While my internet is working well and my husband is at the office...

I thought I would take this opportunity to post an update on life in Tbilisi because who knows when I will have the opportunity again. You see, our internet connection? It sucks. Dial-up is blazingly fast compared to our home connection. I don't know what happened, the connection used to be fairly decent, but in the last few weeks our speed has been slow. How slow you ask? Well, just to open my homepage it can take anywhere from 2 to 5 min. I usually type in a web address (say, oh, Google) and then open up a game of Spider Solitaire, play the hand, then click back over to the internet window and maybe, maybe, the page will have loaded.

And if that were not bad enough, I have tried 2 times to post an update to my blog in the past week. The first time the power went out in the house while the update was uploading and in the 2 seconds before the generator kicked on and restored power to my house, and consequently to my internet server, my post was lost somewhere in space. The second time? Well, see the post directly below this one about the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH.

So third time's the charm. Or so I hope.

Things have been going well in Tbilisi - Kyra is trying to crawl, trying to get more teeth, laughing all the time and generally keeping us all on our toes. She learned to clap last week and takes much delight in clapping all the time. For no reason other that it seems to amuse her. I fully expect her to have her two top teeth in the next month or so and to be walking, like her brother did, around 10 months. She wants to stand and only stand. Don't try to sit her down on the floor - oh the screaming horror. Help her stand? Laughter abounds. The only thing that worries me about her walking so soon is that we have stairs. When Blaine started walking we lived in a single-storey house in Florida - everything was flat and even. Here we have a long flight of stairs. Yes, we have gates, but we also have a 4 year old who is not so great about keeping gates locked. Constant vigilance is in my future. Ah, the joys of parenting.

Speaking of joys, Blaine is great - 10 more days until he goes back to school, but who is counting? Not me. Heh. He's my little magpie - he never.ever.ever stops talking. The only time he is silent is when he is sleeping. And he has learned the magic of "Why?". I thought hearing "mom" 2000 times a day was annoying but I would gladly take that over the why why why why why why. He is also the king of circular arguments. It's exasperating. Example:

Blaine: Mom, I peed a little in my pants
Me: Why didn't you pee in the toilet?
Blaine: Because I peed in my pants.
Me: Why did you pee in your pants Blaine?
Blaine: Because I didn't pee in the toilet.
Me: But you are a big boy who knows how to use the toilet, so why didn't you use the toilet?
Blaine: Because I just peed in my pants.
Me: Why did you pee in your pants? Did you not make it to the bathroom in time?
Blaine: No, just because I didn't pee in the toilet.

It's like a Laurel and Hardy routine. He could continue like that for hours. I would be insane, but it makes perfect sense to him.

So that's the excitement here. Blaine is back to school soon, David's parents are coming for a visit, Kyra is getting big (7 months old already - really, how did that happen so fast?) and Tbilisi is, well, Tbilisi. Hot, crazy, fun, exciting, exasperating. You should come visit. And babysit Blaine for me. Why? Why not?