Mid Autumn Festival

 

 

happy mid autumn festival!

tonight we had our mid autumn moon festival on the playground. earlier in the week i had bought the most ridiculous lanterns for the kids – hello kitty driving a car, hello kitty shaped as a strawberry, transformers, swords…but they all light up and they all play ridiculous music like "it's a small world" "Auf weidersehen" and the like.

the kids also wear glo bands around their necks and wrists and they march around the playground, waving their lanterns and playing. the mock "festival" started at 7.30 and we didn't come upstairs until 8.30. in fact, we would have stayed longer but sela said in tones that brooked no arguement, "i would like to come upstairs now mummy, i am tired". so up we came.

mid autumn moon festival is a fantastic time in hong kong. i am so glad that we celebrate it.

it is still really really hot here in hong kong!!!

interested in your thoughts on this one….

from the daily mail, september 3, 2008   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1052247/Shes-suing-NHS-delays-forced-conceive-baby-donor-egg–So-Greta-Mason-honest-just-plain-selfish.html

it is a bit of a long read, but pretty captivating….

With his thatch of dark hair, olive skin and eyes which are already turning brown, newborn Jaden Mason is not  -  lovely though he is  -  the blond, blue-eyed infant his mother Greta always dreamed of having.

As she cradles her 8lb 7oz son, surrounded by congratulations cards, 42-year-old Greta is clearly besotted with him and insists that whatever fears she might have harboured about bonding with her baby evaporated the second he was placed in her arms.

'As soon as the midwife laid him on my chest I took one look at him and felt a surge of love,' says Greta, who lives with her husband Chris, 43, in Worthing, West Sussex.

'We waited so long to have a baby that neither Chris nor I can stop marvelling at how beautiful he is.'

It helps that Jaden, conceived via IVF using an anonymous donor egg from Spain and Chris's sperm, looks just like his father and the couple feel blessed that his safe arrival by emergency Caesarean has ended 13 years of childlessness. They are a family at last.

So surely Greta must be as contented as the nine-day-old baby slumbering in her arms? Well, no, not exactly.

For she still yearns deep down for the baby she believes she should have had, indeed was entitled to have, using her own eggs rather than a donor's.

'I look at Jaden and he is so wonderful that I can't help but wish he is all mine,' says Greta with disarming honesty, 'so despite my joy at having such a beautiful baby, I can't help but feel bitter I have been cheated out of that and the genetic baby I always thought I'd have with Chris hasn't happened.'

Last week, before Jaden's birth, Greta announced she was taking the remarkable step of suing her health trust claiming she was denied the right to have her own biological child and forced to conceive using donor eggs because of NHS delays in treating her.

She claimed a barrage of unnecessary fertility tests followed by a six-year wait for treatment meant her eggs were too old to be used in IVF treatment and she could only conceive using a donor.

She described the loss of the chance to have her own flesh and blood baby as 'devastating' and a 'shattering blow' and posed the question to herself: can I really love a baby who's not all mine?

Her extraordinary and controversial legal action prompted a wave of furious e-mails and letters from readers who accused Greta of being 'ungrateful' and ' selfish.'

Others expressed concern that she would find it hard to bond with her baby, because he shared none of her characteristics and questioned whether a cash-strapped NHS should be offering free IVF treatment at all if the taxpayer is left open to compensation claims.

This is Greta and Chris's first interview since the birth of Jaden. They say they have been wounded by the ' hurtful' comments made about them and say that their son's arrival, while joyous, has not totally diminished their feelings of bitter regret that Greta will never bear her own genetic child.

They refuse to be cowed by the criticism and say that just because other people may feel uncomfortable, it doesn't make what they honestly feel any less real or indeed natural.

'Of course we are overjoyed that Jaden is here,' says Greta, 'but there is still a twinge of sadness, the niggle that he is not genetically related to me. It isn't a question of love or feeling that he is not my child.

'Now that he is here I feel that he is totally my baby. I also love him more than anything  -  and feel incredibly protective over him as any mother would  -  but the fact is that I had always dreamed of having a flesh and blood baby who would inherit my genes with my husband.

'I have been reduced to tears by some of the cruel remarks people have made about us. The most hurtful thing has been those people criticising us saying I should feel grateful for the fact that I have a baby.

'I am incredibly grateful, but it doesn't change the way I feel. I am just being honest about very delicate emotions. The truth is, this seems to be a taboo subject.

'People are reluctant to talk about these kind of emotions, but I can't believe I am the only mother who has conceived a baby by donor egg who feels this way.

'You cannot sweep reality under the carpet and not face up to the fact that a whole part of Jaden's life is missing.

'For example, we will have no idea of the health issues on his side of the family and I worry about how we will explain his birth to him.

'I am thinking about Jaden. How will he feel when he understands that although I gave birth to him, I am not his genetic mummy?

'Will he be upset about the way he is conceived? I love him but when he is older, will he love me?'

Chris, who works for large transport company, adds: 'It is sad that Greta doesn't feel she can say "Oh, look Jaden's got my nose," for example, but I tell her Jaden has his own looks, he looks like Jaden.

'But I defy any man who loves his wife to say he is completely happy that he's had to have a baby using another woman's egg. When you marry someone it is only natural to want a family with them.

'And while words cannot describe the overwhelming feelings of sheer happiness I feel now to have a son, I feel terribly guilty about the suffering Greta's had to go through to have my baby.'

Some might regard Greta's decision to talk so candidly about her disappointment as incredibly brave, while others might consider it selfish.

After all, how will Jaden feel growing up knowing  -  not just that he was conceived using a donor egg  -  but more pertinently that his mother would have preferred a genetic child of her own?

Furthermore is the NHS really to blame for her predicament or is her legal action merely a symptom of our times where women feel they are entitled to their own baby if they want, when they want, and if it doesn't happen naturally then through IVF  -  of which there is no guarantee of success  -  funded by the taxpayer?

Greta is at pains to point out that while, for some women, a donor egg is the only way to conceive, for her it was an avoidable option as it was Chris rather than her who suffered the fertility problems.

She argues that had the NHS waiting lists not been so long, her own perfectly healthy eggs could have been used before age deteriorated their quality.

'It annoys me that people seem to automatically assume that it is always the woman's "fault" when a couple has difficulties having a baby,' she says, 'but in our case the fertility problem was with Chris, so it seems unfair that I was the one who ended with the baby who is not genetically related to me.'

Life is unfair, as many people can testify, but Greta vehemently believes the NHS should be held accountable, even though, you would have thought, if she'd been that desperate have her own genetic baby they might have considered going private to begin with.

As it was, they ended up remortgaging ttheir house to pay the £15,000 cost of undergoing private IVF treatment using a Spanish donor egg to have the baby they longed for after being told there were virtually none available in the UK.

'In hindsight, we naively trusted the doctors, that they knew what they were doing and there was a reason why we were not a priority case,' says Chris.' We didn't try to jump the queue  -  we waited patiently for the IVF treatment on the NHS.

'However, if someone had told us in the beginning that we would have to wait so long for treatment and then that during that time Greta's fertility could wane so much, we would have gone privately earlier.

'What is terribly upsetting is people who think because we are suing we must be mercenary people.

'But we are doing this to stop the same mistake happening to someone else  -  to stop others having to use a donor egg when, if they were brought in for fertility treatment earlier, they could have had their own genetic child.

'There are also hardly any egg donors so surely it is in the interests of the doctors to try to use people's own eggs and not leave them so long on a waiting list that they become menopausal.'

Married in 1993, Greta and Chris dreamed of having a family together and they started trying for a baby together two years later when Greta was 29.

After two years of trying without success, they were referred for fertility tests and in October 1998 initial results indication that Chris's sperm count was zero.

Further examination demonstrated that he was in fact producing sperm, but mobility was the problem and for it to be used in fertility treatment it would need to be extracted directly to fertilise Greta's eggs.

The couple now believe they should have undergone ICSI straightaway  -  a type of IVF where sperm is directly injected into the egg in a test tube and the fertilised embryo then implanted in the womb.

Greta claims that instead of offering this, doctors insisted on a barrage of further medical tests to check her fertility including a laparoscopy  -  keyhole surgery to check if her uterus was normal and her Fallopian tubes unblocked  -  even though she had become pregnant in a previous relationship and miscarried.

All tests, which also showed her eggs were healthy, came back normal and the Masons were placed on the NHS waiting list for IVF.

'I yearned for babies,' admits Greta, 'We hadn't even considered accepting that we would always be childless. I simply couldn't see a future without a family.'

It would be four years before they received their first appointment and a further two before they reached top of the list for IVF treatment.

By this time Greta was 40 and was devastated to learn that in the time they had waited, her eggs were too old to be successfully used in IVF.

She insists that at no point did doctors warn her that her fertility would wane as she grew older and she assumed that  -  because women do have babies in their late 30s and 40s  -  there would be no problem with her eggs.

'We have since discovered that doctors should have checked my hormone levels to ensure that as I was getting older I did not reach the menopause, but this wasn't done,' claims Greta.

'If these vital hormone tests had been done, the doctors would have had an early warning that my eggs were getting too old and they could have brought us in for IVF treatment earlier.'

Having been told their only hope of conceiving was with a donor egg, they reluctantly decided this was their only chance of having a baby and, discovering a severe shortage of donors in the UK, sought private IVF treatment in Spain.

'There, egg donors are more plentiful because unlike in the UK, donating sperm and eggs is still anonymous,' says Greta, 'but because fair-haired donors are rarer in Spain, guaranteeing a baby with blue eyes like me would have meant a wait of another year in Spain, so we opted for the next available donor.

'Not ever being a mother was something that was simply too painful to contemplate, so I never gave up hope there would be a child one day,' she says.

'Just because I am upset I couldn't use my own eggs doesn't mean I am not incredibly indebted to the woman who donated her eggs.

'I know it is a very painful process to go through and when I think of her, I can only imagine she must be a very loving and caring person to even consider donating.

I only wish that when I had my IVF I could have produced lots of eggs myself because I would have gladly donated them so another couple could have their longed for baby.

'But the fact remains that without that six-year delay we could have been parents a long time ago and we could have had a child that was genetically both ours rather than being forced to pay out for a donor egg.'

Which is why, despite being delighted with their new son, they are continuing their legal action against Worthing and Southlands Hospitals NHS Trust.

In response to the claim a trust spokesperson responded: 'We are aware of the concerns Mrs Mason has regarding the treatment she received while a patient at the trust.

'However, given that they are the subject of an ongoing claim it would not be appropriate for us to comment further.'

For the moment the Masons are adjusting to becoming new parents. They have several frozen embryos in storage  -  created at the same time as Jaden  -  and will with time consider having a full blood brother or sister for their son.

They intend, when the time is appropriate, to tell Jaden the truth about his conception and hope it will not affect his feelings for them.

'The fact that our baby isn't genetically mine raises issues not only for us, but for him. His donor was anonymous and there will be constant reminders of this in the future,' says Greta.

'I am sure there are some people who have babies by donor egg or sperm and never tell a soul.

'As it is  -  it will be my name on his birth certificate and to all intents and purposes I am his mother  -  but I have to be honest with myself and voice my true feelings.

'It is fantastic to see Chris with his own genetic son. I know Chris would have ideally liked us to have our own genetic child between us but I could never have denied Chris his own son. So there are no regrets and no way I wouldn't have gone ahead,' says Greta.

'Obviously, now Jaden's here, we wouldn't swop him for the world  -  not for our own genetic baby or any other baby.

'Now I feel so protective of him that I only have to look at him or hear him cry and I want to hold him straightaway. He's our child and we love him.'

But will Greta ever stop thinking about the blond, blue-eyed baby she might have had?

********

alright….your thoughts ???

mine:

1) no ownership: she couldn't have done her own testing to determine the quality of her own eggs? what sort of woman in today's world DOESN"T know about declining quality of eggs as women age?

2) she's worried about how her child will feel once he discovers he is not her biological child..she should more worry about the incredibly hurtful things she is saying in this article!

3) i wanted all my children to have charles' lovely eyelashes. can i sue our ivf clinics because they dont? certainly one way to pay their school fees?

WHAT DO YOU THINK? does she have a point??? any sympathy i had is kind of gone because i feel so sorry for her wee little laddie.

i have my limits, but what are they?

the other day i am at park n shop with my typical two carts of groceries (one for delivery, one for takehome). i have jasper, sela and carys zipping up and down the aisles, and frankly, i am pleased because if they were still they would be eyeing the "impulse buy" sweeties at the cashier desk where i am behind one other cart and making pleading sounds.

at this point, a young helper approaches the cashiers. the two open cashiers aren't hugely busy, they are both helping someone with another customer behind them. but both customers in waiting have packed carts. this lady has a loaf of bread and a pomelo.

she hesitates. wondering which line to join.

i ask if she would like to go infront of me. she is paying cash, and really, it will only take a minute. she thanks me

a man, who has five items, asks if he can jump infront of me. he pays by cash card. takes a bit longer!

where is the cut off point? how many people do you let go infront of you before you say "enough?" i know it only takes a minute, but at this rate, i will never get out of there? it isn't my fault the 10 items or less cashier isn't in service.

is three a good number? sometimes that's my limit. sometimes i judge by the person. if they are elderly, i will extend that number to four. but at five, i get a little restless.

do you have a personal limit?

first week = survival

have you ever been late for a dinner party?

anal retentive first there tess has. last night, if you want to get into specifics. how embarrassing.

some friends are moving and they invited us, and some other friends over to theirs for a casual evening (anything with kids is casual). i knew it was saturday night.

currently i am avoiding our flat, because the toilets aren't flushing. as much fun as it is to hear sebastian cranking the handle 20 times and then when i remind him in not so dulcet tones "It's NOT WORKING!" he responds, "oh YEAHHHH, I FORGOT", and carys asking about the broken toilet in terms that suggest today the toilet tomorrow the world…it's just easier to be out of the flat.

at 4.30 andrea and i went for a workout at the aberdeen boat club. we have a theory to make the sweat fly faster and treadmill hours cruise by unnoticed…we are watching sex and the city. yesterday we watched two episodes and at around 5pm we decided to go home.

charles was there and eyed me with some amusement. no anger, which has to be said is one of his very good traits. he explained that we were 45 minutes late to dinner. i said several things and then went to get ready.

blame, squarely on my shoulders.

possibly if i wasn't so preoccupied with the republican vice presidential nominee debate – crazy or canny….i would have remembered the time of the dinner. but i doubt it. anyway, we went and it was fine and fun. a good evening. good friends.

but i hate being late. gah. bad. ugh.

which is why it is 8.47 and church doesnt begin until 11 am and jasper, sela and carys are all dressed and wonderful, and we are just waiting for charles to get home from rugby with sebastian and then we will trundle off to church. i am taking no chances today.

this morning sebastian crawled into our bed sans special blanket. if i had been coherent, i would have had two thoughts:

1) (whilst still fuzzily asleep) ahh, so he is growing up and no longer needs special blanket, how great/sortasadzzzzzzzzzzzz

2) (as i shook the cotton wool out of my head) maybe'zzz he sick

Thirty-five minutes later, the debate was over as sebastian leaned over the bed and vomitted. at his father's urgings, he ran for the toilet, only to be stopped by two more vomits.

poor little kitten.

in my 'yout', vomitting was a big deal, usually accompanied by tears. in 6a, it is usually accompanied by people following you pied piper like and providing bob costas like updates. but there are no tears. vomitting is nothing one cries about. it is just something that happens.

marianne and i cleaned up the sick pretty quickly and i switched my day around so that there is someone at home as obviously seb isn't going to school. and i had a full, and dare i say it, pretty great day planned. one of the notable things is that carys is meant to get her stitches out. i want to be the one who is with her when this happens, but if i am at home with sebastian ? ? ? ? ?

he seemed to perk up, and i gave him some pancakes. while he was eating, i sat down, and made all the responsible calls to the school that he is not going to be in this morning. i wrote this morning, because i was thinking,
no vomit for 2 hrs now, he's eating….life is good! i could maybe have him back in the  classroom in a few hours!"

and suddenly, a voice called out and interrupted my plan to get my day back on track…

"mummy, i did a small poo in my bobs".

alas.

i led him to the toilet, put my hand on his tummy, felt those tangled little intestines and suggested he stay on the toilet. he said, "but mummy, i don't need to do a poo anymore!" and i said, "you will honey." he suggested he just wanted to lie down, and i emphasised the need to stay on the toilet. and as i emphasised, the wisdom of my words came to pass, shall we say.

i washed his bobs and talked to him, and now he is sitting down with a cup of juice, showered and a bit sad.

so am i.

i will make both of us a cup of tea.

twins, just because?

all is well in hong kong. battered and bruised, but that's mainly just my patience.

i am interested in your opinions on a the below matter. the other day on a public forum, a woman posted and said she had always wanted twins, and despite not having any fertilty issues, wanted information on how to get clomid.

some women responded (no one condemned her) and one mum of multiples mentioned that it might look cute and fun, but there were very real dangers, and of course, no guarantees of multiples come with clomid.

i responded and asked her what aspect of her "twin fantasy" she had. responding privately, she said it had always been a dream, and then mentioned the cuteness and adorableness of twins.

(you notice how noone ever wants triplets??)

having been through it, i don't really understand the concept of "twin cuteness". (or triplet cuteness). i cant look at one picture of my kids and say, "that is so much cuter" than a picture of one of those kids alone in a photo.

or, how is a photo of jasper, sela, carys and sebastian cuter than say, (cough) a picture of pam, graeme and my own rather cute self when we were 8, 4 and 6? (except we were wearing green crocheted tops and flared cords with daisies on them). kids, happy together…its CUTE!

so i don't get the whole concept of twins are cuter than two kids of different ages. personally, i do not understand why a parent would want to have two or three at once. i would not change anything that has happened, because this is what God wants for us, but i don't understand the desire for multiples when you don't have fertility issues.

when you do have fertility issues, two is manna. the hope of having one child is a dream you were beginning to think might not ever be yours, (especially with adoption becoming more and more challenging), and to have two from a procedure that has no guarantees…what a blessing!

but to seek it out, go through the hassle and hormones because you have always had the fantasy…i dont understand the fantasy. or is this because i know my reality?

what is the twin fantasy?

how can sebastian NOT believe in God? his first morning of school, as he sat at a table with victor, ben, hugh and a few other fellows, his cute teacher (he always gets attractive teachers, another bonus), announced that typhoon nuri was on its way, and could the kids please give this paper to mummy and daddy? (seb & adam at left prior to leaving for school)

the paper was of course reminding parents about typhoon policies, basically telling us, "don't bring your kids to school tomorrow."

even if i hadn't heard it on cnnasia, i knew there was a typhoon on the way. a taxi driver had told me.

"very bad typhoon tomorrow missy. by 8am, typhoon 8. we stop and get groceries for you?"

i assured him we would be okay. the pre-typhoon weather was still and hot. eerily heavy.

sebastian bounced out of his first day of primary TWO and smiled and handed me the notice and then we headed home to find gary taping up the windows and pushing the furniture up against the floor to ceiling patio sliding doors. there are five of them in total. big X"s across the windows. it was too hot for the kids to play outside, so sebastian and adam played transformers up at ours, while the triplets played at andrea's upstairs. andrea came up to join me and we talked about ashleigh's first day at school (such a big girl!!!) and we lay on our bed watching a re-run of grey's anatomy while next to us the boys watched teen titans. the universe felt orderly.

charles came home and i made him some delicious (say so myself) vietnamese glass noodle salad. it was too hot for anything else and the cool dressing and slippery noodles were fantastic. the kids and i had made the dressing a few days earlier and they were very impressed with their garlic smelling hands afterwards.

we watched a couple of episodes of HOUSE, and talked a bit, then switched on to the olympics. the trees were moving around outside, but they sure weren't frantic, but the heat was oppressive. i felt sorry for the horses, jumping for the allround. was less sorry when CANADA won the gold medal. (yay! we stand on guard for thee!)

fell asleep with the typhoon signal at three and expected to be at 8 by noon.

charles and i awoke around 4am courtesy of the wind shrieking in through our airconditioner. whheeeee! oh my sweet fart faced fool. thankfully the kids slept as their room is on the opposite side of the hall. i checked the website and it said that although it was still typhoon 3, school was cancelled.

the kids slept until 7am then crawled into our bed and we watched cartoons for a while, as sebastian announced, "this is the best day ever", and then changed his mind because the "good cartoons" weren't on yet.

typhoon eight went up around 8. all the bigger boats came in from the harbour. that was a real indicator that everyone was taking this typhoon seriously. (tess early friday morning with taped windows in the background)

around 9am charles and i decided it was time to get the kids outside before the winds got too heavy. i grabbed some m&m's, and we descended to the playground. made the kids run round a few times, and gave them their bounty.

a few parents obviously had the same idea, and we gathered on the playground and chatted away. i suppose i should have been a bit self conscious as i was wearing my sponge bob squarepants pajamas, but the thing is, i KNEW the rain was coming soon, it was SO HUMID and hot, and these pants were just the thing and went well with the tank top i was wearing. no regrets, dude! i convinced andrea to come down in her pajamas as well.

suddenly the wind picked up and sela's wellie went zooming off her foot and skittering across the playground. charles' glasses as well. the adults looked at each other and decided it was time for plan b.

this is how i ended up with 9 girls in my house (some of whom i had never met before). andrea got the boys. weng and mark made pizzas for them, and at 12.30 we had a pizza party for 16 kids, while marianne cooked for all the helpers. one couple showed up with wine for the parents. (yay!) it was fun and impromptu. all over our building, there were various versions of what was occurring at our flat, happening. that's one of the things i love about our building.

the next stage was a movie over at the van dales. poor jasper tried to stick it out, but they have three cats, so he was only there for an hour before he started breaking out in hives and wheezing. so he is home now sipping juice and being spoilt. "i get to choose what i watch." sadly, somedays when it is just jasper, he chooses to watch the wiggles…but not today. superheroes. i'm not sure i am ready to give up the wiggles.

the typhoon is apparently going to be a humdinger. it is expected to hit head on at 9pm. we are supposed to keep the kids away from the windows, particularly the windows that face the direction the wind is coming from. it will be well and i hope they remember it. especially sebastian. in years to come if he is doubting God and thinks about answers to prayer…he needs to remember today, and the fun he is having, while the windows tremble, the wind shrieks and the rain slices down vertically all around him. (at left, sela reading tonight's bedtime story – she pulled the words from memory but still did an excellent job!)

yesterday carys cut her chin open and needed three stitches to close her face up.

i am so grateful for good friends and neighbours. we were at the boat club, and i was chatting with another mum of multiples when i saw carys approaching me, streaming wet but with a thin trickle of pink coming down her neck.

i knew it was blood, even before carys said, "mummy, i hurt myself."

our friends, mark and weng were there, and mark immediately got bandages and gauze, and then agreed wtih me that this was going to require stitches. carys was as brave as a lion. there was no sobbing, she was stoic.

mark offered to drive me and my bleeding bikini girl to the hospital, but charles said he would. so mark and weng, even though they had plans, stayed behind at the club, and let our kids swim and play. their kids were fully dressed, but they looked after our kids for us. good friends.

charles and i raced back with still stoic carys, and while carys and i waited downstairs, charles got carys' passport, a change of clothes, the portable dvd player, books and snacks. and then he dropped us off at the hospital.

the olympics were blaring, table tennis and hong kong was playing. i don't think i have ever seen such an enthusiastic ER waiting room! people were actually hesitating before heading off to see the dr after their name was called.

no surprise, carys needed stitches. because her cut was so close to the bone, they couldnt give her a jab to anaesthatise the area. they sprayed it a bit, but she was still in discomfort. the dr tried to kick me out of the room while they gave her the stitches, can you imagine? ho ho ho, like i was going anywhere while they were pulling a needle in and out of my child's face!!!

but eventually, it was over and we left. we came home, i put on dora the explorer, gave her some pain medication, daubed some salve on the red scrape on her throat, helped her into her pajamas, and then watched her fall asleep on the couch.

interestingly enough, even though carys was a trooper, last night i had the toughest time sleeping. i kept seeing that wound, all the blood, the bits of the wire clippings dropping into carys' blonde hair and my fingers pulling them out, her hands with the chipped nail polish holding my hand but not gripping it very tightly. poor little possum.

i am not meant to change the dressings, but they are filthy already. after one day. she was playing hard today and i was so proud of her.

olympic gymnast criticism bounces off

this whole debate about the exact age of the chinese gymnasts is, to pass the buck, the fault of the international olympic committee. they need to relax the rule, lower it to 14.

the rules for competing need to be relaxed. in figure skating, no one was complaining about michelle kwan being in senior classes and the alternate to the women's 1994 lillehammer team when she was 14 years old. skating takes just as much time and dedication as gymnastics. so why the double standard?

very likely, a few of the chinese gymnasts are under the tender age of sweet 16. frankly, after visiting hunan province last year, i am just happy thinking of those gymnasts living in the athletic compounds with healthy food and a roof over their head. i am very very sorry for their competition if they are indeed underage, because it gives the young uns an unfair advantage. as nadia comaneci says, "everything is easier when you're younger."

but for american (former romanian) marta karolyi to suggest that a chinese gymnast is underage because she has a missing tooth makes me roll my eyes. do you think it is possible the girl just never received proper dental care like millions of her compatriots? karolyi hails from romania, goodness knows she has her fair of third world experience, so why would she make a comment like that?

her husband, bela karolyi, the man who coached nadia comaneci, has stated in print that while he coached in romania that the country falsified passports so the girls could compete, when they were faced wtih age restrictions. obviously it is done. so, let's make it an even playing field. i reckon those junior gymnasts compete and train just as hard as the seniors do.

in the airport a while ago, it was suggested that sebastian looks younger than his years, because he hasnt lost any teeth and because he is short for his age. should i sign him up for chinese gymnastics? it seems he meets the credentials.

take a look at pictures of kwan as a 16 year old. i think she looks 14..or ?? young. she looks young. but old enough to be a world class athlete.

i am getting off my soapbox because i need to do laundry.

this could be a quick post

it all depends on sebastian.

believe it or not, sebastian is in hour six of a playdate.

yesterday, carys' friend and classmate laura came over for a playdate. i don't know laura very well, but i like her, and i like her mum as well. laura came only for 3 hours, and then we took her home again. today, it was samantha, from jasper and sela's class. jasper was quite pouty, asking, "when do i get a playdate?" i asked who he wanted, and he said, "tallinn or harry?" i called both those fine boys, and thankfully, although tallinn was at summer camp, i arranged something for after twelve.

samantha arrived, and then i discreetly said to sebastian, "honey, time to get your stuff, we are leaving soon". to which my son said, undiscreetly, "that's right, we're going to the ABC with victor!"

well. it was the shot heard round the world. years from now, or at least tonight at dinner, jasper, sela and carys will be able to tell me where they were when sebastian made that announcement. and the cries began.

MUMMMMMMY! we want to come to the ABC too! it isn't fair!

well. carys slammed herself down to the ground and started smacking her ineffective wrists to the floor and kicking her feet and i stood up (i was on the toilet), and said, "carys, you had a playdate yesterday, jasper you are having one later today. but have i had a playdate? no, i have not, and your whinging is very ungrateful."

carys muttered an "i'm sowwy" and then sebastian and i escaped. we picked up victor and headed to the abc. we changed into our bathers and swam for 2 hours. the boys were the only ones in the pool and i read three magazines. heaven! the only disagreement the boys had was when to get out of the pool. then it was lunchtime, and afterwards a quick play outside. and an icelolly of course.

then back to our house. it was 2pm. they had been together for four hours and were going strong. back at 122, they began playing castles and knights, and then i offered to let them watch spykids, but apparently after one hour they got bored and decided to play narnia, complete with darth vader and spaceships.

a while ago i asked victor if he wanted to go home or stay here, and he said he wanted to stay. i am just amazed. and so grateful. what a great day for sebastian! and me, because i get to witness my boy happy with another child! getting over small quibbles, having discussions, and being creative. i am really grateful to be witness to this today!

and of course there have been classic lines. victor has really shot up over the summer and lost two teeth. the tooth fairy brought him some money. "i am rich in denmark now" he informed me, "because that is where i lost my tooths."

sebastian, who tried to show off his diving abilities and ended up doing a belly flop, responding to victor's comment, "you didn't dive far", blithely explaining,

"it was an emergency landing."

and a few minutes ago, trying to figure out how to save peter from the white witch (a baddie) in narnia.

sebastian: we need to get james bond. he can take care of it.

it's been 6hrs 42 minutes. do you think they'll last until dinner? will i??