Constantly scribbling from Manila to Amsterdam
Marlon and I finally got to do the one thing we’d been itching to do since painting the chalkboard wall in Tala’s nursery: draw on it! It only took one rainy afternoon (lots of those in Amsterdam) to turn our blank “canvas” from this…
into this.
Want a closer look at the details?
Tala is two months old!
Well, yesterday really. But what the hey.
So many changes in the past month. Physically, she’s begun to feel grow heavy and solid in my arms, less a soft floppy newborn and more a robust mini-Marlon. Her hair has grown, covering her ears and giving her kind of a miniature mullet. It’s also starting to lie flat the longer it grows, which makes me suspect she won’t be rocking the spiky baby punk ‘do for much longer. Her skin is starting to look more like mine (fair) than Marlon’s (brown).
Her habits are changing, too. From two to three hours between boobs feeds, Tala can now go for four to five hours at a stretch. Theoretically that would give me a nice chunk of time to myself, but she’s awake longer too. No longer the newborn put to immediate sleep by milk, she stays up for about an hour after she feeds. She’ll scratch her ears or rub her eyes on my chest if I’m carrying her, then I’ll know she’s tired and needs to nap.
I feel like I know her now, and it makes my job easier in that I expend less time and effort struggling to figure things out. Most of the time I can tell if she can be soothed by a pacifier or needs cuddling; I know if she’s head-butting me or rubbing her forehead on my chest, I should put her down for a nap; I can differentiate between the cries that say tummy trouble and the ones that say hunger.
The most gratifying development I’ve seen this month is that she’s begun to respond to her environment. After mostly just crying or sleeping, to behold the beginnings of happiness, excitement and curiosity on her face is a thrill, and a deeply satisfying pleasure.
Studying herself intently in my iPhone screen
She spends most baths with her mouth open. A special bathtime kind of pleasure?
Excitement, complete with flailing arms and kicking legs
Surprised by a camera click
Best of all, my daughter now smiles when she sees me. Sometimes (not often, but it happens), she will stop fussing once she sees my face.
“Does it make you happy to see me, Tala?” I’ve asked her, in that high-pitched sing-song all parents develop. “It makes me happy to see you too.” It makes me happy in a quiet, deep-in-my-chest kind of way, and hugs, kisses and smiles can’t express it enough.
I find that as a mother, I’m growing right along with my baby. People have told me, “Don’t worry, it gets easier.” After two months, I’d say “You get used to it” would be more accurate. I knew I was starting to get the hang of things when, sometime between weeks 6 and 7, I started to crave travel again and could easily see myself traveling with Tala. (Now if only we had her passport!)
Some things do get easier, but new challenges also arise. I enjoy Tala way more now compared to a month ago; I’d even go as far as to say I’m having fun! But I’m also starting to struggle with the repetitiveness of certain tasks, like washing my pump and her bottle…. gaaaah. To think I only bottle-feed her once a day!
I suppose like anything else, you have to put in some grunt work to be able to enjoy the best bits. And this month, I think the best bits—her smile, her alert eyes, her growing body—have multiplied and become even better.
Last weekend was awesome, and not just because it was my first Mother’s Day. It was a long weekend in the Netherlands for Hemelvaartsdag, or Ascension Day, which meant our little family spent four whole days together. Yay! Even better, we had a great place to spend the long weekend: at Westerpark for Rollende Keukens, or Rolling Kitchens.
As the name suggests, Rollende Keukens is all about meals on wheels. At this yearly festival, dozens of mobile kitchens roll into Westerpark to create one giant open-air restaurant.
Of the food festivals and markets I’ve been to, I have to say this one was the most fun and full of character. That’s what you get when you have creative foodies repurposing everything from Volkswagen camper vans to Airstream trailers to surfboards and boats.
More (lots more!) pictures, and my Rollende Keukens favorites and regrets, after the cut!
Marlon totally scored 10 out of 10 for organizing my first Mother’s Day. After Tala’s breastfast breakfast at 7am, he put me to bed, whisked her out of our bedroom and let me sleep in until her next feed at 11am. As the mother of an eight week-old baby, you think you’ll never ever sleep in until 11am again, so this was definitely the right way to get the party started.
I woke up to breakfast in bed: chocolate chip pancakes with maple syrup (a hard-to-find commodity in the Netherlands) and bacon. No pictures, sorry—I demolished everything before I remembered the camera!
Then it was off to a top-secret location for my Mother’s Day surprise. He put me on the wrong tram and took me the long way around the block to throw me off, but eventually we reached it: The Conservatorium Hotel on Museumplein, and in its basement, the Akasha Spa.
Obviously I couldn’t take pictures of people in a spa state of undress, so all spa images are via The Conservatorium.
He deposited me at the spa, took the baby, and disappeared for the next five hours. Left to my own devices, what was I supposed to do?
Image via The Conservatorium
Nothing. That was the plan, apparently: for me to do absolutely nothing. To do nothing in the steaming marble hammam, or the Finnish sauna, or the pool, for five blissful hours.
Image via The Conservatorium
Oh, right, I had an Ayurveda massage. But I didn’t have to do anything there either, just lay there like a blob while hot sesame oil was slathered all over me. I hate hard massages, so this soft and gentle treatment was perfect for me. My husband, he knows me well.
I’m not a spa addict, but after the beating my body took from pregnancy, birth and caring for a newborn, this was like being reborn. After gorging myself on idleness, I emerged from this sleek and gleaming paradise of pampering to meet Marlon and Tala upstairs in the hotel. I had been here only once before, and this time I got to take a closer look… and take pictures, of course!
The nursery project continues!
We received quite a few cards from friends when my baby was born (ah, what graciousness can be enabled by a postal system that actually works). I used to have them taped up to the wall next to her changing mat, and noticed that Tala really liked looking at them during diaper changers.
After reading that babies like faces, I decided to replace the cards with something a little more useful to her at this stage of development. The thought of real people’s faces pasted on my wall creeped me out, so I figured art and illustration was the way to go.
An online art project called Feed Your Soul helped me curate this mini art gallery of faces for Tala. This site features a free downloadable art print every month, from artists and illustrators invited to contribute by Jen Wallace of the blog Indie Fixx.
I first found this online art project after Googling Rinske Dekker, an illustrator and Etsy seller I discovered at Dutch Design Week. Rinske’s free art print from is on the right, next to the flower-crowned girl by Croatian illustrator Irena Sophia.
and the dreamy colors of this girl with her head in the clouds, by Laura Amiss. I don’t know why I gravitate more towards female figures… all our figurative paintings at home are of women, too.
With some of my favorite cards from friends, plus our friendly felt unicorn, Tala’s little art gallery is complete. She loves looking at it, and she’s even started trying to touch some of the prints. It will be fun to update it every now and then with fresh finds.
Though the project ended in 2011, the Feed Your Soul page has lots more free downloadable art prints to choose from (not all of them are this girly). So you can download and print your own mini art gallery, too!
Tala’s nursery is a work in progress, and it’s finally starting to come together. When I have a bit of spare time and energy I work on little touches here and there. And I’m having fun!
I’ve been looking for ways to help Tala develop her visual acuity, so one of my recent projects was a DIY mobile to hang over her changing mat, for her to look at during nappy changes. After window shopping for baby mobiles online, I realized that many of them are made for adults to look at—that is, pretty from the side but not from below, which is the baby’s perspective.
Luckily, one of my baby shower gifts was a pack of pop-out paper ornaments by Dutch designer Jurianne Matter. Putting together a DIY mobile with these was super easy. I simply popped out the ornaments, folded them as per instructions on the package, and strung them with varying lengths of embroidery thread from a wooden embroidery hoop, which I then wrapped with washi tape.
Not only are the ornaments cute, colorful (love the touches of neon!) and graphic, but they also fold out into 3D shapes, making them interesting to look at from the underside—not just for mommy, but for baby too.
The ornaments are still pretty thin and low-contrast for Tala at this stage, but she’s started looking at them more and more. I blow gently at the top of the mobile to get the circles moving and draw her interest. I love seeing her try to focus on the shapes, knowing that they are getting clearer as her vision develops.
I have a few other projects in the works, so more nursery details to come!
Sometimes I wonder what I’d be doing if I was living back home in Manila. On a Sunday, for example, Marlon and I would probably, like most young Filipino families like us, take our daughter to the mall for a meal and a walk.
The difference in what-could-be really strikes me on weekends like the ones we’ve had recently. I thought I would miss shopping malls when I moved to Europe, but I don’t. Not when we have this.
On one of our weekend walks in Westerpark, we explored an idyllic footpath that brought us you closer to nature. I still have a hard time believing that this is literally minutes from my house, and I live so close to the center of Amsterdam. [Read more...]
They say the business-minded Dutch, inventors of the multinational corporation and stock exchange, are Europe’s shrewdest when it comes to money. And they say Queen’s Day, when the streets turn into a free-for-all flea market, is when Dutchies first learn to make money.
That said, to join the Queen’s Day flea market with the goal of making money is to miss the point entirely. The point is to have a good time! The Dutch sense of fun and humor comes out in blazing orange on Queen’s Day, and there are as many silly gimmicks to enjoy as there are bargains to be found.
April 30 is Queen’s Day in the Netherlands, the biggest holiday of the year. This year’s Queen’s Day was extra special: it’s the last one in this generation, as Queen Beatrix abdicated in favor of her son Willem-Alexander, who was crowned King in Amsterdam yesterday.
Starting next year, Queen’s Day becomes King’s Day, and will move from the 30th to the 26th of April. Though the dates might change, the festivities never will. If you ever find yourself in Amsterdam on Queen’s—er, King’s Day, here’s how to celebrate it like a local.
1) Score a bargain.
Love pawing through strangers’ rubbish? You’ll love Queen’s Day. Amsterdam becomes one big flea market, with residents cleaning out attics and staking out places on the pavement days in advance. Find the biggest square or most central thoroughfare in your neighborhood—for us, it was Haarlemmerdijk, which was mobbed—and pack a shopping bag.
Most of the sellers are little kids, so be warned: they will use the cute factor to their advantage. But don’t be afraid to haggle! Even if you don’t score any deals, walking around and exploring the city-wide flea market is the best way to soak up the party atmosphere.
One of my new pleasures is taking Tala on long walks in Westerpark. I’ve been meaning to show Marlon what I’ve discovered while he’s at work, and to bring the camera too. This weekend I finally got to do both.
After a long winter, spring is finally kicking in and everything is in bloom.
During my first spring in Amsterdam, I was surprised by how quickly the flowers came and went. Now I make sure to take photos before they’re gone.
Walking past all the trees in bloom, we reached the Westergasterras, a restaurant housed in one of the old brick factory buildings beside the Gashouder, a gas tank that dates back to the 1900s.
The Gashouder looms large over the restaurant’s biggest draw: a large, spacious terrace that is perfect for sunny days. Westergasterras also has a cool industrial interior, with a big brick fireplace and metal pipes everywhere, but in spring it’s all about this terrace.
We stopped for a light lunch and coffee, plus one of the best sticky toffee cakes I’ve had in a while. I find casual dining in Amsterdam to be hit and miss, so it’s always nice to come across a place with good food.
I love discovering places like Westergasterras: so cool yet so laid-back, unpretentious, and most importantly, kid-friendly. There was a high hipster-to-stroller ratio, and all around the restaurant were toddlers wheeling around on loopfiets (balance bikes) or kids drawing on the ground with chalk.
A decent lunch, a cool new discovery, and another reason to love our neighborhood. Not bad for a laid-back Sunday. How was your weekend?
