Our past weekend without Jan

Jan was a weekend away with friends so I was alone with the boys.  While I'm used to him travelling a lot on week days, I find it very difficult to be solo parenting in the weekend. It's the lack of adult conversation that I miss and that really makes me feel lonely.

I solved it Saturday with a spaghetti lunch with Kabouter's best friend and his parents. We choose the pub based on its availability of a big outdoor seating area but we decided to stay inside after all due to the cold wind.

The rest of the day Beertje was spending a lot of time napping, so I had a lot of quality time with Kabouter but I felt stuck at home.
Kabouter insisted to go to the store to buy an ice machine and water.  When he started talking about tools as well, I finally figured out what he wanted to do: to chisel out a little object in an ice block as they've done at school when it was freezing.  It seemed a fun easy project so we put a bit of water in the freezer with a plastic fish and then the waiting started. Kabouter wanted to open the freezer every 5 minutes and he was constantly convinced it'd be ready. After a few hours I too got impatient and i figured the bit of ice we saw, was thick enough to start playing.  Alas, we had been too impatient and apart from some broken outer layer of ice, we had a big splash of water on the deck. Lessons learned: we need to be more patient....attempt 2 is still in the freezer now for more than 48 hours. Surely that'll give us some fun in the coming days.

On Sunday I had planned my traditional tour of the family when I am alone with the kids during the weekend.  Busy days with lots of meetings are more fun when I'm alone.   We first had a stop at my sister-in-laws bakery where we found the rest of the family present as well. Unfortunately we couldn't stay long as we were going out for lunch with one of my friends that I don't see enough.  The children behaved quite well in the restaurant for 2,5 hours and devoured the appetizer cookies and a full basked of bread.  When their actual food arrived...they were not hungry anymore. Of course.  It was fun catching up with my friend and having a lazy lunch together.

It was already later than anticipated so I decided against going to the city park after lunch (in fact, the best decision as the VIP tents were still there from the classic cycling race Gent-Wevelgem, so it could have been very crowded there).

Instead we enjoyed the sun in my parent's garden. It was absolutely fabulous outdoors! Thank goodness I had convinced my mother to drink coffee in the garden, rather than inside.  Beertje amused himself going up and down the staircases endlessly, while Kabouter cycled, played with cars and trucks and searched for insects to bring to school today. Since we had forgotten Kabouter's favourite toy at noon at my sister-in-law, my parents-in-law also dropped by to bring the forgotten treasure and join us for a coffee/beer.

When we got a message that Jan was about to arrive home, it was time for us to pack up as well to give the children some much needed nap-time in the car and to spend some quality time in the evening with Jan, whom we all had not seen much previous week,