Few months ago I joined a motherhood group on Facebook called “La primul bebe” (“At the first baby”). I found so many useful things only by reading the questions and the responses of the mommies in the group.

One thing that left me disturbed, not only on this group, also from other online places I read stuff, was about breastfeeding. I read thousand of comments that say it’s impossible to not have enough milk to satisfy your baby’s needs and is a nonsense to say that your milk is not nutritious enough for your growing baby. So many mommies being against adding one-two formula meals, aside from breast milk. I actually ended up believing it also and I was so convinced I will breastfeed exclusively until 6 months and on-demand until at least 2 years old.

Until I read a question from a mom that was so desperate because her baby was not sleeping anymore through the night, she was waking up every 1h asking for breast and she was never completely satisfied, moaning and twisting and even biting her. She was asking about a proper way to start complementing with formula and which dosage and brand is the best. She mentioned she cannot take it anymore, she is unslept for weeks. Even that she had wounds in one boob, so big that the flesh is falling from them. It creeped me out.

But no, you know what creeped me out? The passion with which the other mommies were advising her to hang in there and that breastfeeding is hard and they all survived it, what did she expect?! Nobody was seeing the obvious: the mom was desperate. She had way crossed the line from sacrificing your needs for your baby to literally torturing yourself. Nobody was showing any empathy towards the mother. I understand you are the mommy and you have to provide for your baby 24/7 but offering yourself on a plate for your baby to eat you alive is a bit too much.

That’s when it hit me. It’s a complete jungle out-there. They are ferociously competing for the title “the most sacrificing mother of the year”. I don’t understand this.

You know, in airplanes, in case of cabin depressurization, they tell you to put your oxygen mask first and then put it on your baby. Because the baby cannot save you and cannot save himself alone either. This is what some “modern mommies” don’t seem to understand. It’s much worse than in the previous century, back then women had only to care about the kids and the household. And be available for when the husband has “needs”. Now they must have jobs also. A modern-day women is working 2-3 times more than a man. And they are not even allowed to complain! 😐

I’m not like this. I care about my own sanity. I am searching for peace and comfort at all times. Yes, I’m also lazy sometimes, I don’t like to do things that are not really necessary at that respective time, especially when someone is stressing me.

I care about my children sanity. I know what it means to be raised by a mom that constantly screams and is constantly running from one place to another trying to do as many chores as possible in her time at home, after a full-time job, until my dad comes home, never having enough time for me and for my emotional needs.

And I definitely don’t want to end up like this, due to stress, over the years. She was constantly stressing me out. Ok, she is the best cook I know and I can say our house was always clean. But I lived all my childhood and teenage years in a constant anxiety. I can find excuses, I can bring myself at peace, but I needed a lot of years to quietly meditate about my childhood drama. And I didn’t die out of hunger nor from living in misery, as I was always threatened as a child.

No, children do not forgive, they choose to forget, at first, for protecting their sanity. Until they simply cannot forget anymore. And they end up having a complete mental meltdown, sometime around the mid-twenties, when they realize they are not emotionally prepared for successfully living on their own, under those high standards in which they were raised.

So… I value emotional and mental sanity the most and this will be my main focus with my child. I don’t want them to fear me. Kids – and humans in general – do incredible stupid things out of fear. I want my child to understand that is important for their current and future wellbeing, to do the things that they have to do and not do them in order to please their parents or because they fear them.

What if there is a spider in that corner on the ceiling, where I cannot reach with the vacuum cleaner? He is a creature also, we will all live in peace. 😀 And a bit of dust or dog hair didn’t kill anyone. (Unless they are allergic, but that’s a different topic). I will do my best to breastfeed exclusively until 6 months, if no medical issues appear that might prevent me from doing this. But at the 3rd sign of baby biting me until the blood starts running, I’m done! See, I’m planning to survive 2 times, everybody makes mistakes, even infants. 😀

But at the 3rd strike, that’s it! My boobs will be closed for business. Whether if she is 3, 5, 10 or 15 months old. The Earth is now full of formula milk and thankfully I’m not in my young twenties anymore, I think I can afford to feed her “chemical milk”. Hilarious, dudes: water itself is a chemical! We ourselves are chemicals. Organic and complex, but still chemicals. Btw, there are much more dangerous chemicals in simple tap water, than in the formula specially designed for infants.

And something else: apparently there is a new study now, saying that infants can be intoxicated if you feed them water. That’s why you should not give them water or “god forbids” herbal tea or juices, until 6 months old. I get the explanation that tea contains over-stimulating substances, juices contain too much sugar and water just fills their stomach without bringing any nutrients, which may lead to anemia, due to dehydration, in the long run, but saying you can intoxicate them with clear water sounds a bit extreme. Ok ok, I can get drunk myself only from a big glass of cold water, but still 😀

Yeah.. And about starting solids. I don’t see the logic of starting solids earlier than when the baby can support herself properly sitting on her bottom. Or feeding them fruits for breakfast. I don’t get this. I’m not eating fruits for breakfast, except bananas and avocado. But these are not entering in the category of fruits, given the “chemicals” they are made from. I think a proper food for breakfast is any combination of protein and complex carbs. Also with full fats. Fruits, as snacks, 2h before lunch or 2h before dinner. And I’m thinking to start with cooked veggies for lunch.

So yeah.. Have to stop it here, for today, Leo is having a cold and he just came up, snuggling next to me in bed. So we may say I already have a baby to care for… Maybe make him a tea or something before he starts asking that he wants to “breastfeed”. And now I realize I didn’t write about any of the topics from the title. 😀

So, this weekend I had a trip to Prague, for a team-dinner with my work colleagues.

It was very fun, we went to a greek restaurant, we saw face-to-face our new girl from Argentina, so much fun speaking in Spanish with her. And the new Polish guy is also very sociable, he was telling me about his younger sister and how he remembers her as a baby.

When I left the restaurant around 10 PM, to head to my hotel, it was snowing!! So cool!! First snow for this year. Very romantic.

And then in the morning it was everything white, I was brave enough to walk from the hotel until the train station, where I met my Romanian friend, Ale, from the previous work-team. It’s weird, you know, we both live in this country for more than 6 years but we haven’t seen each other in more than 3. Honestly I’m not sure when was the last time we saw each other.

She bought me a set of tiny cute baby socks from Tchibo 🙂

And then we saw a fringe train with coal locomotive, temporarily parking at the train station. Must-ve been some historical event, because I cannot imagine that train circulating regularly, in 2018. It looked very 1800ish.

I mean, you have no idea how much smoke it created for a 5 min stop in the train station. I was holding a cup of decaf latte from Tchibo and when the train left I couldn’t drink from it anymore, because the top was full of coal ashes..

In the train I had business class, I found a nice price, thanks to booking the tickets in advance. And I shared the compartment with a mom with her 2 and 1/2 years old boy and a guy.

The guy was surprisingly attracted and smiling at the boy, even if he just had a huge tantrum, rolling over the floor on the corridor, not wanting to enter the compartment… crying like crazy. So I thought, wait a minute, a normal business class dude, working on his laptop, would be disturbed by such a creature, not get attracted and smiling to it. Mystery solved: he was married, I noticed the ring. Probably recent, since he was not looking more than 30 yo. And probably having his own tiny creatures already… or on the way.

And he took sparkling wine, apparently on business class you can choose between juice or wine. And then he wanted to share the wine with us, ladies, and that was when I excused myself, saying that I’m pregnant.

And that’s when it started. I had such a nice and long discussion with the mom, at first in Czech and then, when I mentioned I’m talking at home in English, we switched to English.

I guess I should travel more often on business class, higher chances of meeting people speaking English.

The guy left the train at some point, I think Olomouc, so we had another hour to discuss in peace. The boy was watching cartoons on a tablet and from time to time he was increasing the volume. The mommy got upset at first and then we noticed that he was just doing it because we were also talking loud and he couldn’t listen his stuff. I mean, what would you expect? Smart kid. We were disturbing him.

Yeah.. and I told her I already started buying clothes for baby, now being more convinced we are expecting a girl, after the doctor check from last week, when she confirmed the gender we were told after the first trimester detailed scan. And now I just discovered I already own 12 onesies, 8 pair of pants and 6 full pajamas, 4 with zipper and 2 with buttons, in various colors. But they are in several sizes, up to 6 months, so there is still room for more. I’m actually planning to purchase another F&F set from Tesco, plain white, size “up to 1 month”, I liked the material and that it has no snap buttons and labels at the neck, from the “up to 3 months” set from last week.

Yeah, and on Monday they will deliver my Maxi-Cosi CabrioFix nomad-sand color, baby car-seat. Can hardly wait! I bought it on a local czech site, found a very appealing Black Friday offer, 40% off, couldn’t resist it. Now it’s Leo’s job to purchase the IsoFix base. As for the carriage, I’m still for Adorra, from Amazon.de, same color as the car seat. But we can wait a bit more for buying this one.

So, as the Ostrava station was approaching, the mom and the toddler were dressing up and the boy sent me a kiss in the air. I was so moved, it made me cry out of emotion. And then he came close to me and wanted to kiss me good-bye and he kissed me on my lips! I tried to turn my head, to receive the kiss on the cheek, but it didn’t work, I could not escape his love 😀

So yeah.. I was lips kissed by a 2 and 1/2 years old. I had to wipe my lips after. It felt weird. Funny, right?

But the funny part starts barely now: I was having nightmares about it.. That I was afraid I will go to prison for having sexual relations with a minor. 😦 And how I was explaining to that boy in the dream that I love him and everything, but I am a grown-up and this is not appropriate…

It was cute and all, but I will definitely not teach my kids to kiss on the lips, especially strangers. There are many ways of showing affection, but I prefer to keep a limit, mostly for sanitary reasons. Yeah, just because I talked for 1 hour with his mom and I did hi5 once with him, it didn’t make us close family. Anyway…

So the mom gave me two apps, one for buying SH baby-clothes and one for searching and hiring baby-sitters and house-keeping when needed. I am so thankful.

And she also told me, if I want to bring my mom over, I must have a very serious discussion with her to trace down the expectations and the limits. Just like a job interview. Because, apparently, when the granmas will get into contact with the baby, something strange will happen in their brains and they will feel like they have the chance of raising their baby again and without even noticing she will slowly insinuate herself into the education of the baby, often times their methods and knowledge being obsolete.. which will result in conflicts..

Very good to know. 🙂 Such a nice mom, we didn’t even exchange our names, but I was lips kissed by her cute toddler.

So we bought a couch. Three weeks ago. Yesterday evening they delivered it home. I noticed the delivery van’s driver was a bit irritated.. Anyway, him and Leo slowly put down, in front of the garage, the two pieces of our couch and we waited for one of Leo’s friends to help us carry it inside the house. In the meanwhile we had dinner.

When they finally brought inside the first piece, we slowly opened it.. We noticed the color was not quite like the one we remembered buying, it was more gray than beige. I said.. I don’t know, maybe it’s the inside light, it gives gray reflexes…

On the invoice it was written beige.

So.. After wondering what went wrong, trying to get used with the idea that we will have a gray-ish couch – this colour was matching also with the rest of the room, mainly with the window’s drapes – it came to me the idea to bring home also the second piece, to make sure, at least, they are both of the same colour.

They had to remove the entry door, because it was not fitting in.

On this one, the label was in front, very visible. Couch Kirsten, beige. Funny thing is that, through the wrapping plastic you cannot really tell if it’s beige or gray. And then Leo searched for the label of the first piece. Barely found it, in some corner: Couch Kirsten, gray.

Oops.

At least they could’ve delivered both pieces of the same colour. We called the driver, the seller.. nobody answered, it was a bit after 7 pm.

So we patiently waited until this morning, trying to make up funny scenarios of what could have happened. It crossed my mind that maybe they had in the same delivery 2 Kirsten couches, one gray and one beige. What were the chances of messing them up? It must be that this couch model was selling like fresh bread.  Or the driver was drunk.

Yeah.. So in the shop, this morning, the lady confirmed that this happened: they had two couches to deliver in the same time frame. They will call us Monday to see how we can get into the possession of our correct beige piece.

And I would really like to see the face of the other family, when they also noticed their mosaic couch. Apparently we were the first to complain, maybe the other ones haven’t even noticed. We wouldn’t like to have our piece dirty or scratched or full of bad emotions. We treated their gray piece very good: read it classical literature before bed, we said jokes to it, we drank tuica next to it. Ok, only Leo and his friend. I drank water.

So yeah.. What were the chances. Mercury retrograde, but still. Conjunct with my natal Uranus. But still. Now we have learned our lesson, not to receive anything ever again before checking the labels and making sure we were delivered the exact product we bought.

Yesterday I visited with Leo a shop dedicated for baby stuff, in Ostrava. Outside it was very close to 0 degrees.. We got a bit irritated when we missed the exit to the right street and we ended up back at the beginning of the highway, but we still arrived at the shop just 1 min later than the planned time.

We studied the Maxi-Cosi CabrioFix and the FamilyFix base, we put it in, twisted it, bended it, turned it up down, shaken it etc.. And then we struggled to take it out from the isofix base, until some lady from the shop had to call another lady to do it. Now we know how to take it out from the base, it is very simple, but a bit tricky.

What made me a bit sad was the lightness of the shell. I mean, I knew it’s among the lightest ones, that’s why I chose it, so I can easily carry it myself, but I was expecting it to be a little more robust.

Plus, it was not fixing perfectly in the base, it was making noise at shaking it from left to right. In the end we noticed that all of them – also more expensive brands – had this room of movement. I liked one from Britax also, but that one was fixed on the base. The CabrioFix is compatible also with the Maxi-Cosi Adorra stroller, that, so far, I love. Probably until I will see it and test it in some shop and I will find it faults.

What surprised me was the price in the shop: 3450 kc the base and 2999 kc the shell, which makes them even cheaper than on Amazon. Which intrigued me and made me doubt the quality.

They said they didn’t have others in the store, new and packed, but we can order them and they can bring them with the same price. I somehow found it hard to believe, because even on their online shop the are more expensive. In the end we decided to wait… we still have over 20 weeks left for studying and buying, maybe something better comes on the market by then, on the same price.

And then I was browsing through the other stuff, I was looking at bassinets and solid wood beds, bath products etc. but Leo didn’t have that much patience, so I felt I had to rush also. The baby clothes were ridiculously expensive. I spent 800 kc for an organic cotton bra, mostly because it came with an extender… because all I have are not fitting me anymore in the back. Anyway, in exactly one hour we were back in the car.

Yeah.. so why I became depressed, maybe because I couldn’t buy anything for the baby. I kinda lost my enthusiasm. Reality set in, it’s not that much fun anymore. The priority for every product is to be effective and safe.. so we need to be very careful on everything that we are buying.

I have to make a long visit in a store, just by myself and study all the stuff in peace.

Also, I promised myself I will only buy clothes from Tesco and from H&M, because of their decent prices. Even in Marks & Spencer I found some very cute stuff and Leo seems to be much fond of their trousers and shirts. Ok, I will indulge in one or two (sets) from there also – like father like baby. 😀 But I liked a lot the baby clothes from H&M, white or soft colored, simple and practical.

And those zipper pajama overalls that I bought on Amazon.de in size 62, I want to buy a couple also in 56 and 50, they are lovely and honestly I don’t know why people say zippers scratch, on these ones it’s very soft. Besides, I hate those snap buttons that touch the skin, on the inside. I would definitely not like to have metal directly over my skin, no matter how small.

So yeah… I think I decided for co-sleeping, so we will buy a baby bed that attaches to our king size bed. Currently my Amazon.de cart has 951 euro of products, excluding the CabrioFix shell and the FamilyFix, that we are buying directly from that FunBaby shop.. if..  nothing else better shows up in the meanwhile.

Now, 3rd episode of this season of Outlander awaits me. Yeah.. now that I read the book, the show seems to have lost the power to excite me also..

When you care about admitting and fixing a mistake you made, that nobody else spotted yet, when you care about a work well done, more than you care about what other people think about you, your consciousness won the battle over the ego.

That inflated ego of yours, that makes you think at all times that you are the best. How could you have made such a stupid mistake in the first place? How can you admit it? Everybody will see and will think how stupid you really are.

No. The right question is: how were you able NOW to discover the mistake that you haven’t before? What made you check also for the thousandth time? To walk the thousandth mile, just to make sure, yet one more time.

Guess what. After I admitted and corrected that one, I checked again and I discovered yet another one. Now I was crawling under the carpet of how ashamed and incapable I was feeling. I was already one whole level below being ashamed. So I had to ask for help and advice from the closest human. Ethics consultation. And it made me realize that a stronger person is one that admits a mistake instead of walking the thousandth mile trying to shove it under the carpet or blame anything else for it. Hormones, for example. Or Retrograde Mercury.

For a long time I used to believe that, if I submit something that I’m sure is correct, being also just a lousy blog post, and I discover a mistake after I read it one more time, after being published, it’s because somebody else read it and transmitted me the mistake thing through telepathy. 🙂

Now I don’t believe in that anymore. I believe only in me. I believe in the multiverse being that I am.

And with this opportunity I admit I have yet another problem. I have a too strong urge to be the first, because I usually have a too good impression about myself. My mind works in sparks and when something gets inside, it takes over. Even if life proved me several times that the first answer is not always the right one, because sometimes you are missing crucial data. And as correct as your computation is, the final answer is wrong, because it’s based on corrupted entry data.

Yes, I won more than I lost, with this impulsiveness, at least in school, because the teachers were recognising the first correct answer more than they were punishing it.

But sometimes in life, actually, the older you become, you learn that it matters more if your final answer is the correct one, even if you are the last one in providing it, as long as it still comes within the deadline.

I still didn’t understand how that angle was 10% but it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m only human after all, not a python.

I always admired your mind though, you absolutely caught my attention on that 12.5. I always wanted to be as bright as you. You don’t remember? That afternoon summer time, 1000 years ago, when she asked how much is 100 divided by 8 and you responded in a micro-second.

Update. Oh, but it matters! So much. oops 🙂 Challenge accepted.

Jupiter is entering Sagittarius by the end of this week!

Yeey! I’ve been waiting for this for 12 years 😀 He is currently in my 1st House and he will be getting close to my natal Sun around the middle of April and then flirting around with my stellium, in his retrograde mode.

And the Sun just left the hibernation mode (my 12th House) and it’s spreading his shine into my 1st House also. Yeey!

I feel the mood to buy new stuff… Yesterday we went to browse for a new couch for downstairs. We came back with an XXL furniture catalog. I’m afraid we’ll order much more than just that couch.

I have my cart full on amazon.de but I know I shouldn’t buy anything yet 😀 You know which kind of stuff I mean.. I have few hundred points in Amazon vouchers to spend, I don’t think they will last until Christmas. I mean, we first need to clean out the room that we want to convert in a nursery. Repaint it and stuff.

It had a set of plain white window drapes, canvas type material, and the first thing I saw when I put them in the washing machine was how I will be painting flowers, butterflies, colored shapes and the colored alphabet on them. And then I’ll put them back in the clean room. I’m so excited!

And it’s so hard not to click on “buy” on that full box on finnbin.com 😀

I admit I already ordered on lekarna.cz a small box of newborn diapers, just to see how they look like. They are so tiny and cute. I’m not gonna buy more yet, because probably newborn size will remain small very soon, seeing that both me and Leo are big Zubats.

But the most exciting thing, as finance is my passion: I searched and searched online, until I learned how exactly the maternity benefit is calculated here. I’m positively surprised, after I ran their online calculator on https://www.mpsv.cz/cs/11580 also considering that maybe for 2019 the limit will increase a bit more, as each year before.

And I saw one article with a proposal for the government to increase the total parental allowance from 220k to 250k 😀 Maybe Jupiter in Sagittarius will make this reality for 2019.

We saw today that she is sitting with the back on my belly, using the placenta as her pillow. Hmm.. That’s why I like to sleep on my belly, so the baby will not have to stay too much upside down. 😀

Ok, we don’t know yet for sure if it’s a she or a he, barely in December we will find out, at the 2nd Trimester ultrasound.

Leo made me study the names from the calendar, day by day, to make a list of names for girls and for boys. I picked only the international ones. 😀 Apparently he is not very much fond of the name I was calling the baby from when I got the first positive test… Because I dreamed about her, with that name.

She has fingers 🙂 they were so cute. And we saw also the eyes and the mouth.

Each time someone asks me, I say if it’s a boy I will raise him gender neutral. I mean, honestly, don’t you feel they are discriminated? They cannot do make-up, they cannot paint their nails, they cannot wear skirts (ok, except in Scotland). Besides, I want an excuse to play with dolls again. 🙂

Finally my nausea is gone, I can eat almost everything again without having food aversions. And I started taking these Femibion 2, from the first day of week 13, mostly because of their Vitamin D.

I had caught a cold about two weeks ago, I had two sessions of headaches of 2 days long each.. And obviously I couldn’t take any pills. I had problems with stuffed nose almost each night for the past month and that sea water spray is not helping much. I don’t know if these vitamins helped or that pot of home-made chicken noodle soup and the two sessions of polenta with butter. And the green tea with lemon and ginger.

Yeah, I just realized today, I haven’t had any coffee in one week, because I was having green tea for breakfast. One green tea per day, with the food, I think it’s still better than one coffee.

Funny thing today, after the check, I went to Tesco for a latte and some pastry for breakfast. I was having a craving for latte, because I left very fast this morning and I didn’t have time to eat anything.

Ok, I woke up too late. Bonnie’s barking woke me up at 6:25. And at 6:45 I was opening the gates for Leo to take out the car. And then we “froze” for 10 min in the street, in front of the cabinet, until they opened.

Yeah, back to Tesco. Everything was still closed, so I went to the vending machine. I put 30 crowns (price was 25) and it gave me my latte and the rest of… 30 crowns (different coins) 😀 I smiled and shove them back in the rest compartment, to make someone else smile also.

Then, in the taxi home, that I ordered myself and came very fast – I hadn’t even finished eating my whole-wheat butter croissant – right after I paid, with some tip, I saw a 50 crowns coin on the floor in front of my seat.

The ride usually costs 50 crowns. So this driver had this ride paid more than double. And it made my day!

I was so excited when I got home. Ok, maybe it was the latte.

“[…] .. 55% of the time when we are together in class we fight!”

And I was thinking, wait a moment, all that interaction was fighting, to you?

“I’m confused… So tell me what Love means to you.”

…

“You can take your time, you don’t have to tell me right now.”

“Voyeur – Sarmanul Dionis”, he typed me, and then he went offline…

So yeah, now I’m reading this Novel. Very surprised that something I read in a dream actually makes sense and also that I was able to remember it.

So now I’m trying to understand what my subconscious is trying to tell me. Write me. Leaving aside all the other crazy dreams that I had before and after that scene. BRB