Carpe Diem

June 21st has always been a date that I liked, first it's my cousin's and grandpa's birthday, secondly it marks the longest day of the year, and thirdly it generally means summer is in full swing.  I'm sure that most of you are dreaming that today summer will actually begin behaving like it ought and say good bye to the dreaded cold and rain--all I'm wishing for are shorter days ahead.  How contrary to the dreary darkness of winter.  (And Ken, he's simply baffled as to why hockey is still on TV.)

Light starts shining around 3:45 am here and lasts until well after 10 pm.  I'm sure that my attitude should be one of seizing the day, I'm just not sure how much seizing one can do with inducing a seizure (interestingly enough, the act of which is also called seizing.)  Anyhow, each night we make Rawly's room into a little cacoon, covering the blinds with two blankets, placing a folded sheet on top of the window in his door, shutting out the light from our windowed door also--hoping that our feeble attempts will be able to fight the light for one more night of slumber.  Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

For some reason this last week he has not wanted to fall asleep for anything. Tonight, however, we were coming home from dinner with some friends and he practically feel asleep in the stroller and was asleep on the changing table.  Let's hope it lasts 'til (late) morning.  *Late for us is around seven.

So here's to carpe diem--what are you going to do with all the light on this day?

Happy birthday Kathryn!

The sights, sounds, and smells of Spring!

 

Easter break has been the turning point of spring for the past two years.  We came back from break and the cherries were in bloom, then it was the lilacs and chestnuts, next (my favorite) something which I believe might be black locust--it has the most intoxicating smell.  Along with spring comes a million and one events.  People seem to want to break out of winter hibernation with a bang, so we've kept ourselves quite busy most evenings and every weekend.  Needless to say, we're looking forward to a (hopefully) more relaxing summer!  Though our road trip though BC last summer is one our all time favorites, this pregnant mum is hoping to do a little less traveling back and forth.

Kyiv in non-winter months is a very social place.  In the evenings as we walk to our friends' places, the parks are full of people of all ages.  Kids playing on the playgrounds, groups of older men or women, gaggles of youth.  There are a couple of makeshift stools and table outside of an apartment building where people sit and play some type of board game, other times you'll see a babushka and younger children sitting spitting sunflower seeds.  When you stop and think about it, it's pretty cool.  I love all the walking that we do here (again, this is when the weather is nice and we're not trudging through un-plowed streets.) I enjoy hearing people laugh and sing.  But it's what we haven't heard the past two nights that's been truly great...Saturday our landlord had an AC unit installed for us.  Living on the south western side of the 10th floor can get quite hot which has forced us to sleep with our windows open at night.  But since Saturday, we've had three rest-filled nights without waking up to the pack of wild dogs who inhabit the forest, no more drunkards shouting at one am, and no blaring neighbors' TVs.  What peace!

As for interesting things that I've seen this spring...there have been so many times when I've wished that I had my camera with me.  But there was one that needed no photo, a surprise that I knew would come one day while living here, but that still only made it mildly less shocking.  Coming home one afternoon, I rounded the corner to find a mom dangling her sprawled bare-bottomed girl.  Potty training here can begin as young as one and I've heard that it's quite common (and socially acceptable) for kids to take a squat whenever and wherever they need.