Summa Twenny-Thirdeen

So summer. It went by kind of fast. And in fact, it was quite short - since October last year, we have had exactly 8 weeks of warmth. But those 8 weeks? They were fabulous. Sunny and HOT, mostly coinciding with the school summer holidays. And even though C and I didn't have any time off, it was still fabulous.

Finally, finally, the kids had a summer of proper swimming lessons. Finally!

The best thing was, there should have been 4 kids per class but most days they each got a private lesson. The 5% of the time when they didn't, there was only 1 other kid. They both made huge progress.

Téo was already water safe, but by the end of the summer he could swim really well. He got so good, he's now in preparatory classes for a swim club.

Lukan started the summer unwilling to put his head under water, and ended it being able to swim underwater - although only with goggles on. So, not quite water safe, but a lot better.

So that was the kids' weeks, and the weekends were also often watery.

Sometimes frozen.

And that was it really: the pool, various lakes, a river, a big hike, a visit from my mum, a visit from my aunt and uncle, lots of fire-grilled sausages.

And marshmallows.

A fabulous, fabulous summer.

Even better

I can't deny, it warms my heart to see this. Especially since an hour before he'd asked to use the iPad to watch something on YouTube, and I'd said no, so then he amused himself first by building electric circuits with a kit from his uncle and then by reading.

I can't help thinking that such activities are better than videos and app games... but at the same time, I wonder how much of this is really true and how much is curmudgeonly-ness. Also, snobbery. And there's a bit of hypocrisy mixed in too: I do let the kids use the iPad when it suits me to be left alone, sometimes. And I like veg out in front of the TV. Plus I'm conflicted over my rules: leave your brother alone and find something to do by yourself when the other is reading, but you have to share it together when it comes to iPad usage.

Still, it warms my heart to see my kids reading.

Gone from us

He comes home smelling of cigarettes and someone else's perfume. When he comes home at all, it's getting rarer and rarer. Even when he does come in - reluctantly, unwillingly - he's desperate to get away, to be anywhere but inside what was once his home.

The kids he used to play with and cuddle - well, now he couldn't care less about them. In fact, it's painfully clear he wishes they didn't exist.

Every now and then he passes by the house on his way somewhere, gaze resolutely forward, not a single glance in. Sometimes I go out and call his name. He'll come to me, out of a lingering memory of how things were before, or maybe just habit, but where once there was so much affection - even too much at times - now there's none. He shies away from my touch, stays the shortest possible time. The whole time he's with me, he's straining to go to her.

I can't believe how quickly this has happened, either. Ever since Vietnam, just a couple of months. Well actually, I've known she was after him since last October, but not for one second did it cross my mind he'd leave us for her. I keep asking myself what went wrong. What she offers that I can't. I keep trying to make things better, but it's not working. He just doesn't love us any more.

I went over one day. To her. To say the kids missed him, I missed him, could she please stop encouraging him. With the smugness of the preferred, she said there must be something wrong at home if he doesn't want to be there. That she can't stop him coming over. Can't stop him eating at hers. Can't stop him staying the night. That if the kids wanted, they could always come and fetch him from her place.

I really, reeaaallly dislike this woman.

I want to ask her how she can live with herself, stealing him so brazenly. Whether she can look into Téo and Lukan's sweet young faces and not feel the slightest twinge of guilt. I want to snarl at her that she only ever got to know him because of me. He wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for me.

But even if I think she's completely and absolutely morally in the wrong, I can't deny the truth that he's gone from us. I can't make him love us. I can't force him to stay in our home.

Good bye Max. You'll never be able to understand it, but you are breaking our hearts.

The way things go

Measured by the holy grail of research - a paper published in Nature - my scientific career was a complete failure. A long, drawn out failure: it took years and years for my Nature-worthy-had things-worked-out project to come to the unpublishable conclusion that in fact, things were not going to work out.

It was an ironic pleasure then when, shortly after starting at my job at the biotech company in Germany, I was published in Nature. Sure, it was an ad and not a spectacular breakthrough that would Change The World. It was still extremely satisfying to go from idea to execution to being published in Nature within just a few weeks.

When I worked at WWF, the holy grail was to get an opinion piece into The Economist or the Financial Times. Again I failed.

Now I'm back in marketing... and yes, you guess it... my words are appearing in The Economist and the Financial Times. Even cooler, I came up with the concept for a flashy interactive ad for The Economist iPad app, got the right people to make it for me, and now it's out there! My words, my idea, in The Economist!

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The other night when I was lying in bed, I suddenly had a vision of Lukan running towards me across the school playground after school had finished, his pochette* flapping around his neck. And equally suddenly, I realised that by working out of the home, I will probably never see this in real-life, ever again.

The pain in my chest at this realisation was not insignificant. And not really counterbalanced by getting ads published in newspapers.

* A laminated paper envelope that the infants kids use to take messages from the teacher home.

Also, just to say I am not miserable working, I just find the full-time-ness of it hard.

The last couple of months

Right, so, where was I? Oh yes, winter!

It's been a snowy one.

The kids are getting useful. 

Which has been pretty, but a little slippy. And a little less fun for the broken-legged one.

Although actually, he has enjoyed being pulled around on various sleds. It snowed and snowed and snowed, and then stopped just in time for the school holidays in mid February.

 Skiing! Fabulous skiing on fabulous snow in fabulous sun!

 

Toboganning! 

 Tubing!

Snow scooting! 

A walking Lukan!

Snow tunnel!

Icicles!

Chalets! Cheese! Friends!

A lovely week, until... right near the end, on a veeerrrry misty day with zero visibility, C skied off the piste and over a drop, and so we ended up...

...with two sore legs. Leading to a new version of an inexplicably popular song:



We were down to 1 pair of crutches shortly afterwards when...

...the cast came off! He may look a little worried in the photo, but actually he was quite happy. It feels like there's balloons tied to my legs when I walk, because my leg is so light!

And then C took back his crutches last weekend, so hopefully that's the end of sore legs this year.

And also winter... because even though it's still a little chilly, and even though there's been a few more snow flurries this last week, and another this morning...

I think it's safe to say that Spring, while not sprung, is springing.

Over just as it started

Yesterday was a beautiful day. 

Fresh snow, blue sky - perfect for skiing.

All good until a fall, and a ski that didn't come off. Twist...

... snap.

That's pretty much the end of his skiing for 2013.