Trying to get out of the mud

I'm hesitant to start writing again. It's been such a long time... I've been reading all the blogs I follow, but mostly on my phone, and even though many times I'm thinking I should write a comment, it only rarely happened. I thought I would have more me-time once our oldest would start preschool and the baby would go to the sitter. That I would go out and find new work projects. But there was so much to unclutter first - the apartment, the admin, but especially my head... (I started playing Su.doku again, does that make any sense...?)

Our toddler has changed into a preschooler. It's amazing how a child can grow in such a short period of time. He loves it. It also wears him out (he goes there four days a week, of which two days are full days including 'cantine' and the two other days he has lunch at home), so it's good that he can recharge his batteries during the 2-week school holidays that will start this weekend.

Routine has changed too. We now cannot linger around in the morning, the school doors close at 8:40... If I'm lucky, hubby can walk our son to school and then take the bus to work. But more often than not he's either on a business trip or has an early morning meeting, so I'm left to drop off both kids. I don't do this by car or public transport. I don't walk either. I'm Dutch, so I do this by bike. But Holland is flat, and where we live it's not. I cannot afford an electric bike, so you get the idea where I get my work-out from every day (oh, and yes, after three of four times I decided I don't need to bother taking a shower before I drop the kids off...). First it's downhill to school (with a portion uphill too - either at the very beginning or at the very end, depending on which route I take), then back uphill to the sitter (she's in the complete opposite direction of the school, but I didn't want to start searching for a new sitter again when I'm very satisfied with this one - but yeah, organization-wise it's not the greatest solution). Then relatively flat back home (and to the shower).

It looks like this:

The baby is changing a lot too. He's sitting up by himself, army crawling and slowly getting on hands and knees (he makes about three to four moves before he goes back to army crawling). He eats everything you give him (all still pretty much in the baby food area) and is wearing the clothes his brother wore when he had already celebrated his first birthday (the baby is exactly nine months today). He is showing some signs of separation anxiety, but still smiles at everything. But of course no-one can make him laugh like his brother can.

There are many blog posts brewing in my head. It is my intention to finally write them down and bring this blog back to live. One step taken. I'm slowly getting there, now getting some paid work in would be nice too.