Author: PirosAntwerp

I am Hungarian living in Antwerp, Belgium. Having landed in my blog might mean that you are interested in topics like How to Run A Happy Family, or How To Be Successful At Work, or Which Places Not To Miss When You Travel Abroad, and if you indeed want to know more about those topics, please do visit some real blogs, due to the fact that I also write about family, travel, work, etc, however the common element of those posts being that you will for sure not find them useful, in any sense. You will meet recurring characters, such as my daughter (2006), my son (2009), my husband, and some others (grandmas, neighbours, teachers, colleagues..) who are all very nice people, so appearing in my stories is not at all their fault..

Dirty pig

This is going to be a highly upset post about the card game ‘Dirty Pig’, which my son, Walter (10 ys), saw in his best friend’s home, and so we also needed to buy for home.

In a nutshell, you win the game if you can the sooner achieve the following:- make all 4 of your pigs dirty- build them a house each- supply the houses with doors that can be closed – in order to prevent the neighbour farmer (game opponent, for the ease let’s call her ‘mama’) enter the house with a big hose making your pigs clean.

And here is The Thing.


I am sitting with my sparkling clean piglets team nicely satisfied, all have houses with all fullextra appliances, still my son wins unexpectedly, what could go wrong??

Yepp.


‘Sparking clean’.I have cleaned my son’s piglets as much as I could, but in the meanwhile forgot to make my own friends muddy.


And that’s totally unfair!
The fact that I, as parent, being duly conditioned for many years of parenthood for making things ‘corrected’, ‘back in order’, ‘CLEAN’ suddenly need to make things DIRTY, which is UNclean, UNorderly, UNgood. … And that just proves to be fully incomprehensible for my mother mind.


Of course it’s easy for my son to win games aiming at making things dirty – this is his main profile, for God’s sake! Years of experience, in possession of all the existing know-how!


I am planning to make a petition towards the EU as never ever have I encountered such severe discrimination in the game industry.
Equal rights for parents!

From time to time

My daughter (14) (in philosophical tone):
‘People change so much over time.. I remember 1-2 years ago, when I was still a child, I used to talk back to you..’

Me: ‘Only for my good understanding: so if talking back was what you did in the past, what do you call the thing you do nowadays since you are a teenager..?’

She: ‘I do not talk back any more.
From time to time I might express a different view, though..’

Wasnme

Me to my son: ‘Walter, would you like some more tea?

……Walter, it’s such a pity you don’t pay attention to what I am saying, you are just always playing with that monster game..”

Walter (10) (playing with the monster game):

‘No, it’s not at all true, it wasn’t me who went into the living room with dirty shoes!!!!’

Me: ‘…????…..’

Thanks

My husband (upset to our son for something):

‘Walter, I cannot believe it, I have told you 1000 times not to do that!! You’re just like mom!!’

Me: ‘??Pardon, what have I done this time?’

My husband (excusing himself in a peacemaker tone):

‘Oh, sorry, you haven’t done anything wrong, of course.

I just wanted to tell him something insulting.’

Rules

We teach our children not to run immediately opening the door whenever somebody rings the bell, but always ask first who is standing at the door.

At one occasion:

Our son (10): ‘Who is it?’

My husband: ‘Papa.’

Son: ‘Papa who?’

Rules are rules.

Farmer

So I’ve recently started growing plants, you might remember.
I don’t exactly have a long record of plants growing – it’s a recurring family story that I used to have a cactus as a teenager – till it dried out in my room…. you know that stuff.
But then I had this inspiring thought 2 weeks ago: I hear Nature calling me – and so I will be a farmer!!
One of my first clients you see on the photos: before/after.
‘Senecio cephaloporus’ was written on the pot, which – according to my husband – must be the Latin name for ‘unconditional surrender’.
Family support – why not..

Results coming soon

Our son (10): ‘Mama, you know I like you.

I like Lili, too.

At this time I cannot for sure tell if I like you or Lili more, since I have already had the opportunity to talk to you a lot more than to Lili – her personality I don’t yet know so much. But I will watch her and return with the final results in a few days.’

Lili is our water turtle.

Underestimate

My daughter (14) preparing for school start tomorrow, in an upset tone:

‘Mama, just imagine: on Day 1 we must return all the tests we did the previous year.
What is beyond me, once they knew they would need those tests, why did they give them back to us? If the school believes I need a whole summer to lose these things they are seriously underestimating me, because I can get it done within as short as 2 days..’

Kind reminder

Breakfast with the family.

Suddenly grandma starts to heavily cough.

When it’s more or less over, she whispers with tears in her eyes:

“I just wanted to quickly tell something to the children..”

My husband (in a helpful tone):

‘Most probably that “Children, don’t talk while you are eating or else you will heavily cough”..’

Vin Diesel

Me: ‘Let’s go into the city centre to buy some present to 2 of Walter’s classmates, 2 girls, for their birthday party tomorrow.’

My husband (with a worried look): ‘Ohno, no way, not to the centre! Lots of people, difficult to move, I hate it! Let’s buy something outside the city centre e.g. on our way now, there is a shop over there!!’

Me: ‘Darling, that’s a fuel station.’

He: ‘I know! How great! We can buy them fuel vouchers!’

Me: ‘They are 10 years old.’

He: ‘Yes, but you cannot imagine how fast they are growing!! They have birthdays even now, they will soon drive a car!’

Sympathy

In a restaurant. We have just finished. I step to the cash desk.

WAITER: ‘Would you like to pay?’

Me: ‘Not really, but currently I am not exactly dressed to run away..’

He: ‘Indeed, it could be difficult on high heels. Well – next time maybe..’

Me: ‘Thank you for your sympathy. Bye.’

He: ‘Bye.’

Take it with a grain of salt

Me, to my 10-yr old son this morning, passionately:

‘Walter, I love you as much as people love salt!!’

Walter: ‘Salt? Well, I don’t know. As for me, rather basil.. maybe rosemary..’

Me: ‘Walter, this is an expression from a tale. It’s not my ambition to launch a cooking program.’

Walter: ‘Oh I see.. pardon.’

Objective

Me (towards my 10-yr-old son after having arrived from whole day camp):

‘OMG, Walter, what kind of food is there on your t-shirt??’

He (seriously thinking before giving an answer): ‘May I formulate my reply via excluding those food which are surely not there?’
Ok, having and objective view on ourselves is always an asset.

All science

Me (to my daughter): ‘Noëmi, what are you doing?’

She (14): ‘Measuring my weight.’
Me: ‘Ok, but shouldn’t you put those things down first from your hands?’
She: ‘No, because I measure myself every day and I know myself that I always carry the laptop/ gsm/ charger wherever I go, so I must have had them in my hand yesterday, too, when I checked my weight. And so if I measured myself without these things now, I would get inaccurate results..’
Ok. 
If it is scientifically underpinned then it’s all fine.

Breaking news

Program for today: visiting the local Garden Centre in order to purchase some plants on the open shelves (that we bought 2 days ago).
Just returned from the Mission!
Exciting!!!
I have full support from my family:
1.) I have already managed to employ some moderately enthusiastic labour (see photo)
2.) My husband suggests to keep the stickers with the plant names on the pots – so that we know what to write on their graves.

Deactivated

My TikTok account has just been deactivated- they claim I am too young to be a user.

What in fact happened was that when giving my birth date I must have clicked on the wrong year, according to which I was born last year.

I have contacted TikTok informing them I am presumably older than their Client Service colleagues altogether.

In the meanwhile my husband has quickly offered to happily witness to any company or individual that I am indeed awfully old, from which he voluntarily deleted the ‘happily’ part by the end of our conversation.

Best mom ever

Me (in panic to my 10-yr old son): ‘OMG, I completely forgot to subscribe you to the tennis camp starting next week!!! How could I not remember when you wanted to go so much??’
He (10): ‘It is very simple – it just shows how much you love me, your little son: deep inside you wanted to have me around, to spend more time with me. Other mamas who want to get rid of their sons probably subscribed their children already in January. But you did not. I am so happy you are my mom.’

D-day

On our vacation we’ve just found a military basis. 

Our son (10) has a plan: he is throwing stones in order to fill in the sea, so that he can occupy the basis on land. Momentarily, he is not dressed to naval invasion, he says.
The rest of the family has already accepted Fate when we join in via live broadcast.

Safety as priority

In Belgium during these Covid times we have special measures introduced, just like most other countries.

One of the new rules is that when visiting a cafe, restaurant etc, we need to leave our name and phone number – in case later there is an illness reported, it helps traceability, so we, clients, can be properly warned/informed.

I visited an ice cream salon during the weekend. Not to stay & eat it there of course, just pick up and leave quick.

So I am approaching the salon carefully in a mouth mask… ordering the ice cream in 10 seconds.. pay contactless.. then I move to the last step to give my contact details.

This particular ice cream salon chose to collect data in an open list.

Now you might wonder – once I work in the data protection business – if I made a remark on the fact that I can see all clients’ personal data before me so it’s not completely following requirements of GDPR… but it was the least of my concern this time.

How come?

In the spirit of client health & safety, all customers indeed need to register their personal data — using the same pen.

Thursdays? No, thanks.

I didn’t catch my usual train this morning since I was halfway to the station when it struck me it could be a good idea to also bring my laptop to work.
Then at the station I decided to take a window selfie. Result attached.
We should just cancel the whole day today, let’s not force this whole thing called Thursday, ok?