A Couple Of Babies

Anneka and Ella are such sweet sisters. Ella is (usually) content when Anneka is nearby. If she's all alone in a room then she crawls and kind of cries in search of company. But if Anneka is with her, then she's happy.




Our friend, Yulia, and her daughter Esphir (Russian form of Esther) stayed the night with us last week. Her husband was out of town and she didn't want to go back to her home after Bible study. Anneka was happy to have a "walking baby" around. (Esphir just turned a year old). But Esphir wasn't so happy to have Anneka hold her. It was a little too much.

A little difference between most Russian kids and most American kids: Anneka and Ella went to bed around 8:00 and Esphir went to bed at 11:00. There's a show that plays on a main t.v. channel called "Goodnight" for kids that starts at 10:00 every night.

Yesterday, a lady, Vera, was here, and she was horrified that I gave Anneka cold milk out of the refrigerator. "She'll get a sore throat and catch a cold!", she said. And I'm horrified when little babies drink black tea with sugar. That's a recipe for rotten teeth, I think. But somehow all of the kids grow up to be okay.

Here's a little clip from the "choreography" lesson from Anneka's preschool. All of the kids take off their pants beforehand and are just in their long johns so they don't get too hot. The teacher tucked in Anneka's shirt. So funny. The other three kids in this clip are all 6 (twice Anneka's age). Anneka loves dancing and she loves the dance teacher. When it was time to go home, she asked Vera (the teacher) to help her put on her coat, snowpants, boots, etc. Vera kept calling her a beautiful girl while she was helping. Then later that day, Anneka yelled really loudly in the stairwell, "I'm a beautiful girl!" over and over. In Russian. Usually she yells things really loudly in English. I'm not sure which is worse. =) Ella was content to play on the mats with toys during the dance time. She started crawling this week. A lady at church last Sunday told me that she's concerned Ella isn't walking yet. She's only eight months old! I think she'll be alright.

Puppies

We went to visit Inka last week... and her dog, Emma, with her 8 puppies!! It's much too cold for her to be outside, so Inka has had them all in her small kitchen for a few weeks now. She has to clean the floor about 100 times per day. We were thankful to get the benefit of seeing the cute puppies and not having to take care of them!



She's found homes for 4 of the puppies so far. Dogs have a hard life here in Siberia. Either they live in teeny tiny apartments or if they're lucky they live outside (in the freezing cold)of a little home... or they're stray and run around in packs. There is always a pack of dogs around the garbage bins when I take out the trash. I feel sorry for them. They're so hungry and cold. Our pastor, Sasha, went with us to pick out one of Inka's puppies. As we got into the car to leave, the puppy whimpered and Anneka started sobbing, as the realization sunk in that the puppy was going to be away from his mama and brothers and sisters. We prayed for the little dog and instantly he fell asleep in Sasha's arms, looking contented. Anneka felt better, too. She has such a sweet, thoughtful heart.






We're all more or less healthy and have been for a week!! (tiny traces of colds, but feeling well). This is the first time since the first week of October! We're counting our blessings.

As I type, I have a sleeping baby on me. It's so nice. I should be making dinner, but I couldn't possibly wake her up! She's been sleeping already for over 2 hours. And Anneka napped today, too. Anneka's been waking up bright-eyed and fluffy-tailed at 6-something most mornings lately. It doesn't matter when she's gone to bed the night before or how much sleep she's had. That's just her time to wake up. And I feel like 6:00 here is like 4:00 in North America. Because it's so dark and cold. But anyways, Anneka likes to go into the living room and read books in the rocking chair upon awakening. That's about all I feel like doing at that time, too (well, except for cuddling, but she's not too keen on that).



The schools are all still closed (for an extra week) for the flu quarantine. I didn't know that it was closed on the first day until I got there. It was puppet theatre day and the puppet teacher hadn't known either. She let us come in for awhile and made a little puppet with Anneka and read her a couple of books in Russian. Ella let her hold her, too, which was amazing because Ella pretty much only likes her Mama and Papa right now. I appreciated how nice and welcoming Raica Michaelovna (the teacher) was to Anneka when we weren't supposed to be there. Yesterday the quarantine was supposed to be over, but I called the head teacher, just in case. When I found out there was still no school, I told Anneka, "Let's do something exciting today". She likes all things exciting. She's been asking to go to the zoo ever since we've been reading the book "Goodnight, Gorilla". I'd seen a sign in our neighborhood for a tropical animal exhibit in the art museum downtown, so we went there. Hopefully I can get some pictures off of Rebecca's phone for a blog on that day. Yes, it was exciting.

Leif was invited to a church service at the Lutheran Church last night and then afterwards he planned on meeting with several people for the planning of a Buryat Christian Celebration. Well, what he didn't know is that they had planned on him giving the main talk at the service. They sang songs and then called him up front. haha. He gave a short devotional. The meeting afterwards went well. We're looking forward to this Celebration in mid-March. The last few years we've had it in February and it's been really powerful.

Happy Birthday, Leif!

Leif turned 33 on the 6th! This is probably the age that Jesus was when He died. Kind of crazy to think about. Each of the girls got Leif a t-shirt (brought from the States a few months ago). Anneka loves wrapping gifts and making cards. She was so excited for Papa to try on the Superman shirt she got for him, and she put on the Cookie Monster shirt from Ella.



It's customary to bring a cake to church when it's your birthday, so we brought chocolate pumpkin brownies from some pumpkin that Yulia gave us from her uncle's greenhouse. Another lady, Vera's, birthday is just two days before Leif's and she brought a cake, too... as well as other food that others brought. It was a feast!



Then later we had the Wickers over for dinner. I made lasagna and German Chocolate cake- Leif's favorites. We had fun hanging out and playing games.



Ella is such a snuggly, sweet baby. I could just spend all day cuddling with her. She loves hanging out with her Papa. We love you, Leif! Happy Birthday!



And here's the pumpkin we got from Yulia. It's funny because I've never had a pumpkin in the 4+ years we've been here, and then in one week, we got TWO pumpkins from two different people!! I wanted the girls to have the experience of carving a jack-o-lantern, but I also wanted to utilize the pumpkin, so we did both. =) I made pumpkin cake, brownies, soup, and froze the rest for later. Anneka was very concerned about the jack-o-lantern getting old. Ella was just happy that I let her hold the pumpkin rind (is it called a rind for a pumpkin?)

I haven't blogged this last week because we've all been sick once AGAIN!! We haven't even had a chance to go and buy an air purifier! It's just a cold this time, and not a terrible one. But Ella has had some sort of G.I. virus... for 10 days. Today is the first day that she seems more normal (still not back to normal, but more normal than she has been).

Leif has had a lot of meetings this past week- with SEND leaders, church leaders, Russian pastors, etc, etc. He's started up an online course this week for team leaders, too. It's just a few weeks. The flu quarantine is supposed to be over tomorrow, so hopefully I can get the girls out of the apartment so that Leif can have some think time. =)

Neighbors

While the Brubachers are in Canada, Sasha and Katia and their two kids, Angelina(18 months) and Rastoslav (3 months) are living next door. I really like Katia (I like them all, of course!), and she's so patient with me and my Russian. It's good practice to talk with her and I learn all sorts of new "mom words"... like what a baby walker is called, etc. Yesterday it was all the way up to 12F! Katia called and asked if I wanted to go outside. It was sunny and felt so good to be out!



Ella loved being outside. She conked out right away in the baby carrier. And Anneka enjoyed playing and interacting with two girls who were out there. Here she is in the little playhouse. Sometmes there are a lot of broken beer bottles and garbage inside, but yesterday it was pretty clean.



Once when the guys had their weekly meeting, us girls got together, too. The following weeks everyone was sick. But we may resume this again soon now that we're better! I miss the Brubachers, but I'm thankful for this time to get to know Katia and her family better and to grow in these ways (language, culture)!

A side note: Anneka wants to have a baby boy and name him Rastoslav someday. I told her she'll have to run it by her husband.

A Couple Of Video Clips

Ella can say "Mama", "Papa", "Baba" (grandma), "Ella", and "Lya-lya" (the Russian word for baby)... and we think she has a word for Anneka, but it's not consistent enough for us to figure out what it is. My mom's birthday was last Sunday, and she was SO happy when Ella said "Baba" on the phone to her. =)






Anneka and I were trying to get Ella to talk, but Ella was more interested in playing with the objects around her. I told Anneka to tell a story (because Ella often starts talking OVER Anneka when she talks, but this time it didn't work). Anneka loves scary things and always wants us to read her scary books and tell her scary stories. Her favorite book is the Chinese version of the Big Bad Wolf. The illustrations really are scary, I think, but she just loves it. Anyways, here she is telling a scary story.

Anneka's First Day of Preschool!

Anneka started Russian preschool yesterday! She has been asking for a long time to go to school. (this was before we even talked about school or had even decided we would send her!) I'll do little preschool lessons with her and call it "school", but she says, "No, this is not school. I want to go TO school". A lady from our church told us about this new preschool and it seems like the perfect fit for Anneka. Leif and I checked it out before we took Anneka there, and I stayed with her the first day to check it out even more. And we're all really excited about it!



I took a few pictures, but they were on a setting without flash, and I didn't want to call attention to myself, so they're not the best. This first picture was when the kids had just gotten little lumps of clay to make snowmen. The clay is really hard, so the teacher was showing the kids how to blow into their hands to warm it up and soften it a bit. It probably took 5-10 minutes just to get the clay warm! They have little organized lessons and different teachers- art, P.E., music, storytelling, puppet theatre, dancing, proper Russian diction, and a psychologist comes in (I'm not sure what that part is, but I'll find out soon!). In between the kids have relaxed playtime and a snack time. It's for 3 hours, and we're just going to have Anneka go for 2 days a week (but it's open all 5 days).



So far there are only 6 kids (one wasn't there yesterday), ranging from ages 3-6.
In this little song, the kids danced around the one in the middle and then after the song, the middle child has to do a little dance and then choose someone else to go in the middle.



The head teacher seemed really sensitive to the fact that Anneka doesn't speak Russian and was very encouraging. Here, she was teaching different colors of blocks. When Anneka got home, she started saying "maladietz", which means "good job". She'd heard it enough all morning to know it. =) The teacher thought that Anneka understood a lot. I asked Anneka later if she understood and she didn't, but she was good at faking it! At one point, Anneka and Dasha (the only other girl) were drawing on the chalkboard together. It was during a time that the teacher was teaching the kids a song, so I was curious how she would handle the girls. She looked at me and said, "it's good for them to play together. That's how Anneka will really learn the language". And I think it's true! I was really happy, as often teachers here use shame as a motivator or are really rigid and strict. And I've heard of a lot of preschools that are really academic and the kids sit and work a lot. But this one is fun and varied and encouraging!




Anneka's FAVORITE part of preschool was when the "choreographer" came and taught them to dance to songs. She was super cute, following all of the moves. They had little exercises and then danced through 8 songs. The teacher told me that Anneka is a special little girl. I agree!

Today Anneka was more brave in playing with other kids outside at our neighborhood playground and at a cafe this afternoon. She also spoke in Russian a little to our neighbors. It's like the first day of school helped her to be more brave in other contexts, too! Today is a holiday and tomorrow is our team's day of prayer in the morning so Anneka won't go back until next week. When I told her she seemed disappointed. We prayed a lot about whether we should do any kind of school with Anneka here, and we feel such peace and excitement about this answer! And I'm looking forward to getting to know some of the other parents, too.

A Mix of Cultures

Our friends from Switzerland have a little girl who's five and a baby who's 3 months older than Ella. It's neat to think of these girls developing friendships with each other through the years! Right now Lina speaks Swiss German and Russian and Anneka only speaks English, so it's a bit challenging for them to play together. But tomorrow Anneka will start preschool two days a week and hopefully that'll help with her Russian! Leif and I checked it out today and it seems really ideal for our situation... just what we're looking for. It's close by. There are only 5 or 6 kids there now, all about Anneka's age. It's just three hours in the morning. Different specialists come in (music teacher, dance teacher, storyteller, exercise leader, etc). And it isn't expensive. I'm hoping to get to know other parents through this preschool, too. Today I told Anneka all about the school and that we'd go tomorrow and I'd stay with her the whole time. She was very excited to go but very adamant that I don't stay with her the whole time. We'll see if she changes her tune tomorrow, but she's such a funny little independent girl!



And here are the two babies eating their porridge. Elianne and Ella. Similar names. Both so cute.

Cute Girls

This is an old picture, too... Anneka and Kristina at K's birthday party in December. They're such cute girls.

Speaking of cute girls, we have a couple of cute and funny ones! I had a realization the other day that it's not just Anneka who makes big messses... it's Ella, too! I'd just picked up the kitchen and put Anneka down for her nap. After about 20 minutes, I looked around and most of the magnets were off of the refrigerator and scattered around the floor, there were slippers and shoes all over, and a few other odds and ends. And it was Ella who'd done it! She still seems like such a baby, but put her in her walker and she's like a little toddler! =)

Right now Ella and I are sick with the coughing crud. It's not as horrible as Anneka's, but it's no picnic. A doctor from the conference Leif was at suggested we buy an air purifier for our apartment, as we've been constantly sick this fall/winter. The outdoor pollution is bad, and inside we're just recirculating these germs. We'll be looking into that!

A LONG 10 DAYS!

The title says "a long 10 days", but technically it's been eleven full days that Leif has been gone and I've been with the girls. He just called from the bus saying he'll be home any minute. HOORAY!!!


Leif's been in Thailand for a conference about sharing Christ in the Tibetan Buddhist world. I thought I'd blog a lot this past week with all of my extra time after the girls went to bed. Ha! The first couple of days went without a hitch. I had to go to the immigration office to finish up some things with our registration... no small feat with two little girls (pictured above outside)! But God was gracious and it went really fast (Leif had spent HOURS there the day before).



Then the next day Lena came over and taught me how to make Russian soup. The ladies at church take turns making lunch for everyone on Sundays, and it was my turn. Last time I made minestrone soup, but this time I decided I needed to learn how to do a typical Russian soup to expand my horizons (and be sure that people would like it). Anneka loved helping out and even began speaking little bits in Russian. I was so proud of her!



And then the next day, Anneka got a TERRIBLE cough! I was really worried, too, because in the night her lips were blue. I talked with a doctor in the States, and thankfully she was breathing okay, but it was scary (especially with Leif gone).

Anneka's cough got worse and worse and then she got a pretty high fever. She still had the remnants of her cold since Christmas, so I was worried about some sort of bacterial infection or pnemonia. My friend, Katia, encouraged me to call the ambulance on Tuesday night. In the States you only do that for extreme emergencies, and I think they pretty much always take you to the hospital. But here, if kids have fevers people don't take them outside (too cold) and the doctor comes to you. I was really afraid that they'd whisk Anneka away to the hospital and she'd be scared, but Katia assured me that they'd let me be with her. So anyways, we called the ambulance.

Katia and Rebecca came to be with me and both doctors were women and really nice. It turns out it wasn't pnemonia (as far as they could hear anyways) and they prescribed about 10 different things. I ran everything by our doctor in the States and he agreed with the antibiotic since Anneka had been sick for so long. He said that sometimes pnemonia will show up on a chest x-ray even when you can't hear it.

Anyways, one of the prescribed things was this blue stuff for under Anneka's nose. She wipes it so often that it gets red and raw, and the blue stuff is to protect it(see picture above). Anneka loved her mustache and was concerned when it started to wear off.

I have been up most of the night most of the nights (does that make since?) since Leif's been gone with one or the other girl. Anneka would often wake Ella up when she needed me, and it's been a viscious cycle. And now Ella and I are sick. =( And a few days into being sick, Anneka turned into a monster-like-girl. She's never been that naughty and it was really difficult... especially as se was still not feeling well and we're couped up in the apartment.

But the happy part about this whole story is that my worst fear with Leif being gone is that one of the girls (or all of us!) would be sick... and worst-worst case that I'd have to do something like call an ambulance! But now once it happened, my heart was flooded with peace. God showed me that he's present with me always and he didn't want me to live in fear of such things. He was gracious to give me just what I needed each day, even running on empty. And he provided wonderful people to show me His love and care in the midst of it. I'm so thankful!

And I'll be really thankful, too, to give Leif a BIG HUG in just a few minutes!!

Too Cold To Play In The Snow

I had these pictures saved on the computer from a couple of months ago. There's just a short time when it's warm enough to play out in the snow, and the snow is usually too dry to make anything out of it. So we cherish the times we can be outside. We've been couped up in the apartment with sickness, and even if we were well, it's been -35 outside... too cold to take kids out.




In a month or so, we look forward to playing outside again! Maybe we can go sledding! =)

Hauling Water

Last week we went to see Inka in Zaigraeva. Below is a common sight in the village and even in Ulan-Ude.... people walking to the well to get water. I really wanted to catch a picture of a babyshka (grandmother) hauling water. I never seem to have my camera when I do. It's certainly not fun... getting bundled to go out in the cold with a big water jug. Sometimes we see people hauling things with sleds. I'm thankful for running water! Even when they shut it off, it's usually just for a few hours at a time.

Bundling

When Anneka was a baby, I did a bundling blog. So it's only fair that ELla gets one, too. Of course, bundling two girls now to go anywhere takes forever. On this day, I was in a hurry, so I had to redo a couple of things after I took the pictures. You'll see! =)

Layer 1 (Diaper):




Layer 2 (onesie):


Layer 3 (long sleeved shirt and tights):


Layer 4 (dress, bloomers, and thick tights... of course if she doesn't have a dress it could be another shirt and some stretch pants):


Layer 5 (hat and warm booties... or really thick socks):


Layer 6 (sweater and more pants... I realized I forgot to put on warm pants over her tights so I added those and just packed the booties which I just put on once we were at church. Anneka took Ella's hat off before I snapped this picture and I didn't realize it right away, so I added it later, but kids wear 2 hats):



Layer 7 (wool hat to cover head and neck, fleece suit... sometimes we use a fur hat, but always a fleece snowsuit) This is when Ella becomes really unhappy. And because we have another little girl who can be pokey in getting ready, Ella is often in all of her clothes much longer than she'd like before we go outside. She gets so hot! As Anneka said yesterday, "I'm all sweaty because I have my outside clothes on":



Layer 8 (we call it the "puff mama" snowsuit. This is size 2T. Anneka wore it when she was walking. Ella already grew out of her other nice snowsuit. Our friend, Lena, sewed up the legs so that no air can get in. Toasty, toasty:



Layer 9 (scarf! Now she's really tortured. As soon as we walk outside, all is okay. But the waiting is torture. Poor girl!)


I didn't fully zip her snowsuits for the pictures as I was hurrying, and ths scarf is on haphazardly. But you get the picture! =) This is why it's a big deal to go anywhere with both girls and why it takes 40 minutes to take out the garbags.

Oh, and Russians bundle their kids far more than we do!!

This week we went to a "Spektakle" (or dramatic production) at the central church. Anneka got dressed up in one of her very princessy dresses, as this is common for little girls to do here. Above, we took her picture with a girl who was dressed very similarly. =)



A bunch of little girls wanted to come and sit with us for the program. It was really cute.



The lighting wasn't very good for pictures, so I didn't get a lot of good shots. But it was very fun because we knew a lot of people in the program. Every time a new person came out, I'd ask Anneka, "Do you know who that is?" It was really fun to see some of her favorite people dressed up as animals and strange creatures. =)

Above was a neat ending scene of the Christ child and the main character bowing to Him.



Ella and Anneka both sat nicely through the whole performance. Here's Anneka with Matthew afterwards. He and Heather Ann flew back to Canada today. =(




Later that evening Anneka helped Leif and I deliver cookies and gifts from the church to neighbors. I was a little nervous, but people responded so well. Anneka loved this and now always wants to go and visit neighbors. At one apartment that Anneka and Leif went to they gave her chocolate and a stuffed bunny and there were two other kids (grandchildren visiting) to play with.

Speaking of neighbors, we miss the Brubachers, but we're also enjoying having Katia and Sasha living there while they're in Canada. It's been really good for my Russian language and really fun to have another mom around who has a baby. I'm learning all sorts of things about Russian culture this way, too. One interesting thing is that doctors tell parents they must take their babies outside every day. I said to her, "But it's so cold! Are you even supposed to do it when it's cold?" And she said that it's good to do it until it's 30 below. The benefits: fresh air to breathe and the child adapts to the climate better. You're supposed to gradually work them up to the cold, starting with 15 minutes until a couple of hours. It makes it so that it's not so dangerous for them to be outside in freezing temperatures. But Katia doesn't do this everyday. She has two little ones, too. How many moms with two little ones have it together enough to tromp around in -30 weather for a couple of hours a day?? I figure houseplants make our air nicer to breathe inside. I should just get a couple more of those.

С Рождеством Христовым!

January 7th is Christmas in Russia! We celebrated today by going to church for a service. Anneka enjoyed holding the church cat for part of the time.





These girls/ladies prepared several special songs and skits about Christmas.




After the service we enjoyed a feast togehter as a church. I didn't' get everyone in the picture. This one's a little blurry, but Anneka is in it (we're teaching her to cough into her arm, as you can see evidenced here).



We didn't have plates or napkins, and some of us shared forks, but it didn't matter. We enjoyed the time together, the homemade foods that people made (including different fish pastries and meat gelatin) and celebrating Christ's birth!






Here's one of the fun songs that was sung... the tune of "Jingle Bells", but the message about God. =)

Something funny has happened over these few years of living in Russia. Things that I once dropped my jaw at now seem normal. I find myself wanting to take pictures of "new" things like us riding in our van or the of grocery stores with aisles and carts that are popping up in the city... which is so funny because that is normal life in America. What I should be doing is taking pictures of us when we're on public transportation or of the outdoor market!

I also haven't written about our daily life much, as it also seems so normal. I feel like there's nothing interesting to share. I, of course share about our daughters because they're SUCH a big part of our life (and grandparents want to hear it all), but I will try to be better at this.

The above picture is something that works similarly to baking powder (it doesn't work as well, but it gets the job done). I had to buy 13 packets to fill this small can. When I buy 13 packets of baking powder or 20 packets of powdered suger (to equal 3 cups), I am very self conscious. I feel like everyone at the store is staring at me- especially if I have to ask for it behind the counter. Sometimes I give into this "peer pressure" and make two or three trips over time. For the advent calendar this Christmas, I needed to buy 3 little packs of paper to have enough red and green. The lady told me that I shouldn't buy 3 because it was too expensive. So I only bought 2... and even then I felt the need to explain to her that it was for a special Christmas calendar that we would use year after year. (And I went back later sneakily to buy the third pack.) Is this silly or what?! The total came to about $6. I'm constantly aware of how little people have here. It makes me want to live more simply, content with what we have. But it's also hard sometimes.

Yesterday I wanted to steam our apartment because we're all sick and our humidifier is broken. I ended up flooding the downstairs neighbors' apartment. I guess there's a crack between the tiles and our bathtub that goes down to their bathroom. We've flooded them several times from different rooms. Today we will take them cookies.