There are seldom days that don’t fly by…you wake up, turn around, and it’s already time to unwind for bed.
Time passes by…
There are many weeks where the Monday started and within the blink of an eye it’s Friday afternoon.
Yesterday was January and now it’s already the end of April.
A short time ago I was 25 and this year I hit the 45.
Years pass by and if I don’t realise it for myself, I see it when I look at my son who was just born and now starts school in summer.
We can’t go back, but what we can is to enjoy!
Cherish the time we have, do the things we love, stop and breathe and smile.
Oftentimes I want to write away my thoughts but in most cases it stays „I want“ because the dishwasher beeps or it’s time for the kindergarten pick up.
This time I write above the clouds. Arrival in Boston is scheduled in one hour and fifty-two minutes. After two years it’s my first business trip and it brings me right on the other side of the ocean. Which is nice, don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining, I’m just torn apart each time.
To wave goodbye to a six-year old who tries to be strong and fights his tears is hard!
Motherhood is hard!
I’m so proud of him and I care more than I would have ever have been able to imagine. He is the greatest achievement of my life. No work career can be better than raising this wonderful little being.
When his tiny arms squeeze me tight and he tells me that he loves me to the moon and further, that’s all! There’s nothing to top it!
Now he’s strong and will sleep four whole nights in my bed next to my husband until we are back together.
Everyone is telling me to enjoy, time alone is something mom’s rarely have, to have fun. But honestly, you know what? I am strong too! I wiped my tears away at the airport too. I also will count the nights until I am back in the plane which hasn‘t even landed.
When I was still at the airport, waiting for boarding, my husband texted me from home what to prepare for our son to eat. Even there, I already told him, I would have loved to be back in our kitchen to prepare a plate for him with what he likes most.
This weirdness is called motherhood too. It is weird because day in day out I don’t see how precious these simple mundane moments are, but just knowing that I won’t have them for only a short time shows me the truth.
Life is precious…
Every single simple moment means the world to our children! Hearing us moms around is their safe haven and that’s exactly what they deserve!
I will check how many things I can buy here for him, half of my suitcase is empty to be filled with clothes and toys, hoping that the next chance to come over is far in the future and not coming too fast. I don’t want to think about another goodbye, I want the daily chaos.
But you know, no matter how much I will buy, the most important will be to hug one another again as soon as I’m outside of the security area.
I know that we moms are bears and that we can move mountains when needed. But please take care! Let go of the unimportant and focus on what makes lasting memories.
It won’t be the long cooked dinner where you were hidden in the kitchen for hours, the forgotten spaghetti which glue together because you were playing on the floor will last in your childrens memory.
Travelling for work sounds fancy – but this is the real-life part of it.
It’s 4 am – I’m freezing and beyond tired.
Sitting on a Canadian air plane with hot black tea, as I needed something warm, and a bag of pretzels in front of me.
Thoughts are shifting from the purpose of life to let me finally sleep and back.
This life is crazy.
The full moon is following us all the way from Toronto to Raleigh, it’s shining brightly and is bigger than last time.
Somehow the moon is always earthing me, bringing me down to what really counts.
Being alone here isn’t it. I miss my family and try to shift the thought from missing to being thankful that I am loved.
It will be a firework of kisses and hugs when I return. How lucky am I?
That’s the essence, the purest kind of life purposes, family hugs, wet toddler kisses, husband hugs that feel like safe haven, unity.
I’m almost 20 hours awake now and after so many hours of travelling the only important thought is about my two men, snuggled up home deeply sleeping in our bed.
This is the second time that I travel alone since our son is born. I miss him like crazy, his tiny little hand searching for me in the night to sleep, assured that he’s safe. His hugs so tight and so full of love around my neck.
That is all that matters, he, my husband, my family. I needs sometimes a full moon night all alone to remember what is known deep inside. We forget too offen because daily life occupies and stresses us too much.
All the small wonderful moments, nothing more is needed to be happy.
Being so far away is somehow scary, as a mom you not only start to feel a love beyond imagination, you also start to worry in a way you never thought about.
Many of the worries are like an instinct and naturally good, they serve you and don’t disturb. But there are also worries which my husband would call ridiculous. Moms “What ifs” like “what if he falls and I cannot hug him and kiss the pain away as I always do?”. Yes, that one is maybe ridiculous because I know that his dad can take care, I know that I cannot protect him his entire life, I know he will handle it without me, but was someone ever thinking about me?
I want to be there, I am not ready to let go, I feel the pain deeper than anything as he’s the most important part of me. Oh my, did I write that?
Am I now a ridiculous helicopter mom?
No, I’m not and I can tell you why.
Because I am sitting on a plane on the other of the globe, I left him alone with my husband and I know that this is more than fine. Rational I know all of it! I let him discover the world and am not overprotective, even if I would like to be.
But emotionally, mentally, this is the hardest part of motherhood, letting go.
I put the pretzels in my bag. I guess my suitcase will be full of tiny things for him because he likes them. Apart from that, it’s 4:30 am – who eats pretzels at this time?
Ok, it’s 10:30 pm over here but I have mentally not arrived in this time zone. I could sleep standing now.
We prepare for landing and the thing what I want most now is rush as fast as I can to the hotel, jump into the bed and fall asleep thinking of how safe and sound he sleeps next to my husband.
As long as you are working, the missing subsides a tiny bit…
Its 3 pm – four days later. Bright daylight and with short sleeves on the plane to Toronto. You can’t believe how good that feels. These past days were great, tired, new, exhausted, successful, and so much more. I worked more than on normal days but staying in a hotel and evenings in restaurants also meant I had less to do after work than on normal days at home. No cooking, washing, cleaning. Many pros and cons, at the end, the cons definitely are more because everything I see while travelling is only my memory and especially when I discover new areas I want to share these memories. I want to tell my husband “do you remember that humid warm evening where we went to the Angus Barn in Durham and had a delicious steak?”. I want to ask my son if he liked all those big trucks on the street which are much bigger than what we see at home.
I can’t. I can try to capture as much as I want on photographs but at the end of the day it will only be my memory.
There is still a long flight ahead of me and many thoughts to come and words to write but for now I just stare out of the window, let my eyes be blinded by the white clouds we fly through, and dream away so that my soul rests. I’m getting closer to home, the place where my heart beats faster and feels more at ease, surrounded by my family and hugged and kissed. Soon.
It’s 11pm and we just departed – that’s 5am in Germany already and means we will surely not arrive as planned.
First we were getting a one-hour delay due to bad weather conditions, which I personally love so much. The incoming plane wasn’t allowed to land on time because of heavy rain. Great! And I’m sitting at the airport and wonder if we are allowed to start once the plane is there or if these weather conditions influence our start as well. I already thought about a bumpy ride back.
But – because of late arrival – our plane got an outside parking position to be fast ready to go (instead of waiting for a free gate). Sounds good, right? Our plane also got covered stairs for us! They care that we are not getting wet on the way from the shuttle to the plane, wohoo. Another plus!
Did I say stairs? I’d rather become wet instead after what happened then. It took the ground staff in Toronto over an hour to get exactly these stairs DEtached. It sounds like a joke but that really happened.
Means we are now in total 3 hours behind and I hate it.
But why do I hate it?
I could list several reasons why. I’m tired and hungry, it will take three more hours until I’m finally back home, this week was already long enough, all these things are annoying.
But, what if all of this happened for a reason?
What if we would have ended up in a thunderstorm when departing on time, what if?
There are a million things in life where we won’t be able to find answers, to know why it happened exactly the way it does. But what we know is what is now. Now I am sitting on a plane. I am fine, food will come soon and then I can sleep. When I wake up I will be much closer to my loved ones. All is fine!
Trust and focus on the good and all is fine.
The end of the story are indeed hugs and kisses. A tired mom who plays for hours, trying to catch up on the missed time, lots of stories to tell and a warm feeling inside of me to be where I belong. Looking back you may even say that all these thoughts were not necessary, but no, they were. And they will always be, because they are me, all of this is me. Reflecting, thinking, dreaming, listening, hoping, discovering, and so much more is within these thoughts that I will never stop cherishing these full-moon nights, these lonely moments where you are grounded even in a plane across an ocean. This is life.
If you want to read more from me – just jump into my archive and see what post it guides you to. Life is about trust, maybe you pick exactly what you need at this time.
While John Mayer’s Album Continuum is playing (which makes me feel good but also weird old as it’s quite old already), my husband is driving our car towards my parents, and my son is holding my hand after he threw his shoe at me, I decided to use this quiet time and type (left-handed because my right hand is occupied from some sticky toddler fingers).
I start to enjoy spending the time in the car in the back next to my son – it’s relaxed. We have created a little living room here, some toys, some sweets, enough to drink, water wipes, a book, charging cable for my phone, a pillow and his baby blanket. What more can we ask for?
Sometimes I miss driving, but often I just enjoy that I don’t have to.
Time in the road was mostly some “lost” time except of course that it brings us to the places we want to go, but these hours in the back of the car are now filled with laughter and fun, with silly singing, snuggles and sleep, with watching the trees and cities go by and (as now) with time to write down my thoughts in a safe space with a sleepy child next to me.
While I type my husband tries every feature our car has, from autopilot to Chinese navigation settings, happy that I seem not to notice that he speeds up and extra happy that I don’t say something to interrupt his “toy” time. Men 🙂
How life has changed.
We are the same yet completely different.
We are parents but still love what we did before this little boy stole our hearts.
I imagined how I will write blog posts while he naps and my husband thought he will watch his soccer games in the evenings while he sleeps – he taught us how life works.
He hates naps when he senses that I may do something that could be interesting for him. He also prefers to sleep only when minimum mommy, even better both of us, are also in the bed. So no more uninterrupted TV time.
And what do we do? We learn to adapt, we shift priorities, we embrace the life as it is now, we love him to the moon and back and we are grateful to learn so much as he shows us what really matters.
We are on the road, our life, our alleys with blooming trees and our dark slippery bumpy roads through dark places, wherever we go, we have the assurance that we can count on each other and that we will make it, we step over stones and take hurdles because we are responsible, not only for ourselves but also for the light that is shining day in day out, for this little heart-thief, the one who makes us a we and us three a family.
Whatever road you are on right now – go, glide, step, slide, walk steady and confident. Adapt to the surface but keep your eyes straight forward. Be on it now and feel this very moment in time.
Yesterday was mother’s day, the day where mothers are cherished a bit more than normal.
Shouldn’t we be celebrated daily? I mean, honestly, aren’t we doing extraordinary jobs day in and day out?
Yes, we do and we know deep down in our heart. And you know what? All the people around us know this as well, they just don’t tell us daily.
There’s lots of sparkle and magic around us, we are just often too blind to see it. If we could once see ourselves through the eyes of our children we would know.
If I feel exhausted, tired and crappy I doubt that I would smile to my own face in the mirror BUT my son is looking at me and smiles, he’s kissing me and hugs me in the morning with a look on his face as if there’s nothing better than having morning snuggles in bed with me.
He doesn’t care if my hair isn’t sorted or if I have an imprint of the pillow on my cheek – he sees his mom, his shelter, his world, his universe – he see’s me with a childish purity and this purity is what we lost along the way while growing up.
For him I sparkle even on my worst days. For him I am surrounded by magic day in and day out (he is Crafted by Magic). I can blow away the pain if he got hurt, I can give hugs which save him from bad dreams, I can do so many things he sees as magic and I want to keep him in his little bubble of pure happiness for as long as I can.
We went out of the city yesterday and while being at a lake it started to rain heavily but instead of leaving we ate crepes and watched the rain.
We are the ones who show how life is, if I run and hide each time I see a raindrop my child will do it too. Why don’t we follow our children once in a while and jump into puddles simply because it is so much fun?
There was a thunderstorm in the evening when we were back home and we stood in the darkness on the window and were waiting excited for the lightning, counting the seconds until the thunder was following. These are the magic moments of motherhood, stillness, awe, magic, thunder and lightning, life in its purest form, scared hugs to realize after a while that mom isn’t scared so I can let go as well and enjoy the sound of the rolling thunder.
You see – my mother’s day wasn’t all sunny and pink and flower-ish BUT it doesn’t have to be to be a wonderful day. What makes my mother’s day perfect and any other day as well is the wonderful child I am allowed to raise and my husband who shows me maybe not daily how wonderful I am but who sees with his heart and that’s the magic we all need in our life!
Another mom post – mmmh – yes and no, I would call it HUMAN but mum influenced.
When you are only responsible for yourself these things like “am I a role model” or “what do others think” seem not to be important at all. OK, for some the second point is their life but let’s go away from those 🙂
What I mean is, I lived my life before I was a mom just the way I wanted to – I never thought of being a good example – I did what I wanted and what I deemed for myself to be correct and that’s it.
Now I see it slightly different because I have to be a good example, especially at the moment with a little parrot toddler.
My child is showing me where I can improve to be a better person on the one hand and on the other I realize that there are many things which I don’t want him to learn as being normal in this world.
It’s funny how wonderful my own childhood is now in my memory. It was wonderful but people tend to remember things brighter as they were. Surely not everything was better and I don’t want to sound like an old grumpy lady stating everything was better in the past because that’s not true but there were VALUES and I start to miss many of them nowadays.
I see children with no respect, running into adults without saying sorry, taking toys for granted and many seem to have no behavior anymore.
I don’t want my son to be that kind of child. He learns that respecting others is important because he wants to be respected as well. He learns that everyone makes mistakes and saying sorry is not a sign of weakness, saying thanks and please is something we live, he learns it as being normal and that’s how I learned it as well when I was a child.
We don’t bury him under the newest toys and gadgets for toddlers because it’s simply not needed. Children are so wonderfully innocent and find always something to play with, I don’t want to take away his curiosity and fantasy because that’s what is so precious in growing up. A simple carton box can be his toy for several days and only he knows what he is playing but if you watch him he’s the happiest little boy on earth.
The new normal is the headline, maybe you realize already what I mean.
I’ve seen a little girl recently which wanted to look like Elsa and I have no idea who Elsa is and had to google it. She’s influenced at the age of not even two by an artificial figure and wants long blond hair and princess dresses “to be also so beautiful”.
A little boy (around 4 to 5 years) is telling his mom in the supermarket that he wants to go home because he is too stressed and wants to relax.
These are only two examples from many many others I could give.
Where is the carefree childhood? Why do girls think they need to look like someone else to be beautiful, why does a boy at the age of four even know the word stressed?
It’s us!
We are the ones who have to give them the carefree childhood they deserve, it’s us who have to protect them from thinking they are not beautiful because they are the most beautiful humans on earth! We need to protect them and give them all the time they need to develop and grow without knowing what the word stress even means.
They need us to assure them day by day that they are perfect the way they are, that they can trust we are there for them whatever may happen, that they are cared for and loved endlessly, this is what they need to build a strong self-confidence, not figures like Elsa or a full calendar at the age of four.
I want to be like daddy, I want to be like mommy – aren’t these the sentences which proof that we are doing our job?
I sit down on the floor and I build castles out of sand, we snuggle and giggle and hide under blankets, we run in a goofy way through the house and can’t stop laughing – these are the memories I want my son to share with his children one day, not that he loved a movie character when he was three and the Chinese teacher (which seems to be a new trend as well) was his best friend at the age of three.
Let’s start a new normal, let’s be the old-fashioned parents who don’t start to park their children in front of the TV, who don’t support this big movie toy/gadget market out there, who choose to be retro if you want to call it like that in a modern way. We don’t have drive cars without seats for our children because we know better than the generation of our parents how dangerous it can be, but we still don’t need the iPad adapter for the back seats because we can sing all children’s songs loud in the car.
I love to go back to the old style with the knowledge from today!
so many things that I barely know where to start but one thing stayed in my mind, especially now that I am a mom of an almost two-year old who starts to check where his limits are.
A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.
The more you try as a mom to insist the more your child will try to break through. If I sit down with my son and talk with him and try to explain him the world the more he will lose interest and start doing something else.
If I gently guide him towards an experience he can make himself the more he understands and also accepts.
We are all busy and stressed, there are thousands of things during a normal day we have to do but I actively try more and more to put a stop in, for my son and for my own sanity.
I never decided to become a mother to be a leader and have someone who should obey me. I decided to become a mother because giving life is the biggest miracle, because this amount of pure love is something you can not describe. My son is my life and he should not be the victim of my life choices!
Is there something more pure than a child at the beginning of life?
This treasure of innocence is something I don’t want to lose or better written I don’t want to take it away from him (life will do that anyway one day).
His curiosity is something to “work” with. Children are hungry to explore, they understand so much and we should stay in the background as their guardians to protect them on their journey.
So to better understand what I mean, here’s one of a million examples.
My son starts to take the stairs and yes, it takes a lot of time in the beginning! When I need to be fast because we are late the easiest is to pick him up but this causes frustration on his side and to be honest, on my side as well when I see him frustrated. I’m a human being and it won’t always be possible but if he generally is allowed to walk by himself (and I mean by himself without holding my hand) he realizes quite fast that it’s not yet easy for him. He gives his best and is reaching out to me after a couple of stairs he took alone. He’s the proudest little man when he manages it on his own and it’s his choice to go up and be carried the rest. We both are happy.
There are so many things where we should trust our children – they grow and learn and build their personalities with their own pace and our job is to be there along the way, BE THERE, not chase them, not force them, not expect them to do something because others can do it already, TRUST! Be there and trust your child!
As I’m the mom and by law his legal guardian many consider me to be his authority and yes, I have the responsibility for my son. So if I am the authority in his life then I want to be the gentle one – the one he barely feels, who is meeting him on eye level.
True authority lies in gentleness – this is how we should see it.
My son should one day look back at his childhood and feel a ton of love present along the way, a lot of precious memories, a lot of having fun together, a lot of warmth and lovely shivers when he thinks back to the time we spent together.
We all are human beings which means we all make mistakes, as long as we never lose sight of the big picture, the way we walk side by side, we all are fine.
When I had plenty of time – day in and day out. I started to draw and paint to live the creative part of me. I started to do Yoga to move my body and still my mind.
I had time to go to get my nails done, to sit in a café and just watch people walking by while slowly drinking a huge latte macchiato, I had regular hairdresser appointments and lots of time for shopping. I spent lots of time on writing and even more on reading, reading real paper books.
This time has gone!
I have no time at all, this is a feeling that implanted itself into my brain.
I need to rush through my life because everything is planned and organized and if I get off this schedule tragedies will happen.
I rush to the Kindergarten to be in time before they start their day, I rush back to work, I squeeze appointments in between my work schedule as I cannot attend them with my son. I rush to the Kindergarten to pick him up and run with him through the supermarket because he’s tired and cranky. I rush back home and hope he sleeps so that I can finish my work and prepare dinner, when he wakes up there’s no possibility that I sit on my desk as he will go mad.
We need to play (which is his right!) and that’s the first time where I can slow down a bit. After dinner he’s fully awake and energized to enjoy a long evening with us which means not really time for me to do something creative or watch a movie without interruption, a bit of Yoga works as he starts to like that. It’s late when the day ends and sleeping without me is still rarely happening and instead of reading a few “pages” on my e-book I check emails in bed and hope he’s sleeping deeply soon so that I can take a shower before my eyes close because I’m so tired.
Is this the life I imagined with a child? No. Is this how life just is as a working mum? No.
I think I had to go through this to realize something…
No tragedies happen if I’m off the schedule!
Surely work needs to be done and there will always be days like this BUT it’s up to me to change the majority of days to a more relaxed and flexible schedule.
The more relaxed I am, the more relaxed my son is.
We listen to music in the morning while getting ready to leave the house and we snuggle a while, that’s MORE important than sitting five minutes earlier in my office.
These moments won’t come back!
My office day is scheduled, there’s no way to be completely relaxed there as we have timelines and things need to be done in time but that’s just a matter of prioritizing my work and have proper to-do-lists. If I work highly concentrated instead of being distracted by stressed thoughts about what comes next I work in a more efficient way and yes, more de-stressed. If I need to finish something in the evening anyway why not to drive to the supermarket before I pick my son up? This way I’m faster and my son can go home from the kindergarten right away and snuggle up for a good sleep. I prepare dinner, I work, I am finished when he wakes up and we can do some great things together – we can finish cooking on days I didn’t manage to and he loves the kitchen, or we play or we go to the playground for a while, or we bath him, or or or.
I may not have the time still to work on my paintings, to write lots, to read lots, but I find time to enjoy, I find time to look at a caterpillar as if I discovered something completely new because my son shows me how to do that.
We go outside and search the whole sky until we find a plane or the moon or even both. We start to walk and stop again because there’s a cat climbing up a tree and we follow her to see where she goes. My little love is not even two years old.
He learned a ton of things in his life already and he is ruling our day!
I am his mother and it’s my task to be at his site, to carry him when he’s tired, to feed him when he’s hungry, to show him this world and to go on my knees to face him on his level.
It’s my life as his mother and I love to do all of this because he should be the happiest child on this planet.
I’m able to write (as you can see), it isn’t as regularly as it once was but does that matter? I’m able to do things just for myself, they are limited and not much but that’s OK. I’m able to draw once in a while, I’m able to do many things I used to do but is that really important right now? No, it isn’t.
Important right now is that we live in this very moment because these days pass by like crazy. My little baby is a toddler already and he soon will be doing things on his own and doesn’t want me to help him or to play with him. I don’t want to miss these days and look back one day to regret that I wasn’t crawling on the floor, checking what is under the table or under the couch, just because it makes him laugh in such a giggling wonderful way. I will have plenty of time in the future for all the other things but right now every minute spent with this little bunch of pure happiness is all I need.
Who am I and where am I is maybe the better title.
I am just sitting here in a quiet flat (if you can ignore the washing machine and dryer in the background), my son sleeps and my husband is at work.
It’s Saturday afternoon and I have finally time just for myself.
The whole week was insanely busy – our bathroom is renewed which means that we had workers in the flat EACH day and really EARLY in the morning.
As a home office worker that’s great because you don’t have to leave them unattended, but honestly, no bathroom is a nightmare and strangers in the flat as well.
The whole week I was rushing my son in the morning to the kita, followed by a day of work and answering questions like “where is the heater”, “why wasn’t that done years ago” and “where do you want the towel holder”. When I finished work I rushed back to pick up my son, followed by quick grocery shopping before starting to cook at home (not to mention that each day I had to remove layers of dust which found their way outside of the bathroom within seconds, even in the last corner of the living room we found it.
I am happy that it’s weekend (even if the bathroom isn’t ready as promised) but at least there is time to re-charge.
And while I’m sitting here this question popped up in my mind – who am I?
This week I was only a mom and an employee, barely a wife and just me was almost invisible.
There are seldom days where I’m just me because with a toddler you are a 24/7 mom, but that’s fine, I like it (most of the times) and I wanted exactly this.
I’m a wife too and the combination of me, mom and wife is really great, just recently I have the feeling as if the employee is taking far too much time and I’m hardly able to be the rest.
I am also a yogi, if I’m lucky for half an hour per day, sometimes less and sometimes more.
Whom I’m missing recently are the artist, the jewelry maker, the relaxed and the shopping me, they are hiding themselves somewhere and I need to dig hard to find them I think, but I know that they are there.
Also the reading one seems to got lost along the way, I try so hard but after a few sentences I cannot keep my eyes open on most of the days.
I know that these times change and I know that it is all worth it in the end. I just have to look into the eyes of my son to know that this overflowing pure love is the greatest gift in life, everything else is a plus, an extra, something I will have time for when he’s older.
I also lost some mes along the way and that’s great, I’m happy that I’m not them anymore. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like them, they were wonderful the way they were, they are just not important any more and their time is over. There was the single and the undecided twen, the partying and the what cost’s the world one, the newly hired and the where do I wanna be in 20 years one, the blindly in love and the sad and depressed one, I look back and say thanks to all of them, you made me the person I am today and I won’t miss anyone of you.
Who are you right now? And are you happy with the others vanishing or hiding? Who won’t show up again?
Questions over questions, I’d love to read your stories.
After a working day, without the still breastfed toddler at home, I thought I pick him up in the kindergarten and quickly jump into the supermarket to buy a few things.
Bad bad bad idea, that was the worst idea I ever had.
I think there is a breastfeeding brain which is similar to the pregnancy dementia.
What happened?
I’m sitting just now in the back of our car, toddler is drinking half asleep from a breast the size of a giant melon.
I was barely able to focus on what I wanted to buy, forgot the soup but didn’t care because the main goal was to get somehow back to the car without fainting or crying or both because of the milk overproduction.
When I went into the supermarket I thought all is fine until all of a sudden this insanely pain was hitting me and the mean part is, without warning, in waves, just as if it wants to pinch me once in a while to tell me there are more important things than food for mom – food for the toddler is ready.
Whoever said breastfeeding is all snuggling and lovely and precious and nice (which it of course is very often) forgot that it can be painful and raw like this as well.
As soon as he latched I felt the first small relief, after 5 minutes I felt already better and not scared anymore.
If you are alone with your child in a big store and feel so crappy it is scary, isn’t it?
For me thoughts run weird and uncontrolled through my mind. It’s similar to a panick attack which is hitting you out of the blue without upfront warning.
What if I would faint?
Would I fall in a direction, onto my child or just collapse – why did I put him in the carrier – he’s in danger if I faint – is my husband at work answering the phone if someone would call him now – what was that stabbing sensation in my left breast – who’s taking care of my son – or was it from the heart – how should he get up to here when I have the car – calm down, you won’t faint, it’s just too much milk – he will be completely scared if mommy isn’t there – get out here as fast as you can – now it seems to be better – no, the pain comes in waves – do I leave or grab some more milk, better go, right?
This is a thought-circle which I cannot stop at that moment although I know very well that instead of calming down it’s pushing me more into the panicking corner.
Am I the only one who has these thoughts?
We start to relax now, the fear subsides and life comes back, how glad I am today for this car. Sitting here is like a shelter, it’s our little place to securely and safe with locked doors get back to a normal state. I wrote in another post about our messy car but in exactly this moment I’m so thankful that we have everything inside that car – a blanket to cover my little boy who’s really sleepy now, a bottle of water for me to drink something while feeding him, I could even charge my phone if I want to but right now we are fine.
Who needs soup?
I put the sleeping precious milk vampire into his car seat, cover him with his elephant blanket, check my shirt if all is covered again before I leave the backseat and start the engine to drive us home.
Thanks for these days because sometimes I need exactly that to realize how blessed we are and how happy I can be that we have all these possibilities.
Are there still real blogs or is everyone sponsored?
I would lie if I wouldn’t think about sponsored blog posts, it’s nice if you get something for your work, isn’t it?
I mean, honestly, I write because I love to write and I publish my writing because?
Because I would love to start discussions, receive some feedback, connect with others BUT this won’t happen. It’s not happening because this tiny blog here is my hobby.
I’m not professional when it comes to setting up a blog because I have no time for it – I’m a mom, a full-time worker, a wife, a woman, I cannot be as professional as someone who works in that area.
But what I am, and this is something I can ensure, I am real.
So what? I am happy and thankful for the few readers I have and my eyes light up whenever I receive a comment on one of my posts because it’s something special.
I may not be perfect but who is?
What I wonder about indeed is this whole influencer story. What means influencer? I try to influence my readers, followers, friends, family, correct?
Do I want to influence or rather be someone who is showing reality?
This feeling that everyone recently is sooooooo excited and soooooooo in love with each and every new item is something I don’t believe.
Many influencers are sitting in their stylish clean designer house, they drive the newest car and have the happiest marriage, their kids are little dressed up mannequins and life is perfect. That’s what they show us.
But is that what we want to see? Really?
Where are the messy moms who barely are able to shower once per day because either a cranky kid is hanging on her leg or she is just too tired in the evening after a day full of work, grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking, kids and who prefer to spend an hour sitting on the floor building wooden castles instead of blow drying their hair for the perfect look?
Where are the wives with not so perfect marriages, the women who would love to wipe a shiny floor again for a YouTube video but who struggle to walk through the house without stepping on toys.
Where are all of you?
Don’t tell me I’m the only one with a messy life, the only one who dreams of a spa weekend (or better week) but who would miss her kids and her husband too much to leave them behind?
I think I knocked myself latest with this post out of the influencer circle unless there is someone out there who wants an authentic opinion.
I like that yogurt because I really like it or I don’t like the yogurt because it sucks. I can explain both scenarios, don’t worry, but I would not tell you it’s so delicious that I recommend it to everyone out there. Maybe you want a messy mom, then this here is my application.
A blog with a handful of real readers, a twitter account that is linked to everything I post but where I have no idea if someone indeed read something there, an Instagram account which I absolutely love and which has quite a decent number of followers but the majority of them is either sleeping 24/7 or lost their phones as interaction is rarely, ah, and my Facebook account, I love facebook but also there the interaction mainly takes place in secret mommy groups instead of public on my profile.
I can recommend everything I like and I indeed do and maybe even be able to influence, but I cannot sell a fridge to a penguin and I don’t want to do that either.
My baby is a kindergarten kid – when did that happen?
He was a tiny baby yesterday and today he is already staying a few hours alone in the kindergarten.
Alone, without me, without the one who was by his side since the day he was born.
I remember vividly how this tiny human being was laid on my chest and how good it felt.
My life changed in that second, profoundly; he is the most important person and only if he feels fine and has all he needs I feel fine.
My heart is walking outside of my body, this sounds strange but that’s exactly how it is when you are hit by a love so pure and unique.
And now we are at a stage where I have to leave him, that’s hard, for us, for him and for me.
He doesn’t understand why mommy is leaving, she has been there his entire life.
How can she smile and say goodbye? She’s saying she picks me up later but I have no idea what that later means. I just see her leaving and I don’t want her to leave.
And I, I have to smile and tell my baby goodbye, I see tears welling up because he doesn’t understand and I want to take him and hug him tight and whisper into his ear that all is fine and mommy is here.
Instead I smile and kiss him and leave.
The door closes and I listen, his crying never lasts long, he is quickly distracted by something they offer and I know he’s fine but still my heart aches.
He’s almost 18 months now, one and a half years old, when did that happen, I don’t know.
Motherhood is an amazing roller coaster journey and the speed is crazy.
One moment you find out that you’re pregnant and the next your child starts kindergarten.
Soak in every minute you have, these memories will last a lifetime and there won’t be something nicer than telling your child one day how it started to walk, to eat, when it had the first tooth or said the first word.
It is the most wonderful thing on earth to become a mom, I sign this sentence every second of my life because it is the ultimate truth!
But, and this but isn’t diminishing the overall happiness, there are times where you ask yourself how to move on. You will, so don’t worry, the question for me is always where the strength is coming from and I haven’t found an answer yet.
What nobody tells you is that you indeed will never sleep like before. Even if you are one of the lucky moms with sleep-through babies or toddlers, the sleep isn’t the same. If the neighbor 2 miles down the road opens a water bottle you will hear it. You are in an alerted state the whole night long, which indeed is great to protect your child. Whenever it breathes somehow strange for your ears you are wide awake.
I enjoyed the luxury of a full year staying at home with my baby and you think that will be like a long vacation – forget that.
Diaper changes are very frequent in the beginning and I mean frequent, as is the feeding routine. There were days where I was breastfeeding 24/7 (at least it felt like it). Spending 2 minutes on your own in the bathroom were the vacation.
Sports, your new hobby will be “running in circles” as this is what happens with a baby. Once you think all is done it will start all over again.
I love to read BOOKS and I always was in denial of getting a kindle or something similar because books need to be out of paper, live, smell. Did you ever try to read a book when the baby sleeps next to you? The light is too much, turning a page sounds as if you are reconstructing the bedroom while your baby should sleep, I’m so glad that I gave in and bought a kindle, otherwise I wouldn’t have read a page in a year.
Now that my baby is a walking toddler he discovers how to make fun of mommy and he’s doing things on purpose. Especially things he shouldn’t do at all. It’s driving you insane when you run after him for the same thing over and over again but the smile on his face because he has so much fun is worth all of it.
I loved every second when he was a baby and every time has its own enchantment.
Now with 14 months he comes on his own to give kisses and to snuggle and there’s nothing more lovely than tiny arms wrapped around your neck – this unconditional love you give from the second your child is born and even before is coming back to you. There is someone who loves you in the purest form of love and who trusts without boundaries.
Were there sleepless night, was their food on the floor, were there diapers everywhere as he found out how to open the diaper box, was there a phone in the toilet, were your keys in the trash bin? EVERYTHING is forgotten at those moments and you are again 100% sure that having a child is the one thing in life which you will always be most proud of and which was the best decision you’ve ever made.
The most important in my life is my son and his well-being – blessed with a wonderful childhood myself I’m trying my best to give him exactly this, a carefree time, building memories, trust, love, understanding, time, time to grow and to discover the world in his own speed, time to spend with his parents, a family, the feeling of being loved and wanted because that’s the truth.
It’s a whole new dimension in life when you become a parent – I thought I had a rough idea on how it would be but I was innocent, only when you are a parent you will be able to partly understand what it’s all about and even then you will doubt if you are doing all right and if you are a good parent.
Believe me, you are!
Our children know more than we do and these little souls know that we are giving all we can to make their life wonderful.
A day in the life of a working mum…without childcare
Let me show you a typical working day with a toddler at home.
8.00 am – 9.30 am – I actually work
9.30 am – the toddler wakes up
Washing him and changing diapers, breastfeeding, carrying him, sitting and rocking , playing, emptying the dishwasher, starting the washing machine, feed him, playing, answering the phone, breastfeed again, dressing him, reading mails in between, answering IMs from colleagues…
…and all of a sudden it’s 11.45 am.
He yawns.
So off to the bed, breastfeeding until he drifts off into sleep.
12.01 pm conference call
12.25 pm – the toddler (who found out recently how to leave the family bed on his own) taps into the room (seriously, only half an hour where I hoped for at least triple that time to get work done).
Breastfeeding number 4 – he still doesn’t want to eat, I tried.
I shift clothes from the washing machine into the dryer, make soap bubbles to entertain my son and try to answer some emails in between.
12.45 pm – I feel like a cow as he’s sitting on my lap latched again – number 5 for today and no end in sight. I truly love it but when you work you wish that he just eats his bread, yogurt, fruit, instead of occupying me every minute of the day (although he has the right for sure).
1.00 pm – my husband is home so that I can finally work properly at least for a while.
1.30 pm – I cooked pasta for my son with the end result that he ate exactly two while I ate the salad from yesterday evening.
It’s now 2.00 pm – I have a conference call soon that needs preparation (at 3.30 pm) and my lovely toddler sits on the floor beside me, makes noises with a paper box and yawns.
At least I can answer emails again – the sound would have disturbed me a year ago but hey, you’re getting used to focus even when it’s completely noisy around you.
2:30 pm – he ate a few bites of bread and the last was spit well chewed on the floor, and not on the wooden part, no, on the carpet so that I need to clean it with more efforts than on the wooden floor. Still no sign of being ready to sleep, I know after 14 months when it makes sense to lay down with him and when not. In his current mood we would spend an hour in the bed and he wouldn’t sleep so I let him play with the hope that he is soon really tired.
3.00 pm – less than 30 min left until my conference call and my toddler isn’t tired at all – the only option will be that he stays with his dad.
3:29 pm and he’s ‘talking’ loudly with his dad in the bedroom – I have a toddler resistant to sleep on some days. He will sleep, exactly then when we would like to go outside and do some grocery shopping.
Just happy that it’s Friday and this work week is almost over.
4.00 pm – he seems to sleep as I don’t hear anything but I can’t check as I need to jump from one conference call into the next, fortunately the last for today.
For this call I only need to listen so I can start to think about what to cook for dinner today and what we need to buy before shops are closing.
5.30 pm – I’m stuck in that call longer than expected and meanwhile all are awake again so I’m sitting on my desk with a muted headset, my son is running around and wondering what mommy is doing, breastfeeding number 6 for today (I’m not sure if I missed some already as it’s so normal these days) and I’m annoyed because I would give everything to just throw the laptop and enjoy the time with my family. But this job is paying lots what we love in our life and quitting is not an option, besides it is a great job at many times but just now I wish I would be a millionaire not caring for such things as conference calls.
Am I the only one or are other working moms also feel guilty not to be there 100% for their children. I’m apologizing so often to him although he won’t understand a word I’m saying that I still need to do this or that before we can play.
It’ll be past 6.00 pm when I finally am off work and then the private stress will start – what do we really need today, is there something that can’t wait until tomorrow? Cooking dinner is hanging like the Damocles sword above me because I long to have a bit time for NOTHING. No thinking, no you need to, you have to, have you already or when will you – just a quiet hour to recharge but that won’t happen until my son sleeps which recently is rarely before midnight.
I send this post now, unfinished, as the rest of the day until I will fall into my bed (or better until I try to go to my side of the bed without waking him up) I won’t find the time anymore. If I don’t send it now it may sit in my drafts for the next weeks.
That’s motherhood, a day of a working mom without childcare, a crazy day with a toddler, that’s my life and even if it is often beyond exhausting I would NEVER EVER change it back.
Stay strong – we are strong!
And stay away of the thought to be perfect, nobody needs to be perfect! My messy hair will be in a bun in 5 minutes to leave the house and if you look around then you will see many imperfections, so no worries. Most important now is a happy toddler and that’s why I’m off into the weekend now. Bye
I was practicing Yoga before pregnancy, almost until the very end of my pregnancy and I started about six weeks after birth again to roll out my mat and loved it but what happened then?
My baby started to move around. I think that was the point when I began to let go.
You prepare the place and it looks so inviting and before you start he wakes up after a 5 minutes nap that should have been a 2 hour nap.
And for sure you want your baby to grow and move and explore the world but not just at that moment when you are on your mat.
But that’s life – babies don’t care at all what you want and it is their right!
I’m always saying myself that I wanted him so much and that he deserves my attention. Life without him is unimaginable so what am I complaining about? But still, there’s a tiny voice inside of me saying that I deserve also some time for myself so I just started to check where to find this time because my yoga mat was invaded now by a toddler.
In general letting go is something wonderful, letting go old nasty habits, letting go people who stress you, letting go old wounds, letting go bad memories BUT why should I let go my personal realm?
I didn’t want to let it go, it just happened and I was too weak to scream STAY.
There were these endless nights of no sleep and days without one free arm, hours and hours of carrying a baby followed by hours and hours of breastfeeding. And then you see these super-fit moms on Instagram who breastfeed their babies while being in a state of complete relaxation while standing upside down – yes, this is what I needed to be more frustrated even.
We struggle more often than you can even imagine and all of a sudden the baby is asleep and then we worry if he or she is fine instead of using the time to relax, we think we need to be perfect but hey – we DON’T NEED to be perfect – we need to survive this crazy journey of being a mom to be there as we promised our babies in the very first second after birth.
“I’ll be there for you until the end of my life and beyond, my love for you will never die!”
My son is now 14 months and have no idea where all this love is coming from but I love him more each day although I thought it cannot be bigger than when we first met. BUT I am also tired on some days and stressed on others and sometimes both.
My Yoga practice is, let me call it, slightly irregular but I found out that I need less time to relax than before I was a mom. Less time because I know that I need to grab every second as this will be better than nothing so I relax while folding clothes, I relax while having a shower, I relax while being out for a walk when he sleeps, I relax these 5 minutes on the playground when he’s happily eating the sand again (it will improve his immune system, that’s what I tell myself because I cannot stop him anyway).
Today I had really time for yoga, my husband and my son had an afternoon nap and finally I rolled out my mat (to realize that I’m stiff like a wooden stick but who cares) and yes, it felt so so so good.
But more often the truth is that I try to squeeze in 5 minutes with a messy bun on my head just to have the feeling I haven’t lost my yoga at all.
I know that this is just a phase and that things change, until then I will embrace this motherhood exactly the way it is! Mostly the best ever and sometimes just beyond my strengths.
Stay strong dear moms out there because you know what – WE ROCK (no men can even imagine what we are capable of and we should be proud of ourselves!)
Standing on the mat for a few deep breaths is sometimes all we manage but that’s fine because we feel alive and know that one day these few deep breaths are just the start of a whole new yoga practice because our children grew up and we miss them on our mats so deeply.
I am thankful that I am experiencing all of this, even if it’s not easy from time to time, I just see my son and know it all is so worth it and everything happens for a reason!
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.
(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.
My son snores to my left and my husband snores to my right and instead of standing up I stay in the bed and start to read a bit.
This time is rarely recently with a toddler.
He slept so late last night and is giving his mummy some rest in the morning now.
We are always talking about the little lion but he already snores like a big one.
How I love Sundays – they belong to the family and it may sound old fashioned but as soon as you have a child/children you know what I’m talking about.
I don’t know yet what we will do today but what I can see through the closed curtains is that the weather is great.
I will wait for them to wake up and then we will decide together.
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.
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:
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.
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!
To give our ‘laziness’ a break we decided to spend our wedding anniversary in Pompeii and Naples. My husband’s birthday is one day before our anniversary so I tried to organize an ice cake the evening before to surprise him with at midnight.
That’s not an easy task when you are 24/7 more or less together but being pregnant I had always the excuse to go and check for a toilet. As much as I hated it, this time it was really good as an excuse.
When we were walking through Grosseto a couple of days before I’ve seen a small shop with wonderful ice cake creations (it’s a pity that I don’t remember the name, I would’ve told you but the struggle with pregnancy dementia is not a joke.) and as we were about to drive back to the apartment I ran there, asked them to put the ice cake on ice so that it’s not melted before we’re arriving and put it into the car before I went back to my husband.
I can tell you, that wasn’t easy, the most complicated part was not to buy all of them as they all looked so delicious and you know how it is, once you want something you can’t stop yourself from craving it so much that it hurts (and always say “It’s the baby, the baby wants it, not me.”).
Oh how I loved being pregnant – while writing down all these memories I cannot wait for having a second baby – it was such a wonderful time.
The birthday surprise was good as my husband really was wondering how and when I bought the cake – I love being able to surprise him like this.
We had a wonderful sunny day and planned the trip to Naples the next day.
Marzia was checking if her guests were happy and we told her that we leave the next morning not that she wonders why our apartment is empty for two days. It’s really as if you tell your family what you plan so that they won’t worry.
Lots of water to drink in the car and something to eat as well – we had 415 km to go and planned to drive early in the morning so that we arrive before the heat of the day would be there. What we underestimated is that the Naples region is again much warmer than the Grosseto region so we ended up with 39°C at noon.
Pompeii – my little baby deep inside my belly, Pompeii is a very special place because your mommy was soaking in everything she could find about the story of Pompeii and the archaeological site. It took her 37 years to finally be at the gates of this ancient city and sharing this with your daddy and of course with you is very special. Let’s have a wonderful afternoon in here and I promise I will rest in the shadow when I find shadow and drink lots so that you can swim happily deep inside my belly.
Hot, hot, hot, it looks as if we had chosen one of the hottest days of the year but when you think about the tragedy of Pompeii you start to shiver and inside a building where some of the people of Pompeii were laying even your blood freezes. It’s so interesting and sad at the same time. You can see a child buried in his father’s arm – the cruelty touches especially when you expect your own child.
I knew by then already that whatever happens I would throw myself in front of this baby no matter what but that these people had to do it because there was no other way out and even if they did all died in the end is a nightmare.
My dream of Pompeii was reality and I was standing there but besides all this bittersweet beauty of that place I was a bit disappointed – archaeologists work to uncover every tiny bit of this story but as a visitor you have no idea because the people who “run” this place seem not to care. I’m not sure if it’s the city of Naples that’s in charge or who it is but I would’ve been willing even to pay more entry if I would get more information for that.
There are streets, houses, gardens where certain people surely know who was living there, was that a bakery next to a butcher, where were the areas of the richer people, all these stories behind the stones are missing pieces from my point of view when you walk through Pompeii.
Where were the school and the senate? Did they had a public swimming area like there were in Rome?
These are the remaining parts – so cruel to see yet even more important to show that they all were human beings having a normal life.
If I would get paid I would move there for as long as it takes to work with the archaeologists, read the history in the files of the city, do research and create a way to guide the visitor’s through a Pompeii that’s full of life, through a Pompeii on the day before the Vesuvio erupted, on a normal day in the city. Oh what a dream this would be.
After a long afternoon we checked in at our hotel in Naples.
The hotel was nice and quite central but not easy to find and with an outside parking area which seems normal for Naples but is a bit scary when you know that Naples is a city full of crime.
Once there we showered off the dust of Pompeii and started relaxed into an evening of what? Of food…Naples is known as the birthplace of Pizza so we had to try Pizza but also some pasta and gelato.
After Pizza and Pasta we started to walk through Naples, we followed our heart, walking hand in hand, free as birds, stopped for ice cream, enjoyed the evening air which settled in and took a bit of the heat of the day away, we went into small streets where clothes were on lines between the houses like you see it on typical Naples picture. Naples is not only nice, it’s also dirty but we tried to ignore the fact as we wouldn’t stay long.
The three of us had a relaxed evening and slept great after such an exciting day.
On the next morning we started with breakfast in the hotel which I love while my husband hates it.
Before we left the room I had a green tea which started to become a daily habit to reduce my coffee intake during the pregnancy.
After that I has a buffet in front of me and I can sit hours to eat and have coffee and eat and enjoy the morning while my husband wants his coffee and that’s it.
Now with me being pregnant he couldn’t tell me I should eat quickly as our baby needs all the vitamins and of course a relaxed and happy mom.
Before we started to drive back to our apartment in Grosseto we enjoyed the morning in Naples and strolled through some shops, had a last coffee in this city and stocked up the water for our way.
All in all that was a great 2nd wedding anniversary and we may come back but only to show Pompeii to our child (or if they want me to work for the archaeological site 🙂 ).
415 km to go now – more of the Tuscany will follow in another post.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
