Sunday, September 18, 2011

Biscuits with Little Mice

One of my followers sent me an e-mail yesterday to ask where I've been (Hi, Steve!).  I've been meaning to put up a post for the last two weeks, ever since we got back from our vacation in California.  Two Friday nights ago in the throes of some horrible jet lag, I even made a list of posts I was going to write for the rest of September.  I felt great (despite my sleep-deprived state) and couldn't wait to get started during the weekend.  Everything was coming together: we'd just had a wonderful vacation, Niek's family was coming over the next day to help us move furniture and get the baby room together, I was almost done with a good draft of a chapter for my advisor...and then this happened...

Our daughter, Johanna, decided to make her appearance four weeks early and only two days after coming back from our vacation, I might add.  She didn't come when we expected, and almost nothing about her birth or the subsequent days thereafter has gone according to our "plan," but we are truly over the moon about our little girl.

We ended up in the hospital for the birth instead of home like we had planned, but the hospital staff made sure that we had the obligatory post-birth food: beschuit met muisjes (translated as rusk with little mice).  Rusk is a type of rebaked bread and the muisjes are anise seeds dipped in a candy shell.  The muisjes are held on the bread with a bit of butter.  They're served because, apparently, anise is good for milk production.  I did point out that beer was also traditionally believed to be good for breastmilk, and my midwife responded by saying that I could have one if I wanted.  I passed for the time being.
So now we're home and adjusting to life as a family of three (plus the dog, don't forget the dog).  We have beschuit met muisjes on hand for all of our visitors.  Time to get some of those other blog posts up, although they might have to wait a little longer.  Apparently having a newborn baby is kind of exhausting.

4 comments:

  1. Yay! That's the best possible reason for not hearing how the pregnancy's going!

    4 weeks early - what was Johanna's height and weight? In the photo, she looks full-term and healthy.

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  2. Yes, don't forget the dog ;). That was hilarious and I figured that was the thing you figured people were least likely to comment on. Johanna is absolutely beautiful. I am so glad everything went well, albeit not exactly as planned (as far as I've heard, things actually never go as planned, so you're not alone :)). I am dying to come meet her and try some biscuits and mice. Is it realistic that we can get our babies together over a weekend in Amsterdam - or maybe during the week? I'm thinking you making a trip to Næstved before December 12th is unrealistic (that's the day we leave for the US for 8 months!) This is a LOOONG comment. I am so happy for you guys. Thanks for the blog post. Steve and I had actually been discussing you over email :).

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  3. Thanks for the nice comments!
    Johanna was not a small pre-term baby. She weighed 6 lb. 2 oz. at birth and was about 19 inches long. She was born without any complications, and I keep forgetting that she was pre-term. The nurses pointed out to me that although she looks full-term, she craves attention and being held even more than a full-term baby would. Not really a problem for us, though, because we seem to want to hold her all the time during this newborn stage.

    SLG-You are absolutely welcome in Amsterdam. Would you really consider making the trip? That would be so awesome to meet you and your family! Not sure we could make it to Denmark in the next few months, although I would absolutely love to go. Hope you and Steve weren't too worried that I hadn't posted in so long. Really need to do better at keeping up with this blog!

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