Indian Summer

It's now four am (I've been up since two), not sure if it's the jitters thinking about all I need to do before Rawly's party on Friday: how am I going to make a train cake, what else do I need from the store so that we only make one trip, how can we exchange money to give some to our nanny to pick up somethings from the store?  Too many thoughts--what was I just telling a friend earlier this week about not worrying...hum. I wish I could tell my muscles the same thing!  Outside the wind is fighting to get in through our rattling wooden double windows and a draft in the hall that keeps knocking on the door.  Regretfully, fall is here, and with that, winter is coming.
What sweet relief this Indian summer has been.  Can you imagine shorts in November?  I'm not even sure if you can call it Indian summer since it's so late in the year.  Someone pointed out how crazy it was wearing a wool sweater vest on September first.  The cool weather was followed by the leaves changing yellow or brown (not a whole lotta color here, is that reminiscent of Soviet times?)  We escaped to Greece, so glad for warmer weather and returned to a great gift of two weeks of nice weather.
Generally on Sundays we go out to eat after church.  This week we hit up the new Dominoes Pizza.  And, surprise, surprise, Ken was wearing shorts.  Rawls was barefoot and hatless in overalls, but the two of them were the cause of many a "Babooshka" (what older, grandmotherly women are called) shaking a finger and surely ranting about how he'd get sick!  I've learned to smile:) Rawly was so funny, he sat on my lap while I was feeding him bits of pizza.  What I didn't realize was that he wasn't chewing the pepperoni or "Canadian" pizza (our Canadian friends always laugh when we call it that.)  So as we were preparing to leave Rawly kept playing with bits of pepperoni and ham in his mouth, I caught a few with a napkin and thought that we were good to go.  Little did I know, that he has the Mary Poppins bag of a mouth and that little turkey must have had at least three pieces of each mulling around in there because when we got outside even more made an appearance.  His cheeks are so chubby that none of us had even noticed!  We're always kept on our toes around him and loving every minute of it.

Bricks and mortar make a house, but the laughter of children make a home. Irish Proverb

This is a snapshot, or mental video frame of our evening today.  Hope you enjoy.

I arrive home to this:

Rawly in his makeshift highchair/swing with his eating smock on and dinner ready on the stove!

As the evening continued I couldn't help but sit back and watch in sheer bliss; Ken had Rawly squealing for hours as they played hide and seek, peek-a-boo, kaboom, pretend sneeze attacks, and wrestled.  When I looked at my watch, I couldn't believe that it was already time for PJs and a bedtime story.  A little later we sat down to read Good Night Moon. Rawly reached out and touched the kittens when he saw them (in Greece, he fell in love with all the stray cats!), then later when the book was saying good night to the "gatitos" (as we call them), he leaned down and gave them a kiss.

Thus far, this has been the best night of my life!

Here we are

It's hard to believe that it's already November. Time has absolutely flown by since we've returned to Ukraine. Odd as it my be, coming back has felt comfortable so far! We were/are so grateful to all of you who opened your homes to us, but almost three months of traveling is a lot. Year two, thus far, has been immensely easier than the first--almost comically so. We know the routines, the ebb and flow of life happens, and everything else we chalk up to life "only in Ukraine." Since it's been so long since I've last updated the blog, I felt it best to show you via videos what we've been up to lately. (I will warn you though that I have the uncanny knack of turning off the video three seconds prior to Rawly being the absolute cutest boy in the entire Ukraine.)

Kaboom! September 2010



Rawly meets Aegean Sea October 2010