back in a beautiful place

last week, we were on holiday in the same beautiful place where we were two years ago. i was already long cured of the conception that holiday with small children means extra lazy time: instead, it actually means harder work. but it was lovely nonetheless. i did get some time to think things over. the way we choose to raise our children is a very time-intensive one. especially for me as the breastfeeding, bedsharing mother of a young baby plus a toddler who is discovering the world while fighting his own little demons. add to that a quite demanding job and there really is not much time left for anything else except keeping the house more or less clean and making sure there is some kind of dinner on the table every evening. in an ideal world, i would stop working for a few years, honestly. but there is no such thing as an ideal world, is there? so i have to make choices to make things work. there is simply not enough time in most of my days to do all the things i have to do. so my dear blog is going to have to be on hold once again. and once again, i will hopefully be back when the time is right. ♥

simplified

this is my little basket with everyday make up. it used to be full of stuff i never actually used and i was always rummaging through it like crazy in the morning to find what i needed. i took everything that i don't use out and now i'm left with only the things that i really do use every single day (plus a cute pair of tweezers): bb cream, a concealer, a brow brush, eye shadow, mascara, eye pencil, blush, tinted lip balm and a brush. i can't help it - futile things like these make me very happy.

baby bum

little bee and me are trying out cloth diapers. so far, i see almost only advantages. we are reducing waste, there are no nasty materials close to her skin and we have an utterly cute baby bum. yes, there's a little more laundry, but the piles were already huge so there's not that much of a difference. 

small empties~7

yes, i managed to scrape together a new bunch of small empties. my favourites:

~ biotherm aquasource nuit high density hydrating jelly ~ i can't help but keep loving the scent and texture of biotherm products. so fresh and luxurious.
~ biotherm lait solaire melting milk with citrus fragrance spf 30 ~ i kept this one in my bag throughout the previous autumn, which has resulted in the scent of it now reminding me instantly of the feeling of those months. i love how smells can do that so powerfully.
~ rituals ginkgo's secret ginseng & ginkgo biloba extra rich hand balm ~ another very luxurious texture and lovely scent.

the alternative

so as i mentioned before, i am working towards a more natural skin care routine. this, for example, is what i use for my face in the evenings: coconut oil to remove make up (this works really well), followed by an organic skin toner and pure argan oil. it's an extremely simple routine that works great for my skin. now i don't think i will ever go completely natural, simply because i can't resist certain mainstream products and they simply make me happy. but all in all, this is the best way to go. the more i look into it, the more i realise that.

simple knits~2

little leg warmers are ideal for babies who are carried in slings or wraps a lot. i found the cutest ones online for not so cute prices, so the solution was easy: make them myself. these were very easy to make and they took me no time at all.

attached at the heart

ok, just one more book about attachment parenting. but i promise this will be the last one. (and please ignore the sugar sweet cover: you know the truth does not look like a new mother with perfect hair and make up and holding the most contented baby ever...)

our society doesn't tell parents that the most important gift that they can give their children is not a good education, elaborate educational toys, or summer camps, but time - regular, substantial chunks of it - spent together doing things that are emotionally and developmentally meaningful for the child.

dr. stanley greenspan, as quoted in: attached at the heart ~ barbara nicholson and lysa parker

simplicity parenting in practice~2

and in case you are wondering: this is what the closet of little bee looks like. (the poor thing has a storage box on wheels that is underneath our bed functioning as a closet, since she doesn't have a room of her own.) she owns even less clothes than little imp, yet still actually too many in my opinion. but it turns out to be quite impossible to discourage people from buying tiny girls' clothes. and i admit it is incredible fun to choose outfits for her from this box.

simplicity parenting in practice

one of the simple lessons that i learned from simplicity parenting: make sure that the closet of your child only contains clothes that fit him and that he actually wears. it does make things easier. so this is what little imp is left with: two small piles of onesies (one with long sleeves and one with short sleeves), a few shirts with short sleeves and a box with socks on one shelf. and then a pile of long trousers, a few short trousers and a pile of shirts and sweaters with long sleeves. the closet, that looks a bit gloomy in this picture but is actually quite cute, is a few generations old. it stood in my bedroom when i was a child and it stood in my parents' living room when they first moved in together. i love the fact that it inhabits the bedroom of my son now.

make it fun

i have talked before about my love for wrapping presents. what to do when someone asks for money instead of a birthday present? this is how i turned the gift into a cute package. nicer to give and more fun to receive.

the sugarfree life

the osteopath that treated little bee advised me to stop eating sugar for a while to see if it would have any effect on the silent reflux. i have done short periods of no sugar before, but i've never kept it up this long and this seriously. and let me tell you: while i'm not sure if it makes any difference for little bee, it sure makes a world of difference for me. i feel so energized and so much healthier without the stuff. i already knew sugar is a bad thing (i've seen lists of all the terrible things it does to your body that make you feel like eating sugar is like downing a bottle of liquor or taking a shot of heroin), but now i also truly feel what it does to the body. i am craving sweet things less every day. not eating the bad stuff also makes it much more fun to hunt for good stuff and try out new things. like this little fruit pie that i made from scratch.

then the letting go~2

yes, it feels just like it did two years ago. it is difficult and beautiful at the same time to see my child grow so quickly (even quicker than little imp did in those first months, it seems). little bee already doesn't look and feel like a newborn anymore. i started working again this week. and i will be walking her to daycare two days a week soon now, where she will not fall asleep while i carry her and where she will manage just fine without me (or so i do hope). we are not one anymore.

not perfect

in the same vein, i believe it's important to be honest about the fact that no mother is a perfect mother. so here we go:
little bee seems to be allergic to the princess. i brought her to an osteopath because i suspected silent reflux (i recognized the syptoms because little imp was diagnosed with it when he was a tiny imp).the osteopath noticed that her breathing seemed constricted and that she was probably a bit short of breath, which might be caused by an allergy. he advised me to visit our gp about this, who verified it. and all the time, i hadn't noticed a thing. so the princess now has a new (and very good) home, and i am noticing changes in little bee. i wonder if i had ever suspected anything if the osteopath hadn't pointed it out to me. 
there you go: i am not a perfect parent. and this is only one of many examples. (i did seem to be right about the silent reflux though...)

a colourful start

look at how seriously i am taking this whole colour-thing: i made a little collage of the right colours in my blue book and i went on a small hunt to purchase the first item in one of the right colours. it's a colour i don't think i've ever worn before, but i can see that it works.
this also means that some other things will now leave my closet in exchange for the new things, since i am still a fervent declutterer. so long to some of all that black. a small yet good start.

colour

yesterday, my friend and i had a colour analysis: something i have been wanting to do for ages and now finally asked as a birthday present from my dad. after my first three hours away from little bee and a very interesting session of skin tone colour matching, i came home with this little card that shows all the colours i should wear. it basically means i will have to spend a fortune to change pretty much all of my wardrobe, because apparently i was doing it all wrong (no more black for me, for instance, when half my clothes are black, and lots of blue whereas i now own exactly one blue dress...). but after all that, i am going to look absolutely smashing.

from the blue book

i hardly ever buy magazines, but when i do i always find it hard to throw it away after reading if there are beautiful pictures in it. so i came up with the blue book: a book in which i save all the pretty pictures i find. and every now and then i leaf through it just for the fun of it.

rare

they do still exist: the small moments in which i have time to do something just for myself. i finished this nice and easy novel during those moments. it was a case of reading two pages or so at a time but it was good.

dotty

i think i see a pattern here...

two thousand kisses a day

it is only a small step from attachment parenting to gentle discipline, something i found out about when i picked up my reading about parenting when i was pregnant with little bee. and although this book did not teach me many new things, it definitely resonated with me. it sounded right, it made a lot of sense. i don't think i could ever practice attachment parenting or gentle discipline for the full one hundred percent (whatever that is), but i have learned a lot and am definitely trying to use the techniques and advices in everyday life with my two little people.

consciously, intentionally, and consistently living out how you want your children to turn out is the most powerful and effective character training there is.
the bottom line is, your children are always watching and learning, so make sure what they see in you is what you want to see in them!

l.r. knost ~ two thousand kisses a day

small empties~6

i don't buy many commercial beauty products anymore so i don't get many samples either these days, but of course i've been saving the ones i did get diligently. my favourites out of this bunch:

~ the body shop nutriganics smoothing day cream ~ this has a lovely natural scent to it, and it doesn't contain as many nasty ingredients as many other products of this brand. a good alternative if you want to go a little more natural than mainstream.
~ ginvera green tea nude cover bb cream ~ i started using bb cream a while back as an alternative to liquid foundation, and this was one of the nicer once i have tried so far.
~ lush flutter cuticle butter ~ i don't use as many lush products as i used to, but i still love many of them. like this one, which holds almost a cult status among beauty bloggers. quite deservedly so i think.