Luke Skywalker

Linda here.

Today was court date for the Talls. Anne and Jerry are very excited to be parents to Valentina (3) and Nicolai (18 months). Yea! We are very excited for them.

Our schedule today was to leave for the baby house at 8:45 am. I had planned to sleep through the road trip as this is my way of coping with the awful drive. Well, Tucker would have none of that. He is going through a very strong superhero phase. All roads lead back to superheros. He had lots of questions about Star Wars. Since I have seen the movies my fair share of times I was full of interesting facts. This lasted quite a while, me answering all the trivia questions, but Tucker was not satisfied with my response to "what happened to Luke?" When I said that part wasn't written, he said "no, mama -- you say it!" So, after the story of Luke's daughter Sarah, and the lost pendant that held the "Force," we had to move onto Sarah's son, Brendan, and the evil walrus on the planet Valvoline. The evil walrus traveled to the planet to capture all the cows. There is not much to see on the roadsides between Kokshetau and Tchuchinsk but I did manage to pull in cows, oil products, horses and apples. When we got to the Baby House I was finishing up a story about goats.

We did not have Sveta today as she was at court with the Talls. Mia came out in the clothes that I brought. She is just barely a 3T and will fit in 2T. Thank you Mary Bracey for these. I had brought 3 pairs of shoes with us size 6, 7 and 7-1/2, silly me. She is wearing a 12 -- for 12 centimeters -- tiny feet. I won't be buying shoes for two weeks, though. Considering how many raisins and cookies she eats when we visit I am sure she will be a size 16 when we bring her back to the apartment.

Mia loves her picture book. She points to mama and says "mama," - the same with papa and Tucker. What a wonderful mimic she is. I read the names on the cards and she repeats them, ball, sock, hat, bear etc. I love the eye contact I get and she loves to be held -- of course, only when she WANTS to be held. Mia puts up her arms and says something in Russian -- I don't know what as I am watching the arms go up. She likes to push in my cheeks and play with my lips. We play funny games.

We opened up the piano and Tucker started picking out the Darth Vader theme song. Go figure. Mia had fun picking away as well. Kunpash, the speech therapist came in. She was so happy to see him. He had been her favorite two years ago. Tucker is not comfortable with affection from those he perceives as strangers, of course this is good, but it felt sad that the caregivers were not remembered.