Mirror mirror on the wall...

Tobias can be so funny. He is really liking sitting up by himself an play. He plays with all his toys like that and I actually have a feeling he thinks he has a completely new collection of toys, because they look so different from the new perspective. He is so easy to please, isn't he? Well, here is another example. He was sitting like this for at least half an hour, just lauging and smiling at..... himself.... Fun thing huh, a mirror! I just had to laugh, every once in a while he even tried to shake his own hand or something because he was banging at the mirror as well. Anyway, not only did it make for a funny Tobias moment, it also made for a great picture...

Koekhappen + Snoephappen = ?

In the Netherlands there are two traditional games children play at birthday parties. One is called "Koekhappen", the other "Snoephappen". Koekhappen literally means "bite the cookie" and it is played by multiple children simultaneously or one by one (whichever the referee prefers, or the hight difference between the players asks for, I guess) eating a cookie without using you hands. The cookie is hung from a string that and is just a little bit to high up for comfort. So, you are eating on your tippy toes, which, to the referee must be a hilarious sight. The winner is the one who eats the cookie the fastest. Snoephappen literally means "bite the candy" and is played by one player at a time. The objective here is eating a piece of candy without using your hands, but this time you have to get it from the bottom of a little tub filled with water. Basically the same rules, the winner being the one who eats the piece of candy the fastest. What's your point, you might ask... well, I think what Tobias is trying to do here is combining the two games into one... he is eating a cookie with no hands from the table top... This was actually the first time we had him sitting directly at the table with us. I guess we have to do some serious work on his table manner.....

New Wheels!

Last friday (my daddy day was changed from thursday to friday, just for once...) I took Tobias into town. As you can see he was thoroughly enjoying himself and I'll tell you why that was... He was riding his new Buggy, that is, the same frame with a different seat. So far we had been transporting him in his Maxi Cosi but I thought I'd try the buggy seat for a change and it worked well as you can see. It has many advantages, mainly for the passenger. They include: Better view of your surroundings, looking forward instead of backward, sitting up instead of laying (which of course is much cooler!) and many many more. For the driver it has some disadvantages including: not being able to look the passenger in the face, reduced storage space for groceries and other stuff, but all those seem so insignificant when you see the joy it is for the passenger. In conclusion: Tobias likes his new "wheels" and (therefore) so do I. We're keeping them!

Eating a cookie

A few months ago Tobias made his first attempt to feed himself when he started holding his bottle and drinking it himself. He has mastered that skill by now, in fact he has even advanced to a "sippy cup" and juice. Of course we still feed him every day because if it wasn't for us the food stains would not be limited to his bib, but would probably be all over his face (and maybe even more than that). As you can see here there is something else he can eat all by himself though: a cookie. Ok, granted he tends to smear that all over himself at times, he is able to finish it without us interfering and he enjoys it too! Keep up the good work Tobias (and it would be nice if you'd stop throwing up all over us :-)).

Milestone: sitting up

I guess everyone experiences, what I would like to call, a "milestone" moment every once in a while. Of course with a child you have milestone moments pretty much every week, if not, every day! Their development is so rapid and something new happens quite often. Well, this past Saturday Tobias reached a milestone if you ask me...: He can sit on his own now and as you can see in this picture he is enjoying it thoroughly! As for me, I guess I experienced his milestone as if it were my own, because I had one of those gusts of ultimate parental pride.... Not only can he sit by himself now, only a few days before that he started sitting on "all fours" and rocking himself so, I guess he is getting ready to crawl. As difficult as it may be when he does, to keep him from going places and grabbing stuff he is not supposed to, I am looking forward to it. Currently his only means of individual mobility is rolling over or pushing himself backwards. I can tell that is starting to frustrate him, especially now that he is able to sit on his hands and knees and rock. It is only a matter of time before he starts crawling.... I wonder how much time :-).

Proud grandparents

I see my parents with Tobias pretty much every week. I find it great to see my parents with him. They are such proud grandparents.... One of the first pictures in this blog is of my parents and Tobias in a very similar "pose" to this picture. Tobias was a bit smaller at the time, but oh well, I did not say "same" but "similar", didn't I? Well, having my parents-in-law here and seeing them with Tobias is also great. And look how proud they are! Tobias really has wonderful grandparents. Ok, they experience him in different ways, at different times, at different locations, but they all love him and are very proud of him. So, I am really glad that Nonny and Granddad were able to come over for a visit last week!

Playing with Nonny

Tobias loves playing with Nonny. Here he is in his "gentleman's" outfit, a button down shirt and corduroy pants (well, you can't see those here, but he is wearing them...). I think they were playing the peek-a-boo game which Tobias loves. Sometimes he just can't stop laughing and giggling. That is so great to see, and Nonny loved it too so as you can imaging this made for plenty of "kodak moments", or maybe I should say "digital moments" nowadays.... Anyway, I thought it would be nice to put one of those moments in my blog.

Longhorns uniform

We spent Christmas of 2003 in the US, with Lisa's parents. We were there for 2 weeks and had an interesting experience: tailgating. For those of you in the US no explanation is required, but for anybody else: tailgating is a pre-American Football Game ritual where everybody parks their car in the parking lot of the Football stadium and opens their tail gate (this is the back "gate" of a pick-up truck). You may think who has a pick-up truck? Well, in Texas 33% of the population does and in the Football fan community about 90% :-). Anyway, everybody installs a BBQ on the tail gate and BBQs away. For some "just" a BBQ is not enough and they haul in an entire kitchen/living room including big screen TVs and everything. Why am I telling this? Well, the game we went to see was a Texas Texans game and in this picture Tobias is wearing their outfit that Nonny and Granddad gave him. Doesn't he look cool? Ready for the real tailgating experience I would say!

Erratum: I was confused because we saw a Texas Texans game in 2003, but this is not a Texas Texans uniform, but a University Of Texas At Austin Longhorns uniform... Longhorns is the general name for the University Of Texas athletic teams, including the football team. I don't know it for a fact, but I am sure they do tailgating as well :-).

Scheer family visits

As some of you may know Lisa took a trip to Europe during high school. This was in 1987 and she was travelling with high school band members from all over the east coast. During this trip she visited the Netherlands as well and there she stayed in Zuid-Beijerland (which is approximately 10 miles from where I grew up) with a host family, family Scheer. They have 3 boys one of them named Tobias. Lisa always thought that was such a nice name and that is one of the reasons we named Tobias Tobias. Tobias was 9 years old at the time. Now he is 27 years old and him and his mom, came to visit last week. So in this picture (l-to-r): Tobias Scheer, Lisa with Tobias on her lap and Narda Scheer.

Tobias' chair

Nonny and Granddad came to visit us last week. They were here for 9 days. Obviously, the main purpose was to see Tobias and they got to see lots of him. Another purpose was to see Tobias in his normal environment rather than in the hospital, where he was for most of the time during their previous visit... I was at work part of the time and Lisa also had to work because she had to prepare for the new schoolyear, so Nonny and Granddad had Tobias all to themselves for a couple of days. I think both them and Tobias enjoyed that a lot. They brought over a "booster seat" that will turn a normal chair into a high chair. This is quite convenient for us because generally speaking space is limited in the Netherlands and that is no different in our house... This way we don't need to put an additional high chair in our living room... As you can see in this picture not only did Tobias get to sit in his new chair, he also got to be fed by Nonny, a joy to both of them!

Paris at 6 months

Even though we have seen Paris quite a few times now, it is always nice to go into town there, especially when you are with someone who hasn't been there yet (I mean Tobias :-)). Personally, I had to wait until I was 20 years old before I first went to Paris. Tobias is not even one year old yet and he has already been there. We did a small walking tour around the Louvre and a little stroll along the Seine where they had "Paris Plage" (Paris Beach) going on. That was nice, especially since the sun was out and the weather was nice. We also visited friends of Nadim and Julie, Renaud and Miriam (I don't know if I spelled it correctly...) who had just bought an appartment in down town Paris. This picture is taken in the living room of that appartment. We are sitting on the floor because they have a lot of work to do before they can move in, like taking the floor we are sitting on out and such... Anyway, the kind boy sharing a piece of bread with Tobias in this picture is Bilal, Renaud and Miriam's 10 months old son. It is interesting to see how three children with such little age difference can be so different... I guess that's due to the huge relative age difference... :-). I am sure that will soon change and we'll see a completely different picture when we meet again...

Little boy Tobias

Tobias is growing and developing so fast. He is pretty much on the verge of not being a baby anymore, but being a little boy instead... Currently he still is sort of in between, in transition I guess... He is still a baby when he gets the bottle or when he is crying or sleeping and at those occasions he also actually looks like a baby. In this picture though he really does look like a little boy doesn't he? I guess the hat does it, because underneath there is still that "almost" bald head with the soft, blond, virtually invisible, baby-hair... But, the little boy also comes out when we play and he is laughing. He has his own funny way of laughing which is so great to see and hear, and can be prompted by the most unexpected things (like taking the cap off of a beer bottle...). Also when he is eating with a spoon. He is getting really good at that and it is almost as if he is eating with us like a normal person (even though we have to hold the spoon, shove it in his mouth, and whipe his face with just about every bite)... Anyway, I guess he is developing into a little boy and he is developing his own will and he is developing.... well, he is developing his own personality, and that is great!

Three parents and two babies in one picture

Not only is it difficult to get two babies to look at the camera at the same time, it is also difficult to get two babies and three parents in one picture, unless of course, you have them pose.... which I did here. It worked out well. We are standing in the harbor of Honfleur, a small town on the normandy coast. We took a trip to the normandy coast one day and visited Honfleur and Deauville. It was a nice day and we sat out on the beach for a while too, in Deauville. Throughout the trip it was hard to get the two babies in sync... when one was sleeping the other was awake and the other way around. They would also wake each other up doing that. We had them sleep in one room just one night, the other nights they slept in two separate rooms and that worked a lot better. The feeding schedules were a bit off too, but by the time we went home they were sort of in sync... that's great, isn't it? Last year we went on vacation with Nadim and Julie too. Then we went to Port la Nouvelle in the south of France where Julie's family has an appartment. There were just four of us then (well, actually four and one peanut....). Now there were six and even though that may sound quite normal for people our age, it felt quite miraculous and it still amazes me.... (also it seriously effects how often you go out to eat :-)).

Tobias and Valentine

We went on a trip this past week. We visited our friends Nadim and Julie in Garches (near Paris). They had a baby girl in May of this year (05/05/05 to be exact :-)), her name is Valentine. Tobias met her for the first time on this trip, as did we, and as you can see he likes her.... I don't know about her though... she is kind of looking away, isn't she? Well, we have some pictures where they are looking at each other, but those are not on my camera, because it proved to be really hard to get two babies to look at the camera at the same time... What struck me about Valentine is her hair.... there is a lot of it already. She has a real "baby-curl" if she, or should I say her parents, wants to. Word is, she even uses gel.... :-). Anyway, it is always so much better to see someone in person instead of on a picture, so we are happy to have met her. By the way, her parents are doing OK too, and they are experiencing the same "lack-of-attention-from-everyone-because-the-baby-is-all-that-matters-syndrome" that we suffer from..... :-)