happy new year...

alkA.

the green monster

Three Small Steps

Remember when I told you that I almost cried when Sami got his first tooth?

What kind of an emotion is this? I have a feeling that I now understand one thing a little better than before I was a father. I’ve been covered with hardened volcanic rock. The lava inside of me has been seeping slowly and lazily through my veins. Preoccupied with what I had to be, rather than what I was, I was building a future, forgetting about the present and denying the past.

And that’s what was killing me. The horizon kept shining, full of empty promises and oases, while my blood hardened into black rocks.

But Sami changed that. He shook me to the core and even though it took quite a bit of shaking, I feel reborn through him. He gave a new meaning to my utter love for aleX and a whole new role to my life as a head of the family.

A proud dad!

It’s that lack of adequate reactions that the long period of dollar-chasing and ego-erasing had implanted in my head that lead to tears as I heard the spoon clinging to his brand new tooth a few months ago.

And now how do I react to this? Sami’s walking! Finally and officially! It’s been five days! He made three steps! His first true three steps! (Three steps we’ve awaited for the past 3 months) The ones that he’ll never know about and the ones I’ll never forget. A beautiful, stable little cautious boy started the journey he’ll walk for as long as he lives!

It was beautiful!

I had no resources to react, so I just stood there, quiet for about a minute, before I came to my senses and told aleX. A million thoughts must have run through my head, once again totally and completely unexpected. Whatever the reason, I won’t lie to you: I’m loving these feelings! I kind of like the inadequateness too, because what good would it be if I knew the end of the story before I started reading?

So, keep walking, my boy, keep being so amazed at the world, and keep amazing us with your love and excitement!

WE Love it and we Love you!

Chocolate-covered Christmashit

Like the frosting on a shit,

My Christmas has been a merry one. Lots of presents, great food, wine and love, lots of great moments on this family holiday, which we celebrate out of nostalgia and habit of the old us. I can’t help but experience the bites of the sense of guilt, tickling my mind as I hypocritically take advantage of this old Christian and pre-Christian celebration of the winter solstice.

Whether spiritual or traditional, Christmas has always been like the war between Oceania and Eurasia or Eastasia in Orwell’s “1984”. First we hated it – it was the enemy – the western world, then we loved it – it was the “old” Bulgarian tradition. It was family and warmth and home…

I must have been at least ten when my grandparents gave me a present and told me it was for Christmas. It was confusing. I thought you got gifts on New Year’s Day. There was no grandpa Christmas, (Santa Claus), there was only grandpa Newyear’s. All of a sudden, here was this reinstated holiday, now allowed again, which I was supposed to embrace. And I did. I mean, I believed all the crap about the son-of-a-god and lived with it. I still couldn’t quite figure out what to do with the two Santas, and I doubted them both.

The excitement, the waiting, the presents, the disappointment that my dad always fell asleep before 12am, I lived it all. I loved Christmas up until I moved to the US. As soon as I started seeing the commercials on TV, starting in September, as soon as I heard Silent Night in October and as soon as I saw how the shelves in the stores got cleared off of the orange and black Halloween monsters and pumpkins, to be replaced by the green white and red colors of this “holly” day it all started to rot in my mind.

Today my realization of the true meaning of Christmas to society brings a bitter-sweet taste to the holiday, but not to the thirteen course dinner that we cooked.

What does this mean?

It means that the eyes of a thirty-year-old kid have cleared up a bit, so they can see – it’s not about what the holidays mean. It’s about what meaning you breathe into them. The towers are just as high, as we build them. And in this case they are towers of family love and tradition.

So, no matter how stinky the shit – the right frosting will make it sweet for anyone.

Two questions that I’m yet to answer: Which shit deserves a frosting? And how much frosting justifies the fact that you’re eating shit?

True Masters

Some people are just different...

The true leaders of humanity! The true Supreme Beings. The true engines of progress. Prophets with no pretence. With no following, with no religion, with no idiots, transforming them into gods or god's kids...

Some people are simply better:

Trading a TV for a Fireplace!

Ever seen an ad like this? I wish I had! I wish my mind would have been more open and out-boxed a looooong time ago and not just last month, when I finally dared to sell my enormous, wardrobe-like TV and discover the fireplace that was hidden behind it for years!

A new world enfolded! A world where you can sit down with your loved one and a glass of wine and talk!, reconnect, or just listen to music and daydream! It’s like a blindfold has been removed from my eyes and now the time we used to waste watching shallow, unfunny and uninteresting movies, or brainwashing news, or the Hollywood gossip, can actually be OUR time again!

I’m so conditioned! The abstinence that I feel! The pressure! Buy! Buy! Buy! Spend hundreds of dollars, get the newest, the best, who cares that you’re broke! You’ll get it now and pay it later! You need a new TV, who lives without a TV? Everybody has one! You’re a freak! How can you go a whole month without one? It’s like food and water! What are you going to do if you don’t have one? Read? Write? Think? Make love? God forbid you had a chance to wake up from the slumber!

The struggle with the deamons, implanted by the modern world is a monstrous battle! I’m doomed to lose! The drug’s gonna get me sooner or later! “The consumer always pays the fee with great hope and anxiety, but he’s always left wanting more…” (Shelter).

And what’s even worse is that I feel depressed when there’s nothing that I need. It’s like this is ridiculous! There must be something I need! I can’t ask for anything for Christmas this way! Christmas? So what if it’s Christmas? I’m sure many of you have felt the pressure…Buy! Buy! Buy! Well, I don’t wanna buy! I don’t wanna give useless gifts with no meaning, just because I have to! I want to express my heart in a gift! Not buy a stupid gift-card! And certainly NOT when I’m TOLD to! And not to mention…I don’t want anything! Call me! Not because it’s some stupid fake holiday, exploited by the corporations, so you can buy! Call me, ‘cause you care! Where’s the LOVE? Where’s the warmth? Where’s even your stupid God in your stupid Christmas?

$$$$peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeend

$$$$peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeend

$$$$peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeend

Be a $$$$lave!

There’s your God!

***

I just sit here and I wish!

I dream of a world…

With far less TV’s and far more fireplaces!

Those precious moments...

Bootcamp for Dads

Nonononono! No words can describe it! No painter can draw it, no musician can write a song about it! The love and connection that I have with that little creature has grown beyond the limits of comprehension! I know, you have heard of the parent’s love, but this is unheard of! If you haven’t experienced it, you can’t know what it is (please, don’t take this as an invitation to make kids, contact me at 702-xxx-xxxx to actually tell you about the downside of it).

Alex said that she had always imagined that I’d be a perfect dad. And I wasn’t for months and up to like 13 of them, I was a total goon! I was ALWAYS forgetting things, dropping things, dropping Sami (kidiiiiiiing!), letting him cry without tending to him ( I guess I always thought it’s normal. Babies cry.), and I honestly tried and I tried and I tried, but I just couldn’t make it happen.

Now! Now come see me! I’m a superdad! It’s pointless to say how like a Shiva I do everything around the house while Alka’s gone and how I haven’t forgotten anything from Samuil’s tight schedule, but the connection we now have is unbelievable! I think I finally became a dad! The hard way! Through the dad boot camp. But, whatever it takes, dear boy, whatever it takes to grow up, I guess 30 is about time you did.

The match that lit that fire ablaze was the afternoon when Alka was leaving. I was lying on the couch in pain from the terrible congestion I had and he crawled up to me, caressed me and said “Ooo, Ooo, Ooo!”  and there it was – the first true communication between us started then and I reap the fruits of it every moment now. With every hug and smile, with every mischief and even cry I get filled with that new emotion!

I’m a dad now! Some might say I catch on kind of slowly…

before...

after...

Cutting Nails is Like Pulling Teeth!

I was never much of a cutter anyway. Always, I mean always when I had to cut something, I’d make as crooked cuts as it gets. Be it cutting out animal pictures as a kid when I always used to cut off a ear or a tail, be it as a teenager when I was endlessly cutting copied CD covers…to this day they stay crooked on my cd’s, be it when I tried cutting Buddah’s nails and left her with a good half cut-off nail, that left bloodstains all over our floor and my mind. Because I just cannot cut!

That’s why I was terrified today when Sami scratched my face pretty bad and I saw that there was no getting out of it, because tonight he might scratch his. I had to cut his nails!

So, imagine trying to throw a ball through a small loop-hole, blindfolded! That’s what I was doing this morning! Tiny little hands, with tinier little fingers and even more tinierer little nails! But that’s not all…they are friekin’ moving all over the place! You know what I mean, that kid won’t stand still when you tell him to! No toys, nor Buddah would help me get him to concentrate his attention on something else, so I can cut his fingers…pardon me…I meant to say nails.

Good thing I had to tackle him down so many times with the past cold, to suck his boogers out (oh, my God he hates it!) so at least I have experience in forcing my kid down.

So, I admit it! I used force! Give me up, America, report me to the bureaus, institutions, sue me, but I struggled my kid down and held him down till I cut his nails. Oooh, wraaaaaah, the cries, the screams, they’ll haunt me in my dreams. But sit back and relax, no blood was spilled! And even though the shape is pretty wavy, I’m proud of myself! A new Everest was conquered today!

We had to celebrate!

We went to a restaurant!

Just the two of us!

It was romantic and messy!

But beautiful!

I ordered the calamari, Sami – steamed yellow squash with spinach and bread. That kid has a weird taste! But I’m glad he knows to eat healthy.

And now, now daddy’s celebrating his first and only night all alone by himself. Tomorrow we’ll have guests. And I need not mention that I worked for the past week.

alkA’s still gone and I can’t wait for her to be back, but this night is all about me! I have the fireplace, wine, music and a book all to myself!

Dads, we need some attention too, even if we are the only ones to agree on that, huh!

Death By Remodeling...a True Story - pt. II

“Come right back home! I caught one of them going through my jewelry drawer!”

“What? I mean, WHAT?!?!?! Are you effen kidding me?”

Four days in the working, my wall was starting to shape up, we even got over the problem that after they built it with small windows, looking like jail cell openings I made them cut them larger to double the size. It’s a whole new story, but where the hell should I begin, after I already told you they had the arrogance to go through our drawers!

One thing at a time:

The windows. So, the nice hard-working (wink-wink) Mexicans, built the frame of the wall and put up the drywall around it in about three days. ( A job that ONE knowledgeable good worker should be able to do in a day, but between sodas and sandwiches, hanging out on the lawn in front of my house and going for “more materials”, it took them three) That’s why, it broke my heart to see how after ever the project was shaping up, there was barely any light coming into the room and it was depressing. Chills went down my spine. I gave them the everything looks great look, but inside of me something was screaming that I’m really disappointed that I didn’t think of making those windows much, much bigger. So I went and told Alex and she agreed. F*#K! Guys, stop the work! Let me call your boss and ask him something! I’m thinking…I’ll pay another $1000 if I have to, just so I don’t hate myself for the years to come for not giving my kid enough light in his room!

And there it was. Four hours later and a bunch of negotiating later I had my bigger window openings and the wall was back to the middle of nowhere! A ton of work still lying ahead.

In the meantime, me, and my family still stuck in the little room downstairs, breathing dust and not daring to leave the house because of those stupid Bulgarian fears!

Sooo…

Imagine: you’re lying in that little room, and if you’re alkA, you’re obviously Facebooking. You’re leaning on the back of the kitchen cabinet and a vibration of one of its drawers being open goes through your body. Your mind starts racing. Is it possible that Stoyan and Sami got back, since they left for the store 15 minutes ago? You yell, Honey, is that you? And there is no answer. You jump up and open the door. A fat Mexican standing three feet away from the drawer doesn’t know where to go. He, of course, denies everything.

So, I got the call, we came back home and I kicked all the workers out, after hearing the stupid excuse that his pants got caught on the handle. (Inside myself I was really hoping that it was just that childish curiosity where you’re like a moron, who goes I wonder what they keep in that drawer kind of thing.) Alex checked and at first glance didn’t notice anything missing. So, after emptying their pockets I kicked them out. I spoke to their boss “the contractor”.

The deal was the following: they come back, he supervises him, we don’t pay the upcharge for the expanded windows, we get 10% off the original price, they need to finish the work in 2 days and…as Alex did find one ring was missing, they pay back for the ring, oh, aaaaand, because those IDIOTS scratched my floor by cutting drywall with a sharpie right on it, they need to fix my floors too!

Deal or no deal?

Deal!

The anger and frustration grew immensely inside of me when I actually realized that they HAD stolen a ring. It had fake diamonds. If they were real, they would have cost $50 000, but then again, in a case like that, we’d probably be living in a mention where we wouldn’t need to build an extra room for our kid. Knowing that someone would touch and take your things makes you sick! That’s how I felt when they stole my bike and my skateboard when I was a kid. It’s disgusting! And you know what hurts me even more? That we gave JOBS to those people, we gave them a chance to earnestly make some money! What a disgrace!

All of this really makes me think about morality and honor, and justice. I am a justice freak! I need things to be fair, or I BURN inside! If I were to be truthfully just with those workers, I would be going the American way right now and would be suing them not for theft, but for moral damage!

Damn, Alex is right that I’m too nice!

A Series of Parenting Tips for the Non-perfect!

Or, as we Bulgarians say: “Make the lazy work and they’ll give you wise advice (how to take shortcuts)” (don’t call me out on my translation skills now, shut up!)

We fathers may not be the best at parenting, but one thing is for sure – we are definitely second best!

So, as I’m devoted to fatherhood, I’ll share some experience and advice with you, while Sami’s busy slamming two doors together…seems like a fun job to do…sometimes I entertain the idea – just for fun – what would it be like if all us adults acted like kids! The world would be a better place, for sure!

But let us begin!

First off:

When your kid wakes you up at 7 am, eager to get his breakfast, don’t be a lazy ass, get up and start the day! Whether you’re tired and sleepy now or in another thirty minutes, doesn’t make any difference, but in those thirty minutes you get to: vacuum-clean the house, make coffee, wash the dishes, mop the house and get a shower! Done! And it’s 9am already! (well, Samuil wakes up at 7am, eats breakfast in bed by 7.30 and tries to fall back asleep till 9. Now, I’ll give you one exception, which is me – if you need the extra 20 minutes between 7 and 7.30 ;), BRING the bottle warmer with you upstairs, so you won’t have to sit and wait for it, while unpleasantly warming up to the idea that this was it with your night’s sleep!

So, at 9am you go to get the baby, so the day of endless chasing and “where’s mommy” can start! To your surprise you may find, that the little monster has fallen asleep at 8.59! and…whooooh – another 20-30 minutes, so you can catch up on some blogging and coffee!

When you finally hear the ultimate wake-up call, do this: take off all your sweaters, shirts, and go to his room half-naked, because the struggle begins with all the poo-master diaper changing, chasing around the room so put the socks and shoes on and singing songs, to distract him while you suck up the buggers! If you had your clothes on, after all this you’d be sweaty and stinky and would need another shower, which is now next to impossible, even though you might be allowed to do some of the “restroom” techniques, coming up.

How to go to the restroom:

Number one is actually harder than number two. You need to either leave things as they are and be extremely quick, or try to figure it out somehow while holding a wiggly toddler. I do the first one, since the second is quite risky for my clothes and the bathroom floor.

Number two – you have two choices:

1.       Take 2 magazines – one for you and one for baby, so that before he’s done tearing at his magazine, you get to be done unnoticed and may even catch an article or two.

(I personally feel like this might be a bit disturbing for Sami, so I use the other option)

2.       The open door policy! You need a play-yard or a walker for this one. Leave the door open, the kid in the play-yard and save yourself, as he’s throwing all toys possible out of the crate and at you, while you rush to do your business. If any toy reaches you, toss it back. Try NOT to hit the kid, even though I’ve heard that if you get them right in the chin, they fall right asleep, but those are just myths. 

Your time’s up! You need to go feed him now!

See you whenever you have some time to read again!

Emptiness

One of the worst, hardest, nastiest months of my life is over…

It can never even start to compare to The worst moment of my life, but it was pretty bad nevertheless.

As soon as I can put myself back together I will keep telling the story about the remodeling, not to mention my favorite story – the one, in Bulgarian, about Sami’s birth, but I really need to be in better mental health for that one. So far, I’m nibbling at the text with caution, because I’ve totally lost the feel for writing with having such a long and exhausting pause. This being said, I apologize to you, fine blog followers that I’ve left you hungry for my blogging for so long. But I know that you can’t be that devoted, as to rely on blog-food solely from me. If it is so, I strongly suggest you find other food-sources, because in the times of crises that we live in, there often may come other issues in my life, to overshadow the blogging.

But it’s time I said…anyway…

What this blog is about is the ONE thing, that has nested in my mind and will not give me rest and it’s this: alkA’s flying back to Bulgaria as I write this…on a family emergency matter. One that hurts her deeply and even though the worst has not yet come, it may…and I hurt for her. And I hurt that I can’t be there for her, when she might need to lean on my shoulder, and I hurt even more that even if I was there, I might still not have been able to help her, because there are moments in our lives when we are stupefied, our minds are left listless and helpless, and no matter how we try, we still end up being inadequate, just because we don’t know what “adequate” means.

Well, right now Sami’s asleep and the house seems awfully deadly empty. Every little crevice that this girl has filled with her own being is now empty. I roam around, trying to put things in the right place and I hate this one idea: tomorrow I’ll find them exactly where I left them! This NEVER happens here! The norm is to leave something somewhere and when you go to look for it – it’s gone. That’s what I’m used to. I’m used to being lightly lost in my own home, because we both organize things in our own ways. And now…now I just can’t bare the idea that things will be untouched when I get up.  For the last almost three years we’ve been together every single day. For the last almost 12 years we’ve been inseparable, but these last 1000 days we went through so much…the pregnancy, the birth, the baby, the toddler, now the kid…through good and bad we’ve been together. And we’ve always known that that’s how we want it to be. It’s sad that we let circumstances make us be thousands of miles away for awhile.

But hopefully it’s for the best. Every time we’ve been apart has only worked as a catalyst of a stronger relationship. Today it’s gotta be no different. It’s just that…how am I gonna make it through fatherhood alone? It seems a little scary, and I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to say about it as it progresses, but the good news is…I also feel empowered! I feel like it all depends on me! If I decide that Sami eats salmon tomorrow, that’s what he’ll eat! [well, come on, you know I already have it approved by the boss ;) ]