my mother is the most beautiful woman in the world

Big brother and I have been reading my old copy of My Mother is the Most Beautiful Woman in World at bedtime this week. Like me, he is captivated by the descriptions of village life in a long-gone agricultural Ukraine. The pictures of fruits and veggies, the descriptions of pirgohki and blini, the big scythe are intriging to my little millenial.

Then, this morning, as we were madly dashing down the highway, late as usual, an enormous trailer carrying an excavator pulled out in front of us. Little brother, who had been shouting, "truck! truck" since we'd driven past a construction site fell silent in awe. "Momma," said big brother sotto voce, "you are the bestest momma in the whole world. I love you." Sometimes you get the credit for stuff totally beyond your realm of control.