Proof: The Dude in Paris

And here is the proof that we actually were in Paris... I love this picture.... Tobias being his cool self, just sitting there in the middle of Paris (The Champs Elysees, with the Arc de Triomphe in the background) like he owns it....

Like I said, we had a good time there!

Note 1: As I was walking around Paris taking some pictures of Tobias I was thinking back to the first time I was there myself... That was when I was 20 years old or something. Tobias has already been there quite a few times...! It is nice to have friends there :-).

Note 2:I taught Tobias some french words on the way there. Stuff like Oui, Non, Merci, S'il vous Plait, Voiture, Lait, Verre, and probably some more. He did remember some of the a few days later, but what was astounding to me is that he was able to pronounce it very well! Another thing that amazed me is that language barriers do not seem to exists in the world of children. Valentine only speaks french (although she does understand some Dutch from her father and some English from her nanny), but both her and Tobias were just babbling along in, each in their own language, and they just seemed to understand each other. "Hey Valentine, can you please move that boat and bucket so I can jump." actually resulted in Valentine moving the boat and the bucket so Tobias could jump off the white stool in the pool (see one of my previous posts).... Interesting...!

Cool "Little Dude"

This picture was also taken in Paris at a playground near the city, I believe it was in Bois de Boulogne, but I can't be sure (I just followed our friends...). We were quite lucky because we could not have picked a better weekend. The weather was so nice. That however, has nothing to do with this picture.... I just like this picture a lot, because even though Tobias is getting to be quite a big dude he of course still is a little dude and in pictures like these quite cool too :-).

Probably one of his favorite things in a playground is a slide. They had quite a few here. He is standing in the opening of a tunnel cutting through a "dike" type thing with some slides on the side. Those were actually quite steep, and I had to help Tobias come down (hold him and go down together). Fortunately there were some other slides too...

...And an aweful lot of other children! It seemed like entire Paris had decided to come to this playground... Anyway, Tobias got to go down quite a few slides, play soccer with me, go in a merry-go-round, run around in a "fountain-pool" (a pool-type area with lots of different fountains that kids can run through), and more....

A good time for a kid, I guess...

A Pool in Paris

Well, the pool was actually near Paris. Two weeks ago we went to visit friends of ours in La Celle de Saint Cloud, a suburb of Paris close to Versailles. We did go into Paris one day, but most of our time was spent around this pool....

The girl you see in this picture is Valentine, she is about 4 month younger than Tobias. The weird face and posture Tobias has in this picture is because he is in mid-jump off the little white stool you see behing him. That was their favorite thing to do! Jump and jump and jump and then jump some more.

Their next favorte thing must have been throwing water on daddy's head.... Because both daddies were in the pool for a while too, and althought we thought we could have some peace and quiet and enjoy a beer and the sun, the children soon joined us and started pooring water on us....

We had a great time there and so did Tobias!

Golf Club Maintenance

As you know Tobias usually spends Thursdays with Opa and Oma. Sometimes Opa goes out to play golf. Opa takes good care of his stuff so, whenever he comes back home from playing golf he cleans his golfclubs and golfballs.

Apparently Tobias sometimes witnesses or takes part in this habit, because today we were playing golf in our yard (Tobias has a little toy-golfset). When we were ready to clean up and go inside he said: "Papa, I am going to get a rag". I already had a feeling about what he was going to do with it, and I was right. He cleaned both his golfclubs and his golfballs.... :-)

As you can see in this picture he doesn't just whipe the clean.... Not a single ridge on the clubface escapes his scrutiny...!

Arts and Crafts

Tobias has always been into doing stuff with his hands, like drawing, glueing, play-doh, painting etc. Recently he is into cutting and glueing. The result of such a session is usually a sheet of white paper with some colored pieces of paper on it. Until recently we had to help him with that most of the time and our influence was usually quite visible in his artwork because we gave him some examples to work with or expand on.

Well, those days are over, because now he can do it all by himself. His last three pieces included two walls and a set of steps. In this picture the steps picture is in progress.

I love the expressions on his face when he is working! (Also, I can't believe he can do it all by himself now.... time is just flying by!)

Couch Potato

This week Lisa and I are celebrating out fifth (!) wedding anniversary. I guess I can say now that I have extensive experience living with an American. I can mainly think of positive things to say about that, but I can also mention at least one serious drawback: The amount of TV that is being watched in our house.

For the longest time I was able to keep Tobias from watching any TV at all. In fact he didn't seem even remotely interested in watching TV... Recently our cable company stopped providing an analog cable signal, so, we had to switch to digital. We bought the extensive package including a lot of channels with american TV shows on it. It also includes a channel called Baby-TV with a continuous flow of children's programs. Well, Tobias has discovered this and now he is turning into a couch potato. This is what he looks like when he is watching....

He has been good about turning it off for dinner or bath or whatever else, but it is a quite disturbing phenomenon. Of course, by now he knows how to turn it on and off himself, so I guess we'll have to become strict(er) about this.

I have to admit it is quite cute to see him watch TV like this.... I guess it's all about balance... we'll see.

The Beach

We have had some really nice weather lately and like I said in a previous post, spring is here. I took Tobias to the beach a couple of times on my daddy day. He really likes that, and as a matter of fact, I do too. He loves to play soccer on the beach. As you can see in this picture his technique is quite sophisticated :-). The ball doens't go further than a couple of yards, but anyway, he is making progress.

While he is still quite ambidextrous with his hands he is definitely a lefty with his feet! Opa taught him to drop-kick the ball and he does a descent job on that too, although when he gets too enthusiastic he misses the ball entirely...

On the beach he also likes to jump and fall in the sand. That is quite an interesting spectacle to watch... He falls backward and foreward and rolls around, which is especially nice when we take his clothes of a night :-). So far he mostly stays away from the water, which is probably a good thing, because it is still a bit cold. Hopefully we can enjoy that too this summer...

In any case, I am looking foreward to many more visits too the beach...

Anecdote: When Tobias and I were on the beach last wednesday we ended our day in a restaurant, having a drink and something to eat. We sat there for quite a while. When I left the table to pay the check a girl (probably around 20 years old or so) approached Tobias and asked him his name. Tobias was polite enough to tell her. Then when we left she told me what a nice son I have. Of course I knew that already, but I found such a spontaneous reaction quite remarkable... Tobias is a babe-magnet already...(?)