29 wks Holidays!
One week off and I am prepared. First, I visit family and friends up north. The train ride is very relaxing; the humming sound of the engine works as some kind of lullaby, because I have trouble staying awake. In Eindhoven I hop on a bus to Steensel, where my brother lives. I’ve been on the bus many times before and spot my exit far ahead, but I’m still dumbfounded when the bus whizzes by my stop and I realize that I forgot to push the I-want-out-button. There is only one busstop in the whole village, so I rush to tell the bus driver that I should’ve gotten off the bus. He looks at me like I’m either very stupid or very drunk, gives me a sermon for all passengers to hear, then drops me off at the edge of the village.
In The Hague I visit Sytske, who takes me to a Liberation Day concert. Some kind of loud band and we are standing right in front. The baby hears the drums and starts kicking like a maniac. I don’t know if this is approval kicking or disapproval, so I can’t make any predictions as to whether my boy will be a punk rocker or not. Personally, I found the music a bit nauseating somehow, so we headed home.
After my mini-tour of Holland it’s Home Improvement Day. I rent a polishing machine for four hours. The nursery has a wooden floor that needs a makeover. And when my brother-in-law can’t make it last minute, my mother steps in to help. My mother is a 72-year-old tough woman! The only problem is that we are both barely strong enough to carry the machine up the two flights of stairs to the room. By the time we finally reach the right floor, one out of the four hours has already passed. The ensuing two are hectic; mum in the middle of a cloud of dust, because the dustbag keeps falling off the machine, me bringing coffee upon coffee to keep her going. A couple of times the machine manages to pry itself loose from my mother’s hands and goes on a polishing spree in all the wrong places. Then we have to go through the ordeal of carrying the monster back down the stairs The result of one day of struggling: a very creatively polished floor!
My last holiday highlight is a trip to Antwerp with Maarten. We shop, we eat, we sightsee, I pee. I pee A LOT! And the thing about public toilets in Belgium, I found out, is that they charge insane amounts of money. Some toilets cost me € 0,50 to pee! By the time we head back to Maastricht I’ve sponsored Antwerp for about 5 euros in urinal expenses.
30 wks
The nursery floor quickly develops into a small disaster. The wood-dye I bought turns out to be too light, the second can too red. Either way, it looks like someone burnt the floor or something. My mom puts on a new layer every day while I’m at work and every night I get home to see a bit of improvement, but not a lot. The floor stresses me out immensely. I want to do something myself to better the situation, but apart from dragging more and more cans of dye to the house, I’m stuck.
The lady from the maternity care agency announced her upcoming visit a few weeks ago. But now, the day before she actually arrives, I’m getting nervous. Does this woman want to see my entire house? Because the nursery is far from finished. The floor is a wreck, there are boxes everywhere and I need to clean the bathroom. I have laundry lying around and didn’t pay my bills yet – they’re in a big pile on the table. I’m starting to fear some kind of reprimand by the agency. If they are supposed to take over my household for a week, I better make some changes quickly! – something like that.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. The lady comes in, sits down and shows me the fabric she just bought at the market. Delfts Blauw – totally the fashion these days. Cosy small talk from the get-go. I like her immediately. She doesn’t want to see the whole house either. She just wants to tell me the general procedure of the agency, the stuff I need to get ready and she wants to know if I plan to breastfeed or not. When she leaves, I tell myself to stop worrying and to start enjoying the unexpectedness of whatever is to come. I plan to succeed in this effort by week 35…
