September 29, 2010

That title sounds like a country song. Oh well, here I am, sitting on the floor in darkness only lit up by the glow of the screen. I’m in a small bathroom in a hotel. Let’s backtrack before I explain why I am here.

As Hélène wrote it was an incredibly hectic last day at home. I think Adrian summed it up pretty well in a posting he did to Facebook 15 minutes before the taxi came to pick us up. He wrote: “Mom is stressing so much that I can’t even ask her if she has brought any books for me. Dad is desperately trying to print out the last travel documents so we can enter the United States. I’m just sitting here playing games on my iPod and really looking forward to the trip. Next stop London. I’m going to miss you all.”

We took the last dose of the drinkable Cholera vaccine a couple of hours before we left. The potion is certainly good for us but the taste leaves something to be desired. We all emptied our glasses very quiickly

… except Iseline …

She tasted a few milliliters and then completely refused to drink any more. We tried the carrot first. Hélène promised her a piece of chocolate if she drank her dose. This made her put the glass to her lips and then get even more determined to not drink it. Then i switched to the stick. Bad move. Iseline isn’t easily persuaded to do anything when she is under parental pressure, and I should have known. I was just too stressed with everything I had to do before leaving to think clearly. The stalemate continued for a long 10 minutes. I refused to let her leave the table until she had emptied the glass. She started screaming and crying with tears running fast.

OK. Time to admit that I wasn’t being a good parent and change tactics. I sat down with her and explained that it was for her well being that I wanted her to drink. If she didn’t she could get sick and that would be much worse than the bad taste. I went on for a while and tension fell. The last psychological barrier was my presence. She kindly asked me to leave and so I did. I went over to the other side of the living room and looked at her from a distance. She saw the humor in the situation and started smiling. 2 minutes later she had drunk it all. Good girl!

To be continued…