more nibbles

more video from Zora's first meal!

Solids!

Well, we took the plunge and started Zora on solid foods yesterday. She took to them surprisingly well. She was so thrilled I think she had been waiting for the opportunity to eat something other than milk.

A walk in the past

For my hubby's Jubilee birthday we took a trip back to his old stomping ground to see what the past had left. So we packed our bags, baby and camera and took off to the Ukraine to see what there was to be seen. As this was our first trip with a baby we decided not to be too ambitious and we only went to Kiev and Odessa. Unfortunately from Baku there are only local airlines going to other post-soviet spaces so we had to fly Azall to Kiev. Despite my misgivings, Azall wasn't too bad. The flight was reasonably on time, reasonably clean, the food was tolerable, and the staff was not openly hostile (which is more than I can say for a lot of US flights).
Kiev was much better than I expected it to be. I think I was expecting a larger Baku, meaning more depressing, square, soviet style buildings. I guess I forgot that Kiev had hundreds of years of history before the USSR and despite the general oppressiveness of the communists, they did not destroy everything that was there before. So what that means is that Kiev had a lot of really pretty European style buildings along it's main street, and beautiful wide tree lined roads. Commerce is definitely alive and well in Kiev as there are many shops and restaurants to choose from. One popular eating establishment, Mr. Snack a place that serves sandwiches and beer, was literally on every corner (if it had been Manhattan it would have rivaled the prevalence of Starbucks).
Weirdly enough, in Kiev as in Baku, people do not just get married on Saturdays. Apparently it's common to have a wedding any day of the week. So while we were there, and visiting some of the famous churches of Kiev, we were surrounded by brides and grooms taking their, apparently, standard wedding shots. We stopped to have water and give Zora a rest before going into St. Sophia and I think I counted 15 brides coming through to have their pictures taken in front of the old church.
After Kiev we flew to Odessa on a local Ukrainian airline. Now this flight was not so pleasant. In order to board the flight, you had to take a shuttle out to the tarmac. We arrived at the plane, but the cleaning crew was apparently not finished, so the bus is unloaded, and all of the passengers, flight attendants, and pilots were standing out on the tarmac in front of the stairs to the plane in the cold rain and wind. It was actually pretty amusing because the other passengers were getting really mad at the crew because another woman and I were standing around with our babies in the cold. I felt very special.
Anyway, Odessa is a very beautiful little town. Odessa and Baku are very similar to each other, they are about the same size, they are both on the sea, and they were both part of the Soviet Union. But the way they have used their post soviet space is very different. It looked to me like Odessa really saw that they had a pretty town and worked hard to make it prettier. All around town you could see the money people were putting into renovating. Parks were replanted, fountains refurbished, buildings repainted, etc. The walking street, was actually a walking street with restaurants lining the sidewalks and brightly lit shops. I think the street was shorter than the walking street in Baku, but it was much more pleasant to walk down. The seashore also looked very nice but it was unseasonably cold for the five days we were there and we could not spend my promised days at the beach.
All in all, it was a very nice trip and I'm glad to have gotten the chance to visit the old stomping ground of my hubby.

Rocky

Honey has a house guest this week. Or maybe I should say we are forcing Honey to entertain a house guest this week. A friend of ours is out of town and we agreed to dog sit. I have never appreciated Honey more than I have this week. It's not that Rocky is a bad dog. I think Rocky is a very good dog, but he is not nearly as eager to please as Honey is. Honey picks up new concepts in a matter of days. Rocky... well he just doesn't care. Not only that, but I had forgotten how annoying it is to have a male dog. When I walk with Honey we just walk, we don't need to stop every two seconds so she can mark some tree, bush, or weed. Just walking. It's so nice. I don't think I ever want another male dog.
It's funny to watch the two of them interact though. I can't figure out Honey's deal. I honestly don't know that much about dog to dog body language, but as far as I can tell Honey is not submitting to Rocky, yet it looks like she's getting her butt kicked. Rocky occasionally will get annoyed at Honey's constant attention and will snap at her, Honey doesn't back down, or back away, but she also doesn't fight back. I wonder if she's concerned she's going to get into trouble, or if she just doesn't care what Rocky is doing. Either way, they both recognize me as Alpha dog. Anytime they've been up to no good and I come into the room they both stop whatever they were doing and look at me with the "I'm a good dog, see!" expression on their faces. I wonder if I'm going to have the same Alpha dog tendencies toward Zora. Or if she's just going to run all over me.

Antisocial

I don't know why I'm so antisocial. Vlad can go out and talk to almost anybody at almost anytime. Me, I have to work up to it. Like right now. Our maid is here, and I want to go out and get breakfast, but then I'd have to talk to her and deal with whatever mood she's in, and I just can't face the thought. You would have thought I would have gotten used to her by now, she's been here for a year. But no. And if I talk to her, I feel better about her being here, but the thought of talking to her. Today it's just too much.

Summer's End

I think the summer in Azerbaijan is broken. Somehow written it doesn't carry the same meaning as when it's said out loud. But I think that the hottest part of the summer has passed. I don't know why I think that. There's just something different in the air. That makes me think that fall is on it's way. I think maybe the wind has shifted. So that instead of the hot furnace breeze, there is now a cool, refreshing breeze. Granted it's still hot, just not as hot.

roll over, roll over

 

Addicted!

I have decided that I am seriously addicted to sugar. At first it was ok, I figured that after my 8 or so months of enforced no sugar (due to pregnancy hormones making all sweets taste like I was licking a hand rail in the subway) I thought I would splurge and indulge my sugar cravings for awhile. I thought that I would slowly taper myself off the sugar, and no one would be harmed by a few months of sugar highs. Apparently, though, sugar is a habit forming substance. We are almost at the five month mark of my sugar indulgence and I see no signs of the cravings letting up. I'm still baking almost once a week, and drinking juice like a mad woman. This is, no doubt, not helping my goal to be back to pre-pregnancy weight or better by my brother's wedding, so I think I'm going to have to take drastic measures. Hopefully, I will not have to go the way of Vlad and start eating salads every day for dinner. That would be truly depressing indeed.

Roll Over!

Wee Babe rolled over today. It was a little anticlimactic. I think because she has been tipping over side to side since she was born, I was pretty sure it was pure laziness that was keeping her from rolling all the way over, and yes, I think it was. She rolled over today like she had been doing it for months. Her arm was a little stuck under her, but that didn't seem to matter. She just popped it out from under her, no prob! Of course, she might have been waiting until she was sure she had perfected the skill so that when she did roll over it looked all perfect. Crap! This means I can't just leave her on the bed anymore. *SIGH* so it begins.

The Horror!

I have gotten old! I just realized today for the first time in several months that I do not have a copy of the original (or new) Star Wars movies! This is unthinkable! How has it come to be that the only copies I have are on VHS and our VHS player has died??? How am I going to watch the Star Wars movies? I feel that I should go to Amazon right now and buy all 6 movies right now, but I am stubbornly waiting the special 6 disc editions to end all editions! Oh wait, that is how I came to be without the movies. I am waiting, perhaps foolishly, for the entire thing to come out in one grossly expensive set. What do you call a six part movie? sexology? No that somehow sounds dirty and wrong... Hold on while I look it up. Surprisingly it's hard to find out what a 6 part movie is. But I have persevered it is a hexology. Hmm I was close I just had one letter wrong, I should have remembered that a six sided figure was not a sexagon, but a hexagon. Silly me.
Anyway, I am still foolishly waiting. But I don't know if I can last until the 6 disc set comes out. Will I be able to afford the six disc set? Ah no matter, it will have to be bought. (Ooh I apologize to the grammar police, but it is late)

Remiss

Looking over my last several posts I just realized that I have not written anything about Baku in awhile.
Summer is finally here, and there are a lot more people out on the street than when I first arrived. I now see women on a regular basis, even during the middle of the day or in the evening. Although maybe it's just that I've taken to wandering in places where women are more like to be, I don't know. But I should not have worried about my American summer wear. I am far more modest than most women here, even in this conservative culture. Whenever we go down to the boardwalk I feel that I should have added more hooch to my wardrobe. Maybe bared a little more skin, or added high heels to the jeans... something. I think it's a little odd that despite the fact that women are not allowed to walk around by themselves, it's perfectly ok for them to walk around in outfits that would put hookers to shame, ok, I think I'm being a little overly dramatic. They are actually usually tastefully, if not scantily dressed. But it still doesn't make any sense to me. But apparently, if you are with someone else what you are wearing doesn't make a difference.
Speaking of clothing. We went to the beach on Wednesday, which was fun, and pleasant, although not as clean as I would have liked (cigarette butts everywhere!). And I realized that I should have worn my bikini. Apparently, women at the beach, even the expensive ones, are not starved and exercised into unnatural thinness here. 200lbs? Want to wear a bikini? Go right on ahead! 50? Middle aged spread? Go ahead and put on that thong! Needless to say I was feeling pretty good about my post-pregnancy body by the time we went home. I didn't even mind Vlad snapping a few photos. After all, no-body's perfect right?

unexpected

I have grown to really like breastfeeding. I didn’t think I would; you’re constantly damp, it can be very inconvenient, and you constantly have something sucking at your chest. But, it feels right. I can’t think of any other way of explaining it. With all that’s wrong in the world, putting a baby on your breast just feels somehow right, like this is what I was meant to do. It’s a very subtle feeling though, I just started noticing it. Before I was too busy, I’d sit down to feed the baby, but my mind was elsewhere, I wanted to get up, to go here, to go there, breastfeeding was more like a stone dragging me down. Now I just sit. I know she’s going to eat, and I know how long it takes, and there’s nothing else I can do, so I sit, and I realized how nice it is. I know its hormones. Breastfeeding releases tons of hormones into your body to make you want to do it, and to feel good doing it. I understand that, I welcome it. I love my baby more knowing it. I have to say I was very ambivalent about this whole baby business, and I think that breastfeeding her has really helped move me from, yeah this is my baby to I love my baby. How can you not love someone who, by the simple act of feeding, helps you to relax and feel like you are doing something amazing. It also helps that she is now able to express some of her appreciation of my boobs. In the morning when she sees them she starts kicking her legs and waving her arms with this huge grin on her face like they are the best things in the world. Not even the boyfriends that I had as a teenager loved my boobs like she does. When she’s hungry she also will try to curl around my boobs, or grab them with both her hands and her feet and then tuck her head in so that her whole body is wrapped around me and my milk giving nipples. Then, while she eats, she will caress the boob that she’s eating from with her free hand, and I can almost hear her thinking, “my precious.”
Breastfeeding also comes with a great sense of accomplishment. Since she was born, my baby has almost doubled in size, and the only thing she eats is what I make for her. I can look at my growing, thriving baby and say, I did that, she is living and growing because I am making enough for her to grow on. I never thought I would say it, but I think I will be sad when she gets close to six months and we start feeding her solids. And then, when I wean her, how will I get my relaxing hormones? They should bottle the hormones and sell them, they are great! I can be pissed off, super mad, want to yell and scream at the world, but then I breastfeed and all is well. Sometimes at night when I can’t sleep I want to wake up the baby so that she can eat and relax me (I don’t, of course, I’m not as crazy as I look).

Some people should know better

So Zora had a rash earlier this week and we were supposed to host baby group so I decided to take her into the Embassy nurse to have the rash looked at. I wasn't actually worried about it, but it had spread a little, and there were other babies coming so I figured better to be safe than sorry. We went in, everything looked fine, nothing to worry about, etc. etc. But as we were leaving and she's looking at our chart, she says to me, "interestingly enough Measles starts off as a rash that starts around the hairline, then spreads down the back and stomach, but everything is fine, nothing to worry about." And I think she also mentioned that as a baby Zora does not yet have her measles immunization so I shouldn't leave her with anyone who has a rash.
Now, why on earth would you tell a first time mom this? I have decided not to worry about it because really her rash was already getting better by the time I took her in, and it's pretty much gone today, but if I was someone else, this could have thrown me into a panic. Or at least freaked me out a little. She really should know better.

The Finger

Driving here is terrible. I personally don't think it's as bad as driving in China, fewer people for one thing, but Vlad disagrees. The trouble here is that most people know how to drive, they just don't think road rules apply to them. You still have the expensive car effect (if you drive an expensive car, the cops won't pull you over, and you can do whatever stupid moves you want, because you are Somebody) but there are more expensive cars, and everyone else has Ladas which will drive through almost anything. Combine those two things and you have chaos as the general road rule. On any given day you can look out our window (it overlooks a fairly busy traffic circle) and see people driving backwards, driving the wrong way down the street, or, most common, using the far left lane to make a sharp right. Since I've come back to Baku with the baby I've started driving in this mess. Which is not as bad as it sounds, the way I cope is that I don't use side or rear view mirrors at all. If I am in front of you, I expect you to watch out for me, if you are in front of me, I will watch out for you. I think this is generally how people drive here. I still check blind spots (bad habit I can't seem to break) and I still wait for a clear space before barreling out into traffic, but for the most part I get along ok.
I have recently discovered, however, that people here do not know what the middle finger means. This has been VERY liberating for me. I thought that American movies had spread this offensive piece of sign language all over the world, and that if I gave people the finger it would cause nasty confrontations that would not be wise with a child in the back of the car. BUT NO! I can use the finger at will, which is great because I generally find the use of the horn to be annoying, people here over use it. They blow their horns at the slightest provocation and I mean slightest! So as I drive around now I liberally use my finger, and I don't have to worry. It's great because I feel better, even though I know that it doesn't mean anything to them, it relieves some of the impotence that you feel when you are the only one trying to obey traffic rules, and I just like it. I've been thinking about following one of my Aunt's examples and growing out the nail to my middle finger really long so it makes more of a statement......

Getting Bigger

Ah... my baby is growing up. Friday night we moved her to her crib and out of our room. It's weird that I'm sad about this, I never really wanted her in our room to begin with, but Vlad thought it would be a good idea. And to tell the truth, she seems to be sleeping better on her own, although it has only been two nights (I think I was secretly hoping she would scream the whole night so we would move her back into our room). It was only a week or two sooner than I had set to move her anyway. She was going to move out at four months, but we took her to see the nurse for a check up and she was 15.25 pounds! She had already outgrown her bassinet! So, out she went. There is freedom, though to having a baby move out of your room. I can read in bed again, I can look for something in our room after Zora has gone to sleep, and I can turn over at night without fear of waking her up. On the whole it's a good change, it's just a mixed feeling seeing her grow.

sunrise

I have always thought that nothing good ever comes with watching a sunrise. If you are seeing the sunrise (in normal places, not Alaska) it either means that you are up WAY too early, or you have stayed up way too late. In my day, I have seen sunrises on both ends of the spectrum. Riding back to my apartment on the subway in Tokyo watching the sun rise through bleary club darkened eyes is no good. And waking up to go to work (or even to take some plane) is no good either. In either situations the supposed beauty of the sunrise is lost to me.
As I was feeding my daughter this morning in the pre-sunrise dark of the morning I thought about my sunrise aversion. If I liked watching sunrises waking up at five to feed her would have some benefit. But, no, I don't like sunrises, and as the sun began to rise, I was even less happy to be awake (if that's possible). We're definitely going to have to have that talk.....

what the F@#%!

I admit it I am a BIG FAT WUSS when it come to my sleep. I don't like it being interrupted, not at all. And I have to say one of the biggest, most concrete, thing I worried about during pregnancy was the lack of sleep that the newborn would bring. And I have to say Zora was actually pretty good about it. Almost from the beginning the child was sleeping at night for long stretches of time. At first I was waking her up in the middle of the night to feed her because the doctor at the hospital was worried that she had lost too much weight. BUT, after a week or two (it might have been as many as four) she looked like she was thriving and I stopped waking her at night (at four weeks she had gained 3lbs from her birth weight) to feed. And she started sleeping five to six hours at a time. Then we moved to Baku and she was jet lagged, and the sleep issues were severe (she would sleep for almost 24 hours, then be awake for almost 24 hours). But I persisted and she found her schedule and started sleeping completely through the night, not the wimpy "medical" definition of sleeping through the night. You know, the one where if the baby sleeps from 12 to 5 it's considered sleeping through the night. No, she was sleeping a full 10 hours, from 9pm to 6am, on her own, no special coaxing once you put her down at night.
But then, suddenly, she snatched it all away. I blame myself, we bragged to other new parents that she was sleeping through the night, and for the last week or two she has started randomly waking up two or three times a night. What's worse is, she's not hungry. She will go right on back to sleep without eating, she is just UP! Vlad wants me to feed her so she'll go right on back to sleep. He doesn't seem to see this for what it is.... A TRAP! If we get into the middle of the night feeding routine, she will only want to keep doing it. We must resist! We will prevail!
Maybe I need to have a heart to heart with Zora like I had with the dog.... (When she was a puppy, the dog almost got choked out one night, and after that she realized that she really didn't need to get up to go out at night)

responsible adults

MAN! I hate being all grown up! It was bad enough when I was eighteen and people were entrusting their kids in my care, saying as long as you take an adult with you... but now I'm actually responsible for other people! ACK! This past year has been very bad for my adult responsibilities creeping up on me. First the dog now the baby! It's not that I want these decisions made for me. It's my dog, and my baby. I just don't know how you are supposed to decide. Especially when both decisions are bad, or have negatives.... but then I guess all decisions have positives and negatives. If only one of the possibilities had negatives, then I guess it would be easy. I keep thinking about that Peter Pan song. "I won't grow up, I don't wanna wear a tie, or a serious expression in the middle of July!" I want to know how this happened. How did I get to be the grown up and the responsible party?

Domestic Help

Having a maid is not as easy as you would think. First of all you have someone else in your house a lot touching your stuff, which is not so bad as it sounds at first, but then you have to find her (I use her because most domestic help is female) something to do on a regular basis, AND often times she puts stuff away and you have to spend time searching for things that she has neatly put away somewhere.
I think part of my main problem is that I almost feel like this person is doing me a favor by cleaning my house (even though I'm paying her) so I don't want to be evil and nitpicky because she's doing things so I don't have to. So even when she's doing things, like picking up after me, and putting my stuff away (for some reason this drives me NUTS!) I don't want to tell her to stop because technically it is her job, and I don't want her to think that I'm mean. I should just grow a pair and have her do stuff because I AM paying her. I think the other problem that I have is I don't know what I want done. My husband definitely has ideas of what he wanted done, but other than vacuuming, dusting, and washing the clothes.... I don't know. Maybe I should find one of those online guides to managing a household staff.

new body

One of the cool things about motherhood is watching Zora try out her new body. It is like watching someone with a new car or some other new electronic device. Every week she finds a new feature and starts figuring out how it works. Last week she discovered that her feet were in her control. She was using them before, but I don't think she knew that she was doing it. But last week, she would stare at her feet and then move them in circles trying to figure out how she did certain things. I think she also discovered what creates certain sensations because she all of a sudden really likes rubbing her feet together. This week she learned how to grab things. The learning process on that was very interesting because I think she figured out how to line up her hand to where she was looking before she figured out how to open and close her hands at will. So she was constantly punching things with her fists, and then all of a sudden she started grabbing at things. She would reach for, and end up with stuff in her hands before but I'm not entirely sure that it was on purpose. But you can see her thinking about things. "Now if I move my hand this way, and then open the fingers, and reach, and close, HA! GOT IT!"