Good parenting

Dear diary,

- thought it'd be funny starting at least one of my blogs this way, since I already feel so familiar with this medium and I like to think this is the place where I can open up and speek freely. As if common courtesy could ever stop me from saying what I want to say, but etiquette calls for a more curbed approach, doesn't it?

Anyways, today I spent another eight hours surrounded by children. Wait, let me rephrase that: I spent the day being ridden by kids - almost giving myself a hernia in the process, I sat an accumulated hour and a half sitting next to a trampoline while continuously chartering children on and off the thing, I spent the whole eight hours talking baby-talk and appearing to be visibly rivetted by everything they say. The baby-talk is propably what gets me the most, because I see it as a personal insult since it limits my vocabulary to saying empty phrases and dumbing everything down. Sometimes I find myself talking to them in English or Spanish even and I see that look in their face, that confused look that says to me: dumb it down, Laurens, the kids aren't getting it! And most of the time I heed the little voice inside my head, but there are times when I just think: fuck it, they gotta learn somewhere, right?

Another thing I learnt today is that I really, really want to have kids. And I want them pretty soon. I'd hate to be this father that has completely lost touch with what's going on in my children's heads. I want my kids to get my inside jokes, to understand the things I'm talking about. Of course, I'm not gonna force them to watch something they don't particularly like - wait, who am I kidding? As long as I've got majority rule on the remote control and a dvd collection at my disposal, I think I'll pretty much dominate the whole television scene, so they will have no other choice than to watch what I'm watching. Sort of a television-nazi, aren't I? Oh well, I'll just chalk it up to the same old saying: Daddy knows best. Why, you ask? Because Daddies are older and wiser, that's why! Parenting isn't a democracy, it's a meritocracy!

I want three kids. Four if two out of three are twins. Wouldn't want that last one to feel left out, now would we? Of course, if numero quatro are twins as well, we're going to have a little situation on our hands. But those are worries for later! Right now, I gotta meet the girl, fall in love, see where it's going and when she least expects it, BAM, knocked up! Naturally, I'm kidding. I'm not that kind of a dog. I'll buy her something shiny beforehand! I'm not a complete animal! That's how Casanova played it, you know? Probably waved some fake jewelry around and before he knew it: professional womanizer! - I can only imagine what Women's Rights Movements would make of all this! Bet I'll have set back feminism half a century or so!

Today the cutest thing happened at work. Every week or so, a wickedly cute kid would catch my eye and I become totally mesmerized by it! So, like clockwerk, this unbelievably charming kid scuttles across the day care, his face locked in between a smile and a cry. He runs into you and immediatly holds up his tiny little hands, wanting you to pick him up. At this point, there is zero hesitation and without wasting a millisecond, you take him into your arms. You put him on your lap and let his tiny hands run across your face - silently, you pray to God he hasn't touched anything nasty with them - and you just know you want to be a Dad so badly!

So while he's sitting on your lap, his arms resting on your sides, you can feel him looking around, trying to make sense of the world around him. And sometimes, - this is what I really wanted to say - when you move, even if just a little bit, you can feel his miniature hands clutching you slightly harder. That sense of protection and safety is what completely overtakes you. The idea that this little person, this child of barely 5 years old, is holding on to you, expecting you to keep him safe. I can't imagine a more fulfilling feeling than that.

Infinite possibilities

Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.

Sometimes it feels like all we do is make decisions. Most of them are good, but some of them seep through the cracks of our judgement system and turn sour. Some decisions you come to regret while others you come to love. It's a fine line between knowing what you want and what you think you want.

Sometimes I think I should've stayed in Ghent. I should've clawed my way through the August exams and arrived in the second year of university. I didn't. Instead I chose the easy way and changed schools.

I'm not saying I regret making that choice, but I can't help but wonder what would've happened to my life if I was still in Ghent? Would I've patched things up with her or would I've found someone else? Would I've made it through the second year without failure or was it doomed to be a repetition of the first year? Only halfway through?

I like to think of choices as ripples in a clear pool of water. No matter how big or how small the stone you cast into the sparkling water, it always produces a certain effect to its surroundings. The ripples could be shallow and barely noticeable or they could become veritable tsunamis that can threaten to wipe away all that you have built up.

Everytime we make a decision we stand on the edge of possible armageddon and absolute happiness. The near-translusence of that fine line can work intoxicating and cloud our better judgement. Of course sometimes we just don't want to see clearly out of fear of what we might discover so we perpetually choose to look the other way.

I like to believe that the choices you've made helped forge the person that you are today, but sometimes you just have to wonder what your life would like had you made a different choice?

They say that people love you for who you are, but what if you're not the same you anymore if you'd have chosen differently? Can one choice make or break someone's character? Can one yes or no ravage someone's identity and twist it into something else entirely? What does that make us? Tabula rasas or bottomless vessels?

Will the words I write here ensure my future as a writer? Will they push me further and further towards the journalism branch or push me away out of fear of rejection? Are my words important enough to cast ripples in a clear pool of water? Am I that important?

Yes?

Or no?

Two words. Five letters. Infinite possibilities. Infinite outcomes.

Who will I become? 

Cautionary tale

In just a few hours I'll start my ninth day as a children's monitor in the Boudewijn building in Brussels. Each new day I am flooded with nerves. Nervous about how I'm going to cope with this heatwave that's been badgering us for so lang, nervous about how the hell I'm going to try to get those ten to fourteen year olds exited about something other than their -currently- very narrow mindedness. Each day is a battle between bending yourself over in a million ways to please them and the dormant -yet very anxious- need to strangle the life out of the insubordinates. Of course, the latter is something Child Services would very much indeed frown upon. But in this private and unprejudiced environment I think I can safely say that there are a few children -as wellas several of their parents- who would fare well with a good ol' fashioned beating.

Take the case of young David and Maya for example. David is a ten-year old boy with ADD. Outside of the holidays he must be quite the delight when he's high on Ritalin, but -as per his mother's wish- he is currently under no medication. So we have the pleasure of enjoying the extremely undermedicated David in all his glory. He is unable to pronounce syllabils which means that all children's monitors should forcefully become fluent in Davids.

"I an to ay" roughly translates to "I want to play", although frankly, 99% of the time it's just guesswork.

The poor boy is also -supposedly- unable to wipe his own ass, even though he has no problems signing the procedure to you! And to make matters worse, his rear end is plagued by a dreaded case of eczema. Real winners in this family, wouldn't you say? No mystery as to where poor David picked up this kind of malchance in his life! The mother's a sight to see as well. The term 'white trash' almost seems too kind.

And then there's little Maya, or as I like to call her, Damien 'The Omen' Thorne's follow-up. A girl with more faces than a full-bred hydra. Meet cute Maya in front of Daddy-o! Meet vixen Maya when she doesn't get what she wants! And animalistic, loves-to-scratsh-and-mutilate Maya when she's just plain bored. A girl so vindictive, cunning and serpent-like, she puts He Who Shall Not Be Named to shame. Guess I picked the wrong age category of children to monitor?

Oh well, next week it'll be the six to niners who'll have me running for the fire escape or the edge of a very tall building.

Still, in order to still want children after going through this ordeal, you have to tell the white lie all young parents say to themselves when smacked in the face with cold hard evidence that children really are evil, little monsters: "Our children will never be like that!"

Ah, the lies we tell ourselves to get through the day...

Generation past

I spent the day with my grandmother today. She's been through a lot lately and I can't stand the thought of her being lonely, so I try to spend as much time with her as I can. It's funny because to me, she's my grandma and I've known her as none other, but to my Mom and Dad she is this completely different person, different from the version that I know. To them she is a Mom and a Mother-in-law. Sometimes I see a glimpse of the woman that they told me about, the woman she used to be, the woman they see in her and it makes me question just who she really is? Has time changed her, grinded her into the way she is now? Or have I simply chosen to ignore all other opinions and see only what I want to see in her?

The lines on her face and arms are beginning to grow deeper, turning her once marble-like skin into wrinkled paper. A sort of map that tells of the sorrows and worries that have haunted her these past decades. I still can't believe that she actively lived through World War II. I can't imagine all of the terrible things she must've seen or done. It's like there's this huge chunk of her life that I will never be a part of, that I will never get to know because time has eroded most of it away and it seems cruel to ask her to bring all of that heartache back up again. Still, I cannot help but wonder how her life was before she had my Mom or before she held me in her arms as her second grandson.

I wonder what she feels when she watches the news now and when she sees how screwed up everything's got? Is it a sense of desperation because she sees that all the past sufferings meant to bring about a new era of peace and prosperity have only led to more conflict and death, now shown in technicolor on international television? War for all to see? Is it a sense of nostalgia? Longing to go back to a more simpler and quieter existence, before the War? Before things got so bad?

There are so many things that I want to ask her. I want to get to know her. The real her. Not limited to her grandmother personality. For some reason, whenever I see her, it's like there's this invisible clock ticking somewhere, warning me about the fleetingness of time. This platform we're on only offers temporary support before it collapses and is swept away by the current, whereafter I can never go back and get to know her. It almost seems morbid talking about her this way, but time is not on our side, I know this and I know that if I don't do this now, I will never be able to muster up the strength to ask about her when she's gone. Partly out of fear that I'll only get to hear a biased version of her and partly because I know that with each passing second, memories tend to fade away or details that seem so insignificant -but in fact carry an important value- are left out. Of course, everything we do and say or everything we don't do and don't say is biased and subject to oblivion, but I like to think that I'll be able to distil some sort of truth from it all and that I'll be able to fight back the waves of erosion.

I admire my grandmother for having lived her life despite all of the adversaries that fate has thrown her way. She has faced war, economic crisies and terrorism. Yet, she soldiers on bravely. I guess the WWII-generation has been blessed with an indestructable ability to find the beauty in the world and to cancel out all negative impulses. One day, I'll be able to fracture just a piece of her armour and see her for the woman she is, the warrior that has lasted for more than seven decades in this unforgiving world that takes nothing for granted. One day I'll see her. Wholly.

My brother (Part 2)

Lately the situation with my brother is on shaky grounds again. I can almost feel the ground begin to break beneath us. Small cracks have already compromised the stability of the living conditions we've formed over the past months. Rules were set. Boundaries established. Yet somehow we let them all fall apart.

When I look at him, I feel two distinct emotions: pity and happiness. The two couldn't be further apart. Neither could my disposition towards him.

I pity him because of all the experiences he will never have and the life that has been so forcefully taken from him. There are so many missed opportunities and so many goals that are impossible to attain. It seems harsh to say that I pity him, but I can't really say that I'm happy about all of it. Fate really is a bitch, isn't she? Is it wrong to pity a man who doesn't even realize he has something to be pitied for?

Luckily, I'm also tremendously happy for my brother because somehow I know that this terrible and cruel world will never get to him. He will never have to suffer the pain of bad judgement or the shame in humiliation. Maybe he does, but I don't think so. I think in some way, his mind has chosen to block out certain negative impulses to allow my brother to live some semblance of a life. Therefore I honestly believe him to be content with his current situation. The humble joy of helping the elderly, the dignified sense of belonging from going out to buy bread or the newspaper, the chance to live life without regrets.

Sometimes I wish I could follow him around for just one day, see the way he spends it and how he feels. Most of the time, it's guesswork as to how he's feeling or what he's thinking. It always fascinates me to think about how he feels when I say something to him or even the things he'd dream about. I think that if I could just take a peek inside his head for one second, I could gain an infinite amount of information and a new -and better- way to approach him and his situation.

It's never easy to deal with autism. It was hard before I knew he had it and it's still hard after the verdict was passed. I can't imagine I'll ever feel different one day. Guess it'll just be one of those things you carry around for the rest of your life. I can only hope that one day I'll be able to understand him better and then maybe we can slowly start the recovery process back to the place we've long ago drifted away from.