A shitty morning. Literally.

11:00
We’re finally packed. We’ve dealt with a few mini crisis since we woke up but we powered through and now we’re ready to go!

Mini-vacation, here we come!

11:10
But, no.
“Mama! There’s water in the bathroom!”
Our drain seems to be blocked. We can’t flush the toilet without the water level dangerously raising.
“No worries,” says Jay. “I’ll quickly unclog it.”

11:35
“Jay, how can I help?” I ask after a while.
“You just deal with your own shit and I’ll deal with everybody’s shit,” my husband says, pun fully intended.
Because our bathroom’s now properly flooded. With shit. Poo. Human feces.
“What a shitty situation.”

11:55
“When I have children, I won’t live in this house,” declares Benny.
“Why not?”
“Well, look,” he shrugs as he points at the mayhem in the bathroom.

Good point, well made.

14:35
We just had someone lift the toilet up and clean out the pipes. It’s now safe to flush again. Jay’s cleaning the bathroom, the smell’s horrible, he’s barely keeping it together. Oskar just fell asleep after fighting me like a wild animal. Kids unpacked their bags and are watching their tablets. We’re all exhausted.

Mini-vacation, here we come! Soon(ish).

Old year, new year

2019. – what a year.

Traditionally, one’s supposed to write a recap of the past 365 days on the last day of the calendar year, but so much has happened that it’s all, more or less, a blur.

We had a(nother) baby, we travelled, we fought, we made up, we barely slept, we laughed and cried, kids continued to grow and change (rapidly), we continued to grow and change (steadily), my first kids’ book got published, I wrote several more stories (in my head), we settled properly into the “new” house, Molly started school, we all grew older and wiser and happier and more tired together…

It wasn’t and it isn’t easy. Life’s relentless and there are no breaks. There’s no pause button to press when you’ve had too much.
There are moments, though, when you stop as you find yourself smiling and you think to yourself: “This is my life. And it’s good.”

My biggest wish for the year ahead is for it to be filled with more of those moments.

2020. – I’m ready for you.

Christmas morning

Christmas morning. All the carefully chosen and wrapped gifts got torn open and judged by a couple of critical and over-excited kids. We did well, on average.

My only regret is not wrapping up a roll of toilet paper for Oskar. It would’ve saved me money as well as headache from the psychedelic lights and cheerful robot music.

The best thing about Christmas? Putting kids to bed then sitting on the sofa, going through the photos we took that day and creating fake memories of a fun, relaxed and not at all stressful day.

I know that kind of days await in the future. We’re embracing the chaos until then.

Christmas wish

Molly wants a pet (preferably a hamster) and, for some reason, I told her she could get one in three years, when she’s ten (it seemed like a reasonable answer at the time).
So this morning, looking at all the gifts under the tree, Molly said pensively: “I wonder what Santa got me! I hope it has something to do with pets. Or at least something that speeds up time.”
To reiterate: “Something that speeds up time” is her second choice (?!) while the first one is not a pet, but “something to do with pets”. (Dog food? A hamster cage? Rabies shot?!)

Although I, admittedly, find the idea of speeding up time exciting, I hope your Christmas is so relaxed and fun that you wish you could slow time down, rather than the other way around.

All the best from me to you! 

Two Dots, one mum, no sleep

While feeding the baby in the middle of the night, I decided to play a game of Two dots to keep my mind off the fact that I’m nothing but a human pacifier.
Unfortunately, in the first round, I won a full hour of unlimited lives which I, obviously, couldn’t waste. So I was up until 3:30, while Oskar was sleeping, playing on my phone and losing each round because I was too tired to concentrate.
I’m my own worst enemy.