Baby House #2

Mural outside Baby House

Outside the Veranda Playroom

Most days start with us walking to the Baby House to meet the boys at 9:30 or 9:45. The walk takes about 20 minutes and passes through neighborhoods, mainly. Buses clog the streets at times but mostly small vans with number cards in the windows drop off and pick up passengers at unmarked areas of most neighborhoods. We have adapted our dress and habits to blend in quite well. As long as I keep my camera in my pocket we look like we belong. My new black shiny purse blends much better than the green square travel pouch I came with. We got circled by two guys one of our first days walking around here on our own. The focus was on that green pouch. So that was the last of carrying it on this trip! Olga warned us that tourists, particularly "rich" Americans, can become targets for petty theft here. We take different routes to the baby house and try not to speak too much English. Some days we have Victor drive us, and maybe take us to the grocery store or downtown to do some shopping.

When we arrive at the baby house the boys are usually waiting in the playpen just after having a snack or getting their pants changed. Sasha comes to get picked up by Daddy and Losha gets very shy and puts his finger in his mouth. After we say hello we get the boys shoes on.

Yanna insists on putting Sasha's shoes on when most others just give us the shoes now. Sandals for Inside but if we are going out the full outfit gets put on. We go to the mud room and put outside shoes on, sweatshirt, coat, and hat on.

Outside there are many playpen areas and Natasha is handing out leaves. We have seen many bouquets of leaves collected by children.

Losha is very comfortable in the presence of the fences as he poses for Daddy. We spend about 1.5 or 2 hours with the boys; up until lunch and nap time. They sometimes cry when we leave and sometimes they don't even know we have left. The first time they cried we both looked at each other and got a little smile. They are still very happy in the Baby house and they have about 2 weeks until we will take them away forever. The nannies have even started to take their own pictures to remember our boys. We will leave a few reminders for them and we have an address that we can send updates to.