Bretagne - summer 2020

Wonderful day of trekking and discovering the area. We headed to a close-by Port Crouesty. The names here in Bretagne are impossible to recall even for a Finn - too many exotic letters combined to consonants! As we approached the port, the girls were ecxtatique seeing the shops lined next to little crêperies and sea food restaurants. Side effects of the confinement. Their pocket money was clearly burning in their hands. We agreed to head first for our tour of the tip of the half-island, have lunch and then would be time for a well-deserved shopping tour. The trek turned out to be amazing. And popular. It climbed up on the falaises and offered breath-taking vistas to the sea, the busy port, the km long sand beaches. Others had discovered the same trail, but not to have crowds. Kids had snack and we decided to have them a swim at the beach before heading back to the village. The water line was full of sea life! My son came first thrilled holding a living crab in his hand, screaming of enthousiasm. My daughter caught also bare hand the sea worm. Incredible! It makes me so happy to see my kids so full of joy discovering new experiences. Our lunch consisted of THE local speciality: galette Bretonne. My kids have already a favorite one with cheese and ham. I found mine, the salad with salmon toast. My eldest discovered local hand-made scented soaps in beautiful floral shapes, perfect souvenir from Bretagne. After the siesta, we enjoyed still bathing int the evening sun, our home beach was still packed with people. The water seemed cooler, but the water donut was still a hit and I had to open stop-watch to share turns. The evening was special. We have enjoyed the French tv, a novelty to the kids and a documentary on the exotic corner of the world: a Saharian village drowning to the sand storms and the coldest town of the world in Siberia where temparatures descend to -60 Celsius! The kids found both places fascinating and the questions were endless. What a day discovering and expanding horizon for my little love bundles. I am ever grateful for the blessings we have, and being able to enjoy this beautiful house islandand spend time together as family.

Biscarosse - summer 2020

I wish time would pause. 5th week into our French sea holiday at the Atlantic coast, there is amazingly little sight of travel fatigue, only gentle, dreamy, wavy holiday routine. Weeks are structured by Saturdays, our marathon travel and change of place days, where we pack and clean, prepare our sandwiches and drive, visit the new city close by while waiting for our new home to be ready. Excitement of discovering new house, rooms, share of beds. Ensuring the essentials are there. Emptying the car, getting kids back to car to do groceries. Preparing dinner and beds, sometimes even venturing out for an evening swim. Ending the day with a glass of cool rosé feeling heroes with my husband. The days go by fast. Mornings are often of activities, visiting like today the Dune du Pilate, Europeans’ largest sand dune. It was amazing! As in a desert. It was so hot and I carried Eva all the way up. My Louise Parker fitness regime thanks, the cardio part checked. Kids were thrilled to slide down the sand hills, we run down too with my hubby, side effects of feeling relaxed! We found a superb sand beach called the Little Nice just 5 min. away. The water was crystal clear, it steepened quite quickly and there was a strong current with the sea flowing through to and from the Arcachon bay. I just read yesterday they regularly witness Orcas and dolphins at the Arcachon, which seems incredible. We are indeed next to the Atlantic Ocean! I am thinking of Liisa and understanding a little how powerful the rencontre with such huge sea creatures could be. Makes one speechless. I feel like re-born. After the difficult spring and year of preparing for the competition I suddenly feel connected more with myself. I am not meditating at the moment, neither am I practicing regular yoga, but I am taking care of myself by following a daily fitness and cardio regime (6th week ongoing!) to loose my Competition preparation, Corona, burnout or Vegetarian regime kg I put on last year. Amazingly I woke-up at the gyne check to make an effort before it got too difficult. I don’t have a scale, but I think I am 2 kg close to my normal weight. I feel so much better and lighter. Not to dwell on self-centrism, but I am determined to keep my beach look. My four beautiful children have been carried, delivered and fed with this body, it is my time now to thank, praise and take care of it just for myself sake. The kids are enjoying so much this time together. Of course they bigger, but it is nothing. I love to listen in the morning Elias come to me half-sleeping explaining in an endless row of words about his dream, often filled with sharks, pirates, speed boats. Lately also fears of loosing me, the age of five fears we all have had❤️ He is so full of energy, joy and love for life this little boy my heart swells thinking about him. Estelle is showing to be so clever, tactful, manoeuvring between Elise and Elias, always first one to compromise. It is so lovely to spend time just the Tao of us, which was so difficult to arrange at home conditions. Yesterday she taught me Tammi, and we got both hooked! No tv at this house makes wonders in getting the kids enthusiastic to play board games! Yey! Elise is probably missing home and her friends most. It is not easy being the big sister. Eva considers her the second mom, always ensuring Elise has her share of drinks\fruits/sweets. She calls her Leia, as her carer at the Creche! Elise is growing up fast. It is quite wonderful how traveling triggers discussions of different topics we would probably not discuss, about the environment, geography, sea life, lifestyles..I feel she is observing and absorbing I can feel it! With Eva it is tough. She has her 2 year tantrums and we are tired with my husband. She is not a morning person, does not want to eat breakfast, screams easily in falset, potty training meaning she no longer wants to do her needs to the pampers. So we stop to do the neessary endless times per day: just when our meals have been served, motorways, from our bikes, at the beach, you name it. It took her 5 weeks to learn to like built castles in the sand, but one of us has to be sitting with her. She hates to get to the water, probably feels the 20 degrees of Ocean water is too chill. With all this, she is so lovable my heart explodes. Her little cheeky smile and curly hear, the way she wants to cuddle and she shows love by caressing my face and sighting “ mom” with this sound of love, I would not change one second of this time. I feel this is the best time of our life. Sincerely, without wanting to be dramatic, the kids are small and adorable, we are together, we are healthy, all is well.I miss my family in Finland and Mexico, but I am so grateful for everything I have blessed with, at this moment. Thank you universe, immensely🙏🏻💋

Halloween

Despite the grey sky, the new wave of the pandemic with contamination rates we've never seen before and the looming lockdown, our family is not feeling particularly gloomy. Perhaps, just because of these special circumstances, we have tuned into small pleasures, taking example from our children and sharing their irresistable excitement over..Halloween! The school is indeed organizing a Halloween party, within the class. We have prepared the costumes weeks ago (witch and Alice in wonderland), sweets and cookies are stacked in packpacks. My hands were trembling when I today heard my daughter's teacher has fallen ill, waiting for covid test results. The school has been struggling to find an alternate teacher in our language section, because apparently so many teacher was absent..I cross my fingers and send a little prayer that my childrens highlight of the fall will not be cancelled. All the other excursions have been cancelled for this year, the skiing trip to the Alps is especially hard to swallow for my eldest. They talk about this 5th grade trip since 1st grade! For the rest, I don't see symptoms of great stress in my kids. Life happens in our daily activities. We are excited about my son's first tooth moving, my baby girls successful potty training, my second ones evening gymnastics or the reading diploma completed. With my husband we have grown to love working from home and don't miss one bit our previous rat-race busy mornings. We are humans with the greatest of gifts, the capacity to adapt, to this, and whatever is to come next.

Back to school

There had to be an end to the wonderful hazy days of confinement with daily routines perhaps repetitive, but yet predictable and bringing stability and comfort to our life.Well, this is now history. We have again four different schedules to follow: the primary schoolers have both 1 distance learning day (different one, obviously), they finish on school days at noon. In pre-school, the classes continue normally, every day, until 15:00. My toddler who returned to Creche is refusing to take her afternoon nap there and the consequences can be guessed: she is a completely exhausted ball of toddler the rest of the day. I am weighing the pros and cons daily: this was supposed to be a breathing time for myself and my husband after three months of 24/7 super parenting! Now it is time to open all my creative projects, continue the to-do lists or simply RELAX. Well, after the first week behind I find all of the before extremely difficult. I feel drained and exhausted, topped with feelings of regret for the poor kids who are themselves trying to adapt to the new normal. So we ended up bickering with my husband on what to do, should we keep the little ones at home or not. Should we keep all of the kids at home and continue in confinement mode and try to find again the balance? I try to keep it cool, breath through, go running, play tennis and practice yoga. I still have difficulties in keeping my focus on where it should be, on the present moment.

Corona - end of confinement

Today, 3rd of June 2020, the National security council met and decided to enter the 3rd and 4th phase of de-confinement. Most restrictions are lifted. Belgian schools start tomorrow, others next week, kids activities, public gatherings (less than 50 people) are accepted, restaurants and cafes will re-open. Concerning individual rights, people can meet with 10 persons beyond the family. According to the press the Covid-19 is under control in Belgium. This was a long list of reasons to celebrate! Freedom after almost 3 months of confinement!

And yet, after a tour among neighbours and friends, feelings are mixed. People are suspicious, after so heavy restrictions, how can they dismantle everything at once? What about the social distancing, wearing a mask and washing hands? People seem unsure whether to dare to put their kids to school (us included: “why risk for the sake of a few weeks?), where to travel and whom to meet? Even if borders open, is it safe to take the plane, should we still stay in quarantine before meeting grand-parents. I made the most difficult decision yesterday not to travel to North this summer, to our greatest disappointment. Given the opening of the schools, the more extensive exposure to other children and families, and the devastating contagion rate here, I cannot take the risk of bringing it to my family. It will be a different summer and hopefully in the fall months we will be able plan another trip.

We will miss this surrealistic, warm spring, which brought hopefully most families together. I will miss our slower paced mornings, long walks and bike rides, plays in the garden and kids joy of novelties, such as sleeping in the tent tonight. We have managed to have time also for ourselves, for the home and garden and for creative projects. I am learning to play piano with my girls, and we finally signed up to the tennis club next door, we have so much fun together playing daily. We started the greenhouse and I have planted plenty of plants and herbs. We witness our baby girl take leaps in development, this week the potty training has taken a new peak! Can’t believe we could soon be pamper-free household!

Really, what I am saying is, I don’t think I am ready to return to any other normal.

Corona - 67 days in confinement - phase 2 in de-confinement

The National Security Council decided to enter phase 2 in the de-confinement since yesterday 18th of May. This means that we are able to ALMOST resume  our life as before: shop in other than grocery stores, go to hair dressers, market and gym. Except that it is not life as before. Wearing a mask is obligatory in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre when going to a store (I finally finished ours!), keeping the security distance and des-infecting hands. Another important change did not take place: the kids school has decided to stay on distance-learning until end of the school year. I am relieved. It would have been impossible to follow the security guidelines in a school of 3000 students. Above all, home-schooling works well. It is hugely demanding for us parents, but I have truly grown to love the lack of logistics and slower pace in our daily life. And to have my family close around me. Even 24/7.

How did this long-waited decision change our family's routines? I think I sense some cabana syndrone, we don't actually have much interest going out although now possible. The girls are on holiday this week. They love our bike rides in the afternoon, but I decided to expand their activities by signing them for tennis in the afternoons. I consider it should be safe: small groups, outdoors, the club has duly set des-infectant liquid in the entry and exit points of the court. First shopping trip? To the crafts store of course, we were out of all essentials. I call our cleaning lady. To my great disappointment, she is not available. So yeasterday I started the 10th time cleaning the house. I am aware my mother has done this for five decades, but we are made of different wood. I would be very happy to outsource this activity and go for a run and yoga instead.

There is talk about the summer holidays. Nothing is certain yet. European internal borders will likely open to save the tourism industry. We were exploring altearnatives with my husband what to do varying from driving all the way, driving half and taking a boat, flying straight  or traveling as the years before taking all possible transports: plains, ferries, trains, car.  At the moment we don't feel safe to go, mostly not to bring the risk of contagion to our parents. The Belgian contagion and death rates are exponentially higher than in the North, we are the risk. Fortunately the kids are not asking yet, so we have some time.

Corona - Confinement day 53 - Gradual de-confinement day 2

The whole weekend, we celebrated the 1st of May by cooking traditional Finnish delicacies. We also celebrated the last day of full confinement here in Belgium. From 4 May, the economy would be allowed to open (selectively) and from 18 May those Belgian schools, which are ready with the security measures, will open their doors. The measures put in place seem  complex: only the certifying classess will re-start with maximum 10 students at time, 1-2 days per week. Wearing a mask will be obligatory in public transport for adults and over 12 year olds. The confort mask is recommended. The social distancing remains in place. Teleworking is still recommended.

The European schools have announced that before 25 May nothing will take place. The parents association made a survey requesting our opinion if we would put our kids to school should it be volunteery. We answered negatively. I cannot imagine a school of 3000 students being able to organise the logistics within the requirements.

The press is considering various post-covid scenarios, ranging from Totalitarian leadership to community led collaborative societies with a common element: high un-employment and increased poverty. As an imminent reaction, people seem less willing to travel in short and medium term.

I wonder our little world and summer holidays. We want to go home. We have explored the alternatives: risks of taking the flights, if it becomes an option, the likely higher price of the tickets, driving ourselves and taking the boat for several nights, avoiding the boat and staying in hotels or even renting a mobile home. The mobile cars necessary for our size family are costly, around 1000 euros per week. It is a considerable budget for a 4-weeks holiday.

It could be, that our holidays will be in Belgium - by choice or obligation. The Belgian beach villages have voiced a concern on over-crowded beaches in the coming summer and intelligent solution - to limit the beaches to local tax payers only. This option has not been much appreciated in the Belgian press.

SO here we are, in front of yet another great challenge to let go of any need to control and plan - because it is not necessarily leading to any desirable outcome - but surrender to what is, in every rolling new moment.