Way better than Eurovision Song festival!

The elementary school put on a song festival yesterday and each class got to take the stage and perform. And of course it's no surprise that when S's class paraded out and started to sing my heart filled up and felt like it was going to burst into a thousand pieces!

It's funny how your emotional triggers change as you age. I can remember feeling enraptured at concerts as a teenager or college student; when I saw Depeche Mode I wanted to climb up on the stage and dance. And I was so excited that I screamed my lungs out at a special jam session by the Cult.

But it's only as an adult, when my little boys are performing at school functions, that I feel so overwhelmed by emotion that I want to climb right up on the stage and eat every living creature on it! (They were all that cute!)

There was a very interesting cultural aspect to the show as well. Flemish schools tend to be more traditional than Dutch ones and there doesn't seem to be as much pressure for young children to be tough / cool / confrontational. In addition, Flanders isn't struggling to define its social identity the way the Netherlands is at the moment.

All of these factors are surprisingly evident in the type of plays that the directors of our school choose for the children to perform. There's something so innocent and endearing about these productions, which is refreshing in the digitized, glossy, fast-paced world we live in today...

Unfortunately my camera couldn't handle the dim lighting so I'll be bartering favors from one of the other parents so that I can plunder her photos. Will post something soon...

Pop quiz

Which kid am I now going to swear takes after his father?

(am not sure we should have been encouraging this particular party trick...)

Just call me Florence Nightengale: the sequel

It's hard to forget the worry-factor of the first year after you have your first-born. Especially when they're sick; every sniffle, every colic is cause for concern. Can remember more than a few scary moments when I was petrified by indecision: is he becoming dehydrated? Is that cry different than his normal one? Hasn't this fever lasted far too long?

And then, of course, they become older and less fragile; better able to articulate exactly what's bothering them.

(and being my children they articulate it almost too well. Like the time when a 2 1/2 year old B announced loudly in a crowded waiting room that his diaphragm hurt. Half of me wanted to shout "DID YOU ALL GET THAT?!" The other half wanted to throw my jacket over Baby Einstein and sneak him out the door before NASA nabbed him for suspicious paranormal activity.)

Over time one starts to approach the care of sick children the way one would a WWF match-- your viral opponents may put on an impressive show, but if you're lucky a smackdown probably won't cause the little darling any lasting injuries...

But there's a fine line between remaining optimistically unruffled and lounging on one's laurels when playing Dr. Quinn, medicine woman.

This morning when S woke up with stomach cramps I wrote it off as something that he'd be over before the end of the morning. No fever? No diarrhea? No problem! Gave him a big hug and sent him on his merry way to school.

They called within a half an hour. He had thrown up on his desk. And was morose. And embarrassed.

He's now home, tucked safely in bed. And me? I'm here at the kitchen table blogging about guilt and the shifting sands of being a parent. No matter how seasoned you think you are motherhood has a way of lying calmly in wait in a dark closet to jump out at an unexpected moment with a double serving of humble pie. with a big, fat cherry on top...

Better?

OK, background images uploaded. Is this better? Darker? Lighter? Another background color altogether? Any other constructive criticism?

Post 100!

I've reached a milestone! But unfortunately I don't have anything profound to talk about today-- am only thinking skin-deep at the moment.

Was glad that a couple of you dared to comment and send me e-mails on the new skin; feedback is actually very welcome and really helps! The nice thing is that I put this skin together using a style sheet so that I can change colors of each element with just one small modification.

The one thing I can't control, however, is the way that coded colors show up on your screen. so the rich, velvety green that I was seeing here might have looked like antifreeze on yours. And the soft mossy green I've got now as a stopgap to save your eyes might not even show up on some browsers.

So on my list of things to do today is to create images which will fix the background colors. But that certain item comes after some more urgent ones, like cleaning the kitchen, feeding the children, taking a shower and other things that I barely managed to accomplish yesterday because I got a little too focused on coding, layout, etc...

New skin!

So as you can see I've been busy! I've been working like a woman possessed this morning. I love graphic design and it's really been bothering me that I've been using one of Blogger's standard templates. It was nice to have a basic website until I got up and running but I figured it was time to make my mark on the aesthetics of this site.

Plus, most of the designs I do for clients have to be sober and conservative. It's been fun to play with a splash of color!

I have always loved Peter Max's artwork-- had a couple of his picture books as a kid and remember savoring every image.

Happened to be in St. Petersburg back in 1991 when he had a big exposition there. According to his website it "drew the largest turnout for any artist in Russian history"! It was one of those serendipitous finds-- absolutely thrilling!

Feel free to leave me feedback on colors / layout / etc. This is a work in progress!

No blogger is an island.

This weekend I was feeling pretty down and on top of it all I had blogger's block. It was a small comfort that this malady strikes even Lucinda, but she somehow manages to turn it into something funny! I wasn't feeling even the slightest bit humorous. If you could have taken a picture of my mental state it would have looked like Marty Feldman. but then uglier.

And then I started ruminating about why I am keeping a blog in the first place. Is it just a pointless exercise or am I actually contributing something worthwhile to the blogosphere? There are so many parenting blogs out there and after a while most of them start to sound the same!

Then, surprisingly, on the very weekend that I'd decided to bag blogging altogether, three wonderful things happened!

• CH coee-called my blog and let everyone know that she's reading it every day!
• Blue Sloth, one of the better-known bloggers, stopped by and left a nice comment
• And a package of fantastic (real!) books arrived for me in the mail from my virtual friend AfricaKid, who has excellent taste in literature and music.

Suddenly I realized that I've been (wrongly) thinking of blogging as a solitary occupation. I'd completely lost sight of the whole social dimension to these online diaries! These people made me feel great, and I've only ever even met one of them in the flesh!

So I've found that spark again. And plan on blogging happily ever after...

The quest for the perfect valentine's day gift

Valentine's day is coming and I'm determined to do something special this year. Which basically means not forgetting it altogether as I have been known to do in the past. Neither M nor I are big on commercialized holidays and we are woefully inept when it comes to traditional romantic expressions of our undying love for each other.

So this morning I took to the net in search of inspiration for a fitting gift for my special someone. And I found lots of inspiration, all right. The kind that makes one want to beat one's head against a wall rather than continue sifting through sappy, cliché expressions of everlasting luv.

Some of the more creative ones included:

• A set of Hamster Hearts coasters produced either by a cooperative of 3 year olds or a PhotoShop savvy hamster.
• This stunningly tasteful trinket
• A unique bean message-- I'm thinking someone in the greenhouse is thiiiiiiis close to snapping
• A valentine shaped spud. Nothing says LOVE like a tuberous root vegetable! Yes, this is a real potato. Which would be clearer if the seller could actually spell it correctly!
• A springy "be mine!" hat. If I can actually convince my husband to wear this I won't have to worry about him having to fend off any (other) female admirers.

Just to let you know I'll be bidding on all of these. This post is just my way of staking out my territory early. So don't even think about buying them-- go find your own romantic bargains!

Uh oh...

Whoops! Am only now realizing that I've broken the cardinal rule of webmastering! I haven't taken the time lately to check browser compatibility-- in Firefox this site looked just fine. But apparently IE didn't recognize some of the hard returns in a post I did back in January which threw off the formatting. Sorry!

Feel like I've been parading around smiling at everyone with my fly down and spinach between my teeth! If I do something scatterbrained like this again please drop me a line!

Exploding garbage trucks and live cat toys

Dreary weekend. The weather is crappy and M is working a lot. Am trying to pull myself out of this funk but can feel it settling into my bones...

In spite of it all I had to laugh this afternoon. We were putting new batteries into B's remote control car and he warned me not to throw the old batteries into the garbage. I agreed, but luckily I asked what his reasons were: he said that if we turned on the toy the garbage truck would explode!

And had a chuckle earlier this week when I visited our pet food store. They've moved their expansive selection of cat toys over to the wall next to the parakeets and finches. What is the marketing strategy behind this brilliant endeavor? There's no question as to which I'd find more interesting if I were a cat...

And this was even worse than An and Jan!

Yesterday's post chronicled my increasing irritation with the Vandervelde family and their accident-proned offspring. Yes I was annoyed with them, wanted to slap them, even, but at least they didn't make me cry!

I've been reading Charlotte's Web to the kids over the last week or so. And have been a little surprised-- forgot how often this book dwells on death. They threaten to turn Wilbur into bacon every third page or so, a fact which causes B's eyes to widen and small shivers to run through his body.

But I'd somehow forgotten just how sad the ending is-- and
Charlotte takes at least 8 pages to die. 8 LONG PAGES THAT I COULD HAVE DONE WITHOUT ON A DREARY DAY LIKE TODAY!

Why couldn't Charlotte have gone to see a specialist? If Wilbur was so terrific he could have tried CPR-- or at least contacted Hospice!

True to form, though, I was more upset by Charlotte's transition than the boys were. And as soon as we were finished we went back to reading about An and Jan. And today I actually didn't mind...

Worse than Dick and Jane...

Have I mentioned that S is reading? And I mean really READING! It's amazing how fast it's all happening-- he started first grade knowing little more than how to spell his name and now he's reading circles around all of us. It's absolutely amazing!

His teacher sends books home with him and every afternoon he reads aloud to us. And while I love to hear him speeding his way through these books I have to say that the abysmal storylines are starting to get to me.

Case in point: an entire book about the wacky adventures of An and Jan, who are twins-- most likely inbred judging by their limited mental capacity.

Today An decides to hammer something in the basement and asks Jan to hold the nail in place. And of course she pulverizes his finger.

No surprise to us, but An is so shocked that she drops the hammer. On her foot. Ma hears them both screaming, freaks out and spills coffee on herself. Pa brings the two kids upstairs and promply bumps his head on the cabinet she's left open. And that's it- story's over!

Pa's behavior throughout the book is less than brilliant. I'm thinking this is not his first blow to the head. Ma probably makes a habit of leaving that cabinet door open-- she's punishing him for running around looking like a yeti!

I'm surprised that S keeps coming back for more. (?) But he's been bitten by the reading bug and the story doesn't even matter at this point-- he's just hungry for more and is devouring everything he can get his hands on.

It's amazing to be able to experience this kind of evolution first-hand; one of those privileges that people forget to mention for some reason when they're talking about the positive sides of parenting...

Happy Safer Internet Day!

Am currently siphoning off 75% of all brainpower to the Blogathon. Will post again once I've had a chance to recharge.

Happy weekend...

I got my hair cut Friday. I like it but it's a bit extreme. But then again I'm in a rebellious, adolescent kind of mood lately.

I asked M yesterday what he thought of it and he was hedging so I said "Come on, spit it out" and he said that it was a "bit short and not completely feminine".

and then he mentioned a rumor that one of his colleagues is lesbian.

When I asked: "what does this have to do with my haircut?!" he started laughing-- it was apparently a new topic, but I have to admit his timing was uncanny. Maybe some subliminal association going on there!?

He's right, it's not your standard girlie haircut. But I'm tired of looking like a dumpy housewife. And I think that severe haircuts can look great on women because if they're wearing makeup and are otherwise dressed attractively it you notice their features more.

There's a woman in town who has a black crew cut and yet she's extremely attractive because you really notice her eyes in a way you wouldn't if she just had your standard "do". She's manages to be chic and elegant in a way that no one else can seem to pull off!

Figure I'll keep my hair like this until I get bored of it-- at least it's a change from status quo...

Am having a fun weekend. It's great to have M back home and we're just farting around not doing much. Yesterday CH came over and we rented "The Motorcycle Diaries", an Argentinian film about Che Guevara's coming of age. The cinematography was great and I really enjoyed it.

We also held some high-stakes scooter / bicycle races this morning out on the street in front of our house. Too bad we weren't betting money because I was in good form and was feeling lucky...

As you can see we were pretty punchy by the end.

M is grinning like a lunatic here because the dog knocked me over right as I was squatting down to compose this picture of him speeding past...

Knock knock!

I tried to explain the concept of knock knock jokes this evening at dinner. I know they're corny, but I thought that the kids might think they were funny.

And they did, but they thought their own were much funnier than the standard fare:

knock knock
who's there?
Owl sandwich
Owl sandwich who?
Oh, you want a sandwich?

knock knock
who's there
jellyfish
Jellyfish who?
Jellyfish poo.

Knock knock
who's there
Fanta
Fanta who?
I want a banana!

Almost famous! (NOT!)

So CH got me on TV. sort of. She sent a reporter and cameraman over to our office yesterday to interview us about the Blogathon. Although I didn't practice any lines or facial expressions beforehand I did remember to brush my teeth, which was a breakthrough.

So the reporter came in, spoke to J about the preparations and did a short interview in the office kitchen. Then she tells J that she wants a shot of me and could she please walk up to me and hand me some papers.

So there I am pretending to do something productive with C. Pretending that I am not on the verge of launching a career as a reporter for the BBC. Pretending that I'm not already planning what I'm going to say on Nightline when they interview me about my downward spiral and the aftereffects of life in the limelight.

And suddenly J walks around the corner, and the camera is rolling, and I freeze. Yes, like a deer in the headlights. Like Liza Minelli in those horrifying pictures that were taken after she married that corpse a couple of years ago.

I haven't even seen the footage yet, but think we can safely assume that it will be in good company on the cutting room floor. I guess it's a good thing I've got my degree or I would now be forcing S and B to help me draw up "Will work for food" banners...

A Softer World

Dooce featured A Softer World on her blog this week and I love it! These people are twisted and hilarious! Yet another link to obsessively visit whenever I need a diversion.

Don't push your luck!

I know that it's horribly unfashionable but I'm about as superstitious as they come. I know that if I test the powers that be by even thinking "Gee, the kids haven't been sick in a while" or "Our stocks haven't lost any ground this year!" that retribution will be swift, fierce and merciless.

Shock and awe, baby!

So this weekend when M gleefully announced "Wow, we've never had a minute of trouble with the PT!" I could already feel the thunderbolt building. And sure enough, this morning, our trouble-free car suddenly had an electrical problem.

M is in Berlin. His car is parked at the airport. It's -1 outside. And of course we were running late. I don't even know why I was surprised, it's all just par for the course.

Drove the kids at a geriatric snail's pace to school. I have now successfully aggravated half the population of Perk, who were all lined up behind me getting their upperware in a twist.

When I got home I rebooted the car and it suddenly it worked fine. Go figure. I'm thinking it's a sign.

My optimistic side is now counting blessings and is thankful that I actually made it to school and back. And the baser side of me is already shopping for a cattle prod to help remind M not to push his luck next time...

Anecdote that will become a family legend

A friend reminded me the other day of something that still hasn't shown up in this blog-- an event which MUST be preserved in the annals of our family history.

One afternoon the boys were playing outside. I was inside doing something significant like reading blogs meditating or researching better parenting techniques. S ran past, happy and smiling, and I noticed he was FILTHY! "Hi, S, whatcha up to?"

S: Oh, we're building a castle outside out of rocks.
Me: Great! Have fun!

And I left it at that. It was only later that I went out to check on them and realized the gravity of the situation. They were, indeed, busy building a castle. But what he neglected to mention was that the "rocks" were pieces of brick that they were chipping off of the side of the house with a hammer! (They had actually done enough damage that M later had to go back and fill in the entire area with concrete!)

*note: Do not try this at home... photo is a simulation borrowed from pirateplanet.

Field trip to the art gallery

We took a little trip down to Mons yesterday. One of M's colleagues has now stepped halfway out of the closet and his "dear friend" was showing a bunch of paintings at his first Belgian exhibition.

It was nice to be able to expose the kids to some culture and to show our support for M's colleague who looked like he might have been more nervous than the artist himself!

So the paintings were attractive, but I was really struck by the, well... OK, vaginal quality of all of them. Which was especially ironic in light of the weight of the whole social aspect of the situation.

I was relieved when M confirmed my opinion-- it's a running joke between us that my women's studies track at UF has warped my outlook on art and literature. Which has spiced up more than one visit to the museum and is a source of endless eyerolling on M's part...