A quiet, yet busy, week

This week hasn't been anything out of the ordinary, we've been busy with work and Lara, and Lucy popped over on Tuesday evening for a couple of nights, but other than that, it's been quite run of the mill.

Having said that, Olga did take Lara to the GP on Wednesday afternoon, after what seemed like a rash appeared on one of her legs. At first we feared it might be chicken pox, there's an "alert" abot it at the nursery, where they've had some cases recently in the older kids' room. Then we thought it might be a reaction to the MMR jab she had 5 weeks ago, it's not uncommon for rashes to appear associated with this, and it was in the area of her injections. In the end the GP felt it was "just one of those things" and nothing to worry about, and indeed it had cleared up on its own by Thursday morning.
She's still decided against walking, although there is more standing and wobbling going on, but when it comes to getting around, cruising on her knees is the preferred method. Everything in good time, we feel, there's no rush.

It's been a good week for news, not least that Lucy's visit gave us a chance to celebrate her engagement to Sergei! Does he know what he's letting himself in for, marrying a Medvedeva!!!?

Oh, and Olga is well on her way to becoming a fully fledged British woman, having passed her citizenship test with flying colours last Friday. She had to revise for literally 2 hours, but then again I suppose she's been revising on and off for the past 6 or 7 years. For the purposes of this blog I did google "typical British woman" and the first image returned was:

That was off a Polish forum website though....

Then there was this image (helpfully the image was called "fat-birds-drunk.jpg"):

So far, not so encouraging (and not so representative, of course!!) .. but there was one last photo which crept in, although it was representing "typical Canadian women":

I suppose it's one way to keep warm in winter.

Mother's Day - extra

Talking of Mother's Day, a quick mention must go to Becca, who gave birth to Tess Heather Chapman Lawrence this morning. Tess clearly wanted to wait until the right day to give her mum a special present, and made her appearance at 00.01 this morning!
6lbs 13oz and everyone's well (that's 3.09kg, Luda!). Still on for the Reading Beer Festival in 5 weeks, Anton!!?
Here's Tess...

Mother's Day

I would love to take the credit for Lara's card to her mum, but it was all the nursery's work. I know she likes having her photo taken, but she saved an extra-special nice smile for this photo that one of the nursery staff took.
We didn't make a big deal of today, we've been too busy this weekend trying to finish some jobs in the garden (we moved the summerhouse 3 feet to the left today. No, honest, we did!) - we are still amazed at how little you get done when there's a kiddy to look after! I was up at 6.30 with her this morning and it was still 11am before we made up to the decking to start work! It'll all be worth it when we have a lovely place to sit on a summer's evening, Lara playing for a while before bed, then us relaxing with a glass of wine, listening to the snoring coming from the baby monitor. Just like her mother... (joking!!)
Happy Mother's Day to my Mum and to Luda!

Power Nap needed after exercising

Lara had a busy day shopping with her mum yesterday. When I got home Olga reported that Lara had achieved four steps without support, but those steps much have taken it out of her, as when we finally got round to serving dinner (slightly later than usual, around 7.30), the poor girl conked out in the high chair!!

I hadn't helped by playing with Lara after I got home, trying to coax her into walking for me, but it seems she had performed for mum, but dad would have to wait.
This is encouraging in a way though, as only yesterday I was wondering if we might be able to get her to sleep on an aeroplane if we ever made a flight longer than the three hours to St Petersburg. It was easier to get her to sleep on the way home from Ekaterinburg last summer (5 hour flight), all it needed was for Olga to feed her and the lights went out. I was concerned that Lara might not fancy sleeping in a strange place or position these days, but she went and proved me wrong!

Back from holiday - time to plan for the next one!

Lara didn't have any complaints today when we dropped her back at nursery - she was happier than Mum and Dad about going back to the normal routine! This is the closest we're getting to walking, one-handed-support on the sofa, sporting her baseball cap which actually fits her now. We had a nice lazt day yesterday, conditions were perfect for working in the garden, so instead we went to the pet shop and bought Mishka a new bed, then I took Lara round Asda while Olga gave Mishka a good grooming, then it was beers in the back garden for the first time this year - mowing the lawn and trimming the conifers can wait until next weekend.

Around that we need to prepare for the next holiday - looming on the horizon already! We'll be off to St Petersburg on April 19th for 8 days. Olga's mum has sorted out the hotel, by booking us all on a tour which includes accomodation and daily excursions. I need to brush up on my Russian, at least so I understand "From the left side of the coach you can see the Hermitage.." etc..
I'm wondering if Lara will suffer with jetlag (or more to the point, we will suffer from Lara's jetlag!). It will be interesting to see if she gets tired at the same time there as here, which means putting her to bed by 8pm local time. I think she will, as she doesn't know what time it is, she only knows how long it's been since her last sleep.
It's only a three hour flight, we'll be going during the day, so we'll just keep her awake as much as possible with maybe just one nap (hopefully during the flight!) then she'll be ready for bed at 8pm local time. Whatever happens, it'll be an adventure! She'll be travelling on her Russian passport, so I'll be the lone Johnny Foreigner.