Una: Long time no write...

Things have been incredibly hectic on our side lately. In between my parents' visit, buying a house and mastering the incredibly complicated Dutch morgage system, my sister's visit with her two kids and busy times at work no wonder we are not getting to updating the blog as regularly as we should. But there you are, we'll try to do better in the future.

My parents' visit was short and sweet, they were here for two weeks and had a great time with Una. She warmed up to them very quickly and enjoyed the fact that with them she could do anything she is normally not allowed to do. A step back in our discipline path but that is granparents' privilege, right :)? Other than just enjoying their company, Mark and I definitely enjoyed not cooking for two weeks and going to the movies after oh has-it-been-that-long-ago. We went to see Mama Mia (yes, we are the last people on Earth to have seen it) and came home singing. There were a few heavy moments too. One was when we went to a forest/picnic area called Delftse Hout and Una threw a tantrum because she only wanted my Dad to hold her and he is not allowed to do that (he had a massive heart attack last year and can't not lift anything heavy), you could see that this same heart of his was suffering in a different way. The other was when my Mom came to take Una from our room one morning so that Mark and I could sleep in a bit. Due to my Mum's condition (possible primary lateral sclerosis) her walking/balance/talking is severely impaired and even the simplest of actions can be difficult. She bent to pick her from our bed, lost balance and fell backwards with Una in her arms. Mark jumped up, she got up as quickly as she could and started reassuring us that nothing happened to Una as my Mum hold her on her chest. I just felt my eyes filling with tears as I looked at Mark because neither of us was worried about Una, she has suffered much worse self-inflicted falls before and bounced right back, it was my Mum we were worried about. But such is life, I am glad that both of them are here (my Dad's health prognosis after the attack were not good) and are well enough that they can play with Una.

Oh, yes, this is actually Una's blog, so enough of my random rambling. Una is getting cuter by the day, if this is even possible. We have recently discovered her not so gentle side too, in the form of her teeth mark on her cousin Pavle's cheek :(. Her daycare teachers are assuring us that this behaviour is perfectly normal for her age, and they call it something like "fighting for power" which could be the case as Pavle is only 5 months older than her and is the gentlest soul ever. She definitely does not dare doing anything similar to Jana, who is 3 years old and would most certainly fight back :). Other than that, they are really enjoying each other's company and even though it is sometimes challenging for Mark, Tina and I to stay sane or hear each other through all that yelling, it is wonderful to watch them bond, especially knowing that they will only have 2-3 weeks a year to spend with each other :(.

In the spirit of this utterly incoherent post, here are some photos from my parents' visit. The circus photos (a.k.a. Jana, Pavle & Una) are coming soon!