Childrens' story competition

Around two months back I participated in a story competition for children aged 1 to 3. The theme of the competition was 'New gender roles in the multicultural society'.
It was organised by Inclusive Works and its partners included British Council, Clavis Books, and FEBE support.
This week they announced their result in a small ceremony at Utrecht. All participating writers were invited. The number was around 300, but the attendees were a little less than 100 according to my estimation.
The competition was open to everyone. The story could be written in any language, as long as its English translation was sent along. This automatically made me assume that there would be a lot of contributions in different languages, and the ceremony would be English based to cater to the international audience.
However, my expectations turned out to be wrong as I found myself in a very Dutch environment. Both the winning stories were (one for the category of 1-3 years old, and the other for 4-6 years old) written by Dutch women, who were present at the ceremony.
I think that even though the project aimed at promoting multiculturalism, the Dutch jury did after all have a Dutch taste.
However, it was a nice purposeful effort, which I thoroughly enjoyed participating in and I hope these and other organisations continue with their endeavours.
http://www.inclusiveworks.eu/en-gb/ourexpertise/projects/childrensstories.aspx#.UUlyuRzFWVk

Baby at the window

My bedroom window, which started off as my best friend in the house has turned into my son's favourite spot as well. He stands there for ages looking out at all the passing by cars.
Thanks to the window his craze for outdoors is sort of fulfilled while staying indoors in this awful weather.
We are thinking of moving houses, but I love this area where we live. Wherever we go from here, I know that among other things I am going to miss my bedroom window a lot, and so is Mr Baby.

View from the window

Baby's first joy ride

Kermis is on this week in Osdorp, Amsterdam. I have been passing by it every day of the week longing to go inside and enjoy the joy rides, BUT, the weather has been awful! Snow, freezing cold, if I were to board a joy ride in this weather I would have become a popsicle for sure.

Anyways, luckily for us, today was not so cold, and no signs of rain or snow. I took this opportunity to walk to Kermis. 

My first stop was a ride for kids, the one which just goes round and round, I chose to sit him in a jeep. He hesitated a bit so I stood with him. For the first two rounds he had no idea what was going on, in the third round he started touching the wheel and enjoying the music a bit. After that the ride was over. 

Then I took him on a mini roller coaster ride with me. It was a very special moment for me, to take a joy ride with my son. He sat like a pro, holding the bars of the cart. And when it sped up a bit I was afraid he would get scared, but he just kept sitting confidently and I did hear him humming. 

S stood outside with the watchers, guarding the buggy. He didn't look half as excited as I was, well, to be perfectly honest he looked quite bored. So I asked him "Didn't you get excited to see him", and he replied "He wasn't doing anything exciting". I guess that's the difference between me and him. I take every moment of Mr Baby as very special. Everything he does for the first time gives me a weird kid of joy. Maybe because these are all things that I have imagined earlier in life doing with my children, and they are finally turning true. I couldn't be more thankful.

Growing Away

My story printed today on Amsterdam Mamas.

http://www.amsterdam-mamas.nl/stories/growing-away

 

New Sony Vaio netbook

My four-year-old beautiful pink Sony Vaio was giving me signals that its time to say goodbye and move on. Sadly, my pocket was not allowing me to buy a new laptop just as yet, but one good scare made me shut down my laptop, clean it up and put it on marktplaats for sale. The responses started coming in minutes after I posted and I closed a deal within three hours of posting my advert. I must say that later I thought I could have sold it for a higher bid, but what was gone was gone.

After bidding farewell to my laptop I did start having withdrawl symptoms though. I thought I was stupid to sell my laptop so quickly without buying a proper substitute. I had visited BCC a few days ago and had totally fell in love with Asus VivoTab Smart 400C1A024W. However, along with its dockboard it turned out to be way above my budget, which I was somehow stretching to 500 euros. Any good latest laptop was obviously not an option in this price range, so I settled on buying a netbook.
My demands were simple: lightweight, good battery life and good looking.
After looking at many Acer, Asus, HP netbooks, reading reviews comparing prices I was on the verge of tears thinking I would never be able to find the perfect replacement for my pink Sony Vaio.
I narrated my agony in front of dear S who hurriedly set down on finding a good machine for me. Minutes later he calls me with excitement. On his screen I see another pink Sony Vaio SVE-1112M1EP. Its a netbook, lightweight, beautiful and with great specs and just in my price range. Looked like S had saved the day once again.
I decided to go to Media Markt right that night, where I carefully saw all my other options but finally decided to take my new Sony Vaio home. But this time I ditched pink for white, to match my white Samsung S3 mini.
Happy me typing my first blog on my new Sony Vaio netbook, trying to get the hang of Windows 8.

Baby goes to Bouncy Bunch

I should technically stop calling my baby, baby now. Since his first birthday last month he has jumped into toddler-hood  From all fours to just two little feet, he walks around the house all day long.
But let's just keep calling him a baby, because it is easier to write and say and also because he is going to be my baby, if not forever, then atleast for a very long time.
So for Mr Baby's birthday we thought of many gift ideas, but in the end decided not to get him any toy because he would be getting a lot on his birthday party (which he did). So for his birthday present I decided to enroll him in one of these fancy baby activity classes where all Amsterdam Mamas happily tag along their babies.

First I took a trial lesson for Baby Sensory, but found it a bit too subtle for my active son's taste. Then I found out about Bouncy Bunch. From the name it seemed like an active place an active baby would love going. So we found a place there, and have had two classes so far.
The class really is fun, Mr Baby is one of the elder kids in group, more mobile. While most of the crawlers in the group happily sit in their mothers' laps listening to the poems, mine prefers to stand in the middle of the room from where he probably has a better 360 degree view.
Its still a fun class and we are both enjoying. Hoping to make some friends here too!