A Different Christmas

For all the terms like 'darling gift wrapping paper', 'fabulous gifts under $50', all we really want this Christmas is for my brother to survive.

He was knocked off his motorbike on Thursday afternoon, suffering massive chest injuries with 14 broken ribs, collapsed lungs and multiple fractures of his pelvis.

He cannot breathe on his own and they are still draining air and blood from his lungs.

Induced coma.

He must be in terrible pain underneath all those drugs. 

The horrid, horrid part is being 14000km away.

If you are the praying kind, please say a prayer for my Theo.

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Thursday is coming

My mum is coming on Thursday, not having seen her for nearly 2 years and having gone slightly mad.

I wish I were more competent at Life, that all was organized and clear and healthy, but that's not my life.

Perhaps everyone struggles like I do but put on a brave face? 

Today is one of those tired, let's-skedaddle-to-Spain days, paint some/write some/plant some/wine some and just BE.

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Don't answer, just think

I sent the husband off to a lecture on Zen & Happiness.

He came back with the instructions:

1. Do some form of exercise

2. Meditate

3. Ponder the question: What is happiness?

And strangely, that question makes one look at life a bit differently. 

Try it.

It is hellishly hot, yesterday reaching a sticky 31.5 degrees.

It was a restless night.

Work is and remains stressful.

Like my mom, I was made to read books, potter around in gardens and study.

I want nothing more.

My director asked me to stay on next year.

And I think I'll do it, if just to eliminate new situations that require new adjustments.

I've been invited for most of the jobs I applied for, but they are all at high schools.

When an interviewer asks what I like most about adolescents, I've noticed that my 'School Holidays' answer doesn't go down well.

This morning, my last bid for freedom before the May holiday starts at noon, I'm asking myself what happiness is in Breda, drinking lovely coffee in a lovely cafe in the sun.

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Feisty

It's been a month of flu for all of us.

As I write, Son#2 is on Virus#2 (or #3 or #4, not sure anymore), and a 39 degree fever.

No school for him today.

I'm still snot-snotting through my own phletora of flu bugs.

I've taken steps to enrol Son#1 in a Rudolf Steiner school where he'll get the opportunity to mature a lot more before the Dutch school system decides his future.

We need the cooperation of his current school, and I don't like that part of relinquishing influence and control.

Let's just cross fingers and see how it goes.

Last night, the husband and I went to Son#3's musical which was held in the little Protestant church on our street.

A boy sitting next to him said something to make Son#3 cry a bit during the show.

During last week's parent-teacher meeting, I heard that Son#3 is getting bullied a bit.

One of the bullies was the boy sitting next to him.

For all his cleverness, kindness and humour, Son#3 is a very fragile soul.

Luckily we're back to summer time.

Outside my study window, the pear tree is just about to burst into bloom.

Everything grows and renews itself.

Even the munched-down box hedges that were attacked by the horrid European box tree moth plague in the summer.

We've organized a home exchange with someone in the South of France for the last week in April. 

It will be our first break since the summer last year.

Just 4 weeks and we're off.

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When you're weary, feeling small

Son#1 is struggling at school.

When a sky-high IQ, ADHD and performance don't go together, schools drop you like a hot cake.

This past week was ridiculous.

A test every day.

Plus homework.

He did poorly, poor thing.

His (Dalton) school was a poor choice.

The meeting with his teacher was what we expected:

Thou shalt perform, or get sequestered to the lower grades.

In other words: Son#1 will do work far below his level, mixed with kids that don't match his intelligence.

Where do you then dig up hope and stimulation to feel motivated?

The husband and I both work.

We cannot guide him in all his many school projects and tests.
And when you know that 30-60% of highly gifted kids never finish school, you worry.

Meanwhile, I'm so tired that I can't bring myself to do anything.

Laundry shmaundry.

Studies - pah, for idiots.

Just give me sleep, a million bucks and a year in Spain.

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African childhood

My brother, my cousin, and I.

In the subtropics, where you grow up in the swimming pool and Santa Clause wears shorts.

Squish over to early middle age where one gets ZERO attention from the opposite sex anymore and one lives in a freezer.

The corners of my mouth are turning down, like I smell something distasteful.

Mmmmmm.

I had to pick sick  Son#3 up from school early.

I fed him oreos while we snoozed on the couch.

Tomorrow the cleaner may or may not show up, 

we just don't know.

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Just soar

We are all busy - too busy if you ask me.

Poor Son#1 went from no homework to writing 5 tests a week, some of them covering a whopping 9 chapters.

Plus homework on top of that.

Just to put it into perspective: he is 12.

How on earth learning is supposed to be fun this way is beyond my scope of comprehension.

It slobbers and gobbles up our lives, having to stay home and study every single weekend.

There is my work, the husband's work, Son#2's homework, music lessons, medical appointments, my studies and an inability to stay upright after 7 p.m.

One can't get much done lying down, so my window of activity is tiny.

Son#2 and I go to bed together every night, until the husband picks him up and carries him to bed. 

I spoke to my mum and we talked about obstacles & how I keep thwarting my own success.

I seem to always trip myself up.

I'm listening, mother dearest.

Shake off the shite.
Love yourself a little.
Don't be afraid.

Just soar.


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Milestones and what have you

Son #2 turned a whopping 10 this past week.

Mr Double Digits.

May it be a good year, Bucky.

He's such a good kid.

Carnival came and went.

I studied a lot and tried to get Son#1 to do the same.

It was semi successful.

The husband goes up and down on the Depression Scale.

My friend Sandra, whom I saw today, does the same.

I think that if you keep disturbing the water with your resistance to life, you'll never have a clear reflection of yourself and your life.

And at the end of the day, we die anyway.

Might as well make the very best of each day, right?

Caring all the time is draining, debilitating and I burn out to a crisp if it continues too long.

I send the husband to his parents.

The kids look after themselves.

I'm taking a shower and it's not even 18h00.

This is how we roll.

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A hard day's night

...and I've been working like a dog.

Sigh.

I spent this week in work hyperdrive, trying to finish everything before next week, a school holiday, arrives.

My first break since August that I won't be working.

11 hours behind a computer today.

Sigh.

Oh to run away and live a simple life with no-one around, arid ground, grasses and succulents, blazing sun and lots of books.

Where did we go wrong???

It's snowing and bitterly cold.

The kids had Carnaval at school.

Son#1 is still ill, poor bunny.

He's lost 5 kg (and there wasn't much flesh on those bones anyway).

Next week Tuesday there will be Carnaval floats driving past our house again, and I'll have to think of some outing so we can escape its madness.

Carnaval is not my thing.

If one is serious-minded/a nerd/boring-but-happy-that-way, having to defend one's anti-frivolous stance is tough. 

I don't 'get' frivolous.

Does that make sense?

For now, just rest.

Son#2, who falls asleep in my bed every night, is snoozing next to me.

He smells nice and I love him.

Louise the cat will come along shortly, sleeping on my feet all night.

She's half dog, I'm sure.

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Escapism 101

Sunday blues.

I've been running through all my 'how to avoid work tomorrow' -scenarios since midnight.

I catch myself typing words like 'escaping' and 'running away' in Google, hoping to find out what it looks like.

No answers yet.

Sons#2 and #3 are high on energy while Son#1 has swollen glands, a heavy cough and raccoon eyes.

No school tomorrow.

I have no idea how he'll catch up all his school work, considering he doesn't even keep up with regular homework...

We took Things #2 and 3 to the park in Breda to get rid of surplus energy.

Home, tv and a bit of red wine.

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Runrunrunrunrunaway

Son#1 has been ill for 3 days.

This morning we left the house to alleviate his cabin fever, & drove to Dordrecht for nice coffee.

He hangs and sags a lot, coughs his lungs out.

No longer a little boy, he's quickly catching up to my 1,74 m.

It is terribly cold, the bone-gnawing kind and we drove back from Dordt in snowy rain.

I left my piles and piles of exams at work - this will be the first weekend since September that I won't work or prepare. 

I should, but I won't [read: can't].

An oeuf is an oeuf

[enough = enough]

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Culmination-Elimination-Fascination

If there is one thing that my physical rehab taught me, it is that I can let go.

Not should let go.

Can.

Life ain't perfect.

The husband is still smack-bang in his existential crisis (i.e. not perfect).

Our boys are still weird and strangely round pegs in square holes (not perfect), subjected to our imperfect parenting and provision.

The house is crumbling on the one side with a tree growing from the gutter.

The bathroom is well past its sell-by date.

The utterly imperfect cleaner with her soap opera-life imperfected our already imperfect kitchen floor

(one thing I have been unable to let go).

My sleep, body, motivation, pain levels, work attitude, perpetual hope and kindness also suffer.

But it's okidoki, you know.

We are born and we die and inbetween events engulf us over which we have zero control.

We make the best of it.

My perfectly alcohol-free January turned out to be slightly imperfect too.

And I'm okay with that.

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New language then

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The smoking gun

This year was different.
The husband and I both started new jobs.
We have grown closer, more honest, and I love it and him.

Son#1 started high school, struggling with focus and homework and a tempo he still hasn't grown used to.
We clash a lot in getting him to SIT, FOCUS, STUDY and BE INTERESTED.
It doesn't always help.
My first born also started heavy ADHD medication, and flashes in and out of puberty (because hell, why not?).
He remains a worry:  the school coordinator told me that he is Pupil Zero - the shining example of how the school should never, EVER approach gifted kids again.
Heartwarming (not).

Son#2 is doing better at school this year - apparently he is somewhat of an Alpha Male on the playground - who would have thought?
The Alpha with the tiny heart.
Mr Overcompensation.  
If you don't want to be bullied anymore, Become the Bully.
Mmmmm.

Son#3 still milks his baby-status, a bit bored at school, and we're still in two minds about sending him to a school for the highly gifted.
One can only tell in retrospect if a decision was the right one, after all.
We made a mistake with Son#1, methinks.

Aside from the fact that I fervently hope and trust that I will win the Lottery this evening, I also hope to drink less, eat better, sleep more, study hard and love even harder this coming year.
And think of the sick and displaced people around the world who only wish to survive this coming year, if they even think that far ahead.
Not only think of them, but DO something about it.

This year was good and bad.  
We did wonderful things - Canada and Amsterdam and museums and dinners together, 

Hopefully, when 2018 is done and dusted and I'm still around, I will have answers to health questions that still won't leave me be, and will I have a life that isn't defined by constant and pounding pain, fever and fatigue 24/7.
Some days I cannot imagine carrying on like this any longer.

I have a family and a job and one keeps going.

To conclude, I am thankful - for the family, for the job that kept me going despite pain and fatigue.
For trips abroad and closer by.
Enough money, enough food.
We're not displaced people.
Just a bit sick.
It can always be far worse.


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Boys will be boys

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4 years

We miss you daddy-o.

Dearly.

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Hallowed

Son#1 had his first school dance last night.

We decked him out with fake blood, fake stitches and a cheapo children's chainsaw.

He was still sleeping when Son#3 and I left for swimming lessons.

I've spent my week studying science philosophy for social sciences and of course, working and avoiding my colleagues.

I've never worked in such a team of mean and unthinking people.

The stupid/mean combination is lethal.

Kindness!!!!

Above everything!!!!

I won't be staying there for long, methinks.

One reflects one's environment after a while, and I miss intelligent, THINKING colleagues that I had at the university.

Oh well.

A quiet weekend lies ahead.

Looking for kids' winter clothes in the attic.

Work preparation.

Cleaning the house.

And perhaps to a museum in Dordrecht where the Netherlands was declared a country.

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Ground Control to Major Tom

We've had a strange autumn break.
The husband and I went to Maastricht and Aachen on Saturday and Sunday (the boys were dropped off at the in-laws').
On Monday an emotional funeral for the husband's uncle, who passed away due to a brain tumour.
The boys' behaviour was exemplary.

The rest of the week was spent trying to clean the mess after our cleaning lady failed to show up - again.
She has problems, but hell, so do I.

Things #1 and #2 have been butting heads and various other limbs all week.

Today was Son#3's swimming lesson during which I get to spend a blissful hour studying every week.

Then groceries and the husband took the boys down to the little beach with pond we recently discovered, about 5 minutes from home.

They took the metal detector with and 'found' some coins (which the husband had scattered).

Son#2's friend was there too, swimming, in this cold.
Of course, the temptation to get wet far outweighed Son#2's sensibilities.
Live a little.
Right?



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Still here

All has been quiet on the Western front.
My not-so-new-anymore job at the vocational college is still going strong, but working 4 days a week with 3 mad children, Midlife Crisis Man and some vague autoimmune disease kind of sucks the life juices out of you.

Healthwise, nothing much has changed.
Son#1 has started high school and puberty, we fight often and chaotically.
If I have to spend another 5 years forcing him to do his homework, I may not survive...

Winter is well on its way and this adjustment period with my new job/life away from the varsity seems like summer has been swallowed and digested - a looooong time ago already.

The husband has started a new job and he, like me, is slightly autistic and change scares the bejesus out of us.
But, like Meryl Streep told students at Barnard: There is no normal, only change.

Only change.


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Holiday

Hallelujah, it's time for a break, albeit for a week.

We started off with a bang and bruise.

Son#3 got smacked with a stick (by accident) in gym class, and sports a gorgeous blue shiner.

We went to a pancake restaurant last night where Son#2 flapped his right foot inwards, spraining his ankle spectacularly.

He and I were in hospital until midnight last night.

Then the morning started off well until Son#3, out of the blue, vomited all over the comforter on my bed, and over my bedroom floor.

Sometimes it just sucks being an adult (I said to myself whilst scraping vomit out of the grooves between the floorboards).

Oh well.

At least we don't have to go anywhere.

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