The Last 24hrs in Kiev

I cant imagine morhters who don't have their children.. Ishmael and Idreis left this morning with K for a 4 day road trip, we will be back in the States when they return. Ishmael had a bit of a cry last night and we stood and hugged for a long time. The fact that I know they wont be ringing the doorbell anytime soon, puts a little ache to my heart. I did not think I would miss them so much already.

We took a stroll down the the big store to pick up some goodies for the plane, the children played in the play area for the last time. There as a bully in there who would not share one of the swinging toys, and do you know these three little chickens, had the nerve not to fight back.. The boys would swat at them and even tried to spit once. The only one who attempted to hit him was Isa, and when he did that, the boy pushed Isa down, he got right back up. There on the sidelines... Inayah and Ibrahim... just staring.. Inayah did try to hit at him, and Ibo did more punching at the punching bag then at the boy. I thought to myself, as much as you all, wrestle and box and hurt each other at home, here is a chance for you to jump this little chunky bully and the two biggest fighters.. dont want to fight.. This is after I saw how the other child was treating them, and gave them permission to do some stomping... Peace once, Peace twice, and on the third Peace.. the other party just didnt get it, so get to whooping some ass.!

Packing the carry-on luggage and picking up the little bits and pieces that we dont want to leave behind. I have been thinking of the time spent here and wondering if I will miss my lifestyle here. I think that I will. The freedoms that I am going back to are such different ones, then the ones that I am leaving. Also back to the single-parenting for a few weeks, and less two children. It should be interesting. I do have to admit, part of me will miss living here and the experiences and times we all shared together as a family. Which makes sense, because that was the driving factor for making this journey in the first place.

Inayah and I walked up to Athina and ordred the last of the pesto, salmon and soup. We then walked to the underground and purchased some scarves while we were waiting for the food to get done. Beautiful day here, sun is shining, will probably go walk up the middle before it gets dark. Isa is napping and the rest are having quiet time.

Ms InaraArlene On Her Way

Ms. Inara Arlene

Inara is such a delight. She has been learning some new dance moves and loves to bounce and bounce to the beat. She has mastered drinking out of a cup and anytime there is food around, you can find her begging and yelping at your leg for a bite. She enjoys playing with all the children. Every morning when Isa wakes up, he has to come in and give her a hug or kiss, if she is awake. He just smiles at her and says, " Hey my pretty girl". She has also learned to climb the stairs and so we have to catch her, usually on the second or third stair. Otherwise she just yells and yells to the children from the bottom step. She loves to go outside and most times we can soothe her crying by just taking her to the window. She also has learned to stand up briefly. The best part is when she falls, she just laughs and smiles and gets back up. Determined little girl. She definently knows who and what she wants. The other night she was crying and crying and as soon as she saw Khalid, she just reached for him and stopped. She also lets Idreis sing her to sleep, such a sweet sight to see. They all seem to want to crawl into her playpen and play with her. She still loves her pacifier and luckily we have not lost it. That clip works great.

Yougurt... I must be in heaven

I just love this stuff they call chicken.

Sun is Shining

What a difference a day makes.

Morning started very slow and Idreis had to finish his homework while eating oatmeal. That is just how it goes some mornings.. I went back to sleep for a bit, Isa played on http://www.starfall.com/ a very good sight and has online books that he can click and be read to. Love that.

Cooked a very nice brunch of cheese omlette, oatmeal pancakes and cornbeef hash. I found the corned beef at the grocery store.. That will be my first and last time eating that over here. It looked too muchlike dog food coming out of the can. It tasted ok.. of course.. because I was cooking.. but I think I will have to wait to get back to the State and go to Good Day Cafe.

Isa spent part of the early afternoon painting and Ibo shooting hoops.. He reminds me of Ishmael running around in our Storrs, CT apartment.. We went for a nice walk up the middle and did some 3-D chalk painting on the sidewalk. A truck drove past, windows down and hiphop music playing loudly. The driver and passenger had shades on.. Ibrahim just looked up from his chalk work, made a face and waved them off. I had to laugh.. That boy is a hot mess!

School kids home and Ish and Dreis are off to pick GramaLene up from the airport, they also have basketball tonight so depending on the time, they will drop her first or get dropped, just depends on the traffic.

We put a homemade bird feeder up on our patio, but have had no visitors, me and K had a good laugh about what the neighbors who can see it are probably saying about us. Either way Ibrahim spends time looking out the window to see if any birds have came.

Spring Is Not Here!!

I would love to tell you all that it is warm here and that the sun is shining. This is just not the case. It has been snowing the past three days, not a lot, but even the fact that as I am typing I can look outside and see flakes coming down... the sun at least has somehow been popping out of the clouds here and there. I was looking at my last blog date.... what happenend to the days, when I got on here and blogged every day? As if I am that busy here... (NOT). I am going to try and recap the past few weeks.

Idreis turned 9 on February 27th, we had a nice birthday party for him while my mom was here, the cake was great of course. Another Jessica original. Isa also had a birthday on March 6th, and is now three years old, yet when you ask him, he is still two. We went to Arizona restaurant for his birthday, the non-smoking section was full, so we sat in smoking for 2 hours... Not good at all, he is very sensitive to smoke, which I forgot.. and so even today he still has a cough, but nothing compared to the wheezing and coughing the first few nights after..

Ibrahim has lost this tooth and also the other bottom one. He pulled both out by himself. Very proud to have joined the Toothless club. He sounds so funny talking without them. The tooth fairy also made a visit and left him 5uah which he went to the store and bought some M&Ms and a juice box.

We all went iceskating, minus Inara and Isa. I had so much fun, I dont think I have been ice skating for like 10 years plus, I was out there like a natural. Suprisingly, I did not fall once. Ibrahim did great and so did Ishmael, although he is still getting the hang on trying to stay on top of the skates and not use his anjles to balance. Idreis probably would get the flopping and falling award, as he found enjoyment in just going as fast as he could and wiping out. Inayah found some ladies who wanted nothing more but to hold her hands and skate around with her. The time she did fall, she must have landed really hard because her knees were purple and blue that evening.. she may have some type of disorder... bruising easily is a sign of what?

Ibrahim and Isa have continued with their weekly swimming lessons, the past two weeks Isa has had no interest at all in the class. He usually has a male teacher and the past two times he has had a different instructor and 1/3 way through the class, he is ready to get out... Ibrahim on the other hand has progressed tremendously and is ready for any swimming outings this summer. We also had a nice family swim when my mom was here, and the children all enjoyed swimming with her (like old times at the YWCA). The sauna was my favorite, and something that I surely need to incorporate into my workouts. Speaking of, I have been trying to get to the gym at least four days out the week. The cold and snow sometimes make me lazy as I have to walk up to the hotel, but I have been making a strong attempt to get there.


Inayah had a "Spring" show at the school in which she sang He's Got the Whole World In His Hands.. since then she has been practicing My Girl and also a song from The Wizard of Oz, determined to be in a pagent this summer, so if anyone knows of a local pagent in MN, please let me know.



Idreis also did a history show about WWII, he was the British Prime Minister, it was a very nice show and I enjoyed the music and also the gas mask scenes. School is going good for all of the three. Ish and Dreis will be in summer school this summer. I just want to make sure they haven't missed too much. They also started here late and just being on a different school system, I think it would be best.