The winter of our discontent with the weather (and other things)

Had a thankfully peaceful evening with Leah, without any drama, health-wise, or discipline-wise.  When putting her to bed, I read to her "Adventures of Eloise", which my parents took out of the library and brought along on their recent trip with Leah to the Poconos.  We got to a page about Eloise ordering room service, and saying "Charge it please and thank you" (one of her favorite lines - Eloise's, not Leah's).  At this point, I thought it might be educational to pause and explain to Leah what "room service" is.  So I gave her a little speech, reminded her how we stayed at a hotel when we went up to Cornell, and while we did not order room service at the time, one can order it should one so wish.  Leah said "I want to stay at a hotel again!"  I said, getting excited: "sure, we will go and stay at a hotel again, it will be fun!"  To which Leah promptly clarified: "but I don't want to go on vacation.  I don't like vacation with swimming and the beach" (referring to the stressful experience of going to Dominican Republic with us about a year ago).  I started to go on an on about how there are all sorts of vacations, where you can go to museums, and beautiful parks, and see pretty buildings, and not just the beach, but she interrupted me and said, beaming: "and I want to go to IHOP! like I did with babulya and dedulya."  IHOP. Which of course, is the ultimate highlight of any vacation. 


Nikusya, on the other hand, cannot hold much of a conversation these days.  But he seems to understand everything and is trying very hard to communicate.  At his 18 months old check-up earlier this week, the pediatrician medically confirmed that he is "perfect" in all respects, and even offered that she can just "eat him up".  All of that considering that he literally turned her office apart during the visit.  His favorite activity at home tonight was to bring the step stool to various parts of the house, climb on top, and try to cause mischief by reaching all sorts of dangerous things from his new higher vantage point.  My attempt to hide the step stool, as always, was met with very spirited screaming.  When it was time to take him upstairs to get ready for bed, he immediately noticed signs of the impending destruction of our upstairs bathroom.  He pointed to each missing item (missing cabinet drawers, a gaping hole where the vanity mirror once was), exclaimed in horror, and said "papa!  papa!" over and over again.  He might not say much, but he certainly knows where the blame lies.

Just another week in the life

A recent conversation with Leah. She's sitting on the toilet, I'm standing next to her. 
                Leah, while pointing at some object: "what's this?". 
                Me: "It's a cup"
                Leah, while pointing at another object: "what's this?"
                Me: "It's a bigger cup". 
                Leah, pointing at yet another object: "what's this?"
                Me: "this is a box".
                Leah, in a very proud tone: "that's right!" 
Thanks kid!  I knew I could do it.

Today, after picking her up from preschool, I needed to stop by the bank.  She was whining something about ice cream, because apparently on thursday, to commemorate "snowman day", the children will be having ice cream.  Except Leah wanted her ice cream today, and had no intention of waiting until thursday.  To get her mind off ice cream, I offered to buy her a scone in a bakery next to the bank.  She was very excited, even though, as far as I know, she has never had a scone, and has no idea what it is.

I asked the salesgirl to cut the scone into 4 pieces, and gave 1 to leah, with the remaining three being safely hidden in a brown bag.  While we were walking to the car, i asked her to let me try a bit.  She said
no, and suggested I eat some soup instead.  Or more accurately, she said "no, you have your soup".  When i pointed out that I don't want soup, but I want the scone, she then said that I should have some of Nicholas'.. cheeks.  I guess I should stop making jokes about how I want to chomp on the baby's cheeks, lest someone use that fact against me! 

Setting: January 2010, the dead of winter. Leah is 2 years old and 9 months, Nicholas is about to turn 6 months. We have finally emerged from the horrid toddler/newborn stage, and things are looking up. Leah is going to preschool two mornings per week and loving it. Her English has exploded this year because of it. She is so sweet and loving to her little brother. Nicholas is giving us a break in all respects. Most importantly, he is finally bulking up and becoming chubby and even more adorable and huggable than before.

I just received my first silent treatment from Leah, which both amuses me and breaks my heart. Is this what I am to look forward to?

She was watching the Backyardigans, (which she still calls "Nabackyardigans" because we always say "Leah, пойдешь на backyard?"), and Vadim began to tell her that it's time for bed. She didn't take too kindly to that, so to avoid a tantrum we let her watch a little longer. After a little while, she seemed ok with going to bed, as long as I go with her (and not just her dad). But when we got to the staircase, she started crying hysterically for no apparent reason. It just escalated from there. When I was taking off her clothes, she kept crying and howling, and I said, very sternly, that if she does not stop, I will leave the room. Well, she stopped crying, but she also stopped talking. As in entirely! No matter what I said, she would not respond verbally. She would nod or shake her head, but not speak. I thought, foolishly, that she lost her power to speak. I kept whispering to Vadim to make her speak, and he was laughing, telling me that she was just mad at me, and while I "won" our "argument" and got her to stop crying, she was now punishing me in return. He turned out to be right!

She would not even say goodnight to me. Just laid down in her bed, closed her eyes, and refused to say anything. This is the first time she has ever acted like this! No matter how many times she's had tantrums before bed (and this happens more nights than not), until tonight, even if I was stern with her, before leaving her room, I'd always kiss and hug her, tell her I love her, and she would say "goodnight mommy" to me. She has never given me the silent treatment before. Oh man, it stings!

well, at least I still have one true "baby", who can't even speak yet, let alone give me the silent treatment!

so-called life in the subburbs

Anyone who knows me even a little bit probably knows how much time I spend whining about living in the boonies. Yes, we have a beautiful house, a nice back yard. The only thing missing really is the white picket fence. And yet I hate the fact that I have to buckle Leah into a car seat in order to go anywhere where I will actually see people, and always feel jealousy at people living in the city. And so it was quite exciting when last weekend, for the first time, Leah and I took a trip to Manhattan. My parents were invited to a family party on the upper West Side, and I concocted the following plan, which we successfully orchestrated: Leah and I met my parents an hour before the party, in order to walk around in Central Park, to be followed by all of us making our appearance at the party, and then going over to stay the night at my parents', and return home the following afternoon.

I was praying that Leah would sleep on the ride to the city, and that's why during the first 45 minutes of the drive, I was literally afraid to breathe. But of course she didn't. For about 45 minutes, she sucked on her paci and listened to her songs without making a sound. Then, when her pacifier fell out of her mouth she announced to me "Upalo!" (it fell). She then accepted calmly when I told her that that I cannot give it to her because I am driving, and spent the remainder of the drive "chatting" with me in a perfectly content manner. Not once did she whine or cry, or demand any kind of entertainment. She was an angel child! It was amazing really, considering that just recently, any car ride longer than 20 minutes was pure torture, and the child had to be entertained with a new toy or snack continuously in order to keep her from losing it. Please God let this phase last!!!

As soon as we parked by Central Park West, without even getting out of the car, Leah started screaming "hi" at the passers-by. Obviously, the kid was excited, since she never sees as many people in her home-town. She had a blast playing with her grandparents at the Central Park playground. Of course, the whole thing was utterly depressing for me, just reaffirming my feelings about how wonderful living in the city is, especially in the summer. Tons of people, tons of children, families eating Indian food on a park bench (which Leah started begging for immediately), gay men walking hand in hand, wheeling their toddler in a bugaboo, aaah Manhattan! There is no place like it. (Maybe when our kids to go College, and we no longer need to take advantage of the good suburban public schools, I can realize my dream of living in SOME city, it doesn't have to be New York City - that's the deal I made with my husband when we moved here). But I digress.

After running around with her "Deeda" (grandpa) in Central Park, we dropped in on a family party, where Leah got the chance to ride the elevator several times (which put her in total panic), meet her fourth cousin Izzy, eat numerous crackers and cured meats, and hit her head on a coffee table. Aaaah, the joys of bringing a toddler to a party. If you don't focus on an utterly sleepless night that followed, Leah's first trip to Manhattan was a success.













This week Leah turned 17 months old. I cannot believe that I no longer have a baby, but a toddler. It is mind-boggling. She is walking all over the house in circles, and screaming commands. She sings songs, she claps when she's excited, she screams out commands. This entire weekend she's been running after Vadim's parents dog, who is staying with us, screaming "Goggie, tuda!" (Doggie, go there!) She repeats everything! When I play "peekaboo" with her, and ask her "Where is Leah?", she knows how to answer "von ona!" ("there she is") in the cutest little voice. She heard Vadim say the words "I don't know" at one point, and can now say the expression clear as a bell.

Today she actually kissed me, and before she went to bed she kissed Vadim. If there is anything sweeter, I certainly have never experienced it.

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.

I see that it has been years since I’ve kept a journal or written in a blog, and frankly I blame Vadim. He has totally turned me off to the whole blog-writing endeavor. That happened because he got bent out of shape when I was all googly-eyed over him and insisted on writing about my feeeeelings on the matter in an online journal. But that was then. And NOW.. we actually do have a small wonder (get it?) who certainly deserves a web home of her own because every day she amazes me with the unbearably cute things that she does. And running after her with a camera (which I try to do) just does not do her justice, and does not capture even a small portion of what she is. So without further adieu, here is Leah at 16 months.

At 16 months, she is hysterical! She repeats everything she hears. She “speaks” mostly Russian at this point, and only knows how to say “hi” and “bye” in English. Although she also easily repeats any other words she hears in English, such as “hello” and “oh my god”, which is always followed by dramatically grasping her head with both hands. The few words which she knows in English she puts to good use, constantly screaming them at strangers on the street, in a park, in supermarkets. She has a severe (water) drinking problem, and any waking from a night’s sleep of from a nap is always followed by the command “пить!”, which means “drink”.

She is easily reduced to giggles, which just makes me want to eat her up, or drink her up through a straw, which I tried to do in vain on numerous occasions. My absolute favorite part of the day is coming home from work and having her scream “mama!” and run towards me and laugh. It is especially heart-warming because she only started addressing me as “mama” about two weeks ago, even though she’s been screaming “papa” at Vadim for MONTHS. Little bastard! One of her other frequently-used commands is “дать!” (meaning “give me!”), which she barks at us whenever she wants something. When I ask her is this what you want? (“вот это?”), she promptly confirms “вот это!”.

She loves music, and any mini-tantrums or bouts of crying can be put to rest simply by singing her favorite songs to her. She correctly sings the melody of a few songs, including the ABC song, the "eeya eeya yo" of the "Old McDonald Had a Farm", "От улыбки хмурый день светлей". She also flips to the pages in the book that contain her favorite songs, and starts singing the first line to indicate that she wants to be sung to. Her absolute favorite is "Крылатые Качели", which she requests at least 20 times a day by starting to sing the chorus word "Взлетая". I have no idea if this is normal or "age-appropriate" for a child of Leah’s age, but I’m just going to remain ignorant and pretend that she is a musical genius.

Finally she loves to dance. When you tell her to dance, she picks her arms up in the air and does little synchronized waves with her hands. When she hears music, she "dances" by doing what sort of looks like squats to me, in tune to the music.

She adores Rocky, Vadim's parents dog, and runs after him whenever he is visiting her, screaming "Woof", or actually "Av" (the russian version), and now "Goggie" (Doggie).

So this is Leah at 16 months, in a nutshell. She is, simply put, adorable. You know, in my completely unbiased, professional opinion.

scared

Hi people,

Long time no write. I really don't have a good opener for this, so here goes: I am pregnant. A little over 10 weeks. [insert some kind of exclamatory symbol in here, even though I've known for quite a while, and right at this very moment I am not feeling particularly chipper, although generally I am very excited blah blah blah]. I guess in non-pregnant people terms 10 weeks is two and a half months, but as I learned, everything is translated into weeks. And every few weeks you reach some new scary milestone. Like for instance - at 13 weeks, I have to have some kind of test which checks the fetus for various diseases, like downe syndrome. And that test will involve taking my blood via a finger-prick (that sounds strangely dirty). This whole finger prick blood test business brings back some awful childhood memories for me. I was a very sickly child, who frequented doctors and was often subjected to these torturous finger-pricks. And it hurt! Now i haven't had this done in probably over 20 years, but I think I'm just as scared today as I was back then. Which is pretty ridiculous when you think about the fact that I will have to somehow come to terms with having to give birth. And i'm scared of having blood taken from my finger. Another ridiculous part is that I'm sure I should be more scared of the test results. But I'm really not going to let my already-inflamed brain go there. So as I was saying. Scary milestones. At 20 weeks the baby is supposed to start kicking. And what if it doesn't? I imagine that's pretty scary. And at some other week - there are some other scary tests. You get the point..

This pregnancy has been extremely stressful until about 2 weeks ago. First there was the (i assume) "normal" stress of "what have I gotten myself into??" and "can I handle this?". Then there was the stess about "oh my god how can I give birth? do things rip? What about ripping and tearing, and being sawn back up? Just thinking about it makes me want to faint, how can I actually do it?" Then there was some stress about picking a doctor, going to a horrible doctor, then switching to a good doctor, and all the in-between. And then there was the stress of being erroneously told (by the horrible doctor's secretary) that I have an incurable disease that might destroy my liver. So after a week of thinking how suddenly I've become this sick person with diseased blood, and then finding out that actually "oops", I am healthy afterall - I was so ecstatic that the previous "what am I getting myself into, how do I give birth this is horror" worries sort of disappeared, and a strange euphoria settled itself all around me. I was just floating on air, thinking "I don't have a horrible disease! I am healthy! I am just pregnant! Yei! Let's think of baby names! This is so exciting!" And i thought - with this weight being lifted off my shoulders, how dare I worry about a little tiny thing called labor and delivery? I should go to a house of worship and thank some higher being for making this nightmare go away. And I didn't worry. At least not for the past 2 weeks.

But now I am back. The crazy me is back. I knew it. I knew this appreciation of my recently-lost, and just as recently-found health wouldn't last forever. So I am back to being PETRIFIED. Of giving birth, of breast-feeing, of all of it. And did I mention that the internet is bad? It is very bad. You can read all kinds of scary things. Like right now I have just finished reading a ton of message boards about what it's like to have a c-section. To lie there awake while you are being cut open, and all the good parts - like you can start breast-feeding while they're sawing you back up. "how great is that". or something. MY GOD!!! And speaking of breast-feeding. I know I shouldn't, but I'm sure next I'll move on to reading about cracked and bleeding nipples, and how the baby latching on is a feeling that may only be compared with being stabbled with a knife (this was told to me by a friend who knows better than to tell me the truth about these things).

But don't get me wrong. I am very happy to be pregnant. Really I am. No really.