Fracas Noir – Susanne Waldau – te Brake ~ for better or worse

Once in a while, you need one of those long weekends to catch up on sleep, family and friends. They are perfect battery chargers, boosting your energy, breaking those bad patterns and eliminating negative vibes. Easter turned out in many ways to be a mini-life saver. After weeks of struggling with sleep, completely draining my [...]

When Sebastian was born I sent out an email to friends and acquaintances of the big happening in my life. The response was immense. I have gone through emails for days now and finally I’m getting to the point that my inbox is cleared and I can resume my work related tasks again. What is [...]

It’s been overwhelming to see all your responses to the birth of our beloved Sebastian. Many, many thanks for all your lovely thoughts and comments that have been sent to us and posted as comments on my blog. It’s amazing to see people posting in English, French, Swedish, German and Dutch of course. Truly multinational. [...]

Sometimes the past catches up with you, making itself known when you least expect it. It’s like it has made a unilateral decision to knock on your door and remind you what happened all those months and years ago. It was about 1.30 am. Reinout had just turned out the light and was closing his [...]

Well those words hit me when I opened my inbox this afternoon. It was from none other than MJ, Reinout’s best friend and the person whom I like to see as my personal confidant. Perhaps he had read my previous post and wanted to challenge Reinout’s latest status as the “Rock Star Husband”. The subject [...]

Yesterday MJ came over for dinner and to lend a helping hand to the final stages of us getting baby proof. We now have a chest of drawers that doubles as a changing table in our bathroom and our pram is put together. I must say it all feels so cosy, and I can’t wait [...]

A friend drops by this afternoon. “You are getting bigger and bigger by the day.” Are you refering to a specific bodypart or overall?, I think to myself. It’s a sensitive subject to me. Like asking an anorectic “You’ve gained some weight haven’t you?” “Hmm, thank you for pointing that one out to me.” I [...]

Many people have asked me what’s the difference between being pregnant this time versus when I was pregnant with Victoria. My standard reply is “It’s 11 years ago. Different age, different time, other circumstances.” It’s the short version. I have never been one for long verbal ramblings, especially when you get the same question over [...]

Yesterday evening turned out to be excellent in the company of Reinout’s best friend MJ. He arrived pretty late, which was expected, and we sat down for dinner at 8.30 pm. Dinner consisted of leftovers from Christmas eve, but they tasted even better. Then it was time for another round of Christmas gift exchange. I [...]

There is no such feeling as when you have worked like a dog and you can finally enjoy the fruits of your labour. I’ve been cleaning since early this morning and at 10 pm I dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s. Fortunately I had Caroline to help me  and she did a marvellous job. [...]