Russkiye in town!

It all started with Layla's promise to me on the way to a theatre "Ok, mama. I'll speak Russian for today."
We paced outside the theatre hall, Alex in the pram munching on rice crackers, Layla clutching her ballet suitcase and dancing in front of the glass entrance doors, looking at herself in the reflection. In few minutes she was going to meet Russian ballerinas, who were performing at the theatre that night. It's was Layla's big treat - meeting real ballerinas with her best friend Emily.

Minutes later we were escorted inside the theatre, where the ballet dancers were rehearsing on stage.
It was a truly spectacular view: A dozen or two of young dancers dressed in bright rehearsal gear stood in tidy rows, swaying their arms and stretching perfectly straight legs while holding on to the metal bars set up on stage. They were accompanied by a pianist, playing in the far corner of the stage. It reminded me of my childhood, getting ready for school in early mornings to the same kind of music on the radio where a voice commanded “Arms stretched. Legs apart. One, two, three, four and one, two, three, four...”

Jane (Emily's mum) and I pushed our boys in the prams to the front row, while Layla and Emily skipped along, holding hands. Enchanted, the girls watched the rehearsal in silence for the first ten minutes. The boys moaned, so we silenced them with more rice cakes and fruit juice.

The dancers threw squinted looks at us from the stage and carried on waving and swaying their arms and legs. Their coach glanced at us lazily too and continued to growl onto the stage: “Masha, Masha! Higher that leg, throw it higher! You are not in kindergarden anymore!” or “More enthusiasm, kids, more energy! We are not children, are we?!” I found it amusing to hear and understand everything the coach yelled and him not knowing that I did.

The dancers squinted and shielded their eyes with their hands. The very bright lights above them lit the stage and iluminated the sweat beads streaking down their faces.

“Alexander Ivanovich! Is it possible to reduce the light please, it is very difficult to rehearse in this heat!” they moaned to their coach

“I don’t know. We’ll see... Now, Katya, remember your left hand, for goodness sake! Don’t let it hang so lose, we talked about it, didn’t we?!” The coach continued to growl.

“Mama, I want to dance! “ Layla whispered to me. “Can I dance please? Can I put my ballet tapochki on please? Please?”

My heart filled with joy as I dressed Layla's little feet in ballet slippers. And as if by magic, she tiptowed very convincingly in her little ballet dress and satin pink slippers, holding on to a chair and imitating the moves of the ballet dancers on stage.

At this point the dancers began to notice the little girls in the front row. Suppressed titter shuffled across the stage. Some of them began to point towards the two toddlers holding on to the chairs, swaying their arms and falling over themselves.

As the first part of rehearsal finished, the dancers cleared the stage, moving away the bars and other supporting equipment. The music became louder and the dancers, some sitting, some standing, formed a circle. Now they were practising turning, twisting and leaping forward.

Excited by the sudden change, the toddlers desperately tried to follow suit. They gladly leaped and twirled in the auditorium's walk ways. This in turn sent further ripples of suppressed laughter on stage.

Unable to focus now, the dancers decided to take a small break. With the music still playing in the background, Layla and Emily carried on practising.

“Look at them, Alexander Ivanovich! Aren’t they adorable!” a slight girl, with a wide blue hairband and even wider blue eyes pointed at the toddlers.

“Hmm, yes. Particularly the one in pink dress. So tiny, but look how she moves! Very flexible, she’s natural!” The coach exclaimed smiling and watching Layla twirl.

“We’ll have to take her in!” the girl with blue hairband replied.

It all came to an end when the boys decided enough was enough and fidgeted loudly in their prams and no amounts of chocolate buttons and biscuits in shape of a bunny rabbit could buy their silence.

The girls were beginning to run havoc by now too, imagining it was a running competition. Untimely as it was, we had to make our way to the exit, where we were awarded with two rolls of “Sleeping Beauty” posters for tonight’s performance. This was a little token of Layla’s first encounter with a magical world of ballet. Tomorrow it will take the place it deserves - above Layla’s bed.

best intentions

- I have invited our friends for dinner this Friday. I'm going to make my own pizzas! - I exclaimed excitedly with my head up high, wind in the hair and sparkle in the eyes. Jamie's and Nigella's best student (I've got all their books!) I considered my skills in stone-baked-effect pizza making from scratch to be a high achievement and expected a stroke on a head or at least a pat on a shoulder any minute now. From my mother. She's from Azerbaijan and is the world's best critic.

She rolled her eyes instead. Stirring her four-sugar black extra strong coffee ever so vigorously. As I held my breath, she opted for a silent treatment.

- Well? - I spat out.
Silently, she shrugged her shoulders and tapped the mug with a spoon.

By now I was busy building the emotional shield from any commentary acidity that was clearly brewing in my mother's head and which she was preparing to deliver to me. For a moment it looked like she was turning round to walk out of the kitchen.

- What do you want me to say? - Maybe not...

And then again:

-... A minute ago you told me your two-year old daughter knows better what she wants to eat. Now you want me to get excited about your snack food? When I see you and your guests standing up in the kitchen, crunching and munching on snacks I feel almost embarrassed for your rabbit food, which you call starters.

I could hear the familiar hissing noise of my deflating confidence.

Summer prelude

26 July. 2009. Baku.
8.30 am. Both my children are awake and have soiled nappies. Horror of all horrors, no clean nappies left. Emergency dash to a Baku supermarket. Unusual for this time of year hazy morning, ladas and Lexus RX "tanks" dart along empty streets. Like lazy teenager, this city is up all night and doesn’t wake up properly till the noon sun is piercing through the cloudless sky.
Street vendors and tea houses wash off the ever present dust with hose pipes, sprucing up the seldom greenery and greying whites of plastic chairs and tables.
As I walk towards the supermarket, I notice the delay in the sliding doors. They remain closed as I walk into them, where the sticker sign clearly states "IN". After my second attempt to crash-open the supermarket doors, a dozy security guy shuffles lazily towards me from inside of the shop and with the obvious annoyance forms his hands in the sign of a cross. "What do you mean closed? It's nearly 9am, for f***s sake!" But there is no one to hear my ranting, everybody is too busy drinking tea. Defeated, I shuffle back, wondering what is one to do with smelly children and what the world did before Pampers were invented.

A woman on a street in black and white polka-dot dress seems to enjoy her al-fresco breakfast, as she reaches for heavy-laded branches of a white mulberry tree. Her head and back arching backwards in search of the ripest fruit, holding the tip of the branch in one hand and picking the berries with the other.
I catch myself gazing at her ease and total ignorance of the hustle and bustle of the morning city, surrounding her.
Growing up amongst the orchids of varieties of mulberry trees and being so used to their sight, smell and taste, I never thought they will symbolise summer for me as much as the Caspian sea or dachas.
When Layla and I went out for a walk hours after we arrived in our Baku flat, we passed an old mulberry tree on our way. Keen to introduce my 2-year old daughter to all the delights of my childhood, I picked few juicy berries from the tree for her. She munches on the berries happily and I close my eyes with delight. As I look up and open my eyes, I see again this pain-stakingly familiar sight of the innocent blue sky scattered in between the green spread of mulberry leaves and their ink-coloured jewels of berries. This was the moment when summer officially started for me.

What they forgot to tell us about...

Our best years, that come before the turkey-neck and chicken-winged arms, are spent wiping snot and pooh, fighting feet, arms and legs that refuse to get dressed, mouths that don’t eat and eyes that don’t want to sleep.

I am only 33, recently lost weight and after 3 years of combined pregnancies and post-natal bloating/confusion/WTF’s-happened-to-my-life kind of thinking, I get odd glimpses of what life can/could be like beyond children. Don’t get me wrong, I love my children more than life, but a little worm of nagging feeling that I’ve missed out somehow burrows its way through my brain each day of my winter-depressing boring life. I can’t be the only one, surely? What about the rest of my generation?

Our mums, despite the fact that you and I ARE from different backgrounds, different planets practically, didn’t necessarily whip out and burn their bras, but the message was the same – we’re no worse than men, so take this flag (well, my mother didn’t exactly thrust the flag at me, but you get the idea) and go and fight for it. With all it takes. Yes, you can turn your charm/waterworks on if need be. And so I did. Years of proving of being worthy of a better life, equality with men in relationships, demanding respect and so on and so on. To get what? Crawling on hands and knees under the kitchen table to pick up crumbs, cereal loops, half-eaten cucumber rings and action men (not half-eaten)?

There is a conversation to be had with our mothers. They warned of bad men and career choices, but what about the motherhood? It doesn’t matter what we did in previous lives and the career heights achieved – we all end up in the same hole that nobody warned us about. And that’s before the grave.

Does all the above mentioned make me a bad mother? Oh, I don’t know and frankly, don’t care. Oh, and what’s with the guilt feeling? Where did that come from? Where was it when I poisoned my liver and melted my brains on a pretty much daily post-work-quick-drink basis at the local C&B? Or shagged my best friend’s ex at her garden party, while the others went inside to get the drinks? Where was the guilt then? Nowhere to be seen. And now? Going to work? What about the children you so wanted? Stay –at-home mum? What about the career you worked so hard for and the best years of your life, not to mention the fading looks and ability to think?

At a recent dinner occasion I got chatting to a bank adviser (his wife was there too). I hit the conversation depths I never knew I could. It was amazing. Probably better than hitting the Gspot. We discussed the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet system, the education here and there, the chances of Conservatives’ winning, the crisis, the warming – the lot. I felt human again and bitterly sorry about being wasted, taken for granted and generally going through life unnoticed by everyone, including me. And now, if you excuse me, I’m going to play my violin.