What do you do with kids in Kyiv?

I'm glad you asked me that question. This place has a booming social life for the wee set. (Not so much for the teens. As you saw from recent posts, M chose to stay home and play video games rather than come to Odesa. We figure he's old enough,and there isn't anything for him to do in terms of getting in trouble. Our biggest fear was that he'd starve to death, but since we were only gone two days....)

Anyway, back to the toddler scene. Here is one example - the culinary stylings of our neighbor's birthday party for the 2 year old - "Circus and Cocktails" theme. The mom is 7 months pregnant (another girl, just like us) and somehow she managed to do all of this. I reassure my ego with the fact that she doesn't work. (You'll see the little girl in the bouncy castle down below.) To this day, S asks me if I'll make her a tiger cupcake. Good luck with that, kid. Maybe I should be devious and tell her that Aunty Lisa will make her tiger cupcakes - after all, she's the crafty one. (Sorry, Lisa!)

We went to lunch with some other families, and the restaurant had a full-blown play area out back. Pirate ship, sheep and horses, and while we were eating they set up a bouncy castle. S loved it! We have video of her laughing so hard she can barely breathe.

On an interesting side note, we left that party to have dinner with a friend of Aaron's who works for the Finnish Embassy. We all (including S) had our first taste of reindeer, and we all loved it. Who knew the little one would enjoy reindeer and ligonberry sauce. Thank heavens she's not old enough to make the connection to Santa's helpers...