So much for that

So Benj is flying to Tel-Aviv tomorrow. Apparently there’s a concert going on over there for the protests and Benj, the eternal activist, wants to be right in the middle of it. I asked him what the protest was about and he said that there is a lot going on in Israel right now. Really? Huh, Israel I had no idea. 

I need my children's dad right now. And that's me, who can tuck myself in at night and wipe my own face. When Amelie asks me where Dad is I don't know how to explain why he's not there. I tell them where he is and we find him on the map. They see how far he is from where we are. Then they sleep and they ask me again tomorrow. 

I called my mom today for the first time since Croydon. I was on the phone for twenty-five minutes and she cried the whole time. Apparently, Dad’s been down at the courthouse everyday  since we left. Mom says he thinks he can get us back. 

Kiel’s not sleeping anymore. I think we may have expected too much of how well he would adjust. He says he wants Petey, who is his snail plush toy. He tells me he won’t sleep without Petey. 

"P is for Pig." Flickr Creative Commons. Web. 22 Jan 2011.

I forgot Petey in Portland. I didn’t think about Petey because he had his little pig toy that I don’t remember the name of. A little pig toy that he ALWAYS uses. Why can’t he just sleep with the pig?

Amelie already has a friend. We’ve been in Frankfurt for three days and she’s already besties with a little boy, Alef, from the apartment across the hall. There’s Louise that she met at the park in Paris and Little Pauly (to distinguish him from ‘Big Pauly’) who lived in the house next door in Croydon. That’s not to mention the twins she played with on the plane over the Atlantic or the two sisters that she met on the metro under the English Channel. She knows them by name still and remembers the names of their dolls and what their favorite colors are. She asks me when she can see them again and when she can tell her teacher at school about all her new friends. I always say ‘hopefully soon’ which is the ambiguous mother shit I always used to get so pissed with. But it’s all I have now. I was so convinced that I could be that mom that would tell my kids the truth, even the nasty truth. It would make them better and more realistic. But what if I told Amelie, “You’re never going to get to tell your teacher about Alef.”  And what if I told Kiel that he’s never going to see Petey again!? And then WHAT IF I’M WRONG?!

I am handling this. At least I am handling this. No meltdowns yet. I'm going out of my mind not having anything to do with all this anxiety. I sketch when I have a spare moment. I'll go to the art studio tomorrow for an interview. Even just the part-time work would do wonders. The kids will have to come with me. We'll see how that goes. 

"Pigtails." Wikimedia Commons. Web. 22 Jan 2011.