First Days Home

So much newness, for both me and Daniil, happening every hour, sometimes minute by minute. It's been challenging to find time to shower, or to carry even one thing upstairs, never mind writing on this blog! Tonight is the first night I've been able to crawl out of bed, leaving Daniil asleep alone, and get a few things cleaned and put away. I'm sitting now in his room, which adjoins mine, so that I can hear him if he wakes and calls for me. On our first full day home, I snuck out of the bedroom during his nap and high-tailed it into the shower. I found him a few minutes later, sitting up in bed, all blotchy-faced, crying and crying out for "Mama." Heart rending. I rocked him and rocked him, assuring him, in Russian, that everything's okay, that everything will be okay, that I love him, "moy mishka, moy solnishko, my zychick, moy malchick." I go through this litany of sweet Russian tendernesses every day. Now, as soon as I begin with one pet name, Daniil chimes in with the rest. English translation: "I love you, my little bear, my little sunshine, my bunny, my boy."

I misplaced both the camera and flip video recorder upon arrival home: so very frustrating given so many astounding "firsts." They both turned up today, on top of the radio in my kitchen where I must've placed them for safe keeping from little hands that have been grabbing everything in sight, including a chef's knife, scissors, andirons from the fireplace, and so forth. So no pictures, alas, except the ones I attempt to paint with words. Here is a description of just one out of dozens upon dozens of special moments.

First beach. It's been raining this week, a hard transition home, but that hasn't stopped us from going "na uleetsu"/outside. We drove to a little beach on Nantucket Sound after a big storm. The waves were nothing like the national seashore, but choppy and high-strung nonetheless. Daniil was beside himself. Shoes off, he ran straight into the water, fearless, the lines of surf slapping against his calves. We ran together, holding hands at water's edge, dodging the incoming tide-line. Then we sat side by side, silently, on a slab of wet rock on a jetty, and watched the seagulls play in the cool gusty wind.

Throught the day I spend a lot of time talking to/with Daniil, asking him to repeat words in English, to identify everything from shoes to tomatoes to his nose. It's so precious when I let this "lesson" undercurrent drop away from our interactions, when I let us simply be together. That's what happened on that rock where there was no need for words, just unadulterated experience. And that's how we continued for the next 30 minutes. You got that! 30 focused, quiet minutes with a 3-year-old rambunctious boy: this must win us some kind of prize. We clambered down off the rock slab back down onto the beach, sat down in the sand, and engaged in parallel play for that blessed half hour. Danya, shovelling sand in and out of his Fisher Price plastic dump truck. I, building a series of tiny sandcastles, all different shapes. I don't think Daniil noticed me once, whereas of course I kept a constant curious eye on his play. Near the end, he mounded sand over both of his legs (wearing jeans), and patted himself in snugly. Walking back to the car, his wet pants kept falling down--he signaled me in Russian to help him pull them up. After several fruitless attempts, we gave up and he ended his first ever beach adventure in his underpants.