4701

4701, love of my life and father of my children, etc. etc. etc., has written a bit about the stuff we went through last week.

You can read it *here*

I would like to thank you all for the kind e-mails you sent. /kiss

Kruidnoten

I'm sitting here eating kruidnoten and flipping through ravelry.
M. is on his way to his parents house after a call from his brother. My father in law, who is very ill is having trouble breathing and the future doesn't look good.

So to take my mind of of things I'm looking at knittingpatterns. Silly how they can always calm me down. I guess it is the preciseness of the way stit

ches come together

to form something.

While browsing my eye fell on this stunning beauty:

You can find out more about it *here*, it is a kit from knitpicks

OMG! Isn't that lovely? I'm glad it is a bit too expensive at the moment 'cause otherwise I might be tempted and that would be a bad thing since a) a bag like this would be a waste with all the kiddystuff that would find its way in and on it. And b) I don't have the quiet time at the moment to knit something that requires this level of precision.

But gosh, it sure is stunning.

M. just texted: he has arrived at his parents house. I think will go to bed now, who knows what tomorrow will bring...

Shame

I'm ashamed to admit it but I think I really want a cargobike. *runs and ducks for cover*

I know, I know... I've always said that cargobikes were only for perfect mothers in Amsterdam who want to be hip while blocking all the traffic with cargobikes they only use for showing off.

But you know what? I've changed my mind.

We don't own a car so I drive around town with two children on my bike a lot. Most of the time there are not only two children strapped in a front- and backseat but also two bags filled with groceries hanging from the steer and a bag filled with all the stuff that somehow need to accompany a baby and a toddler in the front basket.

That makes for a kinda wobbly total. And I don't mean the kind of wobbliness that also seems to come with having a baby and a toddler.

No, while I'm bravely risking all three our lives in the less than friend

ly traffic of our hometown I look like I've hit the sherry a few hours to early. Which I might have, being the desperate housewife that I am, but that is a whole other story.

It comes down to this: a cargobike would really be an improvement. It would be saver, more practical, better looking and yes I admit waaaaay cooler.

I mean, look at it! This is a version that would fit our narrow storage room but it still has enough room for two children and the groceries. It is a bakfiets.nl and as far as I know this brand is durable, safe and not as crappy as some of the cheap chinese cargobikes that are being sold.

But the price....the price.... Even combined with trading in the bike I now have and/or buying a secondhand cargobike it is still a huge amount of money to spend. Oh well, I guess I will just have to start saving so I can buy one by the time my eldest will start attending school!

Wealth

I like big butts and I cannot lie

Well.... THIS kind of big butt that is!

The kind of big butt that makes you want to run over and smack it just to hear the owner of the BB giggle like crazy.

Disposable diapers just don't give that kind of satisfaction if you know what I mean.

Don't

get me wrong, I understand all the reasons why you would want to use diposables. My eldest daughter has been wearing them from birth, apart from a very short per

iod in which we used washables only to run screaming back to the pampers and huggies.

All that rinsing, washing and drying... All those smelly diapers everywhere... the leaking, the terrified baby's who are completey immobilized by their huge bums... No sir, that sooo NOT my cup of tea!

But then I discovered that the diapers I tried out were kinda...you know... oldfashioned (sorry mom!). They were made of 100% cotton with a poor fit and a huge seperate cover that leaked like crazy. They also looked really boring. I know that's one of the most stupid reasons to like or dislike somthing that is made to be covered by clothing most of the time and that is also used to absorb POO. But hey, I'm a sucker for anything colorfull and I hate anything white and boring.

So after daughter number two suffered from her weekly severe diaperrash topped off with her fourth painfull yeastinfection I decided to give the new generation of washables a try again.

The plan was to use a few every day and to combine that with disposables for the night and the trips outside the house.

It only took a day or two before she was in a washable diapers24/7.

Forget the endless soaking and rinsing. Forget the endless lines of drying diapers. Forget the boring white babybums. And most of all: forget the huge amount of disposables that you are carrying into your house every week, only to carry them out a couple of days later.

I'm not really an environmentalist (not that I don't care about the environment, I'm just not that much of an activist) but It really shocked me to see the huge decrease in garbage we throw away every day. Most of our trash consisted of diapers, think of what a HUGE pile of smelly filthy trash that makes in a year... Let alone all the diapers of all the baby's in this country...

Through the months I collected 30+ diapers from several different brands. Most of them are secondhand, some of them brandnew. All of the are extremely easy to use and best of all: my little girl hasn't had a single sore spot on her bum.

Yesterday I realised that the complete diaperstash was clean and dry, apart from the one that was on my daughters smooth and painfree bottom.

So I let my eldest daughter sort and stack all the diapers (she had so much fun) and I took a picture to show you how colorfull diapers CAN be!

See those polkadotted ones on the second pile from the right? Don't you just love those?! They are ittibitti's and they are made of a very soft minky/plush fabric. My daughter is wearing a pink one in the top picture.

I know, I know.... I can almost hear you thinking: "yeah, those are cute as a button but they still need WASHING!!!"

Yes. They do. But since having two children gives a huge pile of laundry even without the use of washable diapers I almost never have a complete machineload of diapers. I just throw the used diapers in the closed pail in the bathroom (no soaking, just throw them in dry after shaking out the poo in the toilet) and everytime I load up the washingmachine I throw in a couple of diapers. Only the real dirty ones get a washingcycle of their own.

If I'm lazy, like I am most of the time, I throw them in the dryer but I try to save a bit of money and some trees by drying them in the sun outside.

Most of the diapers we have are pocketdiapers which means that they consist of a waterproof layer on the outside and a fleecelayer on the inside between which you can place an absorbent inlay made of microfiber, cotton, bamboo or hemp.

Because you seperate the inlay and the outer diaper both of them are dry in a couple of hours. I put the inlay back in the diaper and then they are ready to use again.

It might still sound like a lot of work but the truth is that loading and unloading the washer and dryer and restuffing the diapers only takes a couple of minutes every few days. Not more then it would take to pick up, store and throw away a pack of disposables.

If you are interested in trying out washables for yourself, Twinkleontheweb might be a good place to start. They have a survey you can fill in to see what kind of diaper might suit you and your family best. There are also some dutch store selling washables but unfortunatly diapers are considered a luxury here in the Netherlands so they are incredibly expensive compared to diapers (or should I say nappies!) bough

t in the UK.

One last pick to win you over!

vroooooom...

Glendora and Barber are moving in to their new appartement this weekend. Or so they say.

My eldest daughter is not so sure about that, according to her "sankenlaures" are living in our legobox, from where they cruise around the livingroom a couple times a day in their brand new convertible.

scallopini

Sometimes when children do this:

parents can do this:



(notice the weird way I cut out the photo? that's because there was no way to get our haphazardly served chicken scallopini NOT to look nice like barf on the photo. But it tasted great and it didn't look anything like barf in real life. I swear!)

Facts of the day

Sun

The ducklings, pardon me as I borrow the name OfficeMan gave them, got new necklaces. Amber is supposed to help with the pain of teething but even if that doesn't work (and in the case of the big duckling it is not really an issue anymore), I think they look absolutely stunning on little children.
And on big children, and grownups and old people and dogs and cats and on about everyone.
Amber is just reeaaalllyy pretty. It's distilled sunlight, that's what it is. It makes me feel all warm and happy and seeing my children wear it makes me even warmer and happier.

For those of you who are easily worried (hi Officeman!): the necklaces the ducklings wear are especially made for childrens. They break easily in case of an emergency and all the beads are seperated by individual knots so there will never be more than one stray bead in case the necklace breaks. It is also too tight for them to get their hands caught.

We had a blast just sitting in the first real rays of sunlight of this year, reading a book, making pictures and tickling the little duckling while she tried to nurse, laugh and roll at the same time.

wrapheaven

This week I'm in wrapheaven. I sold a wrap (didy waves sinfony 7), giving me the resources to buy one back.
I also had one of those impulsvictories where you check the wrapsection on german ebay out of habit, see a limited edition wrap that will auction off in two minutes and think "what the heck, I'll just make an absurd low offer".
I ended up being the highest bidder so that was wrap number two for this week.

And to top it off, M.'s grandma send me some money for my birthday and combined with another birthdaygift I all of the sudden could buy myself a brand new, crisp out of the box wrap.

I swear, I giggle everytime I think about all those nice fluffies coming this way. Is that childish? I guess it is.
But hey, at least my collection is there for a good cause. The youngest daughter is a happy, smiling baby but only when she can be very *very* close to me for the biggest part of the day. Otherwise she panicks.
So she is in a wrap or sling for hours every day and she sleeps next to me so she can nurse when needed. Not that she does that at night, to my big surprise. I guess that the possibility for her to do so and the knowledge that I'm that close to her are giving her enough confidence to sleep until morning.

Having to babywear though most of the day makes it necessary to have a few wraps and/or slings. To exchange in case of babyspit, the need for another method of wearing or just because you would like another color for the day.
Wraps are more like clothing to me than most of my clothing is, at the moment, so I'm happy with my stash of fluffy goodness!

Anyway (can you see that both children are sleeping, there is nothing better to do that sit quietly and ramble away on my blog!), Storch Ulli 4.6 (yes!!!! finally!!!) and impuls didymos indio tulpe 4.2 are on their way.
Didymos woolen indio in the yummy color zinnober arrived this morning, together with eldest daughter's first didymos wrap. You can never start to early, eh?!

To quote her: "a parcel, a parcel, a parcel, a parcel!!!! I think it is for me, mum!!!! It is NOT a wrap! it is for ME and it is NOT A WRAP"

oops.... I think she's a bit sick of parcels that contain those boring wraps instead of nice presents for her!

But unfortunately for her:
However, the disappointment was gone when it turned out that there was indeed a present for her!

Her very own didymos katja dollwrap. Don't you just love that colorway?
The best part for me, however, was the lovey soft and squishy wool wrap inside the box.... Oh man.... it is every bit as wonderfull as I hoped it would be.

Thin and supple, yet supportive. And it has that great ability that wool has of being warm and cosy without being too warm. Love it!

It was really hard to get a nice actionpicture since both girls were screaming their lungs out so this will have to do ;)
The color is hard to describe. I thought it would be either a horrible shade of orange or very salmonpinklike so I planned to dye it pink.
But it is just perfect as it is, a lovely earthy reddish orange.

Wish I may, wish I might..

Wishlists. They feel greedy and wrong and I hate making them.
But since a few people asked me to make one decided to try real hard to find a few thing that I would really like to have and that for some reason I won't buy myself.
Either because they are too expensive, stupid and boring to buy or because I just keep forgetting them.
I guess those are not really great reasons to put stuff on a wishlist since I don't want people to feel obligated to buy me expensive and/or boring stuff! Truly, I don't want people to feel obligated to buy me anything at all but if people really want to buy something it is nice for them to have at least a bit of a clua about what I like.

So here we go!



Storchenwiege Ulli 4.6 meter. It is "just" a storch but I can't keep myself from drooling over it. It would look so good on me and the girls and breaking in a new storchenwiege is one of the most rewaring thing to do.

natural, undyed Bluefaced Leicester wool, Aran weight. Mmmmm.... Scrumptious!

Nigella Lawson: how to be a domestic goddess. I can't stand her fake fridgegrazing. No woman looks that sexy while plundering the fridge or cupboard for food. No way. But her cooking is lovely and I like reading recipes.

addi click set . Yup, I'm a knittinggeek. And a knittingsnob as well, 'cause Addi is the only brand of needles that I like (and who doesn't, really).

lusherdelushlush. Anything that doesn't involve a bathtub will do

aga cooker (Told you so, expensive! But hey, just in case one of you happens to stumble upon a biiiiiig pile of money I better put it on the list ;D I really miss the aga we had when I was a kid. It got sold when my parents divorced, blugh.)

Senseo-thingy to use two pads at the same time. Yeah, yeah.... I drink the dreaded senseocoffee. And even worse: I like it :P I do however dislike the tiny portions. I want big mugs full of coffee and using two pads at the same time will make it possible to have something that comes close to a buig mug full ;)

load and reload van metallica. Major trip down memorylane!

Robin Hobb: Fool's Errand, Golden Fool, Fool's fate. Paperbacks please :) I'm rereading the whole Fitz and lifeshipscycle and since I borrowed the books the first time and they moved with my sister to Denmark.... I guess this is one of those boring gifts!


Enough for now, I feel bad allready although it was quite fun to actually try to think of stuff!

Happy birthday to me!

I know I said that I would stay away from the personal stuff on this blog but since this is an easy way to reach the people I want to reach I hereby make an exception to invite anyone who wants to come to my birthday sunday march the 8th.