10/15/04-Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

Let me start by saying the weather has definitely made a turn for the worse. It was below freezing with a wind chill that had to be close to 0. You can tell we are on the famed Steppes (the Eurasian version of our Great Plains) because the wind blows constantly. It was also snowing. Let’s just say we stayed in a long as we can. (Note to GMa Jan – Bring warm clothes!)

Inside, the day went well. The morning saw Grace getting another massage. As before, she liked the massage part (the rubbing), but hated the physical therapy part (the twisting). I took some video of it and will be posting it later. Though she cried through most of it, afterward she was in a good mood. She is getting more active and starting to explore. After the massage, the both of them hung around Mom and Dad and just played with their toys.

In the afternoon, Grace was in quite the mood. She crawled all over the place. She is becoming quite the babbler. As I’ve said before, the kids here are very quite. Other than some fussy crying, you don’t here a lot from them. Grace has broken through that and, at times, will just go off making all kinds of noises. Jack is quieter than her, but has begun to make noises too.

For a while, as you will see in the pictures, the two of them took over Lisa and Steve’s blanket and played with their toys. Grace also seems to understand what the camera is, because she looks like she is posing. Our camera has one of those red-eye lights and when she sees that, she looks at the camera. It also looks like she is posing for the camera during the video.

Jack spent some time with one of Lisa’s Little Einstein books. She has one that has mirrors in it. He loves to look at the baby in the mirror and “head butt it”. I noticed on the first day that he likes to head butt people. I saw today where he gets it from. His caregiver Tania does that to him. She calls his name, leans over and the butt heads. It’s cute now until he bangs some poor kid with his enormous forehead.

We brought in some apple juice for them today. They serve them tea with a lot of sugar and we wanted to try to start them on something else. They loved it. Grace has a rash on her face, which they think is from oranges, so she will be off orange juice. Three more days and we can give them whatever we want to eat and drink. We can’t wait.

Take a look at today’s pictures
Today’s video – Grace and Jack spending time together