The AK-47s

If ever my 3 sons would start a boy-band, they should be called The AK-47s:
It must be said that the name indicates their distinct communication style.
Firing the one question or statement after the other, reacting violently, shoot-first-ask-questions-later (or not at all...), intimidation...
It can drive me nuts.
It's 9 o'-clock and I'm in bed with my clothes still on, no way in hell will I get back up to change into my pajamas or even brush my teeth.
I'm that tired...
I even phoned downstairs to the husband if he would make me a cup of tea (which he did, thankyouhusband).

Son#3 has a school concert tomorrow at school, and again in the evening and then again on Wednesday evening.
He cries a lot so I think he is pooped too.
It's a bit much for a 4 year old.

Son#2 is being bullied at school again, and Son#1 and I scratch-scratch our way through conversations-fights-humour-and-threats.

First, sleep.
Tomorrow will take care of itself.
It has to - I'm simply too useless.



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Out

A last-minute babysitter was organized, and the husband and I went to see 'The Revenant'.

It was good, albeit bloodthirsty and grueling.

It kept me up last night, thinking.

Our Sunday morning started slowly.

Breakfast, candles, orange juice, coffee.

Son#2's asthma medication kicked in making him wired.

Loud voice, loud actions.

Sometimes it lasts a few days...

We struggle to get Son#1 to SIT DOWN and STUDY.

Son#3 pees in his pants and makes a wreckage of the playroom which will soon be cleared by a bulldozer (me) and turned into a studio-cum-study.

The fun is over, mwoohahahahaaaaa...

I'm left in desperate need of uninterrupted quietude.

Study, dreaming and linocuts.

I have a lot of pain.

A lot.

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State of Our Nation

Don't worry:  this is not some political diatribe I'm about to launch into.
There is stress in this house, stress in how we (fail to) communicate how we feel, and it affects every single one of us.
When it is utterly clear that the husband and I are buggering up our lives and those of the kids with stress and wrong jobs, why is it utterly unclear what we need to do to change this?
Can anyone explain this to me?
All I need is a step-by-step checklist.
Things I can tick off, and move on.

I was looking for yet another self-help book on the internet, something that will switch on the light in the darkness, but save for an Alan Watts-quote, I realized that the answers lie within.
We will have to dig it up and live it.
I just wish we could get up out of this muck, quickly, because this adult-thing isn't working out so far.

Son#1 is still home, him and his stomach bug, poor boy.  
Tonight rugby, and I have to help out at the club.
Tomorrow rugby matches, I'm not sure what the husband can handle.

Oh, the Alan Watts-quote went something like this:
If you eliminate everything that isn't real (thoughts, hopes, worries etc.), what will be left?  Only real things.
You deal with what's left.



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The Morning's Production Line

I had to abandon my movie plans because Son#1 and I stayed up until the early hours battling his stomach bug.

I started a small, new linocut - Mandela, for its longing-for-my-roots-effect.

Then 4 prints, which is my quota for the day (arms, you know).

Son#1 and I both study in between.

He's starting to munch on things again, which is a good sign, as long as this doesn't come back to bite us later.

Every now and then some sunshine pops out.

The husband is fed-up with my illness and who can blame him?

So am I.

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Run Number One

There you go.

I have a lot to learn still.
Like after Lino#3 you need to wipe the thing off because the prints get smudgy.
 

I'm trying to make do with limited tools (a rolling pin for pressure, haha but a press is close to 200 bucks) and buggerall know-how.

The framed one is for you, mom.

Everybody needs a skollie on the wall.

(And not forgetting that my mother is my only deposit point for art)

After my horrific day, I decided that I'm going to the movies in the morning, leaving the boys at school for lunchtime (yay, no daily lunchtime bust-ups!!).
Now hoping that Son#1's stomach bug will sod off so I can send him to school too.


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First Attempts

Armed with Fortified Wine, I started my first lino ever last night (I think).

It didn't turn out too badly but I think I need to try different ink and different paper.

Proper paper and lino ink is needed.

I don't know enough about it.

Back to Youtube clips and Emperor Google.

But first let the body rest - one arm's lino-gouging movement screwed up the entire system.

Son#1 has caught the Dreaded Stomach Bug.

In a while, the company doctor who fails to listen to anything I say.

My crankiness seeps into the husband, into the kids.

One person's poison drags all of us down.

Boy oh boy, changechangechange.

Before it's too late.

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Blue skies

Son#1 took to his therapist like a fish to water.

We (meaning Sons#2 and #3, and I), aren't allowed to enter his therapy room anymore.

I told him he could gossip about us to his heart's content, and we weren't allowed to know what he talks about, a fact which he relished.

But he couldn't resist telling us last night that he blames the husband and I for his swearing habits.

We expected a little save-this-kid-from-his-godawful-parents-van to come collect him last night.

This morning is quiet.

The skies are blue, there are shadows against the shed, and you can't imagine if you come from a country where one can see shadows all the time, how wonderful to have the sun out again after shadowless grey skies for weeks.

Son#2 is being bullied at school by a nasty, round boy.

He can't say what he wants in words, but it comes out in emotion.

He cries, feels frustrated and complains of stomach aches every morning.

This can't go on.

Son#3 isn't that keen on school either.

But here I am, sitting in the kitchen, waiting for my life to start.

Some intervention that will kick-start our sickly butts into a different, more promising direction.
We are in the proverbial hole, it seems.

 Will it always feel this way?

Do we ever come to a point and think 'Yes, this is where I am.  I am content now.'?

 It's like missing the punchline of some joke.

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Buck up, Bucky

Son#1 is on tenterhooks - this afternoon's first meeting with his coach has him in nervous twists.
All 3 boys went back to school this morning - all 3 with stomach cramps and complaints.
Nerves?

I have Pain, PMS and I feel stressed.
I'm not getting in much sleep, which doesn't help with Pain, PMS or Stress - resulting in trying to breathe through heart palpitations before I finally nod off at around 2 a.m.
Get a grip, silly woman.

If it ain't working, then change it.
So I did 25 squats and now I can't walk up stairs.
Mmmmm.
Back to the loop, then: if it ain't working, change it.



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Chick-chick-chicken

Sunday Night Fright.

The wind howls outside and Son#1 is  asleep in my bed, with me.

I don't even explain to the husband anymore that I'll be taking a shower and then go straight to bed - it just is.

Like Monopoly: 

Pass Go. 

Don't collect your 200 bucks.

Son#1 (not his usual face, above) cries at the drop of a hat.

Tired?

Sick??

My offspring seem to get cranky right before illness strikes.

The week ahead is not for the weak:

Son#1's first meeting with his coach-shrink.

A meeting with the company doctor.

Trying my very, very best to study and remember things.

One day I'll fly away...

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High School Hunting Ground

Son#1 has gone off with the husband, to see if there is a high school (gulp!) that he'd like to go to in about 1,5 years.
The husband left in a huff - someone had bumped into his car for the second time we think.

It's a big morning for Son#1 - he's going to see his coach on Monday for the first time, and I thought it wise to shut up about it, and give him new info in smaller dosages.

He has become an 'entity':  Sons#2 and #3 will still grow into their respective personalities, but Son#1 is already slipping into his.
It's a beautiful and scary process.

It's been such a busy and hectic week, that all I would like to do is SIT.
Preferably in front of a fire, with book and wine in hand.
Productivity can wait.


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Was this wise?

Dragging Son#2 and #3 to Breda to get art supplies.

Coffee and a croissant each for the curly-haired ones.

Son#3 slept until 9h15 this morning, indicative of his state of health.
Son#2 will not be deterred from the pleasure of eating [anyone's left-overs].

In a second, we'll drive to hospital.

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Notwithstanding

Illness reigns supreme.

Son#2 had to be picked up from school after he vomited his lungs out.

With no tv, the barfing boy had to entertain himself - an impossible feat.
He cycled to school at 4 to go chuck objects onto the ice.

With the holiday last week, ill husband and kids (round#2 with stomach bugs), and not feeling fine and dandy much myself, I'm all cared out.

I need a morning/day/weeks to myself just to pull myself towards myself.

Tomorrow Son#3 will spend the afternoon in hospital to check his kidneys for defunct parts.
It doesn't end.
It. Does. Not. End.

Then the report came back from the so-called labour specialist, which, as expected, stated that I can happily work my full contract.

Feeling trapped much??

You know, it's not depression.

It's bloody frustration and dissatisfaction with the status quo.

No one said you had to like your life.

Which doesn't mean I'm ungrateful.

I could just do with no pain/less pain, more energy and a bundle of cash so I can do more of what I enjoy, and the freedom to choose what those things are.
True for all of mankind, methinks.

But tonight I feel like the seed trapped in soil.

The potential is there, but the conditions are poor.

A talk with Son#1's coach gave 2 valuable insights:

1. If something is going well, keep doing it. If not, then change it.
2. You have your whole life to determine who you are.

Wise words.


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How our day went

It started peacefully.

Some minor scuffles, but nothing I couldn't handle.

Until Son#2 spat (yesssssir...) a lego block in the general direction of Son#1 and CRACKED THE BLOODY TV SCREEN.

I swore high and low, promising untold misery when their father came home tonight.

Never have they EVER cleaned up so quickly.

Even the laundry was carried down from 3 up all the way to the cellar.

Son#1 started a collection amongst brothers, donating €10 of his own money to the 'New TV'-jar, plus picture of remorseful children and angry parents, but Son#2 has yet to learn what money actually entails and conveniently 'forgot' where his piggy bank was, and Son#3, well, is only 4.

Son#1 offered to cook lunch and then dropped olive oil on the Uber Porous Kitchen Floor, now sporting a dinner plate-sized stain.

Groceries.

Lots of them.

Then to the GP we went, to see why Son#1's knee hurts still, 3 weeks post-fall.

We were sent to the hospital for X-Rays, because the GP thought it 'interesting' to see if the kneecap was cracked, never mind that you can't do a damn thing about it.

Nothing broken, but Son#3 then Projectile Vomited all over himself and the front seat of my car on the way home, with Sons#1 and #2 hanging their heads out of the back windows to stop the sympathy gagging.

We stopped in front of the house and it dawned on me that I would have to be the one to 'adult' this situation - that there wasn't another adult around to fix it.

Later when the husband came home, I rattled off the litany in tears, and he cooked dinner and broke a glass jar, spraying the counters with glass shards.

Sigh.

Then I had to make a gazillion treats for the nasty kids in Son#2's class for tomorrow, and ended up eating the left-over Jelly Beans for dinner.
Jelly Beans and Alcohol.
My mum would be proud.

I realize that my life is a feral cat being tickled:

You never know when it will attack.
Perhaps I don't HAVE an autoimmune disease - perhaps I AM the autoimmune disease (cue Ripley's Believe it or Not-tune).

The only thing that lifted us out of this Parody of a Soap Opera, was the cheap flight we booked to Brindisi in April. 

No money?

No TV?

No problem.

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To live for the short moments of oblivion

 

Pain is always new to the sufferer,

but loses its originality for those around them.

Alphonse Daudet 

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Now on sale @ Ikea

Just kidding.

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The Big 8

Son#2 turned 8 today.

Hiphiphurray, bucky.

Live Long and Prosper!

Everything he got was something Star Wars.

We are in phase, you see.

We ate cake for breakfast, then went to an indoor play center where the boys ran their hearts out for 5 hours straight.

Some conflict with Son#1 who simply cannot relinquish even a nanometer's worth of attention, even on a sibling's birthday.

The in-laws dropped by for more cake and Chinese take-aways.

Son#2 fell asleep next to me, as he did for the first good few years of his life, our little insomniac.

He is loved.

Tomorrow, a friend will drop by with her 2 quiet kids.

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Rolling like a Tank

Son#2 has a project, his first.

He had to make a float for carnival and was doing it with Lisa.

Long story short:  Son#2 and the husband built a tank, painted it and packed it off to school.

Lisa made a kitten to put on top.

At least we think that's what will happen, as getting any information out of a boy is DIFFICULT.

Behold its beauty.

The weather has been kind to us, and started warming up again. 

Friday minus 1, today plus 14.

You can't keep up.

But Carnival is in full swing here in the Southern Nether Lands, grey skies switch to blue at the drop of a hat and the husband and I slog through flu and colds, coughing and snot.

The grey skies make me sentimental.
The boys grew up too fast when we weren't paying attention.

I find my solace in candles and branches of the school's hedges that Son#3 collects for me everyday.

Summer can't come soon enough.

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