Christmas Time

It was hard having one child in the hospital and one at home just after Lorelei was born, but at least then it was possible to take Tobias to see her. This time around they strongly discourage to have children come in to the pediatric ICU facility, so, we haven't taken Tobias to see Lorelei in the hospital yet. This is despite the fact that the first thing Tobias said after we told him what is going on was: "Then I want to go see her every day!". Soooo sweet.....

By now I think he realizes that something is wrong, but he hasn't been asking too much about it and we have tried to keep him occupied with other things such as watching Lightning McQueen, playing with Lightning McQueen, playing Lightning McQueen, sleeping in his Lightning McQueen bed (yes, he likes Cars....). Also we have been decorating the house for Christmas and Tobias was soooooooo excited. That was really nice to see! Especially during these stressful times....

As you can see Tobias is a good "tree-decorator" as he calls it himself :-) We will have a Christmas celebration, but it will be quite different than what we imagined.....


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

Sinterklaas

I think I wrote about this event before: Sinterklaas. Well, with Tobias getting older he gets to experience it more and more... This year, like last year, we went to the "intocht": Sinterklaas coming into town. He comes on his boat from Spain with lots of helpers called "Zwarte Pieten". They dock in Gouda and then walk into town, Sinterklaas on a white horse. Well, Tobias was impressed I think. He talked about it a lot more than last year and he sometimes said "I am going to be a good boy because Sinterklaas is in town." :-).

Well, he put out his shoe one night by the fireplace and of course Zwarte Piet put something in his shoe. We also sang a lot of songs this year... Tobias is a fast lyrics learner. That was nice. We also read quite a few books.

This year December 5th ("Pakjesavond" = present night) was on a friday, the day that he goes to the daycare. There he usually celebrates Sinterklaas as well and this year they made a miter. He is wearing that and one of our throws as a robe and I have to tell you, he looks just like Sinterklaas.... (all he needs is a longer beard, but that would require a lot of paint and a long drying time...)


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

Simply Adorable!!!

Lorelei came home today and the first thing Tobias called when I got her out of her carrier was "Papa, I want to hold her!". And as you can see in this picture he did! Don't they look lovely? What more can I add to that?

Well, maybe that Tobias is probably the one who had the hardest time with her being in the hospital. It started with Lisa going to the hospital before Lorelei was born. Then she was born and she had to stay at the hospital together with Lisa. Then Lisa came home and Lorelei still stayed at the hospital.... All the while we were hauling Tobias back and forth to the hospital with us... Now that we are all home he is already doing better....

We'll see how it develops. For now, as you can see, he loves his sister!


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

Downloading...

Oh, I forgot to mention something about Tobias' new room.... his desk! He loves that too. It took some time to put everything up, with going back and forth to the hospital and all. We (my parents and I) did his bed on wednesday, because I had promised that he would be sleeping in it and I wanted to keep my promise. Then on thursday we did his wardrobe, because, well, I arranged some things for Lorelei, I had to register Lorelei (that took more than an hour!!! 98% of which was waiting in line...), I wanted to go to the hospital and, building the wardrobe was one hell of a job! But we got it done... Tobias slept in a huge mess on thursday.

We finished his room on friday when Tobias was at the daycare. When he got home I told him we had a surprise for him. I grabbed his "miffy-computer" (basically a toy that plays songs and shows pictures in the shape of a computer) and took him upstairs. He walked into his room and was in awe (well, he made noises like being in awe anyway...). The first thing he did was take the computer for me, sit down at his desk, opening it up and exclaiming: "Papa, I have to download something!". Too funny, right?

Oh, I have to add one more thing about his new room. During the night from friday to saturday he fell out of bed.... twice. I didn't hear it, but my mom, who was sleeping a floor below him, went up there and put him back in. It hasn't happened again last night, but well, I guess everything needs some getting used to, even a new and much bigger bed...


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

Beanbag

There is one thing in Tobias' new room that I forgot to mention in my previous post. This is a thing that he probably likes even more than his bed. A thing that I have written about before (because Tobias thought it was silly to sleep on it...). A thing that Tobias is laying on in this picture...... It is a BEANBAG!

The fun started with opening the box, because it was a huge box. Tobias wanted to open it himself and he kind of did, with some help of Oma... Then the beanbag was in a huge plastic bag which was lots of fun to pull off. And then finally there it was, the beanbag. Tobias can sit on it, lay on it, roll on it, roll off it, jump on it, push it and shove it and many more things. What I like best is to cuddle on it and read books on it, and we did that too.

In a way the beanbag is changing our lives... because instead of the blue bear chair, from now on the mickey mouse beanbag will be part of our daily bedtime routine... :-)


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

A New Bed

Tobias has a new bed. We had been preparing the baby room for some time, but we did not have furniture yet, because the baby would just use Tobias' baby furniture and we had bought Tobias a whole new bedroom set including a wardrobe, a bookshelf, a desk and of course.... a bed! Here he is in his new bed. He loved it from the very first minute, which I think is quite obvious in this picture, taken the very first minute the bed was finished.

The interesting coincidence was that the furniture was delivered on the exact same day Tobias' baby sister Lorelei was born. I had promised that he would be able to sleep in his new bed that day. Needless to say it was hard to live up to that promise, but I did it with the help of Opa and Oma!


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

Reading in the Hospital

Lisa is in the hospital. She has preterm PROM (google it for a definition...). She was admitted last friday and is probably going to be there until the baby is born, which could be tomorrow, next week or maybe even later.

This is of course somewhat awkward and unfortunate and not even close to how we imagined it to be, but it is good to know that she is being closely monitored...

And!.... Tobias gets to visit mommy and she reads to him.... some of the time.... but of course the controls to the bed are much more fun to play with! It goes up and down and up and down and..... Well, you get the picture... And he likes to watch TV with mommy's headset on, regardless of what is on :-).

But it is also obvious that he struggles with the situation that has arisen. Currently he is staying with my parents so I can go to work. On wednesday I have my daddy day, so I will be with him. Actually one of the parts we weren't done with is re-arranging and re-assigning the furniture. Tobias gets new stuff and the baby get Tobias' baby furniture. It will be fun because he gets to help.

The strange thing is that we just don't know what will happen or when. Generally speaking, as far as I can tell, the prognosis is good. Thursday Lisa will be 34 weeks pregnant and after that it should be just fine if the baby is born. From a rather basic internet search I found that statistically the baby will be born on wednesday (4,58 days after the water broke). Well, like I said, we'll see...

Tobias and Friends

Tobias has more and more friends, or, we have more and more friends with children...


This is Tobias with Valentine, his french girlfriend. She came and visited us with her parents last weekend (These are the friends we go and visit in Paris every once in a while). Tobias actually knows some french words now too. His favorite one is "Voiture" which means "Car". He pronounces it with a near perfect french pronounciation! Other words he knows are: Verre (glass), Lait (Milk), Eau (Water), Oui (Yes), Non(No) and some others as well...

This is Tobias with Dilano. Dilano is a friend from the daycare. Dilano came over to our house last wednesday to play with Tobias. He loves cars so they spent a lot of time playing with the race-track (and building it :-)). They had a fun time doing that and other things.... Dilano also liked playing the piano and we had some tea and cookies...

This is Tobias with Gijs. Gijs lives in our port (the alley behind our house where lots of children play). Gijs has a tractor and a skelter and Tobias loves both (of course)! The good thing is that Gijs lets him use them... and they have lots of fun... Gijs likes Tobias' bike and his soccer ball. There have actually been times that Tobias just went out into the port and played with Gijs without us having to be there... Gijs also goes to the same school as Tobias will attend starting January and they will be in the same class together!

Halloween...

I know, I know, Halloween is not quite the Dutch thing to do, but hey, Tobias is half American..... :-) So, I got out the funny hats and we acted "scary" and we were casting some spells.... (Frog in a bog, bat in a hat, snap crackle pop and fancy that! - from Meg & Mog)

And Tobias was a real tickle spider!!! (this was just after dinner, hence the pasta sauce cheeks...) Tickle spider, by the way, is something we play on a daily basis (well, almost daily...). We play it with our hands. A hand becomes a spider and the spider tickles something or someone... Lots of fun!

I even bought treats for Halloween, because there was a year where we had some children come by... Well, this time only Tobias had a treat.... Like I said, this is not a very Dutch holiday. But as you can see Tobias liked the treat... and... his hat!

Ball Pool

Mommy has a ball-pool at school. That is an irresistible toy for Tobias. Well, Tobias and I were in The Hague on my daddy day a few weeks ago and we decided to pick up mommy from school (I think this was in mommy's fall break but she went in for a few hours anyway...). Well, we took the opportunity to play for a bit and take some "in motion" pictures, like this one!

Look at his face, he is having a ball in the ball-pool :-). His favorite thing is to step on the edge and jump in. He actually covers quite some distance doing that... as a matter of fact he pretty much covers the width of the entire ball-pool!

There are other toys at school, like an entire gym filled with all sorts of kids (well, actually occupational therapist's) equipment.... but this ball-pool is by far his favorite!

iPodding

I have an iPod Touch. I recently updated it to the latest version of the software. This includes the possibility to download and install all sorts of applications and.... GAMES!!!

I don't know if I made a mistake by introducing this possibility to Tobias, but I do know that Tobias loves it! So much that it takes some effort to make him stop playing... Anyway, we have a bowling game, a baseball game, a golf game (the iPod has a motion sensor) and, a racing game which Tobias is playing in this picture. The motion sensor makes the iPod act as a steering wheel for the car.

Oh well, for now it is nice to see him play. It makes for a good part of the bedtime routine, which may include playing downstairs (a physical game), playing some Bert & Ernie skits on YouTube (iPod) or a few minutes of iPodding (playing a game on the iPod) :-)

Words of Wisdom...

Today was another daddy day. It was quite interesting actually... Last friday when I was taking Tobias to the daycare there was another boy coming in with his mother. This kid had asked his mommy if he could play with Tobias someday. Well, of course that was fine with me. Last night she called and today we went over there and they played together. They were really nice together and we'll probably do that again.

Other than that, Tobias was a little sick, he has kind of a cold. This morning he was OK, but as I am writing this he is laying down on the couch watching his favorite movie: "Over the Hedge". He loves that movie, although it makes him somewhat violent because there is this racoon in there who tries to get food out of a vending machine by beating it with a golf club.... He now knows that people sometimes do naughty things in movies and that he should not do that himself :-). Anyway, it is a cute movie....

Ok, now about the title of this post: Words of Wisdom. Tobias' language is quite well developed for his age and sometimes he amazes me with the words he utters and the things he says. This morning for example, as I was dressing him he said: "Papa, wait, I have to think for a little bit.". So, I was like, ok, you think for a little bit. He was quiet for a while and then said: "Papa, nadenken is je mond dicht houden." (which translates into: "Papa, thinking is keeping your mouth shut."). So true and well, who knows, maybe we'll see these words of wisdom on some "quote of the day" page sometime in the future..... :-)

My Own Baby

Tobias is really into the baby in mommy's tummy... He touches it, hugs it, kisses it, but most of all he talks about it. For instance, during our vacation this summer (we told him about the baby just before we left) Tobias said he had a cat in his tummy (Jip. It is a cat because he knows that boys can't have babies.... he was so disappointed by that piece of information....) and that it was pushing his tummy out. He would say things like: "Look mama, the cat is moving." or "The cat's coming out!". Needless to say we rolled over laughing quite some times. Also when he talked or asked questions about the baby. For instance I would say: "Hello baby, I am your papa." and Tobias would say: "No papa, you are MY papa...". Or he would ask: "Mama, is the baby wearing shoes?". Soooooo cute.

As you can see, the baby is keeping him and his little brain quite busy...! So, Lisa decided to by him his own baby, a baby doll. This is a boy and it is "only called baby-doll" as Tobias says. It came with some clothes, payamas, a pacifier, a bottle, a bowl and spoon and a..... potty! Tobias is really cute with it (although sometimes he is somewhat rough....). As you can see in this picture Tobias is feeding his baby :-). I wonder what he will be like when the real baby is here...

Biking Practice

As I wrote a while back Tobias got a new bike. He has not been biking as much as I hoped though... That is because shortly after he got it he had two "traumatic" experiences.

One time he came back to our garage, where the road is sloping slightly. Because of that he went a little to fast to control himself, he bumped into the garage and fell over. Another time one of his training wheels came loose and he fell over because of that... After those experience there were a few weeks where he did not want to bike at all. In fact he reverted back to his tricycle for some time...

After some convincing I got him to bike again. I told him we were going to work in the sand and put his tools under the binders (a shovel and a rake...). That worked and we went for a little ride. I had to put a hand on his shoulder though...

That went on for a little while and I had to come up with another trick to make him bike without a hand on his shoulder. I sat down a little way down the road and would make a "whoosh" sound as he biked by. Tobias would say "Look papa, I am going really fast!". Once he got used to that he would bike by himself.

Now he is biking by himself and picking up speed and distance every day! So, he got off to a bumpy start, but now he is right on track, or so I think anyway. The most important part? He is loving it now!

Headphones

Of course I still enjoy it when Tobias grabs an instrument. He has been doing that quite a bit lately. At Oma and Opa's he has been playing the trumpet, the slide trombone and the accordion. At home he plays the flute, the harmonica, the tambourine, the guitar and the piano. In this picture he wanted to play with the headphones on.... the big ones :-). Cute huh?

Recently we had some funny language episodes. They had to do with expressions. Episode 1: We were in a furniture store to get Tobias new bedroom furniture. One of the items we were going to get him is a beanbag. So, we were looking around and found a nice one. It came in two varieties: blue mickeys and red mickeys. He wanted the red mickeys, we wanted the blue mickeys. So, I told Tobias "to sleep on it". I walked on to other items in the store. Tobias was quiet for a bit and then said "Mommy, I don't want to sleep on a beanbag, that's silly!" :-)

Episode 2: We were sitting at the dinner table. Tobias has not been eating very well lately. Some days he is fine, other days he doesn't want to eat. We try to encourage him of course, but one day Lisa said: "Tobias, you have to eat you're food. This time I am going to put my foot down!" upon which Tobias started to look under the table and said: "Mommy, where are you putting your foot down?" :-)

Episode 3: Tobias slept over at a friend's house (Marissa's) this weekend. He came home the next day and I asked if he slept well, and if Marissa's mom sang a song or read a book. She did read a book called "The Smelly Socks". He was talking to me in Dutch though and he tried to translate... He said: "Ja Papa, ze heeft de Ruikende Sokken gelezen.", which means she read The Smelling Socks :-)

I love his innocent literalness (I looked it up, it is a word...) and his cute literal translation efforts...!

Ameland

Before we took our vacation to Kos we had Lisa's parents over. They were here for two weeks and we took some interesting trips, one of which was to one of the Dutch islands: Ameland. The Dutch islands are biker's paradise. On some of them cars are not even allowed... On Ameland cars are allowed, but we did not take it. Instead we took a biking trip around the island. This picture is taken on that trip.

We went for about 15-20 miles. It was really nice weather and a really nice ride. I don't know if all the participants would agree to the same extent, but hey, this is my side of the story...

We were on the island for 3 days and nights. We had a good time, a nice hotel, good food and good fun playing Skip-Bo.

(We = Nonny, Granddaddy, Opa, Oma, Mama, Papa and Tobias).

Vacation: Kos, Greece

Well, after a while of absence I am back. Back from vacation, back to work and back to blogging. We went on a vacation to Kos. We went for a little under two weeks. It was a very nice vacation. We had already booked it in January, so we had quite some anticipation time...

The way we booked was quite new to me... I was planning on taking a trip by car to one of those vacation parks connected to a chain. Those usually have a pool an other necessary facilities for a child. Well, as I was checking that out on the internet I saw a commercial for Sunweb Vacations advertising sunny destinations. So, I checked out their website. They had a very good set of selection criteria:
- Destination (Greece, because we have always wanted to go there)
- Children's pool
- Playground
- Four stars and up
- All inclusive

So, there it was, three possibilities, all three on Kos. We took the one closest to the beach!

The weather on Kos is kind of boring to a Dutch guy... 30 degrees (Celcius), blue sky, blazing sun and a nice breeze every single day. This is boring because in the Netherlands you never know what to expect, but in no way unpleasant... I loved it! You can imagine we spent quite some time at the beach, but also in the pool as you can see here. Tobias loves to swim and the hardest part was getting him out of the pool. He was actually quite self-sufficient with those arm-bands on.

We did take some excursions and I took some bike rides on the island and I have to say, even though the island is one big tourist factory, it is a beautiful island! We had a great vacation.

(I kept a diary while we were there, but I think it is a bit too much to put it on here... :-))

A New Look

I have been posting pictures and stories in the same layout for three-and-a-half years now.... I thought it was time for a change.... So, from now on this blog has a new layout!

Castles made of sand...

These days when I put Tobias to bed we watch Ernie and Bert on YouTube. We do this laying on my bed usually using my iPod Touch or my cell phone. Tobias gets to pick three clips and we will watch them. For the longest time he didn't want to watch anything but "Thirsty" (Ernie is thirsty and Bert gets him glasses of water), "Cookies in Bed" (Ernie eats cookies in bed), "Counting balloons" (Ernie counts sheep, fire-engines and balloons...).

Recently we watch more of a variety including "Sherlock Himlock Here" (Ernie buries Bert) and "Bert's sandcastle" (Bert's sandcastle gets knocked over by Tough Eddie). This picture is inspired by the latter because we went to the beach last week and Tobias wanted to build sandcastles. Not because they are so beautiful, but to know them over....

Tobias and I act out the Ernie and Bert scenes together. It is amazing how quickly he knows them by heart. In this case we were acting out "Bert's sandcastle". Tobias would walk away from the sandcastle, then walk towards it again humming a tune ("Pop-tee-day...Ya-ta-da...." etc.) and then, when walking past it, knock it over, expecting me to act out Ernie's part....

Well, just check it out on YouTube by typing the search term "Bert Ernie Beach". It will be the first or second entry... :-)

Playing with the Hair Dryer...

Bathroom time is generally fun time for Tobias. He likes taking baths, he likes brushing teeth, he likes taking (standing) pees.... Yes, he figured out that boys can stand when they pee and he loves that.

He actually found that out on our most recent trip to Paris when I had to go in one of those road stops. Of course it is really yucky there, and even though I normally sit when I pee, in such places I prefer standing... Tobias had to go first and he wanted to come in with me.

He is still a bit traumatized by toilets other than our own (or other ones he knows). This is due to our trip to the USA last Christmas. He had to go on the plane. Everything went alright, until he flushed the toilet.... That hideous and very loud sound scared him to death! And that was that for going to an unfamiliar toilet for quite a while....

Anyway, we were in there together, it was my turn and I did it standing up and Tobias just had to laugh. That was an experience he talked about for quite some time and ever since then he wants to stand when he pees.....

Ok, about this picture then.... Another thing he likes is playing with the hair dryer. It used to be just playing, during which he nearly burned up our bathroom rug one time, but recently when he plays with it he actually dries his hair. He does this without any sense of style though (or does he?).... :-)

New Bike!

Tobias got a new bike! I had been planning on buying him one for a while now. His birthday isn't really the right time for a bike, but I figured, now is! It is summer, even though you can hardly tell by the weather we are having....

Anyway, two weeks ago I had some trouble with my own race bike. I needed a new spoke, so Tobias and I went to the bike store on my daddy day. While we were there I figured we might just as well check to see what kind of bikes they would have for Tobias. And as we were checking I thought I might just as well buy him one right there and then, and so I did...

And he is sooooooo proud of it! It is actually just slightly too big, but one size smaller would be slightly too small. I guess the training wheels need to stay on a little bit longer, but that does not mean any less fun while riding it! It is a Gazelle Jungle Bike. Gazelle is probably the most famous Dutch bike brand, so he is off to a good start in the bike department.

I doubt it will be long before I post a picture of him riding without training wheels.... but.... we'll see :-)

Renesse

Last weekend we went to see my parents who are currently vacationing in Renesse. It was a nice day so, of course we went to the beach. We took a soccer ball with us and here the three of us (Tobias, Opa and me) are playing soccer. I like this picture for several reasons, one being, obviously, Tobias. Another is that I am in it, which doesn't happen too often, because I am mostly the one taking them. Then of course there is the fact that all three (generations) of us are in the picture playing soccer. And finally, just look at the sky....

By the way: My mom took this one...

Photographer

Just recently we had a sort of a family reunion with my dad's family. That was a nice time, although Lisa had to leave early because she wasn't feeling well... Anyway, I brought my camera to the reunion and was taking some pictures. Then suddenly Tobias asked if he could take some pictures as well. He had done that once before, but I never thought much of it, because it didn't happen again. Well, since that family reunion he has been asking, and here he is with "his own", or my old if you wish, camera. He tries to look through the viewfinder because that what he sees me, and Opa and Oma do, but this little camera doesn't have one. He sort of got that eventually.

I have to add here that the pictures of the family reunion are not all that bad.... Everybody is in it at least once and they are mostly in focus. The angle is a bit odd though.... :-)

Sports...

Another thing Tobias and I do a lot these days is play hockey, golf, or soccer. Just today we were out playing soccer for quite a while. We went to a soccer field close by and he just ran and ran... It was quite a warm day today so at one point he said to me "Papa, my hair is wet." and I didn't really know what he was talking about. The he said "Papa, why is my hair wet here?" pointing to the back of his head. It turns out he was sweating..... :-). By the way, he is developing quite a kick... Maybe 20 or so years from now he will keep Holland in the European Championships, unlike this time...... :-(.

Like I said Tobias also likes to play Hockey and Golf. The only difference between these games is the type of ball he uses. With golf he uses a little white golf ball that came with a little golf set he has. When he is playing golf the clubs from his golf set are golf clubs. When he plays hockey, they suddenly turn into a hockey stick. The hockey balls are slightly bigger than the golf balls, and they come in a variety of colors, like red... So, as you can clearly tell in this picture he is playing hockey.

His golf swing is developing nicely as he is taking lessons from Opa just about every week.... Oh, that thing on the table in this picture is a bubble machine, really nice!

Working hard

Probably Tobias' favorite thing to do on a daddy day is work... Work in the house, work in the yard, clean something, and the good thing is, he is making himself more and more useful :-). Although, most of the times I am working on one thing and he is working on something he made up himself, like here. I was going on the roof of our garage to check something out, while he was getting all his tools out, including his workbench. He decided to work on my ladder though, scraping and hammering all the paint stains off.

Of course, if you work that hard, sometimes you need to rest a little bit. While we're working Tobias will say things like "We're working really hard huh, papa?". When we take a break he will say things like "I am really thirsty papa, because I have been working really hard!" :-)