Enough about painting already, no?

Though that is basically all I did today, it is time to broaden the perspective just a little bit...

Can I just add that I officially live in a small town? OMG, never done that before, but a friend of a friend, who is also a friend of mine is now dating my Catalan teacher, and they all had dinner together at my friend's house, he used to want to go out with my friend and also went out with another co-worker, and now the ex-girlfriend and the current girlfriend and the girl he wanted to date all work together, with me....and one of the other students in the class knows the friend of a friend and is also a student of mine...it is all so convoluted. No wonder people think that small towns are like this. They are. Did you understand all that? I only barely did.

Can I add that Catalan is more difficult again after a week away. *sob*

NOW....

Moving right along.....Beth-no-longer-from-Burkina, now from France invited me to join in "Mom's around the World" She wrote:

« A few months ago David asked me if I thought that it would be possible to travel around the world via blog. "Like Around The World In 80 Days," he said, "but on the Internet. Around the world in 80 clicks. 80 mom-blogger clicks!"

So begins a post over at the blog called « Her Bad Mother ».

Here’s a bit more from the original post:
« Here's how it works: share 5 things that you love (or maybe what they don't so much love) about being a mom, and then tag a few more bloggers from your own country and from other countries, and so on.

I was a bit of a dead end on this as I was in London being a bad Mom having abandoned my kids with their Dad for a week....hold on, is that being a bad mom? Not sure.

So...here goes,

Five things I love about being a Mom. Let's go....

no,

it's not going, I've got to think about it, cause it has changed a whole lot as the kids got older and I so don't want to be clichéd here.

wait with me a moment here....

OK, think I've got my head on straight.

1. I love the brain jams. You know, those moments when you think that your child is indeed going to go down the aisle with their thumb in their mouths, a diaper on and doing that weird, disturbing hair twirling/plucking/eating habit that you CANNOT make them quit;

and knowing they won't.

2. Laughing my *ss off with them. Hands down, that rules.

3. The regular astonishment I feel at how much they can do and how much they know, and the simultaneous disconnect because I am not surprised that they are so capable and knowledgeable.

4. I am not going to go into the sweet smell of babies heads (omg) or their incredibly soft skin or any of that jazz that we all know about and that is so true...call it survival of the species, the ones who weren't that charming didn't make it this far....I love how strong their personalities are, and how they are so much their own people....they are completely them...that sounds stupid, but they. aren't. mine. or me. and I love that.

5. I love watching them figure things out. It isn't always easy for them, when they were little it was obvious stuff like how to walk and all that, but it is amazing watching them figure out how to make friends, how to be a friend, how to handle crappy friends, yadda yadda yadda, watching them become ever more themselves. It's pretty cool.

Ok, and I gotta admit, the hugs and kisses and love are pretty darned great too. Payback for the days when they are frankly nuts.

Yes girls, I know you're reading. Love ya!

OK...tagging Mom's around the world, let's see who we get....OMG, aside from Beth, I only read one expat Mom...well, there is Nomad, but she has slipped way out of the blogging world...OK, in that case, I guess I will tag Kate and she's still in Spain! Whew...I am a dead end here...however, if you look at the right hand column of my blog WAAAYYYY down at the bottom, you'll see a link to expat blogger, indeed I'll give you one right here where you are sure to find lots of Moms that fit the bill!

If you want to play along, just go right ahead!