Home

Trust

- So Lukan, tomorrow you're going to the hospital.

- Yesh, hoshpital. Wif papa.

- And you're going to be in a bed, and the doctors will put you to sleep, and then they'll take the water out of your ears.

- Yesh. And den?

- And then you'll wake up, and papa will be with you, and then you can come home.

- Yesh.

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

It breaks my heart how trusting he is - in the decisions we make for him, and in what we say will happen to him. He doesn't ask why he has to have the fluid drained from his ears, has no inkling that any of his trip to the hospital might be frightening, or that it might hurt afterwards, or that he might never wake up.

But that last possibility, that the anesthesia will kill him, frightens me.

I know it's a very minor operation, having your adenoids out and your ear canals drained. I know only a tiny percentage of people react badly to anesthesia. I know it's not rational to feel this unease.

But still, I feel it.

He's on the operating table now.

And I can only trust that he'll be back home soon.

Oh crumbs

So there's an article in the latest New Scientist saying it's quantity, not quality, that matters if you have a blog. Apparently people don't care what you post, as long as you post often.

Clearly, I am not blogging in the right way.

Not that I'm claiming that all my posts, or even any of them, are high quality. They are a bit thin on the ground, though.

But no longer! To stay popular with you, dear readers, to keep you happy, I will post more often! Even if I don't have anything interesting to say! Even if I'm completely uninspired by the mundane happenings around here! Because you don't care what I say, you just want me to say something! New Scientist said so!

So here is what I am saying today. Are you ready? Here it is:

We have crumbs under our chairs and table.

I even have photographic evidence, courtesy of Téo:

The good thing about this revelation (posting frequency, not the crumbs) is that I no longer feel so lame for all the recent flower posts. I was worried you were all bored by them, but now I am reassured that you were simply happy I posted something!

Happy Easter!

I heart NY

I was in New York this weekend. It was FABULOUS.

I was with my best friend from school so the weekend would have been wonderful wherever we were, but I hadn't expected to enjoy the city so much.

The buildings, the monuments, the fire escapes, the stoops, the water towers, the taxis, the streets, the sirens, the food omg the food, the subway, the musical, the play. I loved it all. And the perfect spring weather - while it was raining here and snowing (!) in Dallas - was the icing on the cake.

I was blown away by how familiar everything was - from the sights to the sounds to the people - even though it was my first time there. I never realised just how much New York is a part of my culture, of what I know, even as a non-American. Normally I don't even really like visiting cities, I'd much rather be in the mountains or someplace wild, but New York, well, I'd go back in a heartbeat. Apart from Sydney, I've never felt so attached to a city before.

At the airport coming home, I had to fight myself not to buy the T-shirt. Because truly:

A gratuitous picture because I have nothing to say

Actually, I do have something to say. Or rather, words to eat.

I swore I would never have a house full of plastic toys. Especially big plastic toys. Like, say, the trike and truck my boys are sitting on. Which belong to them.

But these particular big plastic toys, as well as some others that you can't see - toys that are not only big but make noise, something else I'd sworn against - were being sold by a family leaving the country and, well, cheapness won over principles.

And I have to say, it's the best 20 bucks I ever spent. Hours and hours of races around the table, every day, by Téo and Lukan and all other kids who come visiting.

Actually, I have something else to say too. Because 5 bucks for a trike? And 15 for a ride-on dump truck? BARGAIN! I wish I'd bought them years ago... and learned the lesson earlier that second-hand is the way to go.

Kids, from now on you can have whatever toys you want. As long as I can find them second-hand and cheap.

(I'm picking up a heap of jigsaw puzzles tomorrow. $3 a set! Woo hoo! Come on expat families, leave the country and sell your stuff!)

(Also, Téo and Lukan asked for this photo to be taken and posed for it themselves. With no suggesting or cajoling by me.)

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.