It was a quiet day around town. The roads were empty on the way to the baby house. We figured everybody was out partying last night and now they're sleeping it off.
It was -8 degrees F this morning when we got up (that's right, negative eight), but it warmed up to 0 F by the time we left for the baby house - either way you look at it, it was bitter cold. It's scarf-over-the-face kind of weather.
The water saga continued today - or rather the "no water" saga. We woke up to "niet vada" (no water) this morning. We resolved ourselves to the fact that we won't be able to wash clothes, or take a shower, but the toilet situation is another story. We found some plastic bottles on the back porch and took them with us to the baby house. Igor was kind enough to fill them for us. The only problem was when we got back in the apartment, we realized that it took 2 bottles to fill the toilet and we only had 6 filled (and 2 were for the Richardsons) - you do the math... a very limited number of flushes for the next 24 hours! Masha called and said the water would be off for 2 days (that's what the water company told her) so we'd planned to fill more bottles tomorrow.
Fortunately around 7pm, the water came back on. As a backup, we've filled every empty bottle we have. We also, quickly took showers and did a load of laundry. This is the 2nd time the water has gone off in 2 days - so we're taking advantage while we can.
Our days are fairly routine now. Masha and Assia had the day off (so did most of the people at the baby house), so we were on our own. No big deal. We made our way to our little room and went to get Kai. He had been rotated into the stroller (they rotate the kids from the big play pen, to the strollers or walkers). He was happy to see us (although you can't tell by his "who are you" look in the picture below). Sierra was in a good mood as always. Her scabby nose is pretty much cleared up and she's had no more problems with her cold - Yeah!
We've discovered Kai is ticklish on his feet and even more so on his inner thigh. We've started using that to our advantage when taking pictures. You can finally see him smiling and laughing below (instead of his usual "Kai look" as we refer to it). Sierra was her usual "chatter box" today - we think she'll probably talk first. She loves continuously making noises and squealing.
When we arrived for our afternoon visit, Kai was in the playpen. Les went to see him at the door, and Kai tackled another boy in the playpen to get to the edge. The poor boy was up in crawling position and Kai pushed him flat then started to crawl over him. Do you think he likes us? Maybe we're flattering ourselves, but it seems like a good sign. He probably knows us now as the Cheerio people. (By the way, the little boy Kai tackled wasn't phased. When you live 7 to a crib, he seemed to accept that these things often happen... even flashing Jim a smile when he reached over to pick up Kai).
Happy New Year - here are the pics from our quiet day today. By the way - it started snowing again (as if it weren't cold and wet enough...) |
