Funny thing was that when I was talking to the first friend who was there already when I arrived, she (a mother of three boys - two of whom are already adults) said to me when I asked about her kids, "Kids are overrated." She didn't say it in a negative way, though. She just stated it in a matter-of-fact manner he he...
I know she loves her boys so much 'coz she's been a single mother ever since her husband died years ago, but at least she doesn't sugarcoat mommyhood. She has to survive in a new country and support her kids and now two of them are already independent young men. Now that's what I call a fighter! :-D
But the sentence that she said definitely helped me get in a good mood ha ha ha ha...And nobody asked about kids concerning us, so it was all good. It was just a tad sad 'coz one friend is moving away from this place in a few months', so we were also sort of saying goodbye to her, though we hope we can still have time to meet her again before she finally leaves us. It's sad not only because she's our friend, but because there aren't too many foreigners living in this small village of Sodankylä, so when one foreigner leaves, it's a HUGE loss for the rest of us.
However, I hope she'll have a good life in the city! :-) And it means that I have a new reason to visit the city later on he he he...
P.S. Read a blog post on "seasons of a marriage" and I realized that for us, it's as though we jumped from the fourth year straight into "the empty nest period" (when we let go of our dream to have kids) even though we don't necessarily experience all the ups and downs of parenting, but I do think about our older years and we do redirect our focus from that dream towards "fun/memorable things to do together". Isn't that what older couples do as well when the kids have left the nest?
