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...