Jaan stories, the ideal babushka, and other random thoughts

The night before last I was putting Jaan to bed. He was hugging Mi-ka, his bear, right up by his face. As he was falling asleep, he drooled a little. Then, all of a sudden he sat up, looked at the little wet spot, and then said, "No no, Mi-ka! No peepee!" in his best imitation of my shocked and displeased voice. He really thought that Mi-ka had wet the bed!

Yesterday Jaan told me that he wanted to hold Raia. At least, he pointed to her and patted his lap. I gave her to him, and he immediately pulled his shirt up and offered her "nyum-nyum." Guess what he's been watching me do? She just gave one puzzled look at his chest, and then went back to smiling adoringly into his face.

When we went out to walk in the woods yesterday, we met my ideal babushka. (OK, we're related to a few ideal babushki, but I mean my ideal Russian grandmother.) I always tell Will that when I get old, I want to have a garden, wear slippers everywhere and go out in my house dress. That's normal. But I also want to go around telling all the young mothers what a good job they're doing. That's really rare. Babushki tend to go around fussing, worrying and making young mothers--or at least this young mother--feel incompetent. As we were headed out to the woods an older woman passed us with her dog. She told me that I was just amazing, that sometimes she was too lazy even to go out with her dog, and here I was with my two little children. She ended by saying, "You really know how to keep your babies healthy!" Maybe you don't know how rare that is, but it made my day. Especially since yesterday was one of those days when it was really an ordeal to get us outside.

We also saw a Green Woodpecker. Jaan was very excited to hear another bobo bird, but he called this one a "tuk-tuk" (knock-knock) bird. If you go back to where I wrote about the bobo bird and click on the picture, it should go to a page that shows this one, too.

Raia's calling. I'll finish this later. . . .

I'm back. I think I lost my train of thought, though.

I'll just finish by telling how we're doing here. Poor Granddaddy is miserable and sick. (Please pray for him!) Everyone else is doing very well. We went for a nice long walk in the woods and thoroughly enjoyed showing Baba where we like to explore.

We had been planning to go to a wedding in Moscow tomorrow and stay overnight there, but now Will is just going to go by himself.