Page 3 of The Nanny Goal

This is terrible timing if she is. I have a home game tonight, and then tomorrow we get on the team plane and fly out to St. Louis and then Detroit for two road games.

He shrugs. “Indigestion,” he replies in Russian. “She was up all night. I can cook.”

He can, but in his own way.

Not to my nutritional needs and not to my daughter’s preferences.

“I’ll make eggs,” I offer. “If you want some bacon, go ahead, but none for us.”

Hopefully my mother is feeling better by the time I need to leave for morning skate at the arena. My dad is a doting grandfather, but he doesn’t know how to care for a toddler the same way my mother does.

So, we’ll let her sleep in and hope for the best, but plan for the worst. Like tiring out my tiny tyrant girl. “Maybe I’ll take Inessa out for a walk this morning, hmm?”

My daughter’s eyes light up. “Walk?”

My dad mutters something else in Russian under his breath, and again I restrain myself from engaging.

He doesn’t think I should speak English to Inessa. But she gets enough Russian from them, and I want her to be fully bilingual.

I want them to speak more English as well, but that’s a harder fight.

They’ve been in Canada for two years, and they don’t believe me that this is the hardest part. I’ve been here for ten years, since I was eighteen, and to them, my English is beyond reach. I know it’s not, because I remember just how much my vocabulary has grown in the last two years by being really conscious about using it more and no longer relying on teammates to translate for me.

And in the last year, it’s been supercharged because I don’t have a Russian teammate, unlike in Calgary. The team does have a Russian-speaking trainer on staff, but the only conversations where I’ve allowed myself to rely on her to translate have been very technical discussions with medical jargon.

My dad puts an espresso in front of me, then makes one for himself. I sip at it as we eat blueberries, then Inessa finally starts talking. “Papa make toast?”

“Of course.” I pick her up out of her highchair and set her down. “Do you want to help?”

When she nods, I prompt her.

“Get the bread you want.”

She opens the bread drawer and swings a bag of sandwich loaf at me with the enthusiastic aggression of a rookie D-man, whacking me on the leg. “This one.”

“Gentle,” I remind her.

She laughs, an out loud cackle.

We definitely need to go to the park. As soon as she has toast in her little belly, she’ll be zooming upstairs looking for her babushka.

I sweep her into my arms and spin around before depositing her back in the highchair.

“Papa,” she chastises.

I grunt at her, unswayed. I need her confined while I cook.

That gets another laugh, and I distract her with more grumpy dad noises until there’s buttered toast on her tray.

I’ve also managed to cook some scrambled eggs in the same time. They’re basic but good enough. I’ll eat again when I get to the arena for morning skate.

Once we’re both fed, I get Inessa changed into warm clothes. They don’t match, and she keeps her unicorn nightgown on underneath, but nobody at the park will care about fashion choices.

Outside, it’s brighter than it has been maybe all winter, and Inessa throws her hands up at the sky in delight.

“It’s sunny,” I say in English.

She doesn’t repeat it, and I don’t prompt her. I’ll save my Dad voice for when she needs to listen to me for safety reasons on our walk.

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