Marge tries to repeat sounds after us and says “ko” for a cat (the word “cat” sounds like [‘koshka] in Russian) and says “pti” for birds (the word “birds” sounds like [‘ptici] in Russian). She imitates the sound of a fall with “ba-ba-h”.

She puts things in my hand or somewhere (gives and takes) and tries to stack plastic toy glasses.

Veronika had a fever last night. I thought a little marvel of conversion would cheer her up. So I crocheted this tail of a mermaid for her Snow White doll.

Trip to Milan, Part I

First of all, I have to tell about how did we muster our courage on taking this trip. The truth is, we didn’t. Actually we were planning a whole different trip, and that’s the saddest part of the story. We had already bought tickets to London for a weekend. We were up to visit our friends and buy me a new lens. But apparently, it’s a real trouble to get in London (and is worth loads of money) if you have a status of alien in Latvia. Yep, it is as ludicrous as it sounds, a part of people officially have this status here, which is a result of them (or their parents) moving here in the time period when this place belonged to Soviet Union. Most of them had already got through a procedure of gaining the citizenship of Latvia, though. Well, don’t ask why, but my husband hadn’t. But this is really the first time when it actually mattered. And it was sheer coincidence that we found out before the flight about our need to make a visa for him and we had some time to change our destination (and thanks a lot for this bright idea to our friend, the one from England, as we were ready to lose our money for the tickets as these were of a non-refundable kind).

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This week started with the journey to Milan. This is our arrival to the Central Station of Milan.

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Marge with my mother in law in the night of the New Year.

We have returned from our trip safe and sound. I’m telling this not only because we managed to actually see Milan behind the crowd of shoppers who arrived there for discounts and behind the emigrants who sell quick pods for selfies or exchange colourful thread bracelets for a “donation” for “long live Africa”.

There was a snow storm in Riga a few days ago. As I watched giant snowflakes falling, I desperately wanted to get outside and take some photos (yep, I’m totally addicted). I found a cooperative subject in one of my girls, who also wanted to get outside badly.

Me and the girls worked on cleaning their room today. I actually haven’t seen it clean from the Marge’s birth. Then Anastasia and Veronika left to their father’s and I kept on cleaning the room by myself in Marge’s company. Still a way to go, but I hope we will be done by tomorrow.

And that’s a 3/4 of a year! And I’m late with the post by a week, just like I usually am.

There was a lot of exploring this month. Marge obviously finds it absolutely delightful that she can travel across all of our rooms. Marge was so active this month that I’m actually not sure if she gained more weight or lost some during the month. She truly has a lot of stuff to do!