the one with the kids

I was back home these days. And I am not using the word "home" loosely.
I scared the crap out of my parents. I am sorry. I have this "she is so tough" reputation and I saw them frozen and speechless when I broke down on the eating table and I was pushed to explain in tears a bursting very short version of my worries. I think I needed little talk for my face spoke for itself. And my grief. For once I saw them looking and listening to me instead of the TV. I still feel a bit ashamed I couldn't control those sudden emotions, but that was how I felt and I think they empathised and I am so thankful they showed understanding. It also needed little talking on their side.
I am sleepless after a few too many wines at a little gathering I did with friends.
Another funny feeling. A friend said he would pop in with the kids. This whole family thing got me. He walked in and kissed me and the kids right after. I had made a soup and the house smelled yummy. I got back in a milisecond that warm family feeling I got when I cried on the table, a couple of days prior to that, back home. Not considering myself much of an entertainment for kids (also ironic considering the amount of them I have entertained for hours back in my Au-Pair days) I didn't really know if I was being a bit of a bore. There was food and booze, but I had a few snacks, funny fizzy sodas or games...
But somehow we turned the venue into a crazy "changing eye colour party". I have to say my friend "the therapist" was there and her bubbly personality made its part of the spontanious idea.



It was fun just to see the kids so amazed.
The idea of wrapped little humans and the helpless little toddlers you have to run behind is not so appealing. But they grow.
My visit had the perfect age, when you can talk to them , they have criteria and they get just about the essential message, they can do things on their own and their personality is already taking shape. I like kids exactly the moment they start being independent. Maybe that was my mum's little hell, but I like to see them on their way to leaving the nest some day.



Look how cool this pict is. The kid wanted to leave just "one eye". It has its geniuos. He found it quite cool so.

Too late to have kids and too late to live with a bunch of adults. A loose though of today's adultescents - the 30-somethings.
I still miss the days in the student flat, always full of people, full of life and those characters you confront your personality with. And that also fits in my idea of a family, I am not so square. The conventional conception is best to fit the consuming world, and capitalism of course. But my Hühner in that shabby house were my family too. Had to say.