Schools out!

Today was the official last day of school for the school year 2010/2011.
My 2 didn't even make it in to school.

I helped hung out with Himself and some friends last night at the  CENTRAL PARK FESTIVAL | PARC DU CINQUANTENAIRE/JUBELPARK. We They had a stall there to advertise Stack-Cup.

The kids were with my folks and since there were only 3 kids in Cat's class yesterday and school was only going to be till 12:00 today we decided that they could just skip it all togher. It's not like they were going to miss anything.

So the countdown to Back to School (September 1st) has begun.

Pity I don't get the summer off!

Jumping on the bandwagon and giving my 2 cents worth...

I've seen quite a few news articles about people who are raising their kids 'genderless' There is 'Pop' in Sweden who's parents were in the news in 2009 and Storm in Canada. Not forgetting Egalia a school in Sweden which practices “gender netutral” education.

I have one of each and they are very clearly a boy & a girl. And shock horror I'm raising them as kids, my kids. I don't get what the whole whoo ha is about raising boys to be boys and girls to be girls.

They are different!

Thank goodness.

At the rate society is going we are all going to end up being androgynous its! How boring would that not be?

I am not saying that we have to revert back to the dark ages with regards to women's rights but please what is so wrong with letting your kids know who & what they are?

Tiger has no problems with playing with dolls or cooking or cleaning, in fact, he's much more eager to do those things. Maybe because he's dad cooks (he's not so big on the cleaning but will do it if & when needed). And Cat is quite happy to anything her brother does.

The best part is that they know who and what they are.

So I'm saying: I'm the proud parent of a boy & a girl!

Modern Family ....

One of the things that you have to learn to live without when raising your kids in a 'foreign country' is not having the traditional back-up on hand that you would normally have in your 'home country'. Back-ups like grandparents and Aunty's & uncle's.

Even though my parents now also live in Belgium they do not live in same town as us and also, since they live in Brussels, do not need and therefore do not own a car.

We are very lucky to have some great friends who are, at the drop of the phone, ready to help us out when needed.

Jay is just such a friend. Being in the military he get's of work early (he also starts really early) which means that if and when needed he can pick our kids up from school.

This has been happening a lot, so it seems. It also, happens quite often that Himself, & Jay pick the kids up from school together.

On Friday, this was the case. One of Cat's friends who was playing with her asked her if she had two dads.

I guess it's not that strange. They seem to think that I'm the kids older sister (it's been asked a couple of times) and since it's usually either Himself or Jay picking the kids up from school people just assume my kids are raised in a modern family.

When I grow up ....

Cat is our DRAMA QUEEN & she never ever shuts up!

Really this child of mine can talk and talk and talk and talk and talk......

Himself & I have been known to ask her to please just stop talking for 2 minutes and then she'll say ok but how will she know when she can talk again and what if she just talked quietly .... so you get it, she never stops talking!

She also loves looking at herself in the mirror. Trying out new faces: happy, sad, shocked, surprised etc.....

But I regress, I actually want to tell you about something else she said...

'I've been thinking and I think when I grow up I want to be a therapist.'

'That's great Cat, you can be anything you want to be when you grow up.' 'What kind of therapist?' I ask her cause as far as I know she has not had too much contact with various therapist.

'Well I was thinking, either a Speech Therapist, or Child Therapist or maybe a

Massage Therapist'

I did not see that last one coming!

Not my finest moment

Felt like a pretty shitty mother this morning!

Cat was complaining of a sore stomach (me thinks it's an attempt to get out of going to school since Tiger got to say home yesterday, runny tummy).

So when I give her medicine she doesn't like the taste of, she barely opens her mouth, which means I spill some of it on her school shirt.

That's when I did it, I shouted at her to open her mouth. (to late I know).

Then I send her to change her school shirt & when she comes back down she's wearing a shirt with an unraveling hem.

So we get into it again, me saying she can't go to school like that and her insisting that she can. She gets into a total huff. storms back to her room to change again, this time putting on the shirt I took out for her in the 1st place.

End of it? No!

I'm still standing in the shower when she comes back into the bathroom pointing to her shirt in, and hissing 'do these'.

No please mommy can you help me with the buttons? Or giving me a chance to get out the shower and at least dry my hands.

Can't say I'm very proud of myself, cause I then got really sarcastic with her.

To top it all, Tiger then walks in and says 'mmmmh looks like someone is in a bad mood this morning'.

But what really made me feel shitty was that by the time I got to work this morning I was feeling much better, bad mood all gone!

The Holiday countdown!

I have not been that good about writing this week, it's been crazy at work (when I do my writing cause let's face it chances are I'll get more time at work than what I do at home).

We've been counting down the school days left until the big summer holidays arrive

10 days to go!

Tiger asked me yesterday why it is that I don't have lots of holidays.

I don't know my boy, wish I did.

I enjoy my job, some times I'll even tell you that I love it,

BUT

on those bright summer mornings (going to pretend that summer mornings in Belgium are all bright & sunny) when the entire house is asleep & I have to get ready as quickly & as quietly as possible

I DO NOT LIKE MY JOB!

on those days I wish that I was a lady of leisure, with nothing to do but spending money and wasting time......

Right, lets get back to work!

All you have to do is ask

Tiger went off to the store with his 'uncle' Jay on Saturday to pick up some more drinks and meat for the BBQ while himself stayed home and got the fire going.

While they were standing in line, Tiger ask :

' Jay, are you poor?'

'Yes' says Jay

' Good thing my daddy gave you some money then. And don't worry if you

need more he's got more for you, all you have to do is ask'.

Like mother like daughter ?

Cat: One day when I’m a mother I’m not going to be like you, a No No No No No mother, always saying NO!

And you know what, you are going to be just like Ouma, when you are a granny you are always going to say – No in my house you don’t get to watch movies with shooting & killing.

Needless to say Cat was not very happy with me when I told her that they were not allowed to watch a certain DVD yesterday.  

Cat: But my friend Apple has the whole series and she can watch it any time, you are so unfair! (nagging voice)

Me: Well I’m your mom, not her mom so that is why I get to say no to you. One day when you guys are parents and you have kids you’ll understand, I promise.

Tiger: No, we’ll be cool parents, not like you!

Dress code

The dress code at my work is pretty relaxed, unless you deal with CLIENTS. As my 'clients' are all internal and I'm a lazy woman I tend to dress in jeans.... my attempt at dressing up will be to wear high heel sandals/boots with my jeans & maybe a button down shirt instead of a T-shirt.

However I do once in a while (read no more than 5 times a year) decide to wear a dress.

Today was such a day.

While getting dressed himself asks from inside the bed 'why so fancy today?'

'No reason just feel like wearing a dress' I reply.

In walks Cat, look me up & down and say to her father 'Look daddy, you can actually see that mommy has boobs, her dress makes them stand out'.

I wonder, do I still have enough time to change into jeans and a t-shirt?

But the dogs still need to be fed so I storm out the room only to get a whistle (sucking in air to whistle as he can't whistle for real yet) from Tiger ......aaah the boy made my day!

and I'm still wearing the dress.

Worry worry worry.....

I usually take the train in to work (it's faster than driving) but on some mornings I drive into town with himself.

He had to be in town early so we dropped the kids off at school and drove in together.

I love these drives, only cause himself & I get to chat, uninterrupted! I don't know about you but getting himself to talk well lets just say there are quite a few things he would rather do.

Anyhooo, so I ask him -

Babe, do you ever worry about our kids and the effect our parenting style has on them?

'No! why would I they are fine! Why do you worry? You are such a drama queen?'

Maybe it's a woman/man thing or maybe it's just that we (as people) tend to be so critical of other people but I do worry.

I worry about the kind of mom I am .... which seems to be a lot more laid back about most things, compared to the other mom's I know.

I worry about not worrying and I worry about not worrying enough (sigh)

But he's right, they kids are fine. They are happy and 'normal' and don't seem to have any issues so what am I worried about?

Not quite how I imagined it....

Right, I’m pretty sure this is not how I imagined life was going to be when I was growing up. I pretty much had a white picket fence idea in mind. You know, me married to a wonderful man who supported me while I stayed home to look after our kids …. 3 or 4 of them. I would run the house and do some gardening and cook dinner for family meals around the table……..

Fast Forward a couple of years:

Here I am married to a great guy (who drives me up the wall quite often but whom I love dearly), 2 kids, 3 dogs, a cat that’s gone missing presumed dead, and a bunny. All of us living in a rented house. I work full time, dogs not house trained (on account of having to live in the house all day long to avoid them from attaching people walking past our house during the day). The bunny living in daughters room, since the dogs will kill it at any given moment.

O what else did I dream of, cooking family meals …. Yeah right I have an extremely fussy husband, 1 daughter who thinks that her father’s way of eating must be right and a son who I need to beg to eat most days (he claims he’s watching his weight). I on the other hand fight a constant battle with my weight/self control! But at least I know, for a fact, that I’m not the only woman who does this. If we manage 1 family mean a month around the table I’m thrilled!

Running the house …. Well lets see, between working full time, and having to take care of above mentioned house hold members, keeping house is easier said than done. I know, there are thousands of women all over the world who seem to manage just fine but I don’t! I do the laundry & ironing. Sweep & mom the floor regularly but as for the rest, well I do that when I have the time and inclination.

Do some gardening …. In my dreams! Although I can say that I have managed to grow some strawberries. It was all unintentional but I’ve done it so I’m very proud.

We bought some strawberry plants but never got round to finding the perfect spot for them. In the mean time they grew where I had plonked them down and continued to grow. They survived the winter snow and the abuse from the dogs to provide us with the most delicious fat strawberries!  Who knew I could grow anything?

O and the husband who was going to support me… well he did for about 3 years (for which I’m very grateful). But for the moment he is in-between jobs. He’s last business venture didn’t pan out and at the moment we’re waiting for the next one to take off (and boy if and when it does it’s going to be AMAZING and I might never ever have to work again!). So, in the mean time he does odd jobs and drive me insane by watching too much tv and doing that other ‘unmentionable’ thing that men like to do when they have too much time on their hands.