As a mother with 'Soviet' habits to raise an American child
'15.07.2018'
No matter how trying our Moscow relatives and friends to complain about the unbearable heat of the summer Miami, stuffiness, tropical storms and hurricanes, we rubbed our palms. July was outside, but it seemed surprisingly beautiful to us. Having a little adjusted the mode of walks with Melky, we spent the morning on the beach, slept, rested and played at home in the heat of the day, and already at 4 at local time we went for long walks along the ocean, using the shadow from the houses and the fresh breeze. And, despite the flight of part of the population of Florida to the north, Miami was full of people, and life was in full swing in it just like in the “season”.
Petty and I, during the short routine days, having crossed the “one and a half year old” abroad, each continued to rediscover the new in themselves.
Unexpectedly for myself, I suddenly left the careless image of a girl with a child, switching to a really tangible status of deep motherhood. Evidence of this came down to me in the kitchen. It was there, as a revelation, I realized that somewhere in the past Lucy was left with mozzarella and a glass of wine for dinner, and a person appeared who was procuring broths, operating with such notions as meatballs, gravy and soufflé.
“Tasty, like my mother’s” was laid in the mind of Petty Melny right at that moment, in the meantime, I caught myself thinking that the principles of Soviet high cuisine were firmly rooted in my mind, because I myself had played enough in the summer in Miami in pancakes and coconut breading, she dreamed of homemade okroshka, green cabbage soup, Baku tomatoes and beetroot soup from Cork. Just in case, I avoided dressing gowns, slippers and tufts, torn between pots in short shorts and with a tail.
My image, from journalism-coffee, against my will and desire, but under the influence of all my adventures with health, changed towards "green". Finally, without being forced and pushed around by adults, I began to drink water - as much as the local doctors recommended, because my status in the house of an idealist, lazy, glamorous person, etc., to which Beloved was generous, was replaced by a water-drink.
“I bought a whole pack of water yesterday,” my husband wondered.
- And it is no longer - I smiled.
Friends more and more often saw me with a green smoothie from Holfoods, my husband - with carrots, and Melky - with water, and only Starbucks was sad for me with all its syrups and foams, having lost a regular customer. My small bags were replaced by a large backpack, where I used to carry spatulas, molds, an excavator, a ball, a cap and a banana every day for the benefit of posture. I no longer bought clothes, having resigned myself and laid down my arms in front of a real lifestyle, which needed slippers, shorts and T-shirts.
Small, whose character grew stronger day by day, he ate a lot. Having learned the word “banana”, he got it immediately, and bit into it with all his teeth, saying the favorite word “shark”! Forces he needed to resist. For the meaning of his every day was reduced to reconquering more and more new frontiers of freedom. He disliked the pram, walked by the handle, walk in the direction of the mother, if it was different from him, did not want to go home, did not want his ball, if he saw someone else’s.
All his gut was eager to quickly get rid of the need to carry out someone's orders and quickly join the surfers, run after the runners, or finally plenty of skateboard with the guys. He clearly knew what he wanted, and loudly demanded it. The heartbreaking screams on the whole street were ours. And while I was trying to find an approach to an enraged child, so as not to yell at him and not drag the unfortunate by the hands along the road, my sun, once peacefully sniffing at my chest, was expressed now much more distinctly and categorically.
So once Small laid down on the steps of our condominium in a fit of hysteria. Conflict arose on domestic soil. I was in a hurry to go home, and the baby did not even think to go there. And while I was deciding how to be, to take him in my arms, with the strict prohibition of doctors to lift more than a kilogram and haul home? Wait? Reach an agreement? Distract?
By that time, all my attempts had gone to pieces, the locals, as soon as they could, gave me reproachful looks, and Melky was bleeding tears and snot so honestly and so sorrowfully that I wanted to do anything to stop it. She took it in her arms, took it away - mom. The hysteria, which children at this age sinned, was characteristic according to the stories of my parents and myself. And as I remembered, it was strictly suppressed. But only once when I heard my angry voice against Melkoy, I was horrified by myself - I didn't want to be like that, just not this, it's not me !!!
“I recently read an article by a colleague from the glossy,” I shared with Lyubimi in the evening, when the storm subsided, exhausted with tears. Melky slept soundly, and I, having evaporated all the negatives in the bath, shone with pure reason, - she wrote that only Russian mothers screamed at their children. . Never in my life, here in the yard or on the playground, I have not heard that mothers raised their voices on the child or scolded him. They are able to calmly instruct and explain, even to disobedient children. Am I also Russian, and just like everyone else, is it coming out?
- I did not see either, everything is friendly here.
- And you know, on the playground on Sunny Isles, in the Russian region, mothers scream. There, almost always, I see that Mom either angrily drags the child somewhere, or scolds. And I am one of them.
After a year and a half of life with Melky, I went around all the pitfalls and didn’t immerse myself in the image of “exhausted mother”, and when I tried to become an evil sleepy chuchundra without a manicure, I faced a new challenge. I had to accumulate my mind wasted during the decree in order to learn how to negotiate with the child, learn to respect it, achieve obedience, get rid of the genetically inherent in me maternal irritability, and become a truly loyal companion and friend for the baby.
