Month: June 2018

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After the rain comes the rainbow

Ok, this is to not explicitely write: ‘after a shitty day, there comes awesomeness again’. 

A detail I intentionally omitted yesterday to save my mom from a certain heart attack was that Alex spitted some blood. That was minutes before the realization of the flying window. We called the doctors in NL, chatted, analyzed the situation, we sent photos etc. The conclusion was it might have come from coughing, no issue, we should not be alarmed and keep monitoring. It ended up being…tadaaa..a tooth.

The little fat happy man has an emerging tooth (you see its top on the bottom left). We were so unbelievably proud to capture his first tooth yesterday, you cannot possibly understand how proud we were today capturing his second one.

As if this whole shitness was not enough yesterday, we decided to spend the night for the first time in a so called camperplaats. This is a parking space for campers where electricity is provided. No more. Oh my God. How can people possibly pay to stay there. I would demand to get paid instead. Picture this: steel, cement, next to the road. Thousands of mosquitos and heat. Suicidal, really.

The good thing if you had such a crappy day is that it can only get better after that. And it did. Today we arrived at an unbelievable camping, in Chianti, Italy. Wow. How can these places not be packed with tourists and how lucky we are to find them. The camping is in layers with trees overlooking winefields and the village is old, elevated, with amazing views on the valley and incredible people. Wow.

I hope that the rule of ‘crappy days are followed by good days’ doesn’t work reversely. Because now that Alex is back in his bed and happy and we are sitting outside with gin tonic (proost Hannah and Daan) we are in a serious vacation mode and we don’t want to compromise this a bit!

PS: Today I was putting Alex to bed and Martijn was laughing uncontrollably outside together with Gioia. Not sure what kind of jokes made them both laugh so loud, but we are supposed to be a bit quiet when putting kids to bed. Martijn entered the camper at least twice to grab smth from the fridge. I did not make the ‘sssssshhhh’ remark. The third time he comes to the fridge I made a remark and Martijn said giggling: ‘Sorry, I forgot the lemon for the gin tonic, it was an emergency’. Vacaaaaation, tadaaaaaa!

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And the biggest fuck-up prize goes to…

Ups, I did it again. I make at least one fuck up mistake a day, but today I brought this to a whole new level. (Mom, if you are reading, stop now, you can still prevent a heart attack).

My top fuck-ups:
1. Leaving the drawer with cutlery unlocked. Seconds later, in the first curve, it opended widely and stopped only few cms from Gioia’s nose
2. Closing the window shades of a specific window in such a way they were almost permanently destroyed
3. Closing and ‘securing’ the windows when leaving the camper, wondering why there is a persistent 1 cm distance and why they ‘seem’ open. Guess what, they ‘were’ open. Tens of mosquitos were the proof of it.
4. Falling from the ladder (honestly they s*ck because they do not click anywhere, so with a wrong distribution of your weight you can fall backwards – together with the ladder)

But the grande belissimo non comparable fuck-up, which made me think if I even want to continue this trip (so bad it was), was today. Martijn was wondering if all windows were closed cause he felt a bit of a breeze while driving. (Reminder: Alex and I slept together in the bed above the steering wheel). We stopped, he climbs up and he realizes there-is-no-side-window-at-all. As in: the window flew away. As in: the window was never closed (apparently). Ups.

We are now travelling with a hole on our roof, amateurely sealed with the top of an IKEA transparent box that we use in our storage. And contrary to all weather forecasts it just started raining. Ups.

There is a rescue plan that involves us receiving the missing window in a week and install it ourselves, but (very big but), we need to give an address for them to send it. And we have no idea where we will be in a week from now. Good luck making a plan for two people that just cant do this when on holiday. Ups.

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High beds, low ceilings – in paradise

If I never return from this trip it is either because I fell from the high beds and opened my head, or because I hit myself on the low ceiling – and opened my head. Or both, like hitting the ceiling first and then falling over, in which scenario I will certainly not make it. This story ‘of climbing and hitting heads’ became even more complicated when little mr. ex Happy got sick (did you notice less posts the last two days? There you go.)

So, this is how it usually goes: Alex is crying. We let him cry for a while hoping he will sooth himself and when he reaches hysteria level we need to act. Action plan: a) climb up the ladder to his bed b) open the little curtain c) put your knee on the matress and push you body high up with your palms. BANG. You hit your head for the first time in the ceiling. ‘Auch’ and some swearing. d) you sit next to Alex’s tent and think further of the action plan. e) you open the zip at Alex’s little tent (Alex in the meantime has reached 100 degrees temperature from crying. Gioia, who sleeps in the same bed outside the tent, turns around noticing ‘something is going on’, but no more, she can still sleep while Alex’s crying can be heard from Mars). f) *This is really difficult*: you use both hands, palms up, put them under crying Alex, you lift him up and try to bring him close to you while he moves like an octopus. 8,5 kgs crying octopus. You lift him up. BANG. Alex hits his head on the ceiling. The volume level increases. You try not to cry yourself. Now that you have him safe on your hands you realise you forgot whatever you were supposed to bring a level down (=downstairs). And you want to kill yourself.

The last two nights I slept with Alex in our high bed – above the steering wheel – and Martijn squeezed himself diagonally between Gioia and Alex’s empty tent (too much effort to remove it). This is because Alex had fever and would wake up every 10 minutes screaming, which made the aforementioned stepwise relief method impossible to execute. In his ‘new bed’ he had plenty of space and could scream easier. But this bed is even higher and the ceiling is so low you can’t sit, you can only crawl. Supernice for mama #NOT! These two nights Alex would only sleep if I was literally skin to skin with him and the moment I would remove my hand from his head/ belly/ little feet he would immediately wake up and cry. It was quite a nightmare, but today we saw the first smile and heard the first goo-goos again! It seems we are getting back on track, yuhoooo! And can enjoy the paradise we are in:

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And some departures…

A little candle for my uncle Dimos who sadly passed away yesterday. He was one of these cancer heroes, who learned what it is to fight for your life every day. We will remember you for your sarcasm, constant jokes and the clothes you made – some of which I still wear.

Given the sad opportunity, I send a warm hug to Anna – we will never forget Renate and we hope you are doing well. A big kiss to my friend Georgia too; I think of you and your dad very often.

I do not need a reason to think of my dad cause I do this every day anyway. But still, when death comes close to my friends or family, I cannot help it but think of him even more.

Uncle Dimos rest in peace. Dad I miss you.

 

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Life turning point

Having kids is a life changing experience. Losing someone you love is a deep changing and reconsidering priorities experience. I can name a few more but I won’t cause the real beauty is when you have this OMG changing moments in smaller every day things. Like when I bought my first Samsonite case with 360 degrees rolling wheels and travelling was never the same again. Or when I got my first iphone. And the list goes on.

So today I had one of these and it made my day, really! The day was quite impossible because of a number of wrong decisions we took. The result was not only one but two crying kids (yes, also mr. Happy) for the most part. Martijn and I were supporting each other (when one flips the other ones stays strong), but it was clear that the moment they would sleep we would start crying almost. And on top of everything Ihad to take care of the laundry, because mr. Happy produces a lot of smelly dirty stuff that sometimes find their way out of his diaper. Sigh.  Anyway, I carry the 100kg box of clothes on my shoulder (given the opportunity we would wash another ton of clothes of his sister and some of ours) and walk to the laundry room. There is a dryer too. I love it already.

1,5 hr later I collected all the clothes, including hundreds of little socks and little of everything, all clean and all dry. And all warm, you want to put them on right away. And colors shining. This is not happening. DRYER it is. My life will change for ever. No more frustrations above the laundry line, no more washing, no more hanging smart so all 1000 little stuff fit, no more waiting for clothes to dry and spend your evenings doing this.

What? Not environmentally friendly? Sorry planet, I need my sanity back. What? It destroys the clothes? Who f*cking cares. What again? They become small? Well, this I still need to check.

 

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Camper do’s and camper dont’s

Written by Martijn

After 5 days of campering, some Camper do’s and Camper dont’s

Do:

  • Realize there is 3m of car behind the rear axle and you can knock cyclists of their bikes. Didn’t happen yet.
  • Stop for a pedestrian crossing especially in rural area’s where locals expect this courtesy behavior
  • Try to park as level as possible, or accept getting up at 4.30 to re-align Alex in his little tent
  • Eat off a paper towel to reduce dish washing
  • Buy a basilicum plant to bring to Greece
  • Bring (a) USB stick(s) with lot’s of music
  • Bring a navigation system, 2 iphones, 3 camping books and then buy a road map, just in case…
  • Respect the “toilet is full” light, when the chemical toilet in your camper is full. Also: bring some thick cleaning gloves

 

Don’t:

  • Think “there will probably be no-one behind the camper”, just before your start backing up
  • Drive around Paris on a Friday-afternoon, at 15.30. And don’t ignore the 2m-max-height signs
  • Think you will have time to slowly drive down the west-coast of France, see some of the North of Spain and perhaps, who knows, visit Portugal, before you decide to drive to the south of Italy. Within 4 weeks. With 2 small kids (3,5years and 0,5years) in the back. You will get 200km max a day, with the last 50km requiring loads of management. Moreover, the youngest will have his back moulded like a maxi cosi for the rest of his life, poor him
  • Forget to lock the drawer of the cutlery, especially when it is at head-height of your oldest daughter and you are taking a right turn
  • Say you want “vent rouge” in France, when you want to order red wine
  • Try to organize the 2 cubic meters of garage-space in the back. First 2 days you will try, after that the stroller will be on top of the ventilators, that are in the bath tub, which is on the beach stuff anyway
  • Help other members of the family to flush the chemical toilet, when the toilet was obviously full before they went in the first place.

Soon more.

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Cleanliness

Ok, I know that the concept of ‘clean’ and ‘hygenic’ is very personal. And I also know most probably I need to be the one adjusting my cleanliness standards downwards rather than expecting others to do the reverse. Honestly, I have made huge steps compared to where I was once. Doing camping and having kids helped me enormously to be more reasonable.

But, there is a but. People stop putting the shoes on the table! Please! And ok, if you do me the favor, stop also putting the socks on the table. Thanks.

What I saw these days was a sad reminder of me not having advanced as much as I thought in the ‘I don’t mind dirt’ mindset. A woman yesterday was walking in the toilets and showers of the camping WITH SOCKS! Jesus! I came back telling Martijn that throwing the socks away won’t help: she needs to cut her feet.

And today we bought a french baguette in a supercute local store, the one and only of the village, that looks like this:

And for God’s sake, this is how we got it:

I mean…seriously? You are supposed to take the baguette with bare hands and carry it home like this? Ok, I give up and will be miserable for ever.

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Being a man

It must be nice being a man. I have never been one, but all I can say by observing Martijn and my male colleagues is that for a man life is simple. Very. Simple. A bit binary, like yes or no and nothing in between, but simple.

So while I tidied my clothes and these of the kids in perfectly (for me) logical order in the cabin, Martijn said he doesn’t even need space. He would put clothes in the back storage in a box. So. Simple.

I admire myself and my perfectly logical system every time I need something: i know which space, corner, tower has the item I look for. And of course I expected Martijn to give up his ‘i am too cool and travel light’ idea pretty soon. No, I was wrong. He beat me big time. Cause sometimes my perfect order is not so perfect after all and I move around opening and closing cupboards in agony. And Martijn only has to open the storage door and look under the toy box (bottom right.

Sigh. I lost.

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New arrivals!

We are away for 5 days now and we already got great news of baby arrivals!

Dana, welcome to this world! We love you already! Daysa, Jeroen and Ella, congratulations and enjoy this little miracle!

Hey little Εκτορα, welcome too! You surprised us a little, but these are nice surprises! Panagioti, Aggeliki, Iasona you are such a lucky family! A huge hug to Brussels!

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Unconditionally happy

We all have our moments during the travel. Except one, who is unconditionally happy. It doesn’t matter where we are and what we do, whether he gets attention or not. We adore you Alex!