It began innocently.

“I feel like a smoothie,” my seven-year old announced when he came home from school. “A strawberry banana smoothie.” I happily oblige. I like whipping up something quick and nutritious.

“How about we have a smoothie stand?” he asked.

“Uh, we do not have that many bananas.” I am looking for excuses while trying to figure out how bad it would be to get involved in another messy afternoon project. I came from work and I am tired.

“The strawberry smoothies?”

Uh, I want to casually dismiss the idea. How? My grey matter refuses to come up with the solution. I need advice and call my husband. Before I get anywhere and get panicky when his extension doesn’t work six times in a row, my son drags a little table to the curb. I think what the heck! and proceed making smoothies.

By the time the little entrepreneur takes them out to the curb, my husband calls. “You called?” he asks.

“Yes, I need help. Carl is selling smoothies at the curb.”

“He does what?”

“He tries to sell smoothies at the curb.”

After a hearty laugh he tells me, “Don’t worry. He won’t sell anything.”

“How embarrassing!” I reply. I grew up in a family that looked down at the mercenary mindedness. We would give things away when it was assumed that someone needed them.

I hear Carl shouting, “Get your smoothies here!” I say bye to Markus and rush outside to take a picture of what might be another fleeting moment. He looks cute with an orange table and chartreuse chair and matching glasses. “Get your smoothies here!” he shouts and signals to cars.

I retreat inside. I hear him shouting for another ten minutes. He gets disappointed. No one buys smoothies. He comes inside.

“Did you think it will be easy?”

“Do you think they hear me in the cars?”

“I don’t know.”

I feel for him and make a mental note to buy lemonade at each lemonade stand I will ever encounter.

“Earning money is not easy,” I tell him. “Go and try again.” I’m afraid he will give up too easily.

I need not worry. He goes out and continues to shout. His voice echoes. I imagine the neighbors going crazy and running outside to buy the smoothies that are mentioned every other second.

I want to record the voice to have proof for his dad and go out again bumping into a neighborhood girl who comes by and buys two. “Don’t forget to bring the glasses back!” Carl is on the go. “Get your smoothies here! “ His voice bounces off the house across the road.

I think: ‘If they do not come, I might come out and buy the smoothies myself. Oh, that will be so wrong!’

I stand next to the gate and quietly observe him. Then it dawns on me that he will be alright. He’s got such drive. That moment I understand what the drive is. This guy has so much energy and he channels it into something that he wants to do and you just see this burst of energy that I wonder if I ever had it.

I understand that there are people who are simply more driven than others. I learn from this experience, as he does. The smoothies are gone within twenty minutes. We get to know a couple of neighborhood kids. This is awesome! Carl is bouncing off the walls in his usual manner.

“Next we will sell pizza,” he says.

By Dilyara Breyer

Labels: bananas, children entrepreneurs, Dilyara Breyer, pizza, smoothies

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She honked while I chatted up a driver in the opposite lane.

"I just spend half an hour getting from Costco to here." The driver was complaining; Costco sign still in vicinity.

"Me, too," I sigh.

"They have a serious problem."

"Seems so. It happens every year around this time," I concur.

"You have a good memory."  I am not sure if the driver is joking.

"I would use it, too, if not for the pet." I am pointing at the white box with red lettering where a little brown critter is sleeping in the corner. "I could have not bought a pet weeks in advance."

She honks again. She has a perfect hairstyle and I am sure well-manicured fingers that are lying on the steering wheel now. We are both stuck in a traffic jam around our local mall. I call her Jewish Mom. She seems to have adopted me. There is a little bit more space in front of me so she makes sure I fill it.

Earlier she honked at me for letting yet another driver in. She looked impatiently while I dissolved the traffic jam on the intersection: "Mam, if you move a little bit forward, the lady over there can go across our lane into that parking spot that she covets."

"Our son has been asking for a hamster for months," I share with another driver in the opposite lane.

I still don't own a hands free-handset for my cell phone so talking to other unfortunate drivers is my only entertainment.

"From my own experience, hamsters make such poor pets! They sleep during the day and they don't like cuddling."

I check my rear-view window.

"I went to the pet store and  there they were: two hamsters hidden out of sight in the their little dome. Sleeping."

Sigh.

"Underneath the hamsters were guinea pigs hopping around.  When a mother with two kids came and pointed at them: "Look! Hamsters! Aren't they c u-u-u-te!"  My idea was cemented – I decided to buy a guinea pig colored like a hamster, call it a hamster and hope no one notices.

I hear laughter roaring around as the drivers turned off their engines and rolled down their windows.

My adopted Jewish Mom behind directs me to follow the left turning lane. It seems like a good idea, so I do. As my own mother has said : "My daughter always has listened to me. She just did what she wanted in the end."

As we linger on the highway for the next couple of minutes, I follow the mantra of penguins from Madagascar and wave and smile to the fellow holiday shoppers. I see their grim face cracking a smile, too.

Then we reach a point where the cars speed up. I put my notebook down, step on the gas and wave to the driver behind me goodbye. I turned lemons into a lemonade and an hour of jam into a four-hundred word story.

I hope My Jewish Mom she is proud.

By Dilyara Breyer

Labels: Costco, Dilyara Breyer, holiday shopping, Jewish Mother

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Despite my numerous warnings about its scary and rather unscientific nature, Carl really wanted to see “Jurassic Park III” because it features his favorite dinosaur -- Spinosaurus, a prehistoric predator bigger than T-Rex.

He waited impatiently for the copy I reserved to arrive at the public library next to us.

He watches it halfway from the hallway ready to dart behind the wall when a dinosaur approaches. Afterwards, he decides to sleep with us. I don't mind. I would be scared, too, to be by myself.

“Are you scared?” I ask when he snags close to me.

“No. The nightmare will come later,” he explains.

“Yes, when you are the most relaxed and vulnerable,” I joke.

His eyes open wider. Nice job, Mom!

I calm him down. “You won't be alone. I will be here for you. Sleep now.”

"What will you do?" he asks.

"I have this prayer that my grandmother used to say. It helped against nightmares."

I say it loud. God, did I mess it up? I try again wondering if after twenty some years I might have forgotten the wording and intonation that grandma used.

Carl doesn't understand a word: "I think it needs to be an American prayer."

"An American prayer against a Hollywood induced nightmare?" I kid my kid again.

"An Industrial Light and Magic* strength prayer," chimes in my husband from the right.

*ILM created most of the effects for Jurassic Park movies.

By Dilyara Breyer

Labels: Dilyara Breyer, Dreams, Industrial Light and Magic, Nightmares

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How 'bout that for a TV show name!

I have had this Kombucha culture growing for a little while now. I've been so successful that I can open a Kombucha bottling plant out of my own kitchen.

Unfortunately, no one but me would drink it at home.

Kombucha, for those who haven’t heard of it, is a combination of bacteria and yeast that ferments when added to tea, and is believed to cure certain ills. Coming from China by the way of Russia, it is catching on in America.

Or is it?

I had to do something with jars of the drink I had brewed so I took it to a potluck dinner. I should have described it as something else but Kombucha.

A Life-Prolonging Elixir! A Potency Boosting Potion! Better yet, a Weight-Loss Supplement!

I could have said that Kombucha increases longevity, improves vision, cures asthma, bronchitis, diarrhea, diabetes, cataracts, cancer, insomnia, rheumatism, and get this -- reverses the symptoms of AIDS.

It has all been claimed before.

Just as the Food and Drug Administration, I didn't want to stand behind unproven claims. So I said it was Kombucha and ended up drinking this Immortal Health Elixir of the Qin Dynasty myself.

By Dilyara Breyer

Labels: Dilyara Breyer, health, Kombucha

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My four-year old refuses to put on his pants.

If not for the the flu he is having or the slime building in his sinuses turning his eyes into puffy, narrow slits -- dressing him would not become a major goal of my life.

I need to keep him warm even if it means putting certain pants on without his consent.

He wiggles out of my arms and the pants. I’m beyond frustrated. I’m now waking up several times nightly to check on his temperature, give him medicine, rub vapors on his chest, and generally checking that he is still alive and breathing.

Exhausted, I’m reduced to the tactics I’ve sworn never to do: bribes and threats.

“You can have a cookie only if you put these on,” I say. I do not expect any outcome. Recently he has had three Oreos for dessert, lunch and dinner.

“Okay,” he says.

Uh, did I really hear that? Not wasting a minute, I pull his pants up. I’m thinking, how else can I can bank on this little cookie bribe? What if I risk rejection? I could lose the new found power of the cookie bribe forever if I push too hard.

I take my chance.

“You have to put your warm sleepers on, too. “

“Okay!”

I give him another cookie and he is happily hopping away without asking for more. Probably he doesn’t want to be asked for a favor again.

Perhaps I should reconsider my treating your kids as you would like to be treated philosophy. After all, they are children, not adults. Maybe I should diversify my parenting techniques and include some bribes along with the innocent lies.

Like the time my mom insisted on telling my six-year old that the natural history museum was closed for renovation instead of “we are late and the museum is closed.” That lie went so smoothly that it left me wondering how many tantrums could have been avoided by being less truthful here and there.

I think I may be on to something.

Here's to Oreos and innocent lies!

By Dilyara Breyer

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Now that we have a high-deductible insurance, I am more than easily chagrined at every act of stupidity and self-destruction that my boys tend to conduct.

Like jumping off the table into the bed. The four-year old knew that when he just held his toe lying on the bed wailing quietly. I was no comfort: jumping off the desk is stupid! I wanted to have a look. He refused to show.

I started calculating the likelihood that the injury is serious and we have to go to the doctor. Or even worse, the Emergency Room. For today is Friday. And if we will not resolve it by the afternoon, we will have very few choices.

Two hours later, he still holds that toe. Unless he walks, I think, he will be alright. Unless he won’t, and then I will not forgive myself ‘till the end of my life.

He still refuses to show it. I just sit quietly next to him. At last, he volunteers.

“I have a problem.”

I nod. “Is it your toe?”

“Yes,” he says.

“Did you hurt it when you jumped off the bed?”

“Yes,” he says.

“May I have a look?”

“No.”

“Do you think we should go to the doctor?” I am trying to involve him into the decision making.

“No.”

“Do you think it will go away by itself?”

“No.”

I am running out of options here. I try another one: “Do you think a Band-Aid will help?”

“No.”

“So what do you think will help?” I ask calmly and sweetly, hiding the hurricane of emotions ravaging on the inside. I know this is an almost useless question for this son loves when we come up with solutions to his problems that mostly validate the solutions in his head. He answers to my relief:

“Two Band-Aids.”


By Dilyara Breyer

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In our house talks about animals that escape from a zoo occur regularly. Usually the escapee is tranquilized and returned into the enclosures of one of the zoos that our seven- year old son created in a computer game. I try to explain how each escape negatively influences the zoo attendance, the zoo’s reputation and thus the bottom line, and in the end, the viability of the zoo.

His answer is usually switching to unlimited money mode.

I am sure Manuel Mollinedo, the director of the San Francisco Zoo wishes he could switch to that mode after a tiger jumped out of an enclosure and attacked three visitors, killing one of them on Christmas Day last week.

Police officers who found the three hundred and fifty-pound tiger sitting on top of a victim shot the animal to death. That same tiger was spared after mauling a zoo keeper during a feeding last year. The zoo could face heavy fines from regulators. It could be stripped of its exhibitor license. Its accreditation could be at risk. It could be hit with a huge lawsuit by the victims or their families. It could even face criminal charges, depending on what the investigation finds.

This would not be the first Christmas that brought gory news home. Even though the tiger attack was overshadowed by Benazir Bhutto's assassination in Pakistan, the news hit home as it was surreal to read the story hours after we spent a day at the zoo on Christmas break.

The zoo is normally open three hundred and sixty-five days a year. This year, it built a skating rink and brought reindeers for the annual holiday Reindeer Romp. Like many other families cooped up with kids for two weeks of school break, we chose to spent a day in the zoo.

We do not visit the zoo often, ironically spending more time at the zoos of other cities or abroad than our home one. It was the San Francisco Zoo, though, where I, who grew up despising zoos as stinky places where they keep animals in restrictive exhibits, learned to appreciate the effort the zoo puts into the conservation programs to breed animals like bold eagles, snow leopards, fishing cats, ocelots, as well as other species including Siberian tigers. As bizarre as it sounds, there are more of these magnificent animals in captivity (six hundred) than in the wild (four hundred) as human population encroaches onto their traditional habitats.

The fact that it is much cheaper and more convenient to have an outing to the zoo, as opposed to embarking on an African safari as our son suggested, did play a big part of our decision making as well.

Just two days before the incident, the zoo was about to close and our family was moving toward the exit after visiting the family favorite -- the snow leopard in the hidden far corner of the zoo. Dusk is the time when animals start to get active and is the best time to see them "doing stuff.” We could hear the tigers, “Au-u-u! Au-u-u!” well before we approached their alley. Gathering a small group of spectators, the three hundred and fifty pounds Panthera Tigris Altaica, a.k.a. Siberian female tiger, Tatiana, was pacing in her exhibit.

"What a big, magnificent animal," I marveled. The boys were mimicking her vocals. The self appointed opera diva paced back and forth on the meadow and then determinedly moved down the stairs into the mote. We lost sight of her down below. Trying to figure out what she was up to there, I leaned over the waist high fence of the enclosure. Seeing the tiger so close, I realized that there was no fence between me and her. It was just the height of the mote that lay between us. I watched in awe as the spectacular animal covered the almost vertical wall on her side of the mote in two jumps. The thought of her scaling our side of the mote visited me as it did apparently other visitors as well. I dismissed that thought as a “what-if;” apocalyptic fantasy that we humans often indulge in. I felt safe -- San Francisco Zoo has had tigers in captivity for decades.

Chasing the bad thoughts away, I then chased after the rest of the family that had moved on to watch the lions.

In my son's zoo an escaped animal causes panic and decreases zoo attendance. Paradoxically, the incident in the San Francisco Zoo caused a spike in interest in tigers in the neighboring Oakland Zoo. I guess we all want to understand what compelled the tiger to attack the three boys.

Even though animals do escape from zoos time to time the vast majority of visits do not involve a trip to the emergency room; and we used to regard a family outing to the zoo as a safe endeavor.

The incident did bring memories of a similar escape that happened in my hometown: Kazan, Russia. Another temperamental female tiger named, Ussuri, a new arrival to the zoo, jumped the sixteen-foot fence of the enclosure and roamed around the town for seven hours prompting an emergency situation in the city.

Ussuri was hungry and had not eaten for three days. Surprisingly, however, unlike Tatiana, she didn't attack any humans. Did the victims of the recent incident provoke the Siberian beauty to escape and attack them?

In the pretend zoo of my son's world one can see the escape occurrence easily as opposed to the real world when the first reports of both the Kazan and San Francisco escapes were received with a bit of skepticism. San Francisco Zoo does not have a camera installed in the predators’ row. The zoo is a non-profit foundation that cannot make ends meet with admission income alone. A lot of financial support comes from donors like our family. As much as it hurts to imagine one of sons' dying in a zoo outing, I resent seeing our donations covering lawsuits instead of improving the zoo.

A day before Christmas, hours before tragedy, our family decided to support our zoo paying a full membership. From feeling secure that nothing like the incident in Russia can happen in the town I now call home, my feelings toward the zoo are changing.

Just like with our country: I am proud to be part of it, I am confused and angered about how we got into such a mess.

My son still wants to be a zoo manager when he grows up. I hope what will happen to the zoo in the nearest future will not discourage his dreams.

By Dilyara Breyer

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My four-year old refuses to put on his pants.

If not for the the flu he is having or the slime building in his sinuses turning his eyes into puffy, narrow slits -- dressing him would not become a major goal of my life. I need to keep him warm even if it means putting certain pants on without his consent.

He wiggles out of my arms and the pants. I’m beyond frustrated. I’m now waking up several times nightly to check on his temperature, give him medicine, rub vapors on his chest, and generally checking that he is still alive and breathing.

Exhausted, I’m reduced to the tactics I’ve sworn never to do: bribes and threats.

“You can have a cookie only if you put these on,” I say. I do not expect any outcome. Recently he has had three Oreos for dessert, lunch and dinner.

“Okay,” he says. Uh, did I really hear that? Not wasting a minute, I pull his pants up. I’m thinking, how else can I can bank on this little cookie bribe? What if I risk rejection? I could lose the new-found power of the cookie bribe forever if I push too hard.

I take my chance. “You have to put your warm sleepers on, too."

“Okay!” I give him another cookie and he is happily hopping away without asking for more. Probably he doesn’t want to be asked for a favor again.

Perhaps I should reconsider my treating your kids as you would like to be treated philosophy. After all, they are children, not adults. Maybe I should diversify my parenting techniques and include some bribes along with the innocent lies.

Like the time my mom insisted on telling my six-year old that the natural history museum was closed for renovation instead of “we are late and the museum is closed.” That lie went so smoothly that it left me wondering how many tantrums could have been avoided by being less truthful here and there. I think I may be on to something.

Here's to Oreos and innocent lies!

By Dilyara Breyer

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Today is the 26th day of Ramadan, a lunar month when every Muslim is suppose to fast from sunrise to sunset. Wars are stopped, quarrels are set aside and peace is celebrated.

Neighbors visit each other after dark to break the fast together. They start with sweet things like dried figs or dates and proceed to the feast that lasts into the night. I can imagine it vividly even though I’ve never been to an Arabic country and missed most of the magic of neighborly feasting while growing up in a place intolerant to any religion – the Soviet Union.

My aunt, whose mother prayed five times daily till the last day of her life, told of the times when they hid while praying so as not to be discovered by patrols who checked every window in their village. Their family hid under the dinning table to read the special Ramadan Taraweeh prayers and break their fast.

She calls to tell me that tonight might be the special night, Laylat al-Qadr. No one knows for sure which one of the last ten nights of Ramadan it is, so tonight might be the one when everything we pray for is granted.

I walk out into the dark of our American suburbs. The wind that is a constant here in the evenings has ceased and the sky is starry. The air is calm and the divine presence is tangible.

I try to keep fast as a way to connect with my ancestors. Many of them kept it any time of the year, any time of the political season.

It is difficult to start fasting by myself. I ask: “Will I be able to keep my concentration and drive? With kids? Will I be able to work and then take care of four children, two of them not mine? Will I be able to attend class in the evening?”

I wonder how it would be different to keep fast in a country where everyone keeps it. Would I get more slack at work? Would I have to drive or would I live a walking distance from the places that I routinely have to drive to here – the market, schools, work? My thoughts race to the women of my family and around the world. Do they find it hard not to taste food served to their children? Is it hot? Salty enough? Too spicy? I surely do.

I decide to proceed. If nothing else, I want to feel the limits that I can take myself to, as opposed to the daily ones my kids take me to.

Keeping peace is an only option for me during fast time as I simply cannot raise my voice after not having a drop or a morsel in my mouth the whole day. I feel close not only to my ancestors who had to keep it together not only in fall when the days are short and cool, but also during long, hot summer days of farming work. I feel close to forebears of ancestors, people who didn’t have food readily available and often had to tough it up. I understand deep inside how good we have it and how unimportant lots of other needs are.

By sunset -- I feel elated. I did it! I take time to break the fast slowly, sipping rooibos tea and eating dates, and reflect how the human spirit is an amazing phenomenon that can find strength through hardship, yet can fall apart during times of great prosperity.

By Dilyara Breyer

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My four-year old refuses to put on his pants.

If not for the the flu he is having or the slime building in his sinuses turning his eyes into puffy, narrow slits -- dressing him would not become a major goal of my life.

I need to keep him warm even if it means putting certain pants on without his consent.He wiggles out of my arms and the pants. I’m beyond frustrated. I’m now waking up several times nightly to check on his temperature, give him medicine, rub vapors on his chest, and generally checking that he is still alive and breathing.

Exhausted, I’m reduced to the tactics I’ve sworn never to do: bribes and threats.“You can have a cookie only if you put these on,” I say. I do not expect any outcome. Recently he has had three Oreos for dessert, lunch and dinner.

“Okay,” he says.

Uh, did I really hear that? Not wasting a minute, I pull his pants up. I’m thinking, how else can I bank on this little cookie bribe? What if I risk rejection? I could lose the new found power of the cookie bribe forever if I push too hard.

I take my chance.“You have to put your warm sleepers on, too. ““Okay!” I give him another cookie and he is happily hopping away without asking for more.

Probably he doesn’t want to be asked for a favor again. Perhaps I should reconsider my treating my kids as I would like to be treated philosophy. After all, they are children, not adults.

Maybe I should diversify my parenting techniques and include some bribes along with the innocent lies. Like the time my mom insisted on telling my six-year old that the natural history museum was closed for renovation instead of “we are late and the museum is closed.”

That lie went so smoothly that it left me wondering how many tantrums could have been avoided by being less truthful here and there. I think I may be on to something.

Here's to Oreos and innocent lies!

By Dilyara Breyer

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My friend is remodeling her backyard and wants to add a lot of “funky,” kid-friendly places.

This morning I pause on top of the ladder after cutting a dead branch, thinking this is the perfect spot to catch a hummingbird in flight with my digital camera.

Here, up high, I can see in the trees. I hear neighbors walking by and stopping to greet each other. I spot a lizard speeding across the yard. I feel like an eagle. Swooping at him with my camera. Zooming in and adjusting the focus. Shot! Shoot! Fast little beast!
I am having so much fun, I do not want to climb down. Then it dawns on me: Perch!

Perch is one of childhood’s treasured hidden places.

For me, it was the shaky wooden ladder leading to the attic of my grandparents’ house. The ladder was off limits, of course. But as it was obstructed by the row of cherry trees, I could perch there quietly watching the world go by. Neighbors would come for the water from our well. They all had their own water supplies, but our well was magic. It took the central place in the yard. The lever was a 33-feet long log. It was the deepest and the water in it was full of minerals so people from all over our Russian town would come for it. If my grandma was around they would chat and share their news.

I observed neighbors in their yards. The ones with pigs had sturdier metal ladders to their attics, yet, they were cold and hardly ever used. Even though at times I was afraid I would fall down altogether with the whole rackety structure, I appreciated the wood’s warmth and its strategic positioning. For when I was bored, I could pick the cherries right off the trees.

I witnessed my grandparents’ daughter come home for a surprise visit, causing a happy commotion. “Auntie! I saw you first,” I wanted to shout. Then, realizing that I was in a forbidden place, I stopped in time. Once I caught my gentle grandma swearing. I do not remember what caused it, but I remember the feeling of discovery. A new word!
This was a fluid time of childhood when the days were years long.

I give myself time to perch for while this week as I observe, reflect, listen and try to connect to the world that goes by. It was a spring-break week and I feel I have not accomplished much, but maybe what I did was to perch, observe, listen, feel the rhythm of the world going by, and my place in it.

Did you have a place in the childhood where you could look down on adults? Where life went by and, though you were invisible, you were part of it? Do you wish you could retreat to such a place now?

By Dilyara Breyer

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