A Voice.

I don't get homesick very often, but I was homesick last week.  It was for something that caught me a little off guard...I was homesick for democracy.

I found myself in a situation where I didn't have a voice.  At all.  Now that's not all that unusual, there is a whole language barrier that I deal with on a daily basis.  (I really should find a french class now that all of the kids are in school.)  But that's not what this is about.

The first week of school, the usual calendar of the year's events such as vacations, holidays and class trips came home in a backpack (or three.)  A tiny little detail jumped out at me immediately.  This year's Classes Vertes (we call it Green Week at our house - it's a Monday thru Friday class trip for the 1st thru 3rd graders) is no longer for 1st graders.

Ok, yes.  I know.  If you are reading this and you are an American, you are probably thinking, "First grade is much too young to go away on an overnight (let alone 4 nights) away from home with a school group."  That's what I used to think too.   I thought that exact same thing two years ago when AJ was in First Grade and his teachers started talking about their spring Green Week trip.

But despite my anxiety at my oldest baby leaving to go away with his class, I didn't want to be the only parent to keep my kid home.  I didn't want him to miss out on a bonding experience with his class.  We're here in this country for an immersion experience.  So I told myself that first week of school, his first year of primary, "It's nothing to worry about right now, kids grow and change a lot in a short amount of time, we'll deal with this in the spring when it's time for the trip."

For the last two years, Monkey (AJ's little brother) has watched enviously, waiting for his moment when he could climb on that school bus and go away with his class (and his big brother).  Last year, he shouted to the whole world that he only had one more year to wait.  He was finally going to get to go to Green Week this year.

An email to the principal and a conversation with Luke's teacher revealed that this year, "parents complained that the children were too little."  Now, I happen to know that parents have said that in the past (I said that) but never, was the green week trip canceled for the first graders.

I also know that there are a lot of parents in Monkey's class that only have one child, or that have an oldest child.  I don't know what happened, I don't know who or how the decision was made.  I do know that I never had a voice.

If I had a voice, this is what I would have said.  I would have said, yes, I know they are little.  Yes, I know it's four days.  But the teachers do an excellent, amazing job at preparing the kids for these days away.  And somehow, in all of that preparation of the children, they happened to prepare the parents too. I would have also said that as hard as it was to say goodbye to my baby for a few days, the difference I noticed in him when he got off that bus to hug me again at the end of it all, was well worth it.  He was confident.  He was self-assured.  He was so proud of himself.  And he had so, so much fun.

I am so sad that Monkey doesn't get to do that.  I will be crushed if we are called back to the U.S. before he gets a chance to go.  I am sad that I never had a chance to stand up for the teachers, and tell everyone how good of a job that they did with the children.  And how I felt the same way - but even more so because it isn't even our home country.   But mostly, I am so sad that I never had a voice.

Now to be fair, I don't know if this is the way things always get decided with something of this sort in Belgium, or if it's a quirky one-time thing that just happened at our school.  But it made me homesick for the democratic process I would normally take for granted. The process where all of the parents (or at least those that wanted a voice) come together in one room and they talked about their concerns together.  But I know that it certainly didn't happen for this situation.

My Angel

Today was Wednesday, half-day for public school kids in Belgium.  As a good friend of mine put it perfectly just yesterday, "we drop them off and we have just enough time to spin around on our heads before we have to go back and pick them up."

Miss B is going to stay home on Wednesdays.  She needs some mommy time in her now busy week and Wednesday is a tough day for the little ones.  We don't get home for lunch until nearly 1pm, and then we turn around to go back out for everyone's football practices.  (The reason for the half-day is to give kids one afternoon to devote towards an extra-curricular activity.)  It's brilliant, really.  My boys are playing football (i.e. soccer).  This year, we even know that it's for the  whole year.  (Last year we assumed it would end after the fall, just like in the U.S., but it never did.  By about March we figured out that if they sign up to play on a local team, it's for the whole school year.)

But I'm getting off topic from what I wanted to tell about.  Miss B and I had a lovely morning.  We went on a coffee date, a quick stop at the grocery store, she had a chance to play at home and I caught up on a few things around here.  Thinking that I was being proactive, on our way out the door to pick up the boys, I put the glass bottles in the car to dump at the recycling bins at the end of our street.  (Glass bottles aren't picked up curbside, there are bins in every neighborhood and we have to sort our own.) Then I was going to run into the store at the train station to grab one more thing I needed for dinner.

Our glass depository is conveniently located next to the preschool down the street.  Not the smartest placement, come to think of it, especially once you hear this story.

My timing could not have been worse.  I stopped to dump my bottles just as all of the school parents were picking up their children.  Lots of traffic and lots of kids.  But continuing on to pick up the boys with three bags of smelly wine and beer bottles wasn't really an option either.  With the colored glass already sorted, I convinced myself it would be easy enough to jump out, dump each bag in the coordinating bin and be on my way.

Not so much.

Two cars were parked in what was supposed to be the bottle drive area.  My plastic bags were wet from the rain and heavy from the bottles.  They slipped from my hands in my haste and smashed to the ground.  I grabbed bottles and started tossing them where they needed to go.  Another bag slipped and broke.  There was literally broken glass everywhere.  My broken glass.  And children (little children) were all on their way to their cars.  Cars were honking at me.  (Did I forget to mention that the street is narrow and even though cars could get around my car, the one behind me was trying to fit somewhere in or around where my car was stopped.)

I looked down at my mess of broken glass.  I still tried to pick up a bottle or two that was big enough to put in the bin.  Two men who had stopped for some strange reason to have a conversation right at that spot, just stopped talking and stared.  One made a comment of some sort about glass, it was probably about my bad timing, but I prefer to think that he was echoing the thoughts that were ringing in my head about the cars that thoughtlessly parked so as to block the glass bins.  (The language in my head was a little bit stronger than that.)  In any event, I was too flustered for my mental translator to work properly.

Then I saw the blood.  I had blood gushing all over my hand.  I had no choice but to walk away from the mess of glass, get in my car and drive away.  With one hand, I dug out kleenex to wrap around my wound.  By the time I got to the parking lot for the store at the end of the street, it was soaked.  In the parking lot, with Miss B by my side, I realized a tiny cut on my right hand was bleeding profusely.  I found a band-aid in my purse and got that one under control.  But the one-inch cut on my thumb was not going to be so easy.  I was on my second wipe and out of bandaids.  At that exact moment, a cashier from the store came outside to have a smoke break.

She took one look at me and told me she'd be right back.  She came back with antiseptic spray, gauze, cotton, and tape.  I just started to cry.  Right there in the parking lot, she cleaned and wrapped up my entire thumb.  I'm a mom.  I'm the one that always takes care of everyone else.  To have someone like that appear at exactly the moment I needed someone to take care of me, is nothing short of a miracle.

I often hear expats complain about the customer service here in Belgium.  Personally, I've experienced much worse customer service in the U.S. and I've never had a customer service incident here worth mentioning (not including phone calls of course, especially to Belgacom).  Until today - in a good way.  This woman saved me today.  I am 100% sure that I would not have been able to get my cut to stop bleeding on my own.  She saved me from an afternoon in an ER waiting for stitches.  And I even made it to school on time to pick-up the boys.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go un-wrap my bloody-mess of a hand and assess the wound-situation.  On second thought, maybe I'll make Johnny do it for me.  Sometimes it's ok to ask for help.   Speaking of, I think he's going to be on bottle duty for awhile.  It's going to be awhile before I'll be able to return to the scene where today's traumatic events transpired.  At least until someone cleans up the glass, and the rain washes away any possible blood spatter.  I will also say lots of prayers that no one gets hurt on my glass mess.

And I can assure you, I will never, ever go back there with any sort of glass if it's even close to a drop-off or pick-up time.

Saved by the Poop Book

I really hope that this is my last entry about poop.  But the second I say that some unimaginable event will happen regarding said substance and thus I won't say it too loudly because I don't want to jinx myself.

We have had a battle of wills going on at our house with respect to the potty training.  Miss B got it in her little blond head that she didn't want to sit on the potty and preferred to do the dirty business in her diaper.  Or underpants, should she happen to be wearing those.  Which, of course she has been mostly wearing.  Yuck, yuck and yuck if you know what I mean.

She was getting frustrated.  She knew when she needed to go, but wouldn't sit still long enough for nature to take its course.  Over the weekend, I tried to devise ways to keep her sitting on the potty long enough for her little body to take care of business.  She would have none of it.

And then, I remembered "the book."   I scrambled to the book shelves to find it, forgotten from potty training efforts of a few years ago.  An unsuspecting adult who has never had to go through potty training, would be utterly confused by this book, should they happen upon it in a children's book store.  It's called "Everyone Poops."  It is exactly what the title claims, all about poop.  It goes something like: Big animals make big poop, little animals make little poop (you get the idea) it moves on to talk about people and then ends with the lines "...everyone eats, so everyone poops."

This book saved me.  Miss B thought that it was the funniest, most fascinating book topic she'd ever seen.  We made a deal.  We could only read the book if she was sitting on the potty.  Our second time through it, the miracle I've been waiting for the last couple of weeks finally happened.

And so I hereby declare this to be my last entry about poop.  Unless something unimaginable happens that I just have to share with you.

How Many Milestones Can We Fit into One Day?

Preface:  I've learned that it is difficult to blog about the children without using their names.  In an attempt to still keep them a tad bit anonymous, from here on out, the first-born is AJ.  The second kid is Monkey.  And the little one is Miss B.

Yesterday was the first day of school for the public schools in Belgium.  It was Miss B's first day of Maternelle (there are three years of kindergarten here, starting at age 2.5).  It was Monkey's first day of Primary.  It was also AJ's 8th birthday.

Miss B was beyond excited.  For all of her short life, we've been making the walk up to the school gates to kiss her brothers good-bye in the morning or greet them after their school day.  It was finally her day to march through the gates and wave goodbye and she was all ready for it.  On the big kid playground she was the only kid from First Maternelle not clinging to her parents.  No, she was running in the middle of all of the First, Second and Third Primary boys.  When it was time to go into her play yard and classroom, she skipped.  When it was time for us to leave, she was pretty cool with that.  When I picked her up, she was wearing different pants.  (An accident.)  Today, she was a little less excited, there were a few more tears.  She cried when I picked her up and she is very very tired.  French immersion will do that to a kid.  But she'll be ready to go again on Monday, I'm sure.  And no, I wasn't sad to see my baby go off to school.  She made it very easy to walk away because she was so excited, and I was just thrilled and happy for her.

Monkey loved his first day in Primary school.  AJ was excited for his birthday to finally arrive.  He showed up at school with his arms full of cupcake boxes.  When your kid has a birthday on the first day of school, there really is no other choice than to send treats.  Even if it does add a whole extra level of stress to the first day of school prep.

My morning was spent running errands, happily rushing about without dragging a single child along with me.  I'd feel like I was lying if I didn't admit that I had "freedom" themed songs playing like a soundtrack in my head all morning.  Lyrics like: "I'm free, to do what I want, any old time"  (Soup Dragons) or "Freedom, you've got to give for what you take" (George Michael)  would randomly pop into my head throughout my errand jaunt.  

We also celebrated another milestone yesterday.  One year ago (the first day of school) we noticed Luke's hair was falling out.  A whirlwind of doctor visits eventually resulted in a diagnosis of Alopecia and a three-day hospital stay for a progressive treatment.

We celebrated all of these milestones by creating a new one.  After school, we took our first family bike ride - without training wheels - to the outdoor patio pub at the Chateau and toasted our day.

Lightening Strikes

One of the reasons I love traveling back to Minnesota in the summertime is that we almost always get at least one good thunderstorm while we are there.  Thunderstorms just aren't as common here - maybe the temperature is just too consistent - without dramatic drops from high to low.  Anyway.  I'm not a meteorologist.  I don't really have any idea.

But this last month, we've had quite a few thunderstorms here.  Last week, a thunderstorm in the middle of the night lasted for hours.  Another thunderstorm delivered a lightening bolt that hit our building.  Everything shook, and all of the burglar alarms started going off.  Here, a lot of people have homes with burglar alarms.  These are not exactly silent alarms.  These alarms are attached to the exterior of the building in an obvious place, with a flood light that flashes and an obnoxious blare that screams at a high decibel when triggered.

Everyone's power was knocked out.  The next morning, it took me longer than I care to admit to find the switch in the basement to reset it.  Ok, let me rephrase.  It took me longer than I care to admit to learn that there was such a switch in the first place.  I had to hear the vacuum cleaner next door before I knew I had to start asking around about the power loss and what to do about it.  (Remember, that sometimes my strategy here is to wait to see what happens.  Sometimes, things just fix themselves.  This wasn't one of those times.)

Our neighbors had their phones and modem fried.  A few hours later after our power was back on, I realized that our brand new dishwasher was still dead.  The flashing lights indicated some sort of short. The first available appointment was a week out.  Today, that coveted appointment revealed that a part needed to be ordered and a new appointment was scheduled for next week (the next available time slot, of course).  But the repairman explained that he has been extra busy because of those storms.  Apparently, a lot of electrical appliances have shorted out.

I've decided that we got off lucky.  It was an appliance that is still under warranty, it's an appliance that our landlord maintains.  And while it's not as convenient, it's not critical.    I can use my hands to wash my dishes.  Our computers (both were plugged in at the time, updating iTunes) - now THAT would have been a critical loss.  Not to mention expensive.

I'll wash my dishes and buy myself some new fancy hand lotion for my dishpan hands.

The Laundromat

Now that we have been here for three years, it's not very often that I have those moments of complete panic    that used to be so common in the first few months.  That feeling of walking into a place, and having absolutely no clue about what was expected of me or how to accomplish what I needed to accomplish.

Flashing back, I remember having said moments of panic: the first time I went to the gas station; the first time I had to pull a cart out of the cart coral (here you need to insert the proper coin), the first time I had to buy produce (here, loose produce is weighed by the purchaser on a scale and you have to print the price sticker); the first time I had to use my bancontact card.  It was a fun first week, filled with lots of panic-stricken  moments.  

I am happy to be beyond all of that.  Every now and then, though, something comes a long to remind me that I don't know everything.  

A few months ago, one of the kids threw-up on our king-sized quilt.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stuff it into our 8kg washing machine.  There is a laundromat in town, across from the grocery store.  I had driven by it a number of times, thinking "I really should wash our big quilt from our bed."  The sick kid expedited this errand.

I did a little reconnaissance.  I learned that there was a big enough washing machine, I needed my own soap, and I had to buy tokens on the wall.  Upon venturing back with my smelly quilt, I was delighted to learn that the large washing machine had a delicate cycle that only took 24 minutes.  

Mission accomplished.  The other day when I realized that the cover for our Ikea sofa was washable, I returned with confidence to the laundromat, no reconnaissance necessary.    

I know it's a simple thing to be proud of.  But I'm proud of it anyway.