Bearshorty's musings

It continues to be very hot. No end to the heat wave in sight. I was planning to go to Central Park yesterday with Marianna and her family and Janna and her family, just to have a relaxing park day. I planned this a month ago. But by Wednesday, looking at the weekend forecast, I knew that was not going to happen. We still went to hang out with Marianna's family in her home in Queens (It was a bit far for Janna), so we got to socialize but I really wanted that park day. Ah, well. Maybe we can try in August. Lately, Tanya and I have been going to the playground in the mornings and going home by 10am and just staying home in the afternoons because of the heat.

Today was a good day, a nice weekend day. Tanya didn't have a nap yesterday since she doesn't nap in the car much anymore and we drove to Marianna's in the afternoon. She fell asleep on the way back though, a little earlier than her usual bedtime. I thought she would sleep in this morning, but no, she got up at her usual 6:40am and drank lots of water (our bedroom gets hot, since air conditioner is a little too noisy for her at night.) After I made her breakfast, she and Bear went to watch "Masha and the Bear" cartoon on our TV, and I started making her soup for lunch (I make it every four days). By 8, I got all her stuff together, including her bathing suit, since the playground has a fun sprinkler, and send them outside to beat the heat. My parents showed up as they were leaving, dropped off their stuff and took Tanya to the playground themselves. Bear came back and worked on his AV stuff while I had a good productive morning. I made the soup (with grinder and the blender), worked out for 20 minutes on the exercise bike while reading my book, made two scrambled eggs for breakfast which I ate with the banana bread I made a few days ago to take to Marianna (she gave me half back), drank my tea, washed all the dishes and then started on the little owls cross stitch that I'm making for Marianna for the new upcoming baby, due in October. All this before 10:40am when Tanya and my parents came back.

My parents stayed until 12, since Mama likes to feed her while they watch "Hedgehog in the Fog" cartoon and my Dad read to her after. I just read a bit of Neil Gaiman as I got a break. Bear went grocery shopping. We are leaving on Wednesday to my parents' house since Bear has his rare summer course at work and will be away next weekend, so the shopping was a little small. Still, I needed my bread. After he got back and I made and ate my turkey sandwich and a peach, it was naptime. I usually stay next to her during nap, read or nap myself. She naps longer with me around. I don't really have to stay anymore, but it is habit. And I find it pretty nice and relaxing. She napped almost three hours today, I think to compensate for no nap yesterday. She usually naps two hours. I read more "Master and Margarita" - which got a bit bizarre weird with flying witches (still interesting though, just weird), and a little more "Hothouse" - second half of the book is less interesting than the first so it is going slower. Went online. I ended up waking her up at 3:30 so she would sleep at night. She complained and was a little clingy. We went to have her snack of cottage cheese and fruit and she wanted to watch "Karlson who lives on the roof" which is her favorite cartoon at the moment. She's obsessed. We've been watching it non-stop. (She watches cartoon with meals. She doesn't eat much otherwise.) At least today she only wanted to watch it once and not three times with all meals.

After she ate, I took a little walk. It was hot (91F) today but not humid so it was manageable. I wanted to go to Rite Aid to pick up toothpaste (Crest) and shampoo (Pantene Smooth and Slick 2 in 1) and also a big plastic folder portfolio to sort and organize the board application documents for the co-op we want to buy. The mortgage should come in soon so I need to finish gathering all documents. The whole process is just so annoying. So much paperwork. It seems endless. When I got back, I organized it, which looks so much nicer than regular folder I was using. Then I went to make more banana bread since we had three dying bananas and I didn't want to waste them. Plus I gave my parents the rest of the old one. Bear and Tanya were Skying with his parents in the meantime. I also ended up finally cleaning and washing out the cutlery drawer - I wanted to do that for ages.

I didn't have to cook dinner today - we had shepherd's pie leftovers from Friday. So I just gave Tanya her cutlet, a bit of avocado and corn on the cob (she loves corn on the cob. Doesn't like corn not on the cob), and we ate our dinner too. Then I waited until Tanya was ready for her bath. Bear is in charge of bedtime when he's home, except bath since I do that. Meanwhile, I started reading the book Marianna gave me yesterday. Her oldest daughter is going to kindergarden in September (she's 5, it's school before first grade in the USA). She is going to private school and they did different tests for her to get in. So Marianna gave me a book called "Testing for Kindergarden" which is basically what kind of things intelligence tests test 4 year olds for and what kind of games and conversations one can play with their kid to prepare them for those tests better. Even public schools test to sort kids into slow, average and advanced. Tanya is doing well and we do a lot of games and play, so I think she would be fine, but it doesn't hurt to get ideas on better way to ask questions to get her to develop thinking skills and different games to play and just to know expectations for age level. We are learning to count now, she counted the three balloons at Marianna's just yesterday, her Russian sentences are pretty long now - 5 words, sometimes 6, and she can make 3-4 word English sentences too. And we read a lot.

I put Tanya to bed at 8:30 and she was out by 9. I snuck out 10 minutes later and Bear and I got to talk and hang out, which was nice. It was fun to hang out with our friends yesterday but it's not the same as spending time together. And now I'm going to bed. Another hot day tomorrow and lots of cooking in the afternoon.

We just got back (a few hours ago) from five days in Long Island vising Bear's parents for 4th of July weekend.

It was a good visit but as usual I'm glad to be home.

We did pack a lot of activities in from playground to beach to a fair with rides to visiting Bear's friend Christina in her new house. (And it is a really gorgeous giant house).

And in the last two days I read the last quarter of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell , about 250 pages, and finished the book. I liked how the end came together and have enjoyed the book overall. I'm going to bed now but I will post more about the book and my reaction to it and about my weekend. I think I will also start reading Master and Margarita by Bulgakov. I think it's time for me to tackle it. I started a bit today, since I can't just finish one book and not start something else, but I only read a little. I did like the first few pages so far. (The ridiculous intro to this Russian ebook with italics and caps and florid prose did make me roll my eyes very hard. I mostly skipped it before it turned me off the book. It should have just stuck to introducing the illustrator).