I’m sad to say that wasn’t the case last night. Despite the fact Cooper had his shortest nap yesterday afternoon and we went on three separate excursions yesterday and he was constantly rubbing his eyes, he just could not fall asleep. He was up and out of bed probably about a dozen times. We sat on the potty three separate times and had success each time, but still that did not help. He would play and sing in his bed and he would rub his eyes, but still he could not fall asleep. We were waiting for him to fall asleep so we could go to bed but well past midnight we were very tired so we gave in and went to bed. After Ken used his patented cocooning method (where he wraps kiddo up in all his blankets), eventually Cooper fell asleep. And then this morning he was up like a bolt and ready to run around and play.
Because of this, we decided to have some indoor playtime and laundry time this morning, lest we go out and have a breakdown somewhere due to lack of sleep. That seemed to suit Cooper just fine and he found lots of things to keep him entertained. And I’m happy to report that as I write this it’s shortly after lunch and this is Cooper’s current status:
Mommy & Daddy are crossing our fingers that tonight will look much the same! 🙂
Astana has three newer style malls similar to the malls back home. All three are in our area and we’ve been frequent visitors of two of them, so yesterday afternoon we set out to check out the third one. It was such a nice afternoon that Ken was able to go in shorts and Cooper seemed content to ride on Daddy’s back.
Along the way we passed by what’s being called the most daring of all Astana’s architectural fantasies, the Khan Shatyr.
It’s taking quite a while to build it. According to my trusty Lonely Planet guidebook, the nearest thing to a real Xanadu-style ‘pleasure dome’ that humanity has ever created, the Khan Shatyr will be an enormous, transparent, leaning, tentlike structure, 150m high, made of a special heat-absorbing material that will produce summer temperatures inside even when it’s minus 30° outside.
After walking a few more minutes we made it to the mall.
It’s interesting that it’s only two blocks away from the Mega Centre mall. In Astana everything that is new construction is being built in very close proximity to each other. If you asked me to rate the three malls, I would give this mall the lowest rating because it had no children’s play area. Now if you asked me two months ago, I probably would have rated this one the highest because I thought it had the best selection of stores. My, how the factors that are important to you suddenly change. LOL
Cooper can be very mischievous – as I’m sure most of you can guess. When he’s getting into things he shouldn’t, we will look at him, shake our finger and say a stern ‘no’. At first it was hard to keep a stern look because as soon as we did this, he would come running up to us with a big cheesey grin and give us a big hug. Now he seems to have stopped the hugging thing, and instead he will imitate us – which makes me want to laugh, but I try very hard to keep a stern look on my face.
Like Ken said, Cooper doesn’t seem very interested in the TV which is okay with me because I really don’t want him watching too much TV. There is one channel here which is similar to Treehouse back home. All the shows are in Russian of course, except there is one show called ‘Funny English’ and as the name implies it’s a show about teaching kids English. So if that show is on I try to get him engaged with it because they say words in Russian and then in English.
Today we tried to show him a Veggie Tales Silly Songs DVD. At first he didn’t seem interested, but once I sat down with him and tried to get him into the singing, he seemed to enjoy it. In fact, when we had to leave to go to the potty, he could still hear the music and he was sitting there and humming along.
I do love that he has really taken and interest in music. When we first met him he didn’t seem to like music all that much. But now, he really seems to enjoy it. We have three musical toys here and first thing in the morning he’ll always turn them on and then as soon as their familiar music starts he does his favorite little dance to them. And whenever he feels like it is too quiet in here, he’ll run around to each toy and turn them on so they are all playing their music at the same time. He’s also really good at imitating the music to his one toy and he’ll often walk around humming it.
Well, I’d better go before our little munchkin is awake and rarin’ to go. I’m pretty sure he’s expecting some outside time this afternoon as before his nap he was waiting by the door with his shoes in his hand. Paka!
Life with Cooper 