The Pirate

For those of you who don't know this yet: I tend to have some strange hobbies. One of them is playing host to a plastic little pirate figurine by the name of Dread Pirate Gavroche (after a Misérables character apparently, never read it myself) who travelled across the North American mainland and the Atlantic Ocean all the way to Amsterdam to wreak havock on our shores. And other shores, since so far he has been to places as far away as South Africa (thanks to our good friend Rob), Cyprus (thank you Fiona) and Japan (... that would be me).

The Dread Pirate Gavroche has been hiding for a while these past months, making a brief appearance last February when he visited Budapest, but otherwise keeping a low profile. However now that he has found two new crew members, things may be looking up again for him.

To keep track of his adventures, the Dread Pirate Gavroche has his own blog: http://dreadpirategavroche.blogspot.com/. Be sure to visit now and then as he explores new lands and new civilizations and boldly goes where no little plastic pirate figurine has gone before!

Life is unfair

Please note: Taking care of two kiddies takes time. It is a precious thing to be doing, and of course my girls are the most beautiful girls in the whole wide world so they are very much worth it, but the time it takes to care for them is kept away from other worthy endeavours such as writing. Therefore: my apologies for the gaps between blog entries. I didn’t mean for them to happen and I will try to keep up the frequency in the future but I can’t make any promises. Life is unfair.

First things first: the girls are fine. They are growing healthy and – hopefully – happily. They have very distinctly different personalities which matches their different appearances: blonde Esmée en slightly darker-haired Lisa, but fair-skinned Lisa and red-faced Esmée. Esmée is the impatient one, going from deep sleep to indignant screams for food. Lisa is the slacker, first crying to be fed only to fall asleep half-way through the bottle. Life is unfair, for us parents.

There have been more births in my immediate surroundings and recently I have made two visits to meet their new babies. Both are now the proud mother of a daughter. Only one. And this brought me to a realisation the other day: that having twins, as well as being part of a twin, is definitely different than having or being ‘only’ one.

I only really noticed this when I saw the other mothers and their babies. All their attention was directed at the one child. Their whole world, centred around this one little creature. And this is clearly how nature intended it. These mothers are alert for every little whimper from their baby and cannot stand to let her cry for more than a few minutes, if even that.

My girls have had to share my and their papa’s attention from the day, the hour, the very second they were born. They need to wait for each other to finish eating, to have their nappy changed, to be comforted. Crying from a baby is a call for attention but for them their cry is not the only one sounding through the house. (As is emphatically shown here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEMezlyi6cw&feature=channel.)

At best they take turns in calling us, at worst they seem to vie for our attention at the same time and at the top of their lungs. They are becoming increasingly aware of the world around them and therefore also of each other. This means that when one cries loudly, the other will wake up and often join in. Separate rooms is only an option at times, usually they hear each other anyway. This proximity of the other, of your sister, is something inescapable for my kiddies. This will be clearer to them as the weeks and months progress and they become even more alert.

That they sometimes cry at the same time, are hungry at the same time, need their nappies changed at the same – it doesn’t change the fact that I can only take care of one kiddie at a certain time. I have yet to master the art of simultaneous nappy-changing, for example, and although it would be possible to feed them both their bottle at the same time (I tried it!) it is really uncomfortable for all of us. Better to feed, change, comfort one while the other one waits. And cries.

There is no helping it, my kiddies’ cries often go unanswered for some time unlike those of their singleton fellow babies. And that is what I realised today. It seems a little cruel but I guess the first pearl of wisdom my girls acquire in their lives is this: life is, indeed, unfair.

PS By the way, they are not always so unhappy as the video shows. Check this one out as well to see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40OUdkPYEVk. See? I’m not that bad as a mother. ;-)

Oh my... What to say?

It has been quite a while since I last made an entry here. My only excuse is that I have been a little bit busy. My kiddies were born two days after I made the last post. Water broke actually the very night after I made that post, at two in the morning. The girls were not born until Sunday afternoon though. It took a while. And after that I have been busy mostly with taking care of the little ones, and resting, and eating, and breastfeeding, and phasing out on Facebook.

So far taking care of the little ones has been delightful. Of course there are moments of frustration and moreover exhaustion (never far away) but overall I absolutely love it. There is no other way of putting it: I am In Love.

However, to keep you updated: here are my past four weeks in pictures. All of these were taken with my iPhone and simply 'on the go snapshots'. (This also explains why not everyone who has held the kiddies so far is on here...)

Hope you like it. (If you do, feel free to leave a comment. I always wonder if people actually read this thing...)

Dear postal service,

Thank you for delivering the stamps to our mailbox. They’re just what we ordered.


As a customer to your service I thought I’d give you some feedback or advice. Hope you don’t mind.

You are in the mail business. Delivering things to people’s mailboxes is your trade. It is therefore a little puzzling that getting an envelope with stamps in it to our house should take you THREE FULL BUSINESS DAYS! Just as a reference: if I order a t-shirt or other random item from another random online store, I usually have it in my hands by the following day. And their business would be t-shirts or other random items, not MAIL.

Just thought I’d mention it.

Best wishes,
Really Ninja

Let's try this out shall we?

Yes it seems that I may update this through my iPhone as well! It's a bit bothersome to type like this though so it'll be only for very short posts. :)

Bibs et al, part V: TWO NEW ARRIVALS!

From New York (USA)

From New Jersey (USA) - Lookit! Little ninjas!

Elderblossom (Vlierbloesem)

A few years ago I was at the organic food shop and decided to try the elderblossom syrup. It was nice: not too sweet but sweet enough to tempt me. So I’ve been buying it ever since. A bottle goes a long way and I can adjust the taste (sweetness) to my mood. Perfect. Fed it to my parents as well as my little nephews and niece and everyone liked it.

Now what?

Just this weekend I read in the paper (Saturday’s-not-very-important-but-everyone-reads-it-all-the-same section) that on the terraces of Holland (particularly Amsterdam) it is all the rage to have a glass of elderblossom bubbles. With sparkling water or wodka or even champagne. It is said to be soooo refreshing, soooo different, and soooo hip ‘n happening.

What?

Yes, I was so ahead of my time, it’s unbelievable. I, Really Ninja, turned out to be so hip ‘n happening that I didn’t even notice it – which is the best kind of hip ‘n happening of course. Ahahahar! Who’d have thought? Usually it only happens because I refuse to let go of something for so long until it becomes hip again. For example: converse shoes.

So what does this elderblossom rage mean?

It means that Every. Single. Bottle. of elderblossom syrup in organic food shops around is sold out. Empty shelves. Big gaping holes where there used to be neat rows of bottles waiting for its rather peculiar specialist audience wanting to make its own soft drink. The shops were never out of of elderblossom syrup!

It must be the scourge of every avantgarde hip ‘n happening person: by the time everyone else catches on, you absolutely need to move on. How tiresome.

I bought grenadine instead this time. Will wait for the rage to blow over and buy some new elderblossom when everyone else is tired of it. Won’t be long, methinks. These things rarely last.