My day started out perfectly normal. At least normal in terms of my slow start here back in America. I still consider it a lot more normal to wake up and get ready to go train people in their fighting skills.
Well, at least one part of my morning has remained the same since then. Getting my girls ready for the day. Every single morning since they've been born, it's been my job to wake them up, get them dressed, make their breakfast, help them brush their teeth, and do their hair. And no morning can ever start out without some cuddles. Every morning, I go into the Elena and Yulia's rooms (or room at the moment) and then wake them up by patting their back and then giving them both giant kisses. Then the girls will wake up and start clutching me tightly. And then I carry them to the kitchen to get their breakfast. This morning I was in an extra playful mood and I decided to crawl into their bed and start tickling them until they woke up. This, of course, led to the three of us all of us giggling like crazy and then us just laying in the bed for a brief moment. I held my arms around my daughters and gave them plenty of kisses as they clutched their arms around me. Man, if only we could have just spent the whole day doing that.
After the girls finished eating breakfast and putting some play clothes on, we walked over to the restroom to do their hair. Elena and Yulia both have gorgeous blonde hair that I just love to brush and style. The girls always tell me how they want their hair done beforehand. I can pull off some pretty interesting and cute hairstyles in just a few minutes (thanks to the Internet), but the girls just wanted the basics this morning. Elena wanted a braided ponytail while Yulia wanted pigtails. Man, I was hoping for something a little more interesting. Oh well, it was still cute. After I was finished, I topped Elena and Yulia's hair off with their precious matching pink bows that they never go a day without wearing. Just like every other morning, I gave both the girls kisses on their cheeks after I was finished with their hair.
I had already taken my morning shower and put my uniform on (the world's blandest and ugliest uniform), so I was pretty much ready to go after that. I just needed to wait for Hayley. I decided to make some Pop-Tarts in the meantime.
As I was tearing some strawberry Pop-Tarts out of the wrapper, Elena and Yulia both skipped into the kitchen. In Russian, Elena asked: "Papa, can we go to the playground today?"
I replied: "But I have work, Baby. It'll be too late to go to the playground when I get home."
"PLEEEAAASEEE?" Both girls ran up and squeezed me. I grinned and shook my head. Another typical morning.
Giving Elena and Yulia my phone to play with was enough to keep them occupied for the next several minutes and I returned to my Pop-Tarts. As I was half-way finished with the second one, there was a knock on the door. I continued to munch on the Pop-Tart as I walked up to answer the door.
I opened up the door and Hayley walked in. She was carrying a plastic bag.
"Whatcha' got there?" I asked.
"A couple of coloring books I spotted at the store yesterday," Hayley replied, setting her purse and the plastic bag down on the table in the living room. "Just to give the girls something to do."
I nodded.
Elena and Yulia, who were both still playing with my phone in the living room, looked over at Hayley. Elena smiled and said "Hi" in Russian.
"Hi girls," Hayley said, waving at Elena and Yulia.
I should mention that Hayley actually knows very little Russian. Like very little. So this obviously makes watching the girls pretty difficult for her. I have given her a few basic keywords that helps her get through the day, such as "lunch," "TV," and "band-aids." By now, Hayley and the girls have developed a system where the girls simply point at something they want or are trying to draw attention to and that's usually enough for Hayley to help them out (example: Yulia once wanted Hayley to kiss her bunny rabbit, so she kissed it herself several times and held it out to Hayley). But there have been quite a few times where the girls try to tell Hayley something and there aren't enough finger gestures or keywords to help her figure out what's going on (such as one instance where Yulia wanted Hayley to spin her around and moving her fingers in circles didn't really give much of a clue). When this happens, Hayley has to call me at work just so I can tell her what the girls are saying. I'm actually not even supposed to have my phone on at work, but my boss thankfully made an exception for me since she knows my full situation and understands it. That doesn't stop my coworkers from being scumbags to me whenever I stop working to answer Hayley's calls ("Hey, what the hell are you doing? Get back to work! You can call your mom later!").
And sadly, the language barrier between Hayley and the girls makes it next to impossible for her to really spend time with them. She can't really play any fun games with them or talk to them if she can't...well...talk to them. So most of the time Hayley just sits on the couch and watches Elena and Yulia play with each other, occasionally helping them with something through keywords/hand gestures/phone calls to me at work. Yeah, it sounds pretty boring. Hayley does really want to learn Russian someday, but it really isn't the best time for her to go through a difficult task like that. Mainly since she's going to have a baby in about two months. Which, of course, reminds me that I'm going to have to look for a new babysitter for the girls once Hayley's baby is born. I may just start taking the girls to work with me and having them sit at one of the tables with a bunch of their toys. It's not like the tables are ever used for anything else.
While Elena happily greeted Hayley when she first came in, Yulia got an awkward expression on her face the instant she saw Hayley. Ohhhhh boy. Here it comes.
Sure enough, as soon as I began giving the girls their goodbye kisses, Yulia began to scream and clung to me very tightly. I sighed.
So Yulia is extremely attached to me. Extremely, extremely, extremely attached to me. I can't even emphasize it enough. She always starts screaming and crying whenever I have to leave to go to work or one of my MMA fights. And yes, this was a problem even before the move. This was why Yulia hated going to school back in Russia and why I sometimes would have to leave work to go pick her up because she wouldn't stop crying. And I'm sure it's now a lot worse for her now that she has to spend the day with somebody who doesn't even speak the same language as her.
So whenever I leave, Yulia starts crying and clinging to me and I'll have to spend several minutes hugging and kissing her just so she can let me out the door. And sometimes not even that works. Sometimes she won't stop clinging to me and then Hayley will have to pry her off. And then I'll have to quickly leave and drive away before Yulia breaks free from Hayley's grip and clings to me again.
And this was one of the mornings where Hayley had to pry her off. Thankfully Yulia seemed to have already calmed down once I called Hayley about thirty minutes later. There have been times where over three hours had passed and Yulia was still screaming and crying.
I was considering doing something a little special for the girls once I got home later. Like maybe taking them to get ice cream or maybe actually taking them to the park even if it would be a little dark by the time we got there. Hey, there's never enough time for a little daddy-daughter time. Especially when you have very little time for it to begin with.
But before I could worry about what was going on later, I first needed to worry about what was going on at the moment. Such as my coworkers being utter scumbags.
"Hey Cooper!" my coworker Randy shouted after I got off the phone with Hayley. "Stop talking to your imaginary girlfriend and get back to work!"
I'm not a pushover, Randy's not a manager, and I don't like being insulted. I had no qualms whatsoever about giving a nice little reply to Randy's remark.
"What work?" I said. "It's a ghost town in here. Maybe instead of shouting at me you can be useful and go mop the floor by the office. It looks like Godzilla threw up over there."
"Hey, you watch you mouth! And go clean it yourself if you've got nothing better to do!"
"I was actually just about to start wiping down tables. Then I was going to sweep and mop over here. I got plenty to do. You don't."
"Shut the hell up! You're already close to getting fired, so I'd be pretty careful if I were you!"
I just love how Randy talks to me like he's in charge of me despite having no higher significance than me whatsoever. He's not a manager, I'm at least ten years older than him, and he's only been working about three months longer than me. Oh sure, he's about half a foot taller than me, but so was that one guy that I beat up in about five or six punches last weekend. I often wish Randy and most of my other coworkers would take up mixed martial arts. It would just feel great to have a little duel with them.
"Says who?" I replied to Randy's "you're about to get fired" bullcrap. "Lydia (the manager) hasn't yelled at me once. Hell, I don't think she's ever even gotten after me for anything. I think she's a lot calmer with me than everyone else. You lose, good day sir."
Randy's face started to turn pink. I couldn't tell if he was angry or embarrassed. Either way, I couldn't help but chuckle.
"Clean those tables right now, Cooper!" Randy shouted. "You better not get on your phone again!" And with that, he turned around and walked off.
"Heil Hitler!" I said with a Nazi salute. I then wrung out a rag and started wiping down the tables that seemed to have a lot more dust than coffee stains.
Like I said, work sucks.
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