Home boys

I just made pancakes for Soufyan and Yaesseen. I kept them home from school today. I used the "because then they can rest a bit" excuse for myself, but just realised that I was kidding myself. OK, they have slept two hours and a half longer then any other day this week, which did them a lot of good, and they are still a bit tired, so they get an afternoon nap as well. And it does them a world of good to have an extra day of rest, because their life is even more tiring then ours. During a normal weekday, they wake up at 5.45, they are dropped off at daycare at 7.00, from daycare they are brought to school at 8.20, and school starts at 8.45, it finishes at 3.15, but they stay there until 3.40, then they are picked up by daycare, where one of us picks them up between 5.20 and 6.00. And then their day isn't over yet, first, they are taken home, then they must have dinner (which they have to wait for, since food doesn't cook itself when you are on your way home), get a bath and go to bed.
But quite frankly, I just realised that it does me a lot more good then them. So I spoil them a little bit, in small ways, to make sure they enjoy their day at home then they would enjoy a day at school. That's why I made them pancakes for lunch, which should beat sandwiches... I've been singing and dancing with them, I've played games with them, I jumped when they asked me to, I've carried them to the potty, sat next to them when they were on it...

Funny thing is that usually I am not really aware of the fact that I am a working mum with three wee boys, it hardly occurs to me that I've given birth three times in just six weeks over three years. Sometimes people ask me how we do it, combining work with family life, especially without a car, and the fact that we are both working in shifts, and I always say: "you just close your eyes, dive and start swimming", because quite frankly, that's what we've done the past four years, sometimes we were lucky with the tide and we hardly had to swim, but we've had bad luck as well, and at those points we had to hold on tight to everything and everyone we passed. Don't get me wrong, I am not at all complaining, because everything that ever went wrong or everything that ever stood in our way has made us stronger and everything that went wrong brought along something good as well. I am all too well aware of the fact that it takes rain to make rainbows.

But today I have realised that I kept the boys home for no other reason than that I wanted to spend my day with them. And please, don't make me sing the Piet Piraat, Bob the Builder or any other tune, but if one of them looks at me and asks me to, I'm quite sure I'll do it again... :-)