Friday Flashback

The Box! Yep, one of the all time favorite toys. Forget what came in the box, just give me the box. That was Henry's attitude. This box happened to contain diapers. It served as entertainment for him for many months until he outgrew it.

Also, you might notice that he is playing with a Matryoshka doll. I brought this home as one of his souvenirs from his birth country.

A Matryoshka doll or a Russian nested doll is a set of dolls of decreasing sizes placed one inside the other.

This is actually one of the two that I brought back for him. This is a traditional one, almost identical to the one featured in "The Littlest Matryoshka" by Corinne Demas Bliss. Henry received this book for "Family Day" in 2008 from Nana. At first, he wasn't too sure about it. He didn't want to be bothered with it. Undeterred, I started reading it aloud at the dining room table. Before too long, he had joined me and was avidly following along. Now, it is often selected as a favorite bedtime story. However, when it is told, we must have at hand his matching Matryoshka doll so that we can make the comparisons of how much alike they are.

The other set of Matryoshka dolls that I brought home is much more elaborate and has many more dolls (10, I think). It is kept in a safe place of honor on the trophy shelf that surrounds Henry's room. On occasion, we get it down and open them all out and make a big deal about counting them all. Then they are all stacked neatly once more inside of each other and placed back into the safe place of honor.

I feel it is important to keep Henry connected to his Russian heritage. He asked me one day this week what an "alien" was. Boy, how do you answer that as there are just too many contexts to cover. But it did bring us back to the definition of someone that is visiting another country. It was a great lead in to explain that he obtains dual citizenship. He thought it was pretty neat that when I take him back to Russia, he won't be an alien, but I will. Of course, this conversation also prompted him to announce that he knows how to speak Russian...afterall, he is a Russian citizen!

And so the education continues...for both of us!