Monday, May 28, 2012

Emptying a house

The boy's dad sold his house and so this weekend we were busy helping out to make it completely empty. This is the house where the boy grew up, where brother-in-law was born* and my first "home" in The Netherlands. It has been said before, but it is always amazing to see the amount of stuff people accumulate in a lifetime. Which is why we've made it a goal to regularly check and make sure we own the least stuff possible and have it be stuff that is either necessary or loved... Anyhow here is the random stuff we "saved" from the move.
- A photo of brother-in-law as a toddler, perfect childhood happiness all over his face.
-Good luck elephants
-A mug that little sister gave to me a few years ago
-An old metallic car that the boy's dad used to play with.
-An iron, we needed to replace ours.
 -Glass candy from our trip to Venice, from a little artisan shop in Murano. The fake candies are in a crystal jar that used to have a lid... but the boy broke it a long time ago when he was a little kid stealing real chocolate eggs. 
-An alarm clock (the one we have gives a lot of light and does not let the boy sleep). It has been two nights since we have this "new/old" alarm clock and the boy already reports sleeping better. 
-A cd binder with backup computer software, just in case. 
 -The latest cd of Natalia Lafourcade, here is a video of one of my favorite songs of this album. So fun and dreamy and melodic and real all at the same time.
* Surprisingly (at least for me, when I found out how popular this option is) The Netherlands is the country with the highest rate of home birth (24%) in Europe.

5 comments:

  1. :) We also try to declutter and reduce regularly.

    BTW, I knew about the Netherlands rate of home births.When I was pregnant with Luka and Zoe I read an article criticizing heavily the home birth/midwife approach in the country, and cited that as the reason why the country has the highest rate of birth mortality. Here it is, if you are interested: http://skepticalob.blogspot.com/2010/07/netherlands-homebirth-and-high.html

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the article... to me it is so shocking that this home birth thing is so normal, given that it is mainly due to the advances in medicine that this century, finally, so many women and infants are able to "make" it, with a considerable decrease in the dangers that had always been associated to childbirth (and still are in many countries). But the view here is that since you are not sick and it is a natural thing you do not need a doctor.
      I will make sure that I go to the hospital when the time comes... also given the fact that my mom did not necessarily have it easy (I needed forceps to come out, and she had preeclampsia).

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    2. Si, cuando me hablan de lo natural, yo siempre les contesto que la muerte tambien es natural y no por eso la queremos tan pronto.
      A mi me aterran los partos en la casa, mis abuelas perdieron sus primogenitos por partos en casa y para mi es un riesgo innecesario. Será que somos latinas? ;)

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    3. Interesante conversación esta!

      Esto de parir en casa es una de las cosas más impactantes de Holanda. Ni la prostitución ni las drogas le ganan.
      Hace poco una amiga publicó en su facebook que estaba en shock porque a las vacas holandesas les hacen cesarea para ayudarlas a parir mientras que las mujeres seguían haciendolo al viejo estilo en sus casas. Irónico, eh?

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    4. Si supongo que sera la latinidad... pero tambien es ciencia ! De verdad que miedo.

      @ Ley, si que impresion, mucho primer mundo pero los partos como desde el inicio de los tiempos. A las vacas les hacen cesarea solo cuando es necesario, es decir cuando hay complicaciones, la mayoria de las veces es parto natural o con ayuda del granjero . Pero es que claro si estas en tu casa y hay complicaciones, de aqui a que te llevan al hospital pasa mucho tiempo. Por eso mejor estar ahi de entrada.

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