The Grandparents

Daniil and "Dayadushka" (my dad)

Danya and Pop (my stepdad)

Danya and Baba (my mom)

Higher the Better

Daniil likes serious high heels and pulls them out of my closet every morning and night. "These are my shoes!" he insists, laughing, and looking at me with a knowing twinkle in his eyes. "Your shoes?!" I respond in mock surprise. "Yes, my shoes," Daniil asserts, sashaying with impressive confidence, I must say, in my/his 3" heels.

I Like to Talk

I'm left speechless in the face of my boy's exploding speech. Tonight I told Daniil how much I enjoyed listening to him and hearing his English develop. "I like to talk," he said and clearly meant it. There's been a palpable shift in the past day alone, like turning on a faucet. It's been exactly 3 months since we touched ground in Boston and Daniil started his English-language immersion. I've always been told when it comes to behaviors, like giving up caffeine or adopting an exercise routine, that it takes 90 days to break an old habit and solidify a new one. I'm not sure if this three-month rule of thumb applies to languages, but it sure seems to be the case with Danya.

Today we checked out from the library for the second time the low-brow toddler classic Everyone Poops. (We'd already checked it out once and read it aloud most nights for two weeks' running.) When we got to the next-to-last page, Daniil took over and narrated non-stop in complete sentences straight down the line of animals:



"Giraffe eats leaves. Lion eats meat. Gorilla eats bananas. Zebra eats grass. Pelican eats fish. Pig eats slop. Boy eats kasha." Complete sentences, in English!
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I took one look at my boy and realized that he was as bowled over as I. It was then that I applauded his progress. "I like to talk," Daniil replied. "And I love to listen to you talk," I said.

I look forward to years of talking and listening, listening and talking, as language opens up my boy's heart, mind and soul to me and others.

"Befaneet"

Meet Bethany, our morning Nanny. Daniil and I hit the jackpot. Bethany lets herself in at 6:15AM, empties the dishwasher, feeds Frieda and Simon, puts on my tea water, and starts breakfast prep for my boy. By the time he and I wander downstairs around 6:35, Bethany's ready to roll with breakfast and trains and the long drive to the Sandwich Montessori School, and I'm ready to take off for a full day of work. How blessed I am to leave my boy in the arms of a caring, fun-loving and skilled young woman--who has fallen in love with Daniil. He asks and comments about her frequently in the evenings and over the weekends: "Where's Befaneet? Befaneet's driving... Befaneet's eating... Befaneet's sleeping."

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My return to work was a shocker. It's like feast or famine. For the past 12 weeks I've been with Daniil for 14 waking hours every day: marathon Mom. Now, on work days, I'm lucky if I see my son for three hours total: 30 minutes in the morning and two-plus hours in the evening before his 7:30PM bedtime. I sure wish I could create a more balanced scenario, but, alas, there's no part-time option for a middle-school principal. My dad reminds me that Daniil's world is expanding and that this is good and healthy. I appreciate this reassuring perspective, and it appears to be true. Daniil loves Bethany and her undivided attention each morning. And he simply adores his teacher Sarah who sings and dances with him, along with his new little friends in school, including a girl he reportedly likes both to kiss and to boss around: "Walk, Leila! No running, Leila!"

Not the Only One

Email received from my friend Carolyn (mother of five): "If you have any new frustrations, as a result of trying to meet professional goals amidst the mindful mind full of motherhood, be well consoled that I feel ya."

"New frustrations"... that's putting it mildly! And I thank you, Carolyn. Good to know, at least, that I'm not alone in my single-professional-new mom overwhelm.

The Tibetan Buddhists have a wonderful meditation practice called tonglen in which a person who is suffering in any given way opens his or her mind and heart and realizes that there are countless others on this earth, at this very moment, who are suffering likewise. Given this realization, I can breathe in the suffering for others, and carry the load on their behalf (since I'm already feeling this pain anyway), and then breathe out relief and ease to all, myself included. I will do this tonight on behalf of all single parents everywhere, from Boston to Bangladesh.

And I need to add, although perhaps it goes without saying, that of course it's not all suffering. But it sure does get challenging parenting alone. As a psychic friend responded when I told him I was planning to adopt as a single mom: "Ah, a brilliant sacrifice." Yes, there is great brilliance. And, yes, there is great sacrifice.

77 Viewings Later

I've yet to tire of this Sesame Street video clip, Daniil's favorite for two weeks' running, his continual request for "Pick a Peck of Peppers" (actual song title "Sing After Me"). I use it to entice him to get dressed every morning and to get out of the bath every night. Madeline Kahn is one class act. Check out her delightfully expressive eyes.

For some reason I can't quite figure, the video elicits longing in me, perhaps for some safer and simpler world. Maybe it's the melody, reminiscent of a sweet Broadway musical.

While Reading a Bedtime Story...

Danya sat on my lap in the little chair in the corner of my bedroom, his new preferred place to hear a bedtime story. We had just finished Cornelius P. Mud, Are You Ready for Bed?, a cute book about a pig who definitely is not ready for bed, when Daniil leaned back in my arms and rolled his little cheek back and forth against mine, applying pressure. At one point he stopped, nose against my cheek, and took in a big breath.

"Smell," Daniil said.
What do you smell? I asked, thinking I might have garlic or some other odd odor on my breath.
"Mama," he said.
I smell like Mama? I asked.
Yes, he said. And smiled.

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Earlier in the evening, we built our first fire in the fireplace. I took time to lay out the groundrules, mainly that Daniil is never, ever to touch the fire, the fireplace, or the fireplace screen. Only Mama. After that, he was so concerned, he refused to sit any closer than a good six yards from the fireplace! Still, he was mesmerized. He sat stone still, gazing at the flames. I had to teach him this new word, along with the word "fire." (Although Daniil shouts out "firetruck!" each time one passes, and he visited an actual fire station last weekend, until tonight he had no comprehension of what a fire actually was.)

"The fire's dancing," Daniil said, after watching the flames intently for a good two minutes. He was right.

Little Boy's Dream

Daniil has made his first official friend, a love of a two-year-old boy named Silas who happens to have the biggest brown eyes in all the world. In fact, when I asked Daniil, before our first playdate with Silas, if he remembered him from the music class where they met, Danya nodded and said simply: "Silas. Eyes." Silas' dad just happens to be a Chatham firefighter, so this past weekend the two boys took an insider's tour: they got to clamber all over fire trucks, fire rescue boats, fire rescue ambulances and all.