No, my daughter is not from Siberia!

Yes, I was asked if S was from Siberia today! I had to chuckle a little before answering that she was definitely not from Siberia. You see, my blood is about as tropical as it gets, growing up in Central America. And Alex....well he never wanted to live north of I-10 (although our house in Houston was about 10 miles north). Now we are thousands of miles north of I-10 and he is surviving :)

This morning while we were playing at the park it was about 50 degrees, with a breeze. This picture will explain why he asked -

I bought her this sarafan a couple days ago at the Izmailovo market. It is a traditional Russian jumper, which is supposed to be worn with a long sleeve shirt underneath. Well, to S it is just a princess dress that looks silly with anything underneath....even when its freezing cold outside. She was wearing a big coat earlier in the day, until we got on the metro and it was like 90 degrees and she quickly shed the coat.

As you can imagine we got all kinds of looks the rest of today as we walked around the streets of Moscow. Some people are really nice and just come up to me or her and ask Вам не холодно?  (are you cold?). I am quickly learning the word for cold -холодный - (and that x is tough to pronounce!) because not only does every single person stop to ask S if she is cold, but you also have to practically beg for cold drinks here at restaurants....and ice....its a foreign concept! Russians have this fixation on not being cold, which I guess, if you spend over half the year in freezing weather you want all things opposite cold, even your Coke!

Well anyways, there are also some people walking around that make it their mission to make you feel like the worst mother alive for not dressing your kids in heavy winter coats, a scarf and a beanie because the temperature dropped below 70 degrees. These lovely ladies are called babushkas around here. A new friend of mine describes them as "they are not just someone's grandma, they are everyone's grandma" (thanks for the description!). This is so true! I know they mean well....but goodness they have a way of making you feel like an awful person. One of them even started slapping her own arm out of disgrace that S didn't have sleeves on! Well, its just going to get worse for this momma because I have the world's most stubborn child and she will continue refusing to wear a coat!

We also attracted a lot of attention today because, in true S fashion, she was scooting down the sidewalks singing at the top of lungs! And we were walking down Tverskaya...an extremely busy street! She really loves to act out her inner Princess and sings a song about everything....think Brave meets Tangled and you have you little miss S! Today she made up the coffee song :) She also stops anywhere that reflects her image and spins around several times.

I will leave you with a couple images of this....so wish I would have recorded this so you could hear her singing!

And here is a cute one of her posing at home for those who don't have Facebook ;)