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October 13, 2003
***Wagon Wheels***
For the uninformed, a Wagon Wheel is an individually wrapped chocolate-covered cookie with marshmallow in the middle. They can contain jam.
Back in the day when I was an 8-year old living in Victoria B.C., I had a friend who got Wagon Wheels in her lunchbox. I, unfortunately, got healthy sandwiches, apples and carrots and a Thermos full of milk (Ewwwww!). My dad is a biochemist who also happens to have co-authored a bunch of textbooks on nutrition. My parents, especially with regard to their kids, were into healthy eating. How I wanted to eat a Wagon Wheel, you have no way of knowing. I would stare Dana in the mouth like a hungry dog. I had nothing with which I could "trade" her for the Wagon Wheels and submitted to the humiliation of her taking occasionally taking pity on me and breaking off a tiny piece. Same goes for sugary breakfast cereal that I only got at friends' sleepovers (at home we ate porridge or Grape Nuts, blechh!!!), and other goodies.
The positive side is, I kept eating like my parents once I left home. Sure, I have been known to suck down half of a cake at one sitting or secretly pour myself a bowl of Frosted Flakes, but on the whole, I eat well, and I thank my parents for the healthy habits they instilled in me. We eat porridge for breakfast (no Captain Crunch round these parts!), and I make sure we're getting our RDA (required daily allowance) from the assorted food groups. Balanced diet? That's us. As for sweets, Andrei had never tasted chocolate until 2 weeks ago. Not until I was in the supermarket and I saw the Wagon Wheels. Suddenly, I was 8 years old again and staring Dana in the mouth. But this time, I was going to get ALL the Wagon Wheels I wanted.
It is so hard to keep oneself from turning into one's parents. Andrei really wanted to taste my Wagon Wheel, he was looking at me the way I had looked at Dana all those years ago, and after a brief internal battle, I gave him one of his own (and shhh, don't tell anyone, I broke a little piece off for Nyus, too!). You would have thought it was Christmas morning, by the expression on Andrei's face. Not only something sweet, but something CHOCOLATELY, individually packaged in a shiny wrapper. I shared his excitement. The entire next day at preschool, he wouldn't stop talking about the confection I'd given him the night before.
I was telling my dad about it on the phone a few days later, and heard from him that he'd learned in his old age that it's important to have balance. Thanks dad, too bad you didn't realise that when I was 8 :-)
***Wheezles and sneezles***
Andrei and Anna had wheezles and sneezles, we bundled them into their beds. We gave them what goes for a cold in the nose, and some more for a cold in the head. We wondered if wheezles could turn into sneezles or sneezles could turn into mumps. We examined their chests for a rash and the rest of their bodies for swellings and lumps ...
Evidently, in A.A. Milne's day, mothers were just as paranoid as am I. And last week, I was reassured to learn I am one of the 57% of mothers who constantly obsess about the health of their children, according to a recent study. Whew, that's a relief, and I was actually considering seeing a psychiatrist about my near panic attacks that come on any time one of the kids (or Dima) sneezes, has a cough, a runny noise or a bruise.
Anna has another cold. Andrei is getting it. My parents assure me that it's totally normal for little kids to get a cold every month in the fall/winter season, but hey, Andrei just stopped coughing from the last cold!! Can it really be pre-school that's wreaking havoc on their nasal passages and upper respiratory systems? OK, I know that I live in a country voted by the World Health Organization "One of the top ten places in the world to get tuberculosis" (the kids were vaccinated at 3 days old, it's mandatory), that our climate is more suitable to moss and less advanced species of bog-dwelling life (St. Petersburg was built on a bog at the expense of the lives of thousands of slaves). I know that our summer lasted 3 weeks (I am NOT exaggerating), our winter lasts 8 months, and 4 of those are spent in almost total darkness (we're so far north, that in winter months, the Sun comes up at about 10:30 a.m., lurks at horizon-level for a few hours and goes back down at 3:00). I know that it's been raining so hard for so long that it may actually be time to start building an ark, but I DON'T WANT THE KIDS TO HAVE COLDS!!!
Talk to me, tell me how many colds your kids get September-April. Tell me your general geographic positioning (north/south, Vancouver, PEI, California, Alaska ...)
***Dashing through the snow***
Rumour has it we're getting winter early AGAIN this year. It was -30 for an entire month last year! How will I take Andrei to preschool and back if it's -30? Preschool is half hour walk because I am 32 years old and still haven't got my driver's license. I have a car, but no license. No time to get it. Even if I had a driver's licence, when it's that cold, cars often don't start. Last year, we had so much snow that we transported the kids by sled. You think I am making that up, don't you? No. We really did. Everyone did. A stroller in the Russian winter is as effective as a surfboard on the prairies. You can see it, can't you, the lady in the conservative grey suit, in one hand briefcase containing a laptop computer, the other hand pulling her 10-month old daughter on a sled to an appointment at the pediatrician's before going to work. That actually occurred last year. Russia is an unusual mix of the 21st century and the 1800's.
Global warming, where are you? What about the greenhouse effect? Bring it on!
I'm just kidding, I don't want a hole in the ozone layer or climatic chaos any more than the rest of you.
I'm lying.
Even Mr. Putin, our illustrious leader was honest enough to admit in public that global warming would only be good for Russia. Yeah, we selfish pigs, only thinking about ourselves.
OK, the REAL truth is, I don't want global warming or the greenhouse effect or climatic cataclysm for the rest of the world, I spent a year working at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, I KNOW how bad that could be for the world. I just want the sub-zero temperatures to back off a little.
Wishing you all a happy, healthy week.
Warm regards from the rapidly cooling North,
Lisa
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