The heart of a 4-year old

K has a beautiful heart.  In the midst of a war going on in the eastern part of Tajikistan last week, he amazed me. 

While glued to the internet for any information about what was going on in Khorog, the town where some of his family, including cousins his age live, K caught a glimpse of the picture of a school in flames and immediately asked me what it was.  I told him that there was something bad going on in Khorog and we had to pray for his cousins to be safe…and that this school was burning.  He left my side and continued to play with his toy car that his grandmother bought for his birthday a few days before.  The next day, when I came home from a late meeting, he asked me why I didn’t pick him up from the school bus like I usually do and I told him I had a meeting to plan how to help the people in Khorog by sending medicines, food and supplies.  Again, he listened and then went on watching his favorite cartoon.  While having an after school snack the next day, he looked at me and said “we need to send medicines to the school” and immediately took a chair in the kitchen, propped it near the medicine cabinet, climbed up and took all the medicines and put them in a plastic bag.  “This is for the people in the school” he told me with a smile on his face.

That evening before bed, we continued the conversation about the school.  We talked about the kind of tools we would need to rebuild the school after he suggested we do so.  A hammer, nails and sugar – yes, sugar to connect the pieces of wood together.  Then we talked about the kinds of things that we would put in the school once it was built…chairs, desks, toys, books and of course, toilets – who could forget.  We went to bed and my heart beamed with pride while I looked at him sleeping next to me.

As usual, I got up early to get some work done before getting K ready for school.  He was lying on the couch talking to his imaginary friend, Mason in America, as he often does lately and I heard him say “only Allah can build the school.”  Wow, what a thing for a kid to say, I thought.  And I remembered something a spiritual lady once told me when K was younger – that children come directly from God and are still connected to God when they are small.  I truly believe this to be the case because soon after K said these words, the conflict ended.

A week has passed and K is still talking and asking about the burning school in Khorog.  Yesterday, when walking home after picking him up from the school bus, he said that he told one of his friends in his class about the burning school. I am so proud of my little boy who has proven to me that kids understand more than we think they do.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we do end up rebuilding that school one day and I can’t wait to tell him how he helped his people.

Life lesson #1: Being Happy

I recently read an article titled 15 Things You Should Give Up to Be Happy and while I agreed with all the points, I was most drawn to #15: GIVE UP LIVING YOUR LIFE TO OTHER PEOPLE’S EXPECTATIONS. 

Many of us go through life doing things that other people want us to do and behaving the way others want us to behave.  In the process, we end up losing ourselves - we forget who we really are, we forget what makes us happy and we spend so much energy trying to please other people.  I have done this my whole life until I had a miracle come into my life - my son.  His presence in my life has made me realize the important role I have in being his mom and teaching him important lessons in life. I wish I had learned this lesson earlier - I would have been much happier.  We moved to Tajikistan when my son was a little over 3 years old so that he could experience part of his culture and get to know his family on the other side of the world, in spite of the many negative comments from people in our lives.  We've been living in Dushanbe for almost 8 months now and while we are still settling in, I am SO happy when I see my son jump up and down in fits of laughter with his 1.5 year old cousin, when he comes home from his Russian preschool and tells me about his day, when he asks if he can go sleepover at his babushka's (grandmother in Russian) house so he can help her clean the rice to make plov (traditional rice dish in Tajikistan), when he picks up sticks during our many walks in town and brings them home to make a pretend fire and when he is learning compassion by giving money to a beggar on the street or comforting the little boy crying on the school bus.  All of this makes me happy and it wouldn't have happened if I continued to live my life for others.

Motherhood - Crying on the Inside

It's almost 6 in the evening on a Sunday in May - actually it's Mother's Day back home in Canada today - but in Tajikistan we already celebrated it along with International Women's Day on March 8th.  I'm sitting in bed trying to cool down from a difficult parenting moment with K this afternoon.  I'm home alone as K has gone to his grandmother's house with his dad to give me some much needed alone time.

All my posts on this blog have been the happy, positive moments I've had as a mother - but believe me, I've bad some difficult and not so good ones as well.  Today was one of those days.  I took K to Jumanji, an indoor playground for kids with games, slides, swing, bouncy things and lots of sugar.  We went with a colleague and his kids.  The afternoon started off well as K, who was so excited about going, immediately went to the little kids area, took off his shoes and started jumping on the trampoline.  This was followed by sliding down the slide and landing into a bunch of colored balls.  As the kids played, my colleague and I caught up with each other and enjoyed being able to spend a Sunday together - including the kids.

After an hour and half of playing inside, we went outside and everyone got to choose the ice cream they wanted.  K chose the gooey chocolate one and devoured it, along with his t-shirt that he used as a tissue to clean his mouth.  "Not to worry" I told my colleague who kept insisting that I clean his face and put a tissue as a bib so it wouldn't spill on his already chocolate covered shirt, "I brought an extra shirt to change into after he's done eating."  The kids ran and played hide-and-seek in the grass while we continued to talk and enjoy the beautiful sunshine in Dushanbe.

It was time to leave and K was not having any of it.  A tantrum soon followed and K insisted that he play some more.  I tried to reason with him, but nothing worked.  My colleague, who is a more experienced parent with two kids 5 and 8 years old, tried to distract him by saying we can play and walk at the same time.  Nope, that didn't work either.  While all the other kids watched K cry a bucket full of tears, I told my colleague to go without us and that we would take a taxi home once K calmed down to which K responded with "I don't love you, mommy."  Hearing those words (especially from a kid who regularly tells me how much he loves me - see recent post titled "I Love You, Mommy") really stung my heart but I continued to be strong to what I believed needed to be done - to not give in and hold my ground as a parent, even in the midst of onlookers.  While he continued to cry, I waited for a taxi - let one go because he was charging too much, crossed the street in search of another one - all the while, crying inside.


We finally got home (with K still crying) and I immediately went into my room and laid down on the bed.  It's been a few hours since that episode and I'm still boiling inside - not because K acted the way he did, but because I screamed at him (yes, I forgot to mention that above) in a way that made me feel so bad for him. And all I can think about right now is what I taught him today...that adults can scream when they want to, that adults can get mad and there not be any consequences...what did I teach him?  I guess I have the next few hours alone to think about this.

An Education in Life

I don't think K ever saw a beggar on the street in Vancouver - hmm....maybe in downtown on one of our outings, but I'm pretty sure not where we were playing on the playground. Here on the streets of Dushanbe, poverty is much more visible and real in our everyday lives.  We see it in the mother with her baby sucking on her breasts sitting on the steps of the underground we pass during a walk with a friend, in the children (maybe 6-7 years old) who run up to us selling chocolate bars in the middle of the central park, in the mother who can't afford a surgery for her daughter to help her walk, and in the old lady sitting outside the "pink store" (as K calls it) - the high-end (for the locals here) grocery store we frequent - with her hands out and pain in her eyes.

The other day while coming out of the store while K was in school, I saw this lady and while giving her some money, she silently asked me where my son was by putting one hand up to indicate a small child.  I told her he was in school, accepted her prayers for the money I gave her and wished her goodbye.  While walking home I realized that K is getting a real life education by interacting with this lady and the many other beggars we encounter, greet and offer money or food to. Following this, we usually have a conversation about why there people are asking for money - at his level of course. I tell him that some people don't have money and we should help them because we are so lucky.

The other day while talking about the lady outside the pink store (we talk about her even when we don't see her) he said "the next time we go to the pink store, we should give the lady some money." I'm beaming as I write this and realize that K is learning compassion.  I hope this will one day inspire him to do something about the problem the Dalai Lama once said was the biggest challenge of our time - that "we are raising a generation of passive bystanders."

"I Love You, Mommy"

While excited to go on a 2-day trip to speak to some youth about leadership and community service, I wasn't sure how to tell my 3.5 son, K, that I would be gone for a couple of days.  Since moving to Tajikistan about six months ago, K has been quite clingy with me - we've always been close but this move across the world has brought us even closer, to the point where he cries when I go out without him (and this is from a kid who didn't shed one tear when I dropped him to daycare for the first time when he was 11 months old).


So I decided to tell him a few days before the trip in case he had any questions and we needed to have a number of conversations.  I carefully told him that I would be going away for work for two days and that his grandmother would come over and make his favourite blinchiks (Russian word for crepes).  He looked at me with a blank stare and I immediately understood that I would need to bring this up a few more times.  That night while putting K to sleep, I laid down beside him and he looked at me, put his arms around me and gave me a big hug.  "I love you, mommy" he said.  I looked at him, hugged him back and said "I love you too, K."  We both fell asleep wrapped in each others arms.

Over the next couple of days, K repeated those words "I love you, mommy" at random moments during the day.  He totally understood that I was going away.  So one day after he expressed his love (while sitting on the toilet, by the way), I asked him "what does love mean?"  he replied with a blank stare so I decided to provide my own definition.  How do you explain love to a child or to anyone for that matter?  I tried to explain it using simple terms - "I will always take care of you, if you get hurt I will help you, you are my favourite boy in the whole world."  He listened to me and said "I will not say bad words, I will not hit you, I will not push you" and the funniest..."I will not throw you on the floor or the ground and break your head."  While laughing at his response (and even more so because he's never shown an inkling to do the latter), I realized that this was his definition of love.  A 3.5 year old's definition of love....something he was able to express himself in his own words.

The words "I love you" have always been part of our household and I have been saying these words to K on a regular basis ever since he was born.  A few months ago while getting ready for work after getting K ready for school, he gave me a piece of paper with a bunch of scribbles and letters. "What is this?" I asked. K responded "It says, I love you!"

I am so proud of K - he never cried while I was away and when he opened the front door when I came back from my trip, he said "I didn't see you for a long time" and I responded with "I love you, K" and took him in my arms and gave him a big hug.  It was a wonderful evening of "I love you, mommy" until we fell asleep in each others arms again that night.

I look forward to many more loving moments with my son and hearing how he defines love as he grows up.