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.
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.
