My First Love Affair

This is a blog with no photos. It is only a story about falling in love in Prague.

Pasha is a wild child who can't sit still and doesn't like to listen. He smiles over his shoulder at me just before he is about to do something ridiculously naughty. "I don't think so." I say to him, as he turns the bathroom tap on and off several times. "Are you kidding me?" is for picking up food off the floor and putting it in his mouth.

My little man comes to school in suspenders sometimes, he loves to play with them and they are an unfortunate distraction. But so handsome. "Yesh, please!" Pasha shouts when I give him more apples. He loves apples. Sometimes he loves them so much, he'll jump into my arms and plant a kiss on my eye, or chin, or ear. Sometimes he throws his shoes at me.

Nap time is especially hairy. Three year olds must sleep, but Pasha thinks he's 35. It was time for an intervention and I came into his nap room with a plan: wrangle him to sleep. He fought. He kicked at me, punched at me, and of course, screamed and cried like I was torturing him French-Algerian style. I held him like I was a swaddling cloth and bit my tongue, letting him go for it.

Thirty minutes later, I felt a head roll onto my shoulder. I looked down at my victory and fell madly in love with the little boy in my lap, his little devil eyelashes finally not fluttering, and listened to him snore his little snores.

I travelled halfway across the world to teach, to live, to learn, and to love. Ticking those boxes, every day.