#MicroblogMondays: Staycation

Start of the 2-week school holidays. The living room has been taken over by the boys...

#MicroblogMondays is another great idea from Mel at Stirrup Queens. Join in!

#MicroblogMondays: La Rentrée

Is summer vacation for a mother of small children ever really relaxing? We had lots of fun, but I can't say I was rested upon return (especially since M. Gourmand thought it was too much trouble going to the bathroom on the campsite - so much easier to let mommy clean up the mess… I must admit I threw away a few undies…).

Today the second week of school started with both boys attending. Last week I immediately noticed how much easier life is for the younger child. School was already familiar to him, while his brother had again to navigate a new situation as his Kindergarten class is located in the building of the elementary school - so tears for M. Sensible, big smile for M. Gourmand (who has everybody's favorite teacher as well so how can you not smile).

I now have at least my mornings back (and who knows, maybe also my blog?) - and some part of the afternoon too as M. Sensible stays at school all day and M. Gourmand takes long enough naps for me to get some work done. If I get as far as to revive my Cultural Differences series, there will certainly be a post on the topic of "La Rentrée" too.

#MicroblogMondays is another great idea from Mel at Stirrup Queens. Join in!

Cultural differences - summer break

Welcome to the fourth installment of my monthly cultural differences series! I've missed two months (oops) with no real excuse other than that I've had the kids 24/7 all summer and not much time to blog.

It's August. We're in France. which means...

If you want bread, you have to walk the extra mile to a bakery that's open. The market is half the size it usually is. Don't try to find a doctor or a dentist. But if you want to park your car in the streets, don't worry about not having enough change - it's free this month. The city is deserted, everyone is at the beach.

When we just moved here we went on vacation in September and were a bit surprised that we only met retired people. Turns out that even people with small children that aren't tied to a school schedule yet will be on vacation in August because daycare centers are closed for the entire month and many sitters will be away too (our sitter, who is Portuguese, spends the entire month in Portugal - and the first Saturday of her vacation in a traffic jam on the high way).

Of course, historically, this is probably due to harvest time - everyone had to go harvest the crops in August so everything else had to shut down. But if I ask friends or colleagues why the entire country still goes en masse on vacation in August, they look at me as if I'm crazy, say 'well, it's always been this way / we don't know any better' or 'well, the industry closes (but if I ask why they don't have an answer to it!), so I have less work in August, so I might as well take my vacation then). School is out in the entire country from the first Saturday in July until the first Tuesday in September (for other school holidays the country is divided into three zones to try to avoid overly crowded high ways and resorts - or to give the tourist industry a longer period of higher income, however you want to look at it), but the family vacation is always in August - kids of working parents will go to their grandparents or summer camp in July.

The first Saturday in August is called "black Saturday" on traffic reports. It means everyone is standing still on the highways going south. (This year we thought we could go south the Friday before to celebrate my dad's birthday - it took us 6 hours instead of 3.5 - and that day was only classed as "orange").

Since we have kids and are more or less tied to the sitter's vacation schedule, we have been taking vacations in August, but still trying to avoid the huge crowds (so you won't find us at the Mediterranean beach then). This year we have a bit of a hap-snap vacation but will be going to the mountains next week, when the rest of the country is going back home to stock up on school supplies for "la rentrée des classes" (which will be the topic of my next Cultural Differences installment).

Is there a specific summer period when most of the people in your country take vacation or is it more spread out? Any other specifics to summer vacation time you know of?

Summer - part 1

I don't want to start each blog post with an apology for my absence, but truth be told I can't believe it's been almost two months since my last post!

School has been out since July 6th - and there was no better way to celebrate it than with M. Sensible's 4th birthday! We had seven of his friends over and they were having lots of fun in the garden, especially with the water hose. Around 6 pm the parents  came back and stayed for a BBQ and we all had lots of fun. The house was a mess afterward (almost more grass inside than outside) and we battled mosquitoes all night because we had left the screen doors (well, they're not really doors, they're screen frames, attached to the window/door frames with velcro) open, a small price to pay for such a good time.

Two days later we went to my dad's second home in the South of France for a week-long vacation. It was blistering hot, but thankfully the house has a pool. M. Gourmand came down with a fever the next day and in the evening we got a call from a doctor from some regional health agency informing us that a classmate of M. Sensible had been hospitalized with meningitis so we had to make a doctor's appointment for the next day to get a prescription for a preventive antibiotics treatment for M. Sensible. Of course I flipped a little bit with M. Gourmand having a fever and not knowing if the little boy had been at M. Sensible's birthday party... (the doctor wasn't allowed to say the boy's name - I found out via another mom who had heard from the teacher, and no, the boy hadn't been at the party). Luckily M. Gourmand was fine again the next morning, both boys were in great shape, so we weren't too concerned when we went in for the appointment. The doctor first started to lecture us about various forms of meningitis, viral and bacterial, and then the different bacterial types - as if we were all overreacting - but he quickly changed his tone when he had talked to the agency's physician on the phone. So he gave M. Sensible a quick check-up (but M. Sensible still managed to kick and scream...), wrote out the prescription and off we went. The rest of the week was pretty uneventful and relaxing.

I'd tried to contact the little boy's mother a few times but she wouldn't answer the phone so we had no idea how the boy was doing but luckily yesterday and other mom had crossed her with her kids at the market and the boy is fine! It turned out to be viral after all (although in the beginning they thought it was bacterial and of the meningococcal variety and he had spent one day in quarantine).

We'll take some more vacation in August (like real French people! - a good topic for a next Cultural Differences post) but unfortunately one of hubby's projects has changed its schedule (obviously this project is not in France...) and he now probably has to work exactly at the same time as our vacation. This really sucks for several reasons but mostly because it means that he won't really have time off and he's close to a burn out, so he really really needs some time off...

Summer

My two kids have been kicking my ass these past few weeks. I've composed many blog posts in my head but there was never a time when I had enough energy to turn them into something real.

So... I guess I'm resorting to some bullet points before I will write something eloquent again (which might not be before September).

The highlight:

• Celebrating the toddler's 3rd birthday at the beach. It was gorgeous weather and there were enough adults present that there was always someone to run after the toddler or cuddle with the baby, so mommy had a great relaxing day too. 

The good:

• Our three-week vacation in Holland. Better weather than predicted, bike fun with the kids and seeing the toddler fall in love with the sea.
• Meeting fellow blogger Valery
• Starting the baby on solids - and especially being able to go to the market and buy all the great summer fruits and veggies and turning them into baby food! So far he loves carrots, green beans, zucchini, peach, nectarine and apricots. 
• Switching from breast to bottle. After initial refusal (which made me a bit nervous, because he had taken the bottle occasionally before without problems and now that I wanted to start the switch he didn't want to anymore - but it only lasted a few days). Still nursing mornings and evenings but very briefly. Seems the baby's now getting frustrated with how much effort it takes to get something out of the breast, while the bottle is quickly gulped down.
• Apart from the teething episodes (see below), the baby is slowly starting to sleep longer stretches at night. 
• My sister and her family arriving in the area (and staying for a few weeks).

Edit: the switching from breast to bottle should actually be under its own header called 'bittersweet'. The switch is complete now. I'm happy it wasn't such a struggle as with our first one, but still have very mixed emotions about being done with it. 

The bad:

• Baby's tooth #1 and #2 breaking through. Lots of horrible screaming, especially at night. And I'm thinking #3 is on its way too, because he's still very fussy and refused to eat his veggies two days in a row.
• Toddler deciding a good way to get his mom's attention is to start wetting his pants again... (at the sitter's he is completely dry, all the time). I've started with reducing time he can watch videos on my phone, but I think I need to take more drastic measures - taking away his pacifier (yes, he still has one, ugh) might work better.
• Toddler being wide awake at 6:30 am, tugging at my arm and telling me to get up because it's light outside, after a night where the baby would have woken me up at least three times.
• General sleep deprivation - I just don't want to be this tired anymore.

While most of the French have now gone on summer holidays, we're staying here until the 21st, when we will go camping for ten days near the Mediterranean (giving the toddler some more sea/beach time). My sister will be in the area until the 17th. She has done a home-exchange with people in the area and that house has a pool, which is great. I'm a little nervous about the camping, with the baby still not sleeping through the night (how on earth am I going to give him a warm bottle in the middle of the night...? will the kids be able to take an afternoon nap in a tent? etc) but also looking forward to some real family time again.

I have this idea about doing a blog post series about cultural differences. Hope to start that sooner than later, but I won't promise anything...

Recap of the past month

Thankfully the heat wave is over! After a short and pretty mild thunderstorm cool air is flowing into our apartment again.

Our vacation didn't exactly go as planned, but was really nice nonetheless. It started with a drive up north (not all the way to Holland, but to Belgium) to celebrate my husband's uncle 50 years of priesthood. It was nice but also a bit weird - to hubby's uncle, his brothers are clearly more like family than his real family, which is understandable, but makes these celebrations in a way a bit awkward as well. But it was good to see the family, even though most things stayed pretty superficial (which was OK with me, no need for another fight between hubby and his sister).

After that we drove a few hours south, to a chic Parisian suburb, where my sister was staying with her family (they had done a house exchange for the holidays). The weather turned a lot better and it was great fun seeing our toddler interact with his cousins (whom he doesn't see that often as they live in California).

Then the plan was to drive in the direction of Bordeaux, where we would exchange our car for my dad's camper van (who was already vacationing with his girl friend there), take a 10-day trip with the camper van, after which we would return it to my dad at our home. But, my dad got sick. It wasn't very clear what kind of infection he had picked up, and whether it was viral or bacterial, but the main message was "your daughter can come visit but there should be no contact". Well, that seemed super artificial to us (and try to tell our toddler that he cannot hug his granddad, or maybe he can, but if he does, he cannot be held by his mommy anymore? Not a good idea). So we made the decision to cancel those plans, go home first, and then see from there what we would do.

I must say that the whole idea of going back home made me feel pretty miserable. I was supposed to be on holiday! But once we were back home, having our own things, sleeping in our own bed, it wasn't that bad after all. Also because by the time we were back, we had made a plan what to do next: we decided to stay home for a few days, let a cold/rainy front come through and once the sun would come out again, we would put our tent and other camping gear in the car and drive two hours to a valley we'd passed through a couple of times on our way south (via country roads) and had fallen in love with.

If we ever win the lottery, we want to live here...

So off we went. The surroundings were even more beautiful than we remembered, the campsite was nice, but the first night was interesting! I had consulted the weather forecast for the area, but only looked at day temperatures, which were really nice and warm. However, the first three nights were cold! Our poor son woke up the first night because his sleepsack and summer PJs were just not warm enough. We took him between us where he fell asleep immediately again, despite our air mattress slowly getting softer and softer, until we were on the ground! I also felt some leg cramps (which were horrible during my first pregnancy) coming up, but fortunately they stayed pretty mild and were manageable. So the next day we went to the store to buy a warm camping sleeping bag for our son and a new air mattress for ourselves, because despite having a repair kit handy, we couldn't find the leak!

The following days and nights were much better, even though our son was suffering from two emerging molars, and winced every time we had to wipe his red butt. Being pregnant while camping had its challenges too: I decided to stop taking my anti-constipation medicine, because it made me go to the toilet a bit too often. And speaking of toilet, of course I woke up in the middle of the night having to pee - quite an excercise, but oh well, luckily it was only once a night (and the stars were beautiful!).

All in all we had a lovely week, but when we came home we were also very glad to find our own bed again, having a fridge, and not having to bend over a tiny cooking stove when preparing meals.

Then the work crisis hit that I wont' bother you with.

And finally we did manage to meet up with my dad and his girl friend. They drove up with the camper van to a campground near our city and we spent last weekend with them, which was really nice. They're now on their way back to Holland.

And to finish this post, yesterday was my third OB appointment (at 18w1d) and both the bub and I are doing great! I didn't get any of the measurements other than the upper part of my BP (110) and my weight (again +2 kg from last month's appointment, so +4 kg in total), but everything was fine. Got to hear the bub's heart beat via the doppler which was wonderful. The OB was somewhat surprised that I already felt movement (since around week 15) and remarked that my belly had really popped (it has). She also had my T21 results: 1/617 (threshold is at 1/250). Maybe not super great numbers, but better than the result with my first pregnancy (which was somewhere around 1/450) which turned out fine and the OB told me there's no reason to worry, and I agree. So everything is going well! I just have to go to the lab early next week again for monthly blood and urine work and then the next OB checkup and ultrasound will be on September 19.

I'm back and will update soon

Sorry for the radio silence. I've been back home for a week now, but got into a work crisis right away (so bad that almost walked off the project), not a really nice way of coming back from vacation I must say... Fortunately we were able to work it out and all is OK again.

Currently suffering through a heat wave (38 degrees Celsius outside, 28 degrees Celsius inside with all the blinds and windows closed - no A/C obviously). Should be over by Friday. Went to the OB for a checkup today. All is well. I will write more about that and give a little recap of our summer holidays tomorrow evening.

Have been reading my blog list via google reader so am pretty up-to-date on what's going on with all of you, now only have to go back to commenting (but you're all in my thoughts!!).

Sick (+ jet lag)

Wow, I've been wanting to post forever, but oh well, things happened... First we went on a 2-week vacation to the US! Yay! Visiting my sister + family in California for 8 days while I was still allowed to travel on airplanes and before my miles would expire and then on the way back a few days stopover in Chicago to visit old friends and colleagues.

All great, except that, I always, really always get sick after visiting my sister (or better, my niece and nephew), and this time was unfortunately no exception. The kids were coughing and sneezing already when we got there, but I tried hard not to get infected - so refused all the food my niece lovingly offered me after she had taken a bite first and taking some homeopathic stuff as preventive mesure, but alas, to no avail... I still felt relatively OK when we left for Chicago (just a bit of a weird-feeling throat every now and then), but add a germ-infested plane ride, one day getting soaking wet by the constant downpour in the Windy City, not getting enough rest (you want to see everyone, right?), and by the time we left I was already coughing pretty badly. The 9-hour plane ride home of course didn't help one bit and by the time we were finally home I my whole body hurt and my sinuses were completedly blocked.

The cough is horrible and I feel very guilty towards my baby who's getting all these nice belly contractions thrown at him every time I have a fit, and it keeps me from sleeping well (add to the jet-lag which already makes for weird nights and strange sleeping hours).

I went to see my general practitioner on Monday afternoon. Felt like the flu, but without the fever (although my temperature is elevated but just not quite that high), eyes were glued shut in the morning (yuck!), and the coughing's just unbearable. She gave me prescription for cough syrup, eye cleaner, tylenol, nose spray, and antibiotics, just to be sure.

Couldn't start with the antibiotics until Tuesday afternoon, because I had my 6-month glucose test scheduled for Tuesday morning (more on that in a next post). Also had my 24-week checkup yesterday, so not much time to rest, but today I finally caught up on some sleep, between the coughing. First didn't think that I was improving anything at all, but this afternoon realized that I no longer have the feeling my whole body hurts, so that's already a good thing. Now if only that stupid cough would go away soon, that would be so nice (and I'm sure my baby will appreciate it too!)...

OK, it's well past my bedtime (you see, I'm still not over this jet-lag, I just had dinner 1 hour ago). So posts about 24w-checkup and awards (thanks Emily!) have to wait until tomorrow. Hubby should be home soon from his business trip. I got him all worried this afternoon because I hadn't heard my phones (both home and cell were on vibrate and I was coughing too much to hear them from the other room), so when I finally answered after he'd already tried four times, he was almost mad. I felt very bad for him and apologized profusely (as much as his dying phone battery allowed).

Back home

We're back from Switzerland, where we had a wonderful time in the snow with the family. I'm pretty tired from the 6-hour drive, so not much to say at the moment, apart from wanting to wish you all a very happy 2009 - may all your dreams come true!!

On the road - part 2

Today we're leaving Holland, but we're not going home yet. We're making a bit of a triangle road trip this vacation and will go to my other SIL and her family in Switzerland to celebrate the New Year.

So it's going to be a long day in the car again (about 10 hours), but it's always great fun with the family in Switzerland. They live in a small village at the end of a road, with two donkeys, lots of chickens (so super fresh eggs!), three cats and two bunnies, and with great views of the snow-capped mountains. My hubby has brought his skis, but even though I'm an avid skier, I'm not going to risk anything, so I'll walk this time...

Dutch skies

Well, our road trip was long but went well and we arrived safely at my parents' place yesterday evening. The stopover in Paris was actually kind of fun, I got to sit in at my hubby's meeting which turned out to be a 2.5 hour crazy creative brainstorming session between some very intelligent people. We also had found a parking space pretty easily. The only bad thing was that the meeting was around lunchtime, but there was nothing to eat or drink, so when we finally got back into the car and could have a sandwich and some water, I had a pretty bad headache which lasted for the rest of the day...

So we're now in Holland for a week. It's always good to be back. Everything is so familiar. The Dutch skies are great (although there are no 'typical' Dutch skies - i.e. lots of big clouds, see 17th and 18th century paintings from the Dutch masters - today, it's clear and sunny). My parents are of course also very happy to see us and want to check out my (still hardly visible) tummy. My grandmothers will come tomorrow, so we can show off some u/s pics again. :-) We'll also try to see some friends again this week, always a bit of an 'issue' when we go back to Holland: you try to see as many friends and family members as possible, which then means you're just running and driving around like crazy to do this in the few days you have available and you are completely exhausted when you're back home. And if you don't do it, some people feel 'left out' because you didn't visit them while you were in the country... The best solution is actually to tell everyone to go to a certain place at a certain date and time, so you'll see everyone at once. But that's not always possible (or we forget to organize it beforehand, which is more often the case).

On the road

Today we're driving to my parents in Holland for Christmas, 9-10 hours on the road. Normally I quite like road trips, but we've done this stretch already so many times that I'm not really looking forward to it, although today we'll have a change of scenery because we have to go via Paris instead of Luxembourg. 'Have to' because hubby told me he has a meeting with an architect... As he'd been traveling like crazy for the past couple of weeks, he didn't want to go there on Saturday (2 hours by high-speed train) and come back the same day, but prefers to 'conveniently' combine it with our trip up north.

He had mentioned this possibility a week ago already, but was then still leaning towards going there and back on Saturday. Then this week he said his boss would go, so I was relieved. But of course the boss is a smart-ass and doesn't want to work the weekend before Christmas, so now hubby has to go. In a way he even likes it, because the architect specifically asked for him (and he thought his boss would be unhappy about that), so he's kind of flattered...

From here to Paris is 4 to 5 hours by car. The meeting will probably start around noon, so that means we have to leave around 7 am (if we would have taken our regular route, we could have left around 10 am and still be at my parents' place in time for dinner), hopefully find a secure place to park our fully loaded car somewhere in central Paris (when I mentioned that to hubby he was like 'oh, no problem, it's Sunday'. Yes, but it's the Sunday before Christmas which means all the shops will be open - normally not the case in France - and it'll be very busy!), hope the meeting doesn't last longer than two hours (and what am I going to do in the meantime? I know, I shouldn't say this, many of you might trade in a lot for two hours in Paris) so we can get going again, don't get stuck too long on the 'péripherique' to get out of the city and hopefully still arrive on time in Holland for dinner (another 5 to 6 hours).

Pfff, I'm exhausted already (and I probably have to catch up on IComLeavWe tomorrow)!