Our routine and a list of favorites

Yulia

- playing with balloons – on top of the list, for sure

- the mirror – she just loves to watch herself in the mirror –she thinks she is so cute and she is so, so right!!!
- Maia`s toys; Maia`s “Water Water” book (she gently took out from Kristen`s bag and put in mommy`s bag).
- a musical telephone
- the Teddy bear
- a musical walking lobster
- baby toys, baby books - she just loves to carry them around; Fuzzy Bee cotton baby book.
- mommy`s bag – she pulls everything out. Kristen`s bag – was even more appealing
- plastic shopping bags, paper, napkins - everything tastes good!!!
- bubbles - playing with the ball (her favorite is a yellow–pink beach ball)
- pulling out the curtains, empty the drawers in the baby room

- dancing with mommy and daddy

- blowing kisses, waving “paka paka”; showing “Where is Yulia?”; imitating daddy making funny faces; pulling mommy`s hair

- pooping – it happened many times, first thing she did after we brought her in the play room, we had to take her back and go through all ceremony of washing, diaper changing, etc which she really enjoys!.

First word other than mama and dada (which is not specific either), I think I heard from her, repeating after me: “OK”. She never repeated it again, so I am not sure about this, so we can not consider it as official.

Gabi

- Favorite toy: a singing nursery rhyme book – we were told he takes it everywhere, he also sleeps with it. - a musical phone - military toys (with an helicopter, a tank, few cars, 3 soldiers and 2 trees) - few cars, an airplane - balloons, bubbles
- Playing with the ball with his father - Playing in the snow - Playing piano (well, just making noises) - Puzzle (with driving Pluto and 2 robots)
- Elmo DVDs - Drawing, coloring, counting, learning English, teaching Russian - Favorite teacher: Pavlovna - Best friend: Urok (he told us he once gave him one of his balloons – I think this was a really big deal for him!) - Girlfriend: Palina (not interested in playing with girls, though) - Favorite toy he wants to play when he goes home: airplane - Favorite food: candies (he calls them confetti) and chocolate. Follows closely: carrots, potatoes and tea (chai). - Favorite animal: Lion (Liev) - Favorite color: green (Zirlonye) - Favorite parent: Papa (he just loves him. He keeps saying “Papa maladietz, Serioja maladietz, mama no maladietz. (maladietz means good job or sometign like this). Why? “Because mama doesn`t know how to make balloons and she doesn`t know how to play with the ball like daddy does!”.

Mommy and Daddy Baia – when we were not with our children, we would love to explore more, but this time we really did not get to walk too much around, since there was not too much time, our apartment was pretty far away from everything - 40 minutes walking distance from the closest shopping mall and after 7 pm it was already getting dark

- the closest place to our apartment: flea market. Been once, not interested to go again.

- our routine:

• morning: breakfast, reading, blogging – (internet is very, very slow and it takes around 2-3 hours to attach 2 pictures, check emails, answer emails, etc. aprox 2 $/hrs, much cheaper after 11 pm)
• 1 pm to 3 pm – baby house
• 3 pm to 4 pm – travel to the orphanage
• 4 pm to 6 pm – visit with Gabi
• 6 pm to 7 pm – travel to Petropavlovsk
• after 7 pm – grocery shopping, cooking for the following day, reading, watching movies, chat with our friends or mother in law (this really takes long time since she keeps us well informed about everything what happens not only in Romania, and in her neighborhood but also she knows all the details about all the news in the world! Sometimes she knows better than us what happens in NY, even how weather is going to be like in the following days and I really love her for this)

- grocery malls: Iceberg and Sokol approximate prices, maybe little cheaper: milk 1 $/liter, 4 oranges and 8 tomatoes around 13 $, 1 beer – 1 $, juice 1 liter 1 – 2 $/liter, lunch or dinner at restaurant around 20$/person, toys around 10 $ - the cheapest – they are not very good quality, one bicycle 100 $. Same with children clothes – nice baby outfit around 30$. Gabi`s pants and blouse around 40$, shoes were around 35 $ - really not the best. Clothes and toys are really better quality and price in US.

- Restaurants: Alibaba, a Russian restaurant (no English menu), Slovenian restaurant (they have menu in English but the food is not Slovenian at all), couple of pubs (not sure about the names). - We ate 2 times in a fast food store; once Nadya – Igor`s wife cooked horse meat for us (really good) and once we had lunch with Yuri when we celebrated Nauryz. Otherwise – we ate whatever we cooked or we bought. - Favorite food: borsch, caviar (around 3 $ - delicious), marinated fish, Zakuska (egg plant paste), pickled carrots, stuffed cabbage with ground pork meat (Romanian traditional sarmale – not sure about Russian or Kazakh name), and yellow cornmeal sticks (called Butik, Romanian Pufuleti – I could eat 2 bags at a time, they are just delicious, they really melt in your mouth!!! I think I am going to take a picture and recommend to everybody!

- favorite book: Life of Pi (Yann Martel)

- favorite movie: Good Will Hunting

- favorite place in the city: the new Orthodox Cathedral

- favorite person, who we are going to miss a lot, when we will be home with our children: Igor, our translator, he is really a very nice guy, he is fun, very friendly, honest, genuine, he loves the kids and he helped us a lot, we really think he is a great, great person.