belgianwaffle

Archives for July 2010

Staying at Home


Posted in: Middle Child, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

I have taken quite a bit of unpaid time off work this month and spent it at home with the children. Despite my fears that I would be driven up the wall, I was pleasantly surprised to find it all, well, pleasant. I got on better with the children when I spent more time with them. For the first time since I left college, I am having a real summer holiday and I like it – all those long days with nothing much planned. It’s nice too not to be shunting the children off to course after course which must be done when both of us are working.

I am sorry to be coming over all Oliver James, but there it is. I do realise that I am very, very lucky to have such an accommodating employer and not everyone is in a position to do this for financial (actually, I’m not sure I can afford it but we will draw a veil) or practical reasons. I also suspect that if this were an open-ended commitment rather than a limited stretch, I might regard it rather differently.

If it is any comfort, I have already ruined them by all my previous time working. I had a friend over during the week and her four children were completely saintly (including the baby, dammit) while mine, frankly, were squirm-makingly awful. My friend has taken an enforced break from work to go abroad with her husband and she is finding the experience very different from her previous life. As someone who worked all her life until last year, she was recently shocked to hear her two year old say to a working mother: “But mothers don’t have jobs.” The working mother riposted, “Oh, sweetie, mothers do have jobs, they just don’t have careers.” Oh the uncomfortable truth of that.

Who will import my Mariage Frères’ Lapsang Suchong Jelly from Qatar now?


Posted in: Siblings

I am sad. After 18 months in Dublin, my sister is leaving. She doesn’t like her job and she doesn’t like Dublin. But I loved having her in Dublin. You only really appreciate speaking to your sister face to face when you can’t do it. Sigh. I went around to her apartment the other night and she gave me lots of things. She will be travelling for a bit so anything I don’t take will go into storage. I am a bit of a minimalist. She is a maximalist. I can fit all my make-up in a small bag. She has a walk in wardrobe filled with make-up. I now have a large plastic bag full of extraordinary stuff. I have super regenerating pseudo science serum night cream. She only gave me it on condition that I promised not to use it as day time moisturiser because then the world would end. I have 6 packets of boil in the bag rice (it was on special offer), “storage solutions”, a new coffee table, honey drenched nuts, a Wrigley’s picnic rug – waterproof on one side – and 10 other bags full of things. But I’d rather have my sister here all the same.

I am, of course, keen that she should be happy; I just wish that she had been happy here.

Cinema


Posted in: Reading etc.

His and Hers

This is lovely. It’s a documentary film about women’s relationships with the men in their lives. It’s a series of interviews with women from very small girls to little old ladies. We never see the men they are talking about. It was, in a funny way, a description of everywoman. Or, at least, every Irish woman. All of the interviewees are from the Irish midlands. All of the interviews take place in the women’s homes and as well as the women, the varied styles of interior decoration favoured by the Irish public also played a supporting role. It was a little bit too long and sad at the end but still really great. I wonder will it travel? Have a look at the trailer and see what you think.

Greenberg

One whole evening I will never get back. This is directed by the guy who did “The Squid and the Whale”. If you liked that film, do not let this tempt you in. Really. Ben Stiller is an annoying 40 year old who is really nasty. He has a relationship (in the broadest sense of the word – or as the description in the cinema magazine put it, “he forges a connection”) with a 23 old girl who is slightly clueless. I knew that I was doomed when I found myself thinking, “My God, what would her poor mother think if she could see her lovely daughter being abused like this?”

Twilight – Latest Installment

Oh God, the tedium.

Toy Story 3D

Michael was traumatised and wept throughout but the others loved it.

Couldn’t get in to “Inception” on Saturday night. Probably for the best. We went for a walk along the quays and watched the sunset instead.

Book Meme


Posted in: Reading etc.

I got this from Dot.

1. What was the last book you read?

“The Help” by Katherine Stockett

2. Recommend a book.

“What I Loved” by Siri Hustvedt.

3. Recommend a children’s book.

“The Giant Jam Sandwich” Story and pictures by John Vernon Lord with verses by Janet Burroway

4. My guilty pleasure is:

Well, I wouldn’t call it guilty precisely but I am a big Georgette Heyer fan.

5. This one was rubbish:

Where to begin? “Man and Boy” by Tony Parsons.

6. If you wrote a book, what would it be? (Adapt as desired if you are writing or have written a book.)

Fiction. I haven’t really thought this through, have I?

Off you go and do it yourself.

9 Busy Years


Posted in: Mr. Waffle

In 2009, we consolidated.
In 2008, we moved country.
In 2007, we were settled in Belgium.
In 2006, we barely went out.
In 2005, we had twins.
In 2004, we had only one child and we thought it was quite hard work.
In 2003, we moved country and we had a baby girl.
In 2002, we both left our jobs.
In 2001, we got married.

Happy anniversary to us.

Travel Plans


Posted in: Siblings

No, not mine, my sister’s.

She has resigned from her job and will finish at the end of August. As she worked pretty much every day for months, she feels she needs a break. And as her pay levels reflected her commitment, she has sufficient funds not to need to look for a new job until January. In the interim she will be in the South of France, Rome and Mexico in September, in the South of Spain for October and in Chicago and Hawaii in November.

All I can say is that I hope she’ll be able to fit in some babysitting time for me at some point. No, no, of course I’m not bitterly envious.