May weekend

Hectic time. Busy and lazy, good and bad, eventful and boring, relaxing and exhausting four days.

On Saturday we drove the boys to the grandparents (one boy per each pair of grandparents to entertain everybody equally) with the intention of renewing Mikolaj's bedroom so that Adam could at last vacate our bedroom and move in with Mikolaj. While we pretended to be extremely busy, we used the opportunity of spending two days without our kids to enjoy ourselves a bit. So, having prepared the room for painting we marched to the bedroom and indulged ourselves with good 2 hours of sleep, then went shopping to a shopping mall to try on summer dresses and shoes and then drove to the cinema to see The Rite with Anthony Hopkins. This was I guess the weakest point of the evening, the film being more hopeless than I'd expected. I wanted to write a review of this one, not that it's worth it, but simply because going to the cinama is so rare for me. But the thing is I have nothing to say. I'm not sure why this film was made in the first place. Was it supposed to clear all the doubts about the existence of the Devil? Or justify the exorcism? Or to counter exorcism and psychiatry? Probably it was meant to be an intelligent thriller, but it definitely failed to thrill. I think religious people would find it convincing. Watching it a night before the beatification of the pope John Paul II made me think about this mumbo-jumbo the Church wants us to believe ( like the Pope healing a nun, he was undoubtedly a good man, but this goes too far).

When we returned home we enjoyed the silence and... a little drink.

On Sunday we slept till 11, had breakfast, and eagerly painted the room, our thoughts focussed on returning to bed once we'd finished. And so we did. Then we returned to our painting jobs for touch ups et voila, the room was ready. So what could we do with another free evening? Cinema again. This time the choice was much better. Potiche, starring Catherine Denevue and Gerrard Depardieu did not disappoint. A nice story of a woman who (quite late in her life) refuses to be a beautiful ornament on her husband's shelf. By no means is this a film on liberation of women or their struggle for social position or rights, though political motifs are interwoven in the plot. Potiche is a lightweight comedy, not the kind you roar with laughter when watching, but makes you smile as the action turns. It was a pleasure to watch, though I most probably won't remember the film very long. A good idea for a nice evening, but nothing to write home about. So having relaxed well we were ready for a brand new day, meaning the kids coming back home.

On Monday morning we picked Adam and introduced him to his new room. He willingly accepted the change, though I guess was a bit surprised to see his bed gone from the bedroom. And this was when our peace and quiet was over. My husband got a phone that a pump in our summer house broke and water was gushing all over the place, so he rushed to mend it. I didn't know what to do, the weather being horribly cold, so I decided to spend some money on myself and drove with Adam to a shopping mall. I returned home without even getting out of the car cause there was no parking space at all. Kuba came back late, and we were anxiously waiting for my parents ( who got stuck in a traffic jam for over 3 hours)  to bring him home. He accepted the changes and Adam's presence in his room surprisingly well and quietly went to sleep. So far so good, we thought.

We were woken up at 5 am by our lovely children who'd just started their day. We'd arranged with our neighbours, parents of Little Mikolaj (one year younger than ours), to spend the day visiting attractions of Koscierzyna and the surrounding area. The trip was to start at a commonsensical hour, 10 o'clock namely. So it takes no scientist to figure out that we had 5 long lours to survive until we could strap the little brats to their car seats and breathe with relief. We spent those 5 hours pacifying Mikolaj, pretending we didn't hear his hysterical cries, tearing the two brothers apart, trying to feed them in the meanwhile, pack their stuff  and remain sane.  

In the Steam Engine Museum Mikolaj went berserk. He was running from train to train with madness in his eyes, waiting for nobody, paying attention to nobody, ignoring his little companion completely. Everything would have been fine if it hadn't been for the weather. The temperature was 6 degrees, but it felt like 0, we were freezing while he was enjoying himself.

Then we moved to the open-air Ethnographic Museum in Wdzydze to have some local potato-and-lard-based ethno meal hoping the substantial amount of calories would warm us up (it didn't).  

My husband's found his alter ego

We thought the boys would sleep on their way back home, but we were totally wrong. Adam demanded his biscuits by saying something between nynanyna and ryraryra (it's one of his first words) and only biscuits kept him relatively quiet. Since we were running out of the sweet treats we thought we could get some from a local shop in Zblewo (a small town we were passing on our way). I spent about half an hour queueing among some local inhabitants, all of whom bought vodka, beer and cigarettes and I must say my life will never be the same. Truly memorable 30 minutes it was.

Back home Mikolaj did everything he could to spoil the day.  He refused to undress, take off his shoes, wash his hands, screeched with all his might, kicked his feet in the air for no apparent reason, put on his best jeans to have supper, then hysterically struggled to button them up, then ran naked, still screaming. We also kept running around him trying to reason with him and calm him down. Utter madness. His kindergarten teacher would never believe that. He is such a sweet and lovely creature! But why does he turn into a demon at home? Maybe we should baptise him? Might be worth trying!