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Emmy was upset at pickup. We are holding tea party to distract her. You are invited if you bring smiles and fun. No boring allowed.
Shane does not know what he was expecting to walk into after receiving this text, but it was not astonishing to see Ilya sitting in a pink fluffy tutu around his midsection with one of the girls’ princess crowns woven into his curls. Ilya always goes all out for the people he loves.
Ilya and their two daughters were in the playroom, seated at the butter yellow tea table and chairs that David Hollander had built for Emmy’s sixth birthday. Flowers had been carefully stenciled in paint among the round edges. Ilya’s long legs were practically halfway up his chest in the low chair. But he made no indication that this was bothering him, fully engaged in the imaginary play at hand. Shane secretly loved how fun a dad Ilya was, even if he feigned annoyance when Ilya was constantly spoiling the girls. He knew deep down that Ilya’s own father had not been so loving, so he recognized how healing Ilya’s relationship with his daughters and showering them with love was.
Giggles ensued as Shane made his way down the hall toward the open entrance of the doorway.
“No, Papa, you have to do it like this!” Emmy gently directs, picking up the pink teacup with her pinky extended as she demonstrates her slow, controlled slip.
“Do like what?” “Like this?” Ilya asks, as he takes a bendy straw off the table and starts blowing loud bubbles into whatever drink was in his cup. It was wishful thinking on Shane's part to hope it was just water.
Yuri explodes into a fit of giggles, grabs her own straw, and starts mimicking her father, only to splash juice all over her hair with her uncontrolled bubbles. Emmy sighs as she turns away to adjust her doll in one of the chairs. In the few seconds that Emmy is looking the other way, Ilya quickly piles a big spoonful of sugar into his own teacup, then Yuri’s. He winks at her and motions the shh motion before Emmy can turn back around to catch him, quickly stirring his cup like everything is fine. Shane has to stifle a laugh.
“Do you have room for another princess?” Shane interrupts.
Ilya’s face lights up as he looks up at his husband. Then Yuri and Ilya look at each other with a smile, as if they are carefully weighing this request. Ilya then quickly schools his smile and quips,
“You can be maid.”
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That is how Shane ends up with a yellow dish towel secured on his head by Emmy’s blue headband and a dustpan in his hand. He is tasked with sweeping the floor underneath them.
“I still do not know why I have to be the maid,” he grumbles.
“Well is perfect because you like things very clean,” Ilya explains matter-of-factly, like it makes perfect sense for three princesses like themselves to have a maid.
“Daddy doesn’t have to be a maid,” Emmy says, looking between her two fathers with a concerned look on her face. Always sensitive about the reactions of others.
“It’s okay, Emmy,” Shane reassures her, leaning over to kiss the top of her dark hair. He smooths his hand through the staticky strands.
“And anyway, I think the maid’s next job is to clean Yuri’s face,” he states, turning to glare at his husband. It is clear that Yuri was given candy before he arrived, despite the two of them agreeing on multiple occasions that Yuri does not need any extra sugar after naptime. She was already always bouncing off the walls without extra sugar in her system. Shane was mentally assigning Ilya to the role of extra bedtime stories tonight.
“Nooooo, Daddy,” Yuri slightly whines, trying to avoid the towel that had been taken off his hair to wipe her face.
“Yuri, sweetheart, there’s chocolate all over the corner of your mouth and juice all over your hands, and a knot forming in your hair,” Shane begins, refraining from stating the last part out loud.
Ilya realized it was time to cut his losses and resigned himself to helping Shane out. “Alright, you heard maid, is time for bath.” Ilya declares, starting to de-tangle Yuri’s dangling princess crown. She begins to whine further.
Always the spoiler of both his daughters, Ilya begins to reassure the younger one as he sweeps her up into his arms and shifts her onto his hip, “Don’t worry, I’ll add lots of bubbles for the printsessa.” He states, winking. Ilya turns to leave with Yuri in his hands, kissing her cheek as they exit toward the upstairs bathroom.
In their absence, Emmy leaned into her father’s shoulder, clear tiredness seeping back in from her day.
“Are you alright, Em?” Shane asks, rubbing her head.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” she says, getting up to neaten up the stuff on the table.
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Later that night, after Sayuri had been put to bed, and Emiliya is busy getting ready for bed, Ilya and Shane catch up on clean-up duty. As they load the dishwasher and rinse sticky teacups, Shane brings a cup to his mouth to taste the mystery juice. He quickly spits it out.
“What even is in here?” he sputters. It was a combination of sugar and sourness.
Ilya hesitates for a moment, “Eh, lemonade,…sugar,…I think Yuri put…maybe grape lollipop in it…more sugar.” Ilya starts smirking, now tormenting Shane a little.
“She had a lollipop? And she ate chocolate? Really Ilya?” Shane sighs. This is not the diet for a growing three-year-old, he thinks.
“Is not my fault that our daughter is half my genetics and did not inherit your boring interest in vegetables,” Ilya states easily, like it's an ordinary fact. “And is not my fault she has your eyes. She makes me melt when she wants something and looks up with those wide eyes, just like her father.”
Shane rolls said eyes and bumps Ilya out of the way as he attempts to mess up the dishwasher even more. Shane has a simple system that is inherently common-sense but apparently there were no dishwashers when Ilya was growing up in Russia since he somehow cannot load one correctly.
“I’ll take over and load the rest,” Shane says, lightly pushing away Ilya’s hand from contributing to more destruction.
“What? You do not like my system? Ilya asks, with offense. He comes up behind Shane and encircles his arms around his husband’s waist. Leaning in, he presses a soft kiss to the back of Shane’s neck, followed by a second tender kiss behind his ear. Even after all these years, Shane’s cheeks start to heat at how soft his husband can be, despite his known teasing and tormenting.
Shane comes back to earth and quickly laughs, backing up into Ilya, and doing a double take at the top rack of the dishwasher. “If your system includes trying to put bowls and cups every which way, then yes, I do not like your system,” he confirms, gesturing to the chaos in front of them.
Ilya snorts and quickly blows a raspberry on the side of Shane’s neck, then releases him from his arms. He then gets a mischievous look on his face.
“I guess if you want to throw away rest of the candy I bought, so girls do not eat more, I can get rid of Snickers bar I stashed in fridge for you.” He teases. “It will be no problem for me to eat it.”
“No shot Rozanov,” Shane quickly declares.
“Ahh so he doesn’t like boring vegetables all the time. I will have to remind you of that next time you are making us all eat gross peas off plate...”
“Speaking of food–” Shane interrupts “–I was unloading Emmy’s lunch and she barely touched anything in it. Did you happen to figure out what made her upset at school today?” Shane asks, worrying.
Ilya’s brow furrows. “No, I asked her, and she kept saying, ‘nothing’ and gave a sad look out window like lost puppy. That’s why I attempted to distract with juice and candy. I did not know she did not eat her lunch.”
“Should we call her teacher? Ask what happened?” Shane starts spiraling.
“Hollander, you are panicking. First grade is very tiring, yes? Learning how to spell and deciding who to play with at recess and such. She probably will be fine tomorrow.”
Shane was not reassured, so Ilya said, “I will pack her favorite tomorrow so she has no excuse not to eat it.”
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But the next day, Emmy once again came home with an uneaten lunch. Ilya reluctantly sent his husband a text after school that read, Came home with full lunch again today. Pelmeni untouched. Shchi untouched. She says ‘nothing’ is wrong again. Not eating pelmeni is something.
Shane quickly swore under his breath. Emmy loved the lunches that Ilya packed for her, and Ilya loved preparing them. After he retired from the NHL, he began learning to cook traditional Russian recipes from his childhood, wanting to share them with his daughters. Shane decided to cut his day short, hoping to get to the bottom of this before Emmy’s skating practice.
When Shane arrived home, he knocked gently on her bedroom door. When he did not get a response, he cracked it open. His daughter was busy getting ready for her after-school skating lessons, tying her hair into a ponytail. She seemed surprised that Shane was home early to take her to practice; usually, he met them there on Tuesdays because his own schedule ran late.
“I’m going to drive you to skating tonight. Papa will meet us there later. Meet me downstairs when you are ready, ok?”
She nodded, grabbing her skating bag and following Shane downstairs.
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Shane decided to broach the subject as he pulled the car into park. “So, do you want to tell me why you are not eating your lunch?” he asks, tentatively, looking back at his daughter through the rearview mirror. Emmy begins to look away, breaking eye contact.
“Papa said he made you pelmeni and shchi today. You love that. Was your stomach bothering you?” Shane inquires, carefully.
Emmy did not look up for a second, then finally silently shook her head no.
“Then what happened? Why did you not eat lunch for the second day in a row?”
Emmy’s lower lip began to wobble as she blinked back tears. She pauses before quietly saying, “The kids at school said my lunch looked funny. They said it smells.”
A pang hits Shane’s lower stomach. He was quickly reminded of the weird looks and comments he would get growing up whenever Yuna packed him traditional Japanese food, or he pulled out chopsticks to eat his school lunch. At the time he wondered why he could not have a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, as all of his friends did. Shane did not like peanut butter, but he thought it would have made things easier at the time. Now his daughter was experiencing some of the same things.
Shane turns toward his daughter. “When I was your age, sometimes the same thing happened to me with your grandmother’s Japanese food,” he began, taking her hand. “It made me feel sad, knowing that people thought my lunches were weird, just because they were different.” Emmy nodded in agreement, knowing what her father meant.
“So what did you do?” she whispered.
“Well, for a while, I stopped eating some of the food that was packed, because I did not want to take it out of my lunch box for people to see,” Shane stated. “But, I also realized how hard Grandma worked to make sure I had nice lunches. Grandpa noticed I wasn't eating, sat me down, and told me that Grandma woke up really early to put together my lunches. And I liked the food that she packed for me…So I tried to be brave at school, even when the kids did not understand.”
Emmy thinks this information over. “I like the food Papa packs me too.” She admits. Shane nods in agreement.
“Papa is very proud of what he makes you for lunch. He misses home sometimes, and cooking Russian food reminds him of his mother,” Shane states.
“...He will also understand if you want something else for lunch. But I know how much you like his meals. Just because people do not understand that the food you bring may look different, does not mean you can’t eat it at school.”
“I do want Papa’s food.” Emmy confirms. “It is way better than a peanut butter sandwich.” She looks up at her father. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I was being silly.”
Shane reaches back to kiss her forehead. “It’s not silly. Sometimes it can be hard being different. But Papa and I are so proud of you. And I know that you are brave.” Shane says. Emiliya nods. She starts to get antsy, mind already moving on to the next thing.
“Can I go skate now?” she asks.
“Yes, you can go skate,” Shane laughs.
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Ilya meets Shane in the arena stands, setting Yuri down with her coloring book and crayons. “Did you find out why nasha milaya dochen’ka is not eating lunch?” he quickly questions. “Does she want something else? I can make blini tomorrow?”
Shane stops his husband’s spiral. “She’s okay now. Kids were being mean about the food. We talked it over. She decided she loves what you pack for her, and she is going to be brave.”
Tension releases from Ilya’s shoulders. “Whoever does not like Russian food, has bad and boring taste. Even you like what I make you, and you are someone who likes rabbit food for meals.” he declares. “I will need to speak with these people giving moy donchen’ka hard time” Ilya states.
Shane rolls his eyes playfully. “I seriously doubt that Emmy wants you to speak with the other first graders at her lunch table, nor would her teacher let that happen.”
“Well, you may not know this but first-grade teacher is big hockey fan…”
“Oh is she? I still doubt that her love for hockey will permit you to interrogate six and seven-year-olds.”
Shane reaches out to rub his hand down his husband’s shoulder. “She is going to be okay. She loves your lunches. And I love that you make them such heartfelt food. Like my mom made me growing up.”
Ilya softens. “I just hate that children are being mean to her about it,” he grumbles.
“I do too. But we know better than anyone else that people do not always understand when you are different. She is going to learn that too, having two dads, from two different cultures. She is brave like you though.”
“You are brave too, moy lyubovnik.” Ilya leans in, kissing Shane’s head and wrapping his arm around his shoulder. “Ok, I will relax. But if anyone makes fun of food again, I will show up at lunch time.”
“Okay, I’m sure that will totally de-escalate the situation.”
“Maybe not…but she’s our little girl, da? No one messes with her. Or that one,” Ilya gestures toward Yuri, who has started to use the bleachers like it is a balance beam.
“Yeah, I know. I tend to be less worried about her–” he says, motioning his head toward Yuri, “–though. She seems less sensitive.”
Ilya considers this, then nods. “Yes, she is daredevil. Look at her imaginary balance beam right now. We must put in gymnastics. She is natural, and our family can then go to Summer Olympics as well.”
Shane laughs, “Oh, don’t you worry. Grandmomager Yuna is already on it.”
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The next day, before Emiliya leaves for school with the blini Ilya packed for her, Shane slips a Snickers bar into her lunchbag with a note that reads, I’m proud of how brave you are. Don’t tell your Papa I gave you candy. Or Yuri. Ya tebya lyublyu.