Solnechnyy Den’, Kvas, and Krack

I know I’ve said how much I enjoy starting off my day with kashi but add to it a sunny day (solnechnyy den) and you have got a winner! Yes, today started out sunny and warm and it just got better and better. It really feels like that May Day thing works some kind of magic with the weather gods! According to Olga, the notorious biting bugs we heard about before we came to Kazakhstan should miss us by about one week…we hope she is correct! I guess they arrive and stay for about a month. By Olga’s telling, sometimes they are so thick it can be difficult to breathe. Well if they do arrive early, never fear – the Roman’s traveled to Kaz with mosquito netting just in case! Although Joseph is the center of attention for all of us, I thought in today’s blog we would go a bit behind the scenes at Camp Roman and the baby house and to let you see what we see. Don’t worry, we will toss you a photo of Mr. Joseph but you will need to wait for a little bit!

Each day when we walk out the front door of the Chagala Hotel our trustworthy driver Igor is waiting for us in his Russian Ladda (my cousin Joe has/had one too but in red) with a hearty “Hello” and we pile in the back as on the way to the baby house we pick up Olga and she rides shotgun! It takes us about 10 minutes or so to get to the baby house which is pictured here and we enter through the gateway into the courtyard. It is an unassuming structure and although it does look plain from the outside, the inside hallway is brightly decorated with a hand painted mural of a train. We need to climb two sets of stairs to the second floor where we find the music/playroom. This room has large glass windows along an entire wall and the rest of the room has toys as well as many musical instruments including a piano and multiple accordions! Once we arrive at this room, Laura springs into action to prepare things for her son (I won’t go off on a Biblical spoof here there are plenty of ways to go with it if I wanted to!). You won't see Laura at this baby house without her trusty rainbow colored tote! It really is quite incredible what comes out of there in no time flat. I gather this is another inherited trait as I have seen Margie’s preparation for things first hand and Laura is doing her proud! So the first thing that comes out in the morning is Joseph’s outfit and stack of diapers for the day. These are given to Olga and she takes them to the caregivers to get Joseph ready to play. Meanwhile back in the music room the bag is giving up more of its goods! The first item out is the blanket to play on and then a great selection of toys, books, teething rings, balls etc which have all been cleaned the night before and then packed in preparation for the morning departure. It should be added here that this bag will also hold the CD’s and the CD player come the afternoon – where it all goes is a mystery to me. I did the packing the other day and I had to split the load between her bag and my bag to get the same things to the baby house! Again this maybe a skill similar to loading a dishwasher which Margie and Laura are experts in terms of number of pieces per unit volume of machine!

The photo here shows the setup on the floor pre-Joseph. Fairly soon after the setup we hear Olga’s foot steps and in she walks with Joseph dressed in his outfit we brought and usually a big smile! We give our hugs and kisses – perhaps a moi sin (my son) – and then to the blanket to play. If you remember from an earlier blog, Joseph got a pair of Kazakhstan colored shoes, well now he has a little ball to match. It is more his size and he can manipulate it much easier than the larger ones in the playroom. We are helping him to work on both sitting up on his own and crawling. His gaining ground with both and in this photo you can see him doing some belly time and loving it – not always the case except if he is getting a massage of course! Today he was actually reaching for things a lot more out of his grasp and trying to move towards them. This is a big step as he was getting frustrated before. I don’t think it was Laura’s demonstrating to him how to crawl – that is another blog yet to be written! – but whatever it is, he seems to be making some progress. The morning session is basically full of such things as book reading, cup banging and other such nonsense as making strange faces and noises to please the young man. This morning session seems to end so quickly and Olga takes him back to his group and we shove off for the Chagala or some other random event or location to suit our needs.

When we return to the baby house our current protocol involves shooting upstairs and setting up the play blanket this time with Josephs CD player in addition to all the toys. Since it has been so warm outside (around 70-75) we wait for Joseph, get him dressed and then head outside. Most of the time outside is spent watching cars race by, or children playing and running around as well as watching some of the ravens fly past. Joseph is really a curious boy so at times he seems quiet but he is intensely watching the world around him. As I tell him to admire the birds, Laura tells him how he will be able to tell Luigi to chase them – bird lover vs. bird…disliker the battle continues in the Roman household! As you have heard we usually save the last 10-15 minutes for our indoor music time and yes, the Neil Diamond CD! I have got to say that Joseph’s like for Mr. Diamond has allowed some of you closet Diamond fans to step forward in your comments to the blog! It just takes one to come forward! We will take the suggestion of playing “Coming to America” for Joseph on the plane home! I am sure some of the Mellencamp fans will be shouting “R-O-C-K in the USA” but choices have to be made.

So at the end of a warm day in Uralsk we often reach for a Baltica beer (a Russian beer) and it comes numbered from light to dark 1-7. It is very good and even as we blog we often have one. Today on the other hand was so warm we opted for another drink – another popular Russian drink known as Kvas (I am sure my dad has had it before). Kvas or Kvas khlebny (bread kvas) is sweet and sour made primarily from sugar and rye flour (Yum!). Napoleon himself said that the Russians defeated the French thanks to the fact they drank kvas! Usually it can be purchased from a huge tank on the street and poured into a glass for the consumer. Unfortunately it is still a bit early for this, so I stopped into a local market and grabbed some. If having a warm sunny day and some kvas is heaven, then just imagine if you add Krack to the mixture! Yes, Krack and it comes in a can! Before the other families left Uralsk we would often all sit around and share a can of Krack – can’t beat it and it even comes barbequed (if you have not guessed, Kracks are Pringles potato chips)! Za vashe zdarov’e (to your health)!!