Made in China

I don't know how it works in America, esp in the cities - but here the mothers with the children congregate in a park or a playground and let the children play. Sometime there can be as many as 15 toddlers with their parents, strollers, bicycles,and toys in toy running here and there at the accustomed meeting point.

At this age, the children do not play together. They are more interested in what toys the other children brings and normally the children will run up to the newcomer's stroller and peer into the basket, the more badly behaved ones pulling the toys out themselves. The mantras of the mother's include: Don't touch someone else's stroller, don't take things, and nelza - which basically means don't by any means - or a very strong no.

You listen as the mothers yell at their children and you learn the kids', but not the mothers', names. You begin to talk to the mothers who are there often and the ones you like you may learn their names and start arranging to meet. The mother's watch their children, chat, talk on the cell phone, and play interference when needed.

And the children play, bouncing from toy to toy as the fancy strikes them. Balls, strollers, musical animals you pull on a string, clack-clack toys, shape sorter toys, shovels, buckets, trucks, toy phones- an entire toy shop distributed between the stroller baskets and strewn beneath the trees. Most of the toys cheap (balls 50 cents, stroller $5, toy phone $1.25), some of them broken (but the kids don't care), and all of them from China. Many of the toys are the same, because if a parent sees that their child likes something the chances are that they will buy it for their child (it is slightly embarrassing if your child is always after anther child's toy)- but all the same they prefer to play with the other children's toys over their own - until their own toy has been claimed by another child. The best thing about the toys is that they cheap - not all toys - just the ones you see on the street. It doesn't matter if it gets lost or broken or picked up by another kid. One mother says she loves the 10 uah toys because she can buy them and feel like she is getting something for her child and not feel guilty about the money - though the money does eventually add up. And aside from the bicycles - it is often the cheapest toys that the children like most. Plastic shovels, for instance, are wildly popular. Not to dig with necessarily - but just to walk around with.

It is fascinating to watch, and rather enjoyable to be a part of, especially if your child is well fed and rested that day. You learn the latest child rearing gossip - the cheapest diapers, the foods the other children are eating, the rumor that raw carrots will prevent cavities. I'm quite enjoying it.

Photos from the 4th

Things that go boom

Fireworks!

My family didn't do fireworks growing up. My dad said it was burning up money. One year I set off fireworks with friends in Prescott, another year in Waitsburg, one year in Kansas at a family reunion, and one year a renter had left some sparklers and a few other things behind and so we lit them in the road and made some gun powder trails with some gunpowder my dad had laying around. That was it. The other years, we either drove around and looked at everyone else's fireworks or went into Walla Walla and spent the day at my aunts and then went to watch the firework show at Pioneer Park.

Yesterday, we bought fireworks. Despite Alister's protest that we would only celebrate November 5th, some friends invited us for a picnic and that was that. There is a firework stand by our house and I've been dying to buy fireworks since I first saw it 4 years ago. So I conferred with our hosts, took up a collection, and bought fireworks. 3 fountains, a pack of flowers, a pack of bugs, 3 salutes, 4 rockets, 2 roman candles. You don't really know what you're getting when you haven't really done fireworks yourself and haven't quite mastered all the explosive vocabulary connected to them. But the seller assured me that it would be pretty. I forgot to ask if it would be loud.

The setting, a residential district in Kiev - is not the normal location for fireworks, and when you are setting them off when no one else is - you are very conscious that they are very, very loud. Especially the bugs - we decided not to set any more of them off after the boom activated a couple of car alarms. And so began a series of fortunately harmless mishaps - One rocket refused to launch - so we had a ground level bloom erupt at our feet. Another rocket flew, but the stick landed on a neighbor's roof. The roman candle tipped over, and sent us all running for cover. After the roman candle, we decided it was best to leave the rest of the fireworks for the family to set off in a field another day. I also concluded that fireworks are most fun for the children who want to light them and that the rest of the time, we are better off going to a show. Alister concluded that my dad was closest to the truth - they just burn up money - and though the fountains, and the 26 salute box were lovely and presented no mishap - I think we've both gotten our fill of fireworks for a long time.

Saphira by the way did fantastic - a bit startled with the boom bug - but she was nestled away in the Ergo and was more sleepy than scared for the rest of the fireworks. We did get her to say oooooh along with us as the fountains burned - but the rest was a bit much though, as I said before, she did not cry.

I don't know what Alister did with the camera, but once I find it I'll post some pictures too.