Busy Monday

We kicked off Thanksgiving week with a busy Monday: A morning MOPS meeting (kiddie translation=2 hours of playtime with other children and fun toys) then an afternoon visit to the fire station to make sure our car seats were installed correctly.

There was no time to spare this morning getting the children and myself dressed and out of the apartment by 8:45 a.m. for our first Mothers of Preschoolers meeting. The meeting featured a great speaker who talked about solid frameworks for child rearing. Mostly, her information was Bible-based but she related everything to today's kids, including her own three. It could have easily passed for a Sunday sermon at church, and I felt inspired. We were there for more than two hours. After the talk the moms broke into small groups to discussions relating to the topic. The group meets twice a month, with the first meeting focusing on some type of craft project. Anna and Alexander Ruslan stayed in their play groups based on age the entire time. I got good reports about both, including our son saying "Papa" three times. In Russia, they say papa instead of dad or father, so we've kept that up for now. Alexander Ruslan does say that a lot, but I'm not sure if he's always thinking about Mikel when he says it or if it's more babble. Anna didn't have a very happy look when I picked her up. I guess she behaved well enough but apparently became upset when others did and especially when other moms came to pick up their children before I got her. We'll keep going and see what happens. Being new in town, it is nice to meet other people, especially those with things in common. I traded phone numbers with another mom who has a 1- and 3-year-old. We said we'd plan a play date.

After lunch and a not-long-enough nap, I gave the children a snack and headed back out to a nearby Rapid City Fire Department station where we had our carseat-installing-abilities examined. Overall, a good grade. The seats basically just needed to be tightened up a bit.

In other news, I have started potty-training Anna. (The constant diaper changing of the two is overwhelming.) We've had some successes in the past two days. She was definitely ready for it. In fact, the orphanage/baby home had reported she was already trained (I think they train them early out of sheer necessity), though she'd had some accidents during our visits. Of course, in the hotels and during the long travel back to America, we expected regression.

Apparently, we got out of Siberia just in time. We haven't even been gone for three weeks and the temperatures have plunged. Snow might not be the issue as much as the temps: The highs on upcoming days this week ranging from 14-degrees F to -5 F. The lows, of course, are even lower, with one night projected to be -14 F! Meanwhile, it's been in the 50s and 60s here during the recent days in South Dakota.