This photo was taken May5 by their granma Ank because they had new clothes. Aw.
Friday, 6 May 2011
Time for an update?
Friday, 18 February 2011
Music Minds
A new blog with interesting views on music and its relation to culture and society we live in: http://evertsworldofmusic.blogspot.com/. Interesting because it digs a little deeper than most blogs and even articles about music in society that I come across. It is in English (the author says 'Dinglish' but I think he writes better English than many native speakers I read) and worth checking out.
Thursday, 27 January 2011
Picture of the day: 27 January 2011
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
Picture of the day: 16 Jan 2011
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
Six months!
Oh my, the kiddies are now six months old, and a few days. It is amazing how fast these things go. They were so tiny and now, well, they are still tiny but they are a little less tiny than they were. They are not so fragile anymore and of course much more aware of the world around them. They play and 'talk' ("wa wa waa!") and do all kinds of things. It amazes me every day.In the mean time my life is falling back into place. Some bits are in a different spot than they were before all this, and some things just fall back into their slots like they never left. The biggest difference with before is of course that I now have two little ones at home to think about, not just one big one who can take care of himself. Before I could stay at work and finish something before heading home, calling that I would be late, no worries. Now I usually need to leave on time in order to get home at a reasonable hour to help put the kiddies to bed. Never mind trying to get to daycare on time - if I wanted to do that, I would need to leave Rotterdam around four in the afternoon. Considering how I can't be there before 9.30 if I also drop off the kiddies in the morning, that would make for some really short workdays!
Other changes are e.g. my activities during my 'free time'. It is just not possible to do all the things I did before: biking around to go to the market, drinking coffee with a newspaper or two or three to read for an hour or two, all those things. I don't mind all that much. I still sometimes do it when G watches the kiddies on the weekends. Now I also get to walk around with the kiddies and see the parks etc. in a whole new way. I am looking forward to spring and summer when the weather will be better and the kiddies will be even older.
One consequence of the shift in time management is how to deal with friends etc. It is not so easy anymore to have spontaneous meet-ups (text: "wanna beer?", not that that happened very often) and again there is the home situation to think about. Can't keep taking advantage of your partner as a babysit! Haha!
The funny thing is that I had expected to be swamped in Mom Friends by now. You know, you hear that all the time: by the time you get pregnant (maternity gym!) and/or your kiddies go to daycare/school, you get new friends who are in the same 'life phase' as you. That always scared me more than it inspired me, but okay. Well waddayaknow: it didn't happen so far. The people from maternity yoga were nice enough but we were at different stages of our pregnancies and didn't start and finish at the same time so it wasn't exactly a coherent group. I didn't get anyone's contact details, for example. And now at the daycare I hardly speak with other parents. Sometimes very briefly but it doesn't get much deeper than "how are you?" and "what a sweet baby you have!" Okay, I also get remarks like "oh you are the mother of The Twins" but that's it.
On one hand this is a little disappointing. Somehow I would have liked to make new friends. I am always on the market for new friends. New friends are a good thing. On the other hand I (still) don't feel comfortable being a Mom Friend myself. You know, talk about your kids and nappies and sleeping patterns and 'can your kid crawl yet?' (no) and all that. I already see that my kiddies aren't as fast as other kiddies sometimes but I am not so worried - I feel worse about not seeing that as a problem, to be honest. (I hope the consultation bureau sees it the same as me.) Plus I already get plenty of advice and tips. It seems like Mom Friends can't get enough of the kiddies talk though. And then whinge about how they don't talk about anything else but the kids anymore... Yah.
My apologies for the long and not particularly interesting post this time. I just felt it was time to post something again. Also apologies for any typos and grammar/spelling mistakes. Blame the gods of being tired. Next post will be better: more inspired and inspiring, more interesting and above all, better written. ;-)
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Wednesday, 22 December 2010
Oof!
Whoa! As I read this back before hitting ‘publish’ I realise it is a loooong post. Apparently a lot going on these days. Don’t bother to read it all if you don’t feel like it. It’s just what has been going on in my little corner. :-)
The guy and I are getting tired now. The kiddies are 5 months and I have been working three days since October. I get up at six on Wednesday in order to get the kiddies (and me) ready to take them to daycare. We have several inches of snow now so I’m literally plowing the big baby carriage through the snow. At the end of the day we bring them to my parents’ house where they spend the night (and we SLEEP during ours) and my parents don’t need to get through traffic to get to us in the morning of Thursday when they babysit. The night’s sleep is great but on Thursday I end up missing the kiddies a lot so I am always happy to see them again on Thursday evening.
These past few days, maybe a week, have shown that the ladies are getting older. More specifically, their brains are making the connection between cause and effect that was not there before. On one hand, that is amazing and wonderful and all that. On the other hand, it means that they realise that they can manipulate situations with their behaviour. “If I do this, then that happens!” More specifically, the kiddies won’t go to sleep because calling out will bring papa and mama to their room to tuck them in again and that is such great fun! Argh. By the time one realises it is not working anymore, the other one hasn’t caught on yet and so they keep each other awake. And us. Plus the whole shebang is repeated at… (wait for it…) four in the morning. I am a lousy sleeper anyway so I have been living on about two hours a night for the past four or five days. I think I will collapse today somewhere halfway a project report. This morning, after two hours of calling and crying and screaming from two disgruntled young critters, it was time for me to get up anyway. I was not pleased with them.
That said: I only whinge and whine here because this is my place to whinge and whine. I don’t do this in real life. In real life I don’t like parents who bitch about how annoying their kids are with their sleeping and eating problems etc. That happens a lot! I notice that it is often expected of me as a new parent to complain to other parents. Like it is some kind of professional code among mothers to bitch and moan about how the children changed their lives and how they don’t behave sensibly etc. Only to close off the rant with “but you get so much in return you know?” Maybe, just maybe, they should put that in front of the whole monologue – it might change the whole thing.
Ahem.
Sleeping: a new policy is called for, methinks. Recently the guy and me have gotten used to responding to a kiddie’s cry in the night immediately, if only because it often happens that one wakes up the other. As described above, changing this policy is not easy because ignoring them does not bring about the desired effect yet. We’ll hang on and hope like hell it will get better. Also we have been trying to keep quiet in the evenings after putting them to bed but so far this only meant that they have been noisy themselves. We tried of course to be quiet so they would sleep but now we realised that maybe they are noisy because we are quiet – some time ago we would just talk, have the tv on, etc. and they would go to sleep. I don’t know if there is a direct correlation between these but we’re going to give that a try. The pudding for proof will be Christmas. We’re spending Christmas at my brother’s. We’re taking the kiddies and putting them to bed there. They have three kids who are usually noisy and very, um, active which is normal for kids aged 8, 6 and 3. I hope that will work out.
Hey, at least Lisa is eating again! For a while she refused anything more than 50 cc which is not nearly enough. Now she is eating 150 to 200 cc per feeding so that’s good. We learned that if she starts pulling the “nodontwannaeat!” thing again we’ll just wait it out. She’ll get back on.
Further news: as I said we have several inches of snow here in the Netherlands. Now for you folks in Canada and large parts of the US this may not be anything special but I can tell you that for us Dutchies it is. Big time. We usually have a kind of moderate weather with temperatures between 0 and 25 degrees C and rainy so a week of heavy snow and freezing too – it is remarkable. As a consequence society as we know it comes to a complete halt. Trains no longer go, traffic forms a big fat jam the size of a small country (oh wait, that would be our whole country…) and people are advised to stay indoors. It’s insane.
The snow brings more than chaos however. It brings a beauty that is sometimes literally breathtaking. I was working in the centre of Amsterdam on Friday when the heaviest snow came down. My office is close to Dam Square. It looks out over the old rooftops in the centre and towards the seventeenth century canals area. Church spires, tiled roofs, everything covered in a soft blanket of snow. When I stepped outside into the street which is usually messy and noisy and packed with tourists, everything was soft and quiet. There was ten inches of snow on everything, including bikes parked everywhere. I decided not to bet on trams anymore and walked home. On my way I passed the canals (now Unesco World Heritage) and part of the Jordaan area. Good gods, that was beautiful! Here is a picture of the Bloemgracht. :) What you don't see is the fire truck stuck on the other end of the canal, unable to tackle the bridge. I met three of those on my way.
*If anyone from works reads this: sue me! ;-) Why are you reading this now anyway? You should be working too!
The guy and I are getting tired now. The kiddies are 5 months and I have been working three days since October. I get up at six on Wednesday in order to get the kiddies (and me) ready to take them to daycare. We have several inches of snow now so I’m literally plowing the big baby carriage through the snow. At the end of the day we bring them to my parents’ house where they spend the night (and we SLEEP during ours) and my parents don’t need to get through traffic to get to us in the morning of Thursday when they babysit. The night’s sleep is great but on Thursday I end up missing the kiddies a lot so I am always happy to see them again on Thursday evening.
These past few days, maybe a week, have shown that the ladies are getting older. More specifically, their brains are making the connection between cause and effect that was not there before. On one hand, that is amazing and wonderful and all that. On the other hand, it means that they realise that they can manipulate situations with their behaviour. “If I do this, then that happens!” More specifically, the kiddies won’t go to sleep because calling out will bring papa and mama to their room to tuck them in again and that is such great fun! Argh. By the time one realises it is not working anymore, the other one hasn’t caught on yet and so they keep each other awake. And us. Plus the whole shebang is repeated at… (wait for it…) four in the morning. I am a lousy sleeper anyway so I have been living on about two hours a night for the past four or five days. I think I will collapse today somewhere halfway a project report. This morning, after two hours of calling and crying and screaming from two disgruntled young critters, it was time for me to get up anyway. I was not pleased with them.
That said: I only whinge and whine here because this is my place to whinge and whine. I don’t do this in real life. In real life I don’t like parents who bitch about how annoying their kids are with their sleeping and eating problems etc. That happens a lot! I notice that it is often expected of me as a new parent to complain to other parents. Like it is some kind of professional code among mothers to bitch and moan about how the children changed their lives and how they don’t behave sensibly etc. Only to close off the rant with “but you get so much in return you know?” Maybe, just maybe, they should put that in front of the whole monologue – it might change the whole thing.
Ahem.
Sleeping: a new policy is called for, methinks. Recently the guy and me have gotten used to responding to a kiddie’s cry in the night immediately, if only because it often happens that one wakes up the other. As described above, changing this policy is not easy because ignoring them does not bring about the desired effect yet. We’ll hang on and hope like hell it will get better. Also we have been trying to keep quiet in the evenings after putting them to bed but so far this only meant that they have been noisy themselves. We tried of course to be quiet so they would sleep but now we realised that maybe they are noisy because we are quiet – some time ago we would just talk, have the tv on, etc. and they would go to sleep. I don’t know if there is a direct correlation between these but we’re going to give that a try. The pudding for proof will be Christmas. We’re spending Christmas at my brother’s. We’re taking the kiddies and putting them to bed there. They have three kids who are usually noisy and very, um, active which is normal for kids aged 8, 6 and 3. I hope that will work out.
Hey, at least Lisa is eating again! For a while she refused anything more than 50 cc which is not nearly enough. Now she is eating 150 to 200 cc per feeding so that’s good. We learned that if she starts pulling the “nodontwannaeat!” thing again we’ll just wait it out. She’ll get back on.
Further news: as I said we have several inches of snow here in the Netherlands. Now for you folks in Canada and large parts of the US this may not be anything special but I can tell you that for us Dutchies it is. Big time. We usually have a kind of moderate weather with temperatures between 0 and 25 degrees C and rainy so a week of heavy snow and freezing too – it is remarkable. As a consequence society as we know it comes to a complete halt. Trains no longer go, traffic forms a big fat jam the size of a small country (oh wait, that would be our whole country…) and people are advised to stay indoors. It’s insane.
The snow brings more than chaos however. It brings a beauty that is sometimes literally breathtaking. I was working in the centre of Amsterdam on Friday when the heaviest snow came down. My office is close to Dam Square. It looks out over the old rooftops in the centre and towards the seventeenth century canals area. Church spires, tiled roofs, everything covered in a soft blanket of snow. When I stepped outside into the street which is usually messy and noisy and packed with tourists, everything was soft and quiet. There was ten inches of snow on everything, including bikes parked everywhere. I decided not to bet on trams anymore and walked home. On my way I passed the canals (now Unesco World Heritage) and part of the Jordaan area. Good gods, that was beautiful! Here is a picture of the Bloemgracht. :) What you don't see is the fire truck stuck on the other end of the canal, unable to tackle the bridge. I met three of those on my way.
So when I got home I was cold and exhausted from dragging my feet through the snow but also delighted with the place where I live. I dropped off my heavy backpack and headed out the door again to go pick up the kiddies from daycare. On my way out I ran into the boy next door who had walked home from school. He looked exactly the way I felt. I told him I had to go out to pick up the kiddies and jokingly invited him to join me – and he actually hesitated. He is a great kid and absolutely in love with the kiddies. He is thirteen or fourteen and in keeping with his age plays the ‘tough guy’ act but ask him to do anything with the kiddies and he melts and lights up at the same time. So sweet. He didn’t join me in the end. Poor kid deserved to curl up on the couch after a school day like that anyway.
So now I am at work, have a ton of stuff to do, and can’t be bothered. I need to do things but more than that I need sleep. Maybe what I really need is a bit of coffee, some banter with my friend Rob, and then kicking my ass into gear. I will now do just that.*
Thanks for listening. :)
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
African Babes
It is now quite some time ago that I received a package from South Africa from a friend. In it were two beautiful little outfits for the kiddies, with fun colours and animals on them. I promised her I would make pictures but it took me too too long to do so. When I finally did get to making them, I didn't upload them for a while, then went and lost my camera for a months, etc. etc. blah blah. So these are pictures made on September 26 (!): Esmée on both of them because at the time Lisa was sleeping and I didn't want to wake her up.
Thank you A, you are absolutely wonderful! And so are the clothes. The kiddies are still wearing them although the pants are now a bit too short. Lisa is not growing as fast as her sis so she enjoys them a bit longer. Doesn't Es look marvellous as an African Babe? :-)
Thank you A, you are absolutely wonderful! And so are the clothes. The kiddies are still wearing them although the pants are now a bit too short. Lisa is not growing as fast as her sis so she enjoys them a bit longer. Doesn't Es look marvellous as an African Babe? :-)
Sunday, 12 December 2010
Thank you Abs for this wonderful video
I will certainly use the "Great job, here's your cookie" line the next opportunity I get.
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