How I Stayed in America (Part 19)

After our vacation in Moscow was over, we went back to Utah in a great mood. We had so much fun in Moscow that we were exhausted.

Furthermore, while we were on vacation, we bought our first house in Utah and built it according to our style and preferences. There was also a wallpaper chosen for the house. It was my personal choice, and today let’s talk about different habits and traditions in America.

Wallpaper is generally considered bad taste in America. This tradition is rather European than American. Usually, the walls here are painted with paint; it is convenient, practical and very unobtrusive. By the way, bidets are not common in America either. I had to  request adding it during    the construction process. A bidet is more on the aesthetic side, yet even representatives of high-end society do not have one. When I asked one famous basketball player if he had a bidet, he answered without any irony: “I wash my feet in the shower…” Yeah, I didn’t even start polemics. Speaking of dirty feet… In America, it is not customary to take off your shoes in the house. First of all, the street is clean, and second… I don’t even know what second should be. Anyways, it’s just not customary to wear house slippers, that’s all.

At homes, thermostats are set to 18 degrees Celsius. This temperature is considered the most comfortable for sleeping and spending time at home in general. By the way, in Russia it is usually 22 degrees. In America, there is no tradition of drinking hot tea, and moreover, there is no tradition of offering tea to anyone who comes to the house. I remember that in the first year of my life in America, I tried offering tea to plumbers, journalists, and just acquaintances who came to visit us.

They looked at me confused. Tea in America, if there is one, would be cold and with ice. In this country, ice is added to all kinds of drinks, and I have already once explained why such a habit has been formed. Firstly,   it hardens the tonsils from childhood, and secondly, it just saves up syrup. In an American glass of Coca-Cola, there is 40 percent less liquid than in a Russian one. This is the kind of savings I’m referring to.

We left our child in Moscow and went back to move to a new home. It was planned that our baby would be brought to us later by one of the relatives. The house turned out to be very cute in a traditional American style. A lot of wood and granite… The entire second floor was devoted to our baby: his bedroom, playroom, nursery or mother’s bedroom and even, as they say in America, a walk-in-closet (aka dressing room). I decorated everything wonderfully and was ready to see my son. My dad traveled with Fedor across the ocean. The stewardesses were very surprised, when they saw a man with an infant; they were expecting the mother of the child until the last minute. As a result, my dad flew  without any help for 12 hours with a nine-month-old baby. The nannies were not given visas, and my mother was never fan of long flights or airplanes. Everything went without incident though.

Baby Fedor fell in love with his room. Despite the fact that he slept terribly, we still “worked it out” with him. As much as I sang to him, I did not sing to any of my other children. I would put Fedor in the crib, sit in a swinging chair, and sing along. I sang many lullabies that then turned into Russian folk songs. It’s funny, but I actually felt like a singer. In fact, my voice has become very strong since this season. I sang for an hour and a half daily, so it was an excellent vocal exercise. Usually Fedor woke up at 3 in the morning and played with his train set for two hours.

Therefore, from 3 to 5 in the morning we were usually awake. It was a hell of a schedule for a young mother. It’s good that at that moment I had no more children. The thing is I would always make breakfast for my husband in the morning, lunch in the afternoon, and dinner in the evening. Hence, the first years of motherhood were pretty boring: I woke up, cooked, fed, cleaned, and went for groceries. The only positive aspect was that baby Fedor was always by my side: in the car, in the store, and, of course, at Andrei’s games every other day. I recall one unpleasant story when, during the game, during the break, the animators fired T-shirts from plastic guns, and one hit me in the shoulder. Five centimeters from Fedor’s sleeping head (my children always knew how to nap during games)! The next day, the entire shoulder was blue. What if they had hit him in the head instead??? Indeed, the scary thoughts of a mother are an integral part of her life, and nothing can be done about it.

Our life in Utah was very “warm”. Our house (even with this gaudy wallpaper) turned out to be super cozy. I had a nice kitchen as well as, believe me when I say this, a “dark room” where I developed and printed photographs. I photographed with Leica. It became my main hobby when my son was sleeping. In addition, my other hobby has always been sewing. I bought a sewing machine and just sewed curtains for the entire house! The curtains were moire. In short, my house was the cradle of the bourgeoisie. Frames with photos all over the place… Nowadays, I am shaking from all such stuff. Apparently though, I had to go through a lot in order to expel some preferences from my system.