Today Malcolm and I decided that we would have a “family day”. That is, a day devoted to the fun and fabulousness of being a Lucard.

Good idea!  I have started traveling again for work–right now only 12 days a month, which is 30 percent. On a 31 day month.

Unless you’re counting work days.  In which case it is 50%.

But who counts weekends?  Let’s say it is 30 %.  And if I’m gone one or two weekends, it is just a rounding error, right?  Sounds more reasonable anyway.

So, the Sunday for the family. Last night, Uly complained that I had spent too much time sleeping, recovering from jetlag and hadn’t read them the end of the novel we’ve been working on.  So, I took the complaint to heart.

The boys got up as usual long before they usually do on the weekdays so they can play “Spore”, the computer game obsession of the month.  When we woke and Malcolm told them that I was ready to read, Uly said “but it is just now my turn on Spore!”

Well, I know my place in life.  Besides, Malcolm and I know how to entertain ourselves on a Sunday morning when the boys are otherwise occupied.  Why did we get a VCR in the first place 10 years ago and teach our 2 year old to operate it on Saturday mornings before he could even talk?  Indeed.

But even adult entertainment ends, so eventually we re-emerged and suggested that mama was ready to read again… and indeed they were ready to hear the steampunk fiction book Leviathan.  Malcolm, meanwhile made pancakes.

Serious life points at about 10:30 when, with Uly and Gideon and I snuggled under our down comforter in our giant bed, the window open and bringing in November air and sunshine, hot tea by our sides delivered by Malcolm, the pentultimate chapter almost finished, Uly declared “I am so contented.  This is like hitting the life Loto.”

From there, life became frenzied.  Pancakes, then all off onto our bicycles (is there air in their tires? no? where is the pump?), and through the Jardin along the lake (memorial service for servicemen; European soldiers in their European costumes marching to their European rhythms), up the hill to the swimming pool.  Meet the kids’ friend.  Three boys, one man, one woman to the municipal pool.  500 meters for Andrea, a thousand jumps off the board for the boys, then as much roughhousing as we all could handle until we were chlorinated to our very cores.

Lunch.

Bike back down the hill, through the traffic, all the soldiers gone from the park.

Lock up bikes.

Togs in the dryer.

Malcolm to the taxes.  For 2007.  Don’t ask, only know that Americans abroad have to file taxes wherever they live.  46 pages of taxes.  Just to prove you don’t owe taxes.

Andrea to the household.

Fold the cardboard wine boxes that reach to the ceiling.  Really. We drink wine here in Europe.  Uncover the fish tank that has been buried by the wine boxes.  Really.  Not bad.  One of the two guppies has survived.  Two inches of water left. Uly to clean out goldfish bowl, and figure out a way for guppies to survive.

Gideon to clean out the guinea pig cage.  Atlantia, our guinea pig, has become a real household mascot.  Gideon holds her to the phone when I call.  She has us all trained–when we walk by their room where she lives, she squeals until we bring her fresh fruit and veg.  We all talk to her.  (I found myself tonight saying “be quiet now, guinea pig” as I left their room; Malcolm made fun of me.) Except the cage cleaning is rarely supervised by adults.  So when the cage came to the bathroom for cleaning, the matter needed to be handled by…maybe those guys who run “America’s dirtiest jobs” or is the “the world’s dirtiest jobs”?  I dunno.  I occasionally catch some portion while channel surfing in hotel rooms.

Ah, hotel rooms.  Where someone else picks up the hairs in the bathroom, folds your towels, changes the sheets.  And you don’t even have to say “thank you”, just leave five bucks on the dresser when you leave.

Did I say that? Get nostalgic for the Marriott?

No, not I.

Not while I am figuring out methods for cleaning the guinea pig cage that don’t involve flames or caustic chemicals. I asked Gideon what tools he needed to clean out the cage: “Water, soap, an axe, a fire extinguisher, rubber gloves, towels, a flame thrower and two pieces of gum”.  He wasn’t far off.

Gideon, to be utterly fair, didn’t complain too much.

Although he also kind of failed to concentrate.  So, when I came in after about 30 minutes I found him and his brother washing the guinea pig, or forcing her to swim in the lukewarm water of the sink, while the cage sat on its disgusting side in the bathtub.

My bathtub. The one where I soak my tired bones each evening.  The one that I have to clean out myself.

So, guinea pig rescued, we tried again, this time I stayed in the bathroom and cleaned out the medicine cabinet (how do Malcolm’s whiskers get INSIDE the cabinet? Does he trim his beard looking outwards?) while supervising the grand cleanout.

I asked Gideon which was worse, matching black socks (which he had previously identified as “child’s hell”) or cleaning a guinea pig cage.  His answer was “well, the guinea pig cage is at least important”.  Good answer.

He also said “Guinea pig pee, plus sawdust equals cement.  We could use this as a green building material in the future.”  I had to agree.

Fill cage with water, let sit. Dump in toilet. Use butter knife.  Use old toothbrushes. Use green scrubbies. Throw them all away. Confront still more cement.  Gideon suggested something acidic.  We went for the vinegar.  Cleaning strength.  Nope.  Double cleaning strength.  Nope.  Full strength.  Ah, it began to work.  Vinegar, knife, brush, showerhead at full strength and heat, flush and repeat.

Meanwhile, guinea pig is in a towel, shivering in the bedroom.  Cuddle guinea pig.  Placate with carrots.  Back to cage. Clean up from where guinea pig has been shivering.

Finally, done. Pat Gideon on the head for a job well done (if heinously delayed).

And now Uly who has, as instructed, come up with a way to save the guppy.  Take the guppy out of the two inches of water in the big tank, clean out the big tank (don’t think too much about what the other guppy has become in the world beneath the wine boxes) but save the rocks in the bottom.  That required two of us to dump the water in the toilet (the sewers of Geneva are working tonight!), and a colander.

Meanwhile, a small voice comes to us “sorry to tell you, Mom, but the washing machine is overflowing”.  “The what?”  Uly makes whirling motions to indicate our front loading machine.  Our NEW frontloading machine.

Malcolm still on our 46 pages of two year overdue taxes.  I go to investigate.  Test hoses.  Test drainage.  Give up and simply mop up water with the swimming towels.

I remember the grocery order.  If I want to get it delivered tomorrow so that Malcolm doesn’t have to deal alone with all the groceries, which procedure is usually duly reported to me by the kids, complete with the blue language of the moment, I’d better move it.  Online to the grocery store online–gluten free things and heavy things and easy things for when I am in London on Wednesday and Thursday to make for lunch and dinner.

Oh, dinner!  Shoot.  Off to the kitchen for roast chicken and potatoes, and make the rice pudding for the kids to eat for breakfast all week. And there’s no gluten-free bread in the house for lunches.  So I ask Gideon who seems to have recovered from the guinea pig debacle if he would like to make bread.  Well, yes, maybe, but actually he’s in the middle of science experiments, all of which involve baking soda and vinegar.  That’s cute.  What a clever child.  My motherly prideful heart goes pitapat.  How about using the vinegar that I have now in the bathroom, waiting to disinfect the guinea pig and fish contaminated tub.  Nope.  He’s already on it and using the balsamic vinegar.

Argh!  I yell.  “If you can’t do anything useful, get out of the kitchen!”

He scampers out like a wet guinea pig.  Nice parenting there, Lucard.

But, fortunately, my kids don’t take me very seriously.  Five minutes later, he’s back with a new experiment.  This one with oil and water and baking soda that shows the relative weights of the three substances, all lined up nicely in the test tube, which is actually a former vanilla-bean tube.

File the grocery order.

Remember the thing I forgot, and file again.  Send a text to a friend.  “Help! I’m drowning!” He laughs.  He lives alone.

Uly begins homework.  He has to make a car that will run along a track with some source of energy. It has to be  of a plastic bottle and some energy source.  The unit of inquiry is on energy–what about vinegar and baking soda?  Good idea!  I hide the balsamic.

Gideon out in the living room, bread dough still on his hands.  Bread dough on the sofa.  But we will have gluten free bread for sandwiches tomorrow, when Uly goes to his basketball match.

Uly begins trumpet practice.  Mary had a little lamb in the 2 meter square kitchen. Gideon hands full of bread dough.  “Not bad for a broken trumpet”, he says.  “Broken? How can that be? We just rented it!”  He shows me a valve that gets stuck.  Yep. Broken.  How on earth will we get that fixed?  Well, he’d better learn to be good with his embouchure.  (I had to look that up on Wikipedia to spell it right.)

More texts to a friend.  Malcolm swearing from the living room.  But he has found us another $2500 in deductions.  Break out the champagne.

Chicken and potatoes out of the oven.  Gorgeous, except there are no vegetables.  Can potato be a vegetable? Can ketchup?  Quickly top and tail the greenbeans, set up steamer, call the boys to set the table.  “Mom, I’m supposed to have a fountain pen for school, remember?” Yep, I remember.  Was sure I bought it, but between grocery and classroom, it has been lost.  Back online for the grocery order.  Is it too late?  Nope, can still refile, although the order is now topping our tax bill.  Well, there’s lots of wine in the delivery (and I try not to think of the boxes).  Oh, and put the freezer bags out for the delivery man.  We have 50 francs worth, at least at five francs a bag.  We’ll leave them in the hallway, although our Portuguese super will scowl at us, maybe even leave us a nasty note when he cleans the floors tomorrow.

Pick up fish in soup bowl sitting on living room floor.  Remove fish tank from bathtub.  Check to be sure guinea pig doesn’t have hypothermia.  Check that washing machine isn’t overrunning again. Put track suits in the dryer so kids have something non-smelly to wear for the basketball match tomorrow. Put chocolate bar in briefcase so they have a treat at the end of the match (not eaten by lunchtime).  How will I make it to the match on the other side of town in the dark and rain and on my bike at 4 p.m.? Think of that tomorrow.  Beans are done.

Dinner time!

The laundry is on the bed ready to be put away.  I think I will sleep beneath it tonight.  It will remind me of the thick comforters at the Marriott.  I leave for London on Wednesday.  Thank God.

And I will get homesick and can’t wait to get back to do it all again.