Elliot Pascoe's Blog

 If you are cuddling Elliot, and he is looking frisky, and you hear his mother give the command to kiss – beware ! you will shortly have a wet slobbery sensation.

Here we are outside the cabin at Camp Lepil, saying good bye to Mama who is heading back to Minsk.

Elliot is being exposed to more and more Russian words. The number of words he understands is growing fast. Here you can see what happens when you tell Elliot to pakazhe yazik – show me your tongue.

The camp at Lepil is in the forest, lots of lovely pines, birch and oak trees. The weather has been mixed, mostly cool and cloudy. The lake doesn’t look terribly inviting unless the weather gets suddenly warm.

This is of course our first trip overseas with a baby. We didn’t really know what to expect with trying to get Elliot into a routine. Everything changes – time zone, diet, scenery, weather, bedroom. Elliot has adjusted really well. We are still able to coax 2 sleeps a day out of him and get him to sleep at least 10 hours a night. Luckily it hasn’t taken too much to get him used to sleeping in lots of different locations. Sleeping in the same room as Elliot is also something new. Thankfully his snoring is really gentle  Now we just need to perfect the command to get him to roll over and snooze for another hour. Is there some secret way to trick infants into treating every morning like it is a lazy Sunday morning ??

Mama drove us to Lepil, about 160 km NE of Minsk, for 5 days at a Sanitorium. Apparently Sanitoriums aren’t just for the insane over here – will let you know if they don’t let us out. As we are away for 5 days the amount of junk we need is impressive. Traveling with a baby sure is different to traveling on our own. Where we are staying is like a camp site, with shared cabins near a lake. We are provided 3 meals today in a cafe/bar. The food is good solid Belarussian fare. Elliot is trying his hand (gums) at chicken cutlet, borsch, buckwheat, kefir, compote, pickled cucumber, cerok, dranike – the list goes on. He loves it all.