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August 29, 2003
***Pregnancy***
My first thoughts upon waking up Monday morning were to whine and complain that nature just isn't fair. I mean, after the pregnancy with Anna, I DESERVE a fun and easy pregnancy this time around. Not only was my last pregnancy spent lying on my left side 7 months, getting painful progesterone shots in the bum every day for 20 weeks and having more scary medical conditions than you will be told about in the scariest of all pregnancy books "What to Expect when you are Expecting", I had 24-hour a day morning sickness until week 30 or so. So when I woke up this Monday morning with my stomach in my throat, and the feeling I was taking a rubber dinghy ride in the Pacific Ocean, I was bummed. I have only become more and more bummed as the week has progressed. At least in Russian, it's not called "morning" sickness. Nope, Russians are certainly not optimists, and will tell it like it is: "toxikoz", which I will loosely translate as "pregnancy poisoning" and is WAY more close to what I am experiencing than "morning" sickness. I feel sick any time I don't eat for more than 2 hours, any time I eat any portion bigger than I would feed Barsik the cat, any time I even think about sugary food, and regardless of what I do in the morning (until 11 a.m.) and evening (after 9 p.m.) The only food that is even remotely appetizing are potato chips (which I very rarely eat in "real life"), blini (Russian crepes) and Starburst hard candies (the lemon ones).
But why don't I just stop whining now. When I think about all the women and men who are trying without success to have a baby, I feel stupid to complain about another 30 week long barf-o-thon. I'm the LUCKY one!!
***Nicknames***
For all of you who have ever battled your way through "War and Peace", the whole weird world of Russian names might be slightly familiar to you. I'm not going to give a language/culture lesson on how Russian names are formed, but just to list my kid's nicknames so you'll know who I'm talking about in this and future diary entries:
Andrei -) Andryusha (Andryushek, Andryushkin)
Anna -) Anya -) Nyusik (or Nyus, Nyusyok, Nyusyonok)
***Weather***
So, you know that we live way up here on the 60th parallel of latitude North. Did you know that we had only three weeks of summer? Did you know that last fall it was so cold the leaves froze right onto the trees instead of falling off, that this spring the snow only melted in May and that right now at 2 p.m. it's just 50 degrees? We have to give the kids Vitamin D and this year they will probably get UV therapy (all the kids in pre-school get naked down to their undies, put on special glasses, and stand around a sunlamp). I remember reading somewhere that it was the coldest summer since 18** and we had 200% more rain than usual.
No polar bears, though.
***Heat***
This kind of corresponds to the above topic of weather. Here in St. Petersburg, the heating is centralized. That means that in individual apartments/buildings/institutions, there is no control over when the heat goes on and temperature regulation. Heat is turned on for the entire city at the same time, this being when the average outside temperature has been lower than 8 degrees Celcius (46 F) for a week straight (though don't quote me, maybe it's 0 C/32 F). So right now it's about 55 degrees in our apartment. The kids go to bed wearing pyjamas, blanket sleepers, wool sweaters, and wool socks. They still wake up with cold hands and feet. We have a space heater, but I'm afraid to leave it on in the kid's room overnight.
***Andrei and Anna***
Two weeks ago we FINALLY moved Anna and Andrei into the same room. Anna only began sleeping through the night in June (if you've got one of those babies who wakes up 10 times a night, talk to me, I won't make you feel bad!), so earlier it just hadn't been possible. They LOVE being in the same room, and stay up to all hours of the evening (well, until about 9 o'clock or so) talking, jumping on their beds, whatever. And it's nice for us to have our bedroom back ... at least for another 7 months or so.
Talk to me! Tell me what time your kids go to bed. We have an 8 o'clock bedtime in our family, and I am CONSTANTLY getting rude comments from friends and acquaintances about how really really weird that is. Most kids here are up until 11 p.m. and 10 - 11 is pretty much the norm.
Warm regards,
Lisa
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