Recently in Family Category

• I bought an epilator. It's a nice thing, once you get over the fact that instead of the 5 minutes in the shower doing your legs that it used to take you, it now takes half an hour to achieve the same result. And you end up with this ghastly uber-prickle situation whenever you get goosebumps. Nasty!
  
  
• I just paid my daycare bills all the way back to October. They hadn't billed me yet so I got a bill for 2600 euros in one go. Ouch. More shocking than the epilator.
  
  
• I had my hair cut short at my local hairdresser. This is the kind of hairdresser where you can't make an appointment but you have to wait in the queue. It cost 22 euros versus 60 at the middle-aged-lady hairdresser I went to before who cut my hair all wrong. The fancy-pants hairdresser I went to in Amsterdam was 150 euros and this haircut is better than any I had from either. I had to wait 2 hours for a place but still - score!
  
  
• When I was in the hairdressers one of the daycare workers came in. This is someone I've known for almost 6 years, since Seb started at pre-school here. She'd been fine all along until about a year and a half ago when I noticed that she was behaving oddly. Subsequently she started working at the daycare that the kids are at now and a few weeks ago I noticed that she was drunk when I picked up the kids. I reported it to the owner, and she was placed on office duty, away from the kids, and was supposedly getting some help. On Saturday when I saw her she was absolutely shit-faced.
  
  So, what to do now? Tell the owner of the daycare? Keep quiet? This is a difficult situation for me because part of me is sorry for her and part of me is still the little girl that had to deal with alcohol issues growing up.
  
  
• On Thursday I went to see Martha Wainwright in concert at Paradiso. It was good, but I was tired and she sort of went on and on a bit in some of the songs.
  
  Con: the going on and on.
  Pro: she looks like she's having a kicker orgasm during some of the songs. Go Martha.
  
  
• The next concert I have tickets for is Radiohead on 1 July. I'm considering Alanis on 13 June, but listening to some of the new songs I'm not so sure... some of them sound a bit nasty? Moratorium is ok. Here's a preview clip for the whole album. The thing about Alanis is that she makes me wonder if I'll ever grow up? I mean, it doesn't look like she has.
  
  
• It's almost the end of another school year. The kids finish school on the 27th June and then go into daycare for the summer. I'll be working mornings only while I recover from my neck injury, but they'll still be at daycare the majority of the time to allow me to rest. After the summer Joe goes to Group 3 and Seb to Group 6.
  
  They don't know about the divorce yet. They'll be going to a workshop in the summer where they'll be with other kids in the same situation and be encouraged to work through their feelings. I hope when we tell them that they'll be able to adjust quickly to their new situation and understand that they actually have more time with each of their parents, separately.
  
  
• Watched Atonement this weekend. Sad, but James McAvoy is a joy to behold. He was a joy in Shameless too. Chloe thinks so too.
  
  
• My new car is a Hyundai Getz 2005 model. It looks like this one. Same colour, just with a sunroof too. Nice huh? I'll try not to crash this one!
  
  
• Comments are still broken. They were never really intuitive with this version of Movable Type and now they're absolutely broken. Sorry! One day maybe I'll get around to fixing them. I've tried re-enabling comments but nothing works. Until then, you can mail me. Link in the sidebar.

'Somedays aren't yours at all,
They come and go
As if they're someone else's days' - Regina Spektor, Somedays

Today was the last day of the Avondvierdaagse (four day walk with the kids, written about previously here and here).

I didn't walk this time because of the injury from my car accident, but I served coffee and drinks on the first day and I took pictures today.

Taking pictures is weird sometimes. I read a story once about photographs, or perhaps it was an excerpt from a book. The woman who wrote it had a miserable childhood but if you looked at the photos it seemed perfect.  'Picture perfect' is a wonderful expression, isn't it?

I hope mine don't just have a picture perfect life but a life that's just good, in pictures and out.

Here are my babies being picture perfect. I hope they remember days like these.

I'm watching The Holiday on DVD right now as I write this. I've just had a holiday too, a mommy-holiday.

My boys came back today from three weeks away in the US. It's been pretty odd actually. I missed them, but at the same time I kind of slipped back into the role of being a single person and it was nice! No chores, no running to and fro, only myself to take care of. I love my kids, but it was incredibly liberating to just be me for a few weeks, and not be someone's mom. From today I'm two little people's mommy again and I'm just as happy to be back in my mommy role. It's a role I've held for a really long time. Soon I'll have been a mom for longer in my life than I've not been a mom, how weird is that?

So they're bigger (in three weeks!) and browner and they talk with American accents. They also forgot how to ask to leave the table, seem to have lost their volume control mechanics, and are so full of E numbers they glow in the dark, but they're home and they're my babies and I love them so much.

Otherwise, how do I feel?  I feel a bit like I'm in the cinema. I've watched the trailer for the film I'm about to watch and now I'm in the interlude waiting for it to start. I'm not sure of the genre of the movie but I'm hoping it's an epic love story. A Merchant-Ivory production with a happy ending. I'm as curious as you are to see how it all unfolds.
 

'When I turn my feelings on, I turn my feelings on inside.' - Spoon, I turn my camera on

1 x trip to the UK = 1 visa required. Multiple entry. Zimbabwean national. 286 euros.
1 x trip to the US = 1 visa required. Single entry. South African national. 95 euros.

2 x days off work to run around to get visas. Annoying, time-consuming, irritating.

Just slightly annoyed with my nationality today.

'I'd like to meet a human who makes it all seem clear.' - Morcheeba, Over and Over

Divorce is never an easy subject. Everyone is invested emotionally around the idea, whether they want to be or not. There are two camps in the divorce argument, the 'you should not ever at any cost' and the 'choose for your own happiness'.

My own parents are divorced, after 25 years together. All I could think when I was growing up was 'Why are you two still even trying?' 12 years on, they spend Christmases together. They are considerably better apart than they were together. Neither has a current relationship.

So which divorce camp am I in? Mostly #2 I guess though I spent a good long period in #1. I think when you've been married once before you tend to want to see if you can make it work the second time at all costs, especially costs to yourself.

I'm getting divorced, because I've decided that some paths are better walked separately, perhaps in parallel because of the kids, but nonetheless separately.

It's been a long time coming. Fear kept me paralysed. I wasn't able to make choices because I feared that I might make the wrong one. I've realised since that any choice is better than no choice at all. I'm the author of my own story and if I want to change the script I can. Anytime I like. If I mess it up, I can change the direction of the next chapter and start again.

It's going to be interesting. No-one thinks they move to another country to get divorced. Now I'm trying to navigate a divorce in a foreign country, where both partners hold different nationalities, as do both children, and where the marriage took place somewhere other than the Netherlands.

'There there baby, it's just text book stuff, it's in the ABC of growing up' - Imogen Heap, Speeding Cars

I'm so lucky. So so lucky.

• I start a new job on Tuesday with everything I wanted: a really nice boss, at Schiphol (12 mins on the bus), nice environment, a good salary, and there is Starbucks! Should have seen me gulp that mocha latte yesterday, drink three coffees in my interview and then shake for a few hours afterward.
  
  My attitude toward my career has changed. I'm ready to give it 100%, even if it means losing some of my other commitments.
  
  
• I have daycare four days a week! I called the daycare where the kids used to go in the mornings, and Peter, the owner said 'coincidentally, we have just had a cancellation for 3 children for Tuesday and Thursday'. I know who the three children are too - they're the ones we went to the beach with last week. Ingrid, the lovely lady at the other daycare gave me my Wednesday back too, so I only have Mondays where I need to rely on my network of friends.
  
  
• For every ending, there is a new beginning. Really. There is. You just have to believe in it. Read this.
  

'It's a beautiful day, don't let it get away' - U2, Beautiful Day

... no kids on the blog ... but isn't he beautiful?

We disco bowled (bowling to disco music with smoke machines and strobe lights and fear of epilepsy) today with five of his friends.

He's really 8 now. It's a big number isn' t it?

 

'I hate to look into those eyes and see an ounce of pain ...' - Sheryl Crow, Sweet Child o' Mine

Oh my baby boy, you are 8 today. I still think of the very first time we met, your hands clasped together, your blue blue eyes looking up at me, your tiny naked body slippery wet against my breasts.

Happy birthday my darling.

I love you.

'takes me back to the place that I know.' - On the Beach, Chris Rea. (oh the cliche meter is running high today)

sunlight. blue skies. girl talk. gossip. relationship risk management advice. House & Grey's. hot chocolate with whipped cream. pancakes. walking against the wind with numb faces. salty skin. wind-whipped hair. happy kids. bags of sea shells. the tide coming in over our boots. naked kids in the car on the way home. bags of sandy clothes for washing. the drive home through Haarlem. bliss.