So, talking about pumping… (yeah, I know, it’s been a while. This post has been waiting for months to be posted… Sorry!)
Last year Oscar arrived to our little family. I said it before but I’am saying it again: the thankfulness and happiness – wow. This might be my own, sometimes (ok, since the birth of my kids pretty much non-stop) melancholic mind, but let’s face it: life is not always kind. So having Oscar, healthy and all, was an enormous gift. The moment he (or likewise: his sister) was born and put on my chest – it hasn’t gotten more special than that.
With child number 1, your life is turned upside down (a baby – how to take care? And: how to do anything else than taking care??). When the second one comes, you are already used to the isolation (uhm, social life, what was that??) and know how to recognize the different baby cries (not, but for the story’s sake let’s pretend I do ;)). This time though, the amount of kids equals the amount of parents, meaning that there are now two hands per kids instead of four. And when the other parent is not around, the hand/kid ratio even drops down to one – which makes you wonder how people can even consider having three kids or more. (Let alone the effort devoted by all those single parents out there; they have my respect, for sure). Just imagine: going out for something simple as buying a bread means setting up an entire caravan of kids, diapers, bottles and a whole lot of other stuff that is now a bare essential – which really makes you want to go back into the house and take a little nap, before actually setting that same caravan into motion…
And then there is the notion of being a ‘real’ family now (somehow with 1 it still feels like practicing) and the possible consequences this might have for your way of living, which can be a bit scary sometimes. Do we stay in the city or do we move out, in search of more space and freedom? And if we move out, do we move to some village or do we isolate ourselves in the countryside, occasionally escaping to the city to satisfy our aesthetic and cultural appetites? Time will tell…
In the end everything is great though. I mean, if your kids are healthy, they let you sleep a bit and you can find that oh so important work-life balance (ok, so none of these things come naturally or are easy, but you can be lucky!), another child just means more love. And this love is so big, it makes you forget about all the things you can no longer easily do or the things you never longed for but came with the package (pumping was definitely one of them… ;)). All you want to do is love and take care.
There is one thing though I hope to never forget and that is ‘me’. As I read someone saying not so long ago: ‘I just want there to be something left of myself when they grow older and leave the house’. Bingo. It’s exactly what I think is so important when having kids: to never lose who you are. Being a mother is a big and tremendously important part of who I am now, but it’s only a part. There is more. The person I used to be before entering the world of motherhood, is still there and needs feeding too. In fact this blog is a bit of a reflection of this, even though I started it before having kids. It is something just for me and reminds me of the passions I used to have and still have: beauty and capturing it in photos. I hope to never lose this.
Every now and then I do allow the family to interfere – so meet Oscar (and in the background: Rosa + good old friend Ceder), ten months old and on the lookout in Servigliano (Le Marche, Italy), from which we have just returned. It’s not the best photo of Oscar, but I like it with the kids scattered around in no particular pattern – just like a normal day ;) (plus: most of the other photos I took of Oscar recently appear to involve either his totally non-fashionable UV-protection suit or too much naked baby skin (which I LOVE but is not meant for the world wide web) – so they didn’t make it to the blog) Love you kids!