The host of the new show “Everybody Dance!” told Antenna about whether her husband was keeping track of her spending, why her daughters had such unusual names, and what helped her get back in shape after giving birth.
March 25 2017
– I am the very first girl on the dance floor at all discos. I will hear cool music, start dancing so wild that it is impossible to stop. But this is an emotional dance, little technical. I have never studied professionally. I still plan to go to Zhenya’s school, he beckons me, but there is no time yet. We’ll probably postpone dancing until retirement.
– Of course it happens. And I think that the mood does not need to be forced. So, we have been given such a day to feel other emotions, analyze what annoys and what needs to be removed from life. And the bad mood is not endless. I heard my favorite song, met a friend on the street – and life is getting better.
– We often draw with our daughters, and it is easy for me to portray any of their wishes. But there is no such thing to paint in oil. The easel is gathering dust in the corner, the canvases behind the cupboard. But, I hope, someday there will be time or such inspiration will visit that I simply cannot do it without paints and brushes.
– They watch them a little, as we limit them to watching TV. The youngest, Iris (she is one year and seven months old. – Approx. “Antenna”), is just beginning to show interest in them, and the eldest, Muse (she is three years old), likes “The Bremen Town Musicians”, “Kitten Called Woof”, from the latter – “Trolls”. First, she watched it in Russian, and then I put the song of Justin Timberlake in the original for her, and she asked to play her a cartoon in English. I didn’t think that she would sit out that much, but she could. Although she “sat out”: when the song sounded, Muse jumped up and began to dance, if the heroes hugged, she also rushed to hug everyone with everyone. In general, while this is her favorite cartoon, she calls herself the Princess Rose, our dad is the Pink King, and for some reason mom is a cook.
– I don’t think that parents have the right to forbid children to do what they like, if this, of course, does not go beyond the law. For example, skateboarding is a traumatic sport, I understand that children break their arms and legs, but if I see fire in my eyes, enthusiasm, I think it’s cruel to forbid them to do this. But if we take the popular roofers now – people who climb onto the roofs of houses without insurance, then this, in my opinion, is too dangerous, I would like to protect children from such hobbies.
– My family and I were vacationing in the New York village of Lake Placid and in a local shop we bought a book where this advice was printed. Why not, we decided. We were far from the metropolis, in the mountains, there is crystal clear snow, and we tried it.
– I travel so much, I have so many friends with incredible names that I don’t see anything extraordinary in the names of my daughters. The name Musa was suggested by her husband. I didn’t immediately agree, I said, if I don’t think of anything cooler, we’ll stop at it. When my daughter was born and I saw her saucers-eyes, I realized that she would definitely inspire everyone and be her Muse. With the second child it turned out to be more difficult, we realized that we had driven ourselves into a dead end, because we can no longer call our daughter simply Masha, suddenly she grows up and is indignant: “Why was my sister called Muse, and me with such a common name?” Or vice versa, Muse will be upset that she is not Masha. In general, I had to rack my brains. This responsibility was dumped on me, they say, my husband had already invented one name. Initially there was an option – Iris, since Irises are my favorite flowers. But then the U2 album was released, on which one of the songs was called “Iris” – this is a dedication to the mother of the lead singer of the group Bono, that was her name. I immediately remembered the writer Iris Murdoch, who has an amazing sense of humor, and decided to call my daughter that. And when she was born, my husband and I realized that all the signs came together right, because she looks like a little flower.
– And Alexei is very clever. He plays with them in any games, they dress him up, recently bought face paints, and decorate him now in a tiger cub, now in a kitten. Musa is also learning to weave pigtails, and dad has long hair, so this is a real holiday for her. They twist ropes out of him, and he doesn’t mind. And what kind of fairy tales he composes on the go – I can only marvel. For example, before going to bed, the husband tells Muse about Rapunzel, and she stops him and says: “I don’t want to talk about Rapunzel, but I want to talk about … a bat”. And even though you crack, tell me. And at lunch we can declare: “I will not eat until you tell the tale about borscht.” Aleksey deftly composes on the go, and I go to the Internet and enter the “fairy tale about borscht” into the search engine. Believe it or not, it turns out that there are fairy tales about everything in the world: about potatoes, a spoon, space. Here you sit and read.
– No, of course, he is not able to track that constant cycle of things in my wardrobe. And, fortunately, it doesn’t track spending. Understands that I have a head on my shoulders, the concept of a family budget and some kind of framework. Yes, we already ate all these expensive brands … At some point everyone made a lot of money and started driving expensive cars, wearing Hermès bags, and now I look at them and think: “Well, what will this bag give me?” In general, I drive a smart car and wear sneakers. The profession is enough for me, where they dress me up, make me beautiful, and then I change clothes and go home in whatever is comfortable.
– You always want to pack your suitcase in advance, but it never works. Therefore, I always do this on the night before departure, when the children are already asleep. Otherwise, there is a risk of missing some things. More than once there have been situations when we arrive, open our suitcase and cannot find the thing we need. “I swear I put this T-shirt on,” I assure my husband. But someone managed to pull it out and upon our return we find this T-shirt somewhere under the sofa. So now I’d better not sleep at night, but I’ll be sure that everything is in place: medicines, my cosmetic bag, clothes, plus a bag that you take into the plane’s cabin: there should be the necessary toys, coloring books, plasticine.
– I don’t need to fundamentally correct anything, and if I decided on something, it would be more likely for a rejuvenating procedure. I haven’t done any plastic surgery yet, but I don’t exclude this possibility. Now such technologies, everything is done with tiny punchers, two days of rehabilitation – and again in the ranks.
– After the first birth I quickly got in shape, and everything was so wonderful that during the second pregnancy I, of course, relaxed. Plus there was also a very short break between the daughters, the body simply did not have time to fully recover, including hormones. In general, I gained a lot of extra pounds, and it was extremely difficult to lose them. When Iris was 6 months old, I was offered to run a charity half marathon. At first I refused. “What are you, – I say, – I am feeding, I have 20 extra kilos, where will I run?” To which I was told that, on the contrary, it was my chance to get back in shape. And away we go: five workouts a week, dietary restrictions, terrible stress. But it worked. And the most important thing that I learned from this marathon is that I liked running. I used to think that running is not mine at all, well, 2-3 kilometers still all right, and then what to do? I listened to all the music, changed my mind, made plans for the future, and then started downloading audiobooks, so I listened to the fat “Goldfinch” by Donna Tart. And at some point I realized that this is the only time in my life when I can be alone with myself. Because you wake up, immediately children, then work, then household chores, constant whirlwind, and so you go to bed and think: now I’ll talk to myself, and immediately turn off. I even read that running is called a modern form of meditation. Thoughts are laid out on the shelves, people are drawn in a different light, you think you don’t need to call this, since he himself did not show up and so easily let go of the person. And on the contrary, you let someone into life. In general, this is such an introspection that I really liked and now I continue to run.
– It’s difficult to imagine. 10 years ago I could not answer this question. And now I am at a loss. What exactly: I will be just as burdened with children, they will grow up, and big children, as you know, are in big trouble. I hope everything will be just fine with us, and I also hope to see myself happy in 10 years. I think this is the main criterion. If you are happy, everything works out for you. And if not, then it is too hard work to conquer this life.