35 weeks ...

... and clearly impatient to add a living thing to our household. In the past week, I've planted basil seeds and a gerbera daisy, and bought a fish. So far, all are still alive. "What to Expect" doesn't mention this instinct, but I'm finding it just as powerful as the need to nest. If someone offered me a baby kitten right now, I'd be a goner. And I don't even particularly care for cats.

Easter-time's a comin'

Two days ago, I found out that Dietrich's preschool class would be putting on a show in honor of Easter. Also, that he needed a special shirt.

Yesterday, we went shirt shopping in the outdoor market. We found a lovely white shirt with blue Ukrainian stitching along the neck and wrists. He was a bit under-dressed, but still got lots of compliments on how Ukrainian he looked. (Other little boys were wearing matching shiny pants and thick, embroidered belts. One young lad even had a pistol tucked into the belt.)

This morning, we convinced a rather-reluctant Dietrich to actually participate in the show by bribing him with a new car. And at 11 a.m., we gathered in the back of a very, very warm room with about 30 other parents, watching our little darlings perform in their Ukrainian best. There were songs. There was dancing. There was an Easter-egg-dying demonstration. There were lots and lots of poems about Jesus' resurrection.

We were so proud of our little guy. He remained on the verge of tears for the whole 40-minute show, but he danced like a champ, and he made it through the whole thing. Later he told me his favorite part was seeing the flowers in the girls' hair. They did look lovely, I have to say.

Alas, my camera died just a couple of minutes into the show, so these will have to do.


Dietrich with a few of his classmates (pistol boy on the left) just before the show.


Dietrich had been spinning around the house for the last week or so, and he said he was learning his awesome moves at preschool. Turns out, his class dance included lots of spinning, plus holding hands, walking in a circle and shaking your hands in the air.


These little girls did a fairly complicated dance in which they interwove the long strips of cloth (I think they're table runners, but I'm not sure) that they are holding.


Notice the eggs and big loaf of bread decorating the back of the room where the kids performed? Well, this afternoon, the wonderful Lois Thorpe brought us a whole loaf of Paska, Ukrainian Easter bread. Yum!

31 weeks ...

... and wondering where I'm going to put nine more weeks of baby.

Getting schooled

Back in December -- already anticipating May, when the Player to be Named Later will make his appearance -- we decided that we'd better get Dietrich into preschool. We wanted to give him plenty of time to adjust before baby's arrival rocks his little world, plus we didn't want him to blame baby if he felt shunted off.

So, in mid-December, a Ukrainian friend and I visited the government-run sadik (literally means "little garden") in the courtyard of our building and got permission from the director to start the next phase of the process: gaining medical clearance.

We actually went to two sadiks that day. The first one clearly didn't want us. At the second, the director insisted on talking to me in Russian, rather than trying to communicate in Ukrainian via our friend. "Who's the mother here?" she asked. "You speak understandably, you should talk." I saw this as a positive sign that she would try to work with us, despite our foreignness.

So, then it was on to the government-run children's clinic, where our friend (thankfully) knew a doctor. Normally, children have to be seen by a string of specialists (at least six of them) in order to gain medical clearance for school. You can't make appointments with these specialists. Instead, you check out a big board in the lobby of the clinic, on which is written the doctor's schedule. When the doctor you need is working, you go wait in line to see him or her.

But, because Dietrich is healthy and I am pregnant, the doctor decided it would be better for us not to wait in line with lots of sick people. She did order lots of lab work, so we got to experience the proper way to submit pee and poop to the clinic (the first in any glass jar, the second in an empty matchbox). We also learned that a simple finger prick is a much easier way to take blood from a squirmy little boy than trying to find a vein (as he experienced in the States).

So, visit No. 1 was an exam. Visit No. 2 was lab work. Visit No. 3 was to receive lab work results. At that visit, the doctor ordered an ultrasound of his pancreas and said we needed to feed him less citrus and repeat his blood work.

Thankfully, she had forgotten about those steps (which we never did) by visits No. 4, 5, 6 and 7. At each of those visits, we were supposed to receive the paperwork indicating Dietrich's medical fitness. At visit No. 4, the main doctor hadn't signed it yet. At visit No. 5, the main doctor was out sick and still hadn't signed it. At visit No. 6, the doctor wasn't actually working. Our poor friend (also pregnant) had joined me at every one of these visits until visit No. 6, when she was sick. We logged a lot of pregnant-lady-sitting-on-uncomfortable-bench hours.

At visit No. 7 -- success!!! First, since our friend wasn't there, I had to get up the guts to ask the doctor to please speak Russian to me, which she did. Oh, how liberating to be able to communicate directly with her! Second, the doctor handed over the little notebook we had given her on the first day, and she had pasted our immunization records into it and written that Dietrich was free to go to school.

Incidentally, the doctor was very impressed by the number of immunizations Dietrich has received and kept a copy of our records to show other moms who are hesitant to do immunizations. Which is ironic, since I personally feel nervous every time Dietrich has to get a needleful of goodness-knows-what injected into his little body. We do them, and I think that it's sensible to do them, but I don't love them. Also, I found out that while Ukraine doesn't have a chicken pox vaccine -- the only vaccine we declined in the States -- it does have a TB vaccine, so we still need to get that one.

This was Thursday, February 19. I immediately took the notebook to the school, wondering how many more weeks, what unknown bureaucratic steps still stood between Dietrich and preschool. I handed her the book. She said, "OK, when did you want to start?" I said, "Right away." She said, "OK, tomorrow?"

I about fell over.

But I answered, "How about Monday?"

And so it was that on Monday, February 22, Dietrich started preschool. Poor kid had been anticipating this day for months. We'd been teaching him necessary skills (using the potty all on his own, putting on his own boots, snow pants, jacket, mittens and hat), always promising him that acquisition of said skills would result in preschool attendance. I think he stopped believing us by late January.

So, it was with much eagerness that he got up and out the door on Monday.


Waking up on the big day. We ditched daytime nap so that he can be up and out of the door by 8 a.m., and then I go get him at noon.



Flowers for the teacher, teacher's helper and director.


Say, "Sadik!"


Changing into his school clothes, which get left there.


With Nina Nikolaiovna, and looking at all the toys rather than at the camera.


What mama made while Dietrich was at school.


Digging in.

Tuesday was a happy day, too. Since then, not so much. It's hard for the little guy, but his teacher (Nina Nikolaiovna -- Dietrich says it so well) seems to understand that he'll need time to adapt. I've only been called to come get him early one time. Plus, thanks to one sick day and two holiday days, he's only had four-day weeks so far, which has been nice for adjustment purposes.

The hardest parts for him are a) the food and b) the yelling. He's supposed to eat breakfast there (porridge every day), but so far he's refused to consume more than the bread and the tea. On the plus side, my porridge all of a sudden is the most delicious porridge in the whole wide world.

The yelling comes from the teacher's helper, and is just a part of life in many Ukrainian schools. She actually yelled at me one day in front of all the kids, which was a bit startling, but in retrospect, I'm thankful. Now, when Dietrich gets upset about the yelling, I can remind him that when she yelled at me, I didn't cry or yell back. Nor did I shout, "I don't like her!" when she walked by, which is what he did when I picked him up today.

Honestly, I'm pretty proud of him. The things I thought would be so hard (sharing, not understanding the language) have not been issues, at least thus far. The challenges have given us something very immediate to pray about. And, though rewards (like those delicious cupcakes) still factor heavily into getting through each day, Dietrich's attitude each morning about going to sadik has grown less and less like a tantrum and more and more like a little person explaining why he isn't happy about a given situation.

By the way, that medical process? You have to repeat it every summer, and we probably won't get out of going to the specialists next time around. So, now you know what we'll be doing for the next who-knows-how-many summers.

Licking the bowl

Dietrich started preschool this week. More on that later, when a whole week is under our belts. But, in the meantime, I've tried to make sure that some special treat awaits him every day when he comes home. Yesterday, he got to lick the white chocolate frosting bowl.


Taking his job very seriously.



Sometimes a finger just isn't enough.


Bowl head.

Happy Valentine's Day

Rather than getting cards for each other this year, we made a Valentine's tree. (Perhaps you'll recognize these sticks.)

Early in the week, a week in which we were insanity-inducingly homebound due to heavy snow, Dietrich did some water coloring. I cut out hearts, and whenever we had a spare moment, we wrote down things that Dietrich loves about Daddy. Daddy did the same when I wasn't around, and Eric and I both wrote some mushy notes to each other. (My favorite from Eric, "I love Josie because she makes a mean pizza." Dietrich was very confused by that use of "mean," as it generally applies to monsters.)

After a mean pizza lunch on Valentine's Day, Dietrich "picked" the hearts off the tree and we read all the notes aloud.

It's so unlike me to create a tradition; I generally just steal my mom's. But I like this one. I think it might stick.

From the freezer

Last week, I accidentally paid $2.18 for a zucchini. I say "accidentally," because if I had noticed the price, I would have made a more-frugal vegetable choice. But, while in past years I would have felt very cranky about paying so much for not-great-quality, chemical-laden vegetables, this year I just added it to the list. The summertime freezing list.

You see, for my birthday last year, my parents got me a freezer. It resides on our balcony, where I'm pretty sure it's actually keeping the food warmer this winter than it would be if I just threw it all in a big heap on the balcony floor. We've had a very cold winter.



But, obviously, when I froze the freezer's contents, it wasn't cold. It was August and September. The markets were full of lush end-of-summer produce. A time or two each week, while Dietrich was with his nanya, I took the empty stroller to the full market and bought kilos and kilos of vegetables. Every naptime (Dietrich's), I washed and chopped and cooked down.




So this winter, we've enjoyed a steady diet of sliced sweet tomatoes, basil puree, spaghetti sauce, bell peppers and raspberry puree.



As we've eaten through our stash, I've learned that I significantly underfroze. Twice as much would have been about right. Also, we arrived back from Home Service too late in the season to freeze much fruit, but this summer, I'll add strawberries and peaches to the stash. And last year, I opted not to freeze anything that required blanching, but this year, I'll try green beans, broccoli and, of course, zucchini.