Daddy Day

Having a daddy day is great! I get to spend so much time with Tobias that way and I really like that. Also it is a good moment for me to keep my blog up to date :-). But most of all it is just great to play around with my son. Here we were playing on the floor. I was playing around with his mouse and he was laughing at it. Also he was excersing by means of rolling around. When we were both just laying there I took this picture. It turned out OK, right?

An average daddy day nowadays roughly looks as follows:
7:00: Tobias wakes up, he gets a bottle
9:00: Tobias is done with his bottle an plays in his play pen
10:00: Tobias gets tired and/or had done a #2 so he gets cleaned and dressed
11:00: Tobias slept for a while and is now waking up, we play for a while
12:00: Tobias is hungry, he gets rice serial mixed with some formula
13:00: We go into town to do some shopping, groceries, or just walking around (most of the time Tobias sleeps while we walk
15:00: We get back home and play
16:00: Tobias gets hungry again, he gets some fruit
17:30: Tobias' dinner time, that means solid food nowadays (see previous post)
18:00: Mommy comes home, Tobias plays with her while I post some pictures to the blog :-)
19:30: Bed time ritual starts: 4 B's: Bath, Book, Bottle, Bed
By 20:30 Tobias is sound asleep.

This may not sound all too exciting, but it is so good to spend all that time with him. I think he enjoys it too, he usually laughs a lot and cries very little so I guess that's a good sign...

Solid food

As you can see Tobias is advancing fast if it comes to eating solid food. On his plate here is a full meal consisting of potatoes, peas, and turkey. He doesn't like the peas much but the rest he loves. As you can see mommy is feeding him here, but I was feeding him this stuff today (since today is my daddy day) and I can tell you it is quite a challenge. For some reason he starts a struggle while eating which will sometimes land his hand right in his mouth or at least in his mouth area... Obviously some of his food is in that area and part of that will adhere to his hand which in turn will take it to rather unexpected locations... such as his nose, his ears, other parts of his face, part of my face, sweater, the table and so on... But fortunately most of it goes in his mouth. It is fun to see him getting used to eating solid food and I guess to the taste of it. I have a feeling that we have to find a way to increase the amount he eats because I don't think that is quite enough yet. He does now how to tell us when he doesn't want anymore...: Keep his mouth shut :-).

Mommy's nectarine

As I told you before we are trying to feed Tobias more regular food. Yesterday we tried pear, broccoli and turkey. He did not like that at all and it was quite a struggle to get him to eat even a little bit. So, he ended up eating (or should I say drinking) mostly milk. Today we tried again. This time a nectarine. We mushed it and tried to feed it to him with a spoon. He did not like it at all and the scene from yesterday repeated itself. So we ended up just giving him a bottle. Then, we were having some nectarines ourselves for desert and Tobias was sitting with his mommy at the table and he tried to grab the nectarine from her. So, mommy let him lick it. At first he sort of jerked away, but as mommy ate more of it he got more and more interested and ended up sucking and gumming away on it! I am sure if he would have had teeth he would have eaten the whole thing by himself.... So, I guess he does like nectarines after all, just not when he has to eat them all by himself (or maybe not mushed... :-)).

Tobias and Annalief

Today Kasper, Liesbeth and Annalief came to visit. We had a nice afternoon. We had lunch on our patio and went out for a walk into town. As you can see Tobias and Annalief were just hanging out together in their lazy-chairs.... They still didn't notice each other much, they were both just doing their own thing, I guess. It was very nice of Annalief to bring Tobias' "funky chicken" back, the toy Tobias is playing with in this picture. Tobias left it at their house a while ago. He played with it for the rest of the day, so I guess he is happy. They are both growing so fast.... and it looks from this picture that they are getting a little annoyed by having to smile for pictures over and over again.... I couldn't even get a little "cheese!" out of them....

Jenny and Eloy visit

Jenny and Eloy, our friends from Powhatan, VA, stayed with us for the past week. Today they left to go back to the US. That is a shame but we took one last picture with all of them. Throughout their stay Tobias has been puking all over Jenny. It seemed he would save it up just for her. That was a bit embarassing to us, but I don't think she minded it too much. Anyway, what you can't see in this picture but what I did see as I took it is that Tobias is in the middle of letting out a big load of puke over Jenny right this very moment.... So, I guess he wanted to give her a little souvenir of Tobias before she left. I think both Jenny and Eloy had a good time and we all hope to see them again sometime soon!

Sailing

Last sunday we went sailing on Dingeman's boat with Dingeman, Carolyn, Jenny, Eloy and us. As you can see Tobias in right in the middle of the action. We had wonderful weather, good sailing an a lot of fun! I think Tobias enjoyed it too, he did not cry at all, was fed on the boat and he played, laughed or slept most of the time. The only thing was that we had to continuously turn him away from the sun because the turns we made with the boat.... but I think he even enjoyed that. I am sure we will try that again sometime soon!

On the move

Not only is Tobias growing fast, he is also becoming more mobile by the day. He loves rolling around in our bed and grabbing and biting his feet and puke on our bed and drool on our bed and so on.... Here he is showing off one of his moves. His way to move around is either rolling or creeping like an inchworm. This way he can cover our entire bed (6' x 7') and more..... as he proved to mommy yesterday... He fell asleep on our bed after a big workout and a little later she heard a big thud.... that was Tobias on the move.... off our bed. Fortunatly, we have a low bed and thick carpet so he was ok but it is a bit scary that his mobility is improving this fast... before you know it we have to put baby gates on the stairs....

Big chair

Tobias is growing fast and is becoming a big baby.... and big babies need big chairs! As you can see he has still some space to grow into this one, but he likes sitting in it. Furthermore, mommy is very proud of him, can't you tell? Sometimes he sits with us on the couch as well. Most of the times he uses his own furniture though. It is almost unbelievable to think that next monday he will be six months old! Time flies when you're having fun...

Tobias is having loads of fun in his play pen. He is getting more and more aware of all his toys, even as the total amount of toys increases rapidly. Apparently, once teachers have children they don't get "end of year" gifts for themselves anymore, but they get them for their children... interesting huh? Well, Tobias definitely thinks so. Anyway, Lisa had her last day of school yesterday and she is quite relieved about that, especially because next year she will be teaching in a much nicer environment. Tobias is a bit sad though because he won't get to see Charlotte (the baby sitter) and Natalie (her daughter) as much anymore. Charlotte and Natalie were a bit sad too. But, on the upside of things Tobias gets to spend a lot of time with mommy this summer and he told me he is looking forward to that. I think Opa and Oma (my parents) got the worst end of the deal... they don't get to baby sit him again until after the summer, or do they...? Well, maybe mommy and daddy would like to go out together sometime... as always, time will tell :-).

Every week Tobias gets online with his grandparents in the US. Here he is just chatting away and showing off his foot-biting skills. He enjoys this a lot, as do we. That is, both him biting his foot as well as talking to Tobias' grandparents in the US. Even though it seems technology has made great advancements sometimes it feels like being thrown back in time. Agreed, back in the 50s we did not have a means to see video of each other across the world (unless maybe we were on the Ed Sullivan show...), but breaking-up connections and bad sound quality, not uncommon using such programs as MSN Messenger or Skype, do remind me of the stories I have been told about telephone in those days. Anyway, telephone has improved and serves as a frequently used backup means to online conversation. I have to admit that if you choose your time well (not on sunday nights I guess, when everyone is having conversations online) high quality audio AND video online sessions are possible and very enjoyable and judging from Tobias' reactions I reckon he agrees with me... In this particular conversation mommy had the sole voice channel available (the phone) in use, and as you can see Tobias was claiming the video channel all for himself :-).