Pillaging

Armed with walking skills, we now embark on many expeditions, collecting loot at every step.

Toy Box Discoveries from Olya on Vimeo.

One small step for man....

.... a giant leap for our household. :)

Up and Running from Olya on Vimeo.

Vinny Pooh

Elijah has been allowed to watch a weenie bit of cartoons lately - the Russian version of Vinnie the Pooh. May I say, the Russian Vinnie is the one and true Vinnie the Pooh :) Here, for your cultural enrichment, are the videos of my beloved childhood cartoon. Even with subtitles!

A disappointment

Lately Elijah has been spending a lot of time on the toddler side of his daycare room. He loves it. He loves being with the older kids, loves all their toys, enjoys all their activities and has even picked out his favorite armchairs. Yes, they have armchairs there. I will give you a moment to take that in. I have not seen a hearth and/or slippers yet, but may be that's only because it's still summer.

Anyway, today when I picked him up, he was hanging out on the infant side and gladly came over when he saw me. I packed all the bags, we waved bye to everyone and headed for the door, to get to which you have to go through the toddler side of the room.

As soon as we were on the toddler side, my little kid lept out of my arms, onto the floor and crawled all the way over to the toddler's toys, grabbed the toys, climbed into the armchair and started recruiting other toddlers (who were having their snack) into playing with him. I tried to get him to come back to me... nothing. So, finally I picked him up.

He cried. He. Cried. Can you believe it?

And, at home, when we were playing together, I was throwing 2 balls in the air to entertain him. He watched for a few seconds, and then brought me a third ball. I can't juggle 3 balls, so I spilled them all over the place, at which point he lost all interest and went off doing something else.

So there's my day. Basically, I'm a disappointment. Wonder what's easier: learning to juggle 3 balls, or becoming as entertaining as a group of fun-loving toddlers? Sigh. May be I'll just buy a kid-sized armchair.

It's my party

Happy Birthday to Elijah - who spent this week on top of his very own toy-store-sized toy mound. :) Thank you very much, everyone, for your support of marsupial progress :)

Birthday Cake from Olya on Vimeo.

Gearheads

Here is a picture of the snowglobe we brought back with us from Bavaria as a memento of our Neuzschwainstein trip (honeymoon for short). Wombat likes to play with it. Guess what is his favorite thing about this snowglobe:

A) Beautiful castle inside
B) Lovely music played by the snowglobe
C) Snowflakes falling beautifully on the castle in the snowglobe


....and the answer is.....THIS!


What is it, you ask? It's the wind-up mechanism for the snowglobe that makes the music play. Wombat cares about nothing else about this globe, and as soon as he gets his hands on it (which he very much wants to do), he flips it upside down and focuses on the mechanism.

If you are still not sure what to get him for his birthday, I'd say a graphing calculator is appropriate.