The Rats Nest

I live with two rats. Seriously. These two are sooooo in love with cutting up paper into tiny pieces and scribbling on it. These snippets of paper are everywhere! Especially around daughter's chair, it looks like the nest my pet rat used to make if I gave him a piece of old newspaper.
The toys hardly get touched, because all they do is scribble, draw, cut and use glue or cellotape to make "presents". It's really cute and drives me mad at the same time.
Son will shout out: "I'm writing my name!" and then use the pen as if it's a brush, strokes here and there. Daughter is more into drawing actual things.
These pieces I saved from the floor and took a picture, that way I don't have to save everything. I'm thinking of uploading them and making a photobook from her art when I have a lot. Looking at the pieces, it was obviously about clowns that day. :-)

The Baby Talk

I'm getting really big and time is going by really fast. In 7 weeks the baby can be born safely at home. Here in Holland, they let you do a homebirth if all is well and you're 37 weeks pregnant up until 42 weeks. So far, we haven't prepared much besides moving the kids into a bunkbed so the baby can have son's bed and sort out a few clothes. We still have to figure out a name, get all the things needed for a homebirth, pick out birth announcements (I know this is not common but here it is, you order them in advance and let the printer who does them know when the baby was born and what his/her name(s) is. Usually you send these out to everybody you find important enough to share it with in the week after the birth), set up bed so baby can sleep in it safely, take son's clothes out to a new (still to be found) spot and put baby's in and put our bed on something -we've used crates before and we will this time- so it's higher for the midwife and nurse during birth and after. Did you know we get help from a nurse in the week after the baby's born? It's a special nurse who knows all about babies, post-partum moms and breastfeeding (although some still have a lot to learn about that). They also help out around the house a little bit or do a load of laundry. It's really wonderful to have that, but also somewhat weird to have a stranger load your washer or change your bedsheets. This nurse stays every day for 3 hours until 7 days after the birth. If there are medical reasons she can stay longer, I believe up to 5 or even 7 hours a day. They tell you they're also there to sort of take your place, but it's not their job to take care of older kids in the family. Strange, eh? When son was born they didn't even fix daughter a drink in all of that week. I understand not changing poopy diapers on a toddler, but not even a glass of juice for a -then- 20 month old?
So, there is still a lot to do but I guess I'm sort of in denial about it. :-)
A few weeks ago a baby was born with one of our neighbours and I made them a really simple and quick gift. I think it took me about 30 mins from start to finish, quicker than going to the store and buying something. It's this:



They are the Bitty Booties by the lovely Heather Bailey, made from a felted sweater (unknowingly) donated by husband. I used the newborn 0-3 months pattern and they fitted a newborn (average size baby) perfectly. And the booties were so cute I almost couldn't part with them, so of course now I have to make some more for our own sprout.
I try to be cool, but boy, those hormones! ;-)

The Loot

It was a great day, with beautiful weather! Of course it turned into a nightmare for people in Apeldoorn, where some idiot drove his car through a crowd of people, killing 6 and himself in an attempt to hit the bus the Royal Family was in.
But we didn't know any of this until late that afternoon when the paper came. We walked around looking for bargains! My pregnancy brain made me forget to take pictures, sorry. Just imagine long road with a grassy area in the middle and people sitting on it with a blanket and on it their stuff to sell, and lots of people walking by and buying things. Also people sitting on the sidewalk with blankets and rugs full of stuff. It made me smile thinking what it must be like seeing all that for my kids, they stayed home in the morning with their grandparents, but came with us in the afternoon. Daughter only bought two small things, I think coming with us to lots of flea markets has made her picky about what she likes.
So what did we buy? Not a lot, actually. Perhaps the Big Recession made people leave their best stuff at home, or perhaps we are such regular thrifters we've "seen it all" and only buy what we feel is a really good deal or hard to find. We hoped to find daughter a nice pair of shoes she can wear for playing outside and sandals and a summer coat for son, but none of that. I got offered numerous baby items, since people spotted my belly and no other kids they assumed I need things like that, lol.
We bought:
- 3 Nintendo games (kids) for Gamecube (to play on the Wii) 1 euro each
- a tiny babysuit (couldn't resist it since it was so cute) for 1,50
- Tomy Hide 'n Squeek Egg Sorting game also 1,50
- a playset with icecreams, cones and a scoop for 75 cents (a HUGE hit with the kids!)
- a Christmas book I've been wanting for a long time but thought too pricey new, 1 euro
- two Brum pj's and a Brum playcar for 4 euros all together
- a wooden clown-shaped music box for the new baby, sounds scary but it's actually a gentle looking clown :-) 1,50 euros

I think that's about it. Once the kids were in bed at night, we couldn't resist and husband and I took turns doing some trash picking, I found some clothes I liked, including a really really cool Hawaii shirt for son and some nice trousers I actually still fit with this belly, all for free! It's sort of funny digging through piles that you know will be picked up by the garbage truck as soon as they come with lots of other people, all smiling at each other but not really talking. I can sense they're all just as excited as I am looking through stuff that's all free. Funny!

The Giant Flea Market

I'm so excited about tomorrow! On the 30th of April, our country celebrates the Queen's birthday. There are festivities everywhere, but the biggest thing is the thrifting. The whole city turns into a giant outdoor flea market, everybody's allowed to sell their stuff on the street. Some parts are especially for kids (naturally they sell their toys mostly), but it's totally random otherwise. I think I've done my best buys on Queen's Day.
And even better is the end of the afternoon, when lots and lots of sellers just basically walk away from their stuff to go partying and everything is snatched up by the uber-frugal (that would be us, lol) because it's either take home or the garbagetrucks, who work overtime that day. Last year husband was just in front of the truck and managed to rescue lots of things before he called it quits.
We've been trying to get some change everytime we can, we need lots of coins for tomorrow! And daughter's been talking about what she'll be looking for or even possibly selling all week. The weather forecast seems pretty good, so that's wonderful.
I'll try to take some shots with my phone, but usually it's not great quality on my old thing. Wish me luck!

The Question

I have a question that's on my mind a lot. The question is this:
If you need inspiration and motivation for something almost every day, is it really you, or does it mean it doesn't come naturally for you and so it's better to leave it?

I think this problem is especially hard when you're a scanner like me. In case you don't know what a scanner is, please check here. You want to do certain things a certain way, and then the next day you've forgotten all about it, and you're back into old habits or just making up as you go along. Like parenting, or baking/cooking, dressing in a certain style.
As I have found no answer to the question above, I'm curious to read who has. :-)

The Wind of Change

Although I try to live in the moment and enjoy it as much as I can, I also feel the wind of change is coming. In a few weeks, daughter will turn 4 and from then on she will be going to kindergarten 5 days a week. It will be a lot for her at first, because it's going to be long days and every day too. But she can come home for lunch every day and the school is within walking distance so we're back and forth really quickly. Also I'm hoping she'll find a nice friend, because we don't know many kids her age in our neighbourhood and I think she'd enjoy it.
In August after the summer vacation, son will start the same preschool daughter goes to now 3 mornings a week (by the way, over here you have preschool from 2,5 until 4 and then move on to kindergarten from age 4 till 6). And of course the baby will arrive somewhere early August. I'll be with just the baby at home 3 mornings a week, wow! Kind of looking forward to that, actually. So in 4 months time, my life during the week will be completely different from now.
When your first child is born, people who are older or have older children, tell you to enjoy it because time goes by so fast. You wonder why they all tell you this, of course you stare at baby all day and enjoy it! Now looking at daughter who will start her schoolcareer (although playful for the first two years) soon I realize how true this is. Sometimes the days -and nights- are long, but the years go fast.
I used to not like change because I was afraid of it (control issues, I know) but as I've gotten older I really like it. I've realized in the past years I get bored really quickly and what better way to relieve boredom than making some changes? I'm still not good at changes, but I embrace it and look forward to it with a little bit of fear mixed in. I'm ready for the new challenge!

The Mouse Park

We went to a certain theme park near Paris last week. You know, the mouse and his friends. I really like theme parks, and this one was the best I've ever been to. Unfortunately you can't get into the rollercoasters when you're pregnant, so I had to skip that, but I still had a really good time taking it all in. The kids were exhausted (and so were we!) when we got home after four days, it took them two days to process it all and get -somewhat- back to normal.
Other than feeling the magic, I had a hard time with the money issue. It's all so expensive there! The food, the toys, the clothes. I tried not to, but I cringed a few times when I had to hand over many euros for something that's a lot cheaper in the store (like B*n & J*erry's icecream, 2,60 euros for one scoop!). And it was very difficult (ok, make that impossible) explaining to a 3 and 2 year old all the shops sell the same things and it's really best to wait and choose when you're sure of what you like to get. We had to talk about buying and waiting a LOT, but with one balloon, a Minnie Mouse fake cellphone, a dress-up Minnie set and a stuffed Mickey I think we did ok.
All in all we had a really good time and I'm glad we took the opportunity to go on this trip. With a new baby on the way we don't want to go away in the summer, so this is it for a long time I suppose!
Thanks for all who came back to my humble spot on the internet, I hope my lack of inspiration is over now. :-)