Three To One - One Two Three

When our friends asked us a while ago, we were both thinking the same thing. Were we drunk when we promised this or what on earth got in to us? Situation: they have two kids and a strong wish to visit an exhibition and some Michelin rated restaurants in London. As they mentioned, the combination of those three things is not the best one (meaning: the children don't match with the London activities), we volunteered to look after the kids for a weekend. All this was put in the conditional tense at the time ('if you ever make it to London, we could look after the children...', 'piece of cake', 'what friends are for'...), but soon became reality. This is why we spent the weekend at their place, looking after their (and our) kids. Three alltogether. I must say I always thought the life of a 'mother' of three must be something like a hectic disaster. I was surprised to find out it's nothing like that at all. It was a lot of fun, seeing the kids play together. Because they had each other, I didn't have to play along, as I usually (have to) do as our son is an only child. Even the rituals of daily life (feeding, bathing and cuddling) were no problem at all. Fordism has proved its merits in many industries.
Since the youngest kid is only a year old, my son (who'll be two in July) kept referring to him as 'the baby', a predicate that obviously singled him out from the big kids. Very funny. All of a sudden he seemed like such a big boy himself. I could tell he really enjoyed not being the smallest kid around.

The weekend also made me wonder about what it would be like if you raise children that are not your own, like in foster care or adoption. Would/could you love these children like they were your own? Would you feel different about them than about your own child? I really don't know. Maybe someone has a blog about this, I should look it up maybe.

The weekend was a success. Right now, I still don't long for a big family of my own, but my son doesn't necessarily have to an only child for ever. There are many options.

Damage control

The day before yesterday my assistant sent me the grades for the exam my students took a couple of weeks ago. It turned out that only 25% of the students that took the exam managed to pass it. This is not only their problem (as you would expect), but also mine. Unfortunately I can't afford to have 75% of the students fail the exam. So I did something that only a year ago I swore I'd never do: give extra marks. Every student got some extra points for free. Just like that. The average is still very low, but the situation is no longer dramatic.

As I love my research field, I do find it a pitty the students still hardly know anything about it, even after sitting through my lectures, making two assignments and taking the exam. Quite discouraging sometimes.

'The horror, the horror'

Yesterday, I read an article in the paper about sexual violence against women in the East of Congo. It was an interview with a woman (Lisa Jackson) who went to Congo to make a documentary about this war tactic. Her film, 'The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo' will be out soon. But I doubt I'll have the courage to go and see it. For the first time in my life, a newspaper story about something happening at the other side of the world, made me cry. Not tears welling in my eyes, but really cry. It was so horrible that I just sat there at my kitchen table and cried. Even now, the story kept popping up in my head over and over again; I nearly started crying in a shop yesterday. One story in particular, about a mother who had to witness the killing of the child she was wearing on her back, completely devastated me.
I mustadmit that since I am a mother myself, stories involving children easily get to me. Even silly weekend movies on tv can make me sob. But never like this, never like this story about a mother carrying her baby on her back.

Train

The other day - the sun was shining - I decided to take my time to fetch my boy from the day care centre. Usually we have to hurry, at least if I want him to eat something and take a bath before going to bed around 7.30. Hurrying is one thing I really don't like, so if possible I don't do it. I had had a bit of an off day, so I went to fetch him a bit earlier than usual. I took his little 'pulling' train, because I know he just loves to walk around with it on the streets. He was indeed very happy when he saw I brought his train. On the way home, he was showing off his train (and the way he could pull it) to passengers on the street. I noticed a lot of people stopped to look at him. Several praised him and told me how cute and good he looked. I thought so too and I suddenly realised I was really happy that moment, and proud, and totally in love with that little blond boy who calls me mama.

Souvenir from the trip to the Ardennes

A New Start

Lissitski.blogspot.com does not longer exist. That's what I get for being impulsive and disappointed. I may continue, but I'm not sure yet I really want to. I decided to call this blog-in-the-making Imitation of Life, after a film by Douglas Sirk (whom I particularly like), but also, because that's maybe what this is.