Babymoon-Prague

Hubby decided we needed to go away early for our 5th anniversary. I thought it could also count as a babymoon.  I am never opposed to going away. We just have a small, wild, 2 year-old detail that we need to consider. Do we force him 8 hours in the car to miss out on sleep and fight over new food? Or let him stay with his favorite cousins? Sounds like an easy decision, right? Did I mention you can't let him out of your sight for more than a minute and he requires a lot of sleep? However, we decided it is easier to find a babysitter NOW than in a few months for TWO kids. Once we got the sitter issue settle, the rest was easy.

We have wanted to go to Prague for a while. We planned to drive there. To some that is strange, but as I have mentioned before, we have an international fuel card from hubby's work, so it only makes sense to drive.

We left Saturday morning, drove about 5 hours and stayed 2 nights with hubby's aunt in Germany.

Monday morning left to drive the remaining 3.5 hours. Our first stop in the Czech Republic was Pilsen.  Here was not close enough to Prague for the locals to speak English. Thankfully there was an English menu (if you can call tons of misspelled words, French or German words used as English and funny descriptions a menu). Our first cultural experience was that you order the meat from one list and the side from another. I found this rather annoying, because normally restaurants serve what they think fit best together, but it is the Czech way to let you decide for yourself.  I took Chicken and Potatoes. They had a sauce and were delicious!

Here are some photos from the trip so far.

Rothenburg

Tons of Coocoo clocks



They have bread bowls in Germany and Czech Republic. Why not in Belgium?

Pinterest Success-Baby wipes

Here is my last homemade baby wipe. It was a pretty perfect success. http://livewellnetwork.com/Deals/episodes/DIY-Wipes/8707415 There is the link easily provided for you for more details.

I cut my paper towels in half and put them in these Greek yogurt containers. Wait! First I put water with a dash of baby oil and a sqirt of baby wash in the containers, then put in the paper towels (sans center) and shook them around. I took the first one out of the center.

My only complaint was that they were pretty watery, so I dumped some of the solution out a few days later. I felt so eco-friendly doing this. Will repeat!

Baby's Room

I wish I had amazing photos of an adorable room to show, but mine are more humble...I finally have everything organized and put away in the baby's room. He has I think 6 banana boxes of clothes for the future! The walls are painted light and darker gray. I want to make the room cute, but 1. I am not very creative 2. I do not want to invest too much $, because it is a rental. 3. There is not much usable space.

I am pretty happy with this wall. (above) I found really cute stickers and put some on shadow box frames that I had from my niece. I would like to paint the wooden frame white. The bird is actually on the wall and the frame is at an angle in front of it.

Here are the matching stickers to measure how tall he will get.

I bought a white bedspread from Ikea that I have been eyeing for a while. You can't see so well, but it has little pleats going down it. I think some cute, colorful pillows are necessary.

I LOVE the blanket in the crib that my friend made. It has turquoise the same color as the sheet and bright green. I think I would like to make those the theme colors with dark purple and even pink as accents. The wall behind the crib is where I think I can get creative. Any ideas? I was thinking of painting it? Or putting shelves, but that can be dangerous if they fall...the thing hanging above the bed totally does not match, but he loves it. I was thinking of hanging it with a ribbon, so I can get rid of the stand, since (as you can see) there is not so much space.

We have had just a bulb hanging, so finally I bought a lamp shade at Ikea, but when I put it on, it looks ridiculous. I need a bigger one. I can't decide if this one in a bigger size would work or if I should get this one or a solid color?

I put the stickers on a few weeks ago, woke up and they all were on the ground! I glued them to the wall today.

He's Here!

Baby Mat eo Ad riel arrived at 9:50 on July 23rd! Weighing at 8lbs and measuring 20in!

Part 3

This gives me hope for the other situations...

Maternity Leave
I did not sleep well on Thursday night and I felt like calling in sick on Friday, because I was so tired. In the middle of the night I thought to myself, "I have to figure this out!" I had not arranged when I would go on maternity leave, because I was trying to find help with some built up hours I had. No one seemed to have answers. I first wanted to work until 34 weeks, then I changed to 32 weeks, but last week I was feeling like it should be sooner, as in NOW. So in the night I said a simple prayer (halfway in sleep), "Lord, help me get this figured out."

Friday morning at work I thought, "I should ask my client, she is a smart lawyer and a good Belgian, maybe she knows." So I asked, "Do you happen to know about educatief verlof (supposedly for my hours of dutch class this year, I can change them in for work hours AND BE PAID, but my boss didn't know how to do it). She said, "Well, yes." And explained it to me. She said I have to use the 120 hours before the end of the school year and that my boss is obligated to give me them no matter what!

I did some quick calculations and figured that I need to start them soon in order to be able to use them all, so I went to my company after and talked to the secretary lady, because my boss was gone. I figured I just have 2 weeks left and after that, with those hours, I will be paid for all my normal hours until the end of June! Then my maternity leave can start for 15 weeks. I was worried if she would think that was too soon or complain, but she said she would talk to my boss about getting a replacement and that she thinks it is probably time for the baby's sake that I stop.

I was very relieved, thankful and happy, especially when I found out that I had only about 20 more hours of work!

I go tomorrow afternoon to figure everything out with my boss. Paperwork/scheduling/etc. I am praying that everything will go well. I do not want conflict, but I am willing to be pushy for what I have earned!

Belgian Bureaucracy 2

Trouwboekje
As I'm sure is normal everywhere, you need to register a baby when it is born. Here there are special papers to fill out if the parents are not married, but since we are married it seemed to be easy. We just needed to show our trouwboekje (marriage book) at the city hall.

We began to think and realized that we don't have a trouwboekje! Why not? We got married in America. We figured it would be easy to get one, so we contacted the city where we live. They said they needed our marriage certificate, an apostille and a legal translation. Well, in the city where we previously lived, we had already given a marriage certificate and apostille, so it seemed easy enough to just ask our record from there.

Since the beginning we had troubles with the woman working at that city hall. The hubby called her and she said, "No, we can't give it to you, because we sent it to Brussels." Period. No go. No further help. No explanation.

I was highly annoyed, because I knew that my record was SOMEWHERE. It doesn't get randomly sent to Brussels and then thrown away. Also if the woman was smart enough, she could've offered 2 years ago when we brought in the papers to make the trouwboekje. Ok, maybe it is our fault for not asking, but still... It was also annoying that now we are required a legal translation! It is expensive and not really necessary.

The process I figured I needed to follow was call Whatcom County, ask for another marriage certificate, have it sent to mom, have her send it to the State of Washington, then they send it to me. A process of a minimum of a few weeks. I told the hubby to just email a few people again, because that was easier than doing the other option.

Not sure what happened, but lovely city hall lady contacted the hubby today to say that the papers were ('somehow) at her office and I could pick them up TODAY. I go tomorrow to get them. I am not sure what to expect, but I am thankful if she even has just the marriage certificate. I have my own special thoughts of how yesterday it was impossible for her to get them and today she had them in her office, but whatever...I am thankful for what she has waiting for me!

I hope our experience with this city hall is better!

Exciting New Blog

www.babybelgium.blogspot.com

In case you haven't heard...

Expected to arrive in January...in Canada :)

Newest Niece

May I introduce my niece, Victoria...here is a scanned version of her birth card.

I don't think I have talked about that on here yet. When a baby is born here, the parents send out fancy birth cards ASAP (as in the day the child is born or the next day). The cards normally take many hours to make and match the little gifts (called doopsuiker -click for examples) they also make to give to anyone who gives them a gift...make sense? You give a gift and they give in return a little something that normally says the child's name. It's cute and nice, but takes a huge amount of time to prepare and costs a lot.

Don’t Touch The Baby

Don’t Touch The Baby ...compliments of peopleofwalmart.com

Does Your Child Love Music?

Just because your baby 'likes' music, doesn't make him/her special. Whew, there is my heavy, cricital statement of the week. There is something that my husband and I have noticed...(maybe we are too critical). Many parent say that their child loves music...maybe this is true, but does it really make the child special? His theory is that every human likes to hear music and it makes them happy and that if you don't like music, you are not normal. We laugh about it because in a few months we have heard it who knows how many time. "Yes, Baby loves music. He just loves when we put it on. Maybe he'll be a musician." Now when we hear it, we have a hard time keeping a straight face...I told him to remind me of this when we have kids...we can't say they like music until they've proven it by practicing 1000 hours ; )

http://www.parents.com/baby/development/intellectual/why-babies-love-music/

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090722074620AAxVP5I