Russian Meet in India :)

Hello dear friends! Hope things are going on well in your corner of the world, the storms are behind, and there is only good weather ahead... I can apply same to myself too. We have been having a good but rainy weather last week, which I love of course.
Last to last weekend we had a mega-meet of Russian, Belorussian, Ukrainian, Moldovian-Indian families living in Punjab area. About 14 girls, same number of children, and few husbands were there.  We had to go to another city Phagwara which is about 120 km from Chandigarh.
It was a buzzing event, a little loud because of kids, particularly little A, as he found his latest passion there - the stairs... and we had to climb them up along with him; it was good though to shed some calories and gain them again.
Russian meetings are not just meetings, it is usually a feast. Since we live far from our native land, the get togetherS become especially valuable. Good food promises good communication we believe. Each of us cooked a dish or two...We don't do it frequently, but when we do...
Russians LOVE various salads. These are Korean carrot salad and Vinegret salad.

One of the most favourite salads - Olivie, which we usually make for New Year :)

 Mini sandwiches look artistic on these plates.

 Mushroom stuffed eggshells.. I haven't tried these but someone said they were really good.

 Vegetable caviar - my mum's recipe :) It was yumm, though not everyone tasted it.

Chicken tefteli and Kiev cutlets.

Oh well.. not really Russian, but it was yummy! I haven't eaten sushi since Moscow (like 7 years ago?)!!! And NOTE - a home baked bread!!!

There were other dishes too, but I won't tire you with more.. let's have some dessert! Bezet fluffy buscuits:

Poncho cake - a specialty of one of our friends. She makes so yumm and so light!

 We had to drive back already in the evening, and could enjoy these beautiful views once again. We loved these trees growing on the both sides of the road - it is not visible here but the weather was slightly cloudy.

The sunset at river Sutlej...

I am loving these things in India - nature, being able to communicate with my folks and spend time with my D and little A :)

Food pictures credit goes to one of my friends, she takes really nice photos! Thank you!

International Women's Day - the Soviet Style

Hello my dear friends! Today the whole world is celebrating International Women's Day - a day to pay tribute to all the women on Earth for their dedication, love, care, support... A tribute to those women, living and those who are not with us anymore, for the warmth of their hearts, and softness of their voices, for being strong and brave, for being mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, and being constant inspiration for their families, partners, and friends!

Here is a small collection of  8th of March Soviet era cards which I think are really sweet, promoting family, love, kindness. My parents have some of Soviet cards at home too, I need to ask to take photos of them :)

A beautiful Soviet woman - ideal one I suppose... a dream.

Russian girls dressed in traditional costumes, dancing and celebrating.

Children writing: Congratulations to mummy for 8th of March.

Happy women's day to all ethnicity!

Isn't this one very sweet? Such a good example :)

Russian dolls!!! Oh no.. I have just remembered I bought one in Moscow last year... and it is still lying somewhere in the box - out, out on the shelf!!! Silly me :(

I am late but it was my dear mom's birthday yesterday (7th of March), she was a gift to her mom for Women's day many years a go... Love you mom! And miss you a lot!!! Be healthy and happy always!

Happy Women's Day once again! Be happy and smile more!

Summer Things

Hello friends! That's right - we have no spring in here, but Summer right away... it has got really really hot already, up to +28! It's not a joke because now it will start getting only hotter. Nevertheless we cannot skip doing our daily deals, right?
Last weekend we as usually took a walk in the garden - a Terrace garden this time for our little A to enjoy new surroundings. He is FOND of the stairs and steps! As soon as he sees them anywhere he wants to climb up and down... We are very careful to choose places where he can do it safely. Under our supervision of course.

The garden had many most bright and cute flowers! As usual I don't know their names...

 This is the longest flower bed there... loved how it stretches further...

We stopped to take photos of this tree somewhere on the way; it has no leaves but huge red flowers! I am wondering what fruits it might give? These trees are everywhere in the city now.

Besides wandering around, I try to be productive on a crafty front. Here is what I put in my To accomplish list - a Waffle stitch dining set for little A. I am using tutorial by Kathleen of Miss Abigail's Hope Chest. Loved this stitch, and wanted to learn it after seeing on Sangeetha's post.

Also as we had bought a 3 in 1 microwave oven, I now can bake! Yey! Here are my latest oatmeal, flour, atta, ginger and turmeric muffins. I am glad that baking products and equipment became available in India in recent years. One can afford them easily as well.

This is pretty much it for today... I aim to finish pending projects in nearest future and start new ones as soon as possible. Thank you for all the comments and sharing of your experience on raising a child in many languages. Next post will try to make on what toddler activities I could incorporate in A's routine, and what didn't work for us. Still working on creating a quiet book for him and busy bags for a future trip home.

Have a wonderful day!

Bringing up a Multilingual Child

Back on track about how it is actually to bring up a child in a multilingual family, in our case Russian-Hindi-English-a little bit Punjabi... now that's enough I think.

Russian language 

Long before my little A was born I decided that I would speak only Russian and would make it a language of communication at least between two of us. I have been speaking Russian with him since then, mixing it with English words here and there on the way (like ешь it - eat this).
However communication alone will not suffice for him to learn my mother tongue. Written word is also very important so that he sees the Russian language around, its usage, and understands that this language has equal rights with others. For that purpose I always keep a calendar on the wall which is usually given by my parents every year.
Little A has his own backpack, gifted by my Lebanese friend, in which we store all the books. Every day little A brings  this precious bag of books, and we start reading, he comments, points at the pictures, asks to turn the page or not to...
My parents provided many books for A, so we don't have lack of Cyrillic written words.Some of them were gifted by our friend from Moscow, who also has an Indian husband and two kids. So she knows how it is raising children in a mixed family. She brought most popular children authors of all times A. Barto  (А. Барто), S. Marshak (С. Маршак) and K.Tchukovsky (К.Чуковский).

S. Marshak poems and tales for children

Agniya Barto, poems for children. (Агния Барто, Стихи для детей)

"Hare", one of the most known short poems by A. Barto.

                                             

"Elephant" ("Слон")

He loves seeing pictures in the book by K. Tchukovsky (К. Чуковский) "Wash'em clean" "Мойдодыр" - it's a book about a boy who was so dirty that all his belongings ran away from him.. so in order to gain them back he had to take a good bath :D

He absolutely loves a little book  called Сорока-сорока (Magpie-magpie). This is a folklore nursery rhyme which you say to a child while making circles on his palm, and then press each finger tip as the story goes... He tries to do this with my hand too :)

 I read him this alphabet book too, and he repeats A, О, У vowels :)

There are as well folktales, fairy tales, poems available for little A, and many good reads are with my parents, and  I can't wait to introduce my little boy to them.

I show him Russian cartoons from time to time too, like Domovyonok Kuzya (a Hob?), so he hears the speech not only from me. Many of my friends who live in India say that it is difficult to inculcate your language when the environment is not there. But as soon as I don't have an option of staying in my country, I shall use other means in order to make it happen. I need to put an effort.
So as you see his exposure to Russian language is limited to my speech, books, cartoons, and Skype with his grand parents. I am not going to overburden him with it, but just wanting to lit up interest in his mother's tongue. My D however is learning Russian now and is on his second year at the University, so I expect a little help from him too :)

English language

English makes a big entry in our day to day communication.
Among the books introduced to A is his favourite Little Red Riding Hood, which I purchased in the bookstore because of its illustrations. It was long before little A was born, but I knew it right there then that it was going to be for my baby.

This one is an old Indian edition of short stories found among many old books my in-laws keep with them. The stories are too long for my A, and have slightly strange plots to my liking.

 Moreover his exposure to English language will increase when he goes to school, as mostly all the playschool programs here are in English, just like the one I used to work for. Hence I don't have much worry for this language, he will definitely learn it.

Hindi language.

Absolutely everywhere. Speech at home and outside, children's TV channels ...BUT little A has no Hindi books as of now, only newspapers, in which he likes to point at the words written in Devanagari. Beside,s of course, little A will be learning it at school.

Punjabi language

Exposure is very limited to occasional conversations by my in-laws. D doesn't speak Punjabi at home, but only when it is required. However this language is taught in many schools here in UT.
I know I take sides - I wrote the most about Russian :P ))) However aiming to bring my A up with the knowledge of three languages I would not like to enforce any of them but implement in such a way that he enjoys this unique opportunity and uses it later in life effortlessly.
Until Little A starts speaking we won;t get to know which one of the languages he would prefer, but just recently he started trying to say the word "bird" in Russian (ptica "птица").. Yey!!! I win! lol

Have a nice day! Just one more day left, and we can enjoy our weekend :)

Crocheting Useful and Beautiful

Hello dear friends! I guess that our Indian winter has come to an end... Sun is shining bright, temperature is around +24, birds are chirping. Hot Indian Summer is round the corner!
We celebrated my father-in-laws birthday last Monday, the cake my D brought was awesome - fruity delicious!

However last week had also stored unexpected health issues. First my little boy had fever for 4 days, then when he started recovering, another boy, D, fell ill... Both are fine now, but I was taken a little aback and stayed home for almost a week. Hopefully no one else in the house will experience this nasty viral.
Thank you all for encouraging comments on my last post, I must say they moved me, literally! I did start crocheting after little A goes to bed. And the feeling of being able to create again is awesome, even if I get a little less sleep. I am not yet ready for any big crochet adventures, hence I am warming up by going for the small ones.
I have been wanting to have a storage basket (-s), which I finally own, and this is not the last one. I have not used any particular pattern, but got inspired by many on Pinterest, especially by the one with handles. It looks awesome, works up in no time, and organizes little things in the house so well - what more would you wish for? I put two strands of yarn together and liked the marble like effect it created.

Another rather beautiful, but maybe not so useful project is a Mega mandala doily, consisting of 23 rows. I loved crocheting this one a lot because it uses various stitches, and each row is in a different color. It can be called a stash buster project.  I used Indian yarn brand Vardhman, Brilon as usual. The doily was emerging throughout few creative nights, here it is how:

It measures about 35 cm in diameter. I am going to place it on a crockery table in our drawing room.. and make one more for the sake of enjoying making it once again, lol :) Crocheter's madness.

In plans to crochet a set of coasters, maybe something like a set of mats for my little A's meal time, 2 pillow covers for my parents and start another blanket (shall start soon, because this project will stretch till next year for sure, lol). I particularly liked Linda's Greg blanket - the square patterns and colors, aww...! So perhaps I will steal the idea :P
That's all for now, enjoy your week, enjoy your days!