A New Year and a New Name

Some additional info on Nauryz – thanks to Florence:

Nauryz is the traditional spring festival celebrating the new year held throughout the Central Asian communities of the former Soviet Union. The roots of Nauryz are in pagan festivals celebrated to enhance the fertility of animals and the soil in planting and mating periods. In literature, it was first mentioned by Tole-Bi in 1720.
Nauryz is one of the most important national holidays among the Central Asian people. The holiday is usually celebrated at the spring equinox, when day and night are of equal duration, representing the time of the year when the difficult winter ends and spring renewal begins.
Nauryz celebrations are big events where games are played, traditional ceremonies are performed, heritage costumes are worn, and festive foods are served. People visit with friends and relatives to deliver expressions of well being and to wish good luck for the upcoming year. Tradition says that the more one celebrates Nauryz, the more successful the New Year will be.
In the Kazakh language, Nauryz is also known as Ulys Kuni (the first day of the new year) and Ulystyn uly kuni (the great day of the people). A particularly symbolic tradition is the “dance” of the light and dark spirits, winter and summer. Other traditional activities include horse races, fortune telling, camel racing, wrestling, racing barefoot, poetry readings and the giving of small gifts and flowers to the elderly.

According to Zhanat, Nauryz is also the name of a mythical Kazakh prince who fought the 3 bad women – the Snow Queen, the North Wind, and the Darkness. They struggled for 3 days, and he finally prevailed, and won the hand of the Spring Princess. Sounds a bit like the Persephone story, no? Guess some things are universal.

Lots of Nauryz celebrations here in town – will have some pix tomorrow of those, as we are headed out the door shortly to check things out. We're then off to Michele & Robinson's for New Year's Dinner.

As for SPW, he’s now NJW – Nicholas James Wolfe.

He seems to agree that this will work, as it fits him, keeps some of his heritage intact, and will still fit in Boston. Some stats for you: As of March 1, he weighed in at a whopping 17lbs, and was 26” tall. The outfit he had on yesterday (and again today) is from Baby Gap, and was their 6-12 month size. We bought a snow suit and another little track suit yesterday – lots of guessing on sizes, but I think we hit it right.

Play time today was lots of fun. He’s starting to pull himself upright on the side of the little ball pit. This worked beautifully until he turned and we didn’t move fast enough…bonk of the head, and a few tears but nothing significant.

As you can see, his disposition improved with checking out Mommy.

Then it became sleepy time, and time for us to go.