A Little Blue Book

A Little Blue Book, or twenty years after

2007-12-01T02:32:00.000-08:00

Introduction
In those old days back in Russia there was a custom of recording everything about newly born baby in a special book. The books were either pink – for girls or blue – for boys. Young mums and dads were recording first events about their adorable ones – first smile, first tooth, first word, first step and so on and so forth. And of course plenty of photos! In other words if parents had just a little bit of time left from looking after their new family members, they were immediately running to their little pink or blue books to record something new about their little geniuses!

Of course we were those parents! We were recording first everything and everyone in our little pink book! Did I say “pink”? Yes, we have done it all for our first child – Lena. And we have done nothing for Ilya. Why? May be just for the same reason that I was measuring water temperature for Lena in half degree increments, while for Ilya putting a finger under a tap was enough - we didn’t have enough time!

However this explanation was not sufficient for Ilya. When he realized – somewhere at the age of three – that Lena’s pink book is full of stories and photos, while his blue one is empty (we were so cruel that we bought a blue book, didn’t write there anything, and gave it to him to look at!) – he started asking “where is my little blue book”!

For years I was planning to correct this unfairness but … again never had enough time.

But the time has finally come! No more excuses! Now, Ilya here it is, your “Little Blue Book”!

And one more thing – considering twenty years too late, changed media and а wider audience I have changed traditional format and style to something more appropriate ... just keep reading!

Chapter 1. Personal Details

2007-11-30T03:27:00.000-08:00

Exception #1
It’s clear enough who he is, when he’s born, who his parents and sister are and other traditional personal details – so, let’s drop them!
But what about the chapter title – “Personal”? How about my “Personal” feelings about becoming father of a little boy? This will do!

Before you were born, or the magic formula
We wanted a son. We had a lovely girl, we lived in our own apartment in a fantastic location, and we wanted a son. But how? How to make sure that the child is going to be a boy?

Julia, having as usually very trustful (!?) sources, found a magic mathematical formula. It was quite simple – it only needed three parameters – parents’ dates of birth and a conception date. Then it was magically predicting sex of a child! What a joke!

Being a computer programmer I could not let this so called formula ruin our dream. So, I have programmed it and had to test it. Yes, test it! You may ask – and I can see some smiles and hear some jokes – how the hell I could test it? It’s simple – you use historical data – your parents, relatives, friends and their kids, and everyone who can supply the three dates! Results were quite surprising – the formula was predicting sex with an accuracy of over 80%!

I have extended the formula just a bit to create an adviser tool - based on two dates (parents’ dates of birth) it recommended conception dates for having a boy or a girl. Having applied it to ourselves we found that we didn’t have too many options – unless we try now we had to wait for over two years for a boy!

The rest is not that interesting. We trusted the magic formula and we had a boy – Ilusha!

I believe everything in life has a reason. May be this story explains something in Ilusha's character?

I still didn’t explain why I wanted a son
It’s simple – why a man wants a son? To teach him everything what you knew, and see him learning what you didn’t. To play all sports you love and assemble all models you failed. To have a partner to go skiing, bike riding, playing soccer and tennis, watching kill-and-shoot movies, play games, drive and talk about cars and everything else what you don’t even know but feel that something beautiful would happen when you have a son! Did it happen? Yes, it did! And much-much more! But about this later …

Chapter 2. Ilya and cars

2007-11-27T03:30:00.000-08:00

Exception #2
I have decided to continue this book with chapters named "Ilya and ..."! I believe it's a great idea :-). Think about it - everything about Ilya can be placed under this heading! Let's try.

Ilusha was almost born with cars in his hands. Not really but... for some reasons his very first toys were cars. When we came to Australia out of limited luggage we could bring to the country a significant space was taken by Ilya's multilevel garage and a large collection of cars!

Ilya's interest to cars continued when he became tall enough to sit on my laps and to hold a steering wheel. He wasn't even ten when he actively participated in buying a new car - Jeep Cherokee - when by inspecting a car ready to be collected he found that certain features promised by a dealer were not installed! It's easy to imagine dealer's face when he saw a nine years old telling him about quality of his work!

I believe it's a time to introduce something new - what we call "brackets" to describe a special way of story-telling.

"Brackets" allow to leave the main story for a while - by "opening a bracket" and then come back to it - by "closing a bracket". Brackets of course can be nested - and believe me it happens (at least in our family).

Ilya wasn't very tall. He started growing really fast at the age of 15-16. So, being small, smart and very serious he was often taking adults by surprise giving unexpected comments on various adult issues: real estate, renovation, cars etc. It would sound strange enough when 10 years old was suddenly saying something making them looked stupid, but considering he looked as 8 years old it was just embarrassing!

He wasn't doing this with some hidden agenda in his mind - he just was sincerely interested and was ready to provide his opinion on any subject!

Taking an active part in buying Jeep Cherokee triggered a new wave of interest in cars - suddenly in a couple of months Ilya knew all car brands and models and was recognizing them on streets without any hesitation and mistakes! To my embarrassment I couldn't come even close to this really encyclopedic knowledge of my ten years old!

One of my friends recently mentioned in his speech at his 40th - "We think we teach our kids - in reality they teach us" Can't agree more! It's quite obvious when they are getting older and can name a brand and model of a car in front. But it starts from the very beginning, from the time they're born (if not earlier) - they teach us to be parents, to be responsible for someone else, to do things you've never known you would be doing! As the Fox from "A Little Prince" said "You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed". How do we, parents, learn it? Through them, our kids.

With the age come new abilities. From a three wheels to a mountain bike, from a tiny car to the Easter Show rides together with dad to go-kart birthday party with your friends beating your old man by far in a real racing! BTW, speaking of birthday parties! This definitely deserves a bracket.

Birthday parties! Having kids means having birthday parties. That's deep, isn't it?
At the beginning it's easy, by the age of 5 it's getting bigger an bigger every year - having it at home again? No. Going somewhere - where to?
McDonalds, Sizzler, tobogganing, horse riding, soccer, ten pin bowling, ice rink, golf range, Aquatic Centre, go-kart! Did I miss something? Probably.

The last one we organized at go-kart racing - it was very far away and just great! Kids and adults were given the karts and we were racing each other! After that a traditional birthday cake with "Happy Birthday dear Ilya!". What a day! .. what an effort!