'Tis the season to be busy

So I started this post two weeks ago... but yes, you guessed it, was too busy to finish it before leaving for Sydney. And now here I am there, with Lukan, who is having a very good time with his cousins and as an only child, as evidenced by this conversation from last night:

- Mummy, are we staying in Sydney until Christmas?
- Yes! And who's coming on Christmas Day?
- (Blank look)
- Who's not here from our family?
- Gwandma?
- Well yes, Grandma will be coming over to Uncle M's and Aunty J's on Christmas Day, but who else isn't here?
- (Thinks for a bit) I dunno.
- Have you forgotten you have a brother?
-(Face lights up) Teo!!
- And who else?
- (Blank look)
- Have you forgotten you have a father?
- No, I don't got a fah-ver.
- You don't have a papa?
- (Face lights up) Papa!!

At least he wasn't disappointed to remember the rest of his family.

In which my insistence on the Whole Truth leads to an awkward moment

- Mummy, you're playing with my zizi*!

- No I'm not, I'm washing you.

Hmmm, this could be a good teaching moment.

- You know Lukan, it's OK for me to touch your penis while I'm washing you in the bath, but it's never OK for anyone to play with it. Not me, not anyone. OK?

Oh cripes, I don't want him growing up thinking it's off limits for ever.

- Well, until you are an adult. When you're an adult it's OK. 

Wait, that's not entirely right either.

Well, if it's your choice. It's only OK if it's your choice.

Jeez, this is not exactly very coherent. Let's get back to the main point.

 But it's never OK when you're a child.

OK, well, hopefully he got something out of all that.

- Mummy, do you let papa play with your zizi sometimes?


* French for willy, as well as female genitalia.

Interlude

So that last post was a little disingenuous, me moaning about the cold and grey when in fact I was only days away from escaping it. And a lovely escape it was, a solo trip to Sydney for a wedding and some one-on-one time with my Aussie family.

I got back on Tuesday. It seems even colder and foggier... but over the muted grey I see the blue of jacarandas and the light of a stronger sun... which should keep me going for the next 3 weeks, until I return to Sydney again.

Schism

I've mentioned this before, but late autumn leaves me feeling deeply divided.

On the one hand is the cold and the grey and the fog. These are unwelcome enough by themselves, but knowing they are merely a mild harbringer of what's to come makes them even more unpleasant. My thoughts don't easily skip to joyful anticipation of snow and skiing and chalets and wood fires - which is kind of sad, as I love all of these. Instead, I find myself hunkering down, steeling my mind for the long wait until winter is over. Or else actively planning for spring:

But then, when the sun finally clears the fog, the sheer beauty is undeniable. And for a couple of hours - or even a whole day if we're lucky - I wouldn't change anything for the world.

Recipe: Curry pumpkin soup with chicken skewers

So the thing is, I'm very proud of my new recipe blog, and I'm even using it quite regularly, and some of the new recipes I'm trying are just so yum that I can't help but want to spread the yumminess even further. Maybe you've already used the site yourself - and if so then I thank you for maximizing the energy usage that goes into running the servers on which those recipes reside (energy use for which I feel more than a twinge of guilt, especially if I am the only one actually using it) - but even if so perhaps you'll find a few recipe highlights useful? Or at least more welcome than no new blog post at all?

Anyway, here's the first: curry pumpkin soup with chicken skewers. 'Tis the season for pumpkin soup around here, of course, but this is THE yummiest pumpkin soup I think I've ever had. Ever made, in any case. And adding chicken skewers is sheer genius. What is not sheer genius, is my forgetting to take a picture of said soup with said skewers, because recipes are so much more inspiring with a good image. Hopefully my artistic rendition will do the trick though.

Bon apetit!

Snapshot: Last Friday night

It looks glamorous, I know, and it was fun - and a nice change from a night in front of the telly - but we were really only there as bums on seats. Minority bums too, making sure all the linguistic groups of Switzerland were adequately represented. Which always strikes me as odd, that the people from where I live - predominantly white, and not really that different from how I identify myself - are considered a minority. But it does have its perks!

Snapshot: Outside, right now

No denying the season any longer...

Snapshot: Halloween

Saturday at friends'














Monday at ours:

A talking jack o'lantern
Scary sound effects
Flickering lights
Bats and spiders
A swooshing ghost
Dried flies and bugs as treats (Real! No marzipan!)
And best of all, slightly spooked kids!

A lousy deal

Many thoughts came to mind when I first gazed upon Téo's crinkled, bewildered face, but "bringer of pestilence" was not one of them.

It should have been. Because while the kids might have come out sterile - or at least only inoculated with my own flora and fauna - they didn't stay that way. And ever since they started moving around and picking up their own beasties, they've been passing them on to me.

First it was a string of viruses, nicely spaced at 3-week intervals over Téo's first 6 months at childcare. Where did these microbes come from, against which I apparently had no immunity? No idea, but they found me a very agreeable host.

I thought it was all over once my immune system finally got to work and I was no longer constantly sneezing and coughing, but no. The transfer simply moved to higher life forms.

First it was worms. A whole family infestation. Twice. Just lovely.

Then, the weekend before last, lice. LICE!! Only this time the kids truly perfected the art of vector - one or both of them managed to pass a louse on to me without getting infested themselves. Which, on the one hand, great! More is most definitely not merrier when it comes to vermin! But on the other hand... wtf? It's their school- and childcare-mates who are chronically louse-ridden, but I'm the one with nits?

And you know what's even better than spending an entire weekend obsessively combing ones hair? Having the uninfested members of the family place the disgusting, wriggly insects in a kiddie bug trap, and then showing them to each any every visitor entering our doors.

Fun times people, fun times.

Birthday fun

Once upon a time, my father was part of a practical joke so good it caused Adelaide University to revoke his degree (only he was never caught).

A few decades later, my brother was part of a practical joke so good, it got reported as fact on the nightly TV news.

I myself have orchestrated a couple of practical jokes that, while not nearly of the same scale or notoriety, were nevertheless extremely satisfying.

And today, on his 7th birthday, Téo carried out his first practical joke:

Trick cupcakes.

Little man, I have loved hearing your chuckles and chortles over the last few days as we planned this prank, I delighted in your own delight when you saw the cakes this morning, and I am happy it all went perfectly at school, with the whole class believing your mother had made mashed potatoes with peas and carrots instead of cake, because you had not eaten enough vegetables this year.

It's just a shame you didn't believe I had run out of icing sugar and so been forced to use real mashed potatoes.

Happy birthday my lovely boy, and here's to lots more giggles, fun and trickery!

Nuts

This is Téo's 2011 collection of horse chestnuts. It would be much, much larger, only he's not allowed to bring any more home. In fact, this year C stipulated he was only to bring one home, but thanks to my ignorance of this, he managed to get away with one bag.

He'd spend the entire day under the school's horse chestnut tree if he could, picking them up and storing them in whatever's available - bags, buckets, pockets, rolled up in his T-shirt. He slides them down slippery dips, tosses them in the air, uses them as cargo for his cars and trains. He's supposed to pick them all up afterwards, and does so willingly, but nevertheless they fall out of his clothing, lie scattered in the garden, roll around underfoot inside.

It happens every year.

Given his unabated passion for collecting these nuts - his complete inability to pass one by without picking it up - you'd think he'd be an enthusiastic participant in the very similar annual event of walnut collecting.

Not so.

He might grudgingly pick up one or two if I ask, but then disappears to play with the somehow more beguiling horse chestnuts. Lukan won't pick up our walnuts either. Nor C.

This year they were a little more willing, but only because of the novelty value of C's father's handy new walnut-picker-upper-er.

Even so, their definition of being done is OK I've had enough now, as opposed to my definition of when each and every last goddamn one is picked up, and even better if there's time to get those from the neighbour's tree across the road too.

This difference can get a bit tedious when, just as I've finished, the boys decide it would be fun to knock and shake the tree to make more walnuts fall. The difference also gets a bit tedious when "had enough" refers to "had enough of running around with the walnut-picker-upper-er when the basket is full", an apparently very fun activity with the unfortunate side effect of emptying the formerly collected walnuts all over the place. Which, you know, is kind of the opposite of what I think the tool is for.

So. There I am most afternoons these days, in the back garden, the only one of my family compelled to pick up walnuts.

At least this year it's been warm and sunny.

(This was taken on Sunday - I've since refilled the two small white baskets.)

Snapshots: Harvest time

Finally ripened tomatoes.

Ever-falling walnuts.

Friend's apples. 

Left-over grapes.

Indian summer

Looking out the window this morning, I saw our birch tree is turning yellow. The mornings are foggy, the walnuts are falling, the light fades earlier. Autumn.

But.

The days are blue, the pink has arrived, we're in T-shirts and shorts, we're eating outside. Even at night.

I know it won't last, this bubble of warmth and colour between the cold, wet July and August that was and the chill, grey November and December to come. But while it's here? I am basking.

Autumn means...

...pumpkins! 

Here's a sampling from the pumpkin stand in the village across the valley.

Two spaghetti squashes, because I was curious. (Not bad served with marinara sauce. The rest will become pumpkin lasagne.)

One Japanese pumpkin. (Yum yum yum on the BBQ. The rest will become ... something. Or else just BBQed if the weather stays warm.)

One butternut pumpkin (Yum yum yum as soup.)

Two little ones whose name I have forgotten (Will become sage and pumpkin risotto.)

And then I'll go back and get some more!

A birthday weekend

Cinnamon birthday breakfast rolls.

A project completed.

Fête, friends, drinks, dancing.

Family lunch.

Sunny afternoon.

CSI.

Happy birthday my love!

One way to my kids' hearts

New tops, waiting in their drawers for them to find tomorrow morning.

Now it's nothing but flowers

Last September I bottled kilos and kilos of tomatoes, preparing for winter.

They were all used up by mid-November.

So I saved every store-bought bottle we used from then on, and this spring we planted even more tomatoes.

And then it stayed cold. And rainy.

There were those two weeks in June when it was hot - and we ate home-grown broccoli and zucchini for every meal. (Thank you once again, Cook's companion)

Then the cold and the rain returned, all the way up until the first day of school on August 22.

That was the week we got our first ripe tomatoes. Since then there's been just enough for eating each day, but none spare. And this weekend - another holiday weekend - the weather went back to cold and rainy, so I suspect that's the end of them for this year.

Part of me is relieved to have escaped the bottling - especially since the walnuts started falling last week - but it's a bit sad nonetheless.

At least the flowers didn't disappoint.

Speaking of food: I spent a large part of the rainy holiday weekend transferring bookmarked recipes to Quick (cuppa tea) recipes - feel free to use them too! And let me know if I can make the site more useful (although hopefully the labels already make it easy to find something...?)

Break point

The following is inspired by the prompt of: "Write a short story that reveals one of the unspoken struggles of motherhood". 

Her arms hurt, a stiff protesting soreness that mirrors how she feels. She’s tired of holding her baby.

She'd read the books, gone to the classes, but nothing had prepared her for this constant, round-the-clock contact. The 2-hour feedings, every 4 hours. The rocking and pacing. The co-sleeping. The carrying around – for of course, pre-baby, she'd chosen a sling over a pram. Her back's beginning to ache as well.

---------------- 

"It's just that he's with me all the time," she'd said to Andrew one rare night he was home. He'd looked at her oddly. "Well, of course," he'd replied. "He's a baby."

"Yes, I know, but the thing is, usually you get to know people slowly. You meet someone, you figure out you like each other, you start spending more time together. But with a baby, there’s no getting used to this person, he or she is just there."

And you have to be with them, is what she didn't voice. No deciding first whether you even like this person. No way to change your mind about the whole thing.

"All the time," she'd whispered. But Andrew – social, outgoing, no-need-for-alone-time Andrew – hadn't heard. He was making faces at Max, babbling gibberish, totally absorbed in their child.

---------------- 

Before Max was born, it had seemed sensible for Andrew to be starting his MBA now. After all, it wasn't like they'd be doing much with a newborn, especially one born in winter. What better time to be stuck at home studying when they'd be stuck inside anyway?

But she hadn't realised how this would quite literally leave her holding the baby. All day while Andrew was at work, most evenings while he was in classes, and all weekend while he did his assignments. Plus nights too, since she hadn't seen any reason why both of them should be exhausted.

Right now it seems like the most stupid fucking idea they ever had.

---------------- 

She can't know that in a couple of years she'll be hoisting a toddler in one arm, carrying the shopping in the other, muscles strong and willing. That her sense of personal space will have disappeared completely, and she'll be OK with that. More than OK: she'll happily acquiesce to every request for a kiss and a cuddle. She can't know, now, that in 18 years she'll long for the smallest physical contact with her first-born, even a simple tousling of his hair.

All she knows is that her arms hurt from the constant weight of a baby and she’s desperate for some space. 

---------------- 

It’s 6 pm, Andrew's not home, she's just managed to gulp something down and shit it's time to feed Max again so they can both be in bed by 8 and she can have some chance of 6 hours sleep before the sun and her son force the next day to begin.

She looks at Max, lying in the baby bouncer.

She can't do it. Abruptly, she leaves the kitchen, walks to the living room, turns on the TV. Watches a whole episode of Doctors, a soap she doesn’t even like, but it’s such bliss to just sit there for a whole 30 minutes, alone, doing nothing.

Such bliss to escape.

The guilt hits when the credits roll. Running back to the kitchen, she finds Max exactly as she left him, gazing at the kitchen light.

She wonders what is wrong with her that she resents her own child's need to be held.

---------------- 

You might remember me moaning a while ago that I was not a literary writer, and suggesting to myself that I try. Back then I used a writing prompt, and I've been thinking for a while now that this is a good way to force myself to go beyond daily happenings and my general comfort zone when it comes to writing.

I started the above back in March, but didn't finish it in time to submit it to the website that put out the prompt, and then kind of used this as an excuse to not publish it anywhere, which isn't really going beyond my comfort zone, is it? So, here it is.

Front: late summer version

Are you feeling a little bereft? Like something has been missing these past few months? Because indeed, there is something that has been very much absent lately, something you got a lot of last year... garden photos!

And so, without further ado, behold:

Well, maybe a little ado first. Perhaps you'd like to refresh your memory of what the front garden looked like back in spring. And for an even starker comparison, late autumn last year. Actually, while you're at it, you may as well take a peek at how it looked originally, just so you have a better feel for how much it's changed.

All done? OK, here is the current view (after a cold summer, which is my explanation for why the foreground (where the tulips were) is not pinker).

There are still a few holes, but it's getting there! And most definitely being enjoyed:

Late season scorcher

The kids were still swimming at 6.30pm - pretty incredible for mid-ish September!

Thanks my lovely friends and family for your texts and Facebook messages and emails and phone calls and meals and singing and presents!!

Fully trained

- I don't want to go. 

He clings to your side, refusing to enter the room.

You assure the teacher it will be OK, then forcibly carry him inside.

He doesn't cry, but holds on to you even tighter.

You extricate yourself, go outside, heart just fine. You know this is the right thing, leaving him there in his first music class, barely 4 years old, because you know it'll do him good, your music-loving child. Even though his brother was a whole year older when he started.

You look through the window. He's sitting at the desk, thumb in mouth, refusing to go up to the piano.

You go home.

When you go back 45 minutes later to pick him up, he's clapping along enthusiastically with the other kids. Then he sees you, and breaks out into a delighted grin.

It was fun!

Exercises for my heart

- I don't want to go. I'm too scared.

He clings to your side, refusing to enter the hall.

You check with the teachers that it's OK if his big brother and older neighbour stay with him this first time, even though they've moved up to the next group, then you forcibly carry him inside.

He bursts into tears, holds on to you even tighter.

You extricate yourself, go hide out of sight, heavy hearted. Are you really doing the right thing, leaving him there in his first gym class, barely 4 years old, just because you think it will do him good, your not-so-physically-daring child? After all, his brother was a whole year older when he started.

You peek out from your hiding spot. He's huddled on the floor, thumb in mouth, refusing to even look at anyone.

You worry some more.

You peek out again, catch the teacher's eye, give a questioning thumbs up.

He's joining in, she mouths.

Your heart lightens a little. You take a look, and indeed, there he is, climbing up the ladders then dropping to the mattress below. Carefully, not very high, but still.

Then he's trying the rings, really trying to swing on them by his arms, getting better each time. And his brother and neighbour are there, helping him, encouraging him. Your heart lightens some more.

Next there's a tag game. His brother chases him in exaggerated slow motion, letting his little brother win.

Your heart nearly breaks at how kind your older child is being.

Then he sees you, and breaks out into a delighted grin.

Did you see mummy? I'm doing the gym!

That's when your heart soars.

A manner of speaking

Mix together:

1. Being bilingual, where one language is essentially a posh version of the other
2. Many, many hours of listening to Roald Dahl stories
3. Very few English-speaking peers

and what do you get?

A 6-year-old who, when trying to convince me of something, starts with:

- Mummy, you're not obliged to do what I'm about to propose...

Elsewhere

So my mum called to complain about the lack of posting. Well OK, she called for Lukan's birthday, but she also wondered whether I'd written anything lately over at the other blog, the one about living in Switzerland. Which I have, but that gig and other work - plus Téo going back to school, which apparently means I get to spend every night covering books, as well as a superhero party to organize, and an absent husband for most of last week, oh and the babysitter who just failed to show up - left me without much time for posting over here, sorry.

Actually, I had a whole post written in my head last week, but given it was composed at 3am on the 3rd night in a row in which I did not sleep - DID NOT SLEEP - it's probably just as well I never got around to typing it up.

Well maybe I'll just share a bit of it with you. You see, I was under the impression that the taking of opiates left one rather relaxed. Barely conscious even. Isn't that what books and films portray? Dreamy, blissed-out people? Perhaps even drooling? Well, this was not my experience after taking codeine-laced cough medicine. No dreaminess, no bliss, no drool. No coughing either, so yes the medicine did work, but what's the point of not coughing if the medicine leaves me so wound up that I CANNOT SLEEP? Constipation is another side effect I could do without. I guess really, I should thank my body chemistry for reacting like this, as it most definitely discourages me from downing cough medicine for recreational purposes, but at 3am on the 3rd night of not sleeping I was not feeling so generous.

OK back to appeasing my mother. At the other blog, I wrote about:

• Houses
• Not being myself (my favourite)
• Shops being shut
• Weddings
• School
• School again

Hope you enjoy!

It's my Buzz Lightyear birfday!

And then a superhero party!

Happy 4th birthday my little big boy wonder!