Massive Parenting Fail

Tonight when I put Alex to bed I promised to come back and check on her - usually I do that 5-10 minutes later.

On the computer during those 10 minutes, I saw a video I'd been waiting for - a panel discussion on "Building Resilience in Foreign Service Kids" - was uploaded. 40 minutes later Alex is on the potty and yelling for me.

Oops.

Anyway, here's the video.

My first seder

This is not literally my first seder; that one occurred pre-memory. This one is the first seder I've prepared. In Malta I was pretty irreligious, here in Petersburg we had Orthodox friends to visit on Passover. This year I've made matzah, charoset, potato kugel, meringue for dessert, and will soon throw the lamb into the oven. As the kids are 2 and 4 I have printed out the "30 Minute Seder". I've made sure we have horseradish, grape juice for the kids' wine glasses, and discovered celery can sub for the parsley I forgot to buy at the store. And I have an orange.

I remember in college meeting a floormate who was also Jewish (not exactly a novelty at Columbia) and she said her parents were pretty agnostic until she was old enough to start asking questions, and then they joined a synagogue and started going on Friday nights. Now that I have a 4 year old I totally understand those parents, although I am hesitant to try to seek out the only not-Orthodox congregation in the city - differentiated from the only Orthodox congregation (not too many Jews left in Russia) - and highly doubt the service would be understandable to me anyway. There's also the internal battle of "what do I want to teach my children"?

In the USA it's easy. I find a congregation I like, enroll my kids in Hebrew School and basically let someone else do the heavy lifting. The synagogue would organize the Sukkot, Hanukkah and Purim festivities and there would be friends we'd meet to plan a joint seder together. Being overseas requires a deeper involvement. Alex will ask a lot of questions tonight and I know I won't have the answers. Wish me luck!

Where do clothes come from?

Alex, all excited, told me the other day two of her girlfriends at school had "skirts made from jeans." I told her if she really wanted, we could get her one. She got confused. "How can we do that?"

My 4 year old daughter has never, in her entire life, gone into a store for the purpose of purchasing clothing. We have amazing friends with well-placed children (each one about 2 years older than my kids, along gender lines) so we get boxes of hand-me-downs during Home Leave that we ship to the next post. To fill in the gaps we either buy online or my mom shops and sends stuff to us. Very rarely I've needed to buy locally but even then it's a solo trip. Clothes come home with mommy or daddy from work or we get them from boxes in the storage closet.

I can't quite decide if this is fabulous or tragic.

Friday Adventure

Zoltan's nannies are fabulous, as I've mentioned a few times. Among other things, they take him all over the town, and he's been to museums I don't even know the location of. Lately he's been transiting the city via "rolly-bus", aka trolleybus. Alex has become envious.

With this in mind, I decided to keep Alex home Friday and have an adventure. We went down to Nevskiy and popped onto the first trolleybus we saw (#7). It was pretty crowded and Alex, in the underneath part, couldn't see much but the kids were thrilled anyway. At one point we passed some former palace or mansion and it had Greek style statues adorning it. Zoltan yelled out "Mommy, they're maykin'd (naked)" One lady standing by us started giggling. I think she understood English.

We got out at the last stop as the stroller was too big and the bus too crowded to get out earlier. We ended at ploschad Truda so I had some sense of where we were. I had thought we'd head to the Neva as Zoltan loves water but he started complaining of being cold - I didn't have the fight in me to force him into his snowpants when he refused to put them on in the morning. So instead we headed toward Nevskiy with a short stop for photos with St Isaac's while the kids enjoyed their snacks.

On the way home we got onto a regular bus (avtobus) and were positioned right by the door so this time Alex could see stuff. All in all they were pretty stoked with the day. Of course it began with TV (Charlie and Lola, the first time they watched one) and ended with a play date so there's little to complain about.

Passover preparations

The joys of overseas life! Not like I didn't know Passover was coming, but here I was with 6 days left - no matzah and no menu. Kudos to the internet: I found a "30 Minute Seder" plus a full seder's worth of recipes, all ingredients of which can be found locally. And, surprisingly, a matzah recipe! (this one: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/matzah/detail.aspx)

Of course, if I could find specially supervised flour here I would also be able to find mass produced matzah*, so mine aren't technically kosher for Passover. Given my level of observance of late, though, this is definitely a step up.

* = OK, OK, the Grand Choral Synagogue store probably has matzah just as they had Hanukkah candles, but I wasn't going to have any opportunity to get there before Friday.

Fabulous resource for studying Russian

I'm kind of a dork, and I'm OK with that. I study Russian not only because it's my only hope for ever having gainful, continuous employment but because the language has completely sunk its nails into me (why didn't it do this 10 years ago when my brain actually wanted to hold things like genative case and perfective verbs?). Anyhoo ...

This site was recommended by someone on the chat group for FSO hopefuls: http://nclrc.org/webcasts/russian/

It totally rocks my world. It gives super short (a couple of minutes) broadcasts of current events in Russian spoken slowly and clearly. It has a glossary to go with each broadcast. It has listening comprehension exercises at the end. These broadcasts have been going on since 2004. There are about 100 of them. By the time I finish them all I should be able to listen to news on TV or radio.

Yippeeeee

Mommy's favorite game

I posted this on Facebook, but that doesn't provide a lasting memory and this one is too good to forget.

Alex: Mommy, I want to play a game with you. What's your favorite game?
Me: Cleanup
Alex: What's your next most favorite game?

Molochovets

I can't believe I never wrote about this! On the corner of the street where we live is a beautiful, special occasion type restaurant called Molochovets Mechta (Molochovets' Dream). It had been recommended by some major foodies, but for some reason our first 2.5 years here we continually gave it a skip. Then we decided to go for my birthday dinner the night before my birthday.

[reprinted from a report I gave a friend about dinner right afterwards - I certainly wouldn't remember all the details now!] Dinner started with an amuse bouche of a smoked fish that's like salmon but not exactly (syomga), then I had a salad that was shredded apple and celery with smoked duck (the dressing was mayo/creamy) and Terry had solyanka. There was sorbet to cleanse the palate, I think it was champagne but couldn't 100% be sure. Main for me was a local fish that's like a Zander (same family as a walleye) in a simple butter sauce and fried cauliflower and T had moose in a berry sauce (he wanted the venison but they were out). The fish was amazing, we have never been able to cook it to taste like anything so I was excited to see what a pro chef would do. I was clearly the winner that night as Terry enjoyed the solyanka but reports it isn't as good as the CGR chef's version, and the moose wasn't exactly what he wanted.

I was stuffed after that but Terry ordered vanilla ice cream. Home made. We had cappuccinos and were just sort of hanging out because we didn't want to go anywhere and it hadn't been enough time in our minds to make it worth our nanny's while, so eventually I made some room in my belly and had chocolate ice cream. mmmmmm. then i was up til 3am - I blame the cappuccino.

Our second round was in honor of Terry's birthday, a bit belated as I had the flu that week. That night I tried the schi (very strange as it was written as "sorrel soup" in the English menu) and the halibut; Terry had an apple and berry salad and veal loin with blue cheese sauce. His starter was fine but nothing special but the veal was perfect - Terry didn't love the sauce but it's incidental anyway to the cut and cooking of the meat. Again we had an amuse bouche, it was a mushroom pate (veggie in honor of Lent - they actually had a Lent menu) My meal was fine on both counts but neither course was as good as the last time. I finished with hot chocolate, the super awesome Russian kind that is thick and tastes like like a melted chocolate bar. It was the perfect amount and perfect ending for me, although my favorite hot chocolate in the city is still Guell's.

Sleeping Beauty on Ice

Alex and I, as well as some friends and their daughters, went to see Sleeping Beauty on Ice. It was performed at the Rimskogo-Korsakova Conservatory, not at any of the ice arenas, which was a bit interesting.

The costumes were beautiful and the skating very pretty. I liked how they kept pretty true to the ballet. I really thought Alex would get into it, as she's been ice skating and her instructor used to be an ice ballerina not too long ago.

Nope, she prefers "real" ballet to this. She even prefers hockey to ice ballet. Maybe she's a purist.

It's Spring, sort of

In Piter the temperatures have been frequently (but not always!) above freezing, leading to ice underlying veritable pools of melting snow. The other day started with snow, moved into sleet, then hail, finally settling on rain. That became snow again by bedtime.

It probably doesn't need saying, but this is NOT the most wonderful time of the year.