Mix up at storytime

To encourage Dietrich to enjoy books, we've started a daily popcorn-and-story time. It's totally working; he wakes up from his afternoon nap, then calmly chomps on popcorn and listens to stories for at least 30 minutes (i.e. about 27 minutes longer than he does anything else).

Another benefit: He has started making up his own stories. Most of them involve things (like balls or goats) jumping off of buildings and crashing into cars. Or houses. Or trees.

But last night, at dinner, he started telling Eric a different tale. It started, "One time, Jesus had a tractor ... "

Things you never hear in Ukraine

"Take On Me" and "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," back-to-back on the radio. Yes, that was me you heard, singing along at the top of my lungs.

Two more zoos

We Oldenburgs love the zoo. Any time we're in a new country, we try our hardest to visit its zoo. Our zoo experiences thus far:

Orange County (A distant memory from our dating days, but we do recall a pacing wolf.)

London (Rainy, but it was our honeymoon, so it was romantic. It was there that I learned that Eric's parents used to buy him those enormous lollipops -- the ones that are as big as a kid's face. My parents NEVER let us get those! And thus began our first-ever parenting conversation. Guess who buys Dietrich donuts?)

San Diego Wild Animal Park (We slept there for Eric's 30th birthday. Nothing like waking up to a rhino passing gas.)

The National Zoo in DC (Lame zoo, but with good friends.)

Kyiv (Many, many times.)

Budapest (Cool baboons and hippos, but they don't stop patrons from feeding the animals, which creeps me out.)

Prague (Built on a hillside -- a nice zoo and a nice workout.)

Krakow (Dietrich got bit by a duck.)

Hamburg (Serious German quality -- probably the best zoo we've been to.)

San Francisco (A great brown bear and a lovely location, right next to the ocean.)

In March, Dietrich and I added two zoos to our list. Dietrich is rather hard to pose at the moment, so I've no photos of him with anything actually wild.



Dietrich's favorite animal at the Santa Ana Zoo was the rooster, although he's still talking about the swinging monkeys. Here he is in the big eggs on display next to the chicken coop.

Our first stop at the Los Angeles Zoo was the petting zoo. This really threw Dietrich off ... for the rest of the day, he begged to touch the less-touchable animals ... the zebras, the giraffes. Finally, he got to climb on an elephant. Well, an elephant statue, to be quite technical.



Cuddle-bugging a goat.


Dietrich's Baba and Papa have goats and sheep, so Dietrich didn't really understand why he couldn't touch these animals on their faces or try to climb on them.


The elephant.

Little house

One of my favorite things about this time in America has been the back house in which we reside. It's two blocks from the park, and we also can walk to the post office, pharmacy, toy store, coffee shop and farmers' market, which keeps my Ukraine legs in shape (and my America tummy in check), plus keeps Dietrich accustomed to stroller time.

The cottage is charming and old, with built-in corner china cabinets, potato bins in the kitchen and floor-to-ceiling windows in the front room. I do a lot of cooking, and every time I make borsch, I appreciate the double sink, good-sized stove and refrigerator, and ample counter space.

But the best part might be the shower. Its big, round shower head points straight down, which means that Dietrich can stand under the water
with the curtain open, and droplets don't get all over the place.

Little joys. I love 'em.

For our Russian-speaking readers

"Dietrich, say moon."

"Moon!"

"Now say moon na Russkom."

"Moo-na!"

(For our English-speaking readers: It's actually pronounced loona.)

Dietrich's guide to American icons

Dietrich, upon seeing the cover of the very fat IRS instruction guide for ex-pats:

"What's that?"

"That's the Statue of Liberty."

"It's got ice cream!"

"Actually, that's a torch."

"No, it's ice cream."

The alpha-bret song

Last weekend, we drove to Henderson, Nevada, to visit South Hills Church Community. We stayed with Pastor Bret, who was Eric's youth pastor back when Eric was a youth, and his lovely wife, Sallie.

Dietrich was, and remains, smitten with Bret. It's the first time he's been so instantly attached to a grownup who didn't, you know, give birth to him.

Need proof?

Here's Dietrich's current version of the ABC song:

A B C
BRET!
E F G
BRET!
H I
BRET!
M N O
BRET!

... and so on, all the way to, "Now I BRET my ABCs. Next time won't you BRET! with me?"