We’ve had the first real day of fall weather. It was COLD out there.
I took the kids to the DeKalb Farmers Market this morning and they were unenthusiastic when they walked in. It’s cold, and there are all kind of odd smells wafting about. As soon as they saw the ladies giving out free sampled of bread, though, they were glad they had come. We ended up getting challah, brioche, and a baguette. We got a few veggies, including some lovely Boston bib lettuce, and some nice strawberries and raspberries, but the produce area was just stacked with people.
One thing I detest about going to the Farmer’s market on Saturday are the wall-to-wall yuppies. There are people there with kids in strollers that cost more than my car. The guy ahead of us in the checkout line had all his groceries in those bring your own grocery bags made of recycled materials, and before walking out the door he SNEERED at me and the kids, like, look at me, I am so SUPERIOR to you! Then I bet he got in a big ‘ol gas guzzling SUV.
I recycle every plastic bag that comes into my house!! I wanted to yell at him.
The big news is that Michael had his first singles match on his tennis team, and he WON!! He was playing really well. I was so delighted and yet stressed out, watching him. It was freezing and the wind was fierce. It was a close match, but that’s good, he had to be on his toes.
To celebrate, we went to an amazing restaurant called Fire of Brazil over in Dunwoody, with cousin Lesleigh. They have the most elaborate salad bar ever, and the best roasted meats. You pay one price and eat what you want, except for drinks and desserts. It was not a cheap dinner, but it was fun.
Before we read Harry Potter [on book 5, which so far is my least favorite book, I must say] Michael told me he thought the boys he knows on his tennis team are all weak, soft, not good fighters. They aren’t rough boys. Not like the boys he was used to in Kazakhstan. I pointed out that these boys come from middle class homes, and they have never been hungry, or cold, or had mamas that were drunks, drug addicts or prostitutes. They’ve never smoked or drank beer. They don’t have to fight to survive. They are good boys, though, from nice families. Mike is attracted to being friends with boys from tough backgrounds, at school. He is starting to understand that he is different in so many ways from most of the boys he’s around. However, I told him he is being raised in a nice, solid middle class home, even if we don’t have a lot of extra money. I told him that although inside he will always be a Kazakh boy, he is now an American boy, too, and he needs to understand and embrace that.
I told him he is free to look and act like a bad boy up to a point. The point he’s not allowed that is that I won’t let him go to the homes of friends from school who are not from what I consider wholesome families. He knows that already. He has never asked. However, I have told him he can have any friend over to our house that he likes.
My kids have to come to grips with such a huge disparity in how they were their first 13 years or 10 years, in Russia and in Kazakhstan, and being nice middle-class kids now. I think they both struggle with that. They feel different. They have had such hardship and seen so much, that it’s hard to fit in with soft middle or upper class kids around here, who have no idea what it’s like to be raised by an alcoholic and be cold, hungry, etc.
We have stopped therapy but I wonder all the time if we need to resume it. I think in the long run my kids just need to find their own way to be in this world, and all I can do is let them express their feelings and try to understand and support them. I pray a lot, too…
Here's Mike playing in his tennis match. / Below, Les and Alesia at the restaurant.
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