We are since two weeks in Italy and simply enjoy this first real family vacation and the dolce far niente (the sweetness of doing nothing) or dolce vita (sweet life) 😊
Here are a few impressions:
Tyrol – we are in Italy 
I and the doors – I love to take pictures of doors – this one is in Verona 
Verona Centro Storico 
Arena di Verona 
First steps into the sea
San Vincenzo Marina 
Livorno 
Near Volterra 
So much to discover in Volterra 
Pure Tuscany 
Alabaster near Volterra
Sunday Mornings
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.
I wish you a peaceful and sunny Sunday as well.
Take care!
This baby wasn’t meant to be
After 6 weeks in pink clouds and the most happy state I ever have been in with visits to the ultrasound, hearing a tiny heartbeat, seeing already arms and legs on a tiny embryo I started to bleed a bit.
That can happen and doesn’t mean something bad is going to follow.
In our case unfortunately something bad followed.
“There is no heartbeat!”
These words were touching me again at the core of my being like the positive test I held in my hand 6 weeks earlier – only this time it wasn’t the happy touch but the sad touch.
Our baby has no heartbeat anymore – we won’t have a baby boy or girl at the end of November around my own birthday, why is this happening, did I something wrong, is it my fault, all these thoughts were running wildly through my mind while my husband was asking what we need to do now, how will it go on, the little embryo cannot remain in my belly.
You get options and from the first second it was clear for me that there is only one option for me – let my body do the work. It’s a complete natural process and I didn’t want to go to a hospital, get a surgery with all those risks, I wanted the natural way to be sure everything else is still there and nobody cuts too much.
As we surely knew already then that this is not the end of our baby story and that a new pregnancy happens often soon afterwards this decision was easy made.
The coming weeks weren’t easy but worth it. I had time to let go, time to give my body the rest it needs, time to recover, physically and psychically.
After the so called little birth we went to the gynecologist to check if all is fine and yes, it was.
I have to say that I’m really proud of my body. A human body is a wonder, it can do much much more than we imagine. We should trust our bodies more often instead of going the way which looks easier. The little nest was empty, all that belonged to our baby was gone but the nest was still there and ready to be filled again.
This thought of having built a tiny cosy nest for a sibling was easing my mind and made sense. Our baby was surely not OK, otherwise it would’ve stayed to grow but it had a very important task in his/her life – it prepared a home for a brother or sister to settle in.
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.)
I’m happy when . . .
…whenever my husband is around me…
Not around me like a person who needs to make me laugh or as entertainment, no, it’s more the feeling of being sheltered, being around the person I love.
…when I have chocolate somewhere in my flat.
Chocolate makes happy and that’s true as I know I’m not happy if I want to have a piece and the box is empty.
…when the sun is shining.
Light, especially sunlight, is essential for me. Winter times are depressive as its dark and cold but as soon as I feel the warmth of sunlight on my skin in spring I’m happy.
…whenever I have nothing to do than relax and spend time on writing, sleeping, reading or listening to music.
There’s so much to do on normal working days that I cherish these happy moments.
…I finally bought the shoes I wanted so desperately.
Women, I know, but there are times when I see a pair of shoes and am unsure, then it seems as if they drop themselves into my view as I discover the same pair in several stores, as if they hunt me. When bought it makes me and my feet happy!
And what happens if you ask a man to finish the sentence – this is the answer from my husband:
…when I watch the final of the champions league and Real Madrid is beating Barcelona 6:0.
Enjoy and take care,
Miss Faith
What is happiness?
Why are people, who have less money, more happy than those who are having more?
Because they focus more on values which many of the more wealthy ones seem to have forgotten about.
What are the most important values in life?
Isn’t it mainly the people who surround you? I see so many running after the newest trends, if it’s electronic, fashion or cars, but what is it worth if no one is there to enjoy it with you? You could have the biggest house full of luxury up to the roof but if you are sitting there alone and sad it doesn’t matter at all. We are complaining so much although most of us have more than the majority of all people on this world is even able to think of.
We have homes and full fridges, showers or bath tubs, supermarkets around the corner, cars in front of our house or in the garage, a heater for cold days and air cons for hot days, enough money to at least afford a computer with access to the web, because if you are able to read my blog on the web you belong to this group of people too!
But still these persons who don’t have one single piece of it, who don’t know if they are able to feed their children the next day, who wear the same clothes since years because they have only this one pair of trousers, who never sat in a car or watched a movie on TV, seem to be more happy than many of us.
What is it the thing they don’t do? They don’t complain!
Instead they are thankful for what they have and cherish it.
These people stick together in good and in bad times, they support each other and share, even if there’s not much to share. And here we are, having enough to feed half of the city but still looking out for more.
Why don’t we start to appreciate what we already have, how lucky we should be to be born in countries which are not suffering poverty, war, epidemic plagues, suppression…
I realize in myself that for instance if I am cooking something which turns out to be so nice I don’t like to eat it alone. It’s making me happier if I can share it with someone. And that’s just a small example.
Sometimes, when I switch randomly through TV channels, I stop fascinated at documentations about different peoples and how they live. You can go from Asia to Africa, from the south pole to the north pole, all poor countries where the people mostly need to fight for survival, exactly there you see the brightest smiles and lots of laughing eyes shining brightly. Communities which care for each other, each single person is valued as member of the society…
I don’t want to start now and say that we all have to share all we have or to get rid of our luxury life to live in poverty but what we need to do is to stop complaining and appreciating our life.
We are blessed because we were born in countries without many of these problems. That doesn’t mean our life’s are free from problems but compared to others we are truly blessed.
Just cherish the day and say thanks.
