The Photographer

Today, yes, another daddy-day, the photographer came to the daycare. Of course Tobias wasn't going today but you could bring your children to have their picture taken. I did that too. Of course I dressed him in a cute outfit (that Lisa had just recently bought, in part for this occasion, in part because he has outgrown quite some clothes...).

Since he was so cute I thought I'd try to take some nice pictures myself. Equiped with my Canon Digital Ixus i I went to work. Well, that is not so hard, but not easy either. The main problem is, my camera is too slow... Whenever I had him where I wanted and would try to take a picture he would already move around, lean over, look down, have his eyes closed, or whatever.

But, I ended up taking quite a few nice shots. This one is my favorite. He was sort of dancing for me and then he tipped over. He had to laugh so hard. I took this one as he was getting up again.

My conclusions?
- I need new equipment, a camera that can take a zillion shots a minute... :-)
- I took some very nice pictures...
- Tobias looked soooooo cute today
- I will probably scan the result of the photographer and post it here for comparison :-)

Still Webcamming

Since Nonny and Granddaddy live so far away we frequently webcam with them. I have written about this before but it is becoming more and more interactive these days because Tobias starts to realize that he can also converse with whoever is on the other side of the "line".

That results in funny moments like the one in this picure. He is talking to Nonny, but the funny thing is, Nonny just sees the top of his head because he kind of "crawls" into the screen and gets so close that:
1. The camera cannot capture his entire face anymore
2. He is not in front of the camera because he talks to the screen (i.e. Nonny), not to the camera...

It gets even funnier when he tries to show Nonny something, like here where he tries to show her something he made at the daycare. What he does is, regardless of the camera position (a lot of times I am holding it so I can follow him around as he plays), he walks up to the computer and puts the object he wants to show right in front of the screen (i.e. right in Nonny's face...). He will do the same when showing his new slippers or shoes, or his rake or whatever object he tries to show... I wonder when he will make the connection between the camera and what Nonny sees...

That reminds me, he now also talks on the phone more than he used to. In fact when I call Lisa on my way home from work a lot of times I will hear him shouting "I want to talk to Pappy!". Well, it is now actually possible to converse with him over the phone. But what happens when he wants to show me something? Well, he just says: "Look Pappy, like this." or "See, here, this one.". So, I also wonder when he realizes I cannot see what's on the other end of the phone line :-).

A Promise Well Kept...

July 27th 2006, Italy: I received a phone call from the realtor that we had a deal to buy our new house. We were at the side of the pool in our vacation park in Italy enjoying the sun, the pool, our vacation and Tobias. That was quite a thrill.

July 27th 2006, Italy, 2 minutes later: After letting the first thrill settle in and jumping in the air a few times, I promised Tobias I would get him a swing in our new yard.

February 28th 2007, Gouda: Moving in to our new house

Easter 2007, Gouda: Groundwork for the swing: grass (we emptied out the yard and put grass down...)

July 30th 2007, Gouda: The Swing: a promise well kept!

And Tobias loves it. He wants to swing every single day of the week! On this picture he is already in his pajamas. That was the night we built it (my Dad and I). (Of course) it took a lot longer than we anticipated resulting in Tobias looking out the window waiting and waiting until it was done. It almost came to the point where he would not be able to try it before he went to bed, but when we were almost finished he was able to do a little swinging before bedtime. After that he was good to go, he pretty much fell asleep right after that...

We finished the job that night and well, we enjoy the hard work pretty much on a daily basis!

A New Bed

I have said it so many times: Tobias is growing sooooo fast. And with a growing boy comes the need for a bigger bed. So, a couple of weeks ago we bought him a new bed...

Now, you hear all these stories about children not wanting to sleep in a new bed and crawling out in the middle of the night and waking you up and all sorts of stuff like that. Needless to say we were a little worried that something like that might happen to us.

Anyway, we took some precautions on of which is putting up a stairway gate at the top of the stairs (right next to his room). That was quite a job actually. I did that first and then I still needed to put the bed together. It was fun, for both Tobias and me because he helped me of course (he never passes an opportunity to imitate me with his tools...

Well, from minute number one Tobias loved his new bed. He has not had one problem sleeping in it (so far). And the few times he does wake up are not so different from before anyways... he does not come out of his room, he just stands there next to his bed until we arrive...

Recently he has had some trouble sleeping though, but that has nothing to do with his bed, but with the fact that it is starting to get dark so early. His current room is darker than the one in the old house. Also there is no lamppost right by his window, like in the other house, which means that when it is dark outside, his room is really dark. I guess that scares him.

So, we have a new deal now which is that we keep his nightlamp on (a little lamp on his nightstand) and we leave the door open just a little bit so that IF he wakes up he can call "Pappy, are you coming?!" (he does this in a "raspy" voice which is kind of hilarious...). And this deal works, he doesn't wake up crying anymore, when he wakes up, during the night (which is still rather rare) or in the morning, you can hear him call "Pappy, are you coming?!" (Papa, kom je?! in Dutch).

Vacation

Man, it has been a long time since I posted any pictures. You would almost suspect that Tobias is not as interesting anymore or something like that. Well, on the contrary... It is just that the main interest is now in his language. That is developing so fast. More about that later.

The reason I have not been posting regularly is more than one thing. Of course I have been busy, but that's always the same excuse, never valid though... Another part is that we have been on vacation and here I post my favorite Tobias-on-vacation picture of this year.


We had Lisa's parents over, Nonny and Granddaddy for Tobias. They had fun, we had fun and Tobias had fun. It was a good vacation. We went to Germany for a few days and visited some places in the Netherlands. We also discovered that it is hard to tell how fast Tobias is growing through a webcam.


Another thing that is hard to follow is how well Tobias can speak in both English and Dutch. That is because het is "webcam-shy" or was anyway. These days he is speaking more when we are online. I think I have told you before that everything has a sound with Tobias and me. Sounds like bonk, donk, kling, klont, baf, boom etc. Well, Tobias is now making those up himself and everytime he does he laughs like crazy, and of course there is a new sound every day! Like I said, the interesting part is now more the language than anything else. It is so funny because sometimes he has to laugh so hard that he literally falls over...


Also his mind is working like crazy. The other day (that was such a proud day in my life :-)) we were in the car together and I was playing Bob Dylan on the radio. Tobias said:

"Hey Papa, that's Bob Dylan! I am going to listen to him..... Papa, first Raymona, then William Zanzinger, and then Mr. Tambourine Man..... Papa, Bob Dylan can sing it really well!" (Note: Raymone = "To Ramona", William Zanzinger = "The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll").


Well, there were three things to be proud of here and I guess it depends on who you are in which order they come, but I'll list them here in an arbitrary order :-):
- He recognized Bob Dylan
- He used perfect grammar
- He can name three Bob Dylan songs
When we got home it became even funnier..... I stopped the car and was getting ready to get out when he said: "Papa, we have to wait until he's finished.". So, we sat in the car until William Zanzinger was over drawing Mama's attention and astounding her when she realized what was going on.


The things that are going on in his head.... Another time we were in the bathroom where Granddaddy had left us a couple of bars of soap. He wanted to smell the soap. He told me: "Papa, that's granddaddy's soap." I said that we had to take it back to Granddaddy when we go over there for Christmas. He asked: "Papa, where is Christmas?". Hilarious, right?!

As you can see, it is not that Tobias has become less interesting or anything like that. There are many many stories to tell. I just have not had enough time (or energy; too many projects at work, redoing a house, moving, decorating the house really takes it out of you...) to keep my blog updated.

Of course, during a vacation you have time to thing about things and one of the things I thought about was how wonderful it is to have daddy-days. So wonderful in fact that instead of having one every two weeks, I decided to ask for one every week..... and I got it! I am now off every wednesday, so I will probably be better at posting stuff again (don't take that as a promise though...). Anyway, I took a picture I like today, I will put it on right now. We were playing with the Lego's and he was building a tower....



Until the next post...