Read-y or not

Are y'all with me when I say there is nothing better than a toddler coming to you and shoving a book into your hands, and when you sit down, plopping into your lap, cozying in to be read to? I will never, ever tire of it. I have, however, already tired of that VERY hungry caterpillar and how those dogs GO. They go. But what's so wonderful about it is that Lily has not tired of it. Nor has she tired of even simpler books, which just makes me love her all the more. She watches with great interest while I read those real edge-of-your-seaters, Fuzzy Bear Gets Dressed and other nailbiters like Toys and Colors. I couldn't be more thrilled with her love of books. I really hope I can encourage her natural interest and curiosity through creativity, and foster her imagination. I want to be an active parent and not give in to the oh-so-tempting lesser ''activities'' like television and movies. I know it's not realistic that she will never watch them, and there are some great cartoons and shows out there, but I don't want it to be routine. I say this only because I have tended to take the easy road in much of my life, and I do not want to do this with Lily. I want the absolute best for her. More reading and creating and make-believing and only occasional sitting-in-front-of-a-box. We'll see. I know it's easier said than done. Hope you had a great weekend!

Love this face

This book was a gift from our friend Sylvia

She loves it. When she sees it she squeals, ''baaaaaaaaaaby!''

                                                                                                                       

Little bit o' salt

Now here's some honest advertising. After the ''dirtiest election in Slovak history,'' (the U.S.'s as well?) isn't it refreshing to see something just laid bare? A product that says, ''here I am; salty. And if the word salted isn't enough for you, here, we'll put a giant picture of a salt shaker right on top of me. And if that still isn't enough, let's add the nutrition information loud and proud, big and on the front. 33% of your daily recommended allowance for sodium. Thirty three. A third.'' (Yes, that was a direct quote from the bag of pretzels). That's what I like in a junk food. Honesty. Pardon the silliness, but this kind of cracked me up. And after months of having to put up with (read: begrudgingly tolerate passively listening while Tomáš watched/listened with interest) bickering, arguing, interrupting, cheating, lying, trying-to-get-ahead politicians, I needed a little laugh. Besides, where else are you gonna find a pretzel/election analogy?

Bilingual Baby

Watching Lily learn language as a bi-lingual baby has been absolutely fascinating. When she was born and I started thinking more concretely about what it would be like, I assumed she would learn English first and kind of fill in with Slovak later since I am with her 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Interestingly enough, her Slovak is by far stronger in her speech than English. As I think about it now, I think the only English words she even says are Da-da and baby. She also says Mama, but that's the same in Slovak. But I've come to find out that she understands an incredible lot in both languages. I started asking questions that required a response, and she knew an amazing amount. When I listen to her practice speaking, she does something very fascinating, which is play around with Slovak sounds on all kinds of different words. Slavic languages have a lot of words ending in -k, -ka, -ky or -ko and she'll make up all these words and then add on those endings. My favorite example of this was that very early on she started saying bee (actually beeeeeeeeeeee) to mean food.  None of us can figure out where on earth she got it because there's nothing remotely close in English or Slovak, but I knew that when she said it, it meant ''I want a pretzel.'' : ) Then she took even that ''word'' and started saying beek. Adorable. She even does it with her English words (because of course she doesn't know to differentiate yet). She'll say babyk or Mamik or Dadka, which is just so cool for a lover of languages like myself. Her Babka, Tomáš' mom, watches her for a few hours a week while I teach English in our flat and she has taught her so much, and here's why; She talks constantly to her, that's one thing, but also she asks questions or gives commands that require a response. This sounds obvious, but I'm telling you I had to learn this. It's kind of not natural. I tried to talk to Lily a lot (which was also not very natural for me), but mostly I just told her what I was doing or what something was called etc. Then the kicker was when Babka told Lily to flutter her eyelashes at her (zažmurkaj) and she did it! I was flabbergasted. Ok, ok, some of you are seasoned parents who know all about these things, but it's not like children were completely foreign to me; I did a lot of babysitting in my day and my mom once had a daycare, but still. It is an art, and I'm thankful to Babka for (inadvertantly) teaching me how to be a better communicator with children. Now I can tell Bug to: go get a book, find her ball, flutter her eyelashes at me!, shut the door, put her food in her mouth, go into the bathroom, get her Legos, baby, Mrs.Giraffe, and on and on. It's so satisfying to understand and be understood. Both for her and for us. I'm super excited for her to start speaking more English words, but in the meantime I'm just enjoying the learning process.
Here's what's been happening in our neck of the woods:

We woke up to this a little while ago

Lily, reflecting

Blueberries

Tomáš and I love this hip little shirt, courtesy of our friend Eva

And this happened this morning

Maybe the best picture of the year

Smiley eyes

Happy Weekending

  

Hats

The past couple of times I've taken Lily out for a walk, her attire has seemed noticeably out of place. Her thick, ear-flapped hat and fur-lined parka screamed arctic winter when all around us everything sang of spring. Spring is Slovakia's loveliest season without question. It comes early and it comes in strong. In Montana, spring is a tease, and more often than not trickles in, intermingled with still plenty of snow and cold and for the most part, flowers are few and far-between until halfway through the season. (There are freak, global warming exceptions, of course, but I am talking about the Montana of my youth). But in the mildness of this climate, flowers come early and in plenty. And so yesterday we set out in search of a thinner hat. The Tesco bargain rack did not disappoint. The pickins, as they say, were slim, but as it turns out the pickins were just what we needed. I grabbed the first pink hat I saw and probably made an audible sound of disgust when I saw Hannah Montana staring back at me. So I grabbed the only other girly one and although it never would have been my first choice, I decided that Animal was pretty stinkin' cool. And kind of perfect for our little monkey. Plus, it cost one Euro and five cents. And the purple one with the bow was also on clearance, and I think it's clear why I bought that one. As I scrolled through recent photos, I realized that Lily actually wears a lot of headware. She asks to have it put on, which is surprising since most babies don't like hats. She runs to us to have us put it on and then runs to her mirror (her makeup table ; ) to admire herself.

How she spends most of her stroller rides now; arched backwards to look at me

Sky so blue I had to take a picture

Animaaaaaaal!

The Truth

This was a post I wrote back in July and never finished. Today I am finishing it.

Today was a big day for me. I made the decision a little while ago to change pediatricians, and in Slovakia that requires going to the doctor you're leaving and asking them for your baby's records, thus telling them that you're leaving them for a different doctor. I had been trying to play down the magnitude of this exchange for a couple weeks, telling myself it's not that big of a deal, it probably happens all the time, it's normal, Lily's just one of hundreds of patients to her etc. but the truth is it was really eating at me. Tomáš told me to think of it as a joke, just to try and laugh about it, and that helped a little but last night I rolled around in bed for a good long time, not being able to fall asleep. My worries were threefold; first and foremost, it's just unpleasant having to reject someone. Secondly, I'd have to speak Slovak, which is not a big deal, I'm perfectly capable of this, albeit imperfectly, but it might be in front of a room full of waiting patients and moms. But most importantly was my third dilemma, which was should I sugar-coat or should I tell the truth? The truth was that I'd never felt good with this doctor from the beginning. She was a heavy smoker for one thing, which really bothered me, especially when Lily was a newborn. She's older and I felt like her practices were outdated, and I'd heard negative things from a number of people. (You might ask why we chose her in the first place. It was because in Slovakia you have to declare a doctor for your baby before leaving the hospital and I didn't know this, so we just chose the closest one to our flat). Anyway, my intent is not to slander her at all. She was fine to us. But I wanted to talk about my inner struggle. I had a nice little speech prepared in my head, which played repeatedly whether I liked it or not as I thought about the upcoming confrontation. I thought about telling her it was because I wanted to go to a younger doctor whom Lily could go to for a long time, instead of waiting to switch when she retired. And it's not that it was untrue, exactly, but that certainly wasn't the catalyst for my leaving. I must have looked like a bad movie last night, as my inner struggle played out in tosses and turns, scrunched pillows and upward-staring eyes. Something inside of me last night wanted desperately to tell the truth. Just the truth. To just lay it out there and let it be. Uncomfortable and unpleasant. Not in a hurtful way at all, but because it was something I needed to do for myself. To prove that I could. This may sound strange to some, but as I was thinking it through for the hundredth time last night, this sentence went through my head, ''I don't think I've ever not sugar-coated the truth in my entire life.'' 

If there's one thing marriage has done for me, it's sharpened the blurred line between truth and untruth. I come from a long line of sugar-coaters, bless their hearts, and I say that with no ill will because I know their intentions, our intentions, were good. No one ever wanted to hurt anyone's feelings, least of all me, so everything ever said in my family was said very softly, very carefully. I remember one friend laughing at my younger brother for the way he said goodbye to our mom after a day trip. ''You're so polite,'' she mused, ''I'd be like, (slightly raised, sharp voice) 'Mom! Goodbye!''' (Car door slamming). So, don't get me wrong, I'm very thankful for my upbringing. I think it made me introspective, not just of myself, but of others too, if it's possible to be introspective of others. I would use these words to describe our family: perceptive, sensitive, considerate. Now back to that sharpening of the line...I married into a family which can only be described as polar-opposite to mine. I, again, mean no ill will when I say they sugar-coat nothing. I'll admit it's taken me some time to get used to this, but I have come to have a great deal of respect for it. In fact, I would say that one of Tomáš' most admirable qualities is his utter intolerance for untruth. I suppose it was interactions with him and his family that first caused me to really start looking at my temper problem. One time a friend asked me what I thought of some dress or something and I just remember thinking, ''I cannot physically say the words, 'I don't like it.' What is wrong with me?''
  Tomáš and my fights usually go something like this; ''Why are you wearing that?'' ''Because I like it.'' "It's horrible. It looks horrible on you. You shouldn't wear that color.'' ''Boo hoo hoo, sob sob sob.'' ''Well, it's the truth. Can I not tell you the truth?'' And the fight ends there, because who can argue with that question? (I plan to write a whole separate post about what people say and what I hear. Stay tuned...) Same goes for when he tells me that my soup is tasteless or my meat inedible. What I had to finally realize was that these are not personal attacks. And, oh, this was a hard lesson to learn. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, there were times I felt like a kid taken from a rubber room and thrown into a cock fight. Hehe, ok, ok, so that's really overdramatizing it. But I did have to learn how to take some criticism without letting it crush me. Or, I don't know if I would even call it criticism. Negative truth. Is that the same thing? And I suppose that is the first step. Receiving the truth. And of course there is an art of tact. I believe that criticism or negative truth should be delivered carefully and lovingly. But it should be delivered. Fully, without sugar.
I didn't sugar-coat that day in the doctor's office. And let me tell you, it couldn't have been more awkward. Uncomfortable and unpleasant. So there might be hope for me after all.

And to make that medicine go down a little easier, here's a little, well, you know:

Coolest present ever from auntie Rachael came in the mail

Magnetic wooden fruit you cut up with a knife

After the blizzard

Rockin' rendition of the original hit song, Hot Dog : )

Valentine's Day, groan...

When Tomáš realized the following day was Valentine's day, I think he said something like, ''Crap! Does that mean I have to buy flowers and chocolate?'' Well, at least the guy's honest. I'll give him that. And I kind of can't blame him. I'm not a Valentine's day hater, but it's not my favorite holiday. Maybe because I'm just not that big on flowers and boxes of chocolates (disclaimers: I have an insatiable sweet tooth and I do like chocolate and, let's be honest, will eat absolutely anything, provided I get desperate enough, but I feel a little guilty eating fancy schmancy chocolates when cheap cookies would do the trick. And as for flowers, flowers are beautiful and maybe I'm betraying my gender a little by saying so, but they're just not my favorite gift. As far as flowers go, I prefer fresh-cut lilacs or peonies from somebody's garden by far to any kind of store-bought bouquet. That's not to say I haven't enjoyed any and all bouquets I've ever received). As far as gifts go, I prefer something really thoughtful. Even if (and maybe especially so) it's the smallest thing. I know that really thoughtful is no small order, and it doesn't come easily to most people. I grew up believing that it did, because the whole of my family are the best, most thoughtful gift-givers out there and I knew nothing else, and it wasn't until I got older and started comparing notes that I learned that not everyone knows how to give good gifts. (Three such examples all from the same friend who received: a Ken doll as a 16-year-old boy, an oversized M&M coffee mug and a book entitled ''The Bloody Nez Perce Trail.'') But I digress.. Before I got married, I considered myself a very thoughtful gift-giver. Maybe that's because I had time and availability on my side. Or maybe I just had very gracious recipients. Either way, all of that seems to have gone out the window. I don't think I've hit a homerun since I moved to Slovakia. But one reason I do like Valentine's day is trying to do something for T that doesn't involve the usual Valentine's day suspects. This year that turned out to be vanilla pudding parfaits with blood oranges and real whipped cream.  (Which, by the way, I made with one of those immersion blenders. Oh. My. Gosh. It was magic. It was liquid, liquid, liquid and then POOF! It was whipped cream!) 

A couple months ago, our pastor's wife started something called Raňajky pre Mamičky, Breakfast for Mommies. About once a month or so a small group of us get together, have coffee and breakfast and talk about diapers and breastfeeding. Hehe, just kidding. Ok, so there's some of that too. But Linda usually tries to start a discussion or teach something meaningful, which I try to follow as best I can in between saving Bug from pulling down the espresso maker on herself, stealing other mommies' mobile phones or stealing other babies' binkies. Directly from their lips. Below was our Valentine's get-together. And now I have so much more to catch you up on, I'll call this a (very delayed) post. Hope all your V Days were rosy.   

Lily's valentine to daddy

Lily and Matuš 

The next day we woke up to this

Contentment

For about four years now I have been thinking about contentment and what that looks like and what that costs us and how we can achieve it, and I've come to the conclusion that I'm not very darn good at it. I guess the first rule of contentment is ix-naying all comparison between what you have and what you wish you had. This is very tricky. Very tricky indeed. For some people it's a matter of being happy with what you have, instead of longing for what you have never had. Maybe you dream of living in a warm climate, or being a world-class weight-lifter (two hyphens!) or, let's face it, being rich. But for some people, it's a matter of not comparing what they currently have with what they used to have. This is more the camp I find myself in. Both, I suppose, are wishing for what is not, instead of appreciating what is. I find this a very slippery slope to try and exist on. Sometimes I wonder if it's even possible. I wonder if we don't need to kind of sever our past sometimes to be able to fully live in our present. Maybe this sounds elementary, but bear with me as I hash this out on paper, wink. I have a somewhat unique circumstance in that I am married to a foreigner..a non-American. (Hehe, that makes me laugh, as if everything that's not American is foreign). Simply, I live on a different continent than the one I grew up on with a man who grew up on a different continent than I did. Unlike some of my friends and family, I always loved my hometown. Somehow I always knew I would leave, but it was not something I looked forward to. What I mean is, there was expectancy or excitement about what lay ahead, but I was never like, ''I can't wait to get out of here.'' Almost my whole entire family lives in Missoula, Montana, so that certainly plays a huge role in the missing and the longing I regularly feel. But there's also the town itself. The rivers, the cafes, the dives, the trails, the churches. The autumns, the endless summer nights, the quirky shops, the community. I remember talking once to a very wise Polish transplant and she told me something like this, ''Your new home will never be your old home. The sooner you get rid of this idea, the better your life will be.'' And I really needed to hear that, and I really took the advice to heart, but I don't really know how to go about doing that. Before I go on, let me just clarify one thing; my life in Slovakia is wonderful. I have so many things here that I never had back home. It goes without saying that I have a first-class husband and the best baby anyone could ever ask for, but I also have the givingest, helpingest mother-in-law this world has ever seen. I have a full range of organic fruits and vegetables (fresh and canned) brought to my front door a minimum of twice a week for free. I have three grocery stores, the furthest of which is five minute's walk from our flat. I have a greater feeling of safety as I walk the streets (and I felt pretty safe in Missoula). I have a skill which is in high demand, affording me work basically at all times, anywhere I go. I have this walk five minutes from my front door, (the front door of which belongs to a beautiful flat, which we are well on our way to owning outright). I could go on. 

(Whew, after writing all that I almost feel silly continuing with what I was about to say). Nevertheless, my friend was right. My new home is not my old home. My new friends are not my old friends. They can be good, but they will never be the same. Tomáš will never wander around Tesco with me just to see what's there. He will never share my insatiable drive for thrifting and refurbishing old furniture. I will probably never again take a 3 a.m. summer bike ride. I'll never have another yard sale, go Christmas caroling or take Lily trick-or-treating. No one may ever laugh at my pop-culture references or word-nerd jokes. But! (And it's a big but : ) If I can learn to remember those times, treasure them, but not cling to them, to realize that without change I would not have the apples of my eye that I have now, maybe I can learn true contentment. I recently re-read this blog post, and I was so thankful I had written it because it contained a truth I had wanted to remember. I was up at a retreat in Glacier National Park and was hiking to the breathtaking Avalanche Lake, all the while wondering what everyone else was doing, what I was missing out on. Meanwhile one of my dearest friends was running up and down the trail exclaiming, ''oh sweet moss!'' every time he saw a lot of it on a tree or a rock, because he loved and was fascinated by it. I realized that he had such childlike joy, and mine was being stolen through the cancer of comparison. I was in one of the most beautiful places on this earth and all I could think of was everything else. Everyone else. So, how can I learn true contentment? Try to be present in all I do. (I hate this buzzword, but it's true). Focus on what I do have. Whom I do have. Talk about it, think about it, write about it. I can see that it's helping already. So, here are a few things that have me content lately:   

Diaper heads

                                                              

Self-readers

Babies in parkas

Befores

and afters

New book shelves

being put to use

Immunizations with no crying

Heart-shaped potatoes

Tights on heads

Friends' visits

Creamy red bean soup

And these two