Seven Days in Kyiv: Week 22

On Valentine's Day, we again forwent cards, opting instead to hang our affections on a branch. Ideally, we each would hang a couple of hearts each day in the week preceding the holiday. This year, on Valentine's Eve, four lonely hearts sadly dangled. So, deciding that Dietrich was the member of the family most in need of praise, I sat down Sunday night and wrote gobs of messages to him. He was exited Monday morning to see how our tree had "grown" overnight, and we shared the messages over dinner that evening. He seemed nonplussed by all the affection, but I imagine it sunk into his soul at least a bit.

In my free moments during the week, I tried to prepare for the upcoming conference for SEND women. First, I was scheduled to help lead singing, so I had some wonderful new songs to learn. Second, the conference was structured around a book, "Idols of the Heart," but since I was bringing Lev to the conference, I thought I'd better pre-read it, just in case Lev wasn't in to playing on his own during the designated reading times. And, since my allergy to buckwheat is so severe, I prefer to make my own food and bring it with me to such events, so there was some cooking to do. (There's always some cooking to do -- thankfully, I love it.)

Part of preparing for the singing was acclimating Lev to the Ergo. I even tried the backpack function, which was quite comfortable, but you really have to look out to make sure you AND the baby's bobbly head are going to clear a doorway.



Andrea, the leader of the worship time, came in a day early so that we could practice. Bertha joined us on guitar. Lev hung out in the Ergo. All was well. I was so thankful that Andrea had stayed with us the next morning, when she helped me carry the suitcase, pack'n'play, bag o' food and bag o' baby stuff down to the taxi.

The conference was delightful. I had very low expectations about how much time I would be able to spend with the other ladies, since I had Lev with me. But the schedule worked out just perfectly -- the reading times were during his eating times, and the group discussion times were during his sleeping times (not that he slept during all his sleeping times, but that's our little social butterfly).


Lev in our room, which had plenty of floor space for crawling and three beds on which to practice standing. It also had three side tables, which toppled when little babies pulled on them, and four very appealing floor-level outlets (hence the overturned barrier chair in the background.)

During the one long stretch of free time, I signed up for a haircut (I got bangs!), and then figured that I'd just hang out in our room. It just so happened that the haircuts took place right outside the door to our room, so Lev could play while I chatted with the other ladies waiting their turn.


See that bruise? We left with one bruise and came back with two. We're in the bruise-a-day stage over here -- darn that mobility.

Lev had a very hard time sleeping on his own, but in the evenings, I was content to get him to sleep, then cuddle up with a new George MacDonald book. In the past, I think I would have missed the fellowship and game-playing and coffee-drinking going on in the main room, but I am so book-deprived at this stage of my life that I was thrilled to read for a whole hour without any interruption.

The singing went well, I think. Lev was too interested in the microphone to stay in the Ergo, but he happily was held by a different lady during each session. The cooks took a shine to him, so he also spent some time in the warm and steamy kitchen -- a nice contrast to the freezing meeting room.

Meanwhile, back at home, Eric and Dietrich:

1) Went to the toy store to spend Dietrich's birthday money, and to the grocery store to stock up on junk food and fruit.

2) Went to McDonald's.

3) Met Spiderman, who gave Dietrich a toy. (This was at a show at our local House of Culture. The advertisements for the show prominently featured Spiderman, but it turns out, he was just the doorman. The show was about pirates and a drunken Batman. Dietrich didn't care a bit -- he was just so excited to meet Spiderman.)

4) Watched a movie.

So, pretty much an awesome weekend for everyone.

Seven Days in Kyiv: Week 21

Hmmm ... not the best week ever.

We're struggling with a little thing called "respect" over in these parts, so on Monday, Dietrich lost all his favorite toys. But I found a use for all those alphabet magnets on our fridge. Every time he's respectful, he earns a letter. Every time he earns enough letters to spell "respect," he earns a toy back.

In related news, I've had "R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me" stuck in my head all week.

Bertha the goose gutter taught me to make jam on Monday morning. I have yet to try it at home, but the process was much easier than I expected. Did you know that if you boil whatever it is you're canning and pour it into the jar hot, you don't have to process the jar itself?

Monday night, Eric went to watch some football game at a friend's house, and came home with a list of commercials for me to watch. This was my fav.


Playing with Daddy before the big game ...





Tuesday was a happy day: I sent one of my ongoing SEND projects to the printer. Remember the days when sending something to the printer meant buying really expensive zip disks and dropping them in a FedEx box? So much easier/cheaper now.

Also on Tuesday, my blow-dryer exploded in my hand. Sparks flew! (Thankfully no one was hurt.) So on Wednesday, Lev and I walked to an electronics store. He fell asleep right before we got there, and it was on the second floor. I started to bump the stroller up the steps, when I was stopped by the lady mopping the floor. (At a busy store, there's often a person assigned to mopping the doorway all day.) She insisted I leave sleeping Lev with her. Though I agreed, and though I know it's totally normal to do that here (or even to leave the baby without anyone watching him or her), I still felt tense the whole time I was away from him and ended up making a poor, hurried choice.

Wednesday night, Eric went to small group while I stayed home with the kids. Thursday night, I went to Mom's Night Out while Eric stayed home with the kids. I rushed home from Mom's Night Out because Lev always wakes up to eat at 9. But his little body must have thought that no mama milk was available, because he slept until 11.

The brief hours away with other grown women refreshed me, so much so that I actually felt alert when I woke up WAY earlier than usual on Friday to take Lev on some downtown-Kyiv errands. We had an appointment at the embassy at 9, so we left at 7.

My goal was to get Lev a Social Security number before filing our taxes this year. After waiting 20 minutes for the very nice (but rather slow) embassy worker to photocopy and stamp three pieces of paper, he told me it would take three to six months to receive the card. So, I guess we're filing for an extension on our taxes this year.

Next up: Vaccinations. At this point, I had been carrying Lev in our borrowed Ergo (he's technically too heavy for our Bjorn) for nearly three hours, and we still had an hour before our appointment. I was hoping the doctor would squeeze us in early, but she couldn't, so we strolled around for an hour. My body thanked me when I finally was able to set Lev down on the examination table.

He's 23.5 pounds on the doctor's scale, which is 100th percentile for his age. (This is actually a drop for him; at his four-month visit, he was about 110th percentile.) Height, 75th percentile; head, 50th percentile. Toughness, 1000th percentile. He shed nary a tear when they gave him the shot.

Eric spent the week writing a sermon for Sunday, and on Friday night, he met with a language teacher to go over it for grammar and proper pronunciation. So we asked Miss Lois to take his place at dinner, and then we played some intense games of Uno (Dietrich's new passion).

Saturday, snow and wind whipped through the air. We stayed inside all day, preparing for evening guests, giving daddy time to practice his sermon and making Valentines for sadik.

I am ashamed to admit how quickly I crumbled under the pressure of trying to make Valentines that met sadik's standards. (Artistic skills are highly valued here.) When I picked Dietrich up from dance class on Friday, I was given a paper heart and was told that we should make at least one Valentine to hang on the wall. (Some of the examples already hanging on the wall were on-par with the work of a professional scrapbooker.) Also, if Dietrich wanted to make some Valentines for a few friends, he could.

I asked how many we should make if we wanted to make them for all the kids. They laughed at me. No need, they said.

Then another mom asked who should do the Valentines, the kids or the moms. "The kids," the teacher said, "But, of course the moms should help so that they turn out beautiful."

People. I understand your words. I do not understand your secret cultural codes. From the above exchange, I do not know how many to make or who should make them. Also, I am not crafty, and neither is my kid. He would much rather crash cars than paste. Also, I already feel sad for the kids who aren't going to get any Valentines.

Anyhow, on Saturday morning, Dietrich and I made about 10 Valentines. We employed glue, tissue paper, stickers, paint and Q-tips. They were not particularly beautiful, nor were they particularly ugly. We made a few with no names on them, so that they could go to any kids who didn't get a card. Dietrich was cranky about having to follow my instructions; I was cranky because I knew that, despite our best efforts, we likely weren't doing them right (as in, the way everyone else was doing them). It was ridiculous.

Saturday night, we had Dietrich's former nanya and her family over for dinner. (And I re-hired her to stay with Lev two mornings a week, but that's a post for the future.) I told her what Dietrich's teacher said, and she said that it probably meant the moms should do them.

Oh well.

On Sunday, I made heart-shaped chocolate cookies for Dietrich's class. And I made a lot of them so that at least everyone would get a cookie. (Sending homemade snacks is unheard of here, but I KNOW that, so I willingly chose to do the odd thing. Interesting how my perceived control of the situation makes all the difference in my attitude, isn't it?)

Though it's encroaching on next week's post, I'll go ahead and let you know that our Valentines were perfectly acceptable and on-par (beauty-wise) with the Valentines Dietrich received. We did make two mistakes: We wrote the intended recipient's name on them, and we signed them. My impression is that the kids delivered the Valentines to their intended recipient's bed, and then the teachers redispersed, as needed. The fact that our Valentines were fine actually makes me feel like even more of an idiot for worrying so much about them all weekend.

Back to Sunday. During Lev's nap, Dietrich and I finished "Toys Go Out" -- the first read-aloud chapter book that he's really looked forward to reading. Thankfully, there's a sequel, with an even better title: "Toy Dance Party." Oh, goody, I just noticed that a third book in the series is coming out in September.

Eric took Dietrich sledding on Sunday afternoon, and it was the highlight of the week for both of them, even though Dietrich ran into a tree on his first attempt. I love that Dietrich doesn't give up, even when his first try goes awry.

Sunday night, Lev cut a tooth. The doctor had shown some concern about his toothless state on Friday, so I was pleased to be able to put that fear to rest. I think it popped through while we were talking with my family on Skype, though he was rather undramatic about it.


I love this little teething face!

This was a strange week to live far away from family. My grandfather's memorial service was Thursday, and my sister-in-law's baby shower was Sunday. We did a lot of Skyping with my family during the week, so I was kept in the loop, but it's not really the same as being there.

Seven Days in Kyiv: Week 20

My cold continued to knock me out, so on Monday I took at three-hour nap with Lev, who also was sick by that point. I woke up feeling so much better, and was able to enjoy the rest of the day with the Teuberts. Sweetest moment: Jenny, the eldest Teubert daughter, also was sick, so she spent the day in her parents' bed. At one point, the three younger kids (her two sisters and Dietrich) joined her in the bed, where they spent a good chunk of time huddled together over Legos.

We left on the Tuesday morning train. Thankfully, we had a coupe this time -- actually, we had beds in two different coupes, but the conductor took one look at our tired, bedraggled, 6-in-the-morning selves and told us to stick together. (She worked it out with the other passengers.)

The trip was fantastic. Everyone went back to sleep until 9, and when we all woke up, Lev crawled around on the bench, we played games at the little table -- we had such a pleasant time that Dietrich chose NOT to watch a movie.

I was supposed to take Lev to get his already VERY overdue six-month vaccinations and a Social Security card on Wednesday, but he woke up sicker than ever, so I canceled both appointments. He should have gotten these shots in early December, but he was sick for several weeks, and then it was the holidays, and then the clinic was out of vaccines for most of January. So, we're quite behind. I'm hoping this won't prevent us from getting the one-year vaccinations done while we're in America in May.

A few other notable events from the week:

1) Our last Christmas box arrived! It was from my brother and sister-in-law, and we opened it "with" them (via Skype). It was packed with yummy treats and three action figures from "Toy Story." Oh, happy Dietrich! For those of you unfamiliar with the movies, Andy is the name of the boy in "Toy Story." I asked Dietrich if he knew any other kids who had so many Toy Story toys, and he replied, "Nope, only Andy!"

You have to respect the marketing genius that is Toy Story. It's a movie about toys. Therefore, every. single. thing. in the movie can be made into a toy and sold. Genius. Thankfully, Dietrich seems content with his Christmas bonanza.

2) I put Lev down for a nap on Saturday. A minute later, it was suspiciously quiet in his room. I peeked in: He had pulled himself up to a standing position in his crib. Then, on Sunday night, he started for-reals crawling! I wasn't too concerned about his soldier lunge, but several people last week commented on the important brain development that accompanies crawling. So, I spent about 15 minutes on Sunday afternoon crawling circles around him on the living room floor. Suddenly, he started to mimic me. He still reverts occasionally to the soldier lunge, but he's learning that the more-typical style is quicker and less exhausting.

3) We put together a newsletter. Did you get it? If not, let me know and I can e-mail it to you.

4) On Sunday afternoon, Bertha the goose gutter invited seven young missionary kids over to her apartment for a story (a fable from her youth), cookies and playdough. Isn't that sweet? And a little bit crazy? I so appreciate her!

5) Two families that we know in the States suffered serious medical emergencies with their children. (Read about one here.) Thankfully, God spared both little boys' lives. Another friend is going through a difficult transition, and we were able to Skype for a while. My parents are organizing my grandfather's memorial service, and I've been able to keep up-to-date with the plans and with how they're handling the loss. I know Skype and Facebook have their disadvantages, but as someone who lives very far away (and in another age wouldn't know about these situations until months after they occurred), I appreciated the ability to immediately pray for these families and to talk with my friend and with my family.

Seven Days in Kyiv: Week 19

The week started out slowly. After nearly two weeks of being able to focus on Oldenburg family projects that had stacked up during the fall semester, I finally felt like life was in balance again. I decided to take advantage of this (probably brief) respite by keeping Dietrich (who had had a fever on Sunday) home on Monday and Tuesday, even though he was perfectly healthy both days.


Getting ready for a rare weekday stroll with brother.

Two days home is the max we can skip before we have to get a note from the doctor (even if we're on vacation). So, on Wednesday morning, I bid Dietrich and Eric farewell -- only to have Eric call shortly thereafter to tell me that Dietrich's class was having an optional quarantine for scarlet fever.

My heart quickened. Scarlet fever? Don't people die from this?

I feel I can be forgiven for this reaction, as all I ever knew about scarlet fever, I knew from childhood literature -- Beth March is seriously afflicted in "Little Women" and Mary goes blind from it in the "Little House" series.

But Wikipedia assures me: "Once a major cause of death, it is now effectively treated with antibiotics."

Since Dietrich already had been exposed by playing with the sick girl the week before, and because no other children had fallen ill in the intervening days, we decided to chance it. (I won't leave you in suspense: He never got it, and neither did anyone else in his class.)

This was our first experience with an optional quarantine. We learned that each family can decide whether to send their child to school, but the quarantined class can't mingle with other students. So, they don't go outside to play. Physical education, dance and other afternoon lessons are canceled. And this time, they missed a schoolwide puppet show, too.


"Momma, let's play 'Oh, no, where could Dietrich be?'"


Getting in on the hide-and-seek action.

Things picked up speed later in the week: Eric turned in his grades for his fall-semester philosophy class. Everyone who turned in the work passed, and one student enjoyed the reading so much that he declared himself a "soldier in the army of Moreland."

We also had small group Wednesday night, Lois for dinner Friday, our team's annual Day of Prayer on Saturday -- plus we planned a last-minute trip to visit friends in Sumy.

Hoping to learn from our mistakes, we left really early for the night train to Sumy, and ended up killing an hour at McDonald's. We were accompanied by another teammate, Sarah, who had come to Kyiv for the Day of Prayer. Though we hadn't planned to travel with her, her presence ended up being a Godsend.

Eric and Dietrich had seats next to each other on the train. My seat was next to a strange (as in I didn't know him, though he didn't seem particularly odd) man, but Sarah swapped with him.

Lev hated the train. Again. I spent most of the trip either trying to nurse him (mostly unsuccessfully), or pacing with him, stopping occasionally to sit for a moment. This would have been inconvenient and uncomfortable had I been constantly disturbing the strange man, or trying to nurse modestly next to him, when Lev is totally distracted by the nursing cover-up and would prefer to play peek-a-boo with it.

Finally, to get Lev to eat, we had to send Dietrich to sit with Sarah, while I took up more than my allotted space in Dietrich's old seat (which was next to the window, and thus offered more privacy). Dietrich was more than happy to go sit with Miss Sarah. Probably he wouldn't have enjoyed the strange man as much.

To accompany Lev's constant fussiness, our train car contained several young drunk men who took a fancy to the baby (one of whom, slurring, said "I want one exactly like him"), pools of ick on the bathroom floor, a young couple picking the meat off of plastic bags full of crawdads, a babyshka who sat so stone still that I felt I should hold a mirror in front of her face to check for life, and a set of 25-ish-year-old identical twins dressed exactly alike. It was some ride.

We were happy to arrive, snag a taxi and finally arrive at the Teuberts' lovely house.

Did you catch that? House! The Teuberts don't live in an apartment. Several years ago, they bought a run-down house in a darling neighborhood. When they moved in, there was no place to buy bread nearby; now there is a tiny shop that sells bread, vodka, soda and candy, along with some other essentials.

All their renovations (which cost nearly twice the price of the house!) paid off. The house is beautiful. It's two-story and thoughtfully designed with the kitchen, dining room and living room all connected and a play area under the stairs. The back yard is huge and, at this time of year, packed with clean snow (a rarity in the city). Dietrich spent some time one afternoon perched in a tree, eating a snowball. Winter doesn't get better, if you're a 4-year-old boy.

Inside, the Teubert girls (ages 2 to 8) kept Dietrich occupied. Martin Teubert is Swiss, Anja is German and the kids speak German and Russian, with the older two adding some English and 5-year-old Melissa sometimes favoring Ukrainian. Without any parental influence, the kids figured out that Russian was their common language.

Meanwhile, I caught a cold, and ended up going back to bed pretty soon after I woke up on Sunday. Sick is a bummer, but if you're going to be sick, best to do it when your 4-year-old is totally enraptured by a house full of playmates and awesome German toys and your husband is away from work and able to entertain your 8-month-old.

I enjoy learning from Anja as she runs a household with four children; for instance, she doesn't immediately try to get breakfast on the table first thing in the morning. Instead, she stalls with chocolate milk, and serves breakfast once everyone is awake and alert. When the younger kids play with Duplos, they play on a big blanket. When they're done, she lifts up the corners and pours the Duplos back into their container. So smart!

Alas, we forgot our camera, but our neighborhood strolls left many a visual impression. Row after row of simple brick houses, blanketed in snow -- the calming effect occasionally jarred by an out-of-place log cabin, overly angular modern facade or Mexican-style villa. Bright red berry bushes popping out from the white background. Shiny icicles reaching down toward the frozen ground. Runoff from the neighborhood well forming an impromptu ice slide.

Ahhhhh.

I love, love, love our apartment. Seriously, not a day goes by that I don't walk into the kids' room and thank the Lord that we have a warm place to tuck them in at night. (This wasn't the case at our first apartment here.) But I do enjoy the respite of a house with a yard, especially one populated by fun kids and their hospitable parents.

Lev cruises his crib in his warm room: