One afternoon, we decided to leave the infant and the elderly in the rented house. After two days of long drives and sauntering, they needed to recover. And we needed our private time as a couple. In the mid-day summer heat, we hopped on the car to find Mille de Etangs or The Thousand Ponds, lured by the aerial shots I saw online. From Rupt Sur Moselle, we followed the route to Faucogney-et-la-Mer, thinking it will be easy to find such a popular spot.

How wrong we were! This is France’s countryside, not the Netherlands. Not everything is 30 minutes away and even if they are, you must have a really good sense of direction or a professional GPS to find the neatly-hidden spots in this “wilderness”. Because we didn’t want to spend all our afternoon with our faces stuck on a tiny screen, we ditched the mobile phone and followed our instincts.

We turned right somewhere, on a tiny village road, unpaved, easy to miss, almost concealed by overgrowth – the kind you see in horror films, which one way or the other, leads to the savage demise of the main character.

In the light of the recent terror attack in Barcelona, I look back to the wonderful time I spent in the city. Barcelona is my second home in Europe. My family and closest friends live there. Whenever I had to fly somewhere for a weekend trip, Barcelona is on top of the list.

Barcelona is always warm, always gay. Even if you skip the tourist attractions, there’s always a spot in the city that’s typical Spain, unique to Barcelona – a random tapas bar, a bench with a view of Sagrada Familia in the distance, a coffee shop in the middle of a plaza, inside the church, outside on the beach.

I refuse to give in to the fear that terrorism wants to cage us in. So pack your bags, go visit. Barcelona awaits….

What is a perfect birthday celebration?

This week marks my 4th month of breastfeeding. Second to broken sleep, it is the most challenging part of this motherhood thing. The first week was a total nightmare. From being body parts that initiate desire, they became objects with a manual. They are the first things your baby looks for when she comes out of your womb. There are specific liquids that must be released at specific times.

Mine seemed to be broken. So like objects of use, my kraamverzorgster (postnatal nurse) tried to fix them. With her huge Polish hands, she massaged them like pairs of legs that just finished a marathon. Tubes were attached to them while a machine the size of a portable tv sucked the life out of them. They refused to work and let it known by becoming painful. Milk wouldn’t come out. So my baby drank cow’s milk. I was ready to give up on the very first week.

It is not easy.

In this picture I’m lulling a baby to sleep with one arm while a pump is attached to my breast to catch let down milk. Bottles of milk, lampin (cloth diaper) and baby wipes are occupying as much space on my table as unfinished inventories, requisitions and notepads. This is the nth time that my baby tries to sleep in my arms today. She couldn’t find her position and couldn’t sleep long so she keeps on crying. The telephone keeps on ringing, so does the doorbell the doorbell. The sound of my keyboard wakes her up. The voices of my co-workers, the printer, my coughing, the scooters outside. I pick her up whenever she cries, dance with her, feed her, cradle her, everything just so she’ll stop crying and won’t annoy my colleagues or God forbids that the person on the other side of telephone asks why a baby is crying in the background. And when she doesn’t stop, well, there’s always the breasts.

I don’t know what my colleagues think of it. I don’t even dare ask. Although I have an agreement with my boss, I know I am not delivering as much as I used to. In moments like this, I am very grateful to work for a company that allows me to work and be with my child at the same time. And to have colleagues who are very understanding. I won’t exchange this for a bigger paycheck or a higher position.