A Walk at Dusk

A walk at dusk with my son is exactly what we needed as a mother and son. Alexei had been wrestling with the idea of going to Russia when we first came back from Vladivostok.

I decided to ask my son to go on a walk one evening while the sky darkened to a pale twilight.

"Alexei, would you like to take a walk with Mama?" I held out my hand and he ran down the stairs.

"I want to walk with Mama! Bye, Papa," he yelled up the stairs. We shut the door and set out. He held my hand and for moments I tried to make a permanent imprint in my mind the feeling of his small hand in mine. The trees rustled with the breeze and we continued to walk down the quiet street.

"Alexei, Mama and Papa need you to go to Russia with us to pick up your sister. We are coming back, all of us on a plane." I paused, "I need for you to come with us on the plane, can you do this?" I could see his little black converse tennis shoes kicking up some of the gravel along the side of the pavement.

"Pick up my sister?" he asked.

"Da, you, Mama, Papa and your sister. We will stay in a hotel, play tennis if you want, play every day if you want, watch movies and be together, then we will come back and see grandma and grandpa at home."

"Okay, I go to Russia." We walk along and I point to a maple tree.

"Do you want to touch the tree?" I ask. He has always been so curious about the trees, flowers and his surroundings since I brought him home.

"Yes, pick me up." I hold him up to the leaves and he touched them, rubbing the leaf between his fingers.

"Cool huh? They have all turned green for spring. See the flowers?" Pointing to a small patch of purple daisies.

"Flowers," he repeats. "The moon! The moon!" He points into the sky and there is a bright full white moon.

"It's beautiful Alexei!"

"Yes, moon is beautiful. We fly up there in a plane to Russia next to the moon?" he asks.

"We fly in a plane to Russia in the sky, yes."

He says, "Okay Mama, I will go to Russia to pick up my sister."

There is nothing more intense at times than the bond between mother and son. A communication that tugs at my heart and feels complete. This week his suitcase arrived with his name on it, a back pack and a dvd case. The day the package arrived, I had not realized he had taken his other dvd case and chosen what movies to bring with him and put them in his new one and packed his suitcase with his favorite monkey, Buzz Lightyear and toys he wanted to bring with him.

At one point he rolled the suitcase to the door and said, "Let's go to Russia now."

If you feel like no matter what you say, things do not seem to be connecting or your toddler feels overwhelmed, a quiet walk seems to bring this mother and son together on a whole other level.