i must bragg

I must bragg! No, not about the garden, but about my mother. She spends the better half of the year taking care of my garden in Toronto and helping me take care of my kids, yet still, when she gets back to her own garden in Latvia she manages to have it look like a botanical paradise in no time. And it's not like all she does is gardening. At the moment she's managing a demanding interior design project for an agricultural building. Go figure!!!

a long one

I think I owe Stella and her grandparents and dad a little update regarding the milestones she has reached in the last few weeks, because I have been a lousy blogger and have not recorded the updates as they come… sorry guys! My shoes have taken priority. Ha!

Well, Stella has been crawling (or shuffling along is more like it) for the last two weeks. She began shuffling along ever so slowly a few days before her 7 month birthday and by now she has learned to do it in three speeds. The first I call “she’s not moving” move. She does it ever so discreetly and slowly, but before you realize that she’s moving she has already reached an object which should have in the first place been way out of her reach. The second speed is the so called “shuffle” speed, which gets her across a medium sized room at a decent pace, especially, if she sees something she likes on the floor ahead of her. The third is the fastest, but also a little dangerous, still. When she gets super excited, she likes to lift her butt up, get up on her hands and knees, then swing back and forth a few times and plunge forward sometimes moving her hands in a position ahead and sometimes not. Needless to say, at times she ends up face first on the floor and that isn’t always the happiest of situations. However, as days go by she gets better and better at it and probably by the time we get on the plane she’ll be a crawler. As if I need that on my hands! And speaking of planes… My mother has abandoned me. I will be flying back with my two kiddos on my OWN. No. I cannot say I’m happy about it. Not one bit!

Stella is also sitting on her own these days. It has not been long, just a week or so, but it most certainly has opened up new possibilities. Playing while sitting instead of lying down on ones stomach is a whole new thing for Stella. And it buys me more time to do some of the things I want to get done during the day and cannot, if Stella is sitting in my lap, on my hip or in a baby sling across my shoulder. You see, traveling restricts a parent to only a handful of smaller sized baby gadgets and it makes one appreciate the oodles of high chairs, baby seats, jolly jumpers, excersaucers and other equally terribly named and badly designed plastic objects made in China. As much as I hate the look of these items and often will curse their poor design (under my breath, of course) I have to admit that they are cheap and give me much needed time (with free hands!) while keeping Stella thoroughly occupied. Of course, if I had oodles of cash at my disposal I’d buy the stuff that’s well designed, beautiful and made in Canada. Some people do make beautiful baby gear!!! However … I opt for the next best thing … second hand and freebies left on the curbside by those, whose kids have outgrown these large plastic contraptions.

On June 18th Stella popped her first tooth, but I forgot to mention that only a few days later came the second and now she is a proud owner of two very sharp teeth and she bites, bites like crazy! She also looks very funny with these two little saw blades behind the bottom lip. She’s constantly touching them with her tongue and occasionally even bites her own tongue. It looks very cute! Charming… especially when she giggles and laughs while doing it. She is a very happy and smiley baby, still very mellow and easy going compared to her older brother. And a great sleeper!!! Comparing Kaspar and her in that field is impossible. They are like the opposite poles. Even though it’s obvious that Stella is still teething and most likely will be going home with not only two but three teeth, she still sleeps “like a baby” (Don’t you love the absurdity of that saying?) and hardly ever complains at night!

Now, speaking of the older brother… He’s turning three on Thursday! That’s tomorrow. Yikes! I do remember him turning two last year, but I hardly remember the year in between. It seems like it’s only been days since he turned two and only months since he was born. Time is a speedy little creature! Kaspar is so excited about his birthday! He keeps asking me: “How many more times do I have to sleep and wake up before it will be my birthday?” He’s been singing the “happy birthday to you” (you wouldn’t know it, if it weren’t for the lyrics, of course) song all day today. “But I’m only practicing, mommy”, he tells me. We’ve promised him balloons for his birthday. He wants “all red balloons, all red; and one yellow, and one green, and one blue, and a pink one, and a white one and orange, too, but not black; black balloons are angry; let’s have all red balloons, ok?” Pleasing a three year old on his birthday is not as easy as some might have you believe!

an ode to an old shoe

My favourite summer slippers just fell apart. Fell apart completely. Un-fix-ably so!!! And I’m sad to be getting rid of them. They have been my companions for five summers. They have traveled to Latvia several times, to Spain and Lithuania and Estonia and probably some other countries I cannot think of at the given moment and many trips to cottages of friends and relatives and gone through dry and wet weather and finally they have decided that enough is enough… So, I bid fare well to my good old Fluevogs slippers. And it would only be fair to say that even though I have only ever owned four pairs of Fluevogs in my life, they have always grown to be the shoes (or boots) I wear the most and wear the longest. Let’s all have a cheer for Fleuvogs! And the best part - I only paid 39$ for them!

strawberries

Sadly strawberry season is almost over. We have made the best of it and it would not surprise me if between me, Stella and Kaspar we have taken care of approximately 40 pounds of the sweet, juicy goodness. Strawberries here are absolutely spectacular, because most of them are not grown commercially and never shipped much further then the local market or even better, just sold on the side of the highway, right next to the field. Highways here are just a two lane road, paved, but just wide enough for one lane each way and traffic outside of Riga can hardly be called that. So, it’s really awesome to be able to stop on the side of the road, pick up a box of strawberries and have the farmer even trust you enough to say – next time you drive by this way, drop the empty box on the side of the field there, would you?

In the beginning I was reluctant to give Stella strawberries. I had heard somewhere that babies can be very sensitive and even allergic to strawberries. But after a while I began to feel guilty, especially when all the berries were disappearing into my own mouth one after another and Stella was just reaching, reaching for them, but never quite got there. So, I began by giving her one berry, then a few with a banana and the next day a few more with some oatmeal… and before I knew it she was eating strawberries and covering herself in red juice and making funny faces and there didn’t seem to be a problem with any allergies or anything like that whatsoever. Phew!

jāņi - summer solstice

Jāņi. It's probably the second biggest if not the most celebrated national holiday here in Latvia. Christmas is probably the longest/biggest/most celebrated/most commercial holiday and then right after that comes Jāņi or Summer solstice, which is not nearly as commercial, but is taken rather seriosly in some way or form by most people here.
This year the week-end was a four day long holiday, but some years Jāņi week-end ends up being even up to five days long.

Traditionally Jāņi was celebrated by staying up all night on the shortest night of the summer, making wreaths, having song "wars" between neighbouring farms, lighting fires, singing and dancing around the fires even jumping over the fires... looking for the blossom of the fern.

But I'm really no encyclopedia. I'm sure that even Wikipedia will give you more on the subject of Jāņi.

all fixed and running

My long period of silence between the 19th and today is not without a reason. A couple of weeks ago my pal the laptop died a swift and painless death. Try as I might I was unable to resurrect it. It was one of those odd situations where after accepting another Windows update, I restarted the computer just to find out that it would not start. I could now go into a long and detailed series of complaints against Microsoft, Windows and PC’s in general, but I’m afraid to open that can of worms. All I can say is that this incident once again has reconfirmed my love for the Mac. That said, I’ll go on with the story. I was left with a dead laptop on my lap (No pun intended!) and no idea where to turn for help. I began by calling all my relations and I guess it should not surprise me that I ended up finding four professional “computer dudes” within my direct circle of family and friends. The first happened to get his thumb cut off by a table saw shortly before I could summon his help. The second, as it turned out, had just won gold medal in yacht racing, in his age group, in Latvia and had decided to skip the country and go on a long holiday (Probably blowing his prize money!). The third was climbing Kilimanjaro and was due back no sooner than September (His friend sighed into the receiver and added: “as long as he’s still alive, come September”). No, I’m not making any of this up. Really! That’s the craziest part. It could be explained by the size of this country or maybe all the people I know are a little “out there”. The last of the four was sick with the flu, but willing and able to take in my dead lap top regardless, and promised to do it at home so that I could save a few extra bucks. Yeah, it turns out that fixing this lap top through a known and reputable company in Latvia could have cost me nearly as much as buying a used one on e-bay. Go figure!

Well, after I finally got a hold of the fourth computer dude the laptop got fixed in a matter of a week or so. However, I did lose a whole stack of pictures and files in the process. It was a good lesson, a good slap on the wrist so to speak… I have begun making regular and careful back-ups now. It turns out that viruses can hide even amongst things like Windows updates and having the latest Norton (Including all latest security updates) does not necessarily mean you’re safe. I hate it!

But I love having my lap top back! :-)

Since the last blog post Stella has sprouted her second tooth on the bottom. It announced itself only a couple of days after the first. She’s also beginning to shuffle across the floor on her belly and occasionally even lifts her but up in the air in a crawling position. Oh, and she began to sit on her own just last week. Kaspar is slowly forgetting how to speak English and learning more and more current Latvian slang from his senior cousins and friends, some of which is not really approved by me. So, we occasionally have some serious stand offs regarding the appropriate use of language. I never thought that I’d be having these sorts of problems before the age of three! C’est la vie!

I’m sure there are a few other things I could mention, but I’ll leave some of it for the next blog post. I’m tired and the Song and Dance Festival starts tomorrow. I need to catch up on some sleep before the coming week of busy festivities and late nights.

tooth

Stella has a tooth! Finally! At six months and ten days on the nose she is finally got a little tiny saw edge of a tooth on the bottom right hand side. She's happy to show it off, as you can tell, but pictures don't do it justice just yet. However, just give her a finger or a hand and you'll no doubt will sport a nasty little bite mark in no time.

grey sky

ever tried one handed typing? how about the one handed one fingered typing? it's a preoccupation of mine these days. imagine a laptop on a kitchen counter. stella fluttering about in my lap no less then half a meter away from the counter. yeh. her ability to reach far away objects of her desire is unprecedented. so, my forever expendable right arm is reaching across the coffee mug, the counter, across stella, towards the computer... if i use this laptop much longer the backspace button will wear out, no doubt.

it's been raining the last few days. cool refreshing summer rain. for latvia it's a sure sign that summer solstice is approaching. it always rains during 'jani'. i don't know if it's true, but so the saying goes. i cannot complain, though. the yard was in desperate need of some rain as it had been warm and sunny and dry for the last six weeks. the farmers have been complaining, too, on the local newscast almost nightly. not me! we've loved every moment of this super fine summer weather. however, kaspar has been thrilled about the rain, too. yesterday he decided to do some serious digging in the damp earth. or as he'd like to put it: "i need to do some gardening, mom!" i realized i'd left his raincoat at my brother's, so we designed a brand new style of rain gear and we're going to market it as the "super fine, super fast, super recycled" rainwear. what do you think?

stories told

I remember being told that kids get really interesting after they begin talking. I did not believe it, though. I enjoyed every stage of Kaspar’s growth. But now, when I’m faced with a six month old and a two/almost three year old, I’m beginning to see what they were talking about. It’s much more fascinating to follow the daily events of an almost three year old then those of a six month old baby. After all, how much can I talk about her drooling, teething, sucking on her toes and so on? Kaspar on the other hand is full of surprises and NEVER ending chatter.

The other day I opened my email to find a handful of fire truck pictures for Kaspar from his grandparents. He climbed into my lap and we did not stop looking at them until the laptop finally ran out of juice and even then I had to deal with heartfelt tears. Kaspar has the wildest imagination. One or two pictures of his liking are often enough to spark questions that in return will begin an entire story in his little head. And the questions he asks are not of the easy sort. I often find myself speechless, looking for a good answer and while I wait trying to figure out a good reply, he just continues with the same question... repeating it over and over again, as thought to help me understand it better or something. It’s a strange quirk. But I think that most kids his age like to repeat questions. I know that some of my friends have complained about the “why? Why? Why?” period in their toddlers’ lives. Kaspar has not taken to the simple “why?” question. His ‘why?’s are much more complicated. Take for instance the fire truck pictures. He asks sort of like this: “If this really is a parade, and I think you’re wrong mommy, then there should have been a Santa Claus or some elves somewhere or at the very least balloons. They don’t make parades without balloons or elves. I know! I’ve been to parades. Remember? Remember? Remember?” And even though I try to tell him that I know he’s been to the Santa Claus parade his “Remember?” keeps coming until I do remember, yes, St. Patrick’s day parade or as he likes to call it the parade with the green elves and clowns. But before I finish a sentence he’s already flying : “So, if it’s not a parade then why would all the fire trucks be on grandpa’s street? Maybe there was a fire in the next building? Or maybe there was one in their building? Maybe even a small fire in their apartment.....?” And you can just tell that the drama is beginning to build, regardless of my answers to his questions, he’s already begun his story. His eyes are shining; he speaks a little faster, a little hurried. He leans in to the computer a little and continues: “Maybe, MAYBE... grandma left some matches on the counter (he has just learned about match safety, because here a lot of people have gas stoves that have to be lit with a match!) and some little boy came into the kitchen and took the matches and all of a sudden one match lit up and then one more and OH BOY, I think that boy is going to get into trouble! Isn’t he? Isn’t he? Isn’t he? Isn’t he? Isn’t he?” Eventually his story took us back to the firemen having to drive up grandma’s street and save the burning kitchen and grandma being very thankful... and the firemen having to wash their dirty trucks... etc. etc.

It’s interesting, though, that he is very aware of it being a fictional story. If I was to ask a day later what the story was about the trucks and grandma’s place, he’d more than likely just look at me perplexed and confused. He seems to create these stories in the moment and leave them just as fast behind. And all of them start with a very, very exaggerated “MAYBE...” I love listening to him tell the stories and sometime even help him along by carefully interjecting a little detail or two that take him in a new direction. It’s amazing with how much detail a three year old child is able to tell a story! They’re sometimes way better then the published stories in children’s books. If he continues like this then by the time Stella is ready for bedtime stories I won’t have to tell them myself. I’ll have a way better storyteller in the house... Ha!

not so very sick

Well, Saturday sale was not meant to be for me. Even though I was feeling much better, Stella came down with fever on Thursday night and I ended up staying home with her on Friday as well as today just to make sure the fever is over and done with. Like most baby fevers it came and went over the course of about 8-12 hours and I’m clueless as to what caused it. Since she has not had any of mine or Kaspar’s symptoms, I’m guessing that she might have had something as insignificant as teething fever. Who knows? She has been teething during the course of the last week, that’s for sure. We travel with 5-10 shirts and/or bibs everywhere we go. It does not take much more than 15 minutes for the entire front of her shirt, from neck to waist to be soaked through. Maybe she’s caught a cold because of it. Ha! What does it matter, really? I’m just glad that she’s better and Kaspar is on the mend, as well, and I’m getting better if ever so slowly, too. Thanks for all the good energy!

I was talking to a Toronto pal yesterday and we were comparing notes on laryngitis infections, common colds, flu and remedies of all sorts ... and ... it made me realize once again how much of what we do is influenced by the way we’ve been brought up and the way we are used to solving problems. Do I sound profound? Ha! Not really where I meant to go. However, our conversation sparked an interesting train of thought... bare with me for a moment...

Most people go to see a doctor as soon as they get sick and most doctors will prescribe a medication of some sorts to heal the ailment, whatever it may be. Most of the medications in their list of contents have things that are completely foreign to us, at times even unpronounceable chemicals and drugs that we have never heard of. Yet, we wholeheartedly trust that this medication will make us better, because the doctor said so. Or maybe it’s because we paid a plump sum of money for the drug at the pharmacy? Whatever the reason, but generally we’ll trust the drug. Ok, you might argue that this is a simplified version of the truth, but you can relate to it as truth generally speaking, right?

On the other hand, if I told you to put a hot (well, let me correct myself, very warm – so that you don’t burn yourself!) baked onion on your ear for about four hours to heal an awful earache, you’d probably roll your eyes and not really want to take me seriously. Most people don’t. Yet, I’ve grown up on healing wisdom like that. I’ve used it and know that it works, at times even better then the drugs. I don’t know why it works, but it works. Perhaps the reason why we have not found a cure for cancer or aids is strictly based on money? Sounds like some crazy conspiracy theory? No! But think about it ... If people invested the millions of dollars that are being invested in research of drugs and chemicals, instead in researching commonly known herbs, fruits and vegetables that are known to have healing properties, then maybe we’d know why a baked onion can heal an earache faster than any drug will. Maybe we’d also know a lot more about the healing properties of that onion, ginger, lemon etc. But why would a company invest money in something like that? They cannot make big bucks selling onions. Of course not! So, I figure it’s only logical to give every home remedy a try before going for the hard core drugs, because an onion is not just a part of your daily vitamin C intake. That’s only scratching the surface of it. Medicine has its place, no doubt about it. But first we should all take the onion seriously!

Hanging out with some older folk in my family, talking about their memories of times past and seeing my grandparents homestead again has made me, once again, want to write down all these little wisdoms that come from within, that come from a time when we were simpler yet wiser as a human kind.

Maybe one day I’ll post a handful of my family’s recipes for well being on the blog. Or publish a book. Or just keep them in a dusty box under my desk and take a peak once in a while when fighting another nasty bout of laryngitis. In either case I’m glad to have my little box of treasures!