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...