Fun in the Sun

Last Saturday Natasha and I decided to take Yeva out for a little picnic at a nearby lake. It was a pretty spontaneous decision, so we didn't bother with much preparation, just grabbed some food out of the fridge, some water, the hammock and a blanket, then threw it all in my camping backpack and took off. Well, almost. We weren't going to miss a chance to try out some of Yeva's cute summer wardrobe, so we dressed her up for the occasion. It was good and hot with plenty of sun but not unbearable, which Natasha would call "good weather." I've already had more than my share of "good weather," so I was happy to kick it in the shade with Yeva in the hammock.

It seems like Yeva is starting to really develop quickly, so she keeps getting more and more interesting. She's turning into much more of an energetic rubbery spunk, and she likes to play all sorts of little gymnastic games with mommy and daddy. She's even been taking swimming lessons from mommy int he bathtub, and she enjoys it. Saturday her major discovery was realizing that she has direct conscious control of her hands. Of course not like she hasn't been using her hands already, but I guess she wasn't really aware of it. She just couldn't get enough of looking at hands, hers, ours, didn't matter. Opening and closing her little fingers and touching different surfaces in a gentle controlled manner became the most interesting thing in the world. She's more skillful with her left than right so far, and it was cracking us up when after having such success opening and closing her left hand she'd switch her attention to the right, and you could see her strained expression as she tried to open her clenched fist trembling as though it's preparing to transport into another dimension, but with little result. Then as soon as she'd give up on her fruitless endeavor, she'd look at something else, and her hand would open and close freely and grab onto things without any conscious effort.

We started reading a book written by Boris Nikitin and his wife Lena. Back in the 50's in the USSR they both worked as school teachers. When they started their own family, they decided to try moulding their roles as parents "active and noninterfering" to the needs of their children rather than using a set approach. A lot of what came as a result was very non-traditional and viewed very skeptically by everyone--Russians don't feel shy about animatedly vocalizing in public their opinions of your parenting methods, something Natasha and I have already had to deal with more than once. Ater a while though, their 7 healthy children were all considerably far ahead of their peers in mental and physical development, so people started giving them some credit. They'd let curious parents come visit their house and share ideas. The main thing for me is that the way he describes his house sound like a lot of fun, kind of like, "the land," Camille's or the Prescott Judys' place. Anyways, we'll be sure to let you in on anything interesting we want to try implementing.

Fashion show: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=272786&id=785980178&saved#/album.php?aid=272786&id=785980178&comments