Best Friends...

I always had trouble believing in "disater" when a stuffed animal is lost. I still don't believe in it, but I have to say that Tobias does have his favorites. Until recently his favorite would be determined by whichever one he would see first when walking into his room. These days he always goes for Pooh Bear and Elmo. Elmo sort of lives downstairs, Pooh Bear lives in his bedroom, but comes downstairs most of the days lately. Not only that, but a lot of times one or the other (or both) has to come with us when we go out.

About two weeks ago Pooh traveled with us to my parents and stayed there over night, but Tobias (or Lisa :-)) forgot to take him back. There was no disaster, but he was missed, I can tell you that....

I was taking some pictures today and then Tobias wanted to take a picture with Pooh Bear and Elmo. I took quite a few but I like this one the best.

Potty Trained!

It doesn't feel quite as much as a milestone as walking and talking, but it most certainly is: potty trained. Well, Tobias has been now for quite a while actually, in fact he did pretty much as he promised: "When I am three I will do Poopoo on the potty...". That's what he said and that's what he did. OK, he had a few accidents after that but hardly any, not even in the bed!

So, needless to say we're proud of the Tobster (you'll be amazed sometimes what a parent can be proud of.... I wouldn't have believed it myself a couple of years back :-))! We're also glad, because it makes things a lot easier, some things anyway. At the same time we're a little sad, because our boy is out of diapers now... He is just growing too fast!

I have to add this anecdote here.... Tobias was potty trained for the most part last christmas. His weewee went in the toilet, his poopoo most of the time still in a diaper. Then we went to the US for Christmas, on an airplane.... Well, obviously he had to go, that is an 11 hour flight! He wanted to flush the toilet himself. So, he pushed the little button and the toilet went WHOOOOOOSH!!!!! A bit too loud for his liking. He got so scared that he was traumatized for quite a few weeks after we came back from the US. As a result of that he would only go on our toilet (and in the US on nonny's toilet...). So, whenever we were out he would hold it until he couldn't hold it any longer, resulting in a couple of accidents.... Fortunately he's over that now, but it was so sad for him, poor kid.

The last accident that happened was last week when he was sick and had diarrhea. Well, he didn't expect that to come out so soon, so he was too late the first time. Once he knew though, he did fine....

Just a few days ago we finally thought of taking a picture while he was sitting on the toilet, so here it is! (Notice that he is not on the duck anymore, but sitting on the seat like a regular person... Since this weekend he is also able to get off the toilet by himself (not on it though...))

"There is a light blinking"

One last post for today, just because this is such a cute picture! I was taking a couple of pictures of him sitting in the window waiting for Imogen to show up for a night over (basically we were baby-sitting for her parents...). Well, the new camera has a light that comes on when the flash is needed and he saw that. That's what he's pointing out to me in this picture... :-)

Train ride with Pooh

This picture was taken on my first daddy-day into my new job, March 12th (I started March 10th...). I had to pick up my new car at some point that week and I decided to do it with Tobias. Of course I needed a way to get there, so we took the train. That always makes for some really nice time with Tobias. He enjoys riding the train a lot. Of course it already starts at the station seeing all the trains that we are not taking stop and go, the passengers getting in and out, and so on.

Then there is the train ride itself. Tobias will notice everything on the train, and outside the train, ranging from a stain on a seat to a trashcan or a duck outside. This day we not only took the train, we also took the tram (kind of a street car) and the bus! I personally hate taking the bus, but it was the only way to get to the car place (besides walking way to far....).

Anyway, Tobias is in the "why" phase now, so he constantly asks why-questions. "Papa, why is there a stain on the seat, why is there a duck outside, why is there a trashcan, why is the wind blowing?". I absolutely love that and try to answer as accurately as I can to such questions.

Most of the time one question is followed by a logical other, for example:
"Papa, why are we going to The Hague?"
"To pick up my car"
"Why are we going to pick up your car"
"So that I can ride it to work"
"Why do you ride your car to work?"
etc.

So, when he asked me about the wind I started this whole story about it being warm in one place and cold in the other and that the air starts flowing and that's why the wind is blowing, to which he simply replied: "Oh...". You should have seen the expression on his face! Priceless!

Here he is gazing out the window of the train with Pooh.

Birthday Gift

For his birthday we bought Tobias a scooter. Of course it took a while before he could use it, because of the weather. This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago, but he looks sooooooo cool here, doesn't he? As a matter of fact he was not entirely cool, because he got off his scooter because of the tile you see in front of him there, but oh well, it doesn't look like that at all, now does it!

We have had quite some fun rides in the alleyway behind our house, but we have also taken quite a few rides to the playground and back. He is not very fast, but he does have lots of fun on that thing, I can tell you that!

Me, I just have to be careful about the games I come up with. One day we were on our way to the playground and I thought I'd push him on his scooter. So, I grabbed his hands, and the handles, and pushed him around. I would purposely bump into stuff, saying "bommel" and he would laugh!

Don't worry at this point that something happened to Tobias while playing this game, because nothing happened to him. Me on the other hand, I woke up the next day with a terrible back ache! That damn thing is just a bit too low and Tobias is getting a bit too heavy! I have to admit, it was a fun game, especially because he was having so much fun, but I have to be careful next time (or am I just getting old....? :-))

Reading Sheet Music

As you may have noticed I like it when Tobias plays music. That is probably because of the fact that I enjoy playing music so much. I would really like to give Tobias the same experience. Therefore it makes me both happy and proud to see him work the piano, guitar, harmonica, trumpet, or whatever instrument he likes.

Here I was superduper proud because what Tobias is doing here is reading sheet music! First we made that colored chart that you see sitting on the keys. We did that together, we colored, wrote the notes on it and then glued (hmmm, weird verb, to glue....) it together. We used the same colors as he has on his xylophone, so, he can now "read" the sheet music that came with the xylophone. You can see the square piece of music with colored notes there in front of my own music. He is playing twinkle twinkle.

Of course you may wonder if he is actually reading the music or if he is remembering his color sequence, but either way, it made me a superduper proud papa!

Happy Easter!!!

Well, it has been a while. This time I do have several valid excuses (I think...). First off, I switched jobs. Due to that I was out of a laptop for a while, so I did not have my picture collection as readily available for upload as I would have wanted to.

Second, I have been on a wonderful skiing vacation in Italy. Ok, that accounts for only a week, but still.

And finally, I bought a new camera and when I tried to hook it up to my new laptop, I noticed that there is no connection on my camera, so, I had to take the memory card out, but my new laptop has no reader. So, I had to order a reader which took a couple of days to get here...

Well, it got here today so I thought I'd upload something, preferably something recent. This is last sunday, the Easter egg hunt! We had Tobias' girlfriend :-) Imogen over to join him on a hunt through the yard. I can tell you, if two kids are hunting for Easter eggs it is really tough to get them in one picture, but this is the best I could do.

Imogen and her parents were over a big part of the day and we had brunch with them as well. That was very nice. I think the kids were most interested in everything chocolate... It was a nice Easter!