Since it was pouring rain, last night I hung out at home with Leah for 3 hours after coming home from work. We danced, played "soccer" with her big pink ball and with her little baseball, and read books.. over and over again. In the process I realized that Leah knows way more songs than I originally thought. She recognized so many of them when I flipped to them in the book, and knew the melodies. It really amazed me. Also, apparently she is really interested in the pictures in the book. One of the songs has a picture of a little boy hanging upside down from a tree. To Leah, it seems that something is wrong with the picture, so whenever she flips to the page, she swiftly turns the book upside down, so that the boy now appears to be standing up straight. She did this about 5 times, as she was flipping through the book. Totally cracked me up.

And then I tried to slurp her up. Unsuccessfully. But I am not giving up. I'm going to keep on trying.

I wake up a little after 6am these days, to get to work at 8. I am usually home by 5pm, and then spend the time playing with Leah, taking her to the park or for walks, feeding her dinner, giving her a bath, having dinner with Vadim, and cleaning up the kitchen afterwards. Sometimes Vadim gets home at 7, which makes the last hour before Leah's 8pm bedtime more fun and easier on me - since we're there together. Other days, like last night, he doesn't get home until she's already asleep, which means that after I put her to bed, I don't have an ounce of energy left. I don't feel like doing anything then - certainly not working out, and certainly not talking on the phone. The most I can do is sit there on the couch, with my laptop, and watch TV while reading blogs and message boards. I can also sometimes muster enough energy to talk to people via instant messenger. But that's about all I'm capable of.