Baby update.

Milana is a little more than two month old and it seems that we've had her forever. I don't remember the time of not having her anymore! We are really enjoying having her as she brings a lot of sunshine into our family life. The older sisters adore her and I can tell that the love is mutual, as Milana happily responds to them talking and playing with her. It's such a joy to watch them create a lifelong sister bond, or at least we hope that they will have one, because we constantly remind them that they should always be best friends and watch out for each other in life.

Earth Day celebration at PEEC.

We had a fun weekend. On Saturday we went to the Russian American Kids Circus performance in Sherman Theater in Stroudsburg. I was not sure about bringing Milana along, but then decided to give it a try, anyway I could walk out with her any time if she would get fussy. So, our two months old had visited a theater already. Boy, kids start early this century! It's like when you have you first baby life seems to stop or at least slow down for a while, but when there are older siblings in the house, you just keep on going and the younger ones simply come aboard!

On Sunday we went to the Pocono Educational Environmental Center for an Earth Day celebration. It was a great day to be outdoors and the girls had an awesome time at the PEEC. There were guided nature walks, pond mucking, gardening presentations, eco-crafts, a live animal presentation, recycling tips, useful information for myself as well. I learned a bit about the herbs growing locally that are edible and we can use for medicinal purposes. And maybe I'll even take a class in the fall at the Center and learn even more.

We managed to make a wind mill and heard a short presentation about the wind power, build a bugs' house and took a set to make a bird house home, did tie-dye shirts, painted rocks and did a flower project out of the plastic caps. Ivana and Leona did not want to leave, but I was exhausted after trying to help them with all the fun activities, attend to and nurse Milana, have some kind of lunch, make sure everybody was getting enough fluids and the girls were not getting a sunburn. After two and a half hours I was done. Literally. Thank goodness the ride home was only 5 minutes!

Family blessing.

I have just finished reading a book "The Blessing", by Gary Smalley and John Trent, Ph.D. and decided to share the most important highlights of the book.

The flower can not grow unless it has the necessary elements of life. Every flower needs soil, air, water, light, and a secure place to grow, one where its roots are not constantly pulled out. When these five basic ingredients are present, it is almost impossible to keep a flower from growing.

Just like the basic needs a flower has, the family blessing also has five key elements. These five elements, blend together, can cause personal acceptance to blossom and grow in our home today. Each individual part provides a unique contribution.

A family blessing begins with meaningful touch. Meaningful touching has many beneficial effects. The act of touch is a key to communicate warmth, personal acceptance, affirmation-even physical health.

The second element of family blessing is based on a spoken message. In many homes today, words of love and acceptance are seldom head. A tragic misconception parents in these homes share is that simply being present communicates the blessing. Nothing could be further from the truth. A blessing becomes so only when it is spoken. Children who are left to fill in the blanks when it comes to what their parents think about them will often fail the test when it comes to feeling valuable and secure.

Meaningful touch and a spoken message, these two elements lead up to the words of blessing themselves, words of high value. Telling children that they are valuable can be difficult for many parents due to the busy schedule, or by only attaching the words of value only to a child's performance.

A fourth element of the family blessing is picturing a special future for the kids. When it comes to predictions about their future, children are literalistic-particularly when they hear predictions from their parents. When ones feels in his or her heart that the future is hopeful and something to look forward to , it can greatly affect his or her attitude in life. Words that picture a special future act like a campfire on a dark night. They can draw a person toward the warmth of genuine concern and fulfilled potential. Instead of leaving a child to head into a dark unknown, they can illuminate a pathway lined with hope and purpose.

The last element of the blessing pictures the responsibility that goes with giving the blessing. The active commitment is very important, because words alone cannot communicate the blessing; they need to be backed with a commitment to do everything possible to help the one blessed be successful. We can tell a child, "You have the talent to be a very good pianist."But, if we neglect to provide a piano for that child to practice on, our lack of commitment has undermined our message.

These are things I will always keep in mind...

When the mother is sick....

That is how I have been feeling for the past three days.

When the mother is sick the world seems to go crushing down...
The dark clouds gather above the household, as the pile of laundry gets bigger than an avalanche, the dishes would have runned away if they had legs, the possibility of somebody in the house breaking a leg is huge since there is no empty spot on the floor to make a safe step, there is not even a chance of a hearty, freshly cooked dinner, kids hair gets so tangled up that I cry when I finally have time and energy to brush it, I have to go to use the bathroom with my eyes closed otherwise I get even more depressed by the chaos around me, the lack of O2 and sunshine adds to my poor mood on top of the physical pain...

But then I get a little "sweet treat", as I see how good my kids can be and occupy themselves for hours. Ivana would make PBJ sandwich for herself and help Leona with JO ("Jam Only") sandwich. They would go through tons of books, Leona blabbing out loud for herself and Ivana reading silently her favorite stories. Then they would play very nicely together, and then come up with some kind of project. When they run out of ideas the movie would come for a rescue... And the day is almost over.

We have survived, somehow... and the hopes for tomorrow to be brighter are huge...

In preparation for Easter.

Today we were getting ready for our family's Easter celebration. The girls had fun dyeing the eggs, then frosting and decorating the cupcakes. The weather forecast is not too promising for tomorrow and some snow showers are expected. But we are still on for the Easter egg hunt!

Baby's first hike.

Well...can't really call it a hike since she was in a stroller. She slept through for over 3 hours, but I documented her by the falls for her future photo scrap book.

Nature walk.

Yesterday was such a beautiful day and we decided to go for a nature walk. It was neither hot nor cold, but the air was freshly crisp, a bit breezy and with a spring flavor.

As much as I love to visit old places as they usually bring nice memories back, but there is a lot of excitement about going to a new destination since you do not know what to expect. And as long as I do not place my expectations too high, I will always feel revitalized, refreshed, re energized, in a way alive.

The walk yesterday cleared my head, lifted my spirits, gave me new hope, reminded me to cherish what I have, and definitely helped me to get my daily exercise as we'd managed to hike up about 6 km, according to Mirek's estimate.

We went to Digmann's Waterfalls, which are very close to our house. There was no long driving involved, a long stretch of the road was paved so we could take the stroller rather then the baby carrier for Milana, and Ivana and Leona were great hikers. Only on the way back Leona got a bit tired and asked Mirek with her puppy eyes for a neck ride.

Mirek taught the girls how to determine the age of the tree and how to know whether the year was a dry one or with plenty of precipitations for the trees to grow. Ivana discovered that some pine cones do not have seeds, and I learned why the dead trees are as important for the healthy forest as the live ones. You know, if it was up to me I would've taken all the rotten stomps away, because I just like the things neat.

The falls were beautiful, as it was the right time to visit them. All the snow had melted and the amount of roaring water was astounding. I waited down by the falls, and Mirek took the girls all the way up to look at the water falling from the top.

It was a nice walk and we will definitely be visiting the falls again...

Homo...what?

How much structure does a 5 year old need and what is considered to be age appropriate? The other day in the library I came across a book "What your first grader needs to know" and looked through it. The minimum standard does not seem to be a lot. We have covered a lot of topics with the girls just by reading books, some topics we have not came across just yet. But I do not see the reason fro worrying or trying to "catch up". They will know the names of the constellation eventually, or who Vasco da Gama was, and so on. I do try to expose them to as much information as possible, to see what interests them and takes on their attention, what makes them to be passionate and excited. Because when I see their eyes light up, I know that's when the learning is happening.

I haven't talked to Ivana about vowels and consonants (maybe I should, though), or as a matter of fact about many other rules that are believed to help your child learn to read. But what I'm trying to do is to pay close attention to the discoveries and observations that she is making on her own and then "feed the fire".

The other day Ivana wanted to write a thank you letter to her cousins for coming over and bringing a yummy chocolate cake. I love when she initiates something like that, because then I look at this time of her sitting down to write as the moment to apply her knowledge she had acquired to something meaningful, rather then doing tedious writing exercises from a work book.

So she started commenting on some words from her letter, like"wood" and "would", or 'dear" and "deer", how they sound the same but are spelled differently. And today I decided to introduce her to a new word "homophones" and came up with a longer list of these kind of words. We sat down on a sofa, and while I was nursing Milana kind of "worked with" the list. There was no need for me to explain to Ivana as she had made a discovery a day before all by herself. We came up with different sentences, she practised writing them. We had fun and she was excited to see so many words that can be a bit tricky, as I call them, that's when Tata came home she was very eager to teach him about the homophones.

And Mirek's reaction was , "Homo...what was that?"

Now... I'm sure the term "homophones" will not stick around in her little head for a long time, but I have made sure she had gotten that "extra serving of baby spinach salad when her body was craving iron", if I might use that kind of metaphor... I just satisfied her natural curiosity.

Ancient Rome.

It always starts with reading a book. And since we read a lot in this house, the girls are wonderful at coming up with different ideas and entertaining themselves.

Today we were reading a book about ancient Rome. It's a book for a bit older kids, but we managed to sit for a while and go through a couple of pages before Ivana and Leona were ready to do a fun activity. First, we came across the page where they described how Romans were using the mosaics to decorate their homes and there was a suggestion to try to make a paper mosaic. I did not have to ask my girls twice. Off we moved to the table and started cutting the construction paper. Ivana wanted to make a tree and Leona settled for the fish I drew for her. We picked three colors not to make the project too long, but still to have a nice colorful picture.

It turned out to be a very time consuming project. Leona did not have the patience to finish her design up, and Ivana was ready to give up half way. But I'm trying to teach our oldest to finish what she'd started and I offered her my help. The project was coming along faster when we decided to stop putting glue on each separate square of paper, but instead put glue on the design itself and then quickly arranged the squares. Ivana's interest in finishing up returned as she was able to see the result faster, as at her age the project is mostly about the result. She did a great job and later showed it to Tata with pride.

Then we read up a bit more on the Romans, and the the girls wanted to have their lunch lying down, like the Romans. It was not going to happen, however I allowed them to have their banana snack the Romans' way. But first, Ivana asked me for a bed sheet so she could really look like a Roman woman wearing her toga and sandals.

We went for a walk and Ivana picked some kind of dried plants to try and make the papyrus. She let the stems soak in the water for a while and then tried to weave them together. Of course it did not work, she was a bit disappointed but quickly get over it and comforted herself saying that one day she'd go to Egypt and get that special plant to make the papyrus (we'd watched a program about ancient Egypt a couple of days prior and they'd mentioned the papyrus making process).

In the afternoon we sat down to do our writing exercise with Ivana and continued with our theme of the day. She wrote these sentences:
-Ancient Romans decorated their houses with mosaics.
-The Romans spoke a language called Latin.
-The Romans wrote on papyrus.
-At parties the Romans ate lying down.
-The Romans wore sandals and togas.

That's why we love to read books as they can be extremely inspiring and help to create an all day learning experience without any formal setting, in a natural and fun way.

Storage boxes.

I came up with a great idea! As I am a neat freak and like the things organized it was driving me nuts sometimes to see the girls' toys all piled up together without any system. They would come to me and ask where their tea pot was, or doll, or some other toys that I had no idea about. And all these little things that are always lying around and everybody step on them and they end up in the garbage. We made food with Ivi and Leona from a dough, they got a beautiful tea set and a baking set for Christmas, and again everything was all over the house.

When clementines were in season I kept the boxes having a smart (I think so !) idea of decorating them and using them for storage of little toys. And they are just perfect! The boxes are not too big, they were pretty easy to decorate, and you can stack them up.

Here's what we did:
-ripped the cover paper and cleaned the sides of the boxed from the glue;
-painted the inside and outside with bright acrylic paints;
-took decorative napkins and separated the fine top layer with the design, then glued them on the box with the Mod Podge Glue.

And that was it! You could use any napkins with any nice designs. We happened to have the ones with roses, fruits, flowers and bugs. Now in the evenings the girls put their toys away into the boxes, satisfying my freaky desire to have things neat. I know, it's all about what we as parents want!

Daddy is fun!

It was so wonderful that Mirek was able to stay with me for almost two weeks after the baby was born. I tried to get a lot of rest, did minimal cleaning ( just closed my eyes when going to the bathroom), avoided cooking complicated meals for lunch or dinner (ate a lot of leftovers and cheese sandwiches, sometimes cereal for lunch)... I had been sitting on the same spot on the sofa for hours at a time (so that my bottom would get numb) nursing Milanka and just gazing into her beautiful face and stroking her soft and plump cheeks...
And Mirek was spending a lot of time with the two big sisters. Taking them sledding and skiing behind the house on a septic hill, reading Czech books, and just having a lot of fun. That's his thing... He is a lot of fun to be around and Ivanka and Leona really loved him being at home all this time.
He's been back to work this week and we surely miss him! I've attempted to drive with the three of them and I think it went pretty well. On Tuesday I took Ivana to her dance school, and on Wednesday we went to the homeschooling coop that she enjoyes going to very much. It was very refreshing to see our freinds again after such a long break. I guess we are more or less back on our feet with the things we used to do before Milanka was born. Have not done the grocery shopping with all the girls yet... Maybe I'll wait a bit longer with that as I'm not looking forward to nursing the baby in the supermarket!

Lady hats.

Since I've been preoccupied with the baby for the last couple of days and not spending enough time with my two big girls, yesterday we did a fun project together. We had "Ladies only party". There were no guests invited, just me and them but we had a good time anyway. First, we made and decorated hats from the paper plates, then we painted nails, then we had tea with some cookies, and finally the girls made a stage performance. The little one was sleeping for an hour an a half, and we managed to do everything we wanted to.
Now it's all about finding the time...and learning again to do a lot of things with one hand...and giving Ivana more responsibility to take care of herself, her younger sister and helping me. I feel a bit unsettled for now, and a lot of times unaccomplished when the day turns into night, but I know it's only a temporary feeling. For now I just can't stop counting my blessings...

A new bundle of joy is here!

Yes...finally!
Our baby girl was ready to see her parents on Friday, the 23rd of February at 7:03 am.
She is 20" and 8lb 6oz.
And her name is Milana.
Welcome to the world, our little treasure!
We've been waiting for you!

Snow! Snow!

Finally it feels like winter is here!
We had a lot of snow yesterday and lots of fun cleaning the driveway and taking the girls sledding.
I had some workout with the shovel as well, but it did not do the trick to help me go into labor.
Oh, well, still waiting...

Not celebrating St. Valentine's.

Yesterday was a holiday that we do not celebrate with my dear hubby. We do not exchange gifts, go out for dinner, or treat each other in a "special way" that day, because we love and treat each other with love and respect throughout the year.
It was so ironical that yesterday morning we listened to the WBAI program "Democracy Now" with Amy Goodman, where she talked about celebrating the St. Valentine's Day and what it involves. Flowers, grown with slave labor and brought to the USA and some Europian countries from Columbia, "conflict" diamonds from Sierra Leon, and chocolates made from the cocoa beans where child slavery is widely used.

In the evening I received a phone call from a friend of mine who wished me "Happy Valentine's Day". I wished her the same back very politely, but thinking about the morning radio program asked, "So, did you get your diamonds today, chocolate and flowers?" And I felt a bit uncomfortable when she said, "Yes, I did! How about you?". So, I had to go and explain to her that we do not celebrate this holiday with Mirek. I wasn't going into any details, but I guess she had sensed something in the tone of my voice (even though there was really nothing there, just the tone of a tired preggo woman whose due date was 4 days ago!) and started apologizing for calling me and wishing "Happy St. Valentine's Day". Ahhhhh! Sometimes it's just better to keep quiet!
I do some fun activities with the girls, though. We baked heart shaped cookies and decorated them hoping to bring them to share with the friends in our homeschooling coop. But we had so much snow, that we did not go anywhere yesterday, so all the cookies are for us!
Hurray!!!

Piggy bank.

As we are still waiting for the "little one" to come and great us in this world, we are trying to keep busy with doing a lot of arts and crafts. I will not have as much time later, or at least in the beginning after bringing the baby home, so we are on the roll.
The girls wanted to make a piggy bank the other day to put money aside for our trip to Russia (who knows when that will happen, that's why we have to start early to save the money).
As I really like to make things out of "nothing", we used a plastic bottle for our piggy bank. Some felt, wiggly eyes, hot glue gun (of course!), the empty paint containers for the legs...
And when Tata comes home in the evening, the girls run to him to give him kisses, hugs and... get the change!

Before and after.

We have been working on this project for over two weeks and now finally it's done!
It started with the girls wanting to make a castle out of the toilet paper rolls, since we've been using them for a while for small craft ideas. And I decided to take it up to a bit higher level and started collecting the empty boxes and food containers. It took us so long to complete the project since it had involved a few stages. First, we glued newspaper strips all over the containers to make them sturdier. When the glue dried up, we painted the first coat of paint, then the second and the third. The girls were very busy, and played in between the painting sessions. I helped to make the "cracking effect" which took me a couple of days. Then we were working on our roofs, all over again with gluing and coloring. The most fun was the final part, when they already could see the ready towers of the castle coming up and could play with them trying to figure out the layout. Windows and the doors came in the last and then it was time for me to take out my hot glue gun. It's a "must have" if you have kids!
So, a bit of imagination, acrylic paints, brushes, glue, newspaper, scissors, a few empty food containers that would've ended up in the garbage anyway, and we have a wonderful toy to play with.
Next idea is to populate the castle with princesses and knights made out of the salt and flour dough.

Before and after

An update.

Well...it's been a while since I've posted last time on my blog. The life has been a bit crazy and I just could not find the time or the energy to keep up with my blogging.
I've missed it , as it had provided a wonderful way of documenting the dynamics of our family life, letting our friends and family members know how our girls are growing, sharing our "good" days and sometimes simply venting the "negative fumes" that happened to accumulate.
So, I'm determined to continue my blogging and that is a quick update on what's new with us...

First, we have moved... We have finally left the city and the noise of landing airplanes and are now enjoying the tranquility of the life in the country. Woods, actually... We have moved to the house in the Pocono Mountains that we used to come up to for the weekends. It's been almost three months and we are pretty happy to be here.

Second, our family is about to expand as I'm less then two weeks short of having a baby #3. So, as busy as my life has been recently with the move and getting used to the new surroundings, it's going to get even busier, I guess.

Third, at an early age of 5 our oldest is an independent reader (in all three languages, with the preference for English, of course) with the fluency of a second or third grader. She enjoys reading books very much, and it's so funny to hear her reading out loud doing different voices. Every time we are at the library and she reads, people just stop by at listen, amazed at her speed in reading, complexity of books she chooses to read and her involvement into the story.
I don't want to sound like I'm boasting, but I feel proud for helping her discover the wonderful world of reading. And I'm getting the credit for a great job I've done!

So, that's it for now... And I hope you'll start visiting my blog regularly again.

Hello everybody!
We are finally back from our summer vacation in the Czech Republic, Europe. Before we left I had no time to post a "goodbye" message since I'd known that I wouldn't have an access to the internet there. And now I have a lot of catching up to do around the house and organizing our fall schedule. So I'll just post a few new photos from our trip, and all the details will be a bit later!

Camping trip.

We went camping this holiday weekend for the first time in five years, basically since Ivana was born.

We used to camp with Mirek at least a couple of times every year. Whenever there was a long weekend, or just we felt like getting away for a day or two, we'd hop into our very tiny Ford Festiva with two doors and a plastic seat in the back (we used to fill the tank up for $8!), grab the map and pick a destination almost at random. Those times! There was minimum planning involved, we were so spontaneous and full of adventurous spirit. We travelled this way all the way to Maine, to Arcadia National Park and a bit more north to the great wildness almost by the canadian border. We drove to the Florida Keys twice and camped for a week first time on the Gulf coast and the other time in John Pennekemp State Park on the ocean side. And we took shorter trips like to Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Massachusetts, New York State, attempted to visit the Great Lakes area but had a car accident after which our car had to be totaled.

So we have missed going to explore new places, sleeping in the tent, and cooking our meals on the fire. And we have waited out for our girls to be old enough (so we thought) to try the great outdoor adventures again. This time we decide not to go too far, so that the car ride is more or less bearable for the kids and chose The Adirondack National Park in upstate NY. The trip took quite a bit of investment since our tent could no longer accomodate four people, the girls wanted flash lights, we needed another two sleeping bags and our cooking equipment was nowhere to be found.

Choosing the campsite we had to make sure there was a playground for the girls, river or lake nearby for them to swim and play, easy hiking and biking trails and grocery store nearby. See, it's never the same with the kids! I'm no saying that it's worse, it's just more challenging as it requires a lot of planning ahead and making sure they are having a good time! It's not about us anymore!

Anyway, we had a fantastic time! It felt so liberating to be in the woods for a few days again (we went for 4 days). All that fresh air and beautiful mountain scenery around us was so relaxing and calming! We went biking, hiking, playing and swimming in the Loon lake, boating and fishing, we took scenic train ride along the Upper Hudson River.

All the activities were on the smaller scale, of course, but we did them anyway. And it proved us yet one more time that we don't have to wait for our kids to grow older to start finally having fun with them, as some of our friends think, but rather do it now and enjoy every moment! We sure will be doing more camping from now on!

PS: Sadly, we don't have even one single photo from our trip, since both of our cameras let us down with running out of batteries. Ah!

Dance recital.

So, Ivana has had her very first dance recital. The girls did such a wonderful job on the stage! Theye were the smallest group and got a lot of applause from the audience. I got a bit emotional since my little daughter dancing reminded me of the time when I was on the stage myself and how much I loved it.

Thoughts about our local library.

The thing is that I've had a few problems with the staff at our local library before. I've been going to the library since Ivana was probably 6 months old. First it was a place to hang out on a rainy day and keep myself sane by talking to people and getting a few books for myself. Then slowly I started reading books for Ivana there. In the beginning the reading sessions didn't last for too long, but overtime she'd get interested in the pictures and stories and take one book after another with the excitement of an explorer.

So the rules posted on the front doors of our library have been bugging me for quite some time! I understand "no food or drink" policy, but how do you explain a 1 year old that she can't drink right that moment, that we have to stop reading the book and go outside for her to take a sip? Once I had to change her diaper in the front lobby in the secluded nook (the bathrooms are upstairs and you need to ask for the key), and it was not a pooped diaper, just soggy. I packed it into the plastic bag and tied the not tightly, as I always did at home or anywhere we went. So there was a security guard by the entrance door and he asked me to take the diaper out from the garbage bin. What? I thought he was kidding me! I told him to take a close look at what had been in the bin, all the leftovers of hotdogs, burgers decomposing in the heat of the mid summer. You can already imagine the odor, that diaper was probably the most sterile thing there ever! We started to argue and he threatened to complain to the chief librarian and make sure I was no longer allowed into the building. What?

Then there was a bicycle incident. This time there was no sign that bicycles were not allowed into the library, as with the "no diapers in the garbage" sign. Well, it was a toddler's bicycle that I was afraid to leave outside, and we brought it with us upstairs and left standing in the corner by the elevator. There was the whole commotion and investigation whom this bicycle belonged to, and after the same guard found out it was ours, he just took it downstairs and left it on the street. We had to leave the library to make sure we still have that bicycle.

I didn't give up going to the library anyway. I refused to be intimidated and stood up for myself every time there was a problem. And lately I've been coming there with pretty long lists. Every time I hear about a book on homeschooling I'd write it down and then request it at the library. I started with John Gatto, John Holt ( I had all 7 books written by him on my list!), Charlotte Mason, Ruth Beechick, Christopher Klicka, etc, etc, etc. Every time it would take forever for them to try to locate the book for me, searching in the entire state library loan program. I was able to get only a few books (to be precise 3), and whatever they did not have I bought on Amazon.

That day when I had a list with 7 of John Holt's books, the librarian asked me if I was doing a PhD. in Homeschooling! Was she serious, was she sarcastic or just curious, I could not really tell, but I liked that idea a lot and happily said: "YES! As a matter of fact, that's exactly what I'm doing!"

Today I have asked to try to help me to locate books by Ruth Beechick, "The three R's". And a young librarian, probably freshly graduated from college, searched for the books for me, and once again said that the New Jersey library system did not seem to have these books. There were similar books by different author, but it sounded that they were instruction manuals for the teachers in the classrooms, which obviously I did not need. So he volunteered to check them on Amazon to make sure I had the right author. I knew I did, but he wanted to double check anyway. In a minute or so he confirmed the author I had told him and them looked at me with a strange look and said: "But they are only $12 on Amazon! Why don't you buy them!"
What! I was just shocked to hear that! I didn't want to start explaining myself that I'd purchased so many books already because the library did not have what I wanted. Simply, I sadly agreed that's what I would have to do anyway.

Now this sign makes me angry: "No students in the library during school hours. Per Board of Education". I understand that it has nothing to do with the library making up rules, but come on! Would you rather let a kid be in a library and maybe read a book or flip through the magazines, maybe really learn something and be safe, than to have him wander on the streets getting into trouble?! It just doesn't make sense to me... It doesn't make sense at all!!!

A lesson in biology.

On Saturday morning Mirek went fishing. It always amazes me how he can after working so hard for the whole week and waking up so early every day for work, can still wake up even earlier (at 4 am) on a Saturday and go fishing!

Fishing is Mirek's hobby that he kind of gave up since the girls were born. When we were childless and worry free, he had introduced me to fishing. I could have never imagined that it's so much fun and so relaxing. We used to go fishing together to one of the lakes in upstate New York, we went fishing in the Delaware river catching perch and carp, and even went twice on a boat for the deep sea fishing. Once in NJ, on a boat "Norma K." that departs from Point Pleasant beach, and the other time when we were vacationing on Florida Keys. The first time I so enjoyed the thrill of feeling the fish fighting you, and was fortunate to pull a couple of blue fish aboard. But in Florida I was too sea sick to enjoy even the beautiful scenery. Oh, well.. at least Mirek had a fantastic time! But the next day I again felt adventurous and we went for a night fishing in the lagoon in John Pennekamp camp site. We used alive shrimps as a bait and we had a nonstop action. I was catching the same fish over and over again (we were releasing them back into the water), and then I had to stop because that fish already had a ripped mouth, but was still hungry for the shrimps. I guess it was a very smart fish as it knew that it was safe to go after the shrimp because it would be let go back into the water!

On Saturday morning Ivana woke up asking me where her Tata was. And when I told her he went fishing she was very upset that he didn't take her. She has her own fishing rod and loves to go fishing with Mirek on a boat on the lake in the Poconos.

So, yesterday she was anxiously awaiting for him to come back home to tell him not to exclude her from the fun activity next time. But when Mirek came back with a couple of bass fish and got busy filleting them, she was not that upset anymore. She got so excited to see how Tata would clean the fish and of course wanted to help! Well, what do you tell her? Even for some adults it feels gross to touch a fish, but not for our little girl. She was the most excited about the chance to see and touch the organs that we had been reading about in the books on human anatomy.

Well, I got some looks from our downstairs neighbor when our soon to be 5 yo was running towards them to greet her friend, a 4 yo old boy, and boasting with pure enthusiasm, "Look, I got bloody hands! Do you want to touch the fish?" No, he did not want to...

So, I guess we've had today what they call "hands on" learning approach.

Strawberries do grow in the city!

This morning we had our first harvest of strawberries. It wasn't much, just a handful, as we have only 6 bushes. But they were so delicious, so sweet, and the gentle aroma reminded me of my childhood. The girls were so eager to taste them, so we didn't wait for the strawberries to get really ripe. And also I was afraid that the birds would be the first ones to snap them once they are red. It's not that we don't want to share, but there is a huge mulberry tree, right in the backyard, covered with almost ripe mulberries! Go help yourselves, birdies!

Please, meet our "conemen".

Lately, all Ivana wants to do are the "projects"! Her favorite book now is "365 Things to Make and Do" by Vivienne Bolton that I've bought in "Michael's". The projects that are gathered in this book are very simple and easy to do for a girl who is almost 5. She does need my help, occasionally, but most of the time she takes the initiative and gets busy with doing whatever she feels like doing.

Of course, Leona is right there to bother her and wants to do the same thing as her big sister. So I have to stop whatever I was doing (like tiding up, putting the laundry away, etc) and get to help Leona. I felt that I've been telling them to wait with the projets, that was not the right time for mommy at the moment quite often. And then I've decided to review my priorities and change my attitude. I do spend a lot of time with them every day playing, reading, going to the park, doing different projects. But sometimes I did not let them play with the clay or playdough because I did not feel like cleaning the mess afterwards, or I would forbid them to cut the construction paper into million little pieces because we'd just vacuumed, or did not let them paint because once again I was in no mood to deal with the cleaning part. Some days are better, some are worse, especially taking into consideration that I have to go to work from 7 to 10 pm, teaching ESL my Brazilian students. So every day I have to make sure I have saved a tiny bit of energy for the evening, and some days I simply have to kick myself out of the door to go to work, that how exhausted I feel.

Anyway, I'm doing much better (or so I think) with giving the girls more freedom to do what they feel like doing. I simply have changed my approach to dealing with cleaning up after, I try to prevent the mess as much as I can. If they want to paint or play with the clay, I cover the table with a big black plastic bag and ask them to wear their craft aprons. It does not look too aesthetic, but saves me time cleaning up. If they want to use the scissors, I ask them to do it in the kitchen, and after they are done they sweep the floor. Easy as that! Why did I not think of it before? They are so eager to help to clean, that I even let Ivana wash the dishes when they are not greasy, and she knows not to wash the knives.

"The conemen" were from our heads, not the book. We had some cones that we had collected in one of the local parks. We had a couple of caps put aside from the milk cartons and beer (!), some yarn for the hair, colored paper, glue gun and ,of course, the wiggly eyes. "The conemen" are Ivana, Leona, Mommy and Tata (that's how they call Daddy in Czech).

The girls had so much fun playing with them and the house we've made before, that cooking dinner was a pleasure. The time I spend with our kids, the smiles I get to see on their cute little faces, the laughs I hear while they are playing with something that a while ago was just a bunch of "stuff", the pure joy of watching them while I'm doing my chores, all these experiences are simply irreplaceable! Every day when I come home from work I kiss our little angels and look forward to spending another day of our lives together.

Ivana is reading!

Ivana will read this page to you, no problem!
This page was the beginning of Ivana's journey to learn to read...

Today was the time for celebration! We have finished the book that I've been using to teach Ivana to read in Russian. All 95 pages! I didn't expect this to happen this soon! She can read!

I've been teaching her to identify the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet since she was very little. By the age 3 she could remember all 33 of them and was eager to tell them over and over again, so proud of herself. I started with demonstrating her the "sound" that the letter makes first, rather then the "name" of the letter. When she was comfortable with the visual part of recognising the letters, we had moved on to the recognising them by the ear. All the trips to the park, stores, bank and post office had been spent playing the games like "What's the first/last sound of the word", "Finish the word", "Tell me the word that starts with this or that sound", etc. There had to be a lot of effort from my part to teach Ivana to read in Russian since there was not too much exposure to the language in the every day life, except in the house and with a few Russian speaking friends and kids.

Then I decided to start sitting down with her for 20 minutes every day with this one book, that is very logically, step by step leads the child to start reading on his own. We started with reading the singles letters, moved to syllables, then to 3 letter words, one syllable words, 2-3 syllable words, combinations of words, short sentences, longer sentences, short stories, and finally to 40-50 word stories. We would first repeat the page that we'd read the day before, and then read a new page. And before we knew it, we were approaching the final pages of the book, and Ivana had acquired the most wonderful and useful skill in life, reading!

And that book was ALL we have been working with! There were no fridge magnets, Leap Frog materials, CD roms or flash cards. On the other hand, there were countless hours of reading (a lot of times the same book over and over again, especially when she was a toddler), playing speaking Russian, singing songs in Russian.

It is extremely important to me that our girls know my and my husband's cultures. Know what kind of childhood we had, meet and have the relationships with the family members that are overseas. I truly hope that one day they will thank me for passing on to them the knowledge of another language, for the ability to enjoy countless masterpieces in literature written in the original language, for being able to have a conversation with the grandparents and cousins, for making it a bit easier to feel like the citizens of the world and really know and appreciate other cultures.

Ivana learned her ABCs long time ago, and ever since she got the concept of the sounds that letters represent, she has been trying to read in English. She notices all the signs around her and stops to try to read them. I help her out a bit, since there are some letters that are written the same in both alphabets , but sound differently. She is reading all the brands of the cars, names of the streets, signs in the stores, titles of the books we sit down to read.

It just proves one more time that you don't have to have all those over 200 skills that the "educational professionals" are teaching kids in preschool and kindergarten. For some years, a Board of Education reading expert, Bernard Gallegos, has been putting together a package of the reading skills children need to learn in elementary school. At one point, Gallegos' list topped 500 elements. It has since been reduced to 273 over grades 1 through 8. I think Mr. Gallego was simply wasting his time!

A wonderful weekend.

The "birthday girl" got a kite as one of her gifts, and on Sunday we went to the Liberty State Park to try it. While Mirek was assembling it with Ivana's help, Leona took time to blow the dandelions.
It was such a gorgeous day! As we were walking on the boardwalk, we saw this huge ship living the harbour.
The girls were running around chasing the kite and then taking turns holding it in the sky.
I got to try as well! I've never had a kite when I was little, so I was so thrilled to play with it!

Happy 2nd Birthday!

On Saturday Leona turned 2 yo! Happy Birthday to our little treasure! I always bake all the cakes, and from a scratch. But on Saturday it was very hot that there was no way I was going to turn the oven on. We haven't put the ACs in the windows yet, and because we live on the second floor it gets extremly hot in our apartment, that's why we had voted for the ice-cream cake. The girls were so excited and couldn't wait to have a piece.

Our very young artist.

I was chilling out, enjoying the sun and the singing birds while putting the laundry on the line this morning, when Ivana started calling me. And that's what I saw when I walked into the living room...Thank goodness the markers were washable! I just had to snap a picture!

"Thumbelina"

Do you know the story Hans Christian Anderson wrote 200 years ago? "Thumbelina" was one of my favorite stories written by him when I was a little girl, at least the Russian translation from the original language. As far as I remember the plot, there was a kind old woman who could not have children but wanted so badly. So she planted a flower and prayed, and a tiny girl was born inside of this flower and because she was no bigger than an inch a lady named her Thumbelina (translating from Russian it would sound more like "Inchelina"). And I remember what nice little things the lady had made for Thumbelina. She lived on a window sill , slept in a bed from a nut shell and covered herself with a leaf, she had a swing made from a ring on a string, and a paper boat she could use to go across the bowl filled with water that looked more like a lake for tiny Thumbelina.

So when I got a flyer from Paper Mill Playhouse, which is a nice sized theatre in Millburn, NJ, I was absolutely excited to see "Thumbelina" among other shows for kids this spring. That's what it said about the show:

April 29,30
THUMBELINA Bits'N Pieces Puppet Theatre
Recommended for ages 3 to 8

Hans Christian Anderson celebrates his 200th birthday this year and what better way to celebrate than with the story of his beloved Thumbelina. Born inside the smallest of flowers, she grows into a tiny girl who makes friends with the animals in her garden and proves that anyone can find happiness if you have faith and believe in what your heart tells you to be true. Performed by live actors and giant puppets, one portraying Hans Christian Anderson himself, this fully-staged musical brings to life the magical wonderment of children's fantasy and reinforces the core values long told and emphasized by one of the world's great storytellers.

I got the tickets the same day and was looking forward to having a family theatre outing. I used to perform on stage on an amateur level while in high school and university and enjoy immensly going to the theatre. We woke up earlier this Saturday, had a quick breakfast, got dressed and left the house for the show. I wore a skirt, some make up and high heels, the girls looked so cute in their spring outfits, and I just love to see my hubby wear nice clothes rather than his everyday contractor jeans and Tshirts.

It was a beautiful day and we did not rush to get inside but spent a couple of minutes looking at the giant gold fish in the pond by the theatre. We had found our seats in the mezzanine, the lights went off and the curtains opened. I was on the cloud nine!..

But unfortunately not for too long. As the show continued my eyebrows rose more and more up, and I thought I was going to walk with them almost up on my hairline for the rest of my life. I don't know if I manage to find the words to describe the emotions I had experienced during that hour of the show, my disappointment, the bitterness and even anger. But I'm still in shock of how this kind of production was allowed to be called a "fully-staged musical".

When the curtains opened there were some kind of giant flowers in the middle of a black mess! There were no back curtains, so you could see deep into the stage the things that were distractive and you wouldn't want to see. The floor was NOT clean, there were papers and some other garbage lying around, so even we, sitting in the mezzanine, could see it. The music started and then this hideous puppet that was portraying Hans Christian Anderson himself appeared on the stage and began singing in this scratchy kind of voice about the imagination. So the audience was supposed to exercise their brains and imagine a beautiful garden, with birds singing and flowers blooming, and the bees buzzing. This song was already making me tired and I was trying really, really hard to imagine ...but couldn't. All I could see was a black hole, a couple of flowers in the middle made out of scrap materials and mess around them. Then another giant puppet appeared on the stage, and this time it was a bad Witch. She was jumping around the stage like a mad cow, turning her heard 360 degrees and swinging her arms like there was a swirl of bees or flies she was trying to get rid of. At this point Mirek had expressed his concern about Leona having nightmares later since her beautiful eyes were bigger than big and she seemed to be a bit tense. The witch was singing some kind of song again (there was NO singing actually, but a recording playing) that I can't recall the lyrics of and she started "magically" transforming one of the flowers into a girl. So finally the tiny girl (she did look tiny next to those giant puppets!) was born from the flower and I just gasped... The way she was dressed, her make up, her bright pink messy wig... she looked like a ... clown! The only thing missing was that red nose! The music stopped (my ears had some rest at last!) and she spoke. She introduced herself as princess Thumbelina ( why was she a princess I could not comprehend) and educated the audience what a "thumble" was and what you could use it for. Then her and the witch sang a song, and all I remember was "Thumbelina", "Thumbelina", "Thumbelina"....la-la-la...la-la-la...

Then there was a Cupid. He was running around Thumbelina and giggling in a most stupid way I've ever heard. I was getting so angry already that I heard myself saying "stupid Cupid" out loud and wasn't embarrased a bit. The show had gotten on my nerves. So, the Cupid gave Thumbelina a stuffed heart and sang another song, this time about listening to your heart and following it to find your happiness. Then there was a giant Frog that demanded Thumbelina's kiss so it could turn into a prince. So Thumbelina grinned and made faces showing her disgust, but kissed the frog anyway. The magic did not occur and the frog was gone for good. After another rather long and boring song a different puppet entered the stage, and it was Winter. It was a scary puppet and was making poor flowers fade, and Thumbelina freeze, all that accompanied by a played back song (hey... they said it was a musical!) about how vicious the Winter was.

As the show was progressing I couldn't wait for it to be over, so that we could go outside and look at the fish in the pond again and enjoy the beautiful weather and each other instead of sitting there and listening to those twisted messages and worrying about our girls absorbing all that nonsense.

Then there was a giant Bird that for some reason spoke with a Scottish accent, a Mole that DID NOT look like a mole even a bit, but more like a rat with an extremely long tail. Again the same song about the imagination, as if Thumbelina was going into the tunnel dug out by the mole (I did not have to imagine that! The whole stage was a HOLE!) with spider webs all over the place. I've never heard of the spider making a web underground, but at that point it did not matter any more. The show was based on lies, and it was getting worse and worse. And I just got tired trying to figure everything out.

Thumbelina was saved from the Winter by the mole and was appointed to be a maid of honor at the wedding. Guess who married whom! You'll never guess! The Mole and the lady Spider had gotten married! I was already feeling much better since I knew that the show was going to end soon and Mirek was making me laugh with his sarcastic remarks.

All right...Thumbelina finally met her prince (after kissing that stuffed heart she'd got from the Cupid numerous times), they got married and lived happily ever after. Hurray!... I was already getting up to leave but Thumbelina still had something else to tell us! This time she had taken ALL the magic away form the show, completely crushed ALL the imagination that the kids were supposed to use during the performance. Thumbelina started a marketing campaign! She said that she was a play writer and the puppet designer for the Bits'N Pieces Theatre. That they are from Tampa, FL and have travelled around the world (I'm curious to know what she meant by that!). And then she began giving a detailed description of what the puppets were made from (bits and peices of 2x4s and other scrap material), a metal stick was brought on stage and a puppet Bird stopped moving and a man appeared from under it. Again Thumbelina reminded the audience what a "thumble" was and what you could use it for, made sure that the kids remembered the names of the four seasons that supposedly we had travelled through during the show (another lie!) and reminded to spread the word about another performance on Sunday.

Ye, right! How dare they call it a theatre! And I've been thinking about it! First, when we were leaving the theatre it struck me that I was the ONLY one wearing a skirt (forget my heals!). The majority of mommies and grannies wore casual jeans, I'd say looking no different than any other day. The show started at 10 am, it cost $10 per person. I get it, it was not a Broadway performance, but anyway... Why to settle for "ah, good enough" kind of attitude? Why not to make an extra effort and make it a little more special, not ordinary.

And that was the whole attitude of the Bits'N Peices Puppet Theatre, I think! "Ah, it's good enough for the kids, what do they know? We'd through some "educational" material into the show and parents will think it's beneficial for their kids. Anyway, they cannot possibly have high expectations. What do they want for $10?"The magic of marketing! As long as you do a good job doing it, you can sell anything!

I guess, we'll go to the library and try to find the story written by Hans Christian Anderson. Anyway, moles do not marry spiders, spiders do not make webs underground, and winter is a beautiful season! If I had a rotten egg I'd have thrown it into Thumbelina. A rotten performance deserves a rotten egg!

Cooking crayons!

It seemed to me that I was buying crayons every week. The cover paper would get peeled off and they'd end up broken into a million pieces. And for some reason I've never witnessed the process but became aware of the results. And since the girls love to draw I had to get another box, and another, and another. Then I decided to buy the other type, "The twistables". If I had that kind of crayons to draw with when I was a kid, I'd cherish them, take extremely good care of them, maybe not even use them TOO much so that they last longer. But my girls seem not to get the idea of taking care of things just yet. "The twistables" were twisted to the extend that there were no more twisting!

Then I decided to try markers. First I made a mistake by overlooking a "washable" versus "non washable" part. That was bad and hilarious at the same time! Ivana drew polka dots all over her legs and announced that she had chicken pox. And Leona was fascinated with the dark colors and painted her hands and arms black and said that she was a zebra. Then I went and got the "washable" kind. And now half of them do not write because they forget to put the caps back on and I sometimes don't remember to check the box.

For a while I was giving them only regular pens or pencils, but the colors are not the same and the interest to draw and experiment with shapes and colors was easily lost. I decided to let them use the water and acrylic paints, but they can only use them on the kitchen table and when I am around. So no freedom to paint whenever they felt like, not good again.

Finally, I've stumbled upon this great idea of how to reuse the broken crayons and thought it was an exciting project to do with the girls. I had all the help I needed to peel the paper off, they were actually racing who was going to peel more caryons! I cut them into small pieces and the we separeted them according to the colors, warm and cold. Ivana and Leona had a blast arranging the crayon bits into the cookie tins and they were very curious to see them baking in the oven. At 150F for 15-20 minutes and we had our homemade crayons! We waited for them to cool and had so much fun trying to color using them.

Now since we've been spending a lot of time outside, the girls started experimenting with the sidewalk chalk. Just using the dry chalk is only a small fraction of all the things possible to do with it! Have you tried to draw with a wet chalk, fo example? The colors are so much brighter! Or how about trying dipping the chalk into the bubble solution and then drawing with it? Have you tried mixing the wet chalk with the wet dirt and see what color you can come up with? Then making a "mini pool" of all the chalk you once had, some dirt, water, bubble solution and ... get ready!... put your hands into the (what's the more appropriate word here?) "muddy mess" of an unidentifiable, murky color and make hand prints all over the sidewalk!

They've been busy for quite some time and I got to finish reading "Learning all the time" by John Holt. Learning all the time, indeed!

"Misty", "Dusty", and "Shadow".

Our kids love horses! Every time we go to the Poconos for the weekend it has become a tradition to stop by at the stables and say hello to their favorite horses "Misty", "Dusty", and "Shadow". The girls always think about bringing their "friends" treats, like apples and carrots.

Ivana has been going up on a horse for a while already and she has no fear of being high, petting the horse or feeding it from her hand. Leona watched Ivana and did not want to be left out. She bravely sat on the horse and went for a ride!

Only one child is allowed on a horse at a time, and the guide is walking the horse up the stream and back, while Mirek is walking right next to our young riders. I think Leona might have set a record of the youngest rider ever, at least maybe in the Pocono stables (she'll soon be 2 yo). Kids in Mongolia will bit that record off, by no means!

It's 10$ for both of them each time we come, and we've been coming quite often. And I even thought to inquire about the possibility to volunteer, to help them take care of the stables, feed the horses or whatever job might need to be done. We decided it would be great for the girls to learn what it means to have the responsibility of taking care of an animal.

And I had asked this past weekend, of course meaning not right now since both of them are kind of little, but in a year or two they'll be able to handle some age appropriate tasks. I was a bit stunned and disappointed when I heard a firm, "NO, thanks. We've got plenty of hands around here." Do they get so many inquiries about volunteering, or maybe our family didn't look capable of handling the task of helping around the stables? The guy was rude and very unpleasant!

I don't want to go there anymore, just to make a point. But I know we'll go anyway, because the girls will be heartbroken.

A will to live!

Today while walking to the park Ivana was picking whatever flowers and grass growing wildly on the sides of the road to make me a bouquet. There was not too much of a variety, but she was still enjoying herself and wanted to make sure that I put it in the water as soon as we come home. And then she had spotted these dandelions. She commented on how these flowers had managed to grow in such a place, with no soil, probably hardly ever water, and no sun at all since it was a shady side of the street with tall buildings completely preventing any rays of sun to get to these little guys. Such a strong will to live!

Ivana was so amazed and bewildered that a decision not to pick them was made almost instantly. She also said, "Mommy, lets bring them some water next time! OK?!". And I promised.

This girl is not afraid of anything!

Yep...that's right! She is holding a snake! It's a garden snake and we found it on the road (it had been run over) when going for a walk in the Poconos. Ivana was so excited to touch it and then, with our permission, to pick it up. Well, at that point she was not going to let it go and carried the dead snake all the way to the house. "Mommy, can I take the snake home? It's going to be my pet!"..."Hmmm, I don't think so!!!", "OK, then I'll just pretend I'm Jeff Corwin and I caught a snake!"

Our daughter is an animal lover and "Animal Planet" is her favorite channel. It's so funny to watch both of them play "Venom ER", when the snake bites Leona and Ivana is Dr. Bush and comes to the rescue. Maybe she'd become a vet!

Saving money on gym membership.

As the warm days are finally here we spend a lot of time outside these days. And I feel that I've been getting slowly back in shape after a long winter and a lot of baking with the kids.

I wish someone would come up with a formula how to calculate the calories used by pushing a double stroller with two almost 20 lbs. toddlers, having a full backet with the groceries and even some of the bags hanging on the sides of the stroller (I'd estimate in average another 20 lbs), then Ivana holding on to and on the way back leaning on the stroller beacause she is tired of all that walking. And then some five or more trips up and down the steps to bring the groceries.

Some days we have so many places to stop by. Like yesterday, for example. We left home at 10:45 am. Firts went to the postal center to buy stamps, then headed to the bank, after to the pet store to buy food for our fish, then to the Polish Deli to buy so much loved ginger cookies, stopped by to buy shoes for Leona, to the library (was still closed), went to the park for an hour and a half, again to the library, finally bought some groceries on the way back and headed home at 2pm.

I was so impressed with how much we'd accomplished while Ivana being on her bicycle. That was quite an exercise! So, I guess as long as we live in the city I won't have to go the gym, ever.

Immigration reform

Today I'm hosting an article written by my dear husband. He is very concerned and these thoughts are his 2 cents on this topic.

Much has been discussed lately about the need to deal with illegal immigration in this country. We heard the proposal of guest worker visa program. We heard about the proposals to make entering USA illegally a felony. Some politicians even wanted to make criminals out of anyone who lends a helping hand to fellow human being who is here illegally.

As I drive through my neighborhood everyday on my way to work, I am able to pinpoint with 90% accuracy those of my neighbors who live here illegally. Be it from their faces, license plates from other states with more relaxed DMV regulations or simply by hanging around certain places. I see them everywhere, not only where I live. As a contractor I spend a lot of time where the urban sprawl is happening, and where one can see them building our subdivisions, landscaping them and maintaining them.

No one today disputes that they do the kinds of work that very few Americans are willing to do. When I came to the US ten years ago, it was still quite usual to see a high school drop out, or person with CHJ (can’t hold a job) syndrome run around with a grass cutter. But as the subdivisions multiplied and grew larger, simple rules of supply and demand created a big vacuum that sucked in all willing to trek through the countries that stood between them and our southern border to become the part of the great economical machine called the USA.

Knowing some of these people personally, I listened to the details of their gruel some trips from as far as Peru and Ecuador. For some it took 4 months to reach the US under the harshest conditions imaginable. These trips are especially risky to women, who are in many cases raped by the guides or even locked up in whore houses in Mexico.

But if they did reach the US, whole new world opened up to them. They quickly found their place in American society (on the bottom) and after they spent their first year working hard to pay their trafficking fee, they were already accustomed to the reality of their new life.

Most people either borrow the money to pay the traffickers from family or friends or have to pay the traffickers from their paychecks once they start working here.

Imagine coming to a country, not knowing the language, not being able to work legally and having to pay a $15,000 debt. You’d take any job under any conditions.

As the 90’s brought a lot more of spending money into the pockets of Americans, they started to look for ways to spend it, and spend it they did. There is hardly any farmland left in New Jersey that wasn’t developed. In ground swimming pools that one could see only in shows like “Dallas” are nothing uncommon. When the money is for grabs, both parents go to work and babysitters and housekeepers are in high demand.

People in towns sold their homes and moved to the subdivisions for quieter life. The people who made equity on the 3000 sq. ft homes, moved to 4000 sq. ft. homes, those who had equity built up on the 4000 sq. ft. homes moved to the 5000 + sq. ft. homes. As this madness continued and houses sprouted like mushrooms after rain, our new lowest class kept on building, cutting grass, cooking, picking and packing our food and so on.

Many Americans ended up in houses they would’ve never dreamed of, while those who build them sleep on mattresses without bed frames, five people in a room.

Our immigration system is broken, but not where the politicians claim it to be. There clearly was and is demand for carpenters, landscapers, housekeepers and so on, but we don’t seem to admit it. It seems to me, that certain business groups want the immigrants to stay illegal, because the more desperate you are the cheaper you are willing to work.

For example, a contractor who uses undocumented migrants will be able to put a lower bid on framing a house then one whose workers are American or legal migrants. That in turn saves money to the builder.

We need to remember when passing any new immigration laws that these people are part of our community, and they create a lot of wealth for very little compensation. They are filling in positions which we’ve created and for which there are no other candidates. We can’t look at them with clear conscience as subhuman, as people undeserving the basic rights and still use their cheap services.

Take time to stop and smell the flowers.

Ivana is already fascinated with nature. She has to stop in front of each flower, look at the awakening buds, and count all the trees that are blooming. This morning the birds were singing so loudly that she just stood by the tree in the backyard and listened. "Mommy, the birds are happy that spring is here! They are singing so beautifully! Or maybe they are saying thank you for all the food they've got from me in the winter."

How I "killed" a few birds with one stone.

Potty training early works! As I have successfully potty trained both our kids before 18 months old, I can assure you that it does!

When Ivana was a newborn I was reading all those parenting magazines where they give you all the advice you need as an unexperienced parent. I read a lot and found some article to be very helpful, but some were a total waste of my time. And the articles about potty training were especially disturbing to me. I was not experienced about that issue back then yet, but felt that whatever they were writing about this topic was rediculous! Statements like "...don't worry, your kid will let you know when he/she is ready...", "...have you seen an adult wearing a diaper, they'll learn sooner or later...", "...use 50 cents coupons to cut the cost of diapers...", "...sit on the toilet yourself while your toddler is next to you and sing a song together...", "...put some food coloring in the toilet to encourage your 4 yo go to the toilet rather then pants...", "...put a couple of cheerios into the toilet bowl if you are teaching a boy to use the toilet, he'll have fun shooting the cheerios...", and so on...

So when Ivana was 6 months old (that's right!) I started to put her on the potty. It was obvious when she was "doing her duty" as she would stop doing whatever she was doing, her eyes would start bulging out and her face would turn red. I completely disregarded all that advice about "waiting till they are ready" and started putting her on the potty that early. So first I taught her to do the "big thing" into the potty and then later started teaching her to pee there as well, which was a bit more of a challenge. I stopped using the diapers at home long before she was one and let her wear underwear. Yes, it was messy at times, but surely it paid off. I observed her, payed attention to how much water she drank and learned how often she goes and was putting her on the potty before the "flood" had occured. This way we spent hours and hours of reading! We had a stach of books by the potty and were reading one book after another. Both of our daughters did not mind and enjoyed every minute of it, as we were actually having so much fun with our books. Both of them started talking very early and have a special bond with books. Maybe it's not a 100% beacause of early potty training, but surely it helped since we had spent these two activities as one a lot of times.

Teaching them to go on the potty early has so many advantages. Doing that I've "killed" quite a few birds with one stone! Countless hours of reading, less mess to clean, less diaper rash outbreaks (practically none in our case!), a lot of money saved, less plastic pollution dumped into our planet, no need to drag a diaper bag everywhere you go, a real pleasure to put you child on your neck and not feeling a subtle moisture, etc.

Are there any disadvantages? Well, sure there are. Try to tell anybody that you are putting your 6 mo on the potty and see their reaction! You see "a child abuse" kind of reaction! Can't dress the baby into the cute overalls, but rather twopiece outfits (time to undress is cruitial!). Have to pull over on the curb of the highway or pray that she doesn't need to go while we are in the tunnel. Know where the bathrooms are in every supermarket or other stores you go. Carry an extra outfit with you, just in case. Putting your child on the potty in the middle of the night. Nor being able to buy the smallest underwear in the US stores, but ask realtives in Europe to send them over.

I'd rather go for the disadvantages, but won't have to deal with explaining the 3-4 yo that potty doesn't bite and there is no reason to fear it. Won't have to get frustrated over inventing new tricks that will work for my 4 yo who already knows what firefighters are for but refused to go on the potty.

Why was it possible for the previous generations and now we easily get comfortable and then have to deal with the concequences. Let it be only a tiny drop in saving the planet, but it's what I have done and so can you.

Easter egg hunt in the Poconos.

I was happy to have an opportunity to host an Ester Party for our homeschooling friends! When I announced it on the group list, I was not sure if any family would be willing to come since it's pretty far and on a Sunday. But it turned out that quite a few families RSVPed and last Sunday we had an Easter get together in the Poconos.

The whole Saturday we were busy getting ready, cooking, stuffing over a hundred plastic eggs with goodies, working on some decorations to bring the spirit of the spring into the house. On Saturday morning as we were leaving for the Poconos Mirek had to take so many trips up and down the staircase, running with all that bags with groceries, our clothes and other stuff, that our dear land lady thought we were moving out! It's just every time we go there, I'm afraid I won't have this, or I won't have that, that's why we end up taking half of the house with us and it turns I did not need it or had it in the house. But since I was hosting a party and had to do much cooking, I could not take any chances on missing even one thing.

Ivana was so excited about having so many of her friends coming over and the egg hunt was a total mystery for her, since it was the first time we'd done it. How many times she had asked, "Mommy, but how am I supposed to hunt an egg?"

The fun part in preparation for the party was to make edible nests that were gonna be the center piece for the table and the dessert for the kids. They were so easy to make and all the kids could not wait to munch on them. If you want to try to make them here's what you'll need:

Shredded breakfasr cereal (I used Kellog's Frosted Mini-Wheats)
One bar of melted chocolate (any kind)

What to do: crumble the cereal by hand into a bowl, add melted chocolate and mix well together. Line a muffin pan with a foil and place a spoonful of the mixture into each space. Press down into a nest shape and leave the shapes to harden in a fridge for an hour or so. When the nests are hard, take them out from the muffin pan, arrange on the plate and add a few chocolate covered raisins, nuts and/or jelly beans (for some spring colors).

In the morning on Sunday the sun was out and I felt like taking a short walk. I went out and collected a few branches, some dried grass and other plants. Then put them into a vase and Ivana helped me to hang the paper eggs which we had decorated earlier. And then I got a phone call from one of the moms that was coming, "Do you know about the time change? It's not 10, but 11 am!.." I didn't, and my heart went to my stomach! There was still so much to do and people were gonna start coming any minute. Aaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!

After all, we had a wonderful day!

All that sun!

Our girls have stopped napping during the day at a very early age (before turning 2 yo). They are too busy exploring the world and don't want to miss out on anything. At first I missed that hour of them napping, when I could do whatever I wanted. But then it turned out that in the evening they are ready to go to bed much earlier and fall asleep the moment their little heads are on the pillows.

But today a miracle happened! All that runnig outside on the sun, and both of them fell asleep on the sofa while I was reading a book to them. I was ready to drop dead next to them, but grabbed "Learning All the Time", by J. Holt instead. An hour flew by like a minute.