Wednesday, March 16, 2016

A Day in the Life


Today was just one of those days where David was a little more rambunctious than usual! Once again I was thankful to have a more domestic day with few interruptions from the outside world, but I sure am glad his shenanigans are normally fewer in number. Also, we are at the halfway point of Andrei being away. So like I said in the last post, I'm feeling kind of "mom-busy."

I stayed up late last night enjoying the quiet. My kind of quiet...catching up via the Internet at my own pace, and doing a little reading for fun.

Didn't get the miracle I hoped for, and David woke up pretty early this morning. So I went to get him his chocolate milk and turn on Netflix. We started giving him chocolate milk when weaning from breastfeeding (at 2.5 yrs!), so it kind of stuck. No cavities that we know of!

David usually hangs out in the kitchen, but I wanted to snooze a bit and didn't want him in there unsupervised. So I set him up in the living room, right next to our bedroom....

An hour later, he had wet his pants. Just one hour. Somehow it seems to only happen on my watch and never when Andrei is in charge! I found some dry clothes for him and crawled back under the covers...

About a half million requests later (it's hard to make Buzz Lightyear's arms go the right way), I found myself in the living room again, this time to find David sliding around in a puddle on the floor, exclaiming "chocolate milk is slippery!" Again...Andrei gives him chocolate milk, end of story. I give it to him and get to clean up a chocolate milk eruption. Was kind of a backwards start to the housecleaning I had planned, but we rolled with it.

Went to bring the laptop back to the kitchen and felt something on the underside...it was modeling clay. Stuck right to the bottom of my computer, partially covering the fan. Uggghhh. David "didn't know" how it had gotten there, but still apologized, and then eventually confessed.

Monday, March 14, 2016

Checking In


The thing about getting behind with blogging is that it gets harder and harder to explain everything that is going on! Too much catching up to do.

(however, a hint is that I post little snapshots on Instagram, where you can see some more mundane moments)

This week, Andrei is traveling on a guest-teaching assignment. He is far to the east in Omsk. Funny to think that many countries in Europe are much closer to us! He is also 3 time zones ahead. We all miss him a lot, but David is probably the "easiest" age he's been in terms of single-parenting. No naps, but no night-wakings either (unless you count sleepily crawling into bed with me around 2 a.m.). And of course, Babushka and Dyedushka are always on call.

David was nonchalant about Andrei leaving, but then burst into tears when he wanted to wave one last time and Andrei was already out of sight. Sometimes I think the most important thing for a child (or anyone?) is for all of his loved ones to be together at all times. Whenever we broach the topic of death and heaven, David wants no part of it. "But I don't want to go to Jesus, I want to be with you. I want you to be my mommy." It sure is hard to sugar-coat, isn't it? At bedtime, David prays that Jesus won't let the "Nik-niks" (sp? villain from a cartoon) control his heart. I guess he somehow has a sense of inner conflict in his soul.

Life is sort of mom-busy right now. I don't do a lot outside of the home, and it's stressful if I have to do something like make a phone call..who has time for that with a very talkative 3 yr old underfoot? But at the same time it is a peaceful existence, even while knowing in the back of my mind that there are things looming that will need my attention...no, better not to think about that yet!

Here are some David quotes...some from FB, but not all.

-Naming his toy school bus "Classified."
-"David, eat 3 grapes since you're 3." After eating one: "But I'm actually only 1 year old!"
-"This cheese is shaped like a snowman!"
-"Mommy, if you don't wake up (because I'm telling you to), it will be a sin!"
-"Today is cloudy, so that means it's a cake day!"
-"It's sunny...it's spring...is it Easter?" ("It's sunny...the snow is melting...are we getting on a plane for Amie's house/America?")
-"My boo boo is worse than EVER!"
-"It's so noisy in here I can't hear myself TINK!" (after turning on all his musical toys at once)
-(after discovering his chin dimple) "I want my cute dimple to TALK! I'm going to go to Daddy and say 'dimple surprise!'"


Voices

 In the past month, it has been interesting to read the published thoughts of Russian friends as they've gotten their voice back upon es...