i dream of little girl's dresses. this one from Sugar City Journal. oh, and this one too. the operative word here being 'dream', my sewing-machine collecting dust, so thick you can cut it, while i try and collect the bits of my life (crazy-quilting, that's what they call it). anyway, seems you don't have to make dream dresses. you can also win them. see here: Garden Party Frock GIVEAWAY.
... two minutes to meltdown point. i bet you can't tell, looking at these gorgeous babes singing, that i would be screaming off my head in just another 120 seconds. the scary thing is, i couldn't tell either. it didn't feel like a hurricane. yes, i was a tad tired (antoine hasn't let me sleep for more than three hours at a stretch a single time in the last 9 months). it's true that dinner wasn't anywhere near being ready, and i was rather ravenously hungry (what with the six nursing breaks a day a boy needs to recover from his adventures, and the four afore-mentioned night nursings, this here mama can get quite hungry). yes, the floor of the living-room was literally littered with various miscellania (sunglasses, bits of food, clothes, dolls, saliva, paper, crayons, trains, necklaces, cushions, bicycles, books, blankets, tufts of cat hair, newspaper clippings, bread crumbs, dirty diapers and torn plant leaves), some of which had recently caused me pain in some way or another. it's true that antoine at this point wouldn't settle for anything less than his three favourite activities, i.e. climbing the stairs (not allowed because of neck breaking), eating cat food (not allowed because of being vegetarian baby) or playing with the gas buttons of the cooker (not allowed because although quite desperate not yet ready to commit family mass suicide and also because food simply will not cook unless heat is applied to it by means of gas, and no food means more HUNGER, see above). it's true that isabelle wanted a snack RIGHT NOW, and no she couldn't wait for dinner (maybe because she knew that without gas she'd be waiting a long time) and could i read a book to her, and could i play the evil step-mother in cinderella, and could i please right now, right now...
as i was shutting my camera, and to my great surprise, my mouth opened, and a roar rose from my toes. it filled the space with sound. no words, just this wall of sound, for protection. i saw their eyes shut down, the lights going out. shock absorption. i felt myself disappear, further and further away.
and then for once, just for this once, i managed to stop right there. it wasn't hard, really, i simply turned off the sound tap. and felt, gropingly, for the furry thing underneath the sound. the tight tight chest, the turning churning stomach. the ache in the belly. the stone in the throat.
i sat down on the floor and cried. until they crawled off their perch and came to comfort me.
i know what i need. i need a nap-sitter. i need someone to come in, maybe for just one hour every day, after lunch, so that i can sleep. and then i promise, i solemnly swear, i will be human again.
marc took this picture last week. she was running around naked with her little boy friend, 'wij zijn echte piraten, mama!'. the little boy is leaving for Senegal in two weeks time. most of the time, she doesn't know what that means, but then suddenly it hits her, and she bursts into tears. she will be missing him. he is her special friend. such a big girl. rings under her eyes, going to bed too late, waking up too early. and things on her mind. things she doesn't always share anymore. her hair so wild. a soft nest for invisible birds. 'mama, mijn haar is echt een jungle... kijk daar komt de tijger, grwraaaah!'. when she can't sleep in the evenings, she sits with us on the little balcony up front, watching the night blanket cover the town, sipping fresh mint tea with honey. telling stories. the other night, right in front of us, the big dipper. 'mama', she said, 'het is de eerst keer dat ik echte sterren zie... mama, zijn de sterren ver?'. and she has a tatoo. my girl.
this is an ode to my babyphone. or rather to one particular ex-piece (ex because deceased) of my ex-babyphone (ex because not been used as such for years due to a) the waves not being good for babies and b) being able (unsurprisingly) to hear the babies just fine without any electronic equipment).
hanging up the wash...
teaching herself to write and read...
... and shining on us.
i used to live here. thought i'd pay a visit. maybe stay for a while.
I. 
lieve juf van ballet, 
you can't see it, hidden as it is by a most delicious little tongue, and guarded on both sides by 'mess-with-me-if-you-dare' cheeks, but it's there. sharp as a sable. white as the dawn. the end of the toothless grin. step 1 in the breaking of my mamma heart.
with princess feet.
the wedding was attended by many, most of them wearing fake fur. beautiful wooden cakes were served. the master of ceremony was drooling and leering from behind the bars of his cage.
the bride was delightful. the music classic.
... that we are sort of somehow in the process of very probably buying this:
... which happens to be located kind of here... and from which you can look out on to this:
sometimes, antoine ends up on somebody else's lap. at dinner, for instance, when it's my turn to eat. i look across the table at him, and every time, it's a jolt: 'is that what he looks like???'. me, i know the shape of his ear. i know that little bit on the left side of his right cheek. i know the way his eye-brows slant. i know how his eyelashes grow out of their lids. i know the toes. the big one. the little one. i know the shape of each of his nails.
she fell and ripped her tights. i offered to mend them (with a heart, a flower, a bird, a princess...). she said she would think about it. then came back to say she'd changed her mind about the mending... because she discovered that right there, where the hole is, there is a very very very soft spot of skin. and if i fix the tights, she says, she won't be able to feel the very very very soft spot anymore.
(there is something i am simply dying to share with you, but i can't, because it's not quite sure yet, and exhilarating, and it might get jinxed if i spread it around too early, but i can't write another word without at least mentioning it in passing, so filled am i with IT. so, probably big news soon!)shenpa is pre-verbal, it's almost pre-emotional, it's visceral. it's the tightening, the closing, the escaping. you can't stop it. but you can accept it. and let go.
so i have much much shenpa. and the thought just makes me smirk.
- making brownies with Isabelle. we used this recipe: excellent, except we had to halve the sugar (had to because we ran out, and just as well, as they would have been inedible otherwise);
- discovering a great new-to-me writer;
to all our women, on this day, a wish of lovingkindness:
wise (and unrelated) quote from inspirational book: "The number of things just outside the perimeter of my financial reach remains constant no matter how much my financial condition improves. With each increase in my income a new perimeter forms and I experience the same relative sense of lack. I believe that I would be happy if only my earnings were increased by so much and I could then have or do these few things I can't quite afford, but when my income does increase I find I am still unhappy because from my new financial position I can now see a whole new set of things I don't have."
in my kitchen, under the top cupboard, just to the right of the left-most lamp, dwells a little spider. she is not particularly particular, in either shape or size, or mood, or faith. just a regular little spider. sometimes, she carries on her mysterious spidery business in her little spidery web. sometimes she strolls over the under-edge of the cupboard. once, i found her making a hasty retreat up, up, up a silvery silk thread, from the fruit bowl on the counter back to her web. 'maybe she's a fruit spider, mamma...'. maybe. Isabelle has picked up on my interest and now we are two to be delighted, every morning, as we enter the kitchen. 'look, there she is! our spider'.
