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!

Driving in Amsterdam

We took the plunge two months ago and decided to do something we had been avoiding since our arrival in Amsterdam - buy a car. 

S started his thorough research on cars here. He wanted something cheap but good. I wanted something spacious. We finally found a Daihatsu which pretty much met our demands. Nothing special, but not bad. 

However, now that we have a car, I thought I should dare to drive it too, and before that, obviously I needed to undergo the daunting task of lessons and exams.

My driving instructor from Rijschool Breed during my last lesson asked me "Are you writing about your lessons in your blog?" I said no. He asked why not, and I asked myself the same question. "Why not!"

Well, so here I am, to my very precious little Amsterdam blog, to which I return too not very often, but whenever I have something interesting to share.

I am driving around Amsterdam these days and absolutely loving it. O yes, its hard. So many lanes, so many ways to look, so many things to notice and on top of that handle the car. But, I cannot wait to hold my license in my hand and zoom around the town with my baby in the back seat. 

I do think that I would avoid driving in Central Amsterdam at all costs. Narrow roads, trams, cyclists and pedestrians do not exactly provide the ideal situation for driving a car. I would mainly be using the highway a lot, for going to places difficult to reach by public transport.

It would be good to be independent, and it would certainly open a lot more roads for me to explore. 

So lets wish me best of luck, and may my first ever driving license come from Amsterdam!

New buggy!

After dragging along our disappointing and stupid purchase of a buggy for seven months we finally decided to test our luck and try to sell it. After advertising it on marktplaats.nl we got a respectable bid and S wasted no time in selling it. The buggy was gone, we were happy, but at the same time confused about our next purchase.
A trip to Prenatal helped us in choosing our next buggy. This time we knew what we were looking for. Our old buggy was very heavy, it was very difficult to lift it into trams and buses and it was not easily maneuverable. The only plus point with that buggy was that it had a very large spacious shopping basket under it, which has spoiled us.
We wanted a buggy which was small and smooth, but at the same time provided some storage space. On this basis we rejected our original choice of Quinny Zapp, even though we loved the way it just rolled around and closed into a compact little thing. Anyways we thought about how many times we had to close our old buggy and decided that size wasn't that big an issue for us.
Our eyes fell on Prenatal's own brand of buggy, which is basically an imitation of Mclaren Quest. It may not be the prettiest little thing, but it rides smooth, is light and easily maneuverable and has a decent size shopping basket under it.
All I have to say is life is 100 times better with a better buggy!
http://www.prenatal.nl/shop/Kinderwagens-Buggy%27s/Prenatal-Prenatal-Buggy-5-standen-Staal-92669.htm?startValue=&rangeValue=&prevVisit=&id=92669

Packing bags

The countdown to my trip back home has begun. No doubt, Amsterdam is my home now, but Lahore still remains my hometown. My family is my son and my husband, but visiting my parents and siblings is also the most beautiful part of my life.
Its been well over 18 months or so since I visited Lahore last, and its memory is getting shady in my mind. I have to concentrate really hard to imagine what my city looked like. Excitement and anxiety has enveloped me as every night I cross off one more day between me and Lahore.
Visiting Pakistan is not just about seeing my family again, its about being in my own country, where I wouldn't be a foreigner. Having said that, I do feel like a visitor rather than a citizen now that I visit Pakistan.
This is Mr Baby's first trip to my land. I am excited about taking him there, introducing him to my relatives and giving him a taste of life in Pakistan.
S is not happy with my departure, but he has made plans of his own, and I am sure he will survive without us just fine. He will miss us, and we will miss him, but our reunion would be very soon and sweet.
On a personal note I am really looking forward to a few weeks without the responsibility of managing my household duties, and a much needed escape from everyday life. Its vacation time for me, which I plan to enjoy in a relaxed manner.