Spring!

Spring has come and gone and come again. We can't seem to hold on to the nice weather, but Spring it is none the less. Here's a bit of what we've been up to.

 

At the beginning of April we packed the whole family up and headed to London. We saw friends visited the uncles, James and Adric. Quinn was mighty excited to get his very own London taxi and many games at home since then have involved his toys going visiting London. 

 On Easter we spent the day with friends- ate a fabulous brunch, dyed eggs and played the whole day (at least some of us). Here's Quinn and his bf Beatrix clowning around.

For the first week of Quinn's Spring break we went to Belgium to visit the family and finally introduce little Zinnie to everyone. Quinn was thrilled to see that the Easter Bunny had once again hidden eggs in another garden! Third time and counting!

Sadly it rained for pretty much all of Quinn's Spring Break, so we had to invent fun things to do inside. Quinn decided (I swear this was his own idea!) that he needed to be wrapped up and given as a present to someone. Here he is waiting to be delivered!

 

 

Little Zinnie is full of smiles and she's growing like a weed. The doctor almost screamed when she weighed her last. Just this week we transferred her to the full sized crib instead of the tiny bedside version. By this summer she and Quinn will be sharing a room. It's hard to believe three years have passed so quickly with Quinn. I can only imagine that time will speed up even more with Zinnie in our lives now. Since I'm mostly home with the wee one now (between scraps of work here and there) I have plenty of time to meditate on life and it's frenetic course between laundry, breastfeeding and cleaning or usually while doing all those things. More and more I feel I want to slow life down and savor each moment more fully. I know I can't stop the march of time, but I can change the way I live in little ways that affect my and my family's relationship to time. I've started to make a list of Spring Resolutions for tiny specific actions that I (we) can take in order to live more mindfully, sustainably and SLOWLY.

 

Getting to know you

Quinn was on vacation from school for two weeks at the end of February. At the end of the second week we managed to head out to my parents place in the countryside. The weather was pretty gray the whole time we were there, but it was a good excuse to cuddle up inside and get some bonding time in with the kiddos. Quinn loves to give Zinnie hugs and kisses and was quite into doing a little photo session with her on his lap.






Zinnie is now 5 weeks old. Already! She's definitely getting bigger and stronger and all those things babies do... Meanwhile we're getting more tired and doing lots of laundry. Among other things.
It definitely does seem easier the second time around though. With Quinn we had no schedule. We lived just like before we had kids... having dinner whenever, going to sleep whenever... and so of course Quinn didn't have a schedule either for a long, long time. Now of course things are very different. With a 3 year old in school life is on a pretty tight schedule- up at 7:15 on weekdays, breakfast, out the door by 8:20, home at 4:30, dinner by 7:30, bath, bed. We never would have imagined that we had it in us to be organized like that. That said, it took us a while to get it together. We probably don't put Quinn to sleep as early as some super organized parents, but we're pretty thrilled if he's asleep and we're both downstairs by 9:00. That's good enough for us for now. With Zinnie things seem much easier already. She's a different kid of course but we're different parents too and our life is miles different now... and she seems to naturally fit in to that life. She already seems much more on some sort of a "schedule" too. I use that word very hesitantly cause lord knows I'm aware that these things do not necessarily last, but for the moment her eating and sleeping patterns seem much more understandable to me than Quinn's were for the first year at least. Thank goodness! It's keeping me more or less on the sane side. More or less at least!

Introducing...

The second time around it takes a bit longer to get organized. It's now been 3 weeks since baby Zinnie was born and I'm only just starting to send out photos and birth announcements. If that wasn't bad enough, we realized that a lot of our close friends didn't even know I was pregnant! Yikes. We're definitely lagging here. But anyway... I hope to make up for all that spotty communication by writing (at least more or less!) regularly on this blog again and sharing photos, news and videos of little baby Zinnie and big Mr. Quinn.
So here we go!

Zinnie Lyse Houben-Wilson was born on February 7th at 5:06 a.m. weighing in at 4.2 kilos (9.25 lbs). Quinn was born 3 weeks early so we started expecting Zinnie near the middle of January, but she had other plans and ended up arriving exactly on her due date. By the end of my pregnancy I was pretty huge. I hadn't been sleeping well for a couple months because of my enormous belly, the crazy amount of peeing I had to do at night and the fact that I could hardly breath through my nose anymore. I was also desperately bored. I had worked up until the mid January and I managed to get some nesting and resting done at home after that, but after two weeks of cleaning, reorganizing, sewing etc. I started to get the feeling that I was never going to give birth.

The day before

The afternoon of the 6th I had an acupuncture appointment with a midwife who I'd seen once before. My doctor had suggested getting acupuncture done in order to ripen my cervix since they knew I would be having a big baby. Since it was the day before my due date the midwife asked me if I'd like her to do a cervical sweep to get things moving. I of course said YES! She told me as I was leaving that the "sweep" might be quite effective and indeed as I walked home that afternoon I started having more and more contractions. By 6:00p.m. they were coming quite regularly and were getting stronger. By midnight I was having contractions every 2 to 3 minutes and Jos was by my side pressing with all his might on my back as soon as said "NOW". We left for the clinic in my parents car (they had conveniently arrived just that morning) It's a 10 minute drive to the Matérnité des Lilas where Quinn was also born. It's a fantastic, tiny birthing center that has always striven to make childbirth a human rather than a medical event. Sounds obvious, but in France there aren't that many places that operate with that philosophy. They showed me into the very same birthing room where I had Quinn... 5 hours later Zinnie popped her head out into the world. I was on all fours on the bed and only ended up having to push twice before the midwife asked me if I wanted to catch my baby. I put my my hand down and felt as her wet head and back come out into the air. The whole team there was shocked and amazed that I'd opted for a natural birth. They said that hardly anybody does that in France anymore which I found slightly amazing especially at a clinic like Les Lilas.

At the clinic

I spent three nights at the clinic resting and being taken care of. On the afternoon of the 10th my brother James picked us all up and brought us home. When Quinn first met Zinnie at the clinic he was a bit nervous and shy, but once we brought her home he was really excited and so sweet with her. He gives her little pats and kisses on the head and genuinely seems proud to be a big brother. We'll see how things continue... I'm sure there's bound to be some jealousy down the road, but so far things are going pretty smoothly. Of course smooth is a relative term in a 3 year old's world, but let's just say we're surviving!

Getting to know each other

Miss Zinnie is pretty calm for the moment. Of course there's not a whole lot going on in her world besides sleeping and eating... both in great quantities still. Bizarrely I actually feel more rested now than at the end of my pregnancy. Or maybe I've just become very very used to interrupted sleep.

I'm looking forward to seeing who Zinnie becomes little by little as she spends more and more time awake and active. I'll keep you all updated here as things progress.

3 + 1 = 4

It's a bump!

2!

On Thursday the 27th of January Quinn turned two!! Kind of hard to believe. Jos was in London on Thursday, but my parents and I fêted Quinn and then we had a second fête on Sunday. Quinn was perfectly happy to open presents and eat cake more than once. His favorite part was blowing out the candles though which he wanted to do several times in a row.

Mr. Straw talks to Mr. Juice Box

A Year of Quinn (Part 3)

SEPTEMBER

We got back from our vacation towards the beginning of the month. Work started up again little by little and normal life (whatever that is) began again.


At the beginning of the month we were still lounging on the beach and eating fish burgers.


Riding the carousel in Paris. Quinn made sure to try out each and every different seat.


Autumn sun on the train to Belgium.



OCTOBER

And all of a sudden it was the Autumn. Jackets, falling leaves and long shadows. Near the beginning of the month we went to Montmirail to visit my parents. While we were there we all decided to drive down to Chaumont sur Loire and see the beautiful gardens and installations before the end of the season. The installation-gardens were incredibly inspiring.


Messing around in Montmirail.



Enjoying the gardens (and the last bit of sunny weather) in Chaumont sur Loire



NOVEMBER

Jos was working in Amsterdam for the first two weeks of November directing a big cabaret show. My parents and Quinn and I visited for a long weekend and we got to see the show, meander along the atmospheric canals, see some good friends from Holland and celebrate Rick's birthday in style.

Quinn is definitely a performer (wonder where he gets it?) and he even likes to clown around for himself in front of the mirror or the camera on my computer. He loves to take pictures of himself in silly hats.




Walking around Amsterdam with my parents.



DECEMBER

At the beginning of the month we went to London to visit James and Adric and celebrate a late Thanksgiving. We did a home exchange and ended up staying in a lovely family home in North East London. Quinn was thrilled to see that two cats came with the deal too! Then back to Paris, then there was snow (and lots of it) and then all of a sudden it was Christmas and the end of another year. We celebrated the holidays with both our families and came home at the beginning of January happy, exhausted and stacked with presents.


Playing with the cat at the house in London. Quinn probably had more fun than the cat did.




Dressed up for Thanksgiving dinner.



We finally met Jos' dear friend Simon's two children Noma and Teyo while we were in London. Nobody wanted to stay still for the photo of course!



Christmas walks with Bobo.



Waiting for more gifts to open on Christmas morning. Quinn definitely understood the present thing this year!



James and Adric set up the Christmas feast!


More presents in Belgium!



Snow and trampolines... what could be better?!