After dinner, we all put on our wellies and take the dogs for a good walk on the dikes. The light is beautiful, the children hold races: The Boy and Buddy( Budzillia, slow but sure) get a 30 second head start vs The Baby, The Girl and Elvis ( Elvis : God made me fast).

Fine moment.

Later I upload some old music to The Boy’s computer : he wants to hear some Buddy Holly. I show him how to twist to Fats Domino, not that I can dance.

Fine moment.

Last week, as I walked The Boy and The Baby to the little hell hole down the street, I told them that one day, I would throw a BIG party. And that day is the very last day that I have to make the walk to the little hole. By that point in time- about 6 years from now- I will have walked back and forth and back and forth for 17 years. I kid you not. We have decided that we shall break the rules and have two number cakes, a 1 and a 7, and I shall sit upon each child’s lap in turn, as per an agreement made long, long ago, which stated that once they were taller than me, I got to sit on their laps. We shall make a fine and festive day of it.

Oddly enough, knowing that I only have 6 more years of this has made me more flexible: when The Boy asked me if I would come and pick him up at school ( The Baby has the day off) this afternoon, I was, like, well, why not ? Next year is the last year for walking The Boy back and forth to school and The Boy has a Walton soul, he likes this sort of thing very much. He appreciates these sorts of moments very much.

So, I’m standing in the playground, waiting for his class to come out, trying to catch a reflection of my new pants in the classroom windows, the wind blowing my hair into a dandelion and forcing me to fly back into reality. About 20 yards behind me are two football mummies, their sons play on The Boy’s team. Well, they play on the same team as The Boy. You remember The Boy’s team, the made for Disney 11 ? He joined the team when he was five years old, and, well, as we would say here in Walton World, jeepers creepers, years and years and years went by without them winning. one. single. game. These lads ( most members of the same physical therapy group aka class for the clumsy that The Boy has gone to since he was in first grade) learned at a tender age that winning wasn’t important, having a good time was. Most, not all. Must have the exception that proves the rule.

I don’t quite know what has happened, but this year – out of the blue- the team keeps winning. We are so unused to this that I still ask The Boy- when he returns from a match- if he had a nice time. I stopped asking the scores, oh, years ago. In fact, they have won so many times that tomorrow, they could become the champions of their class ( hey, Disney…) I have spent hours trying to find a way for public transportation to take me to the game, but- alas- I’m going to miss it. How I would like to stand on the sidelines and watch these boys.

Oh well.

Back to the schoolyard. Since the younger children all have the day off, the playground is quiet, only a few mothers shifting from one foot to the other. The mothers of The Boy’s two team mates are chatting back and forth and when their boys come out, the talk is all about tomorrows game. I can hear every word. And- oh!- don’t I wish I would be there as well !

And then the exception that proves the rule walks up to the little group. He plays on the team as well, but has a bit of a Maradona complex. I smile when I hear both mother’s telling him that should the team lose tomorrow, they don’t want to hear him blaming one person.

They win as a team, they lose as a team.

A rather spoiled child, one could see that he wasn’t used to being spoken to in such a manner. But he kept silent.

Oh, wouldn’t I just love for them to win tomorrow ?

Although when The Boy comes home, I will certainly ask him the usual : Did you have a nice time ?

Yesterday- on my trip to The Big City- I bought a pair of Diesel Keate jeans. Today I tried them on and I just might never take them off : they are the most wicked pair of pants that I have ever owned.

Perhaps this is one of the more shameful side effects of going through the change, this irrepressible desire for tarty pants. One never knows, does one, for women can be pretty tight lipped about things like birthin’ babies and menopause.

I just know that these pants are to die for, that bad.

Today at dinner, when asked by (most of) the women in his life how many times he had been on a bus, The Father really did pause for a moment, thought for a while and replied- rather brightly- once ! While I- of course- said nothing, I couldn’t help but feel that his lack of public transportation experience most likely reveals more about his family than of The Father himself.

Today was The Baby’s test it, try it out ballet lesson. As long ago as last week, I had printed out various bus tables ( thank you, Edwin), maps, I was well prepared. The Girl even picked up a charming ballet outfit for The Baby last Monday. I bought a big bus ticket, double dressed The Baby, packed her little princess bag as well as her princess umbrella.

We were one well prepared mother- daughter combo.

After an hour of various and sundry bus rides, after 10 minutes of following Mummy’s map, we arrived at the cultural center, the address of the ballet school. Only, no one had ever heard of this address, I stumbled over blank looks , vague hand gestures accompanied by uh, well, maybe it is over there ( way the hell over there). The Baby and I walked to and fro, here and there, a crumpled map in my hand.

I confess, after we had given up hope of finding the place, began to find our way back to the bus stop, I- an excellent, perhaps even – a superb map reader, got lost in the convolutions of this nieuwbouw wijk. The Baby does not know this. She also doesn’t know that at a certain point, tired to the bone after 45 minutes of aimless ambling, I was close to tears.

We found the bus .

We threaded our way once home again, The Baby noticing the Langstraat style of a village, me explaining it.

And when at dinner The Father asked me if we asked people for directions, well, if one spends over an hour on various and sundry buses one does indeed grab total strangers by the arm. No one likes to waste a good three hours.

And no one likes to disappoint a small princess, wearing a lavender ballet outfit under her street clothes.

Once upon a time, a very long time ago- why, perhaps as long ago as 1984- we started doing business in Poland. You know how convoluted life can be at times, and so bear with me, although- in the end- one wonders if these details really matter . There was this church, you see, in the village that the guy half of the couple next door- Pieter’s- family attended and the church was being all kind and smarmy and trying to link up wee Polish companies with Dutch companies. And we popped into to Pieter’s mind, and- low and behold- a business relationship, a friendship began.

The Tat part is that in 1995, when The Girl was 2, The Boy a few months old, Richard asked if his teenage daughter could spend a summer with us. Have you seen Shrek 2 ? The Puss-in-boots guy ? Well, The Father gave me that look and I said sure, fine, as long as she brings a friend, so I’m not stuck entertaining her.

Which she did.

They ate us out of house and home, which- if one is lugging two children and a shopping bag to bring in the daily provisions by foot and shoulder- one does indeed notice

En fin, water under the bridge, at least they wolfed down the three bean salad. Eh, they wolfed everything down, though, didn’t they ?

Time rolls on, ten years later now, isn’t it ? Our house needs a lick of paint, both inside and out. Desperately. Did I mention that Richard also runs a construction company ? We have fine window…uh…ledges ? made of glossy black granite via Richard. As well as our porch…uh…rose arbor.

A while ago, as we contemplated the paint peeling off of the facade of our house, I asked The Father if Richard couldn’t send a crew in to do it, aren’t the borders open now and all of that ?.They could stay on the third floor, while the children and I were in America, keep The Father company, catch a little football, whatever.

Richard stopped by a few weeks ago, went over the house, listened to what we wanted done, in our wildest dreams.

Today his offer came in. Curls one’s toes, it is so affordable. Why yes, if this goes well, we might even follow through on The Father’s lure : that they should come every two years and keep things netjes, tidy.

Tit.

Tonight are Parents/ Teachers conferences at TThe Boy and The Girls’s school. Like their dental appointments, I don’t do those meetings any longer. Over the years, I have developed zip tolerance for the usually very negative meetings that we have had, and so, I stay home. I go to The Girl’s, but the school down the street, nope, I’ve reached my quota with them.

Which is a shame, I suppose, for The Father told me that the last meetings were very positive. While tempted, I pass, for I know that my back is simply waiting for that final, fateful straw, that one that shall leave me causing a scene, something which I would regret immediately but be unable to prevent.

Yup, reached my limit on listening politely to people talk utter rubbish about my wee cherubs. I find them perfectly charming, just as they are.

Even The Girl, who was kind enough to pick up a delightful ensemble ( in lilac, no less) for The Baby- to wear at her test ballet lesson on Wednesday- when she went to The Big City this afternoon. She even bought The Baby a tiny set of lavender leg warmers, excessively cute they are.

What a very kind and thoughtful choice she made.

Good big sister.

This morning The Father and I and The Boy washed the dogs- they look great. Well, speaking in a relative sortof way. This week I will brush them up again and next weekend The Girl, The Boy and I (The Father will be in India) shall wash them once more and they should be back on the right path once again.

After lunch, I took The Boy and The Baby over to the Vismarkt to see the Kellogg’s Kindertruck. The Baby was really looking forward to this and was very, very disappointed : as the dutch would say, it was two times nothing. Back home once more, she and I walked circles in our yard, there isn’t a weed to be seen any more. When The Girl returned from her day at Indoor Brabant, she gave The Baby the cleaning kit ( a must have for any horsey girl wannabe) she had picked up for her at one of the vendors at the show and The Baby played with that for a very long time.

An unusually busy weekend, one which began on Friday night with Papa in his kerchief and I in my cap ( or is it the other way around ?), about to settle down for a long winter’s nap, when our doorbell began to ring and ring and ring well after 10 in the evening : there was a fire in our across- the- street neighbor’s home ( Peter, The Boy’s art teacher), and they were ringing for help. Of course, our casa was their’s, I poured soft drinks for the children, not so soft drinks for the parents, we supplied wellies and a place for the police to fill out their reports. Fortunately, it was only smoke damage, unfortunately, everything that they own is covered in a thick layer of greasy soot.

And The Father’s brother- the one in Italy- broke his pelvis in a freak accident yesterday. Calls made back and forth all weekend, he is out of surgery and doing very well, all things being considered.

We spend hours outside, the children and I, in our tiny weedless garden. It is so fine that winter is finally, finally over. The Father has been talking again about another house, in a couple of years, and on days like this, I am mighty tempted. I would like to have more land, maybe a fat little Shetland pony, space for gardens.

It’s pleasant to dream.

The Baby had her first riding lesson today. The children are always started off with a series of half hour long, private lessons until they are ready to join the group lessons. The Baby had just a wonderful day.

First off, all of The Girl’s horsey-girl friends simply oohed and ahhed over The Girl’s mini- me, her isn’t she cute ? sister, who looks remarkably like The Girl. And they all watched her first lesson, which The Baby simply gobbled up. The teacher was very kind to her and made funny comments to her about The Girl, and The Baby’s comments about how The Girl made her stand, sit, stand sit every morning on her Eeyore rocking horse had everyone laughing.

After her lesson, we had almost an hour wait for the bus, so The Girl and two other horsey girls took The Baby across the street, where they care for some Shetland ponies, and The Baby got to ride around on the fattest little pony that I have ever seen.

I was peeking at my watch the whole time that she was on Ebony- she looked so very tiny and at times I could see that she was trying very hard to be brave. I was glad when the lesson was over while she looks forward to lesson two.

While everyone will agree that the only thing more boring than a cliche is a bad pun, I sometimes think that perhaps the word cliche is a synonym for folk wisdom, the – yawn- tried and true path of experience which most of us ignore, saying that we shall blaze our own trails.

But, well, of course, watching a friend going through a four to six month death penalty affects one, of course one cannot help but look about, find the things that annoy one and whisper- if only to oneself- what if I only had four to six months left to live …what would I change ?

And that is what I am doing now, changing things that drag me down, bother me, make me feel guilty. I have worked- oh, worked, let’s just leave that puppy sleeping- very hard the last two weeks, trying to deal with the things that bother me most.

The dogs are on the porch, every snarl off of their bodies, even those dreadful belly one’s of Elvis. We shall wash them this weekend, I shall brush them up next week and another tar shampoo next weekend. They look very stupid at the moment, clipped down here and there, leaning against walls for support. We could call them Jimmy and Jim for the moment, for I drugged them ( sedatives) for the clipping. The wrapper said it took one hour to take effect.

Wrong. It took four. But the deed is done, let’s grow some hair.

The Baby went to the art class today. Although filled with boys, she lost herself in her painting, after her initial, Jennifer Jones ( wow, I did indeed have a nickname as a child : Jennifer Jones) scene.

She has a test ballet lesson next week, in a land far, far away.

The Boy points out to me this evening that I have long and loudly sworn that no child of mine would ever take ballet lessons.

Eh, I think, I took them for ten years and really, do I look anorexic ?

Oh well. Watching someone slowly ( or is it rather quickly and assuredly? ) meet death is bound to stir up the dust, create a desire for order, a desire to cut the shit and make the life that one has and shares better.

Am I not simply the queen of cliches at this moment ?

Despite the sub- zero weather which creeps up on us every night at about 3am ( isn’t that supposed to be the darkest hour of the soul?), the children and I have moved into our pleasant weather routines : after dinner, we move out into the yard, cruise around the plants ( including my poor, wee camilias, still enshrouded in beach towels, tempting me with buds swollen with blooms to be), chew the fat, fart around with the dogs until the setting sun and lowering temps. chase us back inside, in front of the tube, the tube which comes in various flavors, including the one which I sit behind now.

The Baby’s hanging cherry tomato seeds have sprouted very well, we plan on hanging either baskets or …or…I’ve lost the word : bloembakken… along the west wall of the porch…uh, the rose arbor. This should be the year ( this is the second year for these roses) that the roses really move. The Boy and The Baby and I inspected them this evening, but, well, things looked…slow. I showed them the bright red sprouts on all of the other roses, but the Constance Sprys look rather comatose. But I retain my faith, this is a great rose, and although they have gone through a hellish first winter, I do believe they are of the Donna Summers sort.

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In the middle of my tale, I am interrupted.

There is another tale to tell, but I won’t be telling it.

And my Walton moment is over.