Great news: not only is everything going wonderfully, we are expecting a baby girl in October! (At least the best guess based on one ultrasound is that its a girl – I’ll keep everyone posted!).

Most of my coworkers think I am insane, starting a seconds family in my late 40s, but we are happy about this and that is what counts. Honestly, most of my coworkers are looking forward to their kids finishing college (as I am for my 15 & 18 yo daughters) and then moving on to retirement. Compliments of my divorce, I’ll be working another 20 years anyhow, so that isn’t as much of a driver to me.

Evia’s English is progressing well. She is taking ESL classes at the local community college 2-3 times a week, based mostly n when I manage to get home from work. She does not drive, and doesn’t want to learn right now, so is dependant on me for transportation. I would have thought this would be a BIG problem, but surprising it is not. Yeah, occassionally I need to talk a half-day off for things like Immigration visits (we recently had their biometrics taken), but most other things we accomplish in the evenings or weekends. It helps a LOT that she never complains if we are out of anything, she seems to just accept such temporary inconveniences as nothing more.

I am seeing Evia open up communication wise. This past weekend her and my father chatted for about an hour. She has yet to engage in conversation with the neighbors, but I suspect that will happen soon. We had a couple with four kids move in next door, and the lady only works part time, so hope Evia will make a new friend.

Nastya just turned 11. We had a nice party for her with a few neighborhood kids. She has been in school since January and talks pretty good English now – enough to function in any environment.

—- Monday, 12 June, 2006 —-

Found out today that I’m off on a 3-day business trip, leaving on a Monday night, returning Thursday night soon. This will be our first time apart since Evia and Nastya arrived mid-December.

The thought of not having her by my side is rather disturbing – more than I suspected it would be. I just wrote her e-mail to let her know – I wonder what her response will be? Of course, we have talked about the fact that I occassionally travel on business (a few times a year), this is just our first experience. Probably not a big deal, but she will be something like 26 weeks pregnant, and she doesn’t drive – so she will be house bound for those days. She will also miss an entire week of ESL classes (she normally attends at least 2 of the 3 nights classes are available).

Hmmm, what else is new? We are about 4 weeks away from her mother and niece coming to visit. They will be here in America for 5 weeks. I’m a bit concerned about medical expenses – her mother has some heart and blood pressure issues. She is under doctors care now in an attempt to avoid the need for any when she gets here. All the on-line insurance companies I’ve found have strict “no pre-existing condition” coverage, so I guess we are just going to have to hope no issues come up.

—- Monday, 02 July, 2007 —-

Wow! Over a year since I posted. Guess I’m not that hot of a blogger. Well… lets see…

Of course, the big news was the birth of Alexandra Gabriel Carpenter on October 10th, 2006. She is now almost 9 months old, crawling like crazy, standing without holding onto things briefly, and has two beautiful lower teeth and her vampire teeth (Evia says thats my fault for making her watch the Blade movies while she was pregnant).

Nastya has turned 12. We had a party but forgot candles. I was was quite surprised, and pleased, when Evia when around to several neighbor’s home searching for some at the last minute. Far from speaking fluently, at least her confidence is improving. We still have some language problems, but are managing. Nastya, having been her over a year-and-half now, is speaking fluently – with only an occasional request for a word.

Last summer we Evia’s mother and niece over for 5 weeks. That was quite pleasant. Amongst many other things we went to a conversation area to walk in the trees and see a small local river. Of course, Nastya and her cousin wanted to go in. Of course we did not bring bathing suits. That apparently wasn’t considered an issue. They just took off their shoes and walked in. Evia and her mother followed. Against my instinct, they made it clear that I was being silly by not being willing to strip to my shorts and join them.

That raises another issue: My Russian family appears to be much more comfortable with their bodies than I am. I suspect that is highly cultural difference. My then new 14 year old bra less niece thought nothing of jumping into the river in a t-shirt. My wife doesn’t understand why I’m not comfortable bathing with our newborn daughter. She laughs when I complain of naked baby photos and points to photos on her forum of 12 year old Russian boys taking baths with their baby sisters. I’ve managed to convince her to throw a robe on (but only when she leaves the bedroom) before walking around the house naked. I’ve even managed to convince her that going outside with just that robe on isn’t appropriate. Lets not even talk about breast feeding in public – where she thinks Americans have simply ridiculous issues. Somehow, I think their culture is better, but its amazingly difficult to overcome the way one was raised.

Evia did manage to get her driving permit several months ago. The first time she relied on a “cheat sheet” one of her Russian friends gave her – and failed the test halfway through. We laughed about it and she took the process a lot more serious the next time. That said, in several months, she has logged perhaps a dozen hours behind the wheel. This is going to take some time… She did mention she hoped to practice in her Dads car when we go out to the Russian countryside.

Suppose that brings us to the next big event: We are going to spend 3 weeks back in Siberia soon. We will have a Russian wedding reception for her friends and family (something I’ve encouraged, something her female Russian friends view as a sign of my insanity), and have the baby Christened. We will fly into Moscow, swing by one of her friends that lives there, spend about 8 hours touring Moscow, and then hop on a 41 hour train ride to Omsk. I’ve never been on a cross country train – I’m looking forward to it. We will fly back to Moscow from Omsk when the vacation is over.

Evia and I have been spending weekends looking for a piece of ground in the local countryside we can build a dacha on. I’ve been toying with either building such a cottage, or building a nice small retirement house. For some reason, I’ve had a hard time getting her comfortable with the idea of “built once” vs. “build dacha” then “build retirement”. She finally found the root of the problem this weekend. As usual, it was cultural. Apparently in Russia, when possible, people build BIGGER retirement homes in the country than their primary homes. Family, and particularly grandchildren, we often come and spend the summer at their grandparents home. Here, of course, people often build SMALLER homes for retirement, acknowledging the kids are gone, and helping to reduce expenses for heating, cooling, taxes, etc. Fortunately, that makes this immediate decision easier – cottage it is!

Hmmm, think thats about it. Oh, one more thing: For a month or so we have been trying for child #2. Evia wanted to have the kids about 18 months apart and/or a March baby. This was strong enough that she didn’t care if she couldn’t drink at our upcoming reception – in fact she thought it would be nice to inform people then. Unfortunately, we did a “First Response” test this weekend and it was negative. She was a bit upset, but mostly because she has been taking the mini-pill since Gabby (Alexandra) was born and now it appears there was little reason. She hates taking pills… In any case, we bought a “3 pack” so will test again after we return. Maybe the train ride will be more successful than anticipated (nah, can’t really say that. She has made it clear that we will be quite busy on that train trip!).

— Dec 20, 2007 —