Sunday, July 14, 2013

Those Eyes

When Rosy was born, Tomáš and I both looked at her and kind of went, ''who on earth does she look like?'' I said the only person I could even vaguely see was his dad and my doctor/sister-in-law laughingly agreed. She had thought the same thing. Tomáš was unconvinced. I couldn't put my finger on just what it was in her and only saw fleeting glimpses at that, which made it even more difficult to convince him. I would go long periods of time without seeing the resemblance and was more or less even unconvinced myself until...
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I woke up to this photo (above right) that Tomáš made the wallpaper on our computer. It's the eyes! Or the expression in the eyes. Or something. Most of the time I see my dad's eyes in her. Or his expression. Or something. But here the resemblance is undeniable, don't you think? Lily looks a lot like my dad, especially the eyes. So it looks like our girls take after their grandpas, at least at this point. I looked like my dad my whole life and then long about 25, BAM! I was my mom. Funny how that happens. Anyhoo, if our girls look like their grandpas, they could do a lot worse. They were good-lookin' young fellas. 



    
Sometimes I think I see a little of my grandma in Rosy too. Maybe a little Finnish chin. Or cheeks. 


I guess we're all of us just a big mix of our ancestors. That's part of what makes having kids a joy. 

Monday, July 1, 2013

Summer Lovin'

Our life lately has not exactly been what you might call exciting. Unless you count, ''Is Lily gonna make it to the potty or poop in her undies?'' (a real nailbiter, for sure) or ''Where are we gonna find Rosy next?'' We live life right on that edge. But the last week we've had three (count them, three) blogworthy events, so I figure I'd better blog about them 'cause it might not happen again for a while.
Our pastor and his wife invited us to their house for a bbq last Saturday. They contributed two sons to the group and the other three families brought eight daughters. It was a bit of a princess invasion, I'm afraid. Poor little boys. The weather couldn't have been better. Hot enough to play in the sprinkler early on, then clouding up and cooling off early enough to enjoy some chat time. I really wished we could have stayed much longer. When we arrived, all the other kids ran off to play together and Lily got down to business chowing down on any and everything. But who could blame her? The food was delicious. And everyone knows food tastes even better in the open air. I got to catch up with friends while Tomáš spent the majority of the time running offense with Lily. Or is it defense? I get those two confused in this context. Never mind, I'll just keep away from sports analogies. I'll play keep-away with them (wah wah). Rosy was a dream baby as usual. All in all it was a wonderful day. Lily took a shining to our pastor's younger son, Natan, and I think he liked her a little bit too. They played music together, which was pretty hilarious. The following day she went through and picked out pictures of boys that looked like him in her mama magazines. Pretty sweet. A tip to parents of toddlers; Buy them mama magazines. They have lots and lots of pictures of babies, which interests them and they can be rough and tough on them and it's no big loss. The couple that I've bought or recieved have kept Lily entertained for hours.   


Love of watermelon she gets from her dad



Can't think of any caption that won't either embarrass them or make them laugh at me.

Gang of cuties: Rosy, Lucy, Noel, Mia, Stella, Natan, Livia, Janka, Lily, Monika


Linda, Evi and Rast'o


Check out that form! She's been watching her daddy. Reminds me of this at 1:05



Growing up too fast




Super moon! (Make that four blogworthy events)



Raspberry season! It must be my birthday (make that five blogworthy events {raspberries, not my birthday}; )
We took a quick day trip to Capitol City with Tomáš' brother and wife. We went to the American Embassy to announce Rosy's existence. That sounds funny if you don't know that American citizens born abroad do this. We applied for her passport and Social Security number. They informed us the processing time would be a couple of weeks, at which time I assured them that was fine and that she wouldn't be working before then anyway. A Slovak woman reviewed our paperwork but an American diplomat came to administer our oath and I admit it was nice to hear his accent. Tomáš, after having spoken to him, was excited when he asked which one of us was the American citizen. I was excited to use a very clean bathroom. For free. The weather was not as cooperative as it had been at the bbq, but for a rainy day we couldn't complain. It just felt like we were being misted by one of those, well, misters (misters!) all day. We covered up the little miss with her rain cover and walked around Main Square. I must look friendly because I got asked by two separate tourists to take their picture. To get out of the rain, Tomáš turned into one of those throughway passáges (note: rhymes with massages...unless you pronounce massages MASSages) with the little bridge over the fake stream, the new age Thai massage (massAGe) parlour and the overpriced (because it's in a fancy passáge) pharmacy. I thought he just wanted to get to the other side, like I did, but then he proceeded to walk back and forth over that little bridge, which just made me laugh and exclaim, ''get me outta here!'' Our time in the embassy had gone very smoothly. The same cannot be said for our time in McDonald's. Let's just say I am not pushy enough to get fast food there. The only up side to my 25 minute wait in line was when a tiny old Japanese lady tried to order from the poor guy working, who had to get his co-worker to try and help him understand her, and who ultimately resorted to having her point and asking slowly, ''HAM..BURGER?...CHEESE..BURGER?'' And even she had her meal long before I did.
And then a joyous birthday Ikea outing ended in tears when, after having purchased countless items at a discount for Ikea card members, I failed to give Tomáš the card when I piggishly went to go get a hotdog (of all stupid things) while he paid. They told us it would be extremely complicated to get the discount, having to return every item we bought and re-purchase it, and with my in-laws waiting for us in the car I tearily opted to just go the heck home. Can anyone relate to me on this one? It couldn't have been any more than 10 Euros savings, but it was 10 Euros we should have saved. That's what made the shopping fun. Getting the discount. And when it was yanked out from under me, due to my own stupid mistake, on my birthday, no less, well, I was just so mad at myself. I was emotional anyway because, you know, I wasn't in Montana on my birthday, smelling Russian Olive trees, getting peonies and barbequeing (is that spelled right?) in a park. I was exhausted too, and, well, you know. Now my B-I-L and S-I-L think I'm some kind of crazy emotional weirdo, I'm sure. Nothing new. But let's lighten the mood, shall we?

Lily keeps asking who this guy is. Hviezdoslav, I mean.

Lily does not keep asking who this guy is. She knew right away it's a pig.


The Danube


I thought Lily might like this statue. She was more impressed by the pig.
 This Friday night we received a surprise invitation from friends to hike to a nearby castle. I was thrilled due to the facts that: I'd long wanted to go to it, I hadn't hiked in ages, it was a family outing, it would be Lily's first campfire, and we'd get to hang out with them! It ended up being 8km roundtrip (according to Jurček's pedometer), which was pretty ambitious with two little ones. But I must admit Lily did really good, aside from that rough patch in the middle when she cried, pouted and bossed her daddy around, ''dada don't talk...I'm not gonna go on shoulders...Dada, don't sing...No...'' But then in a stroke of genius, Andrejka gave her an apple and T put her on his shoulders and all was well with the world. All it took to keep Rosy happy, on the other hand, was being fed, which was not something that could be delayed until a convenient feeding place could be found. And when you're breastfeeding while walking down a trail and hikers are coming your way, where are you really gonna go? Climb up the side like a crazy person? (an even crazier person). They've already seen you. No, you're gonna go on your merry little way, not making eye contact and looking down until they pass. Unless they decide to TALK TO YOU. And I know it wasn't that this guy didn't NOTICE I was breastfeeding because his joke was, ''now that's a full-service trip.'' Aj jaj jaj jaj jaj. But again, all in all a really fun trip. Unexpected wonderful weather. Gorgeous Slovakia. Green green green. And an 800 year old castle for crying in the night. Who can say they saw that this weekend? (Ok, roughly half of my readers could easily say that, but still). Good food, good company, fresh air, exercise, goats, meat cooked over a fire (two separate and unrelated things, to be clear)...and for me a renewed promise to myself to get out more and experience this astonishing beauty I live in. It really is indescribably beautiful, this Slovakia. I am so lucky to get to live here.   



Andrejka was endlessly patient while Lily asked ''how many rocks/water/sticks are there?'' a thousand times

Uhrovské Podhradie













The cat who talks back=hours of fun

Our little ladybug


Happy July!!!