I have loved living here, loved this little place we’ve called home for the last two and a half years. I’ve watched Amélie grow up here. This is where Charlie greeted the world. But sometimes you just need a change. Some fresh air. You want to shake things up… I did try redecorating here first but it didn’t work. So we’re moving, somewhere new, somewhere a little different. I really really hope you’ll come visit. We’d love to see you (and if you do pop by, please leave a comment: our walls are still looking a little bare and we’re feeling lonely). 
PS: for more info on the move, click here.
Leaving Home
Random Weekendness
1) Someone kept on stealing Amélie’s lunch. I thought that maybe if we made it a little harder to get at, it would be less likely to go missing. So I got her a lunchbox. But that wasn’t good enough because – said Amélie – all her friends had the same box and she wouldn’t know which one was hers. Could I, she asked, decorate it for her? She was as pleased as cheese with the result.
2) I wanted to take one of those pretty pictures of coffee that everyone except for me seems to be able to do. Maybe one of the reasons I can’t do it is because every time I put my cup down, a little hand appears to grab it. And my children are crazy enough without the caffeine thank you very much. Also: Marmite. It really is delicious.
3) Only the forehead in focus? Hair over the face? There are days when I should just not bother even picking up my camera.
4) Amélie declared that Sunday was a “perfect day” and that she wanted to go for a walk in the “jungle”. And she was right: it was and so we did. Although we didn’t quite make it all the way to the jungle and had to make do with the Tervuren Arboretum instead.
5) Two of my favorite pictures of the day: we were eating out on our balcony. I wanted to get a picture of the pretty tomatoes and, just as I clicked the shutter, Amélie’s hungry profile appeared in the frame. I love the result. And Han, carrying and exhausted Charlie on the last leg of our jungle adventure.
6) Both my children love my tomatoes. If you read my previous post, you’ll know that Charlie likes to experience his food through a whole skin approach. More evidence below (but that’s not all food on his face. Just under his eye are the remnants of a bruise from one of his “if I can’t have what I want then I shall whack my skull against the floor” episodes. I’m not a fan). 
Feeding Advice
I recently read about some research in which they had compared the eating habits of children who had been spoon fed as babies versus those that had been allowed to eat with their hands. I was happy to learn that self-fed babies tended to develop healthier eating habits than their spoon-fed counterparts. Happy because we are not allowed to spoon-feed Charlie. He insists on feeding himself. So, according to this research, Charlie has a better chance of developing healthy eating habits. But there is something else you should know about babies that are allowed to feed themselves that this research didn’t mention: they will often end up covered in couscous.
Coucous, chicken, curry, carrots, stew, spaghetti, bread, bechamel sauce, bolognese sauce, potatoes, tomatoes, olives, ham, rice, fennel, sausage, sweetcorn, baked beans, pie… He will eat anything we eat. But I do end up having to pick some of it out of his hair before he goes to bed every night. On the plus side, it does mean we don’t have to have two separate feeding times since we can just sit him down with us and let him get on with it while we eat.
He doesn’t always eat with his hands. Sometimes he eats with a fork too. And sometimes he just picks up the plate and presses it to his face. Or tips it over his head. And that’s fine too. It would be better if we had a dog who could clean up after him but, you know what: given the choice between a bit of mess and that smile or a tidy flat and a screaming-match at every mealtime… I choose mess every single time.
Scribble
Charlie and Amélie are completely different beasts. Both lovely, both crazy, but otherwise very different from each other. I just hope that Charlie will share Amélie’s love of drawing. Because my collection of Amélie’s drawings beats all the photos I have ever taken of her, hands down. I’d like to have a similar collection from the Boo. You know, so that when they leave home, I can get them out and have a good ol’ sob with lots of tears and plenty of snot. Ha!
Too many books is not enough
We have too many/not enough books. We have too many for our flat. That bookcase you can see continues down the hall. One section used to be full of DVDs but we had to keep on relegating more and more to the basement and now there is just one little row left. Amélie’s room is overflowing with books too. I counted. She has over 300 books in her room alone. They are on every surface, on shelves, under tables, on top of her drawers. We have piles in our bedroom, on top of and under our bedside tables. Charlie’s room is being invaded too. They have taken up residence in the desk and have sneaked into the kitchen. They are taking over. I have even had to take some into work. See, we have too many but not enough. Because you can never have enough books. 
I love books. I mean yes, they contain words and sentences, information, stories, pictures, maps and poems, knowledge and history, art and inspiration. But you can get all of that off the internet or in a Kindle these days. There is something more to books though. Something that Amazon will never be able to build into their e-readers, that no app will ever be able to recreate on an iPad… It has something to do with weight and texture and the smell of those dusty yellow pages (or soft white ones). It has something to do with the curve of the spine, and the sound of turning pages. I can’t really say what it is. It’s just there and you either get it or you don’t. If you’ve ever stroked a book, cuddled a book, or buried your nose between the pages of a book and inhaled deeply, then you probably know what I’m talking about. If not, then you probably think that I’m either a nerd or a freak. Which is ok. I am a bit.
PS: this picture is a composite of two separate photographs. I’m not very good at that sort of thing so you may notice a Dahliesque droop in the middle of the picture where it looks like the furniture is melting slightly. That is, I promise, just my incompetence and nothing to do with your eyesight going funny, don’t worry. Also, behind that sofa is where I hid all the mess. If Charlie hadn’t been asleep when I had taken this, it wouldn’t have stayed there. Charlie objects to tidiness on principle and so any attempt to gather many scattered messes into a single concentrated mess is met with scorn and the constituents of the mess are immediately redistributed throughout the flat. It’s ok, we still love him.
Mad scientist
Miss Crazy-Pants had her hair cut today. Chip-chop. All gone. And at a grown-up hairdressers too. And she was very good and they were very lovely. Full points all round. These were obviously taken before that. These are pre-cut crazy-pant pictures.
Things we made this weekend
More bagels…
This was Batch no. 1, on Saturday. All fresh and steamy. Then today, I did Batch no. 2 because I had a friend round and she made me. Made me, I tell you.
And this morning, Amélie and I made paper chains. On a gigantic scale.
They are in honor of my father and wicked-step-mother who are coming to stay next weekend. It’s their birthdays and we’re going to make a cake. And you can’t have a cake without decorations. So we decorated. And now I’m just hoping they won’t see this until they get here. And if they do: HAPPY BIRTHDAYS!
Bake bagels? Why yes I did.
And they were good. I know I’m not meant to say that but they really really were very delicious. I saw this recipe (this one here) last week and thought I just had to give it a go. Bagels aren’t easy to find here in Belgium and I had always assumed they would be too difficult to make. Turns out: they’re easy-peasy. And even if they don’t look professional, they taste scrummy. You should try!
Escape
He can open doors. All the doors in the flat, including the front door. He can call the lift. And he does. And then he gets in and presses “0″, for the ground floor. We may have to buy him a bracelet with “if you find this baby, please return unharmed to…” and our address engraved on it.
Also, I took a whole series of these, as he reached up, opened the door and walked out. I then made an animation of them in photoshop. I was so proud of myself and was going to post it here. Then I realised it was over 1000 Mb in size. Hmm… Maybe not then. So that was several hours wasted. 
Snap
These pictures were taken a few weeks ago, on the 13th of January. I think it was the Friday after Hanno’s 40th birthday and I had wanted to take him to the restaurant but the one he wanted to go to was fully booked. So we got a take-away instead. And Charlie wasn’t going to be left out. The last picture (bottom right) is his camera face (and his flirting face too, apparently): he scrunches up his eyes and rolls his head back with the biggest smile you’ve ever seen. It’s brilliant.
(all shot with off-camera flash. Trying to get it to look, well, like they were not shot with a flash. The black and white pictures were all edited with LilyBlue’s Rich BW from her Simple Set. I love it. It’s contrasty without blowing the highlights)
by Cass
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