Nirvana

Peace, serenity, bliss, tranquility... all of these are words that are polar opposites to the way I'm feeling, halfway through week 4 of semi lock-down. I am by nature a complete homebody and I was feeling pretty emotional at leaving the newborn to go back to work early (what was I thinking), so you would think that being home would be easy.

Nope, not so much. I mean at first I was happy and excited to see my partner for more that the 30 minutes between the kids bedtime and ours and being 'teach Lisa' gave me purpose and a chance to really understand what my kids do at school. But somehow, somewhere, this week things changed. Like a switch. I no longer feel like sitting cramped in an armchair so my partner can have the desk. I am tired of running up and down the stairs to help the kids with schoolwork, at the workstations that were quickly thrown together in their rooms. Nor do I feel like expressing milk for the baby, while answering questions in said cramped position. Trying to meditate while brushing my teeth is anything but grounding. Don't get me wrong, I love my family but what I need right now is space. Space around me, but mostly space within me..in my head to be exact.

I'm big on space. I want it, I crave it, I need it. Space to breathe, to think, to reflect. As important to me as the actual air I breathe. My mind is always whirling and spinning. A constant hum of bleeps and thoughts. So having little time and space just by myself for myself, has reached it's limit. So here I am, in the office, at the desk, with the door closed, breathing. An hour or two, in silence. A window of silent, contemplative space, my nirvana. My mental morning walk in the forest, amazing in the simple happiness and joy of trees blooming in the spring.

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Noah Sky

I don't know when I last wrote a post. I actually couldn't remember how to log in 👀. It's been that long. One of the main reasons being Noah, my little New Year's baby. Noah has firmly claimed his birthright as baby numero uno. However Jaime is not giving up without a fight. Let the baby battles and zombie mom wars commence.. 

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Mummy tummy

Nineteen weeks and counting. Almost half way! After my first two I thought what poppycock when people said "oh, you'll forget everything from a pink cloud". Guess what? I did. How did I forget the nausea, fatigue, pimpled-riddled skin, indigestion and the bloody joint pain?

If I get one more "gosh, you're big" or ''showing early, ehh", I might unleash the full wrath of the emotional train-wreck that I morphed into. Nope, no kidding, it's puppies and sunshine or I'm frazzled mess. I just want a steak for the love of god and a nap somewhere besides a cushion prop mountain on the sofa. Clothes that don't cost a fortune or look like a muumuu. The insult to the injury was my guy's response to my new only slightly more comfortable choice in undergarments.. "are they comfortable?", followed by "are they supportive?".

Waiting for the the it's totally worth it speech? Sorry, going to have to wait it out because despite being worth it, I'm not liking it. Yes pregnancy, I see you and I dislike you. End of story.

P.S. this blog has been brought to you by a preggo in need of a rant. 😬

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Wondertje

This working name for this post was The ICSI Baby files… simply diary entries from unexpectedly the last leg of a very long process. This entire year has been rough and the reason I couldn't blog anymore (no promises). While there is still a mountain of other issues to tackle, I now have an extra reason to get back to happy.

T-3

It’s nine am, the day after our official departure on our ICSI journey, and I don’t know what to think or feel. From going peanut butter slow for so long it now all seems to be going at warp speed. No wait, no delays. In fact, we even picked up the complete arsenal of drugs directly after the appointment. To practising self-injecting when we came in not even knowing if and when we would be starting and fearing the worst... another delay, another doctor, another test. And now gearing up to get started this weekend. And if we’re successful Baby J in a month! Unreal. Need time to process. I repeat: Need time to process.

T+5

Day five of shots. The first one my guy did because the self-injected totally freaked me out the moment I really had to do. Why did no one mention it would feel like a spreading bee sting? Day two and three, less stinging. Day four, go figure was really painful. Can we just leave it at not pleasant. Day five was finally so effortless, that in my morning grog I had to peek to make sure I’d actually injected it. Yes... I stab while looking the other way.

T+7

Side effects, what side effects? In my mind, I’m like I’ve got this. I feel completely unaffected. No mood swings... at least no more than usual. No puffiness or discomfort, except having to be strict with my wake-up call. She’s such a morning person, said no one ever. Plus, I have to eat regularly and timely to avoid constant nausea. Not a big thing unless you have the eating habits of a petulant toddler. Guilty. 

T+10… Time to rename

Whoa, mama! Head still spinning. Life really does happen when you’re busy making other plans. We went for our Sunday morning run in the forest and while I didn’t think much of the extra wheeze because heck, I’m asthmatic, the swollen sausages fingers and painful chest made me wonder what the heck was up?

So, when we got home I opened my trackers only to see one said test yesterday and the other test tomorrow. I figured it must be the hormones from the drugs that are causing a delay but in the end, I caved and did a test… because it’s not like I don’t keep a stockpile of those suckers. Threw it in the cupboard and went to grab some food because of the aforementioned nausea when empty.  When I went back to get it, there was a squinty fake pink line in both boxes! In disbelief, I showed my guy and he was stoic and said ‘it can’t be’ and went back to watching television and didn’t mention it further. Of course, I mentioned it and we talked and decided to do another test in the morning.

Needless to say, I got no sleep. Six am I did my next shot and then took the test. By then my guy could hardly wait the five minutes needed. The result was another barely there double pink. What the hell to do? I’d taken ten days of drugs of which we had no clue what the effect would be only a baby. Who do you call and ask at six am on of course what was a bloody holiday?

At seven we gave up on the idea of sleep and starting searching for usable telephone numbers. We finally ended up getting in contact with the delivery ward as weekend and holiday calls are taken there. We finally got a call back around 9.30 am, telling us to come in for testing. After scrambling to find somewhere for our kids we went to the hospital and they took a sample for testing and told us to come back in an hour. Our cheapie tests weren’t wrong, but they needed to confirm with blood work. Those results came back that afternoon. All I remember of that call was Congratulations, you’re pregnant!

The next day saw more calls with our specialist as it was highly unexpected and not-standard procedure to get this outcome midway through ICSI, especially when we had zero chance of getting pregnant or as the first sarcastic specialist said "miracles can happen". Hopefully our first echo will show a happy, healthy, little bean. Baby J, February 2018! But for now, we smiling like Cheshire cats and bursting on the insides. It’s been a long time coming..

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Nest

Homebody meets home proud, that's me. Home is incredibly important to me. It's where I feel safe, comfortable, happy and myself. So I'm pretty much always tweaking and updating it to meet the needs at the moment. Right now, I have an insatiable need for a home. For all four of us. Only recently did I realise how stressed home has been making me. This place, that I made my own, feels less than home.

Between the two of us, we have three houses. Two homes that we don't live in and this rental which I made home for me and the kids. My partner moved in but that's the thing. Since he wasn't here from the get-go, it's not ours. Things gets constantly switched between our places to make space for his and our stuff as opposed to just my stuff. Pretty much every weekend sees the car loaded up with yet more gear. And with summer weather here, we need to travel back and forth more, with all that gear and paraphernalia, To work on his place, to keep it form disintegrating. And to enjoy summer with the kids in the garden that this place misses.

It's driving me looney tunes! Home all of a sudden feels like stop-gap, temporary housing, yet permanent as the other two homes keep us in limbo. Home is so much more than were we eat, sleep and play. And I need it to be, again! It's the place we come back to when we're happy, sick or tired. The place where we dream, discover and grow. Where memories are created. Where we are family. Home.. our nest...our together.

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Fairy tales

Tuesday felt like popcorn and movie night. I made a batch of buttery sprinkle coated popcorn and we settled in we maybe draped in kids. Beauty and the beast was the chosen viewing. A Disney classic that I can’t recollect seeing. After the shock of the amount of singing, I settled in with a mouthful of sweet goodness. We had a good time, finished the popcorn and the movie and tucked the little ones in to bed with a little respite from bedtime. The thing that stuck with me was that maybe I was wrong?

I love fairy tales but felt them useless in the real world. Full of the impossible and fantastical. But afterwards I wondered if this was true? Okay so maybe there are no sorcerers and enchanted roses but there is vanity, fear, loathing, bitterness and anger. And it’s still patience, kindness and in the end love. It’s always that which breaks the spell.

Not love of things, ideals or oneself but of another. When my daughter runs to us after a nightmare, it’s not a logical explanation of the wind that calms her. It’s the instant enveloping, soft whispers and caresses. When my son had an unexpected asthma attack in bed and couldn’t draw a full breathe, I felt I couldn’t either. I would happily take everything he felt a hundredfold for him, without hesitation. The love of my partner. His kindness, his patience, his love. I could give a hundred examples but I am simply better for it. 

I’m still fearful about loads of thing, like raising my family in a world where love doesn’t seem to be the goal or even the journey. I still get down about myself, my body, my life. But patience, kindness and love keep me from going there too often and from staying there. 

A smile, a kiss, a hug, an outstretched hand, a strong shoulder, a listening ear, a warm tear, a open mind. The smallest of gestures can be the hardest to make but imagine if we all felt love? Love is more powerful than any and every emotion. Fear, anger and conviction can motivate but only love can elevate. It is the happily ever after. The spellbreaker. 

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"Ik zou wel een kindje lusten" sour cream chocolate cake

Mika loves, loves a book titled “I really want to eat a child”. I mean this book is requested pretty much every night and every night we shout out the last pages in threesome and then he giggles and goes to sleep a happy camper. 

Another part of this routine revolves around him reminding me that I still have to make the cake for him. A promise a promise and so I finally made the cake. It’s a fairly straightforwared chocolate cake with ditto frosting and glaze. The frosting on the top is white chocolate coloured yellow, which is so much more fun as kids get to decide how yellow. We had a ball making this together and that is almost more fun than the eating..almost.

Sour cream chocolate cake
2 cups fine white sugar
2 cups patent flour
1 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 baking powder
1 1/2 vanilla paste
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup oil
125 grams sour cream
3/4 hot water

Chocolate frosting
1/4 cup butter, softened
4 tablespoons cacao powder
1 cup powder sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
milk

White chocolate glaze
200 grams white chocolate
milk
natural food colouring 

Preheat oven to 180 Celsius. Parchment paper, grease and flour desired pans. I used the smallest ones I have for two smaller, higher cakes. Sift sugar, flour, cacao, baking powder, soda and salt in a food processor and whizz to incorporate. Add in the wet ingredients, vanilla, eggs, milk and hot water. Divide between the pans. Bake for 35 tot 40 minutes or until risen and cakes begin to pull away for the sides. Because of the sour cream, the cakes remain smudgy and dense like brownies.

Beat the butter, cacao, sugar and vanilla till thick in a food processor. Add tablespoons of milk while on low speed, till thick and fluffy. Melt chocolate au-bain-marie and add drops of colour till desired colour. Thin with milk to thick but pourable consistency. When cooled frost the cakes and pour glaze over the top. Top with candied cherries. Serves 16.

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Sweets for my sweets

Pictures from our double Valentines. Saturday was just the two of us, champagne breakfast in bed, duo-massage and wasting the day away. Sunday with the kids, lounging, playing and stuffing plenty of chocolate and cake in. Basically loads of sweet treats..oh and a pink overload!

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Roleplay

Luckily, unlike the picture, the dishwasher does double duty around here. But washing up is one of the the tasks that is part of my role. My role?

If you asked me a year ago, I definitely would have answered that 50/50 is the way to go. Yet today, cooking, cleaning, laundry and most other household duties fall firmly in my lap. I do this next to my fulltime job and being mom to a four and five year old that spend half the week with me.

I used to joke that pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen is my happy and at the same time heavily apologising for being so old-fashioned and non-feministic. Guess what, it is! No worries, right now I have my hands full with two, but being at home and taking care of my home is my happy. The difference is that I no longer feel the need to apologise. My partner has never touched the washer, iron or duster and has cooked a record two times but I never carry a bag or box, get driven around like miss daisy, have doors opened for me and yes I'm spoilt right along with the kids. When the door opens at six pm, we often rush forward as a threesome to be tickled, hugged and kissed.

I do what I enjoy and I enjoy cooking. When I'm in the kitchen on weekends and I turn around and all three are playing or the kids are playing and my partner is fixing something (yep, that's your role baby) I'm happy as a clam. And while my alarm goes off at six a couple times a week, for him it goes off at five, five times a week. After twelve hour workdays, of which four hours of travel, I want my partner back and so I do try and have dinner on the table, do the clearing up and get the kids ready for bed. Nothing is cast in stone and he helps whenever and wherever he can, often quicker on the weekend with getting the kids dressed and fed or getting the forgotten groceries after dinner and when I'm sick I don't have a worry. However 50/50 it is not because that is not our goal.

The goal is happy, a home filled with joy. It is! Do I wish the laundry basket wouldn't replicate so quickly? Yep. Do I feel stressed trying to figure out a meal plan for the week? Hell yea. But it doesn't rival the happiness of a hug and thank you while I'm cooking, evenings spent together, my nightly foamy latte brought to me on the couch, or the fact that the most asked question is "What can I do?".

Breadwinner, housewife, head of the home, caretaker. Traditional, eligatarian. There are tons of studies on the effects of different relationships models and roles but for me it's about personalisation. What works for us, right now. Because in the end it's willingness and heart that make it work.

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Festive jumpers..

Christmas sweaters are so wrong they're right. I am determined to kit us out like a Christmas card..and take a Christmas card style family picture. The jumpers, and yes his lights up, are for us. The littlest one get the Santa hat and mini-me the antlers..plus their very own fun and festive jumpers!

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Sunday is for..rum custard french toast with fig syrup

I was looking forward to this Sunday like I look forward to shopping! No early wake up call (except for the kids then), no place to be and no chores to get down. OK, back down on earth, I was still game. Sunday slows everything down and allows us one day to have lunch together. Lunch being french toast so rich my guy didn't even want to know what's was in them. Dripping in a sweet and sour reduction of figgy molasses poaching liquid from last week's tarte. I thought I'd made too much but I was fooling myself, just look at those satisfied mugs.

Toast

1 loaf of thick crusty bread

3 eggs

200 grams mascarpone

1/4 cup fine white sugar

2/3 cup whole milk

1/3 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla paste

pinch of salt

splash of dark rum

Syrup

poaching liquid

2 tablespoons brown sugar

Reduce the liquid and sugar on medium heat until it coats the back of a spoon.

Whip the mascarpone smooth and add the remaining ingredients except the rum, until smooth and combined. Add as much or as little rum as desired. Or omit the rum entirely but I definitely think it ups the flavour and the smell is amazeballs when the bread hits the pan. The batter should be as rich and thick as a custard. No need to soak, the bread just needs a quick dip. Fry in an uncrowded pan. I use creamed butter, because heck who's counting calories anymore.. Serve with a dusting of powder sugar and syrup. Let the hungry masses..I mean kids, eat lunch!

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Our Red Sea holiday

Pictures say a thousand words but I'm super hesitant about posting pictures of us. I have been trying to overcome that recently. I still freak out everything I post something with even the smallest bit of me in it but I'm getting there. Plus my kids flipping rock!!

This is our trip to the Red Sea in Egypt. It's the hottest place I've ever been and had the warmest sea 'breeze' I ever felt (blow dryer to the face much..) but we had a blast. We sent pretty much all our time at the swimming  pool, where the kids had their favourite treat of hotdogs, fries and churros. I pretty much stuffed my face with sweet treats at every meal but more about that in Monday's post...

For now here a few scenes from everything from a trip to the zoo, taking in a show at the dolphin park, mini sand sculptures to my babe's 5th birthday, dancing the night away, girl time selfies, airport goofing and everything in between. This trip made me super happy and grateful. It's a bit nerveracking (I won't admit that to a certain someone) to take that first trip together and then with kids but hopefully you can see we're happy, mismatched, rejigged and all!

Have a great weekend!

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