Yesterday, July 11, 2011, I had a very special experience with Alexei and a revelation too.
Nikita was already in bed, Troy was working downstairs, and Alexei and I were reading our last book before his bedtime. The book was Love You Forever. Every time I read it it brings tears to my eyes. This time was a little different…

Halfway through the book Alexei noticed that the picture of the mother changed. On the first pages of the book she looked young and beautiful. On the following pages she wore glasses and looked older and at the end she had gray hair, looked really old and was sick. He asked me why she changed. I explained to him that people get old. Alexei didn’t like that and really wanted the picture of the mother to be the same on all the pages.

Then he asked a question that concerned him most. “Will Mama get old too?” I said yes, and I was glad that he got the concept! He pointed at me and asked “This Mama?” “Yes.” He kept asking me the same questions several times and then added the word “soon” to them. I said yes. He asked if I would be older when Santa Claus comes. I said yes. But then I saw tears in his eyes. Half crying he said “Will there be a new Mama then? Alexei wants new Mama!” and he cried even more.

I finally realized that I made a big mistake. I tried to correct myself real quick. I told him that actually I wouldn’t get old soon, that I would need to have a lot of birthdays before I get old. He asked “What about Christmas?” I said that we would celebrate lots of Christmases too before Mama would get old.

I held him on my lap as comfortably as my belly could allow and suddenly it dawned on me that my son LOVES ME VERY MUCH! We both cried. I tried not to show Alexei that I was crying too. We sat quiet for a while. It was past Alexei’s bedtime. I needed him to go to sleep. So, after telling each other that we love each other, I asked him to go to the bathroom one more time. When he went downstairs he remembered to bring a glass of water for me and put it on my bedside table.

Alexei is a very special and sweet little boy. Thank you God for giving him to me.

I am 36 weeks pregnant with my second child. It feels like this baby will come earlier than his/her due date of November 15, 2009. But I hope s/he is born in November. Alexei was Troy’s birthday present, born just one day before Troy’s birthday. And so I would like this baby to be my birthday present, born at least in my birthday month, no matter how many days before.

I am also working part time now. And I love it! I don’t get as bored at work and when I come home we all have lunch together. Then I put Alexei to nap and have some time for myself. I already finished all I could in my first baby’s scrapbook. This Saturday night I am going to Robyn’s to finish it up with stickers. I catch up on my reading, get ready for the second baby and the new house.

Yes, hopefully by October 30 we’ll get the keys to our new home. We already started packing. But, I won’t get too excited until I know for sure that the house is ours. Surely, Debbie, our agent is doing a great job in making sure everything goes as planned. We all like the house a lot. Even Alexei feels like at home there already. I will write more about him and his accomplishments in my next blog entry.

The weather now is beautiful. It is fall. It rained a lot last week and Alexei and I got to go outside for a little bit. We walked around a block only. This week it is sunny, worm, almost 70 F and beautiful. The sky is blue, the trees are changing color. Life is good!

What makes my life even better is my family here. Troy’s relatives are very nice, his parents are always so helpful and supportive and my husband himself makes my life so much more interesting, easier and enjoyable. And of course our little boy makes our family a very happy one!

Today is Sabbath, June 27, 2009. It is 7am and I am well rested and can’t stay in bed any longer. I took a good two-hour nap yesterday while Alexei napped. I try to let myself rest on the weekends because I can; my husband lets me and it’s good for me (and for the little one inside me).

Yes, I am pregnant! And this time we did not announce it to everybody right away like we did last time. In fact, some of my friends still don’t know it. We just decided to wait for people to ask the direct question, “Are you pregnant?” instead of telling them that I am. I think it’s exciting to see the surprised faces of our friends when all of a sudden they see that I have a big belly. However, I’ve been pregnant for 20 weeks now and only one person noticed and dared to ask me the question. Most of the people who know asked me the question when I was not showing yet and they figured it out over the course of our conversation.

It was not very hard to keep it a secret from everybody. However, I think it would have been much easier for me if I could have shared the news and talked with someone about how I felt. This pregnancy is quite different from the previous one in that I did not feel good in the first trimester. During the first pregnancy I felt great, normal and energetic all throughout, whereas this time I experienced all the typical ‘joys’ of the first trimester (except the throwing up part). Not being able to talk to someone about it, other than my husband, did not make it better.

Talking about my husband, I should say that he’s been such a great support to me! Before I started working and got pregnant, my responsibilities included: cooking, washing the dishes, laundry, cleaning the apartment, plus taking care of Alexei most of the time. After the two above mentioned events changed my life, it all fell on the shoulders of my husband. And he has been doing marvelously great! Every time I came home from work feeling nauseous and tired, there was a delicious dinner ready. And after dinner I often laid down on the couch and that was it for me for the day. Troy took care of the kitchen, our son and anything else that needed to be done, got my lunch and breakfast ready for the next day and tucked me into my bed. Then he worked until late at night. Isn’t he the most wonderful, caring and loving husband – I am so lucky!!!

Thank goodness, the first trimester is over and I am back to my responsibilities. However, once in a while, Troy still helps me. I think he spoiled me a little. Sometimes I just feel lazy and ask him to do things for me and he happily does it, because he understands that I am pregnant and simply because he loves me.

The first person to find out that we are expecting was my sister. I broke the rule, which happened more than once, and told her. It was her birthday and giving her the honor to be the first one to know the news seemed like a nice present. Next to find out were my mom, my grandma and my aunt. They are overseas, so it is a little hard for them to guess about my pregnancy, so I had to tell them myself. Then Troy sent a lovely e-mail to his mom on Mother’s day with the same “present” as my sister got, and this is how Troy’s family found out, and, as a result, the whole Atholton church. The rest of our friends who know asked us the direct question. But there is still a bunch of our other close friends who see us periodically and still have not asked! Maybe they are too polite and don’t want to ask this delicate question? We’ll find out…

There are a couple of new things that Alexei does now. His two new obsessions are balls and trains.

He loves to play with all of his balls and any other balls that he sees. He plays at home – when I come from work I become his ball partner, he gives me a ball and we bounce them on the wall; in front of our house - our neighbor gave us a basket ball hoop just Alexei’s size and he throws his green ball into the hoop by himself; in the park – on the way to the park he points at all the basketball hoops, it seems like he knows all the hoops in the neighborhood, and when we get to the park we play basketball with an invisible ball; even at church after Sabbath school he can’t miss the gym and a round of invisible basketball game.

Trains – it all started with the Russian cartoon Паровозик из Ромашково. Alexei could watch it all day long non-stop. Of course we don’t let him, but we show it to him at least once or twice a day. Now he’s seen it enough times so he knows and comments on every part of the movie. When…

• the clock is on the screen - he says “часы” (clock),
• the dog appears – he barks,
• the flowers dance – he smells,
• the horse gallops – he makes the horse sound,
• the bird falls out of the nest – he says “kaaa!”

If he has not seen the movie in some time or if I go to the office to use my computer, he starts asking to play the movie for him by saying: “чусь-чусь!” (choo-choo in English) It is such a cute and sweet sound, Troy and I just love hearing it. Now that he knows what the train looks like, he can point at any train he sees and say his “чусь-чусь!”

Well, Alexei finally got to ride on one of the trains. On Father’s Day we decided to go to Wheaton Regional Park. They have very good playgrounds there, a carousel and train rides! So we dressed Alexei in an outfit with a train on it and we all wore orange and orange bandanas to match. Once we got to the park Alexei was saying his legendary “чусь-чусь!” non-stop, because he’s been to the park before and knew about the train. He rode a bike with his Papa there once before and watched the train go by while they had a picnic. So, to keep his excitement going, we first got on the carousel, then we went to the playground (in which he had very little interest), and then we went to the lake and saw turtles and geese. Alexei actually found the turtles very interesting and he clapped at the geese and yelled “kaaa!” Then we took another carousel ride – he enjoyed it too – riding on a horse he kept saying “eeeeee!” Next up was a picnic lunch while watching a couple of trains pass by. And then finally WE got on a train. Alexei couldn’t believe it. He sat between Troy and me very quietly during the whole ride, partially because he was trying not to miss anything, and partially because he got tired too. After the train ride was over we went on a final carousel ride, said bye to the horses and choo-choo and went home. Of course, it took seconds for him to fall asleep in the car and then he continued to sleep at home dreaming about another train ride, I’m sure!

New words: ball, car, walk and turtle. Most of them he just started saying on his own. All of a sudden we heard him say ball and car. On June 16, when I came from work and after we had dinner, Troy was sitting on the floor with Alexei. We usually go for a walk after that, and sure enough, we heard Alexei say “walk, walk?” And you guessed it – his first verbal request to go for a walk was fulfilled! On June 20, when Alexei was sitting on grandmommy’s lap at church, she pointed at a picture of a turtle and said “turtle”. Alexei immediately repeated the word. Since then we’ve been hearing his cute little turtle word every day!

And his final new thing is his new sleep schedule. It is actually very convenient for all three of us. Alexei goes to sleep at 9pm. So, when I come from work, I get to play with him, go to the park, give him a bath, read and put him to bed. I decided to read in Russian to him every night, so he hears the language a little more. His saying more English than Russian words concerns me a little. So, I think reading in Russian should help a little. I read to him a chapter of Pooh stories a day. It is hard, because he likes companionship, meaning – he likes doing what you are doing while you are doing it. So, I need to give him a book to read also and we both read at the same time. Trying to purposefully read a little louder than he is a little exhausting for me. Troy says it’s ok. Then Alexei sleeps until 10 or 10:30am, which is very good for Troy. He works late and needs to sleep in. And sometimes when he works through the night, he also needs to nap during the day. And Alexei usually naps for 2-3 hours. So, we got ourselves a very cooperative little boy with a schedule that works for everyone!

Today we had a perfect family Sabbath. We all got up at 8 am, had breakfast and dressed up for church. Troy wore the sweater and one of the ties that Carol and I gave him a couple of birthdays ago; Alexei had his white shirt, red vest and tie on; and I wore my new green, white and black dress with black boots. I also curled my hair using Keri’s hot rollers. Then, at five minutes to ten we walked to church and we got there just in time for Alexei’s Sabbath School. He was an extremely good boy during the program. He sat obediently on his chair, returned things when needed and sat on my lap eating the gold fish they passed around during the adult lesson. During church he was good too. He was happy to sit on Deric’s and Keri’s laps, play, clap and talk during prayers. Only at the end of the service did Troy have to take him out to help regain the good behavior.

When church was over, we walked back home. We had some lunch, except for Alexei. He was tired and after a couple of bites I put him in bed for a two hour nap. Troy napped too, and I designed three cards (two birthdays and one wedding) to give out during the month of March using my PrintPerfect program . As soon as the nap was over, we dressed warmly and with a couple of grapes for Alexei’s snack, we all went to Lake Artemesia to catch the last hour of Sabbath light. It was rather cold and the place was deserted. Alexei enjoyed watching the ducks and geese in the water; other birds, airplanes, and helicopters in the air; and the Metro train zooming nearby. Plus, we couldn’t get away without our favorite past-time of throwing sticks in the water. As the darkness approached and it became colder, we walked quickly to the car and drove to eat at the Olive Garden restaurant.

We had so much fun watching Alexei eat. He sat in his highchair throughout our entire meal. I ordered Eggplant Parmesan for myself, Fettucini Alfredo with the sauce on the side from the kids’ menu for Alexei, and some bread/cheese/tomato appetizer. In addition to all this, we got two bowls of salad and breadsticks (it came with the meal). So, Alexei had fun with his food. He loved the olives from the salad, which he ate after putting on his fingers, croutons from the salad, and his pasta in the sauce. He drank water (using a straw), but only when I drank from my glass. He drew a little bit on the paper with the crayons the restaurant provided. This time he got an orange and blue colored crayons. He also flirted with the people at the table behind us. We all loved the food, got our leftovers wrapped up in two boxes to go, paid for everything with the two gift cards that Aunt Vera and Cheerie Lou gave us for Christmas and went to the mall across the street.

At PG Plaza, Alexei had a ton of fun and I am sure that the people who watched him did too. He went running and laughing and talking in the main hallway. He did not like us going into different stores, but at the end we went into JC Penny and Daddy bought Mommy a sleeveless blouse for $32 and change. Leaving the store made both Alexei and Mommy very happy. I am not so sure about how Daddy felt. Oh well, Mommy has a beautiful outfit finally complete. She has a woolen cream color skirt with a tanktop and sweater that match and look just gorgeous (on her too)! Thank you Daddy!

When we got home, I gave Alexei a quick bath, he ate some more, we brushed our teeth, read a couple of books and I put him to bed. Troy took the dirty diapers out, cleaned the kitchen a little and now, after I finish this blog entry we are going to watch an episode of “Mad Men!” What a wonderful day we had!