Saturday afternoon, the sun is shining, and we have a plan.
We are going to visit a house in the country: it's the first tentative step towards something we've been thinking about for a long time... Something we have decided we can make happen, though it will require patience, stamina, a little bit of courage and an understanding bank manager. The photos of this house have been making us drool for days. OK, so the electricity and the plumbing will need a little work, but so what? We know we don't have the money to buy perfection. And those views of the countryside are beyond what money can buy.
We are bright and perky. We have two adorable kids in back. Man, we are a happy little family.
Two hours later, after a 45-minute stint on the windiest road imaginable, the happy little family has lost some of its spark. Most of its spark, actually.
LB, who had been looking a little out of sorts when we set off, is now a pale shade of green. The contents of his stomach will soon be adorning his car seat.
BB, contrary to expectations, has not slept peacefully during the ride, but has now reached an unprecedented level of hysteria. After a particularly gruelling game of "hide the dummy", said dummy is now lost. We pull up, search every square centimetre of the damn car: the dummy has vanished into the twilight zone. BB wails and screams as though part of his own body has been hacked off, which, in a way, it has.
The house we have come to visit turns out to be not so much a house as a shell. A spookily empty shell with no electricity, no plumbing and, consequently, no toilet.
The view is less breathtaking and more oppressive: we are surrounded by imposing hills and valleys, a vast, human-less expanse of emptiness. This is the countryside alright, just not the one we had imagined. The quaint village turns out to be a drafty street of shuttered houses, with a cemetry and a statue.
Dutily, we visit the house. We are all feeling miserable, some of us more obviously than others.
As soon as it is polite to do so, we pile back into the car and hit the gas.
We must get out of this place before dark - though dark is looming - find our way back to civilisation and a chemist.
Unfortutanely, our progress is hampered by a procession of sheep being herded to other pastures... and an improbable charity "event" which involves slightly crazy-looking locals rolling beer barrels down the road and chanting into megaphones.
The windy road never ends. As LB cries and BB screams, I wonder why someone didn't just put up a helpful sign saying "Civilisation: this way". Then at least we'd know which road to take.
By the time we get home, the happy little family has become the Dysfunctional Family. The kids are physically drained. The parents are on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
They lash out like snarling cats: well whose idea was it anyway to get a place in the country?! Man, never mind the country house, I don't even want to live with you anymore!
Later, much later, our mood softens and we are almost able to smile and shrug off our disasterous day.
We talk, we reason, we make conclusions, as sensible adults do.
The dream is intact. But we pull it down a notch or two.
See, there's countryside and countryside, yes? And - er - the one we've been imagining involves bakeries and cute cafés and a reassuring shopping centre not too far away.
You get the picture?
Yes, we are town mice-on-the-turn, and town mice have to come down a peg or two before they think about taking on those country mice.
All in all, a very enlightening day.
I bet you're fed up of hearing about my vaccination dilemma...
If so, take heart in the fact you're almost certainly not as fed up as I am of thinking about it!
However, I feel like we've finally reached a decision I'm happy with: BB will be vaccinated tomorrow, on the advice of my doctor (I guess I just needed to hear it from someone whose medical opinion I respect), with the adjuvant-free vaccine.
The doctor said there was absolutely no need for him to have the adjuvant-free version, but that he would write me a special dispensation anyway, "because it's you".
I smiled gratefully, hoping to hit the right balance between coy and respectable.
Proof once again that here in the south of France, it always pays to wear a short dress when dealing with the male species...
Emerging from the physical and pyschological fog of the past 2 weeks, I am amazed and shaken at my ability to worry about an issue that really just required a quick, sensible decision. I thought I was getting better at this "pragmatism" lark, but recent events have proved otherwise.
What intrigues me most is that, though I worry intensely about certain things, I am fearless when it comes to others. The dividing factor is obvious: control.
I don't worry about anything I have a degree of control over; I go into a fit of anguish about things I can't control.
BB has a book called Am I Scary?
The first five pages of the book show various insects and slimy creatures that are "not scary", with the cheery incitation "Touch me, I'm not scary!"
But, just when you're feeling quite brave, out of the last page pops a big hairy spider, who cackles "I AM scary!"
If I apply this very intellectually profound approach to myself, then, what do I find?
Giving birth: not scary
Driving alone to Bordeaux with a 4-week old baby: not scary
Travelling through Siciliy on my own at 18: not scary
Moving alone to a foreign country at 22: not scary
Being a passenger on a plane: SCARY
Trusting someone I don't know to vaccinate my son: SCARY
I tell you, it all comes down to control. And trust.
And the fact that I must have a huge ego if I presume that anything I have control over will work out just fine...
I think that's more than enough physchological insight for one post.
If you've got this far, thank you for listening.
Now that that's out of my system, I'm hoping I'll be able to crawl back into the land of the living and start to appreciate the present again.
As the title says, this has been a horrible day. And we're only mid-way through the afternoon.
I am fully aware that the fact it has been horrible is 95% my own fault (stress, anxiety, etc.), but come on: you'd need to be a steely, unemotional, no-nonsense optimist NOT to be affected by all the scary hype being spouted about this vaccine.
As you may have gathered, none of the above adjectives really apply to me.
Have you ever been completely drained of energy before you've even begun the day?
I woke up (early) this morning feeling sick to my stomach with worry. My head throbbed so much that by the time we reached the gymnasium-cum-vaccine surgery, I felt pretty much like I already had the dreaded flu.
Then, of course, the predictable chaos took over (nice oxymoron?).
Lines of people, crying babies, confusion, no ticket system, queue jumping, wailing, more confusion...
Despite my heartfelt pleas, the consultant doctor refused point blank to let BB have the adjuvant-free vaccine. Because he's 27 months, and the "rule" says only kids under 24 months are entitled to the so-called less risky vaccine.
3 little months and no negotiation. My heart caught in my throat, and - however much I know and understand that a rule is a rule and the risk is minimal - I felt I could easily lunge for the doctor and wring her neck.
Sorry if that shocks you, but it's the truth. Nothing brings out savagery quite like the maternal urge to protect your child from harm, I find (however minimal the potential harm may be).
So in the end, only FH and I got the shot.
I seriously considered faking the doctor's signature and taking BB to the adjuvant-free stand where the lucky under-2s were being vaccinated... but at the last second, something stopped me. However much my head was raging, this seemed like going too far.
I still don't know if my decision not to simply lie and fake a signature was a/ sensible, or b/ cowardly.
Now I have to take BB to see our family doctor and ask for an "official" note saying he must have the adjuvant-free vaccine "for medical reasons" (or something equally vague).
This is the course of action that was recommended to me by the on-duty nurse, in a sort of conspiratorial, "there's-the-rule-then-there's-the-way-round-the rule" voice.
That's France for you.
I hate this whole thing more and more. I hate the manipulation, I hate the hype, I hate the fact you have to be sneaky and beg. I hate the fact that our health seems to have been turned into some random lottery with hazy rules that have to be guessed at.
And most of all, I hate that, despite my better judgement, we're a part of it.
I am a very firm believer in the importance of the little things.
Both good and bad.
It's the little things that make you happy... It's also the little things that can tip you over the edge into temporary despair.
This afternoon, I am coping with the idea that myself, my husband and my little boy are going to allow a total stranger to inject an unknown (to me) chemical substance into our veins (the swine flu vaccine, tomorrow).
I am coping with the fact that these are my last few weeks of precious alone time with LB.
I am coping with the money worries induced by our ambitious "life-improvement" projects.
But suddenly, I can't find my tea strainer, and I feel this wobbly tower of coping may be about to collapse.
All I want is a nice cup of tea, and the tea strainer has disappeared. Why does this suddenly seem so, so upsetting?
My coping tower is tall and looks sturdy from the outside... But when tested, it may yet prove to be a dodgy DIY job...
I'm talking about H1N1, of course.
This is the question on a lot of people's lips at the moment. In theory, it's straightforward: there's a problem (swine flu), there's a solution (vaccine): enough said.
In practice, there are lots of questions and doubts (here in France) concerning the vaccine itself. These range from the fairly reasonable (it's unnecessary) to the downright scary (the vaccine will have horrible untold side effects in the years to come; it's all a big con to make money for the big pharamceutical companies).
So how are we possibly to decide what to do for the best among all these terrifying rumours and divided opinions?
For sure, if I didn't have young kids, I'd take the risk of getting sick. But apparently it's irresponsible not to protect your kids from the potential lethal consequences of the flu (especially babies).
So after MUCH consideration, and MUCH reading around the subject, I've pretty much decided that the three of us (FH, BB and me) will go for the jab on Wednesday.
I wish I could say I'm happy with this decision.
I sort of feel it's the "right" thing to do, but a large part of me (the intuitive part) is shouting: "you're being manipulated!"
I guess this is the flip-side of making people responsible for their own health: in other words, choice carries with it the burden of worry.
At last, I have received a perky email from my boss, in response to my request to extend mat leave until January.
Of course, that's fine, he wrote. Make the most of it, he added ominously.
He then went on to fill me in on the latest "news" from the office. Much to his bemusement, it appears that, since we changed offices in October (in my absence), my colleagues have been heading a mini-revolution.
The pot plant revolution, to be more specific.
One by one, people have been turning up to work with their favourite cactus, or ficus, or orchid or whatever... and plonking it defiantly on their desk.
And, despite the official regulations stipulating that the open space must not be "polluted" with personal objects (plants are explicitely forbidden), they are so far being tolerated.
Dizzy with success, some colleagues now have up to four leafy friends adorning their work space.
OK, it may not seem like much. But believe me, in the microcosm that is The Firm - where obedience and conservatism are the norm - this rebellion constitutes an Event.
And somehow, however much I roll my eyes, this teeny tiny revolution has made me slightly more optimistic about returning to work.
What has always amazed me about my kids is the way they seem to grow up overnight.
There are long periods when nothing much seems to change... And then, suddenly, I look at them across the breakfast table and something is different.
The look in their eyes. The sound of their voice.
A hurdle has been jumped: they have grown up a notch.
This week, the Growing Up Fairy has visited both of them.
On Tuesday morning, out of the blue, LB started to laugh and endear us with a "knowing" smile. He informed us that he no longer wished to remain horizontal while the rest of us were smugly vertical: we turned in surprise to see him struggling to a sitting position, working his little abs as though his dignity depended on it.
He also let it be known that he did not care to sit placidly in his chair, way down at ground level, while the rest of us munched cereal at table height ("nobody puts baby in a corner...").
On Wednesday, as I watched BB play with his good friend J., I realised that a line has been crossed. Suddenly, it's more fun for him to visit friends on Wednesdays than to hang out with Mum. Until now, Wednesdays have been our sacred mother-son quality time. But I get the feeling that the kind of quality BB seeks now involves little boys his own height (especially those with a large number of toy cars in their possession).
Somehow, from one Wednesday to the next, the roles have swung round. Maybe now I am the one who needs to feel his reassuring arms around me. Who needs to grab him by the waist and steal a kiss as he goes about his business.
Trouble is: the Growing Up Fairy doesn't visit us adults quite so often.
So we wake up feeling a little confused, wondering how to cope with these new, older, wiser, more assertive kids that wake up next to us.
We do our best. We're a little slower than them, sure, but if we follow their lead carefully enough, we manage to stay on the same path, hand in hand.
If you saw a young(ish) woman rummaging around in the gutter in the twilight... would you stop to help her??
The answer to this question - for one smart, be-suited man who lives in the chicest neighbourhood in Toulouse - is: yes.
Yes, that's right: as part of the never-ending series of "things I never thought I would one day find myself doing", last night I found myself crawling along the gutter in search of a lost dummy. A flesh-coloured dummy, no less.
This will teach me to let BB suck his dummy whilst riding on the back of my bike. One excited "Maman! Moto!"... and the dummy had flown out into the darkness, much to BB's distress.
But then along came smart man. He kindly asked if I needed any help, didn't look the slightest bit fazed when I explained the incongruous situation, promptly deposited his briefcase on the pavement and bent down to help with the search.
And he found the dummy.
As we thanked him profusely, he merely smiled, brushed down his Armani suit, retrived his briefcase and walked off into the night.
Pure class.
This weekend, for the first time in what feels like a long time, we felt alert enough to do some socialising. By alert I mean: awake, capable of coherent conversation, able to interact with other adults. These may all seem like basic skills, but believe me, I think we definitely lost them for a while there.
Those first three months are tough. It's only now, as we're starting to emerge from the bubble, and I feel more like myself again, that I realise quite how tough it's been. This is not a complaint, just an observation.
It's actually been taking 99% of my energy just to be a mother, and somehow, I think I got locked into "daily survival" mode.
The trouble with this mode, of course, is that you quickly lose the will to make an effort with the outside world: just making it through the day to your glass of wine and five-minute feet-up on the sofa seems like challenge enough.
Now that my fuzzy head is starting to clear, I can see the benefits of spending time with friends, making phone calls to catch up with people we let drift off the radar...
FH and I actually managed two proper conversations this weekend (i.e. conversations with a scope beyond the daily survival / logistics perimeter).
It's all very refreshing. I hope that - though winter is approaching - we will manage to find our way OUT of hibernation and back into society...
Oh, and just because my eyesight had improved, that didn't mean I couldn't treat myself to a new pair of glasses, did it?
Sometimes it helps to step back and see the world differently.
If, like me, you are someone who makes decisions based 80% on gut feeling and 20% on rational thought (these percentages are approximate, not scientific, in case you were wondering whether there might actually be a calculator for working out this kind of stuff... ;-), then, like me, you may get a little apprehensive from time to time, trying to distinguish your gut feelings from other stuff (hormones, tiredness, emotion, fear, etc.).
Take this "returning to work" lark, for example.
As you may know, I was supposed to go back to work on December 7th. Consequently, LB was supposed to embark on his long and no doubt fruitful academic journey on the same date: he was due to start creche.
But as the time has been approaching, I have been feeling more and more that we are just not ready. And when I say "we", I really do mean both of us. At least I think I do.
This gut feeling of not being ready had been churning around in my stomach for a few weeks when I finally blurted it all out to my sister.
She listened, approved and told me I should do the necessary to make sure LB and I gain an extra month at home together.
I wept with relief at having my gut feeling confirmed by someone whose judgement I respect.
(FH didn't really get it. It's not his fault, of course, it's just that, well, he's a man: they tend to be more rational about this kind of thing).
So now it's just a case of making a small, reasonable-sounding appeal to creche, and writing a "brave" email to my boss (yes, yes, I know it would be better to call, but can one really translate the maternal desire to spend more time cocooning with baby into anything remotely professional-sounding??).
When it comes down to it, though, the stomach churning has stopped, so something must be right about this decision.
And LB and I will sit tight and trust our instincts until January...
Yesterday was the quintessential rainy bank holiday. It poured down all day. Literally all day. Without pause.
My mounting feeling of claustrophobia was tempered somewhat around 1 pm, when something quite remarkable happened.
Both kids fell simultaneously into a deep sleep that lasted for hours and hours.
It was as though they knew: this is a dreary day. Nothing interesting is going to happen. Better just to sleep it away.
It made me wonder if maybe even babies are born with an innate aversion to rainy bank holidays?
Footnote: Some time ago, FH asked me to explain the meaning of the English expression "Sod's Law". I gave quite a roundabout, convoluted definition, that didn't really seem to get the message across.
But now I have the perfect example.
This morning, November 12th, the day after the bank holiday, the day that tired, headachy parents all over the country are sighing, sniffling and returning to work, and kids are trudging off to school and creche... this morning, the sky is a radiant blue and the grass is twinkling with dew and the possibility of outdoor play...
Hum. Estate agents are meanies. Bearers of doom and gloom who seem to enjoy pouring a huge dose of Reality over your little dreams.
Yes folks, my enthusiasm of two days ago has unfortunately deflated slightly.
See, I am a bit of a "I want it all and I want it now" kind of person. But unfortunately, the chic professional lady I asked to come and evaluate our flat was more of a"You'd be much better advised to wait a while" kind of person.
I understand, of course I do. The market is morose, blah blah, blah. We'll lose out financially, blah, blah, blah.
This all makes perfect sense, it's just not fun.
Which may be why my instinctive first reaction was to... yes - got it in one - cry.
What is wrong with me?? Why do my tear ducts automatically go into overdrive when my heart's desire is thwarted, even though my head is nodding and my brain is agreeing with the reasonable view of Reality that is being described to me??
Honestly, sometimes I fear I never got over the five-year-old sulky stage.
Have you ever cried in front of an estate agent?
I'm guessing not. I would advise you not to, if you can in any way avoid it.
It doesn't really add much credibility to your real estate project.
Anyway, I'm over it. Patience is not one of my top ten virtues but I can muster up enough to wait awhile.
This evening through the post I received the profile and photo of the little boy I'm going to sponsor with World Vision. He's six years old and lives in one of the poorer parts of Ethiopia. The World Vision project in his area is helping provide his community with clean drinking water and access to a medical centre.
It only took me a matter of seconds to realise with an ego-shaking thud that this little boy's version of Reality is a universe away from mine.
So I should really stop feeling sorry for myself.
Life is good at giving you a timely kick up the backside from time to time.
Question: The little plans that start to take root in your mind... the niggling desire that becomes a wish... the instinctive voice that is whispering, once again, that it might soon be time move on: how do you know whether all this is real, or simply a by-product of November blues?
The evenings are dark, the sky is grey, my feet are no longer bare... Do I simply want to escape?
Or is it something more? The feeling that life is short, that soon it will be time to be brave, to venture out and see if we can make our dream happen?
Two days ago FH turned to me and said he'd been wondering whether...
And I smiled to myself and thought: if both of us are thinking the same thing, maybe it's more than just November blues.
This weekend was all about contrasts.
It made me reflect on how, as women, we spend a good part of our lives flitting back and forth between the different roles we have to play... often with little or no time in which to make the transition.
On Saturday, I spent the day alone in Montpellier. For a few hours, I was a single woman, lounging in cafés with a great novel, wandering round the shops, using my Visa card with the recklessness of a prisoner on day release...
I'm not ashamed to admit that it felt good. Dizzyingly good, in fact.
On Sunday, BB and I rode to the market on what has now become "our" bike. There was a street fair in full swing, and BB somehow ended up becoming the owner of a huge orange balloon dog.
It was as we wobbled back home that I thought: the transition is complete. The free soul of yesterday has become the woman riding her bike with a little boy and a heavy bag of vegetables in back... and a big orange balloon dog balanced precariously in front.
If the constant stream of smiles and waves we received from almost everyone we passed en route is anything to go by... I'm guessing we looked cute. And funny.
I found myself laughing too. For no other reason than the absurdity of the situation.
I love the woman I left reading a novel in Montpellier.
But I'm really getting to love this bike-riding, time-chasing, sometimes harassed Maman too.
Two hours later, after a 45-minute stint on the windiest road imaginable, the happy little family has lost some of its spark. Most of its spark, actually.
Dutily, we visit the house. We are all feeling miserable, some of us more obviously than others.
By the time we get home, the happy little family has become the Dysfunctional Family. The kids are physically drained. The parents are on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
