For my dad

Along with the lobster song, the pie-eyed pied rooster was a classic of my dad's. He also liked to hide and then call out BOCK-A-BA-KER-CUL, in the hopes of tricking people into thinking they'd heard a very strange bird. It even worked once, on a week-long hike in Tasmania when I was a kid. There was much chortling in our camp at the other poor, gullible hikers.

I wish Dad could see this. I wish my boys could have heard him sing it.

Oh

- Mahmeeeeeeeeeee...

I tense every time I hear it. The slightly nasal, borderline tone of whinge, the drawn-out rising inflection at the end. Nothing else so quickly sets my nerves on edge and puts me in a combative mood.

It has never prefaced a polite request or anything pleasant.

- I can't...

- I want you to...

- I don't want to...

- Why can't I....

- When can we...

It came again as I headed upstairs for a shower, the umpteenth time already this morning.

I braced myself and tried - not completely successfully - to keep the impatience and upcoming denial-of-request out of my voice.

- Yes Téo?

- I love you!

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