Mud Puddles and Galoshes

For the past several weeks, Sebby has been asking me about riding his scooter, to which I continually responded, "when the snow is gone." February has been surprisingly warm, though, and earlier this month, as we were walking home from school one Friday, Sebby remarked with great joy, "The snow is gone!! I can ride my scooter, yeah Mom?" The snow was indeed mostly gone, with just a few patches of ice left here and there, and I couldn't bear to crush his overflowing enthusiasm, so we went upstairs to our apartment, dug the scooter out from its hiding place, carefully retrieved Misha's bike from the top of the closet, and headed outside. Since then we have been out walking / scootering / biking a few times while the sun has been warm enough to chase away the chill in the air.

Baby blue galoshes

Sebby's Spiderman galoshes

Misha's old winter boots gave out mid-season, so we ended up buying these blue-with-white-polka dot beauties (there were not a lot of options). They are actually perfect for the sloppy, melty weather. When we realized Sebby's boots were also full of holes, I got him a pair of his own galoshes, which he loved so much that he kept gushing, "Thank you for my boots, Mom! Mom, thank you for buying me boots!" all the way home on his first walk wearing them. "Now I can go in the water, yeah Mom?" I said yes, now you can. And he sloshed his way happily through each and every puddle, much to the horror of every woman watching him on the street. When other mothers told him not to splash in the puddles, as other mothers in this country will inevitably do, Sebby replied, "Nyet, mojno! Eti botinki rezinovi!" (No, I CAN! These are rubber boots!)

Cruising over a snow pile.

Brothers wheeling away.

Little gloved fingers.

The sidewalks and roads are full of remarkable pot holes, which fill up with muddy water as soon as the sun peeks out and melts a bit of ice or snow. This makes for lots of opportunities for Sebby to get remarkably dirty. One day, just as we had cleared the school gates and were heading for home, Sebby managed to fall just so in a huge mud puddle. His whole back and side were coated in sticky mud, not to mention his once-white scarf, his hat, his mittens, his pants, and his boots. He was a walking mud-boy all the way home (but he still stopped to splash in the puddles).

Earlier this month, we had fun celebrating Josh's birthday. The boys prepared board games while I made a carrot cake.

Misha made this sign all by himself!

Happy birthday, Daddy!

 We also managed to fit in another ski trip this month, our fourth one with all three of us. These last two times, I have felt like I have gained enough control where I can truly enjoy skiing without the fear of not being able to stop. Misha and I can even do the fun snow-spraying hockey stops now! This last time, Josh got back on a snowboard and got to the point of being very comfortable on it again.

Josh on the board

Misha cruising down

Josh and Misha

Misha all bundled up and skiing with confidence

Misha waiting impatiently for me to finish taking the picture so we can ski down.

Mother and son on the ski lift

The view as we ski: the tops of the mountains peeking out of a bed of fog.

 Unfortunately, after skiing, Misha caught a pesky bug and spent most of the week sick at home, which he has now passed on to Sebby and Josh. The one bright spot of the week was that he lost his loose front tooth.

An early, unsuccessful attempt to pull out the tooth.

I love the gap-toothed smile!

I've long been awaiting the moment when Misha would have a big gap in his front row of teeth - and that time has come! I'll be taking lots of cute smiley photos of Misha in the coming week. His second front tooth is loose now as well.

In other news, we have decided to get Misha started with violin lessons. I found a violin teacher through the mother of Misha's classmates who also take lessons. We're borrowing (renting, but very cheaply) the most adorable violin - the smallest size that is made. Our teacher comes right to our house twice a week for short lessons. Since Misha himself thought it would be fun to try, and since Josh and I have long been meaning to introduce him to instruments, note-reading, and music in general, this seems like a good opportunity, especially because private lessons are so cheap here. He has only had two lessons so far, but he's eager to learn. Even if he only gets in a couple months worth of lessons, it's a skill that can transfer to other instruments and other areas. And yet another benefit is that his music lessons are all in Russian, so it's a language lesson at the same time. (Sebby watches with interest and is already asking for his own violin...)

Fun around the house ...

 Misha and Sebby devised their own big-bubble-makers out of cardboard, and we found the boys in their room happily blowing beautiful bubbles.

In Sebby's preschool, the children string bright plastic beads or various macaroni noodles onto strings, so we have made our own noodle chains at home. The cats find it entertaining as well.

 Misha and I worked together to draw and color a Captain Underpants scene on the back of one of Sebby's puzzles.

 This clay magnet kit turned out to be a really fun project. Sebby's ladybug is on top, with Misha's underneath, and my bumblebee to the right.

 Sebby has had a great deal of fun going around the whole house discovering what his magnetic ladybug can stick to.

 Josh and Misha playing a game of Magic, with Sebby observing.

 Horsie rides from big brother. Sebby also tries to give Misha rides, but I told him he couldn't do that anymore!

 Sebby loves to trace  - pictures, shapes, numbers, letters - so Misha and I created homemade stencils for him from cardboard. We somehow made the entire alphabet.

Sebby, busily tracing his letters.

And singing the alphabet song :) 

 

It's always a pleasure to see Misha reading a book to Sebby. Sometimes it's an English book, and soemtimes it's a Russian book. In this case, it's the Russian version of Winnie the Pooh, based on the 1969 Russian cartoon which shamelessly imitates the English original. 

 

 Misha is very good about doing his homework. Sometimes Josh and I help him with Russian, when he has to make sentences using certain combinations of letters. For example, he had to think of sentences using the letter sounds ch-k and ch-n (чк and чн). After considerable thought, we came up with "Ya tochno znayu chto eta babochka" - I definitely know that it's a butterfly. His handwriting in Russian is getting quite good - better than mine, I'd say! In math, I'm surprised that they're doing "uravnenie," as Misha says, or equations, such as 15 - x = 12. The curriculum seems to be fine, but there is definitely more emphasis on memorization here than in America. America's math curriculum is moving much more toward the mentality that there are many, many ways to solve a problem, and it tries to get students to be creative and use what they know to come up with an answer, then share their ways of solving it with others. In the wake of the Soviet system, it is commonly accepted here that there is only one correct way to solve problems, and each problem needs to be written in the exact format that the teacher wants it to be "correct."

 Helping clean up ...

Another project - a board game for Sebby, featuring several animal talents that you can "train" for, such climbing abilities from the monkey, night vision from the cave cat, swimming from the fish, and camouflage from the chameleon.


Sebby loves playing games, from Crazy Eights to Memory (which he is getting amazingly good at) to Sorry.

Kid Talk:

I was playing Crazy Eights with both boys, and Misha was the first to go out. Sebby and I continued the game until he beat me. "I lost!" I said. Misha piped up reassuringly, "No, Mom, you didn't lose. You just won third!"

“You can't stop me! I'm a lucky boy.” - Sebby, playing Sorry

“You! You! sorry yourself!” - Sebby's advice when Misha was looking for a good opponent to “sorry.”

“I saw byeli! and oranjivi! and look at that sviet!” - (white, orange, color) Sebby watching fireworks.

"We're druzia, right Sebby?" - (friends) Misha 

"I want the sparkly cheese." - Sebby, asking for parmesan cheese on his noodles.

Sometimes while talking on webcam, Misha momentarily forgets an English word. When my mom asked him how he learned cursive, he started to say, "I just looked at mom's writing and I ...." He stopped, looked at me, and asked, "How do I say poftaryat?" (copy/repeat) 

 

Skiing Adventures

Misha all bundled up and skiing like a pro.

This winter, Misha and I got to go skiing for the first time in our lives - Misha at age 7 and me at 32! Since Kyrgyzstan is covered in mountains, it's a great place to learn. And since its ski resorts aren't huge and fancy, it's also a cheap place to learn. We got lucky because one of Josh's students works at the ski base Zil just outside of Bishkek, and he often has room in his car to take us out and back for the day. Josh went with him a few times over our winter break to ski and snowboard (which came back to him quickly despite the several-year interlude), and the last two Saturdays, Misha and I went along as well. Josh was able to give us pointers, ride with Misha on the ski lift, and help us stand up when we were all tangled up in our skis.

Misha and I were very proud of our first-day achievements. We managed to ski down the mountain, on our own, five times. Skiing in itself is not hard; it's everything else - like slowing down, stopping when you want to, getting back up when you're down, or side-stepping up the mountain to collect your ski poles that you dropped behind you or a ski that popped off ...

Misha did a great job. Eager to jump right in and try it by himself, he fell often on the first run down the mountain (as did I), but after that, he was cool and confident, snow-ploughing down with his skis pointed together in the front to control his speed as Daddy showed him. Every time our paths criss-crossed, he would chirp happily, "Hi, Mom!" and keep right on going.

We've been told that Zil is one of the nicer ski bases near Bishkek. It's not huge; it has one chair lift and two small pole lifts, and only two or three ski paths. It's missing a lot of luxuries, meaning you have to go to the bathroom in a freezing outhouse and put your ski equipment on by your car. However, there is a small cafe that serves tea and shashlik. And it's more than enough to have a lot of fun! (The biggest resort in Kyrgyzstan is in Karakol, by Lake Issikyl, attracting a lot of tourists.)

Josh in action

At home in the mountains

Here's a short video of Misha and me on our first day. Watch near the end for little Misha in his red-kneed snowpants and me in the blue coat/black pants!

The following Saturday, this past weekend, we had the perfect chance to go again. Sebby's day care was open, making up for days it was closed during the vacation, so we didn't even need a babysitter like last time. Thick, wet snow was falling in Bishkek, but by the time we got to the mountains, it had turned into dry, fine snow. The roads weren't the best, and we had to wait at a few points where smaller cars had gotten stuck in the snow and had to be pushed out, but the snow was nice and fluffy on the ski paths. It was so fluffy that at first Misha and I couldn't figure out how to move, much less pick up any speed, on our skis. Eventually, we learned how to shift our weight to get the skis to glide, and we cruised our way down the mountain many times. Each time we did, the weather became foggier and foggier, first allowing me to see three chairlifts in front of me, then only two, then only one ... In the end, we were skiing down almost completely blind. It was impossible to tell sky from ground, let alone where any path was. I was afraid to get behind or go ahead for fear of losing Josh and Misha, and one time I skied right into the ditch, thinking I was on the right path!

During a short break, a group of Kyrgyz picnickers called out a greeting to us. When we responded in Kyrgyz, they instantly invited us to come and eat shashlik with them. ("Kelingiz! Chai ichesiz! Shashlik jesiz!" - Come, drink tea, eat shashlik!) How could we refuse? We had been smelling the wonderfully wafting aroma all day. They were so flattered that we had learned their local language that they offered us shashlik with onion and vinegar, hot tea, juice, and even vodka, which they insisted on making several toasts with. It's an amazingly good feeling now that we are good enough to understand enough Kyrgyz to have a decent conversation. 

As if intentionally trying to end the day on a good note, the sun popped out and burned off the mist just in time for one last run down the hill. We grabbed our skis and ran up to the lift, where the guards eventually gave in and let us and a few other stragglers board the lift, even though it was a few minutes after 4:00. We rode up, appreciating the full, clear view of the breathtaking mountains. After a fun, speedy run, we were ready to take off our skis and drive home to Sebby.

We forgot the camera in the car all day, but here are some mental photos for you:

* The chairlifts receding eerily in the fog.

* Josh and Misha appearing out of the mist on their skis.

* The group of cheerful Kyrgyz friends (former classmates) and their wives, smiling and laughing and filling up our tea cups.

* Each individual strand of my bangs outlined in fuzzy white frost, making me look like some kind of albino Raggedy Anne.