To my English-speaking readers

I owe you an apology. I have started posting in other languages than English and in a different way   just for the sake of it, because I felt like doing it. After all, this is my blog, isn't it? However, I wanted to give you some explanation. In the future, I am going to use the language that strikes my fancy at the moment I sit to write or depending on the addressee I have in mind. The purpose of the blog will continue to be related to my parenting voyage and my children.

I come from watching my children sleeping. Both of them. I have been watching her first, then him, in order of appearance in my life. Eyes closed, even breathe, blanket up to the chin. She looks younger when she sleeps for when she is awake language takes most of the time and attention. He looks older when he sleeps for then I realize how long he is. Already crawling fast and attempting to stand, this boy of mine who arrived to my womb unexpectedly and into outside life dangerously. He has absolutely captivated us, I must admit. Two babies. Two little people with whom I spend, as of late at least, all my hours.

I have also watched the big boy. He deserves a rest so much. A rest and loads of nutritious food. He has lost weight and looks grave in this beard. No time even to shave.

TIME: We need you on our side.
"Give us your hands, if we be friends, and we shall restore amends"


GOOD NIGHT (UN)TO YOU ALL

Just to say hello

We are in the midst of changes and recovering from sickness, which I expect will render us stronger and mindful. I really feel more like going to bed than staying awake and writing. However, I want to  share some of the things that are going on around here.

My littlest started slithering the day before he turned 6 months and he's been really into it ever since. Such an example of focus. Whatever calls his attention, he cruises, slithers and rolls until he reaches it.
M is more articulate than ever and even if there are still some phrases she uses her own way, such us temporal adverbs, she really means what she says most of the time. Upon hearing that I would present a new material today she told me "something else? but I don't want so many things"... This has triggered some thought, as you may imagine. From now onwards, I will try to be more present and less on the lookout for activities. This anecdote has reminded me one of the postcards that still hangs from the board of my childhood bedroom where there is pictured a boy carrying a globe as gift to a girl and the girl saying "Ich brauche nur deine Liebe" (...but I only need your love).

In the below picture you can see how A gazes M. He does it most of the time and whenever she appears in his field of vision his face is enlightened by a wide smile. She is also becoming fonder of him and wants to hold and tickle him, as well as bring him toys.

Me... I am on an ongoing process of becoming more mindful and present... 

Food, music, and words

I can't believe it is Sunday night and here I am over a nice cup of hot chocolate and before quite a nice possible stretch of time for myself, to write the post I have been wanting to write for weeks.
Time goes by before my eyes and I am aware of changes and progress but somehow incapable of keeping track of all I would like to by writing things down. It truly is a pity because I know in a while I won't remember everything, despite my memory...
My sweet little baby is growing into a very nice little boy. His grandpa calls him "the world's most likeable baby". Well, it might be grandpa's love but A is a very nice boy indeed. He is always smiling and he also laughs sometimes specially upon seeing his big sister, which makes me smile. We don't know what he finds so funny. He spends long stretches of time concentrated on his toys and turns from back to tommy and the other way round. I've seen him slithering a little bit, always backwards but he is not really into moving yet. What he is really big on is food. We haven't officially introduced him to solids but he is so interested in whatever we eat that he grabs everything he can and brings it to his mouth. I am so happy we make our own bread. It will probably be the first thing we officially present. For the moment being it is fine with me that he grabs this and that.

Here he is; experimenting a slice of apple

Unlike his sister at his age, he seems to enjoy strolling around in the stroller and he even falls asleep there.

I just love this photo so I am sharing it once again

These past weeks we have been really into making our own "homemade everything", from muesli to baby wipes, and I am specially proud of my tile floor cleaner. I am so happy to be making products that are eco-and child-friendly, cheap, and which yield a productive activity with M at the same time! I mentioned our attempt at homemade bath bombs and body paint some weeks ago. The latest thing we've made is toothpaste and I like it quite a lot! I would like to share some recipes but will have to leave it for another post.

M has been doing quite a lot of new things as of late. She has shown an unusual and sudden interest in jumping and it is really funny to see her practicing her jumps here and there. She also shows a renewed interest in doing things all by herself. She climbs, goes to the toilet and flushes it when she's done, and changes clothes several times a day, which I understand it is a way of practicing her skills. She puts on and takes off jackets, backpacks, socks, and shoes. I love to watch her arranging her jacket on the floor and going around it to put it on the way she has seen children doing in our copy of "Raising an amazing child". Today she has put a red shirt on and asked me to button it up. However, I am already seeing her interest in buttoning and I have taken out our sun // rays activity for her to practice if she feels like it. The button snake has been an all time success so I wonder why these other activity is not appealing to her.

Her language acquisition progresses, as usual, and she is memorizing really long songs and poems as of late. She asks us to repeat a certain song or poem over and over until she is able to recite it for herself. Today I've seen her pronounce the words while I was singing some song she had asked and a while later she was humming it. Little by little English is becoming more present in our conversations and I realize she masters it all the same but the fact that the world around her generally speak Catalan makes her have this language as her first one. Some funny word games take place when mixing two languages. The other day I said something like "I am looking at myself" (we have a new mirror) and she told me "Marcel (her uncle) is in Tornabous". Notice that the words "myself" and "Marcel" sound quite similarly. I really cracked up. There are also the kind of mistakes one wouldn't make if there weren't a second language, as in "nens jugant el piano". She translates play the piano for toying the piano because in Catalan and Spanish one says something as "touch the piano" and she know play is also related to toys. And, talking about instruments, I really loved it the other day when M drew many lines in different colors and then told me "this is a guitar, do you want to play it?".

A change we've lately made at home is devoting a whole room to our instruments, among which there is the piano. We listen to music together every morning. M loves Ravel's Bolero and asks to listen to it nearly everyday. If I remember to take pictures of the room, I will share one. My activity as "the worse photographer ever" proves that I take photos totally at random, so instead of picturing any of the things I was mentioning, I leave you with an image of M playing with her animal models and cards.
Have a lovely week!!

A present for a five-year-old

This weekend we have been to a very special friend's birthday party. She was turning 5 and I knew she is very into letters, so I wanted to make something letter-related and since I also happen to love stamps I gave foam stamps a try. It doesn't always happen to me that I am very glad with the result when I want to make a birthday present and I often end up giving something different from what I'd planned. However, this time around I was quite happy and I want to show it to you.

I made the stamps using foam pieces that I glued to big bottle caps. The ink pad is just the lid of a container -the kind of container take away food comes in- lined with thick felt. I wanted to add homemade ink as well but it wouldn't have fitted into the box we were going to use. To use this pad with the stamps the only thing one needs is a bit of acrylic paint and a pinch of salt. The salt makes the paint a bit more fluid. 

Añadir leyenda

Voilà, that's the way the present looked. We gave it to our friend together with a card M had done.