The beginning of my life in London

Maximovo



Ah, so I have a lot to write about, but not much to say.

After my month of vacation I went back to Maximovo in Russia to take care of the kids for a month before we all came to London. This was pretty traumatic for me. The summer nanny completely ruined 100% of the work I had done in disciplining the boys. Now even perfectly behaved little Danny was throwing tantrums for not getting his sugar-encrusted fruit for breakfast. Nika has several days spent totally in time out having tantrums. With a child like Nika, you need routine. He was used to our routine in New York, and he knew what was expected of him. All of a sudden he got this older Russian woman who gave him candy when he screamed for it, and couldn’t control him. (I told her when she started not to give them candy or chocolate or sweets. Apparently the boys’ mother also told her repeatedly not to give them sweets too.) I was appalled when I walked into the boys’ room when she was putting Danny down for a nap and she was sitting in a chair next to his bed while he was sitting in his bed and she was feeding him pieces of chocolate bar. I told their mother, but I should have gone and taken the chocolate away from her or something.


I forgot to mention, this Russian nanny doesn’t speak any English. She speaks Russian and German. I speak English, French, what little Spanish I remember that doesn’t come out in French, and only a few bad phrases in German. (Thanks A2!) Communicating with her was very difficult. I got Nika to stop misbehaving SO much, which ended up being only about a 10% improvement. At one point, Rita (Russian nanny) gave Nika some chocolate something-or-other, and I took it away, since it was almost lunch time, and I told him he could have some after lunch if he behaved. She gave him something else and he tried to run off with it and hide in the house he had made of blankets and pillows, and I took it away and told him he could have some after lunch again. Rita called him over, they went around the corner, and 5 seconds later they came back around. I knew what they were doing and I was immediately so angry I was really surprised. I wasn’t just angry, I was furious. It had been years since I was so angry, if I had ever even been that upset. I was so angry the rest of the day that I couldn’t even look at her. It took a really long time for that feeling to fade. It was terrible.

I reimplemented time out’s, and it was met with much hostility from more than just the boys. Rita thought I was torturing the boys: I was apparently teasing them with candy and then putting them in a chair away from everybody, then outside of they kept screaming for misbehaving. (I should mention, that in Russian culture, it’s an insult if someone says that your child behaves well, like an adult. Children are supposed to be wild and crazy and run around and do whatever they want.) Then, after a while, when Rita sleep in the bed she had made for herself, she switched to my method and put the boys in time out. But instead of doing it in stages and giving them a warning before they went to the time-out chair, then putting them outside if they kept on screaming, she just put them outside with no warning. They didn’t understand why they were getting in trouble. Ugh! Never again! I had to start from scratch, from before scratch! with the discipline for the boys.

It was good that I went to speak English with them because he started school only 3 days after we arrived in London. Nika remembered his English, but he took a while to formulate his answers when we would talk. Danny refused to talk to me in English in the beginning. Even a month later after we arrived in London he would speak to me in Russian first, then I’d have to say “what?” and he would repeat in English. He did the same at school. Now both of them are doing well with their English. Nika doesn’t work well in school though. He’s too easily distracted. All the boys know Nika, because he gets up and jumps around and runs around the classroom, and the teacher is always telling him to sit down. “Nika sit. Nika, stop that. Nika, Nika, Nika!” Nika doesn’t know the other boys, but everybody knows him, and he knows it.

Enough about kids. I had a birthday a week after we arrived. I was lucky only because the boys’ dad’s parents were here from California, and Viola made me some napoleon for my birthday, and insisted on buying me a birthday cake. Other than that, my birthday was terrible and I hope I never have another birthday like that. I had no friends or family there, just work, and the family had a housewarming party that day. So not only was I watching Nika and Danny, there were other kids there who were misbehaving, and everybody was speaking Russian. All I could do was to wait for time to pass and for bedtime for the boys. Boss-man, and woman, told me that I should go out and at least have a walk after the boys went to bed, so I did. It was nice to get out of the house, but it was even more depressing to me after I walked by all the bars and restaurants crowded with people who were friends. I didn’t feel right going into a bar by myself when it was so crowded and buying myself a drink. I was so depressed that I didn’t have any of my friends or family to celebrate with. One of my old friends in San Antonio sent me flowers, and that was nice. It’s not the same as having people to go out with.

I got to go back to New York in mid-October for a week to get my visa. This is after 2 months of non-stop working in Russia and London. The family hired another woman to take care of Danny and speak Russian with him, and her first week was with me and the boys' mom gone. Poor Olya! So I got a UK work visa and then flew from NYC to Dubai to meet the family there. It was really nice and warm. The beach was nice, the pool was nice, but as with every vacation that I go on with the family, it's not a vacation for me. It's work. I can't sit on the beach and soak up some sun with a margarita and a book or friends, I'm slathering sunscreen onto little boys and trying to keep them from drowning in the sea or pool. See, if I were on vacation, I would not have had to deal with the fact that Danny made a huge, messy poo in the pool. If I were on vacation, I would have had my name on the list several times a day for massage on the beach. If I were on vacation, I would go out to dinner with some cool person who I chose to go on vacation with. We did get to see the world's tallest building and go into the world's only 6 star hotel for afternoon tea. Anyway, the flight back to London was terrible, too. Of course, mom and dad were in first class as they tossed us back into economy. Mom got Nika a big-gulp-size juice before the flight, so he had to go to the toilet literally every 5 minutes before, during, and after take-off, and while the guys were coming with the drink carts. Danny on the other hand, made a poo in his pants. :) (Ilovemyjobilovemyjobilovemyjob.)

And so it went. It has been over 3 months and I still haven’t made many friends. When I went to open my bank account the person who works there gave me his phone number, and we actually got together one afternoon, but that was it. I made friends with a couple of girls, but they both went home for the holidays, back to France. (At least I will be able to practice my French... soon.)

The highlight of this post: I met the most gorgeous man on the underground. I was waiting around for the train to go to yoga after I dropped Nika at school and this man comes onto the platform and asks me if the next train was going all the way to the end of the line. I had no idea since there were delays on the train that day. We started chatting while waiting for the train and the platform soon filled up. We got on the crowded train and were smashed up against the masses of people who were already on the train and the people who were trying to get on. Since I was smashed between some tall man’s ribcage and a talking directly into an Asian lady’s ear, I felt a too shy to ask him for his number. Before I got off the train I shook his hand, smiled and edged my way out of the train. I couldn’t stop thinking of him the whole time. I ended up at yoga and kept thinking of him and hoping that he might try to figure out how to get in contact with me. All I got was his first name and where he was from. It’s impossible to Facebook stalk people based on this limited amount of information. It was pretty pathetic on my part for even trying. :P So I decided that I’d go back the next day. Unfortunately, Nika’s mom took him to school since there was a teacher conference that day. I told my friend back in San Antonio about this guy and she seemed to brush it off and said “that sort of thing only happens in movies”. I told my new French friend the story and she said the same thing.

I went back to the same station every day the next week at the same time, and waited until about the time that I saw him, then I went to another platform for a different train to either go home or go to the other yoga studio. Every day I felt more and more ridiculous. The platform monitor man who tells the trains when the doors are clear was always there and he’d see me watch train after train go by, waiting around for who knows what. I felt so silly every day and exponentially moreso as each day passed. One night I was talking to my mom and I told her about the guy and how I wish I could have gotten his number and I told her what I was doing about going to the station and waiting there. As she would say, she was pegate lele. She couldn’t stop laughing, and it was the laugh she has when she can’t breathe. Thanks for laughing at me Mom! It was funny though. She encouraged me to go do that and maybe I’d see him again. So the next day I headed over there and told myself that this was the last day I’d do that, and if I didn’t see him, it wasn’t meant to be. I felt like everybody knew that I was waiting around for this guy that would probably never end up going to work late again and like everybody was ridiculing me, especially the platform monitor man, and then as I stood by the wall, guess who walks onto the platform! The elusive Mystery Man himself! He sees me and says “Oh hey, Angela, right?” We talked and boarded the next train. I knew I would literally want to kick myself if I didn’t ask for his number, but silly, shy little ole me, what do I do? Instead of asking for his number and just asking him if we could get together sometime not involving public transit chance meetings, I ask him for his last name and if I could Facebook stalk him. (Smack myself on forehead with painful expression on face.) It would have been less humiliating if I had just asked him for his number. Then I sent him a message, once I found him, and asked if he wanted to go out before he left for Australia for the holidays. Strangely enough, or not, he agreed and we went out for dinner-ish on a weeknight before he flew to Australia on Saturday.

I was so nervous. He is amazingly good looking and I haven’t been on a first date in..... uhh.... basically since I lived in California. I feel like I didn’t talk much, or have anything useful to say. Anyway, it’s all ok. We will see if we go out again. (Fingers crossed, please!) He won’t be back until after the new year.

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like this though. After my last boyfriend and I broke up, it hurt so much I just kept thinking that love wasn’t worth feeling as bad as I did. I distanced myself from having a relationship, especially when I lived in France because I knew that I wasn’t going to be there for very long and didn’t want to end up heartbroken at the end of the year. But maybe it’s like me and marathons. The day after I always tell myself that I’ll never do another one as I inch my way towards the edge of the bed to get up, in constant, full-body pain. Even my skin and organs seem to ache. Then a month later I’m looking for the next race I want to register for. But the thing is that marathons are nowhere near as much fun as being in a relationship with someone you love and who loves you.

In New York it was really hard to meet people, and here it is too. I am looking forward to meeting more people here, making some friends, and going out with Mr. Aussie again. :) I'm off to work on my personal statement for my university application here in London.