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.

.

New language then

.

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.


.

Boys will be boys

.

4 years

We miss you daddy-o.

Dearly.

.

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.

.

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?



.

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.


.

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.

.

I'm just letting off steam

The new job has been 'interesting'.

I'll be honest.

This is not some Michelle Pfeiffer movie where the pretty and tenacious teacher blows new educational life into deprived youths.

It didn't 'gel' with 3 of the 8 groups.

The director is a weak and egotistical man.

I told him that no, I will not be teaching said 3 classes (life's too short), but here we are now, 1 week later and I seem to be teaching 2 of the 3 again.

Meanwhile the husband is in a deep depression.

Son#2 was beaten with sticks by FIVE classmates (he managed to bite one of the little bastards), and has been recalcitrant and defiant ever since.

I, of course, complained to the highest echelons of our village school.

Son#3 is on multiple pairs of pants a day again.

Son#1 has been tested for IQ and whatnot.

He is very, VERY gifted but with a serious attention deficit disorder.

His teacher is reluctant to send him to a higher level school, going against the advice of the developmental specialist's findings.

Tomorrow it is work in the morning, Son#1's orthopedic surgeon and then his therapist in the afternoon.

The husband is going to a family birthday party with my in-laws (I wasn't invited) and my father-in-law is slowly losing his marbles.

Life in our nut house/shell.

.