Port Discovery

I've never lived in the DC area with kids, so I have never had reason to go to Port Discovery in Baltimore, although I had heard a lot of good things about it.

First, I'll say the kids had a great time and would have happily stayed even longer, but we had to get to our Virginia apartment early enough to make the grocery run and get the overtired, undernapped kids to bed before someone exploded.

The huge climbing thing in the middle of the museum was an awesome playground structure, although quite frankly I am not sure what it's "educational" purpose was. The kids spent an inordinate amount of time in the water world exhibit, either spraying and squeegeeing the window or constructing locks and dams for a ship to pass through or making a Lego boat float.

Zoltan was in heaven in the pretend train (he even pushed a littler kid who wanted to get into the engine room, oops) and in the pretend gas station (mostly in the car itself, although he did also service it with gas and air in the tires).

Alex spent most of her time in the big playground structure and the water room. It's also very nice that they have a cafeteria room with tables and you can bring in your own food; I just wish we had known that as I ended up running to 7-11 for pizza for the adults and the kids ate snacks.

American TV and the FS child

Overseas we have AFN, or shows we download, or on DVD. Our in-laws have Tivo. This means my kids have never in their memory seen normal American television.

There's a rec room sort of thing off the lobby of our apartment building and it has a TV and a pool table. I let the kids watch a show down there and headed to the computer room next door (I could see them through the doorway).

A little while into the show Alex yells for me to come help her please. She's all upset because the show is gone. There's a Fruit Loops commercial on, but as she doesn't know what Fruit Loops are she has no idea what's going on. I explain they are like the little shows she sometimes watches at the end of a show (for the kids shows, AFN puts all the commercials at the end, so when a show ends there's songs, Schoolhouse Rocks, or other educational clips). She calms down, I tell her to wait a bit and the show will be back on, and she yells to let me know when the show does in fact come back on.

10 minutes later, the same panic. We are so unprepared to come back to the USA!

Bubblegum Gelato

We had shopping day with Bubby 2 days ago, which became lunch in the mall day, and the pizza place had gelato. Bubby didn't receive specific enough instructions when she went to buy the kids their special treat of some gelato, so they each got their own cup (with about 2x their normal ice cream intake) of bright blue and bright red bubble gum flavored gelato.

Nevermind the effect of Red #40 just before naptime. Let's talk about the mid-term fallout. Scary, clearly not-ever-made-in-the-real-world bright green (even when they were tiny babies and had too much iron-fortified rice cereal) ... poop. We're on day #2 of it.

Next time, we stick with chocolate or vanilla.

Fluffy

My brother has a hamster named Fluffy - well, technically, I think it's supposed to be the kids' pet. Alex will even stand patiently in front of her cage waiting for her to wake up and come down from her penthouse bedroom, just watching and waiting. My kids are completely enthralled with this rodent,  to the extent that Terry is talking about getting one when we return to Russia. I pointed out their 3-5 year lifespan, so now he's trying to argue for a guinea pig, noting that it can become a protein source when we leave post. Humph. I stand by my veto.

Chesapeake Bay

One of the fun parts of Foreign Service life is all the different places we can meet up with friends. We visited our sponsors from St Petersburg in Lithuania, where they are now posted, and this week we took advantage of being in the USA at the same time to take a day trip to their cabin on the Chesapeake Bay.

The day started inauspiciously enough. I had printed directions from Google Maps and I had my Garmin up and running. Unfortunately, when they disagreed on what to do I had to decide "who" to follow. I got a nice reminder of how I hate DC driving when I got off at the wrong point near the Capitol so had to sit in traffic to turn around then lost in Southeast AGAIN ... totally bringing back the days when I lived here. There really should be a better way for 2 stinking highways to meet up! So I decided to go with Garmin as at least I can follow that without really taking my eyes off the road. Of course, it put me on Pennsylvania Avenue and never told me it was also MD-4 so I spent some quality time panicking about when I would meet up with MD-4, which I knew I needed. The kids, amazingly enough, spent almost 2h in the car without asking for shows!

We finally made it to the Calvert Marine Museum just as our friends were pulling up, then proceed to spend some fun time watching the stingrays swim around, walking around an old lighthouse, looking at the fish and other sea life, and checking out port life way back when.

 After the obligatory stop at the giftshop (you can tell how hungry Zoltan was, the treat he wanted was a bag of crab shaped pasta, seen here clutched close to his heart) we went for lunch. The kids had hushpuppies for the first time, going down easily with a side of honey. They kept calling them chicken nuggets, until the actual chicken nuggets came. Darn, they had Old Bay in them and the kids refused to eat. They also tried lemonade for the first time, Alex isn't a fan.

The highlight was going to the beach steps outside our friends' cabin. We probably should have gotten the kids into bathing suits but, well, I did bring extra clothes for them. While our friends looked for sharks' teeth on the beach my kids dug in the sand, sat in the water and got pushed over by the waves.

dry at the beginning

soaking at the end

Finish it up with a cookout for dinner, getting some directions advice from our friends, and for the ride home I put the shows on before starting out and we were home less than 1.5 hours later. I threw the kids into their pj's still salty, sandy and sweaty, and into bed only an hour after bedtime.

To paraphrase the old Jewish saying, "Next year at our cabin."

Gramercy at Pentagon City

Unlike just about every other FS family, we have never, ever stayed at an Oakwood. In fact, every time we have stayed in VA/DC we have been in a different building. This time we went with Executive Apartments, Inc. and one of their Pentagon City locations.

There's a Dunkin Donuts in the building. Gold Star #1. Helpful front desk and plenty for the kids to do in the lobby area - things to look at, a pool table & TV, the business center ... OK not all exactly in the lobby but close enough I could hear them while checking in. Gold star #2. We asked for an air mattress for the 2 year old who still falls out of bed, they gave us a foldout bed. Strike #1. The kitchen has real pots and pans, even Pyrex casserole dishes with covers and a few Tupperware containers. The fridge dispenses filtered water. Gold star #3 and 4. The largest pot is too small to cook enough pasta to feed the entire family. Strike #2. Gas stove. Gold Star #5.The same useless window blinds as every other corporate apartment ever ... not cool when one kid requires darkness to sleep. Probably not fair to give a strike as everyone does this. 5 minute walk to a park with an entirely shaded playground, also only 5 minutes to Pentagon City mall and metro. Gold Star #6. They even provide beach towels for use at the pool (GS #7) but only 2 when there's 4 of us (S #3). As should be eident by now, we're pretty pleased overall. I just wish I had thought of this beforehand, now I can barely remember much about all the previous places.

The last time we stayed around here we were at AKA. They advised us we could place a Peapod order and they would have it in our apartment (yes fridge stuff in the fridge). As that time we flew straight from post to VA it was a gold star that outnumbered any other possible factor.

We still haven't really explored the building or much of the neighborhood so there will probably be updates.

Our global nomad

Our daughter has lived in Russia for all of her conscious memory - 3 years out of 4.5. So when we were in the airport in the USA getting our luggage so we could leave the terminal and go to Grammy's, and we heard the announcements being made in English, she whispered into Terry's ear: "Most people here won't understand what the man just said."

Our first day in the USA

We decided there's no point just sitting around waiting for jet lag to attack us, so on our first day back we went to Penn Vermont Fruit Farm, a pick your own place we used to love when we lived in the area. We picked our own string beans - Zoltan loved them straight from the plant as we thought/hoped he would - then went over to the blackberries. Funny enough, he refused to eat the black ones and insisted on sucking on red ones, even eating a few. Ick! Alex however got the hang of things early on, as you can see by her fruit stained clothes, face and hands.

We made it!

This flight gave me hope for the future. The 3 hours to Germany was nothing, between snack and some of their toys and coloring the kids flew through that one. Frankfurt airport is so much better now that the construction is over (yes, that's how long it's been) but still not recommended. The good/bad thing is they have a pretty decent play area (good) but it's out past security (bad) and in a different terminal so we had to ride the tram (good - Z loved it; bad - adds time). We were at least able to give the kids 45 minutes of running around burning energy and we got something that approximated a meal.

The long haul flight started off awfully enough. Waiting, waiting, someone checked luggage and never got on the plane so that bag had to come off, then there was a medical emergency so first the medics came, then it was decided that person and travel companion had to get off and their luggage found. However, when we knew we were delayed one more time and I got up to get Z to the potty, we met the flight attendants. Awesome group of people. I love all of them. When explaining to one pair of attendants about Alex's need for darkness and the challenge of an all day flight, one lady handed me eye shades (the kind given away in first class) and wished me good luck. Wonder of wonders, it worked! Zoltan fell asleep pretty early on sucking on the lollypop we give the kids for their ears during takeoff and landing. T was able to ease the pop out but that may have been the downfall, as Z was awake only 20 minutes later. Alex, who we never thought would get any shuteye, slept for more than 2 hours! It was heaven.

Then it was time for snacks and TV. We'd been building Zoltan's tolerance for sitting and watching TV during the course of the summer and it was well worth it. Between the variety of movies offered on the plane and the fact we had 2 tablets loaded with their favorite shows, the kids were pretty happy for most of the flight. They did a little coloring and we read a few books, we pulled out the Leapster gameboy thingie and they each got a turn with it ... but most of our 8 hours in the air was consumed with TV, and I'm cool with that.

The next bit of heaven - our agreement was I would stay here an extra week after Terry went back, but on condition we flew in and out of Philly as my sanity and the kids' ability to not completely melt down only last for 2 planes, not 3. So we were met immediately outside customs by a nice man who had a luggage cart, loaded our stuff in it and whisked it away to the vehicle and met us around the other side, with a cooler of water and rented car seats so we didn't have to lug ours on the plane. The same nice man will bring me and the kids to the airport in a few weeks.

Zoltan did manage to fall asleep in the car. The one time I actually wished for a teensy bit of traffic, to keep the nap going, but of course we sailed through. So here are the stats: we woke the kids at 4am for the flight, between then and when the kids went to sleep again (at 3am Piter time) Alex slept 2h and Zoltan slept about 1.5h. The good news is they seem to be making up for it, taking their naps and going to bed on time. Terry and I don't even mind them waking around 6am as we're up then too!

Time honored rituals - the freezer cleanout

Every year, part of our preparations for a decent chunk of time out of the house (i.e., R&R, last year it was our "PCS") we do a drawdown on leftovers. So tonight's dinner was mystery brown shmoo from a tupperware in the freezer that didn't even have a date on it. We guessed it might be tortilla soup and I cooked up some tortillas chips to go with it.

It was some kind of chili. And REALLY tasty. The tortillas went with it pretty well. And we have absolutely no idea what recipe we used, it wasn't a usual one, so we may never make it again.  I hate when that happens.

I think we need to keep a Sharpie by the freezer and label our meals.

Happy 7 year anniversary!

Of course, I didn't even realize today was our anniversary until 2:30pm, at which time I called Terry and said "Do you know what today is?" in the "you're in trouble voice" and told him to look at his calendar. Happy man, he did get it on the first try.

We kinda suck, don't we?

Family

A few tidbits just from today ...

Zoltan crying "Mommy! Mommy!" this morning during my entire trip to the bathroom, because I didn't want him to join me and Terry kept him captive in the living room. Now that's love when 2 minutes is just too long to be out of eyesight!

Terry offering to take the kids alone to the grocery store this morning so I could go back to bed, even though the reason I was so tired was that I was out too late last night. Usually my attitude is "you were out having fun, if you're tired too bad". Taking the kids to the grocery store alone is something we just don't do, as the havoc Zoltan can wreak is monumental. Now that's love! [note, I didn't take him up on the offer, but the offer itself was golden]

Not sure if this should concern me, but although we have a ridiculous quantity of play food items, lately whenever Zoltan makes something for us to "eat" (roast, soup) it is always his sleep lovey Blabla presented to me in the pan or pot. Terry says it means he'll farm well, as he doesn't mind eating his pet.

Zoltan: Allie, if you eat your lunch you can have a chocolate muffin.
Me: No, Zoltan, they are carrot cake muffins.
Zoltan: I'm talking to Allie.

Creative Home Maintenance

Anyone who knows us knows Terry is a do-it-yourselfer. In fact, if there is any way he can just do it himself, he prefers that. Our first post was LQA and if he had his tools with him I think the whole experience would have been less painful. Now we are in a "normal" post, in Government housing, and we have GSO to do the home maintenance.

We had a huge project throughout most of the winter, replacing the risers in the entire building. If you, like me, used to think risers were the slightly raised flooring many conferences and lectures put their panels and speakers are on so the audience could see them, you would, like me, be wrong. (well, not wrong as that is one definition, just not applicable here). Risers are also some kind of pipe used in plumbing. While the risers were being repaired, our kitchen and all bathrooms were in their turn torn apart, and the bathrooms got renovated at the same time.

Since the new flooring was put into the bathrooms, we have had the grout coming up. This is because the floor wasn't leveled before the tile put in, so the grout will come up every month or so until the floors are leveled.

Or not.

Because this week, when they regrouted for the 3rd time, they used some kind of flexible grouting that will move with the shifting tile and not come out.

Why do something right when there's a workaround?

St Petersburg Mining Institute Museum

It just doesn't sound that exciting, does it? My geologist friend aside, what could be interesting to see at a mining museum? And nobody who'd been before could really describe what was so special in a way that made it sound very special ... so here's my attempt as it is relatively fresh in my mind.

Our contact met us at the front entrance, brought us in, and gave us some history. The Institute was founded in 1773 by Catherine II and was originally only an educational academy. It was part of the military so the students all still wear uniforms, although they no longer give swords to the #1 student each year (we did however get to see one of such swords in a display case).

Then our tour guide came and we began with a visit to the special exhibit room, which houses the prize items in the collection. There's a shelf of Faberge figures...

... another sword on which is depicted all along the blade/scabbard a famous battle ...

... a collection of raw silver and gold nuggets ...

...then on to the main collection.  I totally dig the enormous hanging periodic table and already plan this will be some year's science project for one of my kids. 

 There are rows and rows of cases of rocks. Our guide picked out the most important or interesting ones to tell us about. There's a display showing synthetic rubies and sapphires next to natural ones. We learned that only blue topaz will keep its color against constant sunshine but yellow or other colors fade. We saw marble statues and learned about the type of marble that makes figures of people look so real. If course I forget now, but there's some quality of it that lets skin actually look like skin. Don't you want to pick up this happy baby?

We learned that minerals are individual molecular forms and rocks are composed of composites of minerals.

This table has a bronze bottom crafted here in Russia and the top is a piece of petrified wood from Arizona (and now, again, all I can think is "There is no ... Arizona ... no Painted Desert, no Sedona...") Wood gets petrified when it is buried deep into the earth, such as from an earthquake, and the minerals in the earth seep in and cause chemical transformations. Did I mention this is really pretty?

 This is a stone that when you strike it with something metal - we had a key - will ring like it's metal itself?

And what's not to love about a Russian Imperial crest made of forks and knives?

We got to see a number of pieces of mining equipment - most are models of real sets as the stuff is quite big but some is the original. That's 400,000 year old water in that glass jar, came from more than 3 kilometers down in Antarctica. They found bacteria down there that actually came back to life when they warmed it up.

In a part where we can't take photographs I saw a huge gold nugget about the size of a newborn baby that weighed more than me. We saw a part of an iron meteor (did you know meteors are rock, rock/metal, or metal?) that weight some large number of tons and learned it came from a meteor shower that happened about 60 years ago, whch means we're in luck as they only occur about every 200 years (they do a LOT of damage).

For those who want to check it out themselves, the place now opens tours to the public at 11am and 1pm every Saturday. Tours are in Russian of course.

Sunday Brunch at Grand Hotel Europe

I'd heard about this brunch, and finally an opportunity to go arose, so Terry and I decided to have an early anniversary celebration. Our reservation was for 1pm, which is when the brunch opens. I take issue a bit with a brunch that does not begin until 1pm - that's lunch - but I quickly got over it.

We started with a glass of champagne and headed to the cold zakuski and salads. The smoked fish (3 different kinds) were all too smoky for me, the beef carpaccio too bland (although later it seems to have gotten seasoned, so I guess I just dove in too early). The satsivi was good, as were a couple of other salads I no longer remember. Should have been taking notes during the meal! They also had a whole row of fresh juices and milkshakes so I made a carrot-orange mix. Later I tried something red and it's some kind of mixed berry with an emphasis on strawberry. Both were very yum. Terry got the fresh OJ alone and reported it was very fresh squeezed.

Next was blini with red ikra, smetana, and chives plus potato pancakes I dabbed some cranberry vodka sauce on, a few pieces of sushi and maki, and some fresh salmon, one cold smoked and one one marinaded. The blini was excellent, the potato a bit too spongy but the sauce was delish, and I thought the smoked salmon was the highlight. The tuna sushi was inedible and I unfortunately warned Terry too late so we both got a mouthful. The rice was off too, but the salmon maki wasn't too bad and it satisfied my seaweed craving. We were served a small glass of vodka for this course.

There's some Asian theme running through the hotel this month so a cart came by with duck moo shu. I jumped on it as I super love duck. The bird was a bit dry and the sauce a bit too salty. Disappointment, although I should have known better to expect good east Asian food in Piter.

Next up, the meats. I got a slice of prime rib, a slice of veal, and a too-big portion of fish pie. These were, hands, down, the highlights thus far. The fish pie was too much only because I was already stuffed to the gills by this time, but it was 3 layers of different fish with the rice layer and the pastry all around it. Y.U.M.  We had red wine with this.

Finally of course came the dessert. I said to Terry I was going to find a way to stuff some of everything into my belly but really, that was an empty threat. I did manage to taste the blini with fruit sauce, a small skewer of fresh fruit, a cake we were attracted to by its enormous blackberry adorning each slice, some fresh passion fruit, several truffles (mint, coconut, some kind of tea) and a cappuccino. Later the waiter also brought me mint tea, which my belly sorely needed.

We spent a bit more than three hours eating, and it is now 5 hours since we stopped. I still haven't felt the slightest pang of hunger, although my stomach is no longer bloated or painful.

Finally photos of New Holland Awesomeness

The free library has a bit of a plexiglass type overhang for those rainy days

The community garden plot for the kids of Pavlovsk (they wuz here)

This is the scarecrow.

Amazing Leto sculpture/sign

Kids playing on said sculpture/sign

In this little kiosk building thing there's stalls from Shyrpa, Probka, Clean Plate Club, and more

There is also outdoor table tennis. A tournament is going on between the diasporas of St Petersburg.

A little waterfront seating

The best thing of all ... the play area. I didn't get photos of the amazing bean bag mountain on the other side of the building (the red siding you can see, it's actually an old shipping container). Inside the building there's all kinds of crafty and arty things for kids, mostly for kids over 7 and nothing for kids under 5.

Zucchini bread marathon completed!

Approximately 200 muffins taking up a lot of space in the freezer, but truly it's the only way to eat zucchini from about October to about May. At least I can get out of the kitchen now.

In other notes, I am more than halfway through the epic The 900 Days, THE seminal nonfiction book about the Siege of Leningrad. Light summer reading!

And, finally, we have plane reservations! Our trip home is now way more concrete than it had been this morning.

Photos of New Holland to come ....

Mnemonic Devices

I'm looking at December and it's getting bigger and bigger on the horizon. I think I really need to step up my Russian studies ... which is a bit crazy as there are only so many hours, I do have this job thing they want me to do to get my paycheck, and the whole reason I've given for quitting my job upon our departure to the USA for R&R is so I can study Russian full time upon our return. So basically I'm freaking out even though I have a logical plan in place that should get me where I need to go by the time I need to be there ... it just requires me to WAIT to be able to turn full steam ahead.

That went longer than I thought. The point to this is I started looking up better methods to make vocabulary stick in my mind. Enter the mneumonic device. I started with a few words I'd been getting mixed up, such as "to memorize" (запомнить) and "to remind" (напомнить). Memorize and запомнить both have "Z" in them. напомнить is like NA[g]-remember, which is of course remind. So far so good.

Then in my homework I saw the word for "noteworthy" (достопримечательный). My neumonic for this is "Do stop, make a sandwich and tell me". Yes, my 9 syllable sentence is 2 longer than the 7 syllable word.

Peter's Walks new boat tour

We took advantage of the beautiful weather to do our second Piter boat tour in 3 years. Yes, we've been remiss!  This time we wanted to check out what our favorite tour company had to say. Peter's Walks only started their tours within the last month, so the almost empty boat wasn't a huge surprise although it was a huge shame. Good for us, though, as it allowed the kids to roam a bit and use up some energy while both Terry and I got to listen to the tour guide.

Our tour guide was young and enthusiastic and did a good job personalizing the tour, answering questions and making conversation. His English was impeccable.

There was some issue with the boat, so we had to wait about 15 minutes. The kids took the opportunity to have a snack.

When we took our original tour in 2009, we saw the Neva, Moika and Fontanka rivers. This time, we accidentally got on the water on Red Sails day, and were unable to get onto the Neva at all. No matter as it meant we were able to meander through canals, under bridges, and around sights and monuments using a totally different perspective.

For example, here's the backside of the Mariinsky Theatre - not kept up quite as well as the front, eh?

I happen to be a big fan of all the Petersburg bridges and got a chance to snap many that I'd never seen before.

Another exciting aspect of today was how lightly we traveled. A & Z each had a backpack, I had my purse and T slung the Uppababy over his shoulder when someone wasn't in it. We even took the metro with the kids; I don't remember ever doing that with both of them before. Of course by the time we got home at exactly naptime, everyone was exhausted, dirty and grumpy. It was a great day!

Buddy Bears

What are the Buddy Bears? In Berlin in 2002, someone got the idea and artists started decorating 2 meter tall bears. According to the web site, there have been various iterations over time - at first the bears were on all fours like the Einstein Bear still is, now they stand with arms up "holding hands". In its present form, there's a Buddy bear from every member state of the UN and they tour around the world promoting tolerance. Except when the 4 year old gets bored, runs off and can't be found easily. Then, there's very little tolerance for such behavior and we go straight home.

We tried to get photos of the kids from each country they have visited, unfortunately they got bored about 4-5 photos. Alex announced she wanted to only shoot with bears she liked best, then made a beeline for Sudan. Which of course was next to the USA (It comes next alphabetically in Russian). Here's a snippet of what we did manage to get.

We tried to get photos of the kids in front of the countries they had been to, but Zoltan refused to move out of the way for this one. Oh well, he will get to the UK one day and then this will be accurate.

Hungary

Kids riding the Einstein bear. See Alex being a good big sis and holding on to Zoltan so he didn't fall off.

Estonia

Russia. Note that it's just Z and me. This is because this is when Alex ran off. I love the Khohloma design.

Chancey

We agreed to dog-sit a friend's pup when he went away for a long weekend. I thought it would be a great time to let the kids experience a dog and to remind us how much we don't want one in the FS. Our friend assured us the dog was, if anything, overly submissive and had plenty of experience with kids. Hm.

The intro was as good as could be. The kids bounced off the walls and ran and screamed a lot but she was shielded from them and being petted by me so her freaking out was muted. She drank some water and wandered the house a bit. Eventually she settled down when we invited her onto the couch (she's definitely used to the good life!).

Unfortunately for the experience, she never really got calm. She only peed once a day even though we took her out more often than she's used to. Having her around brought back the visceral reactions of having had Kirby - every time she approached a new dog, I tensed. That probably didn't help her or the other dog view each other as new friends, although she did well enough.

Also, on our first night, Zoltan accidentally stumbled over her and she snapped at him. She growled many times when he got near. Saturday morning I got the idea of letting the kids feed her bits of bacon to reinforce that they are friends. It helped a bit but not enough.

I was amazed and impressed with Zoltan - he did a spectacular job of being gentle with her when he actually got close. I'm sad that he said he wasn't being gentle with her, I believe he didn't think he was because of her reaction. Alex fared much better, even when she tripped over Chancey the next day (just as Zoltan had) the dog had no reaction. Of course, Alex was, in general, quieter and slower than Z and not tearing around on a riding toy.

In the end, I am glad to have had the experience. It solidifies many things that have been nebulous: 1. No dogs while we're in this job, and quite frankly maybe not ever. It's just a PITA and for now my kids provide all the companionship I can handle, and then some.  2. Any dog we do get will be a puppy so its neuroses are unique to our lives and we're not worried about what s/he lived through before we got him/her.

The funny things kids do

We love our nannies. They are amazing and when we largely part ways in just a few weeks we'll all be sad. Yesterday when I came home from work and had to wake Alex from her nap, she started crying and saying she didn't want me, she wanted the nanny. She was still tired, a bit hungry, and generally distraught. Then she asked me to hold her. So, yup, I was holding and comforting my daughter for the fact that I was me and not the nanny.

I am pretty sure the irony escaped her.

Puttin' Up

No, this post isn't about how the kids handle the fact that mommy can only give one of them my full attention at a time. It's about berries in the winter!

We got 4 kilos of berries this weekend at the rinok, 2 blueberry and 2 raspberry. Here's the stats of how we processed them:
-- 9 jam-jar-size jars of jam
-- 6 babyfood-jar-size jars of jam
-- one half-liter jar of blueberries in light syrup
-- one mixed berry cobbler ... heaven! Which then led to using up the random cup's worth of whipping cream ... more heaven! and using the KitchenAid, meaning that I could pour in the cream, toss in the sugar, turn it on and go do something else for 5-10 minutes.... you get the picture. It was yum.
-- unknown number of small bowls of berries. At first they were naked, then they were topped with whipped cream.

Next week we're going back for another 4 kilos.


Shall we talk about the peaches?
Friends of ours who served somewhere that these peaches were plentiful introduced us to them about 3 years ago. I'm not the family peach lover and I remember being unimpressed. For some reason I picked up a few a week or so ago and ... wow.




As mentioned previously, Zoltan is a picky eater. He rarely lets an unknown food pass his lips and many previously loved foods soon fall to the same fate. Imagine how thrilled I was the day he asked me for a bite of my peach? Now, 2 kilos within 2 days later, the kids aren't yet showing signs of slowing down on their gorging. Of course, Terry and I have put in our fair share of the eating too :)

Alex is Terry's spitting image

and we have several recent examples to cement the deal.

1. She was doing puzzles backwards (upside down?) Either way, the picture was facing the floor and she was putting pieces together solely based on how well shapes fit together. Terry does this regularly.

2. She took a toy apart and tried to put it back together. Unfortunate results, now Terry's going to have to try to salvage the toy.

3. She complains of being too hot when it's 70 degrees outside. Actually, that's all of us these days.

New Holland

Of course it was the first day +30C that I decided it was time for us to check out New Holland. I'd heard too many good things and it was Friday - my day off. After somehow requiring 1.5h to get the kids fed, dressed and pottied, and all the snacks and other "just in case" accoutrement prepared, we ran out of the house before something could pull us back in.

The 22 bus is surprisingly convenient, as Ploschad Truda is a переход (underground crosswalk) and a block away from the entrance to the island. From the moment we walked in we were entranced. After crossing around a building that was being renovated, we saw the LETTERS.  лето, ("summer") is spelled out in letters a bit higher than me and are perfect for climbing (for example, E makes a stairway and the O is boxy enough for both kids to fit inside the hole). Then we saw the children's play area. It's not the typical jungle gym, rather it's one of those indoor soft-foam obstacle courses and soft foam shapes to stack or climb on, just outside. It's covered over to there's protection from rain and - more importantly today - sun.

It's much smaller than I thought it would be, although I know they are continuing construction and I am sure more and more of the island will open up over time. The community garden is about as big as my living room, with about a dozen plots. The cafe was very nice, my veggie panini fresh and clearly made after I'd ordered it.

My biggest complaint - my only real complaint - is the lack of shade. The cafe had a lattice-type structure over it so we weren't in direct sunlight, but I had promised Alex a picnic and couldn't deliver because the only trees - about 4-5 of them - are right by the entrance and we didn't notice them til we were on our way out.

All in all, it's worth schlepping over there a few times this summer. Who knows, maybe we'll go back tomorrow with Terry and actually take a few photos*.

* photos were in fact taken, but on my phone, the quality of which Terry finds overly dubious and only under duress will camera phone photos be allowed on the blog. Sometimes it's a pain to be married to a photo snob.

Around the neighborhood

We've been meaning to photograph these windows for 3 years. Enter one gretzy morning with the kids, the magic of just getting them outside (oh how I yearn for a yard!) and we finally got it accomplished. How cool are these?

Better than TV?

Alex liked this one best because it had different colors.

I think Z wants to go for a ride.

Picky Eater

Zoltan is a picky eater. He will clap his hand over his mouth rather that put a new food item into it. Alex will complain about everything and start whining that she doesn't like the food before it has even gotten onto her fork, but in the end she will taste everything and sometimes rarely (hello, chicken corn chowder) actually like it and ask for more.

Dinnertime, understandably, is a bit of a nightmare. We had held for a while that they can have the dinner we cook or they can have the raw chopped veggies we usually have on hand (thank you, nannies!), and that's it. Living outside the USA, though, means that produce purchased on the weekend doesn't last until the end of the week so by Thursday if I don't get to the market we're out of alternatives.  Last night I decided to follow the "experts" and try the "if you don't eat dinner you'll see it again at breakfast" thing, assuming as all the expert assured me that they wouldn't starve themselves and after 16 hours on nothing more than a cup of milk they will indeed eat the food I prepared.

Or not.

I had even enlisted their help in preparing the meal, another piece of advice that is supposed to make them more amenable to eating the resulting creation.

So I went looking for some better advice. It turns out that Zoltan's pickiness is genetically attributed, according to this NYT article. Just ask my mom about the months that went by that all I'd eat was a piece of cheese on a piece of bread - and only at a particular friend's house - and we can see which parent might be that genetic carrier. And I turned out pretty OK culinarily. Eventually.

Even the Mayo Clinic weighs in on how to avoid dinnertime battles and what a parent need and need not worry about. The National Network for Child Care explains that a portion of veggies is a tablespoonful for each year of age; a portion of fruit is generally a half piece. It also turns out that my childrens' love of fruit, a few select veggies, pasta, nuts and yogurt set them up for much healthier eating than the average picky eater. "Hiding" zucchini in their muffins is also apparently not damaging to them and the tablespoons of squash they get from that is probably all they need, serving-size-wise, for good nutrition.

And tonight, when they are eating their plain pasta and apples, I'm going to smile and relax.

Exactly what we've been hoping for

We had hoped to give the children the gift of a second language during our extended tenure in Russia and our very likely return to Russian speaking posts. We're even choosing a place in the DC area to live based on the true Russian detsky sad in the neighborhood. But, as our Russian is still poor and the kids mostly speak English with us, we don't have a good sense of their skills. Enter: this week.

The Russian school year is September 1 - end of May. The preschool is still open June and July, but so sparse that all the grade levels are together in one class and the teachers rotate who's there watching them. Yesterday, a teacher I had never seen before June asked me if I didn't speak any Russian. I said only a little. She asked where Alex learned to speak Russian so well. I said "here." She still looked puzzled, like it wasn't possible.

Today, another teacher told me that Alex's "best friend" today was a little girl from the younger class. She said they were chatting all day (I was excited because I had just learned the word for "chat" yesterday in class!). This little girl has a Russian mom and British dad and I know he speaks to her in English. Naturally, I asked the teacher which language the girls used today ... you guessed it, Russian.

"Major surgery"

We foolishly encouraged Alex, as a tiny infant, to form her deepest attachment to a stuffed animal of discontinued design. Aarrugh! We learned with Zoltan and made sure we had 2 of his lovey.

In 4.5 years poor Blabla has been washed too many times, flattened out, had her tail pulled and ear pulled out. Worse, her knit has been stretched and torn. She's had some stitches a few times. After the last minor surgery we realized she might not make it to an old enough age that Alex wouldn't need her anymore. We needed drastic intervention.

Enter Zoltan and Alex both growing out of their current sizes at once, so we had a lot of extra "scrap cloth". We let her choose the piece she wanted and Terry used his super magical sewing skills to put a patch on. I'm not being sarcastic here. When he puts in a stitch you're not. getting. it. out. Not great for hems that are supposed to be cut out as the kids grow! Extra bonus that we found some cotton from back during winter when our one nanny made a Santa for the kids, including fluffy beard and mustache. So now Blabla has come back from the brink of anorexia to reasonable health.

Doesn't she look happy?

I think she now looks like she's wearing a cape. Super Blabla!