Yesterday morning I brought the two boys to school and it was such a normal day. Caleb stayed home with papa. I came back home to find him on papa’s lap, and for probably the first time in his little life, he preferred to stay with papa. With a very self aware smile, he looked at me, pretending to be a little shy. And then his face went back to the baby Einstein movie he was watching on papa’s phone. Total bliss radiated from his face.
As we sat there adoring our youngest, we were interrupted. A friend called on papa’s phone, to ask us if we had heard about Zaventem. We had not. A few seconds later we were scrolling through the newswebsites, looking for the very latest bit of news.
Yes, we now knew.
1 casualty. 4?casualties. 6. Up it went, along with another explosion. And so as far as we know right now, the count is up to?34. A lot of others wounded.
After reading the news, I went with my sister to wash her car and buy fresh milk. It was a nice day. Sunny. Summery. Trees with blossoms and birds that sing and life goes […]
In this world there are buttercups and baby toes and tiny little dewdrops.
Also, there’s evil that barges in with a shattering silence, shooting heartache into the world. They shoot it into lives while shooting away lives.
Me? I don’t know what the “should”s are that I ought to do.
Should I focus on the pretty, on the cute? Leave the heartbroken to fend for themselves? Or Should I focus on the pain, the broken things and
Do I keep myself safe, guard my children fiercely and only?
There might be a balance to do both, but I dislike it. Balance seems halfhearted. I prefer throwing myself into things entirely. I’m not saying that approach is the wisest. Only that this comes more naturally to my impulsive character.
I look outside and it’s grey out there. ‘Nippy’, a long forgotten word Emily’s mom taught me again. It says it quite right. The big tree that towers over our not so small house has lost most of its leaves. The empty branches stand out starkly against the grey watercolor sky. The rain falls down silently, slowly while birds fly by in a hurry.
It seems only right. With all the […]
The day is done.
The house is a mess.
Duplo blocks tell the story of three little boys who built spaceships. Little socks, they kept chubby little feet warm. I’m too tired to clean up, I need sleep. Too empty and ?aimless to sleep. Too tired to take a shower, my preferred method of ‘shut down mode’. ?Life is pointless. I don’t feel like tomorrows. I don’t know why I was so excited this morning. About a clean kitchen ?counter. And raisin bread. Who cares about clean kitchen counters and raisin bread anyway?
It could get me down for the rest of the day, the rest of the week. But today, it doesn’t.
Inside I know, beneath the aimless, floundering feeling…this too shall pass. No need to make it into a bigger deal then it is. I am tired. I need sleep. A new day shall dawn.
I do think the dawning day would be nicer to start in a clean(er) house, so I give myself 30 minutes for emergency cleanup. I would lie awake for 30 minutes worrying about the mess anyway. Nothing lost.
Dishes, clutter, clothes, kefir, those spots on the floor. Partly cleaned up looks so […]
The title of this post is inspired by the song ‘Driving in my car’ from Mother Goose club, that I have heard about…oh…let’s say 9 billion times.?It haunts me in my sleep. I got my permit to drive when we lived in New Mexico, when I was 16 years old. Just a few months before I could get my licence, we moved back to Belgium. So I had to start all over. I will say nothing about how totally unfair it was, since my brother and sister had got their license by driving to and from the gas station down the road from the ‘exam center’. And their licence was traded in for a Belgian one with no problem. They were even allowed to drive a truck.?I will not mention the fact that my sister learned to drive automatic ?in the states, and that in Belgium people drive stick shift. Therefore, she got a licence but couldn’t drive. I will say nothing about all that.? But there you had it. Me, the poor middle child or somewhere in the middle anyway, had to start all over. I did my theoretical exam and since my boyfriend was 8 years older […]
This is an old piece from my journal. Back when Caleb was still a small sleeping baby that couldn’t crawl. An eternity ago. But the days aren’t all that different. Some start well, others start of on an off note but end pretty beautifully.
Today started of extremely lousy. And rotten.
Caleb ate at 4:30, and wouldn’t go back to sleep. As we all know, that translates into me not being able to sleep either. Not being able to sleep really stresses me out. Stress makes me really mean.
So I got mean at about 5:30 and by 6 I had lost it. I dumped him in the middle of the bed, but a little more to his daddy’s side. And I got up to take a shower. A long, hot shower.
When I came out out I very self-sacrificially went downstairs, mostly because I did not want to lie down in bed and talk to my husband, because I don’t feel like talking when grumpy. When I am grumpy or tired, do not touch, do not speak, do not suggest, do not talk, do not. Just don’t.
So I went down to make oatmeal while contemplating about how […]
Well, that was that. I didn’t write 31 days, but that’s absolutely fine, because I say so. As I daily tell Abel ‘Mama is the boss’.
I started way back, and I’ve ended up where I am now. So I will keep on going from here, about where I am and where I’m going.
I do hope you’ll stick around. That would be fun, I think.
I will probably be posting a little something about twice a week. And if I don’t, you’ll see. By which I mean, you won’t see anything, and you’ll see that.
This post is part of a series:
Recently I read, somewhere the ?’20 tips for worn out moms’. Some of it was funny, some of it was not. I get it, I really do, that it helps to laugh at the hard parts, to downplay it with humor and sarcasm. I do it, too. But I always think ‘do I want my sons to read this when they are 15?’ before I post.
I don’t want them to read things that hint I didn’t enjoy them when they were little, because that is not true. I don’t want them to get the idea that they ruined my life, messed up all my plans. Because they didn’t.
They enriched it, changed it, made me grow and will continue to do so. ?I hope. Some parts are hard, but that doesn’t mean I am going to curse at them or blame it on them. They can know that life is not always easy, but they don’t have to hear me complain and whine either.
And so, here are my own 20 tips for worn out moms. Revised and improved.
1.?Words have power. Build up, don’t break down
2. Try to clean up all of the clutter after supper, […]
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