Dog Days of Summer

I am a high-strung and weather-affected person, and the latest heat wave did nothing to improve my motivation and moods. And, apparently, my daughers had inhereted my heat intolerance: both had been just finicky, touchy and exessively whiny lately.

Sonya's new favorite words are " Don't talk to me!" and Maya says (while having her big blue eyes fill with tears) "Nobody loves me" if you say "no" to any of her demands. They also began exhibiting marsupial-like need for Papa's affections, having to hug, touch or otherwise be in constant contact with his (often exhausted from working at all hours) persona. This week brought no relief from hot weather or zaiki shenanigans.

Last night, Maya showed her displeasure in Papa not reading her bedtime stories by punching him in the groin. An immediate and swift time-out followed. Then Sonya, Papa and I had a discussion about nice girls who don't punch their fathers that was sweetly accompanied by pitiful wails of the offender.

But Sonya is not always an obedient and compliant child she appears to be: earlier in the evening, she staged an exhaustingly long screaming performance, prompted by me "laughing in her face". There was a certain amount of truth to her accusations. After a successful potty trip, she refused to get off the toilet, and, while screaming and shaking with rage, she fell off. I felt bad, but the sight of royally pissed-off herub-like toddler who is trying to retain her dignity while stuck with her naked butt up in the air was pretty funny.

Papa, despite being in zaiki-favor at the moment, is not immune from their displeasure. He is often accused of standing too close, being too warm and laughing at them. 

I've often heard of toddler years referred to as "first adolescence", as in a preview to what your child will be as a teenager. Looks like we'll be in for a rocky ride. :)

To compensate for feeling as an acute parental failure I decided to give myself an ego boost and opened an art shop at etsy.com. For those who are not familiar with etsy - it's a wonderful space for creative folks who are computer challenged and cannot create their own websites. So, go check out
LittleDivasArtShop at Etsy and buy/order a painting to boost my morale help pay for my therapy sessions.

More about NJ leadership

Just another fat, obnoxious politician making excuses for his own failure
If he can't fix his own problems because "it's too hard", than how could we trust him to be the governor? If you are sloppy, sweaty and impatient in your personal life, than what kind of leader does it make you? Politician's persona and demeanor is a direct reflection of their behavior in the office. Hmm....And the recent rant at his press conference? So people are "mean to him" on twitter because of his weight, but it's ok to insult press for asking a question about NJ legislature changes? Really? Was it too hot for Fatty McGoo that day or did he have a bellyache for eating too many twinkies?

Kids are people too

Both Husband and I try to give zaiki autonomy: they get to choose between two outfits (only two!), they get to pick shoes to wear and they don't have to clean their plates at every meal. I understand that, when you need help to wipe your own hiney or put on clothes, having control over some decisions in your life is important, even empowering. This article is exactly how I feel. You know when you meet a distant and somewhat creepy relative and just don't want to touch them? As an adult, we have an option of a handshake or a wave, but we generally think it's acceptable to make our children give hugs to all the relatives. "Oh, how cute!" we say as our child is gripped in the clutches of a distant uncle they don't know or a great-aunt with halitosis. But I 100% agree with the author: kids should own their bodies, and if they don't feel like hugging, they don't have to. They are people too, and they should have a choice in how they express themselves. Having a choice lets them know that they are respected and their feelings are taken into account. So kudos to the article author for eloquently expressing thoughts that lazily hung in my own head. 

Zaiki turn 3, or how did we get here?

I was going to write a post about life, changes, children growing up and other sappy stuff, but I am too tired and don't feel nostalgic/romantic/sensitive enough. Instead, I present you with a photo gallery that can only be titled
 "How did we get from this":

 To this:

 To this:

 To finally, this:

Out of mouths of babes

So Papa was working this past weekend, and I was left to entertain zaiki on my very lonesome both Saturday and Sunday. Not an easy task, I have to say, but some amusing moments make up for the back-breaking labor that is zaiki-care.

For instance, this past weekend we decided to change things up and feed goats/deer/geese at a local park's zoo. Basically, it's a bunch of cages in a park with very sad-looking animals. I actually feel bad for poor creatures, but zaiki find it facinating. After scaring baby goats with delightful squealing, shooing off an overly enthusiastic rooster and washing deer slobber off zaiki's hands, we went over to the playground. There was a very cute Russian boy, maybe about a year younger then my girls, with long blonde hair down to his shoulders. Sonya inspected him up and down, turned to me and asked: "Mama, is it a girl?" I said no, that is a boy. "No Mama, it's a girl". I reassured that no, it is, in fact, a little boy. "Mama, but he has girl hair". Solid logic, can't argue with that. Some time later, a very obese girl about their age appeared, Sonya inquired: "Mama, is that a baby?"...I just sighed, scooped her up and moved her over to another slide.

Later, on the drive home, the following exchange took place in the back seat (backstory to it is that zaiki's Papa is a policeman, or "peaceman" in zaiki-speak and that last week Maya broke sunglasses he takes to work with him):
Sonya: "Maya, I'm really MAD at you"
Maya: "Why sissy?"
Sonya: "YOU BROKE MY POLICE GLASSES AND NOW I CAN'T DO MY POLICE WORK ANYMORE!!!!" 
Maya: "Humf, I AM MEAN ON YOU TOO!!!!"
Both: "MAMA-SHE-IS-TEASING-ME-WAWAWA"

Yep, terrible threes are looking stormy...

Happy 12th anniversary to me

Wow, time flies! It's been over a month since I've written anything in here. I guess I'd make a shitty Carrie Bradshaw. :) Anyway, I have a good reason to revive my blog today. Besides being a wonderful cool Friday night in June and the fact that my zaiki are in bed, and I'm sitting in the living room enjoying a nice cold Blue Moon, it is also a 12th anniversary of my coming to the United States. Epic!

 It's a date that usually falls off my radar, especially since we've had kids and most days I'm lucky if I remember to set my alarm clock, but tonight it hit me: June 8th, 2000 is the day I landed in New York City.

I came to the US to work in a summer camp and was scheduled to go back in August same year. I never did. The funny thing is that, a week before I left Russia, my girlfriend and I were joking about me falling for a square-jaw-baseball-playing-gum-chewing-American, getting married and staying there. In the end, my American husband does not play baseball or chew gum (thank you Jesus!) but he is square-jawed and handsome non the less. :)

I was very naive, young (like not able to buy liquor young) and full of hopes. Watching soapy American touchey-feeley movies where all the right doors open and everything is wonderful also played into my delusions that life will be easy for me once I get to the States. And things did work out, but it was pretty rough for the first few years. Like am I going to make it or am I going to disappear in the underbelly of Russian/Ukranian Massachusetts underworld rough. The craziest part of it all was deciding to stay in the States and leaving behind all the life I knew. I still can't talk about things that I lived through. I just can't. Words just don't string together. The first year in the US was truly the darkest, the most difficult time in my life.

I believe that there are many paths in life to choose from and our choices make us who we are (yes, it is a cliche, thank you!). One day I will tell my zaiki about the choices I had to make, and the happiness and heartbreak that came with them. How those choices made me tougher, but also made me almost lose hope, and taught me patience and humility (not really, still working on it!). How there are good people willing to help you, but there are also those who are looking to take advantage of your helplessness, and how to tell the difference. How difficult it is to live as an undocumented immigrant, to put your dreams on hold and to see precious time and opportunities slip by. How it is so hard not to see your mom for years, or miss your younger brother grow up. How without me making these choices they would not exist.

But tonight, I simply raise my beer to the day when my life changed irrevocably and forever and enjoy my quiet Friday night. Cheers!

Musing of an imperfect mama

To breasfeed or not, to co-sleep or not, to potty-train at 2 or not. Guilt and uncertainty are the two heaviest parenting burdens. "Am I doing it right? I cannot possibly screw this up, I have to be PERFECT!!!!" These thoughts constantly went through my head the first year of being a mama. It felt like a tremendous weight on my shoulders - the constant guilt and second guessing, beating myself up for a smallest misstep. I did not breastfeed for very long - I just couldn't. Between postpartum depression, full-time work, selling our house, and shock of caring for two babies at once I just wasn't able to focus and do it. We "formula-ed" the girls, and it took a lot of stress off.

I do wish I breastfed them more. I think breastfeeding is such an awesome, wonderful bonding time and it's really amazing that a human body can do that. All new moms are superheroes: able to give life and nourish it. It needs to be celebrated!

This cover and articles about it have been all over the news, generating buzz and criticism of the "crazy" attachment parenting. Who cares? It's that mom's choice, and it's fine. The boy will be just fine. Honestly, how breastfeeding your child for a long (ok, really long-long-long time) is worse than feeding him McDonald's for dinner? Or leaving him in front of television for hours? Or taking him to a tanning salon?

Americans are uptight, really uptight, if this picture is able to generate negative/critical response. It is a challenge to social norms, and I'm sure TIME chose it for the shock value: picking a young, blonde, very attractive mother, airbrushing and somewhat sexualizing her (gee, I wonder why they didn't go with a 200 lb older woman!) and slapping the photo on the interwebs.

I don't care what the parenting approach is. Attachment parenting is great, if you are a stay-at-home mama of one baby. It didn't work for me. I vacillated somewhere in the middle: sleep trained a little bit, cuddled a little bit, co-slept a little bit and breastfed a little bit. I am not perfect (slightly damaged too): I yell at the girls sometimes, I micromanage them sometimes, I won't let them drink water out of the hose in the yard (uhm, Husband!), but I do let them pee outside in the grass if pressed to find a bathroom. My imperfections are good for them, pushing them to grow and develop independently from me. Imperfect is fine, as long as our kids know they are loved and allowed to be imperfect in their own way in return.