Playing, Cooking, and Being Cute!

I've had lots to report on recently, so I will be updating our blogs frequently until I can tell you all about how our last few weeks have been. My culture shock story is still coming, along with a special announcement about our situation in Moscow, which most of you already know. That will probably be posted on Dougle's blog. The address for that is on the right hand side of this blog.

Back to Canaan.

• Canaan likes to play in the kitchen. He loves rummaging through all my drawers and using what I use to cook with! I posted a similar picture a few months ago, but thought I'd post another because he is just too cute.
• One picture is of his tricycle. He hasn't quite understood that it is used best when ridden. Right now, he likes to push it!
• Can you also see the milk picture? He is drinking milk from his sippy cup and it is running down his chin. What a cute little grin!Oh, we have finally given up the bottle, now onto the pacifier!

PLAYGROUND JOYS AND WOES

Now that it is sunny and warm, we have been enjoying playing outside even more (or at least I have been enjoying it more)! Actually, the pictures I have are of a cold few days in the middle of our warmer weather. It was about 36 degrees; that is why Canaan was wearing a coat. Anyway, he has been loving playgrounds lately, which he loving calls "stairs" (we think this is because of the slides with stairs). In our courtyard, there is a playground with a tunnel in it. Canaan has recently become interested in the tunnel and has learned that crawling through it is pretty fun. There are a few holes in it (one that is about the size of a saucer (as in cup and saucer) and some other small holes that look like they've been made from cigarette burns. But, that doesn't seem to bother him. He likes the slides, and of course the stairs you have to climb to get to the tunnel and slide. He has also been playing on the see-saw and swing (he sits on my lap in the swing). He is also noticing more what is going on around him, so part of our playground experiences include people and car watching. It is fun.

One thing that is interesting to Dougle and I is the fact that the culture here is very child centered, but the play ground areas don't seem very safe. There are LOTS of playgrounds everywhere, most of which are metal or wood play sets, but a few are plastic. However, there is broken glass (from what looks like beer bottles) scattered all over some of them. Since Canaan isn't always the most coordinated yet, we are always concerned he will fall on a piece of the glass. We try to stay away from those whose grounds are swept up very well. But, in many, there are also manholes in very conspicuous places. Canaan fell head first onto one of these when he tripped over it in the playground. (They do paint all their manholes- the ones near our house are bright green- maybe so you will see them better and not trip over them?!) And, there are broken and random slabs of concrete in one of the playgrounds (the one with the plastic play-set), hidden below the dirt. If you aren't careful, you'll trip over them. So, that is just a bit frustrating at time to us. Of course, none of it seems to bother Canaan, and none of it keeps all the parents and grandparents from taking their little ones to play on them!