The 27th of September is a busy day for my family. The boys were 2 yesterday and it was my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. If I weren’t sick as a dog, I would compose eloquent posts on both these topics but it will just have to wait while I go back to bed and keep coughing.
Family
A weekend filled with incident and adventure
On Saturday morning the boys and I went to the supermarket leaving the Princess and her father to be sick together. On our return, the Princess had, miraculously, completely recovered and her father was sick as a dog.
The children and I took ourselves off to the Brocante, you know, the Belgian experience where they close off the streets, add some chip vans and neighbours sell unwanted clutter to each other. It is surprisingly appealing. The afternoon took us off to a birthday party where the anglophone world was represented by a New Yorker, an English speaking Quebecer, an English woman and, my favourite, her half Irish (Kerry), half Spanish husband. Their little girl looked entirely Irish/English, definitely a pale Northern European and their little boy was entirely Spanish. By the end of the party, Mr. Waffle had stopped vomiting and was in a position to come and collect us. Good news as our paediatrician would say.
By Sunday, my loving husband was largely recovered. We took ourselves off to enjoy car free day. My colleagues were saying today – where did all the children come from at the weekend and I felt like replying, they were all mine. There were no cars anywhere in Brussels, all 19 communes. I insisted on taking the children out so that they could scoot and pedal up and down the road. This turned out to be a bit of a disaster as the boys soon lost interest in pedaling and began to try to throw themselves under the odd passing taxi. Undaunted, we took the tram into Place Royal where there were bouncy castles and farm animals and all manner of excitements. Sometimes I think my standards for high entertainment have really plummeted over the years. It was good, though. I was also allowed my obligatory moment’s smugness when I read in the paper that in Dublin they closed exactly two streets to cars. A token gesture, surely even they must feel. All over Brussels in odd corners there were neighbours who had hauled out tables and chairs to have lunch together in the middle of the street. It was lovely. Over on Bxlblog, they’re saying they should do it once a month, wouldn’t that be fabulous?
And then, in the afternoon we went to the “Fair of Gascon produce” in the Sablon. They went the whole hog and decorated the Sablon to look like a French village square. They also supplied a small free merry-go-round. This was, frankly, disastrous as the two men drinking wine and pressing the buttons were indifferent to order and the rule of the jungle prevailed in getting your children onto their preferred or any ride. We retired early with only minor injuries and took home some foie gras and cassoulet to nurse us back to health.
Late, late, late
I am one of life’s tardy people. My father always says that my mother has no appreciation that time is finite and I have inherited that flaw. I always think things will take less time than they do.
Yesterday I had to take leave to mind sick Daniel (poor Daniel, he’s fine today, thank you for asking) because, alas, my husband is off in foreign parts and I am holding the fort. In between being sick Daniel slept, so it could have been worse. At 5.30 our student babysitter came to mind him (he had been made safe by a motillium suppository and, if you don’t know what that is, you’re better off) and I drove off to pick up Michael from the creche and the Princess from the childminder. The traffic was dreadful and I didn’t get back until (eek) 6.30.
I fed the children and the babysitter (well, otherwise when was she going to get dinner?) and then we bathed the boys and put them to bed and then while K got the Princess cleaned up and ready for bed, I got ready for my dinner with a delegation visiting Brussels for work. I felt mildly self-conscious applying my make-up in front of a beautiful 21 year old but, never mind.
At 7.30, I drove to the school in pouring rain and finally found parking at 7.45 and ran in, late, for the parent-teacher meeting that started at 7.30. This was a mildly depressing experience. Mostly from pragmatism but partly from principle we put the Princess into the school nearest to our house. It is a school with pupils who are overwhelmingly the children of poor immigrants and the remainder are the children of poor Belgians. On the whole we have been very happy with the school and very smug about our choice. However, it is undoubtedly true that we were also aware that a lot of the children in the Princess’s class didn’t speak French but, to be honest, I would have thought that in their third year in the school system (Belgian school starts at two and a half – it keeps them tough) with significant extra language tuition, that problem would have disappeared. Apparently not. Madame Christine tells us that she is still gesturing to get her meaning across. There are children who do not understand “folder” (OK), there are children who do not understand “school bag” (less OK) and there are children who do not understand “put” (not OK at all). Lots of the children don’t know their colours. This is daft, they’re FOUR. I was telling the Princess an edited version of last night’s encounter this morning and asked her did she know her colours and she said “oh yes and when Madame Christine does the exercises on colours, she keeps saying to me ‘stop, you’re going too fast, give the others a chance.'” I don’t think this illustrates that my child is vastly gifted but my smug four year old clearly does.
At the end of last year, the teachers found that the children didn’t know what things were made of. Sample dialogue:
What’s this made of?
A fork.
Yes, I know it’s a fork, but what’s it made of?
Pointy?
Sample dialogue with the Princess at breakfast:
What’s my spoon made of?
Metal.
What’s your spoon made of?
Plastic.
What’s your bowl made of?
China.
What’s the cornflake box made of?
Cardboard.
I’m hoping that this business of what things are made of is not the key learning for the year. I know that she needs to learn lots from school other than ‘academic’ things, how to socialise, how to work out her place in the world, how to become autonomous but I know that the problems her classmates are having are almost certainly not experienced in the posh communal school down the road (which had no places by the time her feckless mother called them).
Funnily enough, the Princess’s school is private (as it’s Catholic) and the posh school is public. The fact that it was catholic was one of the selling points of our school for me until the head ‘reassured’ me that it was Catholic in name only. I see where he’s coming from, although there are lots of statues of ‘dead Jesus’, if the Princess is to be believed, there doesn’t seem to be any religion in the classroom. This is also funny when you consider the situation with faith schools in the UK as outlined recently by the GPmama. In fact there is a (Catholic) friend of Mr. Waffle’s in London who is still doing the flowers in her local Protestant church because she cosied up to them in the hopes of getting her daughter in. Unfortunately, the daughter didn’t get in despite all that creative use of oasis.
So, 8.15, I really had to go though I would have liked to stay until the end because, you know, when you get worried about things like this, you like to have a complete picture so that you can drive yourself insane. Bucketing down and I was supposed to be at the restaurant near the office and was striding womanfully across the school yard. I rang and said, quite mendaciously, that I was circling looking for parking and they should go ahead without me. Oh no, they would wait. Alas. Mercifully parking very easy on arrival so no one was forced to eat the table.
My delegation being on a bit of a break from their day jobs were very relaxed. I meanwhile had my mobile phone on the table waiting for a call from the babysitter to tell me to come home because Daniel had been sick. She didn’t which was just as well because we were paying for dinner and it would have been difficult to do before people had finished eating which they didn’t until gone midnight; you will recall that they were relaxed. I dropped a couple of my Brussels based colleagues home (because I am kind) and pitched up about 12.30 all apologies to saintly babysitter who had an 8.00 am lecture next morning. Called her a taxi, put out the bins and went to bed at 1.00. Up with the boys at 3 and 5 and the Princess prodded me out of bed at 6 so that we could have breakfast alone together before the boys woke up.
Arrived into work this morning to hear young colleague complaining that she is exhausted; jet lag from her trip to LA. Firmly buttoned my lip.
Cultural differences
To celebrate the journées du patrimoine this weekend we did a tour of the Saint Gilles Hôtel de Ville which was very splendid. Then, on Saturday afternoon, we went to the Maison Pelgrims which was not only splendid but had a playground attached as well.  Sunday morning was best though. We went to the musical instruments museum which sounds dreadfully dull but is actually excellent, something that is reflected in the normally hefty entrance fee.   The boys liked it but the Princess was enchanted. They give you headphones which play the music of the various instruments in the glass boxes as you approach them.  It really is very clever. I would so love, if she were musical.  I asked whether she’d like to come back with me another day without the boys and she said “oh yes, Mummy and we could go to the café as well.â€Â That’s my girl. Tired of culture, in the afternoon, we went for a walk.  Well four of us walked but the Princess said she was tired and plonked herself in the boys’ span new double buggy.  Culture is tiring. I rang the heart surgeon that evening for a chat.  When we visited her and her family in Vermont, I swore we would do more outdoorsy things because they did and our children loved running after balls.  I felt the weekend had not been hugely successful from that point of view.  What, I wondered had she (now five months pregnant) and her two children under two done for the weekend?  They went camping.
Oh well, I need my strength, Mr. Waffle is off on a two day work trip tomorrow and Daniel is sick. Tomorrow evening will see me arrive home, feed the children, put the boys to bed, leave the unfortunate Princess with the unfortunate babysitter, rush out to a parent-teacher meeting at 7.30 (which I know will not start on time) and then hare off to a work dinner at 8.30.  And when I get home, I’ll have to put out the bins too. Just as well I didn’t spend the weekend with only an air mattress between me and the damp ground.
The back office team
I have been busy. Mr. Waffle has been busy. I have been away for work. He is away for work next week. I took today off work to have a day off all for myself but, alas, poor Michael was sick all last night, so I have spent my time tending to him. Sigh. Well, at least he’s asleep now which has allowed me valuable blogging time. Onward.
All this gadding about has made me think about the support team that makes it possible for us to do this.
The people
We have the Princess’s school and the after school garderie until 6, if we need it, which we usually don’t because we have C who minds the boys and collects the Princess three days a week. On the other two days, I collect the Princess unless I have something at work in which case, I often ask K, a student to do it. If K is unavailable then there is another C who lives around the corner who might or childminder C’s sister, also C (that’s three Cs, try to keep up). There is also Y whom we have used occasionally when things are desperate and our cleaner G, who is sometimes available. Yes, ha, ha, next person we hire is a HR manager. My friends who do not work are very kind about minding the Princess from time to time when I am stuck though I am unlikely to ever be in a position to repay them in kind. The boys are also enrolled full-time in a creche which they attend a couple of days a week but can go to, if the childminder is sick (which, mercifully, she almost never is).
It works fine, on the whole and it costs us an arm and a leg. This makes me think about the UK government’s bid to get single mothers out to work. How on earth will these women manage? I concede that they will probably have family nearby, which I don’t (though we are importing the parents-in-law for mid-term) but even so, there are always times when you are stuck, even with relatives to hand, I imagine. And I suspect we are not talking about particularly well-paid jobs on the whole here. If these women would like to stay at home with their children, particularly when the children are very young, then why on earth not facilitate them to do so. I think that the arguments about getting mothers out to work are all economic and not a lot of thought has gone into the well-being of mothers and children. Of course, there are mothers who are desperate to get back into the workforce and have some adult company (me, for example) but I’m not sure that many people are desperate to get back to minimum wage jobs. And, while support for those who want to get back to the work force is welcome; withdrawing support from those who don’t doesn’t strike me as particularly clever.
Minks is a good example of what I’m talking about. Here is a woman who loves staying at home with her children (mostly). Isn’t this great? It suits her to be at home. But she is broke. Probably not on the breadline but the system is set up to push her out to a minimum wage job for which she would be over qualified and which, I strongly suspect, she wouldn’t like. Wouldn’t it be excellent, if there was some allowance to support women like Minks in staying at home for the first, say, 3 years of their children’s lives. Would it break the bank? The Finns seem to manage it. I notice though that the British have a particularly negative attitude to tax. Would it kill everyone to pay a little more tax provided it was properly spent. Personally, I think that the British administration, on the whole, does a pretty good job of spending the British taxpayers’ money wisely (I’m from Ireland, I even think the NHS is pretty good). So, if it were up to me, I would be happy to pay higher taxes to support such measures. Vote me in for happier families and higher taxes. I think tax is an excellent idea, if properly applied. No, I am not a Liberal Democrat – do I look like a vegetarian to you?
The equipment
I have to put this down because over the holidays, I calculated that we own ten car seats: 4 in Brussels, 3 in Cork and 3 in Dublin and that’s not counting the one we bought and abandoned in America.
We have 7 travel cots: 3 in Brussels, 2 in Cork and 2 in Dublin, again not counting the one we bought and abandoned in the US.
We have 8 buggies: in Brussels there are the three in one travel thing, a single maclaren, two double maclarens (broken), a double mothercare (broken), and we have single buggies stashed in Dublin and Cork also. This does not include the buggy that was stolen (sigh) and this weekend we’ve got to go out and buy a new double buggy. Blah.
I can’t even begin to count all the other stuff, it’s too tiring, we are busy keeping the baby sales sector booming.
The return to earth
On the morning we were leaving Vermont, the children were, alas, up at 5.30. When we got to Burlington airport our flight was delayed for a few hours due to fog in NY but after an anxious half hour and some bitterness about the New Yorkers with only one child and no connecting flight who had somehow managed to get themselves on to an earlier flight because it is sooo tiring travelling with children, all was well.
We saw the nicer part of JFK this time and checked out the train between terminals which was by far the most exciting part of the journey. When we got on the plane, I went ahead with the children and Mr. Waffle followed with the gear. I installed a child per seat, I turned around to see where Mr. Waffle was and when I looked back Michael was gone. Much panic but he eventually turned up in the back of the plane surrounded by well wishers and laughing delightedly. I have to say that Aer Lingus were fantastic. So fantastic that we even wrote a letter to them telling them how wonderful their cabin crew were – we were impressed by their stamina, particularly the guy who was trying to persuade his colleagues to go to Dublin when they got in at 5am local time. The journey was mercifully dull though the Princess stayed awake throughout sustained by the force of her iron will.
Everything was fine until we got to Dublin airport which, even at 5.00 on a Sunday morning, contrived to have long, long queues for passports. Sigh. We arrived out to the grandparents at 6.00 and there they were up and ready to meet us, hurrah fresh troops.
You will be delighted to hear that after going to bed at 7.00, we were all up again at 2.00 to inspect the “Festival of World Cultures in Dun Laoghaire where the middle classes were at play in their Crocs and Ugg boots (toasty).
I was also able to come in on this touching scene between Daniel and his grandmother:
Daniel shrugs his shoulders gallicly.
Grandmother (holding up doll): Where’s the dolly’s mouth?
Daniel points it out.
Grandmother: Where’s grandma’s mouth?
Daniel points it out.
Grandmother: Where’s Michael’s mouth?
Daniel shrugs his shoulders gallicly again.
Grandmother (to me): But he does know where it is, why doesn’t he point out his own mouth?
Me: You know this is Daniel not Michael.
Poor boys, it’s rough being a twin, we all mix them up though they are not particularly alike, I suppose it has its compensations.
In a piece of quite spectacularly poor planning, I had to be back in Brussels for a work thing on Monday, so at 5.00 on Monday morning I again found myself in Dublin airport. At 4.00 on Monday morning I woke up thinking, do I have money for the taxi, I have no dollars left, hang on this isn’t Vermont, but wait, it isn’t Brussels either, where am I, why do I need euros?
I flew back to Dublin on Wednesday night having left poor Mr. Waffle to deal with the worst of the jet lag. We all spent Thursday in Dublin and had a look at the new Children’s Museum which was fine though could perhaps do with some highchairs for the café, just a thought. On Friday evening all five of us flew back to Brussels and I’ve been writing this ever since.
The End.
