This weekend

With old freelance projects to finish up and the new job as well, it feels like I've been working ever since I got back from Sydney. Every day, every weekend, even some nights. So on Saturday - sunny, blue and warm - I was very happy to finally have a day off and go skiing with my family.

That lasted about 5 minutes, before the non-stop wails of I can't do it and it's too hard combined with not even an ounce of trying had me shouting spouting a number of parenting gems. At both kids.

C took over with Téo, and when Lukan and I had both finished sulking, I redeemed myself slightly by getting Lukan to slide by himself for the first time:

And then we walked out onto the frozen lake and built a snowman:

Which was very nice of Lukan, since what he actually wanted to do was play in the playground.

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Do you want me to be able to wead?

This is what Lukan says, sidling up with a cheeky smile.

There is of course only one possible answer.

Then you'd better let me do Weading Eggs!

He's been asking to do it for the last 6 months or so, and while he learned the sounds of the letters, he never got the actual reading part, was never able to put the letter sounds together into a word. But his brain must have grown the right connections recently, because look how far he's come in the last two weeks:

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I stopped him after 3 lessons. And then the house was invaded by piwates.

Because boasting about your kids is just gauche

- Hey guess what? Our new au pair is running for Miss [EuropeanCity]!

- Oh yeah? Well ours is a Swedish television star.

There are nights - nights after nights after nights - where, frankly, dinnertime is not so much fun.

Not for us, with endless rounds of please use your knife and fork and no singing at the table and please don't interrupt and stop eating like a pig and I'm talking to papa, just wait a minute and stop mucking around and well go get a cloth and wipe it up and inside voices and eat what you want but stop whingeing about what you don't like and hurry up and eat, it's getting late and no there's no dessert if you don't finish and on and on it goes.

Not for you, with all the above and then also that's one... that's two... and on the bad nights that's three, go sit on the stairs and on the worst that's three, dinner's over, straight to bed.

But then there are nights like tonight, where it's just lovely. Where we have a conversation, an interesting one, between all of us - all listening, all contributing, no loud random interjections or demands, no singing on top of someone's talking. And dinner is eaten with cutlery, by everyone, without half of it ending on the floor. Where there are no threats, and every request is polite and thanked.

Nights where I wish you two would always be like this... not just this polite and pleasant, but quite literally this same age, with this same curiosity, same innocence, same generous cuddles, same unquestioned desire to be with us. Forever.

Snapshots, inside & out

So you may have noticed, it's been a bit chilly here lately. As in, below zero chilly, even during the day. Unusually far below zero, with a nice wind chill factor for good measure. (Those horizontal streaks in this photo? They're blowing snow.) I am pretty much cold all the time. And reeeaaallly enjoying having to now go outside in order to get to work.

Luckily, the other household members are tougher than me. 

We have pretty new cushion covers.

And I have a lovely sister-in-law.

An instance of when a Swedish au pair is better than an Aussie mum

The Swedish au pair takes the kids outside to play even when it's -12.

First day of work

Outside temperature: -8 degrees C
My temperature: 38 degrees C

Thank goodness for Panadol, long underwear, and fortifying cups of tea.

Pregnant adj.
1.Carrying developing offspring within the body.
4. Having a profusion of ideas.

For a while I was both.

Fuck I thought, as the first suspicion grew. Fuck fuck fuckety fuck when the pee stick instantly showed two bright pink lines. Seriously, was the universe playing some gigantic joke?

Joke #1: Not long before, in a conversation about third children with friends, I had said I was done, and for the first time ever, I meant it.

Universe: Ho ho, a definitive statement.

Joke #2: I had honestly thought there was no chance of this. No chance, because we weren't methodically trying to conceive, like we had to for Téo, Lukan and the embryo in between that didn't make it. No chance, because of my age.

Universe: Tee hee, by someone who seems to have forgotten her sex education!

Joke #3: In the last six months or so, we've passed on pretty much all our baby stuff.

Universe: Chortle, chortle, it just gets better.

Joke #4: In our end-of-year letter, I made a quip about our new au pair that could have been interpreted to mean we were having a baby.

Universe: Chuckle, chuckle, let's see her field questions about 5th household members while actually pregnant!

Joke #5: In February, I am stepping in as a maternity replacement for 7 months for one of my best clients.

Universe: Ha ha ha, a maternity replacement who, ha ha ha, is pregnant! Won't the client be thrilled!

Yeah.

But then, even knowing the hurdles to cross before a baby was in our arms, as the days and then weeks passed and physical manifestations of pregnancy became apparent, I couldn't help but skip ahead. To practical issues: cars, bedrooms. The speed of the birth. To unimportant, but irresistible, imaginings: hair colour, gender. Names.

All that ended at the first doctor's appointment. No heartbeat. A streak of tissue the size of a 5-week embryo, instead of a 9-week fetus with arms and legs and a head.

It still seems like a cosmic joke, only crueler now.

Cruel joke #1: The embryo died pretty much at the same time I discovered I was pregnant.

Cruel joke #2: I was fine, truly fine, with only having two kids. Now I'm back to wondering.

Cruel joke #3: The extra doctor's appointments and hospital visits, on top of all the other appointments I'd already scheduled to get out of the way before I start my new full-time job, and on top of the several other projects I need to finish for other clients before then.

Cruel joke #4: Even the term for this kind of miscarriage, "missed abortion", which seems to imply that I missed something, that I should have known this past month that the beginnings of our baby had died, instead of seeing every bloodless day as a sign of hope.

So. Here I am now, no longer pregnant in any sense, blindsided by post-D&C hormones, mourning the idea of a new baby, wishing this one was still alive, struggling to accept the end this miscarriage means to my reproductive years, an end that somehow seems more awfully final, more finally final, than simply believing I was too old.

Sad, in other words, and a bit weepy. OK, but sad and a bit weepy.