Seven Days in Kyiv: July 10-16

On Sunday, I finished the beans.

Whew. Glad we can all put that behind us.

Monday morning, I cleared out a space in the kitchen for the bookshelf we bought from the moving-to-America Hoglunds. That afternoon, Jon delivered it, along with a bag of other goodies -- goodies that finally put our slowly dying original vision for the kids' room out of its misery. When Dietrich was born, we didn't know whether he'd be a boy or a girl, so we went with an animal-themed room. We figured, if he were a girl, we'd add a hippo in a tutu to feminize the space.

But Dietrich was a boy, and then Lev was a boy, and slowly but surely, transportation-themed items started crowding out the elephants and giraffes. Grandma Cindy made Dietrich a blanket with vintage cars on it. Baba Jane bought vehicle sheets. Amanda made Lev an amazing train quilt -- a quilt so lovely, we hung it up.

Only the green elephant-patterned curtains hinted at what used to be -- and while we were in the States, I'd actually bought car curtains at Ikea, but they were a bit short and too thin to block the morning light.

So, when Jon and Andrea put their thick white curtains up for sale, I nabbed them. About 60 safety pins later (don't laugh, I know not how to sew), the elephants were tossed in the laundry basket, and the new curtains were hanging up. As an added bonus, the floor now is covered with a road rug. Little reminders of the Hoglunds, all over our house. Hooray!

On Tuesday, I worked in the morning and sent out a newsletter, in which I promised that I'd be blogging here again. So, here I am! Also, on Tuesday, Lev woke up cute.





Tuesday afternoon, we had an accident. Dietrich dropped a toy behind his heavy, wooden dresser, so he tried to scooch it away from the wall, a toy-retrieval move he's performed many a time. But this time, the dresser caught on the new road rug and slammed into the floor. The floor where both boys were playing just minutes before.

Dietrich was terrified. So was I. Spooked, I decided to swap out his tall dresser for a shorter version from our room.

After all the furniture was moved and everyone's clothes found new homes, I looked around with such a sense of thankfulness. No one was hurt. And I love the way that the boys' room has come together, so much so that I'm going to get all Design*Spongey and give you a tour. Ready?

First, a before shot.

This was before Lev was born, when we cleared the room out to have it wallpapered.


View from the hall.


Elephant-slaying train quilt.


Shorter dresser has feet, so it doesn't need to be moved when Spiderman dives behind it. Added bonus: New spot to set up "Cars" cars.


Antique wagon was a gift from my mom when Dietrich was born.


Trapped by the bed, this bookshelf will never fall.


Spiderman bides his time, waiting for the day when he will use his web to capture all the cars, trucks and trains.


Finding storage containers can be a bit of a challenge here, but washtubs work well.


This bookshelf used to belong to the Saucy family — another set of friends who had to move back.


Look! Up in the sky!


View from Dietrich's bed.

And did I mention, no one was hurt? I spent the next two days occasionally having to blink back tears of thankfulness to Jesus, because NO ONE WAS HURT.

On Thursday, Lev was cute.

Peek-a-boo! from josie oldenburg on Vimeo.

On Friday, he was cute, again.

Not really stuck from josie oldenburg on Vimeo.

Friday, Lev and I took a little stroll to the market, where I bought 50 summer squash. Bet you can guess what I did on Saturday.


This is only half of them!


Fatties got cubed for future curries.


A cool bath on a hot day can be so refreshing.


Race relations between the squash are not so good.


Ready for the freezer.

Next week will feature nary a vegetable, I promise.

Seven Days in Kyiv: July 3-9

So, it's been a while. (Several people have mentioned that they're weary of seeing Eric's foot stuck in the elevator door!)

To catch up: In late April, the inspiration for Seven Days in Kyiv (i.e. our family) flew to California for a five-week trip. We had lots of reasons for going -- but meeting Baby Betty and seeing the first Talbot—Kyiv Extension students graduate were dominate.



Our time in California was wildly fun -- and wildly busy. (Here are Aunt Jit Fong's pictures of Dietrich's first roller coaster ride and a celebratory dinner for my grandma's 90th birthday. Perhaps I eventually will post about Disneyland, Gilroy Gardens, Lev in a swing for the first time, In-N-Out Burger, the beach, visits with special friends, snail collecting, long car naps and tree climbing.)

In California, Lev celebrated his first birthday and ate cake off his pants. (Isn't it nice that Jit blogged all this stuff so that I don't have to? Thanks, Jit!)



We flew back to Kyiv, repacked, and flew to Germany for two back-to-back SEND conferences. The first conference included some sessions for husbands and wives, but the wives also had a lot of down time. It was just what I needed -- the proverbial vacation from our vacation.

Also during this time, Eric started a new job as SEND Ukraine's Area Director.

And that about sums up the past two months.

Thankfully, I came home from Germany feeling relaxed, but I think my keeping-up-with-life-in-Kyiv muscles atrophied during all that time away. It didn't help that Lev got sick, his nanny had to skip a day to go get her homesick daughter from the family dacha, and Dietrich had to wait several days for the medical note that allowed him to go back to preschool. (Even if you're on vacation, if you skip three days, you need a note.)

So, on July 3, we were visiting our friends, the Hoglunds. We got married at about the same time, moved to Kyiv at about the same time and were in language school together. They had a baby, then we had a baby. Then they started ministry at Kremenchuk Regional Bible School, and we started ministry at Kyiv Theological Seminary. Then they had another baby, and then we had another baby.

Our lives have taken similar paths, and I'm so thankful that the Lord saw fit to have those paths intersect.





Now they're moving back to America -- but we're not. So this was a good-bye visit, our last time at our "vacation home on the beach," as we like to think of their apartment, which is just a short walk from the Dnieper River.

The Hoglunds are amazing people who, despite the fact that they were about to pack up or sell all of their belongings, put all their moving tasks aside to make time for us. And, it was a great visit. After two weeks of steady rain, we got a three-day reprieve that allowed the kids to play on two of Kremenchuk's excellent playgrounds and to swim in the river. (This time outside was quite necessary, as Dietrich and the Hoglunds' eldest developed the fine art of comparison -- "I'm bigger, faster, older, have more toys, etc." At one point, their daughter was in tears because she said her new nightgown was the best thing in the world, but Dietrich said Jesus was the best thing in the world. Ah, Jesus as weapon. Teaching him early, we are.)







Though Lev's been taking steps for months, he started truly walking at their house -- all those big kids to keep up with! His first outdoor steps were in the Dnieper. I love that.



We stuck around for the Fourth of July (no fireworks or watermelon, but we did have pulled pork with BBQ sauce), and on the fifth we boarded a bus back to Kyiv. Though we will see the Hoglunds again on their way out of Ukraine, I was glum. But all the boys (even Eric) quickly fell asleep and stayed asleep for nearly the whole ride, so I got to sit quietly and enjoy the beautiful Ukrainian countryside. About 80 percent of the ride was through fields, and about half of those fields were sunflowers. It's hard to stay glum when you have a sweet sleeping toddler on your lap and you're looking at thousands and thousands of the most cheerful of all flowers.

During the summer, enough kids go out to the village or on vacation that all the remaining kids get lumped into one big group. Which means, starting on Wednesday, Dietrich was in a class with littler kids, and with much bigger kids, and with a different teacher every day (so far). He seems to be adjusting OK to the change. Sometimes, Ukrainian preschool seems like cultural bootcamp. Yes, things change unexpectedly here quite frequently, so why not get used to it when you're 4?

While Dietrich was at school on Wednesday, I had the chance to go for a stroll with another mom from our building. We occasionally have visited a Sunday-night church here, and she attends that church, but we didn't know we were neighbors. She has a 10-month-old and she's patient with my Russian, which has only deteriorated with every new child. (Or, to put it in a more-positive light, my Russian is excellent if I'm talking about nursing or pooping.)

We walked to the produce market, where I saw that it was green bean season. That changed my plans for the rest of the week a bit, for I try to freeze enough green beans to get us through the winter, but they are hard to find and have a very short harvesting season before they get too tough for little ones to eat.

I bought about nine pounds of beans, then spent Thursday afternoon blanching and freezing. That got me 11 servings. Saturday morning, it was back to the market, with Lev in the Beco on my back. He was the hit of the market. Babywearing is not very common here, and Lev tends to stare at people in such a way that they think he's miserable. So they say something, like, "Little boy, you're uncomfortable and hot on your momma's back, aren't you?" Then he breaks out his thousand-watt smile and starts cooing back at them. They always walk away charmed.

We lugged about 12 pounds of green, yellow and purple beans home, then I spent a good chunk of afternoon processing about half of them. I can only put in about two hours at a time, because I run out of ice for the cold-water bath that they need. You cannot buy ice here, and our two little ice-cube trays can only make so much. I've taken to freezing water in small loaf pans and muffin tins, but our freezer can only hold so much. So, two hours at a time it is.

Wow, that was a lot of writing about beans. And that kind of sums up the week. Are you sure you don't just want to look at Eric's foot stuck in the door? That might be more exciting.

Seven Days in Kyiv: Week 29

On Monday morning, Eric was rushing off to teach his theology class, Dietrich and water bottles in tow. We have two lifts. One is small, smaller than a Target shopping cart. (WAY smaller than a Costco shopping cart.) The big lift provides a much more comfortable ride, especially in the morning when the whole building is trying to leave -- but it generally doesn't come to our floor.

So, it seemed a special treat when the doors to the big lift were just closing as Eric and Dietrich stepped onto the landing. Eric stuck his foot in the door. And the door? Well, it didn't care that there was a foot there, and kept right on closing. He called me to come get Dietrich, then called a neighbor to come pry the door open. He could feel the door closing more and more, but they got him free before his foot was crushed.



This is a new peculiarity of this lift, and it is so hard to remember! I've nearly missed getting stuck myself a time or two since then.

Eric usually takes Dietrich to sadik in the morning, and I pick him up. But since he was teaching, Eric often needed to be at the seminary early enough that Lev and I took Dietrich. I don't often get a chance to connect with other parents at sadik, since we pick Dietrich up after lunch, and most of the other kids stay through dinner. So, I was thankful when this rather-wild schedule resulted in the opportunity to help another mom out.

Her baby was sleeping when she came to drop off her two older boys, and twice I was leaving just as she was starting to lift the sleeping baby out of his stroller. I've had to do that oh so many times, and my baby NEVER made it through the entire drop-off or pick-up process without waking up. (Kids change into inside clothes and shoes upon arrival at sadik, so it's a rather long and loud endeavor.) I stood outside and rocked both strollers while she got her boys dropped off.

I also got the satisfaction of sending both the Harvest Heartbeat and the Eurasia Prayer Guide to their respective printers. I still have the e-mail versions to complete, but the lion's share of the work is behind me.

And I made fingerpaint, which resulted in this creepy scene:



While Eric found his mobility limited by that persnickety ol' elevator, Dietrich discovered the freedom that is bike riding.

This probably should have been mentioned in the last post, because we actually gave him the bike on a Saturday, but it this week that he really learned to ride it.


Pleased? I think?


Yep, definitely pleased.

He practiced with Daddy on Saturday and Sunday, then took a break until the next Saturday. A few minutes after they left, Eric called.

"If you were here right now, you'd be crying," he said.

"Uh-oh," said I. "Why?"

"Our son can ride a bike."


Away he goes!

Alas, we only have video of some early attempts.

Untitled from josie oldenburg on Vimeo.

I am so thankful that this skill came pretty quickly to Dietrich. He really needed the boost. He came home SO proud of himself, and since then has said many times, "I wanted to give up, but I didn't and now I can do it!" Yes! THAT, my friend, is a valuable life lesson. Don't forget it!

I also can tell that Dietrich feels he's been initiated into some kind of Big Boy Club. He points out every bike rider he sees (and most of them are adults, or at least teens) with a kind of fraternal connection that he's never before exhibited. Good stuff.

Meanwhile, Lev started sleeping in my favorite baby-bottoms-up position.



And he found a new play place.



And he discovered ice. Slippery fun!











And he wore this for the last time.



Oh, and this was entertaining.

Untitled from josie oldenburg on Vimeo.

And one more, for Baby Betty!

Untitled from josie oldenburg on Vimeo.

Seven Days in Kyiv: Weeks 26-28

A lot happened in these three weeks, but of course I waited to long to write it all down, so who knows what precious memories are lost forever?

Anyhow ... I do recall that the Talbot session continued -- it was the last session for the five students who will be graduating in May. At the end of the session, they gave Eric, Edik and Vova sauna hats with funny sayings written on them, and made a presentation to their co-students. They showed them a beautiful rose, then chopped off the flower part and encouraged them to persevere through the program so that they, too, can bloom.

We took advantage of Eric's one week off between Talbot and his theology class to have friends over a couple of times. Of course, one of the nights that we invited friends over, a last-minute sadik meeting was called, so we had to scramble to change plans. Sadik strikes again!

Lev took his first half step on March 29! His feet were unevenly placed, and he picked one up and brought it in line with the other. Actual forward movement has yet to be achieved. But look, I finally got a picture of him standing!



I met with an accredited lactation consultant to explore the idea of being trained to serve as a peer counselor. (Bet you didn't know this was a secret dream of mine.) I'd be able to help with some breastfeeding issues, and would be trained on when to refer a struggling mom and baby to someone more educated. I think I'm going to do it! But not until the fall.

We sprang forward (two weeks later than in America), and Lev tried to use the opportunity to drop down to one nap. I fought back (and I think I won).

We discovered the secret to entertaining Lev for 30 minutes: A small trickle of water in an otherwise empty bath. Here he is making my favorite Lev face.



Dietrich recognized a word in a book, and started involving books in his play time. I'm excited about this mostly because I've already started a reading program with him, but, in all honesty, he wasn't exhibiting all the signs of being ready to read. Specifically, he didn't WANT to learn, as he told me over and over. "You can just read to me, mom," he reasoned. The program starts with writing letters and practicing their sounds, so he doesn't yet know that he's learning to read, and now I feel encouraged that, by the time he figures it out, he'll be on board. Here's his name, or, if you prefer: "Die hcirt." (Not really sure what hcirt did to deserve death. It must have been pretty bad.)



Dietrich has also refined his Uno-playing technique. He beats us with embarrassing frequency. Here are some Uno action shots.




I started Harvest Heartbeat; Eric started teaching theology.

Lev's stepped into that phase where toys are boring, but everyday household items are fascinating ...





... and he's still super cute.





Eric spent a lot of time in meetings pertaining to the selection of a new area director for our team. And the process continues.

We made a chain to count down the days before we leave for America. Good idea, except for how we always forget to take a link down at dinner.



Dietrich finally fulfilled his dream of climbing into the playpen WITH Lev.





Actually, the boys are playing together more and more. And by "playing," I mean wrestling.






And, most significantly, Baby Betty was born. We're over the moon about her, but her arrival sent me into a period of unexpected sadness. It was so difficult for me to miss visiting her in the hospital or holding her when she was just an hour old. There's just something about being involved in someone's life from the very beginning that is precious.


Uncle Sam and Aunt Jit, aka Betty's mom and dad, meeting Dietrich.

One thing I loved about Betty's arrival was the slow rollout of information about her. First we got this e-mail: "Baby is here name TK no drugs five pounds fourteen Jit is healthy and so is TK woohoo." (TK means "to come" in newspaper speak.)

The next day: A name.

A few days after that: A middle name.

And then, Betty's mom started blogging about Betty like, a lot. Hooray!

It's been so fun to have more and more of TK to look forward to.

Thankfully, we will get to see Baby Betty soon. Dietrich is convinced that she is ours, so we'll see how he reacts when we leave America without Betty in tow.