Growing pains

He clambers onto my lap, all hard knees and pointy elbows, and tries to curl up. Failing that, he just hangs across my legs, feet dangling on one side, arms on the other. I try to accommodate him, my long-limbed boy, but he's just getting too big. I can't even cuddle him while reading anymore, he's so tall I can't see over his head to the page.

And then I see this:

And it makes me cry.

He's only been with me for 5-and-a-bit years. It feels like no time at all. In another blink he'll be 10, and then in another 15 ... and gone.

I know this is how it should be, I know he needs to grow and become a teenager and then an adult and in the process move out of my world and into his own.

But I will miss him.

And I hug my still little one even tighter, knowing I only have 12 months at most before he too stretches out of his sweet, pot-bellied toddlerhood into a gangly boy that first won't fit on my lap, and then won't want to, ever again.

Scratching my head

So since Téo has started school, we've had at least four notes home about lice. How to check for them, how to get rid of them. All from different publishers. One was even hand written - attention aux poux - complete with a Téo-drawn triangle containing an exclamation mark, which freaked me out as I assumed it meant the teacher thought he actually had lice, but no, it was just another general warning.

I thought this was all a bit over the top, but hey, whatever, I guess the district education board wants to be sure we parents know what to do.

It seems they want the kids to know too. Because Téo has become an expert on head lice.

He knows the signs. Mummy, my head is itching, I must have lice.

He knows how to check for them. I have to put my head back and then you have to look with a magnifying glass. Woe betide if you fail to use a magnifying glass.

He knows how to kill them. You need to buy a special shampoo and a comb and then wash my hair. This shampoo, here pointing to the bottle on the latest notice he's brought home.

He knows about their predators. Mummy, why do monkeys eat lice?

But, he doesn't know how to avoid them. It seems the school does not think this is perhaps the better lesson for kids.

WTF?

10 years

At 2am, I called you to join me and Bronnie-chan at the bar.

You were still fixing your diamond-making machine, and weary.

You came.

Drinks were drunk. There may have been flirting.

At 4am, the streets still dark at this time of year, we set off for our apartments, arriving at the corner where we would go our separate ways.

You don't have to go home.

-----------------

This wasn't flirting. It wasn't the lemon sours or orgasms, either.

This was the first time I was really ready to try being with someone, properly 100% heart and body, hopefully forever.

------------------

The White Horse went up on one wheel, spun around, turned away from your apartment, turned towards mine.

------------------

And now, here we are, 10 years later.

Happy anniversary, sweetheart. I love you!

Fantastic Mr Téo

Every morning this week, Téo braved snowy weather, or else fog so dense you could barely see 10 metres, and temperatures that were never higher than -7 degrees, and which one morning were as low as -13, with a north wind to boot -- conditions that I would definitely choose not to ski in -- to go to ski school. With a cold. Without (much) complaint.

He started the week unable to do a snow plough.

Today, he confidently put on his skis, placed his hands on his knees, and set off down the slope by himself. Then caught the rope tow back up.

Little man, I am so proud of you.

And what is even better than you learning to ski, was your excitement and pride every day when you described something new you could now do.

I can't wait to join you on the slopes.

I guess it's going to take longer than I hoped

So I'd been hoping that Lukan's insistence on do like Téo, do like mummy, do like papa, me as well for everything - which leads to feats like blindly launching himself down a steep ski slope on his tummy, to follow his brother - would accelerate the toilet training.

But then yesterday happened.

He came into the bathroom while I was on the toilet, and saw I had a certain feminine product* in my underpants.

Nappy like Lukan! he said delightedly. Mummy do like Lukan!!

D'oh.

* euphemized for any sensitive male readers

In which emotional literalism meets impatient sarcasm

So Téo was a bit tired this morning after school, and by "a bit tired" I mean melting down faster than the Greenland icesheet and releasing just about as much water.

At first the melt down trigger was being stuck on a particular reading exercise in Reading Eggs, which he has to complete before he can go further. He loves all the exercises except this one, and each time it turns up we go through a few days of misery and avowals of never reading again and how this exercise is stupid and they should just take it out and I won't do it, I won't.

The problem? He has only a certain amount of time to read 15 words, and the fact of being timed sends him into a hyperventillating panic, so he doesn't read the 15 words before the time is up, and then it's I can't do it, I'll never be able to do it, I'm going to end up unloved and all alone.

So anyway, this morning there was much wailing and several failed attempts at having a nap.

And then it was time to go get Lukan.

- I want to stay heeeeere. I don't want to gooooo. I'm too tiiiiiired. I'm not comiiiing.

And so on, for many minutes, with me getting just a little impatient.

- I'm hungreeeee. I need something to eeeeat.

Now, he had eaten breakfast, he had eaten a snack at school, and he had eaten a snack upon getting home from school. Plus, the Lukan pick-up takes 15 minutes. 20 minutes max.

- No, we'll have lunch when we get back.

- But I can't waaaiiit.

- Well, I'll guess we'll just have to risk you starving.

Whereupon his eyes grew huge and somehow even more liquid, he looked at me in horror, and then, in an Academy Award®-winning performance for melodrama, he sunk to the floor in complete and abject misery, howling...

- YOU WANT ME TO DIEEEEEEEE!

Same thing, different experience

This morning in the vineyards...

- It's too cool, the jump. It hurts our bottoms when we land, but it's really fun!

- Waaaahhhhhhh!!! I don't like it, de jump. I don't like de snow. Go home right now!