Well, we have been here a week (in Russia) in Khabarovsk 4 days but only 2 days of our mandatory 10 day waiting period weekends don't count. It is 10 business days. Today Katya and I walked up and down the hall while Joe showered. She still hates showers. But now she will wave goodbye to the maids and doesn't think of them as her caretakers. She walked all over the park this morning but had a tantrum when we took the bag we are using for a diaper bag from her. And a tantrum when I had to take the groceries from her and a small tantrum when we put her down for her nap. As nice as everyone is to us I still can't wait to get home. Being cooped up in one room 24/7 sucks. At home if Katya had a tantrum I could put her in her crib and let her cry it out - without an audience. Here we have nowhere to go. Plus the humidity is like 97%. No matter what you do you stink. I have forgone foundation for the past three days as my face is constantly oily no matter how often I wash it. Perfume is a bad move - it attracts mosquitoes - by the swarms. I think these mosquitoes are related to the jersey green head. They can find you anywhere. The women here fall into two categories - young, thin women with no hips or babushkas - grandmotherly women. Guess which I fit into? Yup babushka. We figured out today the cereal one of the "doctors" recommended and we had bought was buckwheat - no wonder why Katya's rash seemed worse, we were told before that Katya is allergic to buckwheat. So today at the children's store. (we stopped to get more toddler food) I saw "gerber" oatmeal with bananas. In English. I bought it! Now I can read the directions. Something from home! I can't wait to get home. Or at least Moscow - where more people speak English. We went to Baskin Robbins yesterday it was funny. Baskin Robbins in Khabarovsk Russia each day is such an experience with Katya. Well we are going to another park this afternoon. Tomorrow, if the weather is good - we will try the zoo.

Rain

We took Katya to a park this morning. She walked her little feet off and was real tired when we got back to the hotel. We stopped and bought a ball and a pull toy for her to play with. She likes to drag her bag behind her. We're hoping that she will pull the toy instead. She is handling nap time and bed time better each day. I think we are all adjusting to each other real well now. Svetlana and Alec are wonderful to us. They take us anywhere we need to go and try to come up with interesting places to take Katya. It seems that anywhere that we let her roam is a good thing. We had a good trip to Baskin Robbins yesterday. Katya loves ice cream. She loves to feed herself and only asks for help when she can't do for herself. This morningminnu she let me help her get dressed. She never had coveralls before and could not figure out how they went on. We tried out sneakers on her. Se asked for help with them too - no Velcro on them. We've been away from home a week now. We're ready to go home. 10 more days to go here then 5 in Moscow and then we're off to home. It's tough being in one room with a 2 year old for this long and being this far from home. The staff at the Sapporo are really helpful to us. The chambermaid is going out of her way to make sure we are comfortable and getting along with the new baby. When we got back to the hotel this afternoon, Katya was really tired. She was screaming and such, the chambermaid saw us come into the lobby and rode up in the elevator with us. She ran ahead and opened the door to our room for us. That was really nice of her.

Joe