I find this so amusing. My son, who recently turned 9, has a secret girlfriend. He refuses to say her name, I just know it’s from his school but not from his class and has a twin sister. Interesting.

He’s preparing an envelope with something inside, he doesn’t let me see and tomorrow he wants to buy a flower to give her on Valentine’s Day. I’m also trying to find a poem online for him to give her.

It’s a kind of strange “Romance”, when he wants to give her something, he gives it to her twin sister that afterwards will give her sister and the same way around. They avoid contact due to shyness.

This is really “innocent love” and it’s so embarassing for him to speak about it. Today he brought a small fluffy dog that, when pressed, he makes the sound of a kiss and say “I love you”. He spent the evening pressing it but refused to tell me who gave it to him.

“Love is in the air”!

We are in the Carnival season. Carnival involves masquerades and street parades.
Today most of the schools participated in a street parade in the city. Each school chooses a outfit, and all the kids are dressed the same way.

Other schools, like the one my kids attend, prefer not to participate in the parade and make their own fun party at school. All kids were free to choose their outfit, usually they masquerade according to something they like.

My son’s outfit is a Ninja and my daughter’s is a Princess. They were really excited today and they even got up early in the morning to get dressed. (It’s also my son’s birthday - Next post)

I was waiting to transfer the photos from my camera to the computer to write this post. Unfortunately the photos are not good in fact we can’t see a thing.

Wednesday it was Dani’s swimming class. He goes in the school bus to the local swimming pool to have his class. As I’ve been at home with Catherine I took the opportunity to assist his class. We were in a corridor along the swimming pool and we could look through the glasses. I took a few photos but the flash reflected in the glass and we barely see the water.

No photos but I have this moment on my head and he was happy that I was there and I’m happy because I was able to do something I can’t do when I’m working, keep in touch with my kids activities.

Yesterday it has been a very busy day. Usually we are quietly at home, playing, watching TV, go out for a cup of coffee. Due to Catherine surgery we haven’t gone out and everybody come in. Catherine received the visit of my in laws, my two BIL, two SIL, two nephews, my best friend and her son and a few phone calls. It was a really busy day.

Catherine was really very surprised with the visits as that doesn’t happen often and she was really happy and spoiled.

Today, it was the first day she left the house after the surgery, but didn’t get out of the car. I did something I usually am not able to: pick up my son at school at 15:30. It felt so good and he was so happy. Usually it’s daycare that picks him up and I pick him up at 18:45 after leaving work, but once I’m at home due to Catherine surgery I’m taking advantage of everything I can’t do when I’m working.

He already did his homework and is now watching a movie with sister.

I love this so much, my dream is to follow my kids, be able to work from home, pick them up at school, help with homework, but life is not always what we want and I’m lucky to have a full time job and a salary at the end of the month.

After my daughter’s Christmas party, I had a word with her teacher. As a point of reference is the fact that she’s the youngest preschooler on that school, she told me she’s a very smart girl, very talented, she already draws as if she was older, she always colors inside the lines, etc. etc.The thing that really upset me and made me very sad is the fact that, the image she has from me is from the mother that arrives home and has to cook and is in the kitchen. The teacher said: “your daughter misses you”. Oh boy!! that hurt.

Working from 9 to 18:30, arriving home at 19-19:10 leaves me little time to be with her and my son, I admit it, but there is nothing I can do to avoid it. My bosses don’t want to change anything on my schedule, for them I could leave at 19 or 20:00 they don’t care. I have this job for 13 years, I have my status, my salary and with my age, I can’t afford losing it, I can’t live without it, without the salary, I would if I could.

I have to adjust time, make it longer, at least try.

• Instead of spending the lunch time blogging in the office I will start coming home and do some laundry, prepare dinner in advance so that I have less to do when I arrive home at night.

• Establish bath time to prevent me from saying 10 times that it’s bath time.

• Leave blogging, checking emails and twitters for after the kids are asleep (if I’m still awake)

What else can I do?

I realize that she ask for my unconditional attention, I guess too much attention, she wants me to leave everything behind to give her all the attention. Sometimes I have to refuse because I have other things to do and she has to understand that. It’s like: I give one finger and she demand the hand.

Of course this is always my forever dilemma, and for those that followed my other family blog know that, I always wanted to be a WAHM but that it’s not possible here unless I had married a very rich man and that’s not the case.

I have to continue to search ways to manage and organize my time, but what I realize is that time goes by, kids are growing up and I’m missing it all.

Catherine school Christmas party did not start the way I thought. I thought she would be happy to see me there and do her best but as soon as she saw me she started crying because she thought I would leave without her.

I was called to the backstage by her teacher because she just wanted her mom. She wanted to sit with me and therefore she missed two of her actuations.

On her third and fourth actuation she was comfortable with my assured presence and she went to stage and even sang a song in French. Each year, through school interchange, one teacher from another country comes to this school and teaches a second language to the preschool kids.

I was only able to make 15 seconds movies with a borrowed camera once my camera broke down. Comparing with other years (my son also attended this school while in preschool), this year the kids behave and sang very well and it was a really nice show.

After the show, parents, students and teachers gather around to eat something. All the food was brought to school by the parents.Once I still had time before going to work I went with her to a local park to play a little. The problem was after, when I had to take her to daycare for the afternoon, a little crying, and sadness from my side for not being able to stay with her the afternoon.

The conversation with the teacher on my next post.

Tuesday I had an emergency school meeting because there were some complaints from a mother whose daughter is on my son’s class.

She complained that her daughter was traumatized because she didn’t like one of the school assistances. She complained that her daughter once came home from swimming class without her leggings. Also the school assistant uses a whistle to gather the students and this mother thinks that a whistle is not appropriate for school.

Of course she was the only one complaining, her daughter is a spoiled kid that gets dressed in slow motion and she was advised to send a training suit on the day her daughter has to attend swimming lessons. It seems this mother sends her daughter to school all dressed up even on swimming lesson day.

I had to leave the meeting in the middle because my DH was working and I needed to pick up the kids at the daycare, but it seems serious issues were talked after I left regarding other students from my son’s class.

One is a very problematic kid with a very disturbed family. Her father is already old, is alcoholic and drank most of the time. The kid has serious problems at home, his mother can’t control him and he gets out of control at school where he insults the teacher, call her names, defies her and many other things. His mother was already called to be warned about him but it seems it isn’t working.

School board wants to find a solution for this kid once he disturbs the class and causes a lot of troubles; however, he gets good grades. He’s 8.

There are 4 more kids that cause some trouble and fortunately my son is not among them. This is a very problematic class and I’m worried that my son belongs to it.

An issue I have to follow very closely.