Monday, June 9, 2014

Summer in the City

(read to the end, because there are a lot of random topics covered here)


Too...much...SUN....I know I probably say that every summer when we have a heat-spell, and I wish the heat wouldn't bother me, because it surely is a blessing to see the sun after a gray spell. But it's hard to find a happy medium, because when the sun is out there is no escape...not until very late in the evening. As opposed to the very low sun in the winter, it's HIGH in the summer. You can't just wait a few hours for the sun to pass over and some shade to appear. It is directly above for many, many hours during the day. Whether you're going to the bus stop or the store, you have to be prepared.

Personally David and I stay in during this kind of weather. I feel guilty because I know Russian moms try to make sure their kids get fresh air every day. We get up and shut the windows and shades/curtains so the apartment won't heat up, and then we go through our daily routine, until we get a little relief and can let the air back in...but that might not be until like 10 pm. :/



Sickness

...Also, Andrei had the flu last week, poor guy. :( Thankfully it wasn't the worst case ever, but he still just felt really yucky. In the days he tried to get rest and in the evenings he helped out with David for dinner/bedtime, which was good because evening is crazy-time around here. Especially when we don't go outside because of the weather!


Cancellations

Last week was also sort of a bummer in that I had some plans that didn't work out. I know I've probably mentioned it before, but trying to keep up with people here is a scheduling nightmare. Not that my friendships are reduced to schedules, but I have lots of people I've been trying to see for a year or more, maybe even since before David was born, and it just doesn't happen! On Tuesday I had tentative plans with one person and she didn't write back and then it turned out she had a dentist's appointment and wasn't free. Then I had cleared out another block of time for a certain friend another day and was trying to figure out what to do with David and so forth since Andrei was sick, and then at the last minute my friend didn't have any money for the metro???? I'm not judging anyone here, just trying to illustrate the pace of life here. Everyone is freakishly busy which makes it seem fast, but at the same time you spend months and months trying to organize a certain get-together or run a simple errand.


Productivity

...and on that note, we had kept the entire month of June open to catch up on some things, and I'm finally starting to sort of come to terms with the fact that we AREN'T going to get much done. We are going to go through the same list, just slower. :) And no matter how we plan, those last few days (hopefully not hours) before our plane ride are going to be hectic, sigh.


Tears

I cried so hard in church today! First there were announcements, and then an engagement ceremony, which I got through, and then there was this testimony at the end that -BAM- left many of us sobbing. This woman got up to talk about the dental problems of her 3 yr old daughter, and I was already starting to cry because SHE was starting to cry, and anything with mothers and children makes me cry.  So as it turned out they couldn't find a doctor to see their daughter, and the child was crying all the time from pain (which I didn't know, just thought she was a particularly sensitive little girl), and they didn't have the money for treatment, and it was going to be under general anesthetic, and then they did find a doctor who did it all for free and without needing to use anesthetic and the little girl didn't cry at all! Which if you've ever been a parent needing to arrange medical care for your child, is just one of those gut-wrenching things. So it had a happy ending, but it was the WAY she told it that had us all sniffling. She was crying and laughing and we couldn't understand half of what she was saying! I could hear this woman behind me snorting, but I couldn't tell if it was from crying or if she was already laughing from the relief of knowing it was going to end well. I couldn't stop my own shoulders from shaking, and then all of a sudden it was over and we were dismissed. And technically we were supposed to be congratulating the engaged couple, but we were all trying to find some Kleenex and pretend we hadn't just been crying.


Misbehaving

Then on the way home we got yelled at personally by the tram driver for having the baby in the stroller. He wanted us to take the baby out and carry the baby and stroller individually up the steps before reseating the baby. I understand maybe wanting to avoid a baby-in-stroller-on-stairs scenario, but the second option doesn't make sense either. Let's say you are the only adult. You take the baby out of the stroller...now what? Who carries the stroller up the stairs? If you lift the baby up first, he could fall down the stairs while you're getting the stroller. Believe me, I've tried various scenarios in our apartment entrance. Anyway, David was asleep and we weren't going to disturb him. On the way out we got yelled at, too. The clear solution here is to DO AWAY WITH STAIRS!


6 comments:

  1. So....I've been reading your blog for a few years now...pre-wedding at least, since I lived in Ukraine for a time. I only know one family in St. Pete, except a month or so ago, I met another young woman.
    Yesterday, I happened to see pictures from an "engagement blessing" at church....Quite possibly it's the same one!! Here are some vague identifying details - one of them is a foreigner. Both have last names that do not sound Russian, even though one of them IS. Would this have been the same couple??
    If so, small world!

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  2. Hmmm, now I'm curious as to who yours was! I did have a friend get married to an Australian recently! :) The bride-to-be from Sunday was Belarusian (okay, that's really hard to spell), but other than that they're pretty Russian.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmm nope not the same couple then. Not this time, anyway. :)

      Delete
  3. My older children didn't give ma a moments trouble. If I told them to sit somewhere (just sat them somewhere) - they wouldn't move. They would walk when I wanted them to walk, play when I wanted them to play, sit in a playpen to corral their blocks and toys-with-many-pieces. They didn't experiment with food, or insist on doing things themselves (or scream). They didn't think it was fun to test me to see if I mean business. They never once caused me a bit of trouble in church. Sitting on my lap and looking at the priest came naturally. Monnie is smart, sweet, engaging and energetic - she is PERFECT, but her state of perfection is SO much HARDER than Aidan' s and Lydia's. If I didn't have her, I wouldn't imagine what you were talking about much of the time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm so confused by this comment - I don't think Elizabeth/Liz was talking about David misbehaving in this post.
      What do you mean by "her state of perfection" is so much harder? How can a more perfect child be more difficult?

      Delete
    2. I'm confused too, but Annie sees my FB posts, so maybe she was thinking a different David incident. ;)

      About Monnie-well, we're all "fearfully and wonderfully" made, but there's that whole personality thing, and also the sinful nature. When a baby is born, he/she is nothing less than perfect (especially to a parent), as I'm sure is true of ALL of Annie's brood...but Monnie might be more of a handful than the others. Am I right, Annie?

      David had a fairly mild disposition until recently...oh, he had a mind of his own, but not too many tantrums. Now he's approaching 2 and is acting his age!

      Delete

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