Stine Kuskner

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By Stine Kuskner - Wed 13th Apr 2011

 

ABOUT 6½ MONTHS - 17 January 2011

What a total luxury having a babysitter is!!:) Heather came today for 1½ hours while I was home. I got to organize the house a bit, clean the kitchen and do some laundry without worrying about the girls being OK. I know this might not sound special at all, but when you have a room in your house which has been a mess for months, and has just been getting worse and worse because you can't seem to find time to clean it, and then use the excuse that "it's already so messy anyways" to just drop all your junk there, you just can't imagine what a relief it is to finally be able to organize everything.

It was my mother-in-law's birthday today, she came over for dinner. Unfortunately she finishes work too late to see the girls, but we had a nice evening with her. One of the presents we gave her was a calendar with photos of the girls, she loved it!

Since I've been working all weekend on my translation, which was due this morning, I haven't done any work at all today. And now I'm going to go to bed and read a book - another luxury!! I have 3 books to choose from - another luxury! - I wonder which one it'll be.

ALMOST 7 MONTHS - 23 January 2011

Combining working life and being a mother and wife is not as tough as I had anticipated - at least not yet... I manage to get about an hour of work done during the day while Live & Laia sleep or play. Thanks to Heather, our babysitter, I can go to meetings and get other things done without feeling bad about it. And since Liva & Laia are so wonderful and sleep from about 19:00 to about 6:30 every day, I can get work done in the evenings, which is great! Yesterday Albert took them both to his mother's house for almost 4 hours, giving me loads of time to work, and every Saturday afternoon my mother-in-law comes and takes care of them. That is worth gold, and is probably a huge reason as to why Albert and I are still doing so good together! :) As soon as she arrives we leave the house and spend the afternoon together. We go into town, look at shops, buy things, have a drink or go out for dinner. We're always gone long enough for the girls to be asleep by the time we get home. And the best part is that we all love the situation - my mother-in-law is thrilled to be with Liva & Laia for a few hours, they love being with their Iaia for a few hours and Albert and I love being able to leave the house and know that our daughters are happy and in good hands!

Last week I took Liva and Laia to the park and for the first time ever pointed out the animals - ducks, geese, dogs, pigeons, etc, as well as people - kids playing football, bicycles, etc. The LOVED it! They sat in their stroller and observed everything. Every once in a while they'd suddenly see each other and start laughing. Today we all four went to the park, first we stopped at a little café where Albert and I had brunch, then we continued on to the park. Liva & Laia were asleep but woke up while we were in the park. We fed them, then looked at all the interesting things before heading into the center of town to stroll around there for a while. We were gone for more than 4 hours, Liva and Laia were happy and enjoying themselves the entire time. We have really been blessed with sweet, easy, happy girls!!