On Saturday, The Girl turns 14. She gave me a list of what she wanted ( mostly *merk* clothing, clothes with a *name*) which I dutifully bought. The children all know that we don’t do birthdays big, we do Christmas big and so do not expect to be lavished with goods upon the glorious day.

She will also get money from her grandparents and us, to go towards buying another horse, most likely from Poland.

14.

When The Girl was about 2, she had to have an emergency ( like, without this, she will die) operation : she had a strangulated bowel on both sides, caused when she gave a hefty sneeze one afternoon. While all of the males in The Father’s family have had this very same problem – let me add that The Girl is the first girl in three generations-, I was patted on the shoulder and assured that this was not a genetic flaw. But when those loops became clamped between the muscles- quit visible to the naked eye- GP called the emergency room immediately and I was on the phone calling The Father.

It left The Girl with an enormous curiosity about Doctors ( she can watch any operation in full gory on TV) and a love for ER.

Last week, she watched the last episode of season 11, which -after a long delay on Dutch television- I finally downloaded for her. As the last scene from season 11 faded from the screen, she started nagging me about downloading season 12. Har, I thought, perhaps I should take as long as she does, when I ask her to clean her room.

But I did find season 12 and did download it. It was The Baby who suggested that I keep this hush hush, that season 12 would make a nice birthday present for The Girl. And she was right.

Now I am using all of my computer’s strength ( and I do believe that after 8 years, it might be time to upgrade this dear piece of metal and wires) to to re-encode the episodes for The Girl.

The Baby is right :it is a perfect gift for The Girl.

This week, the children all had a vacation from school. The Father was away on business for a part of the time, in Switzerland.

But I was here the whole time. Sortof. You see, I woke up on Monday to find that I weighed 41 kilos and had numb areas on my face. Scary. Some how, during the last two years, I certainly had become, well, derailed. Light headed and spacey, I started eating more and cut down on my various allergy meds.

I am feeling a bit better now, scale tipping 44 and wondering how I got to a place were I could see the blood vessels on my thighs.

Weighing 90 pounds at 5′2, age 49, is not a pretty sight.

Last Friday, The Boy was invited to an everyone in the class party. As he understood it, one should dress up and had to sing a song.

Of course, I dreaded the whole thing.

But he was really in for it. He decided to sing Folsom Prison Blues, and asked me in the morning to find the lyrics for him. Which, of course I did, printing them out in huge letters with large spaces between the lines.

A few hours before the party, he got dressed. He wore the black leather jacket he got in Tunisia last year- collar turned up- and black jeans he had put some studs on. The Girl had done his hair and, boy, she did a great job.

Since his understanding was that he had to bring his own CD and he doesn’t have the song on a CD, I suggested that he bring his MP3 player and his external speaker with him.

And then, standing on a chair in the kitchen, he practiced singing the song twice, with The Baby and I as his audience. Don’t smile, I said, hang your body loosely. I thought he was great.

But then, I am biased, that is my job.

He left at 8, to return at 11. Three hours of hell, waiting to see how it went.

Well, seems ol’ Boy misunderstood the singing part- they had some sortof computer karaoke program that all of the kids used. Except The Boy. The DJ insisted and gave him a microphone.

And The Boy stood there with the microphone singing Folsom Prison Blues while everyone was taking photos and even filming him. When he was done, two of his classmates told him that he had been great, as did many of the adults.

He came home walking on air, the man in black.

The Father always works late on Mondays. Last night, he arrived home a bit earlier than usual- at 9.30- just as The Boy was saying goodnight to me. I told The Boy to stay.

Usually whenThe Father comes home from a long day or a long trip, I save the bad bits for the next day, let the wee lad sit on his arse and just relax.

But not last night.

As he was taking his jacket off, I told him what had happened to The Boy today.

Without removing his tie, he had me in the kitchen, getting the phone numbers of both The Boy’s teacher and the directer of the school.

The teacher’s phone was set on voice mail and so The Father punched in the number for the directer.

The Father told the directer what had happen to The Boy today and told him that he was appalled, no, more than appalled. He asked how long The Boy’s teacher had been teaching, for hours before the testing would begin, she broke down all of his confidence with incorrect information.

He asked if Mr. X was still the inspector of the schools for this district, for he was a personal friend of The Father’s ( they played tennis together every week). No, he had retired, a Mr. Mumble Mumble was the new inspector. And the directer of the school began speaking at about four hundred miles a moment after The Father mentioned putting in a complaint. He basically said that whatever score The Boy received on the Cito would be considered invalid, matter not one whit. The Boy WOULD go to the special Havo school of his choice.

And he asked if The Boy would mind coming to his office this morning at 8 – a half an hour before school began- so that he could talk with The Boy. The Father said that he would have to ask The Boy. The Boy agreed.

The Father is expecting a formal apology from The Boy’s teacher and the directer of the school.

In fact, The Father assumed that The Boy’s teacher would call here today.

She did not.

Today, The Boy begins three days of special testing, called the Cito Toets ( shoot my spelling down there, Freek). Most children in Group 8 ( 6th grade) take this test to help in determining – to a lesser degree every year, though, it seems- which school they should go to next.

A few weeks ago, The Father met with The Boy’s teacher and the director of the school to discuss The Boy’s future school. It was decided that he would go to a special Havo, where- if he did well enough- he could advance to a higher level, which is taught in both English and Dutch. Got the papers right down stairs, special Havo.

The Boy was very psyched up for the test- in a positive way. He put in orders for special foods : bananas, for his snack, bread and eggs and orange juice for his breakfast. He was just up and primed.

Yesterday, his class watched a movie. There were three films to chose from, one was a Scooby- Doo film, another The Village and I forgot what the third one was. The Boy pushed for The Village and that is what they watched. So he told me at lunch.

At the end of the day, the day before the Cito, the children had to fill in some forms. Name, address, blah blah and the school that they wanted to attend. When The Boy filled in the Havo, his teacher corrected him, no, he was going to go to some flavor of VMBO ( read : where one learns to make ashtrays and become a nail stylist).

When he came home, it took me twenty minutes just to get him to come out of his room and talk to me. I told him that his teacher was wrong, full of shit and spent too much time talking about her dog, her car and her apartment. I told him that this would be fixed. I made him look me in the eye and asked him if he trusted me, I reminded him of the Pokeman cards from long ago.

I could see that he did not believe that this could be fixed.

I told him that Daddy knew the Inspector of this school district, used to play tennis with him every week. I told him that Daddy would fix this. He began to believe me.

I asked him if he was a quitter, would William Wallace quit, would Maximus give up ? On and on and some how, his faith in himself returned.

He would go in there tomorrow and fight the good fight.