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..... :-)

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....