Bacha Day

Mike here. I'm writing this as I'm watching Manchester United and Arsenal duke it out in English Premier League play. Pretty brutal match, as the referee has let things get quite out of control and is now finally flinging yellow cards as if they were on sale.

As planned, today we picked up Bacha from the baby house in Shchuchinsk to bring her "home" to our apartment in Kokshetau. In a strange way, it was all pretty uneventful -- as much as such a thing can be. She was excited to see us, and anxious to go. She and Tucker were both calm during most of the drive; Tucker even dozing off after a while. I had Mia in my lap for much of the drive, and though she wanted to close here eyes, there was clearly too much to see, and she also kept looking at me to see, I think, if she could trust me. Finally near the end of the trip, though she never slept, she did allow herself to lay her head on my shoulder and let me cradle her through the worst of the bumps.

Once we arrived in Kokshetau, we stopped at the military academy cafe (I'm calling it the "soup kitchen" in my mind) to order a big, celebratory meal. Four little pots (very large bowls) of borshch, Four plates of "plouf" (rice pilaf with meat), enough cabbage salad for everyone, and a plate of "coteleta" (cutelets -- essentially little ground beef burgers) all cost 800 Tenge. We got home and feasted, only eating half of it all.

After the feast, during which everyone ate very well -- especially Mia, we attempted the nap. Yeah, right. We knew it was a long shot.

After the nap that never happened, we finally unpacked the second stroller we brought, and went shopping at the clothing section (mostly) of the green market. It was a very windy, dusty day, and the walk there is mostly on dirt road. Mia handled it like a trooper. Tucker whined a bit until we got him a hat to put over his face. He's very sensitive to wind, especially when it means dust in the eyes.

We tried to find Mia some shoes, and did, but 1300 Tenge seemed too high a price (God forbid we pay American prices!), so we passed them up. She likes wearing Tucker's old sneakers, and even though they're several sizes too big because they're just barely too small for Tucker, she gets around in the pretty well. And when Bacha has an idea about what she wants to wear, it's very difficult to convince her otherwise.

We finished the shopping trip buying some toiletries, more yarn for Linda, and our basic daily supply of water, milk, and yogurt. Couldn't find any cold cereal that Tucker would recognize (he doesn't like the cooked cereal we have), but I got some stuff made by Nestle that's filled with sweetened condensed milk. Just had some myself and it's really good. They use sweetened condensed milk a lot here -- Sveta brought sandwiches to the lake the other day that had the stuff spread on them, along with butter.

Anway... (gee, I'll bet you're finding this to be fascinating reading...)

After the shopping trip, we hung our for a bit at home, and before we knew it, it was bath time.

(Whoa -- the soccer match just got uglier. The ref just called a PK and it's being wildly contested. The replay shows that there was no contact. Yup. 1-0 Man U.)

We were expecting fireworks, thinking that Mia wouldn't like the bath since she's never really had one. Or at least we've been told so. We've been told that the kids at the baby house get "saunas" which are essentially steam baths. But I'm not so sure because Tucker loved his first bath with us, and so did Mia. We put them in the tub together tonight and I did the classic Papa thing and took some X-rated video. There was lots of laughter when they splashed each other. No problems even washing the hair. The only tears came when Mia had to get out.

This would be a good time to mention our most important Russian lesson for the day. The verb "hotchoo" (sounds like a sneeze but with a heavily aspirated Russian "h") means "to want." "Nee Hotch" means "I don't want." In 3-year-old Russian, "Nee Hotchoo" sounds like "Ne Godoo". We heard this a LOT today. Godoo, Ne godoo. Godoo, ne godoo. Mia has opinions on everything.

Tonight at dinner, in fact, she was trying to explain to Linda that she wanted to be fed (instead of feeding herself). Finally, in frustration, she grabbed Linda's hand and stuck it on her own spoon, as if to say "now do you get it?"

Linda read the kids ("the kids" -- I like that) a story, and then tried to get them to sleep. She left them after a bit to calm themselves down, and a little while later I heard Mia crying and Tucker calling "Papa, Mama..." for help. I walked in and Mia was sitting up in bed, crying, and Tucker was trying to console her. She calmed down right away when Linda and I came in. We asked her if it would be OK if we slept with her, too ("Papa Mama Spat Tozshe?") and she quickly nodded "Da." She went to sleep pretty quickly after that.

Ooops... Linda just announced that she wet the bed. We wondered about that. We just re-made her bed on a pad on the floor, and she looks like she's going to go right back to sleep. And I made it out in the living room just in time to see Man U. go up 2-0.

So that's our day, and our evening. As it turns out, for Linda and me our lives haven't changed very much, in comparison with how Mia's life has changed, and even how Tucker's has.

Tucker, by the way, had a rough time for a little bit today. He was fine most of the day, but he woke up from his car nap while I was in getting dinner with Sveta, and apparently could not be pleased. He went from being an only child to being a big brother. All of a sudden he has to share his toys, act more responsibly, be a teacher, and share our time. Tough day for him today, and overall he handled it well.

Game over. 2-0 Manchester United. I'm gonna miss watching soccer on TV when we get home.