Imagination is a double-edged sword. Now when Klara demands ice-cream (a new toy, a visit from her cousin, etc), I begin serving imaginary ice-cream or playing with an imaginary cousin, and she happily joins the game. But it cuts both ways, as I recently discovered.

Klara declared that she wanted to go to the playground instead of school.

“You have to go to school,” I explained, “because I need to work.”

“Why you need to work, Mommy?” she asked.

“Because I need to make money.”

“You need money?” Klara asked. “Here is money for you!”

And she handed me a stack of imaginary bills.

“Now you have money and we go to the playground!” she declared brightly.

This kid is not even two and a half years old, and she’s already smarter than me.

And for those who don’t have time for links, here is a really really wonderful quote:

One of the kindest things you can do for the people you love is to develop more emotional autonomy. Managing your own emotions, anxieties, and feelings of self-worth gives other people back their lives.

That. Is. So. True.

Forget adults. Imagine when those people are children who would like their lives back.

And here is a really great one on sex in long-term relationships. A total eye-opener.

A great article on motherhood from a real psychologist. I’m one of the people who gets into murderous rages when hearing the phrase “they did the best they could at the time,” so this one is refreshing.

I’m starting a summer clean eating marathon where I’ll be doing new fun recipes every day in order to try to change my very Ukrainian way of eating for good. I don’t think I’ll be able to publish all the recipes but I’ll share many of them. Here is the very first one.

For an easy transition, this is a cucumber salad with very Eastern European undertones yet a lot lighter than anything we eat as a standalone meal.

Cucumbers are spiralized and marinated overnight with thinly shaved red onions in somr vinegar with a bit of honey. On the next day, fresh dill and some plain yogurt are added. Salt, pepper to taste. Here you can see a slice of Ukrainian bread and a detox beverage (apple, lemon, ginger.)

If you add three pork kotlety, a pile of mashed potatoes and a dessert of cherry varenyky, this would be a very recognizable Ukrainian meal. But I’m trying to transition to a cleaner, lighter menu.

P.S. Fresh dill can’t be found in stores around here and farmers charge ridiculous prices sensing my desperation. In Ukraine, dill is a weed. Nobody pays for it. I totally need to start growing my own because I don’t have many dill-free summer recipes.

Women who try to obtain any medical treatment are asked about their menstrual cycles and sex life, on the off chance that they are pregnant, and not believed if they say it can’t be so. Medical procedures or prescriptions – all of them, basically – which can possibly lead to a miscarriage are now a malpractice suit concern. Soon they will be a manslaughter concern. Women won’t be able to go to the doctor.

Where are people getting all this from? I can’t get even my OB-GYN to evince this much interest in my cycle. I’ve been in and out of doctors’ offices in recent years (give birth earlier rather than later, ladies, if at all possible), and I’ve noticed none of this. I had to pee on a stick before the surgery last month but there was a lot more grilling on whether I smoke (it can impact anaesthesia if you are not honest, so be honest) and whether I’m allergic to anything on the planet.

I’m sure no doctor wants to provoke a miscarriage, and if they do, they shouldn’t be in the medical profession because they are mentally ill. But if anything, it’s too easy to get procedures and medication in this country if you have insurance. Maybe we should fret about the really serious problems with the medical insurance business in this country and about the people who have no insurance at all instead of coming up with these delusional scenarios.

As for women not being believed when they say they can’t be pregnant, this is a really childish statement. Just last week I had a conversation with a woman who desperately wanted to get pregnant, had been trying to get pregnant, got pregnant, developed obvious symptoms, and went to a doctor whom she tried to persuade she must be seriously ill because she couldn’t possibly be pregnant. A doctor who “believes” instead of administering the easiest, most non-invasive test in history is a quack. And the woman who knew she couldn’t be pregnant now has a beautiful, adored toddler.

OK, why is the friends post so popular? You’d think I have a thousand friends and they all read it trying to guess if it’s about them.

I’ll never get why some things get hugely popular and others don’t.

I’m proud of myself. I just maneuvered my way out of a developing meltdown of the “I don’t want a shower, I don’t want bedtime, I want caaaaaandy!!!!” proportions with a hunt for imaginary color-striped tigers. We hunted tigers all over the shower, then all over the bedroom, and then into bed, with happy giggles.

I’ve had a bastard of a day and still managed to come up with the tigers on the fly. I feel a sense of accomplishment.

OK, at least it’s not the Amy person. That one was all death to Roe and right now. Scary lady. So that’s good news.

What does anybody know about this Kavanaugh fellow? I was fixating on the Amy scare and failed to find out.

My friend is a SAHM. If she read this blog, we could ask her if she ever felt anything but 100% supported by me in that. And I know what the answer would be because I do sincerely and completely support her. Actually, all of my close female friends don’t work outside the home. And I sincerely and completely support them. I don’t start every encounter (or any encounter at all) with, “So. . . Had any job interviews recently? No? Why not?” I have zero desire to do that because interrogating my friends’ lives is the last thing I want to be doing. I have more desire to go canvass for Trump. And I really have no desire to do that at all.

As judgmental as I am on the blog, I’m the most non-judgmental, supportive and loyal person on the planet with my friends. If you are my friend and you want to paper all walls in your house with Putin’s portraits, I love you, accept you, and never question you. This is not a hypothetical. I have a friend who is a non-working, child-free, antifeminist, Ukrainian-hating Putinoid. And from her point of view, I must be a child-crazy feminazi Ukrainian nationalist and hater of Mother Russia. Ask her if it marred our friendship in any way.

To me, having people you love unconditionally is the whole point of friendship. What’s the point otherwise? To escape boredom? I have DVR and Netflix, I’m never bored.

I just don’t understand the concept of friendship that some people have. Isn’t it easier to accept that somebody is the way she is and enjoy the friendship without constantly struggling with the knowledge that she’s not you? I like myself a fair bit but I don’t need my friends to be me. They are different. And that’s actually a good thing.