleep and I am so thankful for the solutions you offered. I am in "Sleep is Sacred" mode right now, so blogging is falling off my "Things to Do" list, but I just wanted to let you know how great it felt to know I'm not alone and to have something - anything - to try.

(Elevating her head a bit and changing some things I eat seem to have made a significant difference, as well as some modified swaddling - she HATES her arms to be pinned down, but seems to get calmer when her body is snuggled and her legs are wrapped up - and I am going to check into the lactose thing just to be sure...)

She is actually thriving (developing strong lungs, for sure) and I'm beginning to figure her out while getting through the weepy postpartum hormones. The boys started school in Kiev on Thursday and are both loving it. Charlie has started vying for my attention in naughty ways, but I can't really blame him. Mostly, I am really missing David.

I'd like some ruby slippers so I could tap the heels together and be home, all in one country, one city, one house again, with all my kids and my husband, even though London has been perfectly wonderful. I just need my people. Three more weeks seems like forever (that's how long I have to stay for us to get medically cleared and get the passports / visas fo traveling).

Sigh.

But now to sleep while my babies are sleeping.

I'm Done For

2009-08-23T15:41:00.001+04:00

My little Jane? Cries all the time. I think more in the first two weeks of her life than all my boys put together. I cannot figure it out, and with every minute more of lost sleep I lose a little more sanity and a little more confidence in my infant-caring ability.

She breastfeeds better than any of my other babies ever did - truly! (This is a GREAT blessing - I'm not denying that, for sure. I actually say, "Thank you, thank you" every time she latches, I was so worried before about nursing...) She doesn't seem abnormally gassy, although she isn't a regular pooper, so maybe she's having a hard time moving everything through.

But most of all, she does not console. Rocking, sitting, standing, with or without "white noise." I can't do anything. She will finally crash, so tired, but she does not sleep for very long stretches at all. I mean, often not more than 20 minutes, never more than three hours (and that's only happened two or three times). And it was only today that she had any waking time that she wasn't fussing and/or screaming. She goes from zero to hysterical in one second flat, too - no wind up, nothing that seems to set her off.

I'm thinking this is another "Learn Empathy" lesson for Code Yellow Mom. I never REALLY understood moms who talked about their extremely fussy babies until now. I mean, my other babies have had phases and moments and illnesses that caused fussiness, but this is inexplicable and incurable. And I'm going mad. I hear her crying even when she's not. I've just started not bothering going to sleep because being awoken just as I doze is excruciating.

And I'm freaked out because on Wednesday, David is going back to Ukraine with the big boys to start school and I will be here with Charlie and Jane. I'm considering pulling all my hair out ahead of time, as a preemptive strike...

Except I can still appreciate things like this (pictures below), so I know it'll be OK. There is maybe nothing more precious than a newborn who still folds herself up like she's in the womb. Look at those little legs! Can you help loving such a thing?

P.S. Thank you to my friend Debbie who made the flannel blanket Jane is curled up on. We love it - perfect weight, perfect colors, perfectly soft. (Charlie likes the frogs on the opposite side!) It's getting a lot of use!

The Look of Charlie's Week

2009-08-15T15:57:00.003+04:00

I caught a grainy snapshot of a little smile in Jane's sleep yesterday:

We decided on Jane Elizabeth. After all that. There are lots of Elizabeths and Elizas in our family tree and it really is one (in my opinion) of the most beautiful girl names ever. Plus I suddenly thought "Jane E." is very cute. So, there you have it.

Charlie is very attentive and interested in his little sister. I think he hears her cry in the night before I, with supersonic mother hearing, hear it. His sleep has been really rough since we came home because he wants to help her stop crying and he can't sleep until she is asleep again, but he remains pleasant and sweet.

He loves to hold the baby and has been so gentle with her. He's very curious about her and he likes to tell her things. My favorite was when he started telling her very seriously, "No bite Mama, Baby! No bite!"

A couple times he has started touching her very soft while she's laying in my lap and saying, "I yike yo toes, Baby...I yike yo yegs, Baby...I yike yo cheeks, Baby...I yike yo hayoh, Baby..." So adoring and adorable.

And once when David left to run an errand and Jane started fussing right after he walked out the door, Charlie said to her, "OK, Baby. OK. Daddy be right back."

His life has looked a little topsy-turvy this week, I think.

On Sunday his brothers left for a visit to Virginia with Auntie S.

On Monday when Charlie woke up, his parents were gone (to the hospital) and he was at home alone with someone that he didn't know very well (Nobody's darling niece, incidentally).

On Tuesday his parents reappeared, with a squeaky, squidgy, needy little bundle. And his mom can't really pick him up and is a little slow about playing a lot with him.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, he's mostly hung out with Dad - a great thing, but still not the "norm." And all the while the disrupted sleep of having a newborn in the house.

And yet, I think he's pretty OK with it all:

22 Hours Later

2009-08-10T13:45:00.001+04:00

Our little Jane was born yesterday (August 10th) at 3:31 p.m. She weighed in at 8 pounds, 8 ounces (tiny!) and is peaches and creamy - light colored hair and blue eyes.

We walked to the hospital at five o'clock yesterday morning after about ten hours of laboring at home (and a few hours more than that of really bad back pain - the precursor of labor, I guess). Then we walked home from the hospital this afternoon with a baby less than 24 hours old!

Labor and delivery was a bit more traumatic at moments than we bargained for - mostly because Jane insisted on keeping her arm above her head (her little hand came out on top, even still!), her umbilical cord was wrapped around her tummy and got pinched a bit, and meconium was thrown into the mix in a big way. But we are doing great. I was mostly just thrilled that I went into labor on my own and didn't have to be induced. And blessedly, no C-section.

For those who took a gander at her vital stats: No one guessed her date of birth right on (she came overdue, but still earlier than even I expected!), BUT she was born on her grandma's 60th birthday. What's more is that her grandmother is also the mother of three boys and one girl, so in addition to a granddaughter on her birthday, we are going to send her something extra special.

Mrs. Lemon was the closest to the date and she absolutely wins the weight guess. (Code Yellow Dad was technically the closest on the weight, but he got a daughter.) So, Mrs. Lemon, look for your prize later this fall once I get back to Ukraine. And thank you for guessing kindly. My hips appreciate it.

(My grandmother sent the beautiful quilt that Jane is laying on. Each of my kids has a quilt tied and edged with points by her. They are such treasures. Thank you, Grandma B!)

Uh oh. I hear Charlie getting the "You can't drive cars on the baby's head" lesson. Gotta go.

She is SO Due

2009-08-08T12:47:00.000+04:00

So when I was nine months along with Calvin, I went to church one Sunday and our Bishop took one look at me and instead of saying, "Hello," he said, "Ouch." It was very empathetic and somewhat funny, and I think it applies right about now.

I'm not sure if my family walks so far ahead of me when we go out places because it's painful for me to keep up, or because it's painful for them to seen with me like this. Ah well.

I am getting some special treatment, though. All kinds of seats vacated for me on the Tube. An usher chased down an extra seat cushion for me (because HE decided I needed one - I didn't ask!) so I could enjoy Les Mis in more comfort. A clerk at a street cafe let me have a 30 pence discount because I was out of change - I was scrounging for it and he said, "It's OK, Mummy. It's OK. Enjoy your drink." So nice! I like it!

In other news, we're still waffling about a middle name for Jane. I consulted Swistle and if you want to go weigh in on the Jane's middle name issue, check it out and comment! Some very sweet ideas. I need them. We're stumped.

And I'm trying ot make these last few heavy days/weeks a little more fun, so here's a chance for you to win a little prize...

1. Guess Jane's birth date and you will receive an authentic Ukrainian handpainted matryoshka nesting doll (a "mommy" with four littles, each inside the other!) Choose any date between today and August 21st. Just for reference, I've gone one week over every time, but two of those were inductions, so...it really could be any day. Once a date has been chosen by another commenter, you can't duplicate it, so guess soon.

2. My doctor says I might top Charlie's 10 pound birthweight with this little girl. Whaddaya think? Guess her weight (pounds and ounces) in a comment on this post - if you are the closest guess, you will receive a Ukrainian pysanky (painted egg) - they have beautiful and intricate symbols of life and birth and being a woman incorporated in the design. Just for reference on this one, Calvin was 8-8, Henry was 9-6, and Charlie was an even 10.

Guessing is open until the baby is born and I'll send the prizes as soon as I am back in Ukraine with her.

And that is all.

Except that the next picture I take with a London phone booth I hope to fit inside it.

Hiatus Again

2009-08-04T18:35:00.002+04:00

I'm still pregnant.

Auntie S and my cousin are in town.

We are busy.

I'm still tired.

Until I give birth, I am just taking a little blog break so I can fit in more shopping, more nesting, more London, and more naps.

And also because then I will have more to share than travel-loggishness and food obsessions.

So, TTFN.

But hey - throw out some middles names for Jane if you'd like. Or tell me what you think of Jane Lisette...

No Letting Go

2009-07-29T13:27:00.012+04:00

So you are probably familiar with the famous method of trapping a raccoon with a tin can and some nails? Also works on spider monkeys, I understand. Also works without the can - for instance, you can use a small hole in the side of a hollow log.

Anyway - you secure the can to the ground and hammer the nails into the opening so they are angled down toward the bottom of the can. Then drop either an irresistible morsel of food or something curiously shiny, along comes the raccoon (or the monkey), he sticks his little hand down into the opening, wraps his little fist around the irresistible morsel or curiously shiny item, and tries to pull it out.

But alas! He cannot pull his hand out, because the nails poke into his wrist and the opening is now too small for his grasping little fist. But he refuses to let go, because he is that determined to examine the shiny-ness and/or eat the deliciousness. So he sits with his hand stuck until the trapper comes, at which time he is goners.

Brilliant and sad at the same time.

You might also be familiar with the analogous morals of the raccoon trap story - things we need to let go of in order to be free, yada yada yada. I like those, too, but that's too heavy for my state of mind at the moment.

All I want to tell you is that the little grocery store across the street from us has such a raccoon trap. Only it is for pregnant women.

Perhaps some splendid clandestine photography will help me illustrate the situation:

You see in the corner and against the window, the ice cream case. It holds Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream, strawberry shortcake ice cream, Phish Food, and these fabulous Magnum ice cream bars on sticks. We're talking the real goods. The door handle of the ice cream part is on the far right as you face the case and swings open (rather than sliding) on a left hand hinge.

But you will notice that just across from the ice cream case is a little lottery ticket stand/desk next to a railing and it takes up a bit of space between the ice cream case and the railing that is along the wheelchair entrance ramp. The base of the lottery thing is heavily weighted, but the top is lighter and a little tippy, alhtough fairly firmly attached to the base. When the door to the ice cream case is open, there is maybe 1 inch between the edge of the door and the lottery thing.

So, after some trial and error, I figured out that I can easily maneuver myself beyond the lottery desk, squish up a bit against the window, wedge myself fairly comfortably behind the lottery thing for a second and open the ice cream case. Once the door is open, I can pretty easily make my selections - grab with the right hand, line them up on my belly in the crook of my left arm.

But then...I am trapped. Because with my left arm and top of belly holding ice cream, I cannot get beyond the edge of the left-side opening door or reach out to hold it open a bit farther while I get out. If I turn to hold it open with my back side, I bam my (ouchy) belly button against the lottery thing. Somehow, I cannot squish up against the window enough (the way I got in) with ice cream in arms and if I back up even a bit, the lottery thing again goes tipping slightly but precariously over the top of the railing, and there I am, knocking the store over like a bull in a china shop.

But it's just me, a pregnant lady in a grocery store.

And I'm not leaving without my Haagen Daas, dagnabbit.

It's happened a couple of times now - the first time I almost went into a hysterical trapped raccoon bark, thinking that I was going to have to give up the ice cream if I wanted to go home. Now I mostly just feel an affinity with the raccoon or the spider monkey (on a much grander scale, of course), aside from the mild feeling of panic I have just thinking about buying a couple pints of ice cream.

In fact, I'm not entirely sure how I do finally escape and manage to bring home the ice cream for me, the baby in utero, and a couple of bites for the boys, but I do. I think I block all that as a way of coping with traumatic stress. I do know the trap happens each time, but at least I've gotten away with my Chunky Monkey and I'm not quite goners yet.

Here's the thing, though: Being the resourceful and ice cream deprived pregnant woman I am (the first eight months of my pregnancy in Ukraine were sadly deficient in the creamy cold goodness), and being a little more evolved than the raccoon or the spider monkey, the next time I go for ice cream, I'm going to take a spoon along.

That way I'll just enjoy my Cherry Garcia right there, between the lottery desk, the window and the open ice cream case. Then I'll just toss the empty container(s) under the door into the exit aisle, roll out quarterback style from behind the glass, let it swing shut, set the lottery thing straight, wipe my lips with the back of my hand, pick up the empty evidence of my splurge, and pay for what I consumed at the till.

Now that's a plan. Mwaaa haaa haaa. TescoExpress can't get me!

Heaven in a Big Bowl

2009-07-23T22:46:00.003+04:00

We've been eating a lot of Subway lately. Because it's fresh, filling, yummy, not too pricey, easy, and across the street. Mostly for dinner, but yesterday we shook things up a bit and had it for lunch instead. I've just been at a loss to even think up what kind of eat-out cuisine we want to choose and too tired to go get anything else or take three small boys to a busy city restaurant.

And then today, like some kind of epiphany, I remembered something I've pined for in Ukraine and absolutely can't get. Besides Mexican food (which I'm still looking for), I want Pho more than anything I can think of. Tonight, we found Pho. In our part of London. Pho. Vietnamese soupy goodness.

The online info said it is a fairly new phenom here, which I think is funny because in Northern Virginia, there is a pho place around almost every corner, usually called Pho75 or Pho70 or Pho89 - depending on the year the proprietors came to America. They are little holes in the wall usually and specialize in just pho, but one bowl of pho is all a person needs to be happy for a long time.

Anyway, the pho of London is marketed as chi-chi Vietnamese "street food" and has a little more sleek facade to go with it and a slightly higher price tag, but tonight it took me to heaven. It has slightly thicker sliced meat and they use wide rice noodles instead of the the vermicelli type ones that I love, but the hoisin sauce! the chili sauce! the Thai basil! the cinnamony, anisey, beefy good broth.

All those months of trying to find the things to make pho at home in Kiev were just erased. It did occur to me, however, that a pho place would make a killing in Kiev. Soup is a vital component of every menu and Ukrainians think it's positively scandalous (not to mention very bad for your digestive health) if you don't have soup as part of every decent meal. So an exclusively soup restaurant with hearty meat and broth and add-in herbs? I think it would really work.

Except that I don't think Ukraine is high on the list of "places to immigrate" for the average Vietnamese restaurateur. Bummer.

But anyway, I think we'll be alternating sandwiches with pho for dinner from here on out. Dreams do come true.

Quite a Feet

2009-07-20T13:36:00.000+04:00

Growing up if one of us had a clutzy moment, you could generally count on my mom asking one of two rhetorical questions:

"Didja have a nice trip last fall?" or "Today the first day with your new feet?"

Uuuuhhhh...

Thursday I completely missed the bottom step on the stairs in our apartment building, turned my ankle and managed to carpet burn the top of my foot in the process. No one saw it or heard my loud, "Ouch!" as I limped out to go get groceries.

Friday I followed Charlie quickly across a wet lawn at the Princess Diana Memorial fountain to get a hold of his hand before he got to the little slope that I just knew he was going to fall down because he was headed there too fast. I caught his hand just in time for me to slip on the slippery slope - one leg went down the hill and one leg folded under me in a way that it should not fold, and my butt landed hard in the grassy mud. Same ankle twisted, again. It was in the center of the whole park, on a rise, so lots of people saw. Yes, yes, thank you very much. Saved the two-year-old from slipping. Did you see that?

Saturday morning I tripped over the corner of the coffee table in the living room and bruised my knee cap. I seriously thought I was going around the table, but I guess I can't see where things below my belly really are. I will just say that that trip hurt really, reallly bad.

Then I went for a little lunch date with Henry and we walked around a bit looking in shops and getting gelato and trying to find a double decker bus that would take us home and suddenly I realized that I felt both feet flapping against the pavement with every step I took. By the time I got home, both feet were puffing out of my shoes and Henry asked me why they were so big.

I started crying. I've never retained water until after giving birth, there is not a feeling I hate more than that smack-smack tight feeling in my feet, and I also started freaking out about preeclampsia and having to be induced and my husband is not even here and blah, blah, blah, waaa, waaa, waaa.

I took a few deep breaths and started drinking lots more water, I've tried to keep walking a bit so my one ankle won't get stiff and my blood will circulate better.

Sunday, I even got Calvin and Henry to each rub one foot. They need a little more practice, but it was sweet and made my feet feel a little better. They are still getting puffy at the end of the day and my one ankle is still sore and a little blue, and my knee cap is stiff, but I'm waddling around all right.

Today I am just waiting for the day when I can see my feet again and have some sense of balance.

I can't wait until the first day with my "new" feet. Hopefully I'll be able to walk on them a little more gracefully.

The Month of the Watermelon

2009-07-17T10:31:00.000+04:00

I was hoping for a more original fruit analogy, but watermelon it is. I think I haven't quite reached the extreme watermelon proportions (check these out!), but it's not too far off. Some days it feels like the watermelon is on end, pushing up my esophagus, and sometimes it feels like the watermelon is sticking straight out - my belly button hurts like crazy!!!

Anyway, we're in the final countdown - from week 37 until I deliver, our little green melon is 18.9 to 20.9 inches tall and 6.2 to 9.2 pounds. From the ultrasound I had last week, the doctor is estimating that she is already around 7 pounds. We'll see. My babies have gotten larger each time (Charlie was 10 pounds even), and David touts their birth weights as a matter of pride. I've told him he can't do that with a girl. It does feel like she's getting quite big, though...

The elevator in our apartment building wouldn't lift us the other day (it's a very sad elevator) and Henry told me confidently that it was because of me - "You're just too big, Mom."

Calvin was reading the placards at the zoo (every. single. placard. He is so our child...) and he cheerfully told me, "Mom! You're about the same size as a gorilla! I mean, they're in the 200s. That's not too much more than you." He knows too much. Dang kid.

At the first meeting with my doctor here in England, he said I looked like a healthy lass. I get a kick out of that. I felt like telling him that I was healthy and buxom. But that part is pretty obvious.

Besides my buxom, healthy, gorilla-like watermelon-ness and the usual "I'm done being pregnant now" feeling, I am actually really looking forward to the whole birth experience here. Part of the maternity care here is a staff of midwives, one of whom will be coaching me through labor the entire time. Since I'm delivering at a private hospital, the doctor will "catch" the baby, but I will have support for natural labor with a minimum of medical intervention (No mandatory IV! I can eat a little if I want! No constant itchy fetal monitoring belt! No staying in bed the whole time!) That is a beautiful, beautiful thing to me.

The nurse I happened to get when I delivered Calvin is who made all the difference to me and I seriously wanted to send her flowers or something because she helped me dig deep and use my own strength and not be afraid - no one besides David has done that for me since then. But I get an extra dose of it this time for sure!

And now the waiting game...David won't be back in town until a week before my due date, but I'm really hoping (against hope) that I will go into labor on or before my due date this time. This is a big girl, I'm a big girl, and it's just time...We'll hold out for David to get back to London, but after that...

She's on her way!

Practically Perfect in Every Way

2009-07-15T22:32:00.002+04:00

I'll keep my fingers crossed, but we have now had four taxi rides, two bus rides (one of which was at the end of a very long, walking-intensive day), and an entire day at the zoo in which the boys acted like someone else's children.

No, they still acted like my children, only better. Stayed in their seats. Buckled up without ~~strangling~~ eighty billion reminders or slamming the folding taxi seats up and down or pushing all the buttons (there are a lot of those in a black cab). Came happily when it was time to move on or go home. Cooperated with one another and with me. Stopped and held hands to cross streets. Didn't scream or hit in public.

It's been loverly. Truly.

The London Zoo is fabulous, by the way. I'm a big fan of the National Zoo in D.C., of course, mostly because it is free, but London does a zoo right. And we even got to see the snake window that featured in the first Harry Potter movie.

On the home front, I feel a little guilty because I have mostly given up home cooking, but I have a plethora of good excuses: (1) grocery shopping / food preparation here has me baffled (we're in the midst of the commuting city, and going to a larger supermarket is WAY more trouble than it is worth), (2) the oven doesn't work in our apartment right now (there is a dirth of foods at the small grocery that can be cooked on the stovetop or in the microwave - also odd, huh?), and (3) we are enjoying the availability of semi-wholesome food that comes from reliable sources, not to mention (4) Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken (although they don't have extra crispy OR mashed potatoes and gravy here. What?!) within walking distance, (5) I'm pregnant and really don't feel like thinking up what to eat, what to buy to fix it, how to fix it, and how to get my kids to eat it when it's fixed, and (6) it's too hot to cook. Really.

I do want to say that I've been toasting a lot of English muffins in the mornings for breakfast. English muffins are to die for here, if you can imagine. And they have the most delicious jam.

So, things this week are better.

I still miss Hubs and we've watched a little more Scooby Doo Where Are You than I would like to admit or would ever like to watch again, but it's OK. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down...

I've Had Better Weeks

2009-07-11T11:00:00.003+04:00

So David left on Sunday and things (at least in my mind) have steadily unraveled since then. I'm a needy wife. I was never (blatantly) needy until I got married. But I need him. Even when he is nothing but present, everything is better. I'm a baby. Having a(nother) baby.

There is relentless city noise here - we are on a busy street and the apartment gets rather stuffy if there is not a window open, but I realized the other night that it was the noise that never stopped that was really getting to me. So wierd. You'd think I'd be tuning it out by now instead of getting more bothered by it. I think it's because it's not like the noise of the ocean, which is also relentless but more or less the same noise all the time. There is no soothing rythm here - it's always punctuated by intermittent honks or squeels or pointless car alarms or drunken yelling. I've found myself wanting everyone to be quiet and realizing that everyone I can actually tell to be quiet is being quiet.

We planned on Tuesday to go to the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. The guidebook says it is kid-friendly. Tuesday morning started out with Henry being too wild and rebellious to go anywhere so he and Charlie stayed home with Megan and Calvin and I decided to have a mother-son outing. (With the thought that Henry would be pricked a little by Calvin getting to do something fun outside of the apartment.)

It was a complete bust. Calvin couldn't see anything, I didn't know exactly where to stand so as to maximize viewing, and the Changing of the Guard (which I pictured as something like what they do at the Tomb of the Unknown in D.C. - military and simple and relatively short) turned into a band concert of sorts that you could hear but not see through the throng climbing on the ornate golden gates of the palace. I didn't get it. Neither did Calvin. We did enjoy the brief view of the troops marching into the gate, but after that, ppphtththththhh.

Then the rain started coming down. In buckets. So Calvin had nothing positive to report when we returned home and Henry was perfectly happy to have stayed inside.

Thursday we went to the Science Museum, which, if you ever find yourself in London with a six and under crowd, is a great place to go. Three hours of hands-on playing and looking, and we only saw about a third of the museum. The boys loved it.

Then we headed home and Calvin and Henry took it upon themselves to boom and bang and throw fits and otherwise completely disconcert our taxi driver so much so that they are on a four day we-are-going-nowhere-except-church-in-any-kind-of-transportation lockdown. (This because it is not the first time that they have gone berserk in a taxi or on the Tube.)

That makes it four days until they can go to the zoo or the Natural History Museum or the palace with the maze (all places they have been hankering to go), hopefully with the understanding that transportation is not a place to mess around.

So late yesterday afternoon we walked to the park to feed the ducks. It was a fine little walk. I stopped in at the Subway sandwich place to get me a fountain drink (they have that fabulous rabbit-pellet-like ice in their machine - after a year in a country that doesn't believe in icy drinks and two weeks in a country that doesn't believe in air conditioning, it's a dream come true...) and the boys had a heyday sharing our bread with the hundreds of birds at Regent's Park.

Then we started out walking the two blocks home. Within those two blocks, Henry managed to get loose from Megan and bolt in front of a van (which was just pulling through the light, luckily not going very fast) and get hit. He bounced off the hood and landed on the curb with nothing more than a scraped up elbow and I think the driver of the van and I were more upset than Henry. Well, I was calm while I was checking on Henry and talking to one of the three doctors who happened to be walking home at the same time, and then one of them asked me if I was OK. I bawled all the way home. (And don't think that because I'm so blithely blogging about it that I wasn't up all night replaying it and panicking and feeling entirely inept and out of control and completely cognizant of the fact that he could have been killed. Not to mention that we've lived for months in a country with the world's most insane drivers but Henry gets hit by one in a beautifully civilized country.)

I don't know what to do with him. Any of them. But especially him.

And here we are with a wonderful place to enjoy and I can't go anywhere with my kids, even on foot, without (at best) a scene or (at worst) a catastrophe. But we all get cabin fever in a big way. Them, because they are boys and ideally need about 20 acres or at least a nice dog run in which to expend their energy. Me, because I feel guilty being tired and so I get restless to prove (to who?!) that I'm not lazy. Or something like that. But I also think I was born restless. I want to be doing.

But I'm very tired and very pregnant.

And did I mention that I miss my husband?

How To Tickle Wrestle

2009-07-06T13:32:00.003+04:00

Calvin and Henry are enjoying having Megan, our "nanny," with us. She is the oldest of six kids - four of them are brothers. So she knows how to wrestle and tickle and tease in a light-hearted way - David and I are not necessarily the best at any of that - and Calvin and Henry LOVE it.

It's so great because it allows them to let off some steam with someone who will keep it in check and I don't have to be the lame parent who is always saying, "No. That hurts. I can't - I have a baby in my belly." One of the many perks of Megan.

Anyway, the boys formalized what they call the Tickle Wrestle by making a list of the rules / process / strategy for beating Megan at the game. I think they were a little inspired by the Scaredy Squirrel books (Henry has fallen in love with them - I highly recommend all of them), and it made me laugh when I found this crumpled list.

It was written too light to photograph, so picture the following in a six-year-old's handwriting. (The punctuation and spelling are all his. The numeral 2 is written backwards, and the third item is written biggest of all. Henry helped him think of the things to put on the list.)

1. Say, "I can't breeth!"
2. Eknore tikleing.
3. PHITE!
4. If brother in troble help!
5. Try to Build a trap!

I don't know if Megan stands a chance now.

My Not-So-Real Life

2009-07-05T15:30:00.002+04:00

Our first week in London has come and gone. David went back to Kiev this morning and we are on our own (with our wonderful live-in mother's helper) for the next month until he gets back.

We are staying in a nice flat in a nice part of London, within walking distance of the doctor's office, the private hospital where I'll have the baby, some very reasonable shopping, not to mention Regent's Park and Hyde Park. The boys are in heaven with all the green space, and the Tube makes getting to any part of London pretty easy (albeit extraordinarily hot).

The corporate rental company that owns our apartment provides a cleaning service twice a week, so it's almost like being in a hotel, with fresh linens and regularly vacuumed floors.

We've ventured through the parks, found a beautiful shady playground two blocks away where the boys are happy to play. We've also gone to the London Tower, spent a day at Legoland Windsor, ridden the London Eye, and experienced the London aquarium (Baltimore is better, but...), and had some fabulous fish and chips.

It feels really wierd to not have anything much to do besides gestate and sight-see. I do have to reign in my sight-seeing desires because I am huge and it is quite warm right now (a heat wave for London, and no A/C) and because the boys are good for about 4 hours before they completely melt down. However, there are so many kid-friendly and beautiful places to be.

I feel really spoiled right now and it's kinda killing the blog, because I have nothing to complain or be sarcastic about. I hate to admit that. I've also been really lazy about taking pictures. But I'll try to remedy that soon, especially since "Dad" is not on our adventures with us right now.

I'm going to try to do a couple "postcard" London things this week - double decker bus and Changing of the Guard, etc. and post a few pictures. The weather is supposed to cool off, so I think I will catch my second wind and be a lot more energetic.

Mostly I'm just soaking it up and enjoying the blessing of being in a marvelous city and spending every day with my little boys.

We're Not the Only Ones

2009-06-30T16:00:00.001+04:00

Yesterday at the park, Charlie and David stopped on a bridge to watch a family of ducks. Baby ducks all in a row behind their mom have to be among the cutest things on earth, and Charlie knows that already.

When he sees something cute or small, his voice gets cute and small and he was exclaiming, over and over in his dimunitive baby duck voice, "Babies! So tyooot! Baby ducks! Tyyyyooooooot!" He squinted his eyes and smiled and scrunched his shoulders to further demonstrate the tiny cuteness while pointing with his pudgy little finger and tugging on David to get him to "yook!"

Just then two young professional women came over the bridge and stopped to listen and see what he was looking at and one of them said to the other, "I'm gonna have to get married soon or else get real serious about in vitro." Her friend looked at her a bit incredulously and said, "Why?!" And the first woman gestured emphatically at Charlie, as if to say, "How can you not want children when you see something like this?"

It made David laugh and when he told me about the exchange, he said, "I guess we know with at least one of our children that it's not just us who think he's irresistibly adorable."

I'm also glad it's not just in me that he inspires the desire to have a baby. Makes lumbering around expecting my fourth a little more tyoot. Maybe.

If I could just get my little ducks to follow me all in a row...

They Call Me Madame

2009-06-27T15:15:00.001+04:00

It's lovely. Because it's English and I don't have to psych myself up to ask for something in Russian in the stores - I never realized the minor momentary stress that gives me every time.

We are in London! The boys were superb on the flight, we caught a train into the city easily and rode in the awesome black cab the rest of the way to our place last night, and spent the morning in Regent's Park (only a block away) today. I had a Subway sandwich for lunch. Sooooo good.

There's no A/C in our apartment, which is a little bit miserable indoors for me, but the weather isn't unbearable outdoors and I am loving the cleanliness and order of this city, even though it is definitely busy and noisy.

I'm taking pictures and we are getting settled in, so I'll get posting more in the next day or two. We're going to be sight-seeing a lot while David is in town with us, celebrating Henry's 5th birthday, observing the 4th of July in Britain (which makes me laugh!) and I get to meet my doctor for the first time this week. Stay tuned....

The Ostrich Farm

2009-06-23T15:06:00.007+04:00

One of my Saturday get-out-of-the-house efforts brought us to Kiev's ostrich farm. Yes, there is an ostrich farm. With a small bird / random animal zoo. And a restaurant that features healthy ostrich meat dishes.

We saw the ostriches, saw the small birds and random animals. Did not try the ostrich meat. Uuuhhh....Maybe next time.

But here are some pictures from our day out.

This is a baby ostrich. I liked the pattern of stripes and spots in their feathers.

They are about this big (below) when they are a couple months old. (They hatch from eggs that are about the size of a rugby ball.)

They were so cute because when the crowd arrived at the fence, they all came running full speed out of their little hut, flirted at the fence a bit, looking side ot side and cocking their little heads at people, then ran full speed back in. They did it about four or five times while we stood there. They're so little and curious compared to the bigger ostriches.

This is a teenager ostrich. Their eyes are really bright and big and they have amazing eyelashes. They give inquisitive looks that are a little disarming, because they are otherwise such an awkward, kind of strange creature to look at.

This is the big daddy ostrich.

I was trying to capture how tall they really are full grown, but it was tricky. Basically, when the ostrich would stand with his neck fully up, he was taller than Henry on Megan's shoulders. That's really pretty tall when you're up close.

I'm really enjoying my child carriers, by the way. Makes for a much easier day out.

Aside from the ostriches, there were a great variety of birds in the little zoo - peacocks, beautiful pheasants, interesting varieties of chickens - as well as sheep and goats. All of which the kids could feed. Calvin got to feel a peacock peck. He didn't like it so much. I wasn't able to get very good pictures of the birds because of the cages, so we moved on.

And then suddenly there was a very large (and I think very old) camel in the field beyond zoo. Camels seemed big when we were in Egypt, but not quite as big next to the Pyramids as this one did in a green field in Ukraine.

But truthfully? I think the favorite animal at the farm / zoo was the calico cat. My boys go to mush over cats. I'm allergic to them, but it becomes almost irresistible when I see how Calvin and Henry get so gentle and soothing with a soft little animal, and how Charlie kneels to look closely and then tentatively touch their backs. The boys seriously spent about fifteen minutes just petting and following this cat around. Maybe a baby sister could be like a pet cat for them?

My personal favorite of the random animals, though, would have to be the guinea pig. Because it was trying to chew out of its cage and because it has hair just like Calvin's.

And that was our day at the ~~world famous~~ Kiev Ostrich Farm. If you ever need a place to roam or a day out of the city, it's not a bad place to go.

Give the healthy ostrich meat a try and let me know how you like it. You just can't tell me that it tastes just like chicken.

The E Space Story

2009-06-22T14:44:00.002+04:00

The keyboard came! It's fixed. So to celebrate, here's where I admit total negligence and frustration. And certain puppy dog traits of my children. All in one post.

A few weeks ago, on a day before my right-hand girl came to live with us, naptime hit. Unfortunately, it was a day when Charlie had napped earlier than usual and so was awake when I was absolutely ready to crash and burn. But it was also a day when I knew David would be home early, in about twenty minutes.

So I set Charlie up with a pile of Kaplas on the floor by the couch and Henry up with a movie and I laid down with Henry sitting behind my knees and the sound of blocks being dumped and stacked and knocked over. I just needed to rest.

The problem is that I actually fell asleep and lost track of listening to where my children were.

I woke up what seemed like five seconds later to find David home. And he told me that he found Charlie sitting at the laptop. And that he had removed every last key from the keyboard.

I spent about forty-five minutes snapping back all the easy keys - the letters and numbers and most of the auxiliary keys, comparing the keyboard to a picture online to make sure I put the keys we never use in the right places. The smaller function keys and the space bar and a couple others that had additional metal hooks to match up underneath were beyond my patience and a couple of the letters wouldn't just snap on, so I left them for David to tackle with his tiny screwdrivers.

He spent an additional thirty or forty minutes doing the more technical re-attachment of the keys. Except for the space bar, which had a broken plastic hook where a little metal bar was supposed to fit into, all was back to normal.

But the next day, the space bar popped off and remained a little shifty. And the "E" key came off while the boys were playing on Webkinz world. Didn't bother them because the Webkinz don't require much typing.

Aaaaannnddd....Calvin enjoyed chewing on the "E" while he helped Henry decide what to buy from the Webkinz curio shop.

The thing is, when I saw it, I knew what and how it had happened - totally mindless bending the plastic and gnawing without thinking, "I have a keyboard key in my mouth." It just felt good to gnaw on it. Or something.

I didn't take a picture of the mangled "E," but if you've ever had a puppy, I know you can picture it. That's exactly what it looked like.

David was furious. So I had to remind him of the puppy comparison thing. He's the one that has made it on other occasions anyway. Like the holes in Henry's shirts. But that's another story.

I was a bit more calm, but very, very sorry, because it's really my fault - snoozing when there's a loose laptop around and two possible minutes for the two-year-old to find it and discover that the the keys come off. And then - the very next day! - not monitoring my boys' computer use more carefully to make sure that they are not teething (at age six and a half) on keys that pop off the keyboard.

Honestly, someone should put me away, dontcha think?

But hopefully after three weeks or more of keyboard handicapped-ness, I have learned my lesson and will more carefully consider aaalllll the possible consequences of trying to sneak in a nap.

Of course, now I have back up help to subsidize my nap taking. So nice. And I will be able to squeeze in some more blog posting, too. Happy days are here again.

Packing Up and Wrapping Up

2009-06-20T15:02:00.004+04:00

The end of Spring? Can it be? Yup. Tomorrow is the first oh-fee-shull day of summer, and we are gearing up for our temporary birthing move to London. We fly out this week, so I'm making decisions about what to pack, what we'll do and see (besides the doctor) once we get there, and what a newborn really needs for the first six weeks. I keep reminding myself that it's mostly diapers, onesies and mum's milk, and also that I will be in a place where the baby things I'm accustomed to will be more accessible than in the country where I currently live, but still...I obsess, make lists, and try to think through it all.

But I've also been getting in some more reading and realized that with the end of the season and our upcoming departure comes the end of this year's Spring Reading Thing!

I definitely want to post a wrap-up on my most recent reads and the challenge in general. I had an original goal list of twenty-two books, and my plan was to choose from that list and read one book a week, or thirteen books total, during the challenge.

I ended up reading eleven from my original list and nine others that caught my attention. So, I guess I accomplished the goal! I think I departed mostly from my list because my brain was tired and I needed some more relaxing reads. Then I also needed some help in home management and getting a little perspective on some problems with my kids, so I checked out some books that would help me get a grip. Overall, I'm glad I read most of what I read. I do plan on keeping the unread books on my list and working through them sometime soon.

(I posted reviews a little infrequently of what I read - here and here and here, if you are interested.)

I can't choose a favorite book that I read. I can choose three, maybe: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society (for interesting things I didn't know about World War II and the charming way it is written), Boys Adrift (for spot-on assessment and advice on what boys need in today's world), and The Shadow of the Wind (for poetic writing and suspense). I also really liked The Uncommon Reader (mostly for its premise, but also for the witty, tongue-in-cheek commentary and British humor).

I was most disappointed in My First 300 Babies and Parenting with Love and Logic, maybe just because of where I am in parenting, or maybe because of expectations that were too high. I just didn't find the gems I was hoping for there. I also didn't get as hooked on Harry Potter as I thought I would. I enjoyed the first two books, but didn't feel compelled to keep going. I think I am spoiled by the movies and by the fact that I have all six books all at once - the space between publishing stokes the flame, I think.

My reading branched out into quite a lot of fantasy this spring, which I have never really gotten into. I'm not sure it will turn into reading any of the more "classic" fantasy or really loving the genre, but it was a lovely and interesting escape lots of times over the last couple of months. We'll see where it goes from here...

The best thing about all the reading I did and the Spring Reading Thing was feeling again that I can fit reading into my life, that it is truly one of the most enjoyable things to me (as cliche as that is when someone asks what I like to do), and that whether I'm reading to escape or to learn, it makes me happy because it keeps my brain and my heart alive. The challenge helped me get back into the swing of reading after being a little burned out from my Master's studies. I don't want to stop now!

Today you can stop over at Callapidder Days and link up with other bloggers who participated in the Spring Reading Thing. It's a great way to find recommendations for your own reading and find other readers. Thanks, Katrina, for hosting this challenge. It made my spring great!

***

FYI, in the past couple of weeks, I've topped off my Spring Reading Thing with the following books:

The Five Love Languages - I've had about thirty people tell me to read this, and I have to say that it really is a great resource and includes some wonderful ideas for expressing love effectively. It speaks to a lot of issues I see in relationships and it really made me want to do better at both expressing love the way the people I care about need it and recognizing and appreciating love from people the way that they are trying to show it. It also made me want to get the Five Love Languages of Children for some more specific ways to find out what makes my kids tick and how to make them feel more loved and secure. So, I did. But I haven't started reading it yet.

Unaccustomed Earth - I enjoyed this collection of stories. I found them a bit sad and somewhat haunting, but really enjoyed the style of the writing. It peaked my interest in India and Indians in America, and also made me want to read more of Jhumpa Lahiri's books.

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby - Just needed a refresher course. I've read this one at least three times since Calvin was a baby and although it has serious editing deficiencies in the order and presentation of some of the info, man! It is a serious help and lifesaver. I believe in healthy sleep as a way for both parents and kids to be better and more responsive to each other and less harried in general. Calvin was the only one of my babies who has ever "cried it out" and that was very short-lived and only because we didn't start when he was a newborn. Don't get me wrong - we still have kids who come into our bed in the middle of the night sometimes and we still have nights or time periods when bedtime and sleep gets a little messed up, but bedtime and rest are all in all very pleasant and great times for all of us, and I recommend this book for the scientific backing and also the reasonable approach to correcting sleep habits. This is also one book that helps me make it through the first two or three months of a newborn's life - not because the newborn sleeps through the night already, but because I cand read and understand how the sleep rythms and nap patterns usually evolve and I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

First Light - Sir Nottaguy, this one barely arrived from Amazon, so I just started it. I like it so far. Thanks for the recommendation!

The Month of the Honeydew

2009-06-19T15:02:00.003+04:00

My blog is verging on the pathetic - I'm only posting about being pregnant and reading, it seems like. Blame it on the keyboard (which will be replaced tonight!!!) I do think it's funny that weeks 33 through 36 are the month of the honeydew. Funny because my life is the life of the honeydew - David is never short on things I want or need him to do (replace the laptop keyboard). But I'm sure he will agree that I'm getting a lot more feisty, if not noticeably more demanding.

Also funny because honeydew doesn't seem quite big enough for the way I feel. I actually am not putting on weight as quickly (knock on wood) in these later weeks, but I feel a lot of growing and stretching. This month our baby is 17.2 to 18.7 inches tall and weighs 4.2 to 5.8 pounds.

She is a wiggly little thing, very active at all times of the day. It seems like before I only felt the boys move in the early morning or at night, when I was still. This little melon kicks and rolls all the time and causes some very disconcerting sensations sometimes while I'm walking or driving.

Calvin is most interested in what we'll name her but doesn't talk about her a whole lot lately.

Henry seems to be playing with the idea of its being a real person "in there" - he makes up elaborate tales of how she is running around and how she just really wants to get out. He has also said things to me like, "Mom. Mom. Mom! I need you and Jane to listen to me. OK?!"

I've been feeling a little "enough already" apathy lately, but in general we are enjoying the anticipation and gathering baby things. One of my friends at church gave us homemade snuggly soft blankets for the baby last week and I can't wait to snuggle her up in them.

On the belly-aching front, I haveto report that the heartburn that I feel like I could die from has begun.

And my heels hurt. Wierd ailment, very painful to get around. I think it's from the weather changing, wearing socks less, and lots of walking and standing on hardwood floors. They are really really achey. I've never experienced it before and I'm strongly considering the merits of a foot massage / pedicure. Anyone know some good home remedies?

Amidst all the little nothings and the honey-do's, we're getting ready for London. I only have one more dr. appointment here in Kiev, one more Sunday, three more days of school for Cal, seven more sleeps.

We can hardly wait and in some ways going to London has eclipsed the impending arrival of a newby. I do like having multiple things to look forward to. It makes time go a little more quickly. But I keep getting sidetracked, too. Ah well.

Summer fun is on its way in more ways than one.

Charlie is TWO!!!

2009-06-12T15:33:00.000+04:00

Still without a functioning keyboard...but it's my baby's birthday.

We partied like it was for a two-year-old. That is, he opened a little gift from each of his brothers and one from Mom and Dad first thing this morning, he carried the birthday card from his grandma around for about an hour during the afternoon(loved the kitty on the front), and we had cake after dinner.

The candles worried him because they are "hot"(he whispers that word) and they will "buhn."

Our rendition of "Happy Birthday" worried him even more.

Since typing is a chore, I just want to say that as fast as his first year went, I can't believe two have already passed now.

If there was ever a child who was Pure Joy, it's this one. I don't just say stuff like that, either.

I love you, ChaCha. May all your little wishes come true.

E scuses

2009-06-07T23:00:00.002+04:00

I don't have a proper space bar. Or an "e" key.

There's a story to go with that. But as you can imagine, it is difficult to blog without "space" and "e."

Extremely aggravating, in fact.

I mean, I can make spaces and e's appear, but not without some whackity maneuvering over the little sensors that lie below where the key buttons usually go. It slows me way down.

I'll try to get some patience and adjust my typing skills to fit my impaired laptop sometime before the new keyboard arrives from amazon, but if that doesn't happen, at least you know that it's my computer that is kapoot, not me.

At least not me entirely.

Happiness Isn't Happiness Without a Violin-Playing Goat*

2009-06-02T12:06:00.001+04:00

A couple weeks ago, I kept hearing a baby cry. Like a brand-new, lamby baby cry. I heard it in the day time quite frequently, and sometimes even at night I would wake up hearing it, thinking it might be one of my kids, then realizing that it wasn't in our house, and besides, my kids are too old to cry like that.

I finally decided that maybe our neighbors upstairs (who have quite an interesting group living there) have a new addition to their family.

It was surreal, though. Close enough to make me very concerned about it, but far enough that I had no idea where it was coming from exactly or why no one was doing anything for it. Seriously - it was the kind of baby cry that would make one's milk come in. I started thinking I was going batty.

Then our downstairs neighbors starting complaining about the goat next door.

It hadn't even occurred to me, but sure enough, about the same time I was hearing the phantom baby cry, a goat had moved into the garden next door. Our neighbors are straight across from the garden, and we are up higher, so the cry was right in our neighbor's windows and a little more distant for us.

We live in the middle of Kiev basically, amongst high rises and business buildings, but there happens to be one (more or less) single family home right next door with an avid gardener who works almost constantly on her little plot of land. And she had a goat there. Who cried a lot.

We had even seen the goat on our way out of the parking garage before, and joked that they had needed a lawn mower, so they brought in a goat. But I didn't know my crying baby delusions and the goat were the same thing.

I wish I had taken a picture from our balcony of the goat and his keeper (an old guy who sat in the backyard in an office chair drinking kvas) before they went to graze elsewhere.

But they've moved on now and I have to say I kinda miss them. It's just not the same without the goat next door, even if he did push my mothering instinct buttons a little too often.

(*Do you know the painting and the movie my post title belongs to?)

The Month of the Squash

2009-05-30T14:30:00.001+04:00

Squash, really? I guess so, as long as the squash is bigger, heavier, and much more wiggly than an eggplant. Our baby girl, in weeks 29 through 32, is 15.2 inches and 16.7 inches from head to toe and weighs 2.5 to 3.8 pounds already. According to our ultrasound this week, she is already head down. She is very active and I've been able to feel and see tiny elbows and/or knees moving around, at all hours. We had a 3D ultrasound so I got to see her little profile, but I can't figure out how to freeze the frame and post it (they give it to us on CD here), so you'll just have to wait until she's out in the world for your first picture!

When I was three months pregnant with Calvin, I thought I was getting big, having just "popped out" and all. Then I went full term plus one week and learned what huge was. I didn't make the same mistake with the other two pregnancies - it wasn't until at least seven and a half months along that I allowed myself the thought that I couldn't imagine being any larger or tighter. I still learned that indeed I could, but still...

This time around, wow. I think I am carrying totally differently or something because everything is tight and heavy already and we have at least ten weeks to go! Yikes!

But despite my tremendousness, I am actually feeling better right now than I have the entire pregnancy. I think getting some darling little girl clothes in the mail from my mother in law and perhaps having a leveling of hormones has helped some. My weight has stayed the same (yay!) and I have lots of energy and am nesting like I have never nested before.

In the last two weeks, I have: officially and finally packed away Christmas stuff (the house hasn't been decorated still all this time, it's just that the holiday decorations were piled and untouched in a mostly forgotten / ignored corner, nagging at me all this time...); sorted through all the boys drawers and made lists of what they need for summer and back to school so we can get that all lined out before I enter newborn land; packed up several bags of donations of toys, books and clothes for the homeless and an orphanage; washed all the bedding in the house and made the beds up fresh and beautiful (bought all new pillows because ours were older than most of our children and grungier than all of our children put together - how does that happen?); gathered up all our office and art supplies into one area and am planning to make a art/writing/"inventions" center for me and the boys so that markers, crayons, paste, staples and recyclables aren't scattered all over the house all the time; completely cleaned our master bedroom so that it is peaceful and relaxing instead of a total dumping ground...and I'm not finished yet! It feels great!

We've also recruited a mother's helper for me - one of the young women in our church branch who has been here for a semester volunteer teaching English is going to stay an extra month with us in Ukraine and travel along to London. She'll be my right hand girl until the end of July. The boys like her and she is very even-keeled and sweet, and I am soooo looking forward to being able to rest every once in a while or go on errands in peace.

I've started gathering little girl clothes, and was so excited about the things David's mom sent that I was telling my Russian tutor about them but didn't know the names of the clothing. She told me to bring them and she would teach me all the words, that would be our lesson. As it turns out, there aren't Russian words for things like "onesies" and "sleep and plays" - because they don't have those kind of things! Really, they don't. And it was so funny to see my tutor in awe of the way things were made, how soft the fabrics are, how well sewn, how in America we think of things like cuffs that can fold over tiny hands so the baby won't scratch her face, and we sew fabric behind the zippers so it won't pinch the baby's skin, etc. She saw the label on the onesies and asked if it was a designer brand. Gerber. She just couldn't get over how wonderful all these little basic things were. I love them, too. They make me happy.

And what else am I thinking of in this month of the squash?

One thing is cloth diapering. My grandma will think I'm nuts, but we are actually thinking it is a very practical and viable option. Diapers here are much more expensive and much lower quality (so we go through more) than in the U.S. for one thing. We do have the option of ordering through the commissary, but orders are only once every three months and it's hard to gauge how many of what sizes a growing infant will need over the next several months. Plus, they are more pricey that way as well. Cloth diapering one child would pay for itself in about four months. If we cloth diaper two children, it will be even less time than that.

Another (admittedly odd) thing that tips me in the direction of cloth diapers is that there are people who go through our trash almost on a daily basis, looking for salvagibles. We've started seperating out bottles and bags and plastic containers to make their lives easier, but I still feel bad that they have to touch and smell our dirty diapers in the process. And that makes the reality of rotting, nonbiodegrading yuck from us sitting in landfills here, in a country where most of the population potty trains their children well before age one (that's another thing altogether) and already has serious environmental issues, something very compelling to think about.

So, I ordered a two-pack of one-size pocket cloth diapers and have been trying them out on Charlie. I think I can do it. I think I want to do it. I need to be tutored a little more, especially when it comes to an older baby's diapers, but it's not that difficult - cloth diapers have come a long way since complicated folding and jabbing with huge safety pins and stained plastic covers! We have a fabulous washing machine. Call me crazy, but I think it's a go.

I've also been thinking a lot about breast feeding. It gives me huge stress. HUGE stress. Not so much that I will not attempt it, but enough that I already feel like crying. It is just not easy for me, ever - latching on difficulties, engorgement, thrush, pain and uncertainty, not really having the luxury of lolling with an infant at breast until they feel like they are fed enough. I know those it comes easy to cannot fathom what my problem is, but it is truly rough! I'm just really not looking forward to it. Plus, because we weren't entirely planning on having a baby in Ukraine, my great breast pump is in deep dark storage in the USA and buying a new one would be dumb. But it just makes me feel better to have one as a back up. I don't know. Formula here is outrageous (deciphering ingredients and prices), so I don't want to go there already. It's just stress.

And finally, I've been thinking, "Oh yeah, I have to give birth." On the one hand, I've done this three times before, so I'm not so worried. On the other hand, um, giving birth is a pretty huge deal. Usually by now I'm all psyched up and prepared for going natural like I've always wanted, but I haven't done so much of that this time. It kinda hit me day before yesterday - this baby will have to be born. Somehow. And even though I've done it three times before, I think, "Wow." And also, "Yikes."

And that, my friends, is the long and short (mostly long) of the month of the squash. Oh, except for that Henry told me the other day that he doesn't like me anymore. I asked him why and he said, "You're just ruder, with a baby in your tummy."

Yeah, well. Get over it.

Ketchup: On Reading Challenges

2009-05-29T12:26:00.007+04:00

You know how sometimes your favorite red condiment stubbornly refuses to come out of the bottle onto your burger or dog? You shake it, you use a knife to move it along, you shake it some more, you squeeze the heck out of it, only to get a very unsatisfactory "sphflllttt!" and a few little red splatters? So you repeat the process and then almost without warning, "PLOP!" an enormous blop, enough for two burgers and three dogs, lands on your plate and probably a bit down the front of your shirt. Yeah? Well, welcome to my blog today. And bear with me...this is Ketchup Post Four (of Four).

First of all, I've surpassed my goal for the Spring Reading Thing, which was to read on book a week for the thirteen weeks. The goal date isn't until June 21st, but I got on a roll reading like crazy and finished more than thirteen books already.

Huge thanks to Katrina at Callapidder Days for hosting the Spring Reading Thing! (Click on the Spring Reading Thing button to go there for more info.) I look forward to her Fall Into Reading later this year.

This last week I started nesting like a mad woman, and we leave for London in a month, so I'm not sure how much reading I will squeeze in before we go. But here are a few comments on the books that I've most recently finished:

My First 300 BabiesThis came highly recommended from a couple different sources, especially for bringing a newborn into busy families. But I wasn't twenty pages into it before I thought I would gouge my eyeballs out. Three children into parenting, I firmly believe in "something has to give." I'm all about structure and routine - nothing contributes more to pleasant temperament and general health of mom and children - but this book was just a leeeetle over the top. I didn't feel like it could work in the 21st century for one thing, and for another I felt like it was forceful and rigid, especially for newborns. I definitely prefer (and can unequivocally recommend) Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child as a better sanity and life saver than this book. I find myself admiring the author but at the same time completely discouraged by the methods she described.

Parenting With Love and LogicLove the principles behind this parenting theory and believe they are solid. However, the "real-life" examples fell totally short and left me feeling like the whole idea was for the parents to constantly remind the children how much they are an inconvenience. It was just the flavor of it that got to me. Unfortunate, because truly, the foundational concepts totally jive with my understanding of choice, consequences, responsibility and trusting relationships. I just needed a better demonstration of how it works on the ground.

Bonnie's Household Organizer I will keep this book forever. Simple ideas, simple implementation. Published in the 80s but still very helpful and inspiring without being fly lady intense or Polly Perfect overwhelming. I've already done a couple of the things and feel enthusiastic to add more. Great suggestions for laundry, money, dejunking, and helping your kids learn to help. I can totally understand why I've read about this book on so many blogs and in other books. I'm glad I now own it.

Supernanny: How to Get the Best from Your ChildrenI just love Supernanny. This book is not rocket science but I liked the consistent review of things to say and do for different situations, and the underlying feel of love and patience for children. A light and helpful read. Kinda helped me get a grip and put things in perspective. Although I still think time-outs do not work. So we'll figure something out.

Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors These books hooked me. Lots of decadence, debauchery and tense adventure, they made me want to know more about Byzantium and to become a mosaicist. I liked getting lost in the story. A lot.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie SocietyJust read it. It is precious. And I might just have to go to Guernsey while I am in England. I never knew that the Germans occupied these little islands in the English Channel, so it was fun to learn more history. The whole book is written as a series of letters between the characters and you fall in love with every one of them. The heroine is peppy but real, and I came away with a strengthened admiration for those who lived through World War II. it's a quick and endearing read that you should totally do.

I was looking over the list of books I ended up reading and almost all of them fell into three categories: Parenting, Fantasy, or Books About Reading Changing One's Life. Kinda funny that it happened that way. The parenting books mostly fell flat for me (maybe because I feel like I need some REAL help right now?) and Fantasy is a genre that surprised me this time because I've never gotten into it before (all you have to do is say, "Lord of the Rings" and my eyes irrevocably glaze over), and I think for just pure enjoyment and soul satisfaction, Books About Reading Changing One's Life really do it for me.

***

And now, a month late: How did my Read Together goals go? Well...

My main goal was to make sure each of my boys was getting something at their own level for their individual enjoyment during bedtime reading. We started the month out with Calvin reading Harry Potter with David. I would choose a few board books to read with Charlie, put him down to bed, and then read a book or two to Henry.

Partway through the month, some friends loaned us The Tale of Despereaux and I started it with Henry, even though he has lost interest before in chapter books. Despereaux entertained him thoroughly UNTIL Calvin caught wind of what we were enjoying just as he finished Harry Potter with his dad. So he started sitting in on the Despereaux reading. It seems that Henry, more than anything, wants one-on-one. So he started asking his dad to read to him while I finished Despereaux with Calvin.

At any rate, both big boys are now regularly getting individual reading. Charlie gets read to every time one of us sits down (if there is a lap, he will bring his little self and at least on book - if not ten - and demand, "Weed!"), so he is getting plenty of book time. I think I will work on bedtime reading with him a little more later.

I also wanted to say that finding books especially appealing to Henry has been a lot of fun and based on some of the ones we read during this challenge, he has asked for books for his birthday more than anything else! He's fallen in love with the Scaredy Squirrel books, as well as Harold and the Purple Crayon and The Incredible Book-Eating Boy - all recommendations from you when we started our goal. So, thank you!

And thank you to Jennifer at Snapshot for encouraging us to read together! (Sorry to be so lame on the follow-up posts...but we were still participating!)

***

And finally - if you are still with me, or read this post in the first place, bless your beautiful hide - I'd like to know: What is one of your favorite "escape" books ever?

Ketchup: On the Weekend of Castles

2009-05-29T11:52:00.007+04:00

Ketchup: On Sofievsky Park

2009-05-29T11:07:00.001+04:00

The rocks and caves were a big hit with the boys...

Charlie walked through a little crevice between a rock and a tree and came out with a cobweb sticking to his arm. He was completely perplexed because he couldn't see it or get it off, but he could definitely feel it: (His expression in the last pic cracks me up!)

When he wasn't vanquishing cobwebs, he was playing peaking games from his ride as we were trekking around...

Here are some shots from a wonderful huge hollow tree where we spent a lot of time climbing and taking pictures in the knot holes...I love my boys' eyes.

Charlie climbed the tree...
Dad climbed the tree...
Mom climbed the tree (just to reassure herself that there are still things in this world bigger than she is)...
Henry and Calvin climbed the tree...
We also took a boat ride on a canal that goes under part of the park to the higher area. The boat goes through a tunner barely wide enough for it to fit and the pilot just uses a long stick to push off the sides as we go. It was mostly black inside except for an occasional skylight cut into the thick rock walls above. I caught David looking up into one of the light holes. The people behind him were taking pictures of the light. I think it looks like a modern dance pose.
On the path by the lake at the top there was another fun tree to climb and play in...

Charlie did some exploring on foot...
Lots of bugs, cracks, dirt, and little puddles. That we must stop and look at...

By the end of the afternoon I was leaving the climbing and exploring a little more to the boys and just wandering a bit on the paved (flat) paths, taking pictures of spring. This is one of my favorites:

Calvin sulked that it was time to go "so soon" and took off down the path ahead of us...
And Charlie's grin speaks for all of us. It was a fun day.