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Week 10 of quarantine and night of destiny in Ramadan

Wow, we made it already to week 10 of this crazy corona quarantine and more than 3 weeks now additionally with a fasting husband at home.

If you ask me how I feel – a mixture of insanity, being tired, running out of ideas for our son, trying to move forward with my yoga teacher training, keeping the mood bearable, when will this be over???

As I know my husband since 2011 we are I guess one of the lucky couples who knew each other already well enough to “survive” a lock-down and a quarantine with no real end in sight (why has this virus to be so greedy – it’s enough little covid, time for you to disappear, please!).

As parents we were put into the situation to be…yeah, to be parents still, right? I need to admit that we are currently in the very fortunate situation to be at home, so no worry about how to get work done while having to take care of our son, this helps immensely and I remember my home office days with him around me too – if you are able to complete 50% of your tasks with your child at home then kudos (it’s like reaching level 200 in Super Mario I guess). I can’t say thanks often enough for platforms like pinterest to give us idea 196 for DIY projects with a 4 year old but also need to mention one book which gave us lots of inspiration and great times already.

Recommended so much (and no cooperation or link where I earn something) – I bought it just because I discovered Laura Brand on Instagram and her ideas are indeed magical!

I’m not lying – there are days where I want to hide under the blanket the whole day watching nonsense on Netflix uninterrupted because I cannot face this world anymore. But then a little hand reaches out to me and I know I cannot. These times are scary and uncertain but my fear is nothing to teach my son – his childhood lays on us and we are the ones to build memories for him. I want him to remember this as a very intense family time, a time we spent happily together, walking through the forest, discovering snails, searching for flat stones to draw on at home. This is our destiny, isn’t it? So we have to make the best out of it!

And writing about destiny – today is day 71 of our quarantine and tonight is the night of destiny in Ramadan. My husband told me last night and shame on me, he tells me each year the meaning but I often forget the whole story behind. As a short explanation:

Allah the Almighty states in the Holy Koran: “Surely, we sent it [the Koran] on the Night of Destiny. And what should make thee know what the Night of Destiny is? The Night of Destiny is better than a thousand months. Therein descend angels and the Spirit by the command of their Lord with their Lord’s decree concerning everything. Peace — so will it be even at the rising of the dawn.” (Surah al-Qadr, Ch 97: V 1-6)

So tonight will be the night of great blessings where god (Allah the Almighty) showers his mercy upon faithful believers. In the Koran it’s said the revelation of the Koran began on this very night. Especially in its last ten days there has been the a showering of blessings and mercy in the month of Ramadan.

If you want to read more in depths you can visit this site:

The Night of Destiny

When you know my blog you know that my husband is muslim whereas I am not – we live very well with these different beliefs but of course we discuss lots. But what we also do, and that’s I guess is the most important, we support each other in what we do. So when he is fasting during the month of Ramadan I adapt (not always to his mood 🙂 but to the schedule) and I like some of the rituals. We should spend a peaceful night tonight and there’s nothing wrong with that. Maybe there are angles, a spirit, a higher force – I am not the one who judges that. Especially when you raise a child together you need to treat each other with full respect and that’s what we do.

As yogi I believe more in destiny in general – not linked to a certain religion. There surely are shifts and I very often use the sentence “it was meant to be” and that’s what I belive in. The choices we make are made for reasons and they guide us to where we should be. If it turned out to be a direction we don’t feel fine in then we take it as a lesson learned and move on.

This is also the way from my perspective to treat this quarantine. Of course I made plans in the beginning (10 weeks ago), we can do so many great things as a family together. And of course this didn’t work out. There were days where I was struggling so so much with anxiety and panic, there were days where our mood was only enough to stare at the TV in disbelief of what’s going on, there were days where we stayed in our PJs from dusk till dawn and that’s OK. If it already taught me one thing than to let go. Letting go of trying to be strong when I feel weak – both are vaild and both are essential in life. Only when you know how it feels to be weak you can be strong.

Tell me, how do you experience this quarantine? I’d love to hear stories from around the globe because one thing is for sure:

We are all in this together!

Stay safe and healty

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Pregnant through the Tuscany – part V

Pregnant through the Tuscany – part V

The last stop is Verona and the lake Garda, we’ve been here before as well but both are worth a second and even a third, fourth and fifth visit if you ask me.

The hotel is at the lake and after we checked in we went to the pool to swim and relax a bit. In the early afternoon we got ready to drive to Verona (which is an around 30 km way).

There was so much traffic that we were wondering what’s going on in the city and we were already a bit scared that parking will be a nightmare but our hidden parking garage from our last visit seems to be an insider tip as it was almost empty.

Once there we found out that Aida would be played for the last time this season in the Arena Verona and therefore many were driving into the city.

We strolled through the old part of Verona, ate gelato, enjoyed the rays of sunshine on our skin.

In the evening we planned to eat Pizza in a Pizzeria very close to the Arena which tasted so good the year before. This year it was even special as we were able to listen a bit to the music from the arena although it’s indeed much less what you hear outside than I thought.

VeronaArena

(The man is my husband so no worries about people on picture rights 🙂 )

There it was, our last evening in Italy for this year. The years to come will never be the same because we will be three persons. There are exciting times in front of us and we can’t wait to meet this little baby.

Will it be a boy or a girl? We have already a name for each but which name will be written down for the first time in April 2016 to document the birth of our new family member?

You see there is much more to write about…

At the end I give you a few more Italy impressions – enjoy.

Montalto di Castro

Orbetello

Orbetello

Follonica

Follonica

Siena

SienaSienaCampusSiena1Siena

Piombino

Piombino

Nature <3

Tuscany

Follonica

Follonica

Castiglione della Pescaia

Castiglione della Pescaia

Castelnuovo del Garda

Castelnuovo del Garda

Peschiera del Garda

Peschiera del Garda

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Pregnant through the Tuscany – part IV

Pregnant through the Tuscany – part IV

415 km later we are back in ‘our’ area and still enjoy our holidays.

The garden of the farm where we stay (see part 1) is a dream and perfect to relax in.

We go almost daily to the beach, just lying in the shadow of our umbrella, swimming, eating and living the Italian sentence “dolce far niente” which means the sweetness of doing nothing.

 

Beach
Beach Food

On the beach free days we love to visit cities.

Siena is worth several visits as is San Gimignano.

We kept Florence for the way back home and decided to stay one night in Florence and one night in Verona before we are completely back in our day-to-day routine at home.

I have the feeling as if I walk on clouds during these holidays – knowing that I’m responsible now for a tiny human being is lifting my mood to a level I didn’t knew before, is it called bliss, I don’t know. Sure is that it feels so good that I will remember it for the rest of my life!

It is known that women change during pregnancy (obviously) and that the perception (smell, taste) can change.

I have only two things I cannot stand at the moment which are bananas and my husband’s perfume. Both nothing which bothers me too much, besides these everything is just much more intense. The food tastes better, the flowers smell more, life is wonderful.

I soak in everything nice during this summer, I want my baby to smell the summer in Italy, it’s the first holidays we have as a family and he or she is living inside of me. I believe that embryos sense what’s going on around them, even at that early stage.

After the full dose of relaxation we have to start packing for the way back.

For the last evening we decided to say “goodbye” with a barbecue in the wonderful garden (I can’t say it often enough) and once we finished eating it started to rain slightly as if Grosseto was sad too that we gonna leave the next day.

Barbecue

After we said goodbye to Marzena and her family in the morning and promised that we will be back one day with the bambini I’m happy that we will stop twice before leaving Italy and not drive back all the way at once.

Florence, here we come.

The David is “someone” I need to show you – here he is the famous David from Michelangelo:

Michelangelo's David

The ‘Dolce far niente’ is something you can also enjoy in the middle of a city full of tourists and noises, here my yoga practice is diving in as I learn to focus on one thing at a time and this time it’s a wonderful Moroccan peppermint tea.

Peppermint tea

The city is wonderful and we love to go through without a plan. My husband bought tourism-like a selfie-stick so the crazy parents-to-be have quite an album full of selfies.

What I see now besides the fun we had is the glow everyone was talking about – here I see the first time this pregnancy glow on my face and if men have it as well my husband is one of them. We were as happy as we thought we could be.

Florence is wonderful so I’ll leave you with some impressions for now. The fifth part will follow, I promise!

© by misssfaith2017 (18)© by misssfaith2017 (18)© by misssfaith2017 (4)© by misssfaith2017 (2)© by misssfaith2017 (1)Florence© by misssfaith2017© by misssfaith2017 (3)© by misssfaith2017

 

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Pregnant through the Tuscany – part II

Pregnant through the Tuscany – part II

As I wrote in part one – these holidays would be the best before a new chapter in our life would start.

Ok, the start of these holidays were mainly food and toilets.

I love to eat, I always did, but pregnant I was eating more and was craving fresh and healthy food (mainly) so not the typical pregnancy cravings but the healthier version of them. Especially breakfast, I love breakfast.

Italian Breakfast

Fresh fruit daily, without would have been a nightmare, so it was great that Marzia’s father had his daily walk over the farm and that he stopped by to give us some fresh peaches out of their garden for the bambini.

My daily breakfast was greek yogurt with peaches and while writing about it I could just eat it again although I’m not pregnant.

Greek Yoghurt with Peaches

In Siena we sat on the Piazza del Campo the year before eating Pizza out of the box, just enjoying the sunshine and watching people. This year I preferred the Caprese Con Mozzarella Di Bufala.

Caprese Con Mozzarella Di Bufala

There was lots of food this year but honestly, what would Italy be without food, still nice but something would be wrong. They have so much wonderful food that not eating would be a shame. Besides I had to eat for two now, hadn’t I 😉

I mentioned toilets earlier but don’t worry, all I ate stayed with me, I just had the wonderful pregnancy urge to go to the toilet felt every half an hour. That’s not a big thing when you are at home but it can be really annoying when you are in cities or sometimes even villages and you have to find public (eeewww) toilets. My best friend was a disinfection spray in my bag and wet tissues.

My baby was so wonderful, growing inside of me without bothering me with pregnancy sickness, heartburn, nausea or other pregnancy signs. OK, I had a bit a bloated belly but hey, I had nothing to hide, it looked even a bit like a baby bump.

Baby bump or bloated

It looks even more than a baby bump and not just bloated when you place your hand on your belly 😉

My husband was the happiest daddy-to-be you can even imagine. Our mood was really great and we are often fighting for nothing, two stubborn minds, but during these holidays I cannot remember that we had lots of senseless fights about who bought the wrong water or other life-changing topics.

Parents-to-be seem to be full of oxytocin.

Parents to be

I love stunning views and could sit and look at them for hours just thinking nothing, during these holidays I was loving to sit and just watch the ocean, breathing in the salty air and thinking if our baby would realize the change from Munich to Italy, thoughts what he or she feels, tastes, do embryos taste even at that early stage?

Sunset

Hours could pass like that without me being impatient or bored.

As I’m a bookworm I surely took a book with me to the beach but I think I read if at all the introduction page and the remaining time my thoughts were everywhere but focused on that book.

Book Beach

What I was reading at night was Deepak Chopra’s “Magical Beginnings, Enchanted Lives: A Holistic Guide to Pregnancy” and I can recommend that to every pregnant woman. I loved it!

We had not only our wedding anniversary but also my husband’s birthday while we were in Italy and I always wanted to visit the archaeological site of Pompeii since I heard the story during my Latin’s lessons in school.

If not this time when then? That surely wouldn’t be something with a baby or toddler so the next years not on our list.

Wedding anniversary in Pompeii, the biggest catastrophe you can imagine not only for couples but for whole families – thanks that we both don’t believe in bad luck or better said will always find the opposite if something is bad.

More about Pompeii in part three – the little embryo is already 13 months old and needs my attention now. I hope you stay with me.

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Happy Father’s Day

Happy Father’s Day

To my wonderful husband ❤️
When I married you almost 5 years ago I knew that we belong together and that our whole story was meant to be.
With our little son we were entering a new and so wonderful dimension of our relationship.
Parents – we are parents and wouldn’t change it for anything on this planet, not even in the entire universe.
So much love from such a tiny boy, the sweetest love we have ever felt.
It changed us and seeing you as a daddy makes me so so so happy.
I thought that you would be a great father but thinking and feeling it is so different to what you are.
You are his mountain to climb on, he giggles when he grabs your curls, he’s so still when your beard tickles his tiny chin, he loves to sit and eat lots of fruit with you, he’s saying babababa the whole day long and it starts to be more baba now with him knowing exactly who he means. You, his baba.
I admit that I am a bit jealous, there are no m’s yet so not a blink of mamamama but that’s fine.
He’s pushing us to limits we didn’t knew ourselves before but in the end we stand in front of him when he sleeps or plays or smiles and are so blessed and proud and full of love that he belongs to us and makes us a family.
Look what he did for you, our little artist.
(I’m better not mentioning the color everywhere else.)

Father's Day

He wants to write something special for you as well:
Gxchglhdrgvc
Klö cyber lgkö
Yctikvullk
Jntnl Ulkub hbbzjn

(I assume it means “I love you baba and let’s go to the playground later” 😜)

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Pregnant through the Tuscany – part I

Pregnant through the Tuscany – part I

It was just the beginning of my pregnancy when we drove to Italy.

These holidays were planned and I was even more excited to visit the places with our baby in my belly.

Couple time for almost three weeks without stress, without work, without daily routine, without plan.

Yes, without plan. What I like is that we spend our holidays according to our mood and indeed without a plan.

We want to sleep long, we do it, we want to visit a certain city, we drive there, we want to eat ice-cream for breakfast, yes, we do that. Perfect for a pregnant woman.

I was a bit worried as the way from Munich to the Grosseto region is quite a ride but with lots of breaks it was completely fine.

© by misssfaith2017 (6)

The interesting is that as soon as we are over the Brenner Pass it’s like a button that is pressed and we run in holiday mode. It’s like a magic line, before we are too close to home to feel the holidays already and after that line all is relaxed and sunny and the radio is already playing Italian music.

We’ve chosen to stay in an agriturismo quite close to the sea which is like an apartment on a rural farm. The year before we were more inside the country and my husband had an encounter with a very tiny scorpion and since then the first question before we even check for the price is: “Have you seen scorpions in your area?”.

Our choice was close to perfect! (I will add the address as a footnote for those interested)

© by misssfaith2017 (7)

We were expected by Marzia Lucchetti, the owner, and found a homemade cake on our kitchen table to welcome us made by her mother. A family run farm where you feel the warm-hearted atmosphere on the doorstep.

© by misssfaith2017 (5)

This was our base camp to start excursions in all directions. It would be our last Tuscany visit as a couple. The next time we would go to Italy it would be a family vacation where activities need to be more baby friendly.

First on the list – find a beach nearby which is not too full and has nice sand. That was easy as the region has indeed wonderful beaches.

© by misssfaith2017 (4)

Checking the area is something we love, we just start to drive and see where we end up. Going north felt familiar as we went there the year before and many places were close to our hearts already and a must for this year like San Vincenzo, San Gimignano, Piombino with the wonderful view to the island Elba and of course the bigger cities Siena and Florence.

Exploring the Maremma area was new and we found some hidden jewels for us there as well, Castiglione della Pescaia is one of our favorites, so small but such a wonderful atmosphere in the evening.

Grosseto itself is also nice, we liked it to sit on the market place in the evening when families gather there and children are playing, when will we be back with our child? Will he or she run crazily around like the other kids do, these thoughts were so new yet so full of love already.

© by misssfaith2017 (2)

These holidays would be the best before a new chapter in our life would start, I was sure about that and the fear that something could go wrong (again) subsided step by step.

© by misssfaith2017

Here’s the link to the Agriturismo Il Migliarino

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Suddenly pregnant

Suddenly pregnant

We weren’t trying trying like many couples do when they want to start a family shortly after the wedding.

What we did is to just see what happens – what’s meant to be will happen when the time is right.

And then there comes a day when you think something is not normal and maybe a pregnancy test could be the answer. The answer was pink, two pink stripes on a test. I was standing in front of it in disbelief.

Is it really real?

Is there seriously a human being growing inside of me?

Are we ready?

You can think you are ready but once you see these two little stripes you start to question everything all over again.

37 years old and you start to question everything you are – am I really prepared to be a mother, am I capable of taking care until the end of my life, will I be able to give enough love to a child, am I good enough, is that really what we want right now or is it too early or shouldn’t we have started earlier and are already too old?

I tried to calm down and made a couple of tests just to be sure my eyes weren’t tricking me, which she surely didn’t.

The next question is how to tell my husband – there are thousands of ideas you will find on Pinterest but who has time to prepare something like that when you just found out yourself and the next thing you would like to do is shouting it out of the window so that everyone knows how happy you are?

What I managed as my husband wasn’t home is to walk to a children’s shop nearby and buy a pair of really tiny socks. The pregnancy test safely in my bag I walked to the café nearby where we had a date (yes, husband and wife and still dates for a coffee, it is possible).

My husband ordered a coffee for me and I was patiently waiting for it to be on the table as I wasn’t trusting myself in regards to emotions and the last I wanted is to burst out in tears (even if these would be tears of happiness) in front of a waitress.

The coffee was served and I pulled out the baby socks out of the bag behind my back.

“I need to tell you something…today at home I was so curious because I’m a bit overdue as you know…so I bought a couple of days ago…eeehm…what I mean is…I made a test. And…”.

I gave him the tiny socks and tears were welling up in my eyes when I saw his expression on his face.

Here we are – two adult persons sitting in a café – touched at the core of our beings by a very very very tiny being hidden inside of me.

A moment to keep in my mind for the rest of my life.

At this moment all these questions were answered – we ARE parents, whatever comes we will be able to handle it together as a family.

(What we didn’t knew by then is that sooner than we could imagine indeed had to handle a situation that wasn’t on our radar at all but that’s another story.)

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