In Soviet Russia, language hates you

As some of you know, I've been trying to learn Russian. This is not an easy thing.

Here's the problem: Russian doesn't want to be learned. At least not by Americans.

Think about the first words you learn in a new language. "Hi," "what is your name," "please," "thank you," and the like.

So in Russian, "Hi" is "Preevyet." That's easy enough, right?

That would be easy enough. But you don't get to say that word. That's the informal way to say "hi," and you only get to use it with people you're friendly with, who've asked you to use the informal "you" form with them. Which is not likely to happen unless you can manage to say "hi" to them at some point.

The formal way to say "hi" is "Zdrastvooytye." Try to say that. But really, take a minute and try right now.

That word hates your mouth.

(For future reference, the Z next to the D is nature's way of warning you off.)

So, OK, one hard word. You can't expect it all to be smooth going. New languages take perseverance.

Then you get to "please." Pazhalooysta.

For those afraid to try to say that after their experience with Zdrastvooytye, I'll save you the time: Trying to say that word feels like being punched in the tongue.

The extremely kind person who is valiantly attempting to teach me Russian has yet to teach me to say that word properly.

That's the first barrier Russian puts up, and it's a tough one. There's nothing like looking at a vocab list with the first 50 words you'd want to learn in any language and realizing that with hard work, dedication, and years of practice, you might be able to pronounce 20 of them.

Among the other barriers, by the way, is the gendered nouns. As if it weren't tough enough trying to figure out which words are male and female (as in languages like Spanish. or Hebrew, where tables are male, cameras are female, unicorns are male... all with no apparent rhyme or reason), Russian decided to add a third gender.

Which, beyond the difficulty involved in remembering a third gender (what is the third gender supposed to be, exactly? My textbook says "neuter form," which is just plain wrong), makes it so much more annoying. What, so you knew there was a way to have gender-neutral words, but decided it would be more fun to do it the other way anyway?

And finally, there's a more personal issue I've been facing. Ninety percent of my Russian "conversations" are with elderly Russian women who address me on the street. I can only understand about 5% of what they're saying. And from that five percent, I find myself wondering - do I really want to understand the rest?

(The parts I can understand are English, the rest is what Russian sounds like to me)

So now that I've shared the hard parts, here's what keeps me going:

1. Russian speakers are among the world's friendliest native speakers to people who butcher their language. If you know how to say "thank you" and count to ten, you'll already have people saying in surprise, "Oh, you know some Russian! Where did you learn?" as if it's a very special thing that someone has picked up a few words in a language spoken by hundreds of millions of people.

2. I have a childlike fear of missing out on something. Hence trying to understand all the words I hear and see around me, even though most of them turn out to be things like "water bill" or "attorney's office." (Hence staying up until 2 a.m., too)

3. Last but definitely not least, it's a way to avoid both math homework and cleaning the house without feeling entirely useless.

How could I forget

So we were walking home from daycare today, and in between my attempts to leap the various hurdles my toddler threw up between me and getting home to my second (OK, third) cup of coffee, I realized I'd forgotten two more tactics for dealing with walking strikes.

(The obstacles, for the record, included insisting on walking backwards, demanding to go to the store by walking past Noya's gan even though those things are in two opposite directions, deciding to spend quality sister time with Shalva by standing in front of the stroller poking her in the face and refusing to move... and more, including two walking strikes.)

So to correct my oversight, in addition to what I mentioned last time, there's also:

6. Count to three. Another parenting classic.

Benefit: Hopefully we all find counting to three easy enough.

Downside: Doing this is the parenting equivalent of walking down the street in your underwear. Nothing magic happens on "three." The Mommy has no clothes. You know it, everyone else on the street knows it. You can only pray that your toddler doesn't know it.

Not much will make you feel stupider than seeing people look at you as you count to three, knowing that what they see is you being driven to desperation by an opponent less than one-fourth your size.

7. Just drag them. Grab their wrist and start walking. They will be forced to walk too (note: they will not be forced to stop wailing like a banshee).

Benefits: Like "picking them up," this is almost always effective. Moreover, it's even safer than carrying - if your child escapes your grip, the worst that can happen is a trip and a skinned knee, not a head-first fall to the ground. And it's a lot easier to pull off when your upper body strength leaves something to be desired.

Downside: As with walking away, this is not a spectator-friendly solution.

Consider Yourself Warned - W - Walking

It's time to go out of alphabetical order, I think.

Here's something you need to know about walking: it is a much longer process with children involved.

To get the obvious out of the way, kids are slow at the best of times, due to their unfortunate height deficiency. When we were looking for housing, I took the kids with me to places we were seriously considering, just so I could time them and see how long a walk it would be to school, the bus stop, etc (I highly recommend this).

But there are two other issues, too.

One is routine. Once you walk one way with a toddler, that's The Way To Walk. God forbid you should ever try to take a shortcut, or to not stop to marvel at the same tree ("Look Mommy! Big tree!") and yell at the same cats ("Fooya cats!! Fooya!") every single day (the bonus - it makes life feel so much longer that it's like getting extra years).

This is rather inconvenient when you're in a hurry. So OK, you may need to risk upsetting your toddler (something that no parent of toddlers would take lightly), but if you need to go faster, you may have to tell them to leave the cats alone for a single day.

Which leads us to the second issue - walking strikes.

Unfortunately, the minute your toddler senses that you are attempting to hurry them along, or are not expressing sufficient admiration for the Big Tree, they go into strike mode. This is where what was, until two seconds ago, a fully functioning if rather small human body becomes an immovable lump of angry two-year-old.

At this point, you have a few options:

1. Stern voice. This is usually the first stop. "You need to keep walking RIGHT NOW!"

The benefits: it lovingly but firmly shows the child who is in charge.

The downside: it never works.

2. Walking away. Pretend you'll just go home without them. Fantasize about actually just going home without them.

The benefits: sometimes effective.

The downside: best case scenario, your child gets hysterical, you look like a terrible neglectful parent, and passing grandmothers stop to glare at you.

3. Picking them up.

The benefit: always effective.

The downside: dangerous. Toddler will continue to squirm with no thought of what's going to happen if he or she succeeds in breaking loose. You, if you are built anything like me, are likely to realize that you did have muscles in your arm after all - and that you just pulled them.

4. Threats.

The benefit: there is none. Toddlers are masters of psychological warfare. Don't try to beat them at their own game.

5. Bribes.

The benefit: this is really the go-to answer. My favorite bribe of late is offering to let Dani unlock the door if she agrees to walk up the stairs.

The downside: not always effective. Even if effective once, bribes tend to lose their effectiveness within a month. Also, it's probably bad parenting and teaching your children to throw tantrums, or something. But mostly just the not always effective part.

Clean Your Kids' Room in Just 15 Minutes

After all the fear-mongering I've done, I've decided to be helpful for once. Here is my tried and true method for cleaning your children's bedroom in just 15 minutes.

We start at 9 a.m., because to do anything difficult before 9 a.m. would be obscene.

9:00: The first step is to assess the situation.

9:00:15: OK, that's getting depressing. New first step - go put away all that junk on the bed.

9:01: Whose skirt is this? Nobody in the house wears this size. Does one of the kids' friends wear this size? Put it aside to figure out later.

9:01:30: Whose socks are these? Wouldn't you remember if someone had been wearing bright pink socks with green cats on them? Put them aside to figure out later.

9:05: The bed should be clean at this point. If you've done it properly, you should have a nice neat huge pile of things that you don't know what to do with.

Time to move on to the floor under the bed.

9:06: What IS that? Ew. Oh lord, it's sticky. Eeeeewwwwwww.

9:07: Is that a cockroach???? Flee to living room.

9:08: Call husband. Explain about the cockroach. Tell him you need him to come home right now and kill it.

9:10: Your husband should be done laughing by now. Explain that you are serious. Explain that the cockroach definitely got a good look at your face, and lord only knows what it's planning right now.

9:11: Fume.

9:13: Forget under the beds. That's cockroach territory now. Move on to the laundry pile instead. Start checking pockets and preparing things to go in the machine.

9:14: This shirt looks completely clean. Why is it in the laundry pile? Check if it smells clean.

9:16: Come around. Wonder why there's a shirt in your hand. Were you doing laundry? But it doesn't even look dirty. Maybe it got into the laundry by mistake. Smell it to be sure.

9:18: Come around.

9:19: Stuff everything in the washing machine and be done with it.

9:20: Now it's time to put the toys in the toy box.

That's funny, there's no room in the toy box, even though all the toys appear to be on the floor. Better take a look and see what's in there.

9:21: So that's where your favorite shirt has been.

9:22: So that's where your husband's shaving machine has been.

9:25: Put the shirt, shaving machine, backpack, left shoe, other left shoe, bag of pasta, old newspaper, and ketchup packets back where they belong.

9:26: Now start putting the toys in the box.

9:35: How did you ever get all these toys into one box?

9:36: Forget it. Let some toys stay on the floor. Just keep moving. Now it's time to deal with the art projects.

9:37: Awww, a picture of the family! That's so cute!

9:37:30: Wait, why am I the fattest?

9:38: Wow, where did they get this nice fabric that they glued on this piece of paper?

9:38:15: Run to check state of child's dress.

9:38:30: Curse.

9:39: It's been longer than 15 minutes, hasn't it? Like, way longer.

9:40: Screw it. Time for more coffee.

9:41: Make that an Irish coffee.

Note: when your husband gets home, do not apologize for getting hysterical about the cockroach that turned out to be just a big piece of lint. Anyone could have made that mistake.

Realization

I just had a disturbing realization.

Some background:

Like most parents, I try to go easy on my kids. I don't try too hard to stay hidden in hide and seek.

I pretend that their hiding places are terribly clever.

And I let them win races.

Also like many parents, I try to stimulate their curiosity by encouraging them to answer their own questions, instead of just sharing my knowledge.

So what was my realization? That in 10 years, my kids are going to think I'm the biggest moron who ever walked the face of the planet - and it will be entirely my own fault.

OK just one more

One more post on newlyweds vs. old married couples before I get back to teaching you about the pitfalls of parenting.

(note the combination of gender stereotypes and bathroom humor. i'm proud of this one.)

Newlywed:

After 3 years:

After 10 years:

Old Married Couples part 2

In case my last post gave the wrong impression - being part of an Old Married Couple isn't bad. In fact, I think it's even better than being newlywed.

Two ways in which being part of an Old Married Couple is better (you may differ on whether or not these are good things) (again, all tongue in cheek, any resemblance to real couples living or dead is strictly something, blah blah blah (gender neutrality, on the other hand, is deliberate)).

Drama:

Presents:

Old Married Couples

Blogging has been slow lately due to a certain relative getting himself married off.

In honor of that happy occasion, I present some differences between cute newlywed couples like the recently-created one in our family, and Old Married Couples such as Viggy and myself. (All strictly tongue in cheek, of course).

Time apart:

Loving gaze:

Sharing:

Consider yourself warned - R - Revenge

Let's face it - if you have a significant other, you probably want revenge on them once in a while.

Don't give me any "oh no, Ali, we resolve all of our conflicts peacefully through mutual respect and understanding" nonsense. If you've been together for more than a year and neither of you is a robot, you want revenge for something.

It may have been a particularly egregious incident of pre-coffee rage/ backseat parenting:

Or maybe a certain overly casual approach to footwear disposal:

But whatever it is, the simple, nasty, survivalist part of your brain inherited from some prehistoric lizard - the part that makes up roughly 99% of the modern human mind - wants payback. Not "you killed my father, prepare to die" level vengeance, but something that will leave an impression.

Being a sane adult, you realize that the standard Hollywood fallback - put laxatives in their drink - is sadistic, unsafe, and much less funny when you're the one who has to clean the toilet.

And attempts at sneaky payback often misfire:

Or let's say you decide to repay pre-coffee rage with secretly non-caffeinated coffee:

Come lunchtime, you'll be the one to pay for it:

So how to satiate your need for justice without becoming either a total jerk or a victim of your own schemes? Enter your kids.

Feeling annoyed at your significant other? Try one of the following lines:

"Kids, Daddy just got home and he needs some time to relax. In the meantime, who remembers the words to 'this is the song that never ends'?"
"You want me to read Dora's Fairytale Adventure? That's so funny, Mommy was just saying how much she wants to read that with you!"

Instant, safe, guaranteed irritation. Nothing too cruel, but nothing to ignore, either.

The main concern is getting sucked into a petty-revenge-by-child cycle. This is an easy trap to fall into:

Consider yourself warned - R - Responsibility

When Adi was born, there was one question I kept hearing over and over: so what does it feel like to be a mom?

Really, what does it feel like to go from being a not terribly responsible 20-something who can't even remember her own phone number and considers popcorn and diet coke a balanced meal, to being a parent?

Simple: it feels like being a not terribly responsible 20-something who can't even remember her own phone number and considers popcorn and diet coke a balanced meal - who's just been handed a baby.

I mean, I was already old enough to realize that - contrary to my previous assumptions - there is no criteria for becoming an adult beyond surviving the first 18 years of your life. But still, it was somewhat shocking to be allowed to just walk out of the hospital with my new baby, as if I was a Responsible Parent and not a total airhead.

Today I'm as close to real adulthood as I'm ever likely to get. I have a real job with a monthly paycheck and everything, a real boss who really yells at me, life insurance, I think even a pension plan (I prefer not to find out for sure - why ruin the surprise?).

And yet it still feels more than a little like play-acting.

We're even getting a mortgage - a process that leaves me living in constant fear that I'm about to be somehow found out, even though we told the truth about everything. I worry that there's some criteria of Real Grownupness that I'm missing. The other grownups all seem to act so - you know - grown up.

(If the secret is preferring wine to grape juice, I can do that. If it's about reading John Grisham books instead of Harry Potter, I can even try that. But if I have to watch "quality movies" like Sideways and Lost in Translation instead of watching superheroes fight aliens in downtown Manhattan - it just isn't going to happen.)

Anyway. I just hope I don't look too uneasy around the bank people, they're probably trained to look for that.

But don't worry - being immature and ill-at-ease in the adult world isn't always an obstacle in parenting. Sometimes it even helps. I bet not many parents play with playdoh or watch Finding Nemo with the genuine enthusiasm that I do.

A brief clarification

Some of my recent posts may have inadvertently given the impression that my two-and-a-half-year-old is terrible at potty training. This is not the case. I am terrible at potty training her, but she's doing very well.

So why do I write about bodily fluids so much? Because:

1. She's not the only one making bodily fluids around here.

2. Those times when you do find yourself on hands and knees on the floor mopping up someone else's bodily fluids tend to stick out in your mind more than those when you don't.

3. I have an extremely juvenile sense of humor.

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.

This is a real thing. Just.... wow.

Since discovering that this is a real thing, I've been making it my mission to raise awareness of this movie.

I'm not sure if this movie is a sign of what's wrong with our culture or what's right with our culture, but I'm leaning heavily toward the latter. In fact, I'm kind of annoyed at Hollywood for making all those other movies before this one. (And speaking of, where is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: the Movie?)

Anyway. I'm all for forgiving Hollywood for the delay and focusing on moving forward and making more movies like this (I know the movie hasn't come out yet. But come on, it's Abraham Lincoln using an ax to kill vampires - how could it go wrong?). Think how much more entertaining our grandchildren's history lessons could be if we take the initiative and spice the past up a bit right now.

I have a few suggestions, I'd love to hear yours too:

Revolutionary War:

Americans vs. British? Or Americans vs. the zombie hordes? I think the latter would have been much more interesting. After losing a few battles, the British seek to gain the upper hand by bringing the colonists’ natural enemies – those zillions of native Americans they killed with the plague – back to life. George Washington stars as the warrior with a mysterious past that could prove to be the key to the zombies’ destruction. Benedict Arnold costars as Washington’s fellow soldier who’s secretly a necromancer helping the British raise the dead.

War of 1812:

Nobody really knows what this one was about. Which is a good thing, because it could be made way cooler and nobody would know the difference.

I think it involved boats, so let’s say that this one had merpeople. But not cute ones like in the Little Mermaid. Evil merpeople. And lots of explosions.

Mexican-American War:

The Mexicans are backed by the Aztec gods, who’ve made them all basically super-soldiers. Millard Fillmore – then a simple toughened drifter with a military past – saves the day by harnessing the power of the American Indian gods (who can beat the Mexican gods because the U.S. is #1. Obviously).

World War I:

I’m going to go with a clone army on this one. I know we already had that Star Wars movie with a clone army, but that one wasn’t good, so it doesn’t count.

Evil scientists (are there any other kind?) are making a clone army to take over the world. They are defeated by a team of American super-spies led by Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge.

World War II:

A hellmouth opened under Germany in the 1930s, and the Nazis were literally led by Satan. A young John F. Kennedy leads his troops to victory with a mix of cool weapons that didn’t actually exist at the time and Catholicism. Think “the exorcist” meets “Buffy” meets “Inglourious Basterds.” It would be awesome.

Cuban missile crisis:

Xmen already got this one. Spoiler: it was mutants.

Vietnam War:

We haven’t done aliens yet, so let’s get some aliens in there. I can’t think what the war would have been about, but nobody knows what the real Vietnam War was about, so that's not a big obstacle. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan fight side by side as brave commandos tasked with finding the aliens’ secret control center and destroying it. A tragedy involving a mutual love interest causes the two war buddies to become bitter rivals.

Consider yourself warned - R - Remote control helicopters

Remote control helicopters. These are the reason your husband is happy to hang out with the kids in the toy store.


Warning: as tempting as it may be to ditch them all and go get coffee, I advise against it.

A brief Parent-Child dictionary

Since some of you will soon be spending quality time with me and my children, I thought it might be a good time to provide a brief reminder of some common terms in Child, and their translation in Adult:

I’m hungry = I see you have cookies

I’m not hungry = I said cookies, not vegetables

I’m tired = Carry me

I’m not tired = I’m exhausted

I’m thirsty = I’m bored. Dance for my amusement, puppet.

I need to pee = I am currently peeing

Read me a story = I see you were enjoying an adult conversation. Stop that.

Let’s play a game = Let’s jump on furniture

She hit me = She had a totally unreasonable response to me sitting on her head

Let’s sing a song = Let’s scream

I’m bored = I see you have DVDs

It’s hot = I’m getting naked in 60 seconds. Consider yourself warned.

If any of you can think of more terms to add, please share. 

The Second Rule of Parenting

The Second Rule of Parenting is fairly straightforward: There is never no dirty laundry. Or in mathematical terms, L (laundry) =/= 0.

"Ali," you may be thinking. "I've seen your house, and I agree with you that you will never have no dirty laundry around."

Pictured: the average size of my laundry pile, with a 2-year-old who's planning to pee in it and not tell anybody included for purposes of comparison.

But I'm saying more than that. I am saying that no parent can ever have no dirty laundry*. Trying to have no dirty laundry is like trying to divide by zero. DON'T DO IT.

This doesn't seem immediately logical, because of course all of us see our laundry piles shrink as we put in more effort. But what we see is merely laundry approaching zero, not actually becoming zero. As illustrated in the following graph: 

(Because I love my family and nerdy friends too much to drive them crazy by failing to label my axes, let's say the y-axis shows laundry as measured in 10s of pounds, and the x-axis shows energy as measured in energy units (EU), with each unit being roughly equivalent to the amount of energy needed to either run one mile or keep an eye on three-year-old twin boys for 30 seconds.)

So what happens if you try to do all the laundry?

1. In the first stage, you wash all the laundry in and around your laundry basket. Nature will try to fight you even at this early stage, usually by causing you to forget to check the pockets. This can lead to an Infinite Laundry Loop in which you continue to wash the same clothes, only to have them come out with marker stains or covered in gum and in more desperate need of cleaning than before.

Assuming you make it through stage 1, washing absolutely everything in the hamper, even the stuff that's been sitting on the bottom for so long that you may as well just burn it all and call it a day - and all that without getting sucked into a loop or overwhelmed by the stench of toddler pee - you may bask briefly in your sense of accomplishment.

But then you as you look at the pile of laundry, you'll begin to feel doubts niggling at the back of your mind. Didn't you have another pair of pants? Didn't your older child have a blue sweater? Didn't the toddler have socks? And that's when you remember...

2. The hidden laundry. For each item of clothing in or near the hamper, there's a dirty sock at the bottom of a sports bag, a wet towel under a bed, or a shirt covered in playdoh shoved into the air conditioner.

A wise person would give up here. But if you're taking advice from me, you're probably not wise. So let's assume you try to push forward. You gather all the clothes from under the beds, from the cracks in the couch, from inside the toy box, the freezer, and the cupboards, from every backpack you can find, and from the neighbor's yard. You find the portal to the Land of Lost Socks, fight the evil Sock King, and bring back all the missing socks you've accumulated (or unaccumulated, really), and wash every last one of them.

Really, if you push your luck that far, you deserve what comes next:

3.

*(In Abstract Parenting, it is possible to talk about all the fun things you could do if in theory there was no dirty laundry. This should not be confused with an ability to have no dirty laundry in day-to-day life.)