A still from Alexey Zhiryakov’s “Katya, Vitya, Dima”

katya vitya dima by alexey zhiryakov

“Katya, Vitya, Dima” is the English title. The working title in Russian is “Дом у дороги.”

A good wife must promote her husband’s work at every opportunity – which is working against me at the moment, because anything I might say may be suspect. “Oh, of course she would say that.”

It’s a shame, because I watched the rought cut version last night, wiped away the tears, and said something like, “Well, hell, darling. It was certainly worth it to have you gone so much in the last trimester of the pregnancy.”

The movie was shot in the spring and summer of 2011, in the village of Shestakovo, Voronezh region, Russian Federation. It focuses on a married couple and their three kids. It’s a documentary whose style personally reminds me of Sofia Coppola.

I’ll write more about it when I have the chance to gather my thoughts.

Back at work full-time

It’s way hard – but I’m happy about it, because it brings the right sort of balance for a person such as myself. I get to work on the newspaper during the day, and come home to Lyovka at night, and I’m not overwhelmed by the minutae of home life – though neither do I have the chance to get overwhelmed by what we do at work. My brain just goes into “home mode” once I have Lyovka in my arms – and home mode is something I have struggled with before we had our son.

None of this stops random people from passing judgement – where would I be if it wasn’t for their sage opinions on everything from whether or not using an electrical breast pump is “wrong” to whether or not I’m a “real mother” at all now? Please, don’t hesitate to keep your superior wisdom to yourself, o Weird Dude In the Elevator Who Glimpsed My Breast Pump In a Paper Bag! I genuinely want to discuss the fact how I am a total freaking idiot – because the only thing that worked for your wife is a manual breast pump, and it’s “more natural that way.”

Ahem.

Lyovka, meanwhile, is amazing. He has my hair colour and forehead so far – but looks like his dad otherwise. When he gets upset and cries, he looks like a pumpkin. Or a tomato. We call him tykvochka and pomidorchik, then. “Uh oh, the pomidorchik is starting to grow.”

Our nanny is Ukrainian and knows all about borscht.

I’ve been busy working on a film treatment based on my new play at night – which works out great if Lyovka sleeps between night-time feeding sessions, and not so great if Lyovka doesn’t sleep between night-time feeding sessions.

The deadline is approaching, but there are always more deadlines in sight.

I’ve been writing

“Pregnant in Putin’s Russia” – my Foreign Policy article on this whole having a baby in Moscow business. I finished this one on the beach, but it doesn’t really have a beach-y feel to it – since it’s about healthcare and attitudes surrounding pregnancy and birth. The latter in particular coulduse some adjustment. Still, my experience of giving birth to Lyovka was very, very positive – and I have to thank the doctors involved. Dr. Glotova and Dr. Akhsyamova, plus Dr. Bovina, who referred me to them – may they live long and prosper.

“My feminist life – after childbirth.” I blogged this for Feministe, and some truly marvelous people trolled the comments. Enjoy!

Also, I think the best column I wrote for TMN this month was “Born in the land of Mordor.”  It’s about Lyovka & Russian bureaucracy. I do NOT think that Russia is Mordor – it’s a bit like Gondor, all things considered – but the bureaucrats try their damnedest to convince you otherwise.