In the last week of June, we traveled back to Hungary for the first time since Wolfie was born! A little time to put our feet up, celebrate my mom’s birthday, my dad’s birthday, and László’s name day (both Laci and my dad are called László, and so is a dear friend of mine back in Hungary). Ruben had already gone ahead of us a few days earlier, and we followed with the luggage and a curious baby, right in the hottest week of the summer! We try to time our longer trips, such as this three-hour drive, around Wolfie’s nap times. We stopped once for a little fresh air…

And here we are—time is flying by, and although I could shed a tear over the passing moments, somehow I’d rather look forward to the ones still to come. And I’m already feeling happy about them…!

This is what a baby looks like when, sometimes, mom really is everything to him 🙂 For example, when we’re waiting for Ruben on our favorite bench before the hairdresser, with a full tummy, after a nap!

This is what a baby looks like when not only the mother is everything to him 🙂

As a little Father’s Day side note, here’s another glimpse into our days with this all-boy family! While Rú was off on his own adventures, after work we headed to the cool branch of the Danube in the city, where Wolfie saw such a large body of water for the very first time. And although he looks just like his dad, his personality is mine, so you can imagine how enchanted he was by the gently rippling water’s surface…!

This year’s Father’s Day was a little more special than the previous ones, because a little baby celebrated his daddy with us too! Those who have been reading this diary for a long time know how much I love books, and I read a lot to Rún from the time he was very small. Unfortunately, however, our most beautiful books are carefully packed away in a warehouse in Vác, so the smell of paper and the beautifully painted pictures are missing from our home—at least if we want to read a book in Hungarian. And the books we’ve downloaded on Kindle feel a little far from our emotional world. So…

I love this little stretch of the Danube riverbank — and not only because Laci officially proposed to me here 🙂 But the best part is this self-service book nook! It’s filled with summer-reading books, and thankfully, with the tourist season in mind, there are also English-language ones. If you take a book, you write it in the notebook by the windowsill, and if you’d like, you can drop a few euros into the bulldog piggy bank. Of course, nobody checks anything, so the book nook’s survival, upkeep, and enjoyment really depend on the visitors. And if you look around, you’ll see just how well this little book island is…

Last week we had a four-day weekend, and Rú’s heart pulled her back home to Hungary. And what is a family supposed to do without their teenager…? We go and do things that Rú wouldn’t enjoy that much anyway, so we don’t have to drag her along, and we get an extra program out of it too. Since we had been planning a trip to Bratislava for a long time, this was the perfect opportunity: it was cloudy in Vienna anyway, while Bratislava was pouring sunshine on us at full force! I had never been there before, so while sightseeing I wanted to grab a coffee somewhere that wasn’t a…

Hello, world! I love living here. My favorite things are the trees with their rustling leaves, the lamp above the dining table, the hot-air balloons hanging above my bed, and the rattling teddy bear. My favorite people are my dad, because he is tall and strong, and being with him always feels like I’m sitting on top of a fortress, right at the top of the world. My sibling, because he always makes me laugh, shows me good music that often gets me dancing, and gives me lots of kisses. My mom, because she gives me wonderful warm, creamy milk 🙂 Mami and Papi, because even though we don’t meet…

Life with Wolfie is beautiful — but it doesn’t stop! And one of the spring weekend rituals is always about the plants. That’s how it worked out last weekend: we combined balcony naps with a bit of gardening, which with this amount of plants would normally be a four- to five-hour job. But repotting, fertilizing, swapping flowerpots and, above all, a mother’s hands up to the wrists in potting soil are not compatible with a baby who sometimes wakes up. So, taking into account the cuddling breaks, nursing breaks, nappy-change breaks (and the other family members’ needs directed at me), this fun stretched from Friday through Sunday! To be fair,…