My hero

We had a very busy week-end. Anna’s back at work and on Saturday she came in so that I could train her on the new ABR exercises – she normally does not work week-ends. She seems fine and does not want talk much about her horrible experience. (She was in ICU with pneumonia for more than a month and on a ventilator for a big chunk of that time.) She just quietly said that after being suctioned by the nurses every day she resolved “never to suction my baby (Loren) in his throat again – it hurts too much.”

The painter came in on Saturday and painted the children’s room. Of course we had to unpack all their shelves and Marco had a field day – discovering toys he’d forgotten about ages ago. He got hold of some green watercolour powder paint and mixed that into his playdough – what a mess! He looked like a Martian himself and had to laugh when we showed him his face in the mirror. The house was in a shambles and it took most of Sunday to clear everything again.

By yesterday afternoon we’d had enough. We had both been running up and down all day and Marco did everything wrong he could think of – including putting bubble mixture into the pond with the poor fish. We had to try and save the fish by letting some water out and replacing it with clean water.

Dirk did the lion’s share while I concentrated on the kids and fixing lunch. But we were so tired and hot and irritable by this time that we knew we had to call it a day.

So we first had a swim – it was 38 degrees Celsius in the shade. And then we got in the car and took the children to a nursery with play equipment, chickens and birds. This kept both of them happy and entertained while we could sit back and enjoy a cold drink. Loren adores birds and he was happily watching them while his brother went down the slides and messed around in the sand box.

By the time we needed to leave – the nursery was closing – Marco had resolved to stay there forever and we had to pretend that we were going to leave without him before he would follow us to the car. He was dog tired and grumpy and cried because we would not let him buy sweets, because he wanted to be picked up, because he wanted to be put down, because he wanted to get in the car himself and because he was too small to get in the car by himself.

At home I unceremoniously dumped both in a bath and that seemed to cool the frayed tempers a bit. Marco was being entertained by a video in the family room, Loren was in his bedroom and I had just fetched something from the kitchen when I heard Dirk shout a few choice cuss words. He was on his way back up the few steps leading to our bedroom when he met a snake going down the steps. All the doors were open and the snake must have thought our house looked like a cool haven compared to outside. It could also be that it had some encouragement from Lisa, the Birman cat, who was lounging on the floor nearby. (It would not be the first time that she brought snakes into the house – but hey, innocent unless proven guilty…)

My first reaction was going to Loren and picking him up, then shouting out a warning to Marco who came running to see what was going on. In the meantime, Dirk and the snake were watching each other, the snake coiled on one of the steps and not moving. Dirk was stuck in our bedroom unless he could move the snake.

A somewhat animated debate followed. Dirk wanted me to bring him the swimming pool cleaning net. I pointed out that it has an awfully short handle and asked how he proposed keeping the snake inside once he’d caught it…He asked for the broom instead. I suggested to him trying to sweep it outside. Dirk felt killing it would be a better choice. Marco chose this very moment to become difficult over me not wanting to rewind the video RIGHT THIS INSTANT and I walked him to his room where I told him to stay WITHOUT MOVING. Dirk took the proffered broom gratefully (the snake was between him and his dinner) and tried pinning the snake under it, but it moved, lightning fast and he had to kill it with the hard side of the broom.

I always feel sorry about things like this. We don’t know enough about snakes to distinguish which of them are truly harmless and which are poisonous. I know that a bite from even the relatively harmless red-lipped snakes will land you with at least a bad headache. But I also have to admit that I fear them and will run away rather than stick around and decipher what kind of snake it is.

I’m very grateful that it was Dirk and not me or Marco who met the snake face to face. But I was amused when Dirk went to sleep with Marco in his bed last night – sheepishly admitting that he was scared that some of the snake’s relatives were still hidden under our bed.

My hero.