It's a boy

Our new au pair, Maxim, arrived Friday from Russia. The kids are in heaven. We were always a little wary of having a young man, but after years of au-pair girls, I guess it’s time to admit that one moody female in the house is enough.

Let’s see… we’ve had Muriel from France, Sabine from Germany, Tatjana from Estonia, Xenia from Russia, Monica from Bulgaria, Darina from Russia and Maryna from the Ukraine. A couple of them were wonderful. But one was a drinker and heroin dabbler, one was a thief and another sat in the dark in the living room listening to Billie Holiday sing Gloomy Sunday and Strange Fruit.

Darina recommended Maxim. Since we liked her so much we figured he must be okay. We didn’t know then that he’s her boyfriend. But no matter -- the kids adore him. Miles keeps talking about his muscles and Luisa is batting her 10-year old eyelashes all around the house. On Sunday I came downstairs for breakfast with Miles to find Maxim’s shoes. Miles said, “Check out how big those are! Man, look at those shoes!” And he picks one of them up like a new baby. They’ve played hide and seek, they’ve play Monopoly, they’ve played Memory. Then Maxim fixed my bicycle and helped Carlo make dinner. Yup, it’s a real Wow World over at my house.

In poem news, the print journal River Oak Review accepted “Some Things I Didn’t Tell You about Tuesday.” I also got rejections from Frigg and Boxcar - I really like both of those so I plan to submit again. I’ve got such a bunch of poems in my file. I’m having a hard time coming up with appropriate places to submit them. Or I’m having trouble finding the time to come up with them, and go through with it.