Be afraid; children's birthday parties - Moscow Style

I've changed my mind. Not so long ago on this blog, I wrote that the point of disconnect between cultures is music. But I've been giving it some thought, and actually I think I have another contender. It's that old favorite: kids' birthday parties.

I suspect that wherever you go in the world, the goalposts for little Johnny's birthday party have moved somewhat over the last 30 years. Even in sleepy Britain, it's no longer enough to invite his best friends, play a game of pass the parcel or British bulldogs, serve up some cheese sandwiches with crisps, and dish out the chocolate cake after a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday”. No, if you are foolish enough to offer up your home to the masses nowadays, in many parts of the world entertainers are standard, a glass of wine for any accompanying parents is expected, and party bags are non-negotiable. And don't even think about trying to get away with just putting some stickers and a piece of cake inside it, you cheapskate. Not unless you want to be unmasked as such by a pint-sized monster who rips the bag ungratefully out of your hand before commenting loudly on the contents.

But that, my friends, is nothing. That is plain vanilla. For now we are in Moscow, and you ain't seen nothin' yet...

Children's parties in this city are, to many non-residents, unbelievable. When I regale friends back in the UK with tales of 'Incredible Russian Children's Birthday Parties I Have Seen', invariably they don't believe me. Or, if they do believe me, I'm afraid it only goes to fuel the internationally held image of Russia as a country of extremes.

My back catalogue of recent party stories includes but is not limited to: those with added animal entertainment (not rabbits in hats and dogs jumping through hoops, but performing monkeys, look-but-don't-touch crocodiles and bears on bicycles; on one memorable occasion, Mummy Bear was even—heart-wrenchingly—accompanied by her cub); themed events that take all day with a 15-to-20-strong team of entertainers; 5-to-10-minute-long professional firework displays in honor of the birthday child; fully catered sit-down meals for both parents and children; sushi for the kids (in itself, not a bad idea, but I just can't get past the fact that we are many, many miles from the nearest sea); pink champagne for the parents; stunt policemen turning up complete with guns and handcuffs to arrest a wrongfully accused stunt Spiderman; 30-foot inflatable climbing walls in the back yard; and one borrowed anecdote from a friend who glanced into her neighbors' yard some time last year to see the 5-year-old birthday boy sitting resplendently in the seat of his present: a full-sized Hummer with a bow on top.

As an expat living here I couldn't hope to compete, and, indeed, I wouldn't want to. So our recent offering of a low-key party for one of my sons and his classmates consisting of snow games, pizza, chocolate cake and musical chairs was determinedly retro. The children all appeared to have a great time, and I even got a dose of exercise from jumping up and down directing musical statues. You might have almost thought we were back in 1970s Britain (except for the international backgrounds of the guests and the fact that the music was better, obviously), until one of the mums present mentioned that a couple of days previously one of her neighbors' children had had a party with not only all the requisite Moscow whistles and bells, but also the ultimate in animal entertainment.

They had a Siberian tiger, on a leash.

Ah, Moscow...

This post first appeared on my other blog, 'Diaries of a Moscow Mum' over at The Moscow Times

Breakthrough Breast Cancer's 90 Bloggers campaign

Breast cancer has touched my family. My grandmother lost her mother and her sister to it, and had preventative surgery at a relatively young age to minimise the chances it might add her to it's tally. That's why this post is for Breakthrough Breast Cancer. It is part of Kate on Thin Ice's 90 Bloggers campaign, in which we've been asked to write 90 words about an important woman in our life. I can't single out just one; there are so many women who are important to me, so here 90 words on three of them, and some of the reasons why.

My mother, for her love and home-making skills, her enjoyment of having all her little chicks in one place, and her satisfaction in preparing - and seeing others enjoy - good food. My sister, for the fact that she makes me laugh like a drain, her feistiness, her lack of tolerance for crap, her determination, and her incredible ability to multi-task. My grandmother, 98 years old and still living on her own, who knows her own value, and who can still fire off a witty riposte when it's called for.

And that's your 90.

"Pink Ribbon Bingo have pledged to support Breakthrough Breast Cancer all year round with 15% of the gross revenue accrued through online play on the site being donated to the charity. Visitors also have the opportunity to donate a percentage of their winnings directly to the charity. Along with the fundraising element, Pink Ribbon Bingo and The Daily Mail online will be helping the charity to raise awareness by promoting their vital health messages such as TLC (Touch, Look, Check)."

Are you having nightmares with your child's bedtime?

Boy #2 is going through 'a phase'. At least, I hope it's a phase. Please god, let it be a phase. Oh, right - you want to know what it is. Nothing unusual for a 6 year old, I suspect; he doesn't want to go to sleep - in his own bed. He's convinced that he has bad dreams every night and that sleeping in his own bed is the cause.

Heaven knows, I should be sympathetic to this. I am not the most peaceful of sleepers, as Husband will tell you. I've improved over the years, mind you, from the time that my then-roommate at university woke up (on the night of the Great Gale of 1987 - yes, I AM that old) to see me sit bolt upright in bed and scream my head off before collapsing like a dead person again until morning. In my defence, all hell was breaking loose outside and everything bar 10 ton trucks was flying past our window, but still, she never forgave me for the shock.

Anyway.

Boy #2. He claims to have nightmares, and that may well be true. However, a) I haven't noticed them, and b) I think - although perhaps this is the scary 'you're-not-sick-you-just-haven't-been-outside-enough' school of mothering that is my default modus operandi coming through - that if he is having bad dreams, they are probably unrelated to the bed he's in. Call me old-fashioned. Certainly I don't believe they will be sorted by a bed-swap with his brother, as he claims, and so for the last couple of weeks what has, in my 8 years of being a parent to-date, been a relatively calm bedtime (if you discount the 3 days of controlled crying hell with Boy #1 nearly eight years ago, an exercise that worked but which I have felt guilty about ever since) has become, instead, a battlefield.

There has been shouting (hardly any of it from me, I must add), jack-in-the-box impressions, weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth and repeated suggestions that I put myself in his shoes (bed at 8pm in the evening, someone else to get my clothes ready for me for the morning and to do the dishes from dinner? Yes, please).

This evening then, I decided to try another tack and as I tucked him in, announced that I would take a quick nap on his bunk next to him. Boy #2 was delighted. "DAAHling!" he said (I am not kidding, he really said it - just in that way, too). "DAAAHling! You will stay here all night. I guarantee it."

Well, obviously that was not my plan. So I announced that I was going to snore - and not just any snore, oh no, but in a Papa-styley. I commenced my best Husband-patented snore, all but lifting the roof off in what I thought was a very passable imitation of my beloved.

There was a moment's horrified silence.

Then; "DAAAHling! Are you feeling quite alright? Are you hurt?"

Needless to say, when I got out of bed a couple of minutes later, he didn't even whimper.

The Gallery; My Photography Resolution

This post is for Week 88 of Tara's Gallery. Click here to see all the other great entries...

When I saw the prompt for this week's Gallery, I have to admit that I struggled a little. Of course I have 'photography resolutions' (that's the prompt, by the way). Getting better at it, would be a good start, as would actually attending a proper course (not without it's logistical issues, that one; living in Russia and not speaking 'technical Russian' would make it a little tricky to do in Moscow). But thinking about it more deeply, there is one resolution that, on reflection, wins out for 2012.

Print. It. Out.

After all, what's the point of taking photo's you love, if all they do is sit in a file somewhere and you never see them?

Just a small request...

In the last seven days I have...

• Unwittingly started a revolution in food safety procedures at our school's cafeteria. This was a direct result of giving one of my children a chocolate chip cookie purchased from there only to discover - via a race to the medical office where they hold our anti-histmanines and a thankfully still un-used eip-pen - that the chocolate chips were, in fact nuts. (The helpful member of staff responsible for making the cookies in the cafeteria kitchen decided to substitute the chocolate chips they had run out of with nuts - without actually telling anyone.)

• Collected the same child, on a different day, from school, to be warned by his teacher that she thought he was a little 'under the weather'. We got home, where he proceeded throw up spectacularly all over the kitchen floor. This did not phase me however, since I was just thanking my lucky stars that we had got out of the car 4 minutes earlier and he had taken his snow suit off 2 minutes earlier. Let's see; sick on the lino, or all over the inside of the car, my son, and his brother? Call me glass half-full, but I know which I prefer...

• Rushed to hospital with the other child (have you noticed how they hate to be upstaged by their siblings?) after he had a major collision while sledging on an ice run and needed 5 stitches just above one eye.

So, if anyone up there is listening, can we have a slightly calmer week this time around, please?

Aim High, Or: How Trying to Impress Your Children Can Alter Your Behaviour...

The snow has finally arrived here in Moscow. We've been back from our Christmas break now for just over two weeks, and ten days ago what seemed like a never-ending cycle of snow-thaw misery broke, the temperature dropped below freezing, and the white stuff came to stay until - probably - April.

This can be a pain obviously, but in a city that is geared up for this type of bad weather (official sources claim there are 10,000 people working on keeping Moscow moving), it's not as bad as you might think. It is at least brighter out there, even on these dark mornings, and - hurrah - we get to cross country ski.

Don't get me wrong; cross country skiing is no picnic, it's hard work. But you're exercising outside rather than in, usually in beautiful surroundings, and quite often in sunshine bright enough to need sunglasses, so I love it - up to a point.

And that point? To be honest - as a non-natural sportsperson better acquainted with the sofa and a book than fresh air - I'm pretty rubbish at it. But after a successful initial foray into the woods last weekend with Husband and the Boys (all of us on skis - it never ceases to amaze me that two boys who complain about walking from the house to the car will happily cross country ski for an hour or more), I felt pretty good about my prospects when I agreed to repeat the experience with a couple of friends yesterday. One of them, I knew from last year, was pretty experienced, but the other assured me that she had only done this a couple of times before and was still pretty much a novice - so I thought I would be OK.

Ha! Ha! And thrice, HA!

I knew I was out of my depth when the supposedly inexperienced friend bounced into her skis as I struggled with my new bindings and quickly instructed me on how to put them on properly, before she skate-skied off into the distance like a professional.

Oh.

As Husband pointed out later, this friend is from Canada where cross country skiing is a little more common than in the wilds of Gloucestershire (where I grew up), and at one time was a national competition-level skater. What the hell did I expect?

In any case it was clear after I returned home yesterday, after more falls than I could count, that I need help. So last night, Boy #1 - also keen to tune up his cross country ski-skills - and I turned to the oracle YouTube in search of instruction. (What? If you can learn how to fillet a fish, put up a garden trampoline, and make a pinata on YouTube, why not pick up some tips on skiing?). Anyway, we found a whole host of clips offering helpful hints, and watched one of them.

Now, here's where this rambling post gets to the point of the title.

Boy #1 and I watched, with me laughing hollowly from time to time as I ruefully rubbed my bruised behind, while the presenter of the video showed us various techniques to improve our 'classic diagonal' ski style. Towards the end of it, the hints became a little more advanced, and the last couple of clips showed a man skiing at pace down a hill and round a corner both at the same time. I regarded this through narrowed eyes, wondering if I would ever manage to come down a hill without taking my skis off half way down the slope in disgust at my repeated tumbles.

Boy #1, however, is ever the optimist when it comes to my abilities. As the skier came pegging it down the hill, he turned to me and said authoritatively "That's you, in three weeks Mum." And as the guy went at speed around a corner, he looked at me, winked, and said "And that's you in four..."

Right. I'm off now to practise my cross country skiing. There's an 8 year old Boy out there with high expectations to impress...

By the way, I'm looking for ideas on how to celebrate my forthcoming 1,000th post on The Potty Diaries. Thoughts?

1000 Posts Ho!

No, the title of this post is not some pathetic attempt to get down with the street speak, bro'. It's to do with the fact that, according to my dashboard, this is the 986th post that I've written for The Potty Diaries. (Admittedly, not all of them are still up there and indeed some aren't up there yet, but I'm going with the dashboard counter on this one because, well, it's my blog and I can)

Nitpicking over numbers aside, who would have thought I had that much to say?

However, it turns out that I do (and from potty training, to school-blues, to expat highs and lows, it's not over yet), so I have a couple of questions for any regular (or even non-regular) readers out there:

Based on my current rate of posts (about 3 per week), I will hit Post 1000 before the end of February. Should I mark this in some way, or should I just let it slide past unnoticed in a 'oh, this old thing? It's been sitting at the back of the cupboard for years, dahling, years' kind of a way?

And if do mark it, any ideas on how? Should I blog on a particular subject? Should I offer some kind of freebie*? Perhaps I should even come up with a loyalty badge for people who comment on the 1000th post - maybe reading something like;

"I've been reading The Potty Diaries for years, and all she ever gave me was this rubbish badge"

(Actually, I quite like that last idea. Except that no-one will want it except perhaps my sis and that would be too crushing, so...)

Anyway. Feedback?

*Any pr's who still read The Potty Diaries, feel free to chime in now with great offers of free holidays, designer goods or indeed a free box of chocolate for one lucky reader.