Small update

Little Tim's eating well and piling on the pounds (well grams at any rate). Yesterday he was already 3680 grams - that's 640 grams in 27 days (well actually 850 grams in 22 days as he lost a little bit of weight in the first few days).

Some photos of the ever enlarging Tim (and a big thanks Greg and Tanti for the "force" outfit).

As the weather was finally nice yesterday we managed a little walk to Gendarmenmarkt in the evening, as well as being out and about after Tim's first post hospital doctors appointment in the morning. It's very nice to get some fresh air after being couped up inside.

Hope everything is well in your part of the world too!

Freedom!

After talking about the need to regain the use of both hands, I looked up techniques for wrapping a baby in a sling for breastfeeding. And this morning I succeeded with some help from Jack. Timmy's been breastfeeding in it now for more than 30 mins and seems fairly happy. It could be a little tighter, but for the first time try it's not bad. This meant that I could eat my breakfast with both hands and now can touch type this post - woo hoo!!!

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And here's a photo of us at our fav place Chagall from last Friday...

A hat too small!

Tim has officially outgrown his first garment - a little orange hat that was something Jack and I bought on our very first "lets shop for the upcoming baby" shopping trip. It's this cute little hat with "ears" and has a picture of a happy bunny sitting and waving on the head of a teddy bear - yes, disgustingly cute! Yesterday evening we went to Potsdamer Platz for ice cream, with Timmy wearing this hat in his sling and afterwards he had a big red mark in his forehead because the hat was just too tight. Wow - only 3 weeks and a bit, and already clothes don't fit!

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Something else that I forgot to mention in the previous post about the Saturday night party... there I realised that I am now part of this "Mothers Club". I spent a large part of the night talking to two other older mothers about giving birth and children, and felt like a complete equal, even though I am completely inexperienced at this. But it felt completely different to just listening to other women talk about their kids before Timmy was born, almost as if I was listening from the sidelines - not really knowing a lot of the time what they were talking about and just trying to imagine it. Now I actually felt like I could talk to them on a completely different level - like we were sharing some special insiders knowledge that only we knew about and others without children just wouldn't understand. It was somehow a strange realisation.

Misleading advertising

Last week after we put our little munchkin to bed we did what we normally do in the evenings - watched our shows (atm either House MD, Simpsons or Top Gear). As we were sitting in the loungeroom with various loud noises coming off the screen we realised that we wouldn't really hear Timmy, should he start crying - unless we run to the bedroom to check every so often (which is what we did). Thus the need for a baby monitor became apparent.

After looking at some reviews online we decided to get one from Philips - an Avent SCD510. The advertised operating range (on the website and on the product leaflet) of this monitor was 330 meters. MUCH more than anything we'd need, but the rest of the features seemed good, so we ordered it. When it arrived I was reading the instruction manual, which said:

"The operating range of the baby monitor is 330 meters in open air. Depending on the
surroundings and other disturbing factors, this range may be smaller. Indoors the operating range is up to 50 meters."

Now, first of all I find it totally dodgy that they advertise it as 330 meters and only in the manual does it say that it's effectively only 50. I mean seriously - unless you're a farmer and going to be leaving your baby out on your porch while you're going to go and take the sheep out on the paddock, what use is "open air" to you?! Maybe I'm wrong, but my assumption would be that most people would be using it inside when the baby is in his/her room and you're somewhere else in the house. To be completely fair, 50 meters is still a lot and probably enough for anything you'd be doing indoors... but still - would be nice if they said that up front.

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In other happenings - yesterday was our first 'Saturday night out' post-baby. It was Alex's 30th in a very nice garden of his parents. Timmy was very well behaved and even though we didn't end up staying too long, it was very nice to be out and about. We took the bus there and back, and all in all it was fairly manageable. I think next month we're going to get a milk pump and I'm going to start expressing milk, so that Jack can feed Tim, too. This way I can regain my second hand to occasionally be able to:

• eat with a knife and fork, as opposed to just using a fork (both as itself and as a knife) with one hand, which is the current preferred method
  
• touch type
  
• do a multitude of other things that require two hands that I normally take for granted :)
  

Three weeks

Another week has gone by. Time is flying. I can't believe it is all going so quick.

Last two nights have been fairly similar. Timmy has been falling asleep around 22:00 and sleeping for 4.5 hrs, then a quick 20 minute feed, followed by another 1.5 hours of sleep, another feed and nappy change and then yet another 1.5-2 hour snooze. This week he had a bath twice and seems to enjoy them quite a bit. We're yet to try and bathe him right before bedtime to see if it'll encourage him to sleep a bit longer still.

I managed to cut his nails this week, which was actually fairly easy after our midwife showed us a trick. You do it a) when they're asleep, and b) turn them with their feet away from you, so that when you hold their hands, they're facing the same direction as your own hands.

One thing he is really fascinated by is flowers. That and windows he can stare at for quite a long time. Apparently it's because they're such high contrast objects. Either way it's very interesting to watch him watching "them". He also likes looking at our faces. And he smiles. I don't care what anyone says about babies unable to consciously smile at this early age, but he definitely smiles _at_ us, which is just so amazing.

This week also marks one of the most idiotic tasks that we had to do - take passport photos! Of a baby!!! What kind of childless dumb person decided that it is compulsory for child's passports (and citizenship certificates, for that matter) to have their photo?! I mean he's not going to look like this in a couple of weeks, let alone a couple of years. Ah well... so that was amusing - to try and comply with all the "biometric" 3.5cm x 4.5cm passport photo requirements (thankfully for children the "neutral" facial expression can be scrapped), and try to hold his head up. The result, his confusion and/or disdain and my amusement can be observed below :)

Hearing test

This morning we took Timmy to Charité hospital for his standard hearing test. It's actually something that should've been done before discharging us from the hospital right after birth, but at "our" hospital there were renovations happening when we were there, so it was impossible to do a hearing test with various types of hammer, saw and drill noises that were happening there at the time.

It was our first trip on the subway, and Tim was fairly well behaved so long as the train was moving. He was not happy when it was still at the stations and showed his resentment through crying and wiggling. In the pram he also seems to be mainly only happy when it's moving. May be he'll grow up to be a race car driver? Maybe he'll be the Stig on Top Gear?

Charité's Audiology and Phoniatry clinic was a well hidden place in a maze of corridors, lack of labels and non-functional lifts. It took us about 10 mins to find it only thanks to the help of a very friendly lady after we ended up somewhere else. The doc who did the test was a 30-something year old guy, who must spend most of his non-working hours, if not growing, then definitely smoking pot. He was the friendliest, slowest-talking doctor that we've seen in a very very long time. He was all "take your time... please", "congratulations on your baby", "we have lots of time, there's no rush... breastfeed as long as you need"... all of which is very atypical for a doctor here. Either way - he was very nice and did the test and that's the main thing. Timmy's ears are fine and that's what we needed to know.

On the way back we went to Zimt & Zucker on the river and sat there breastfeeding, eating Belgian waffles, talking crap and generally enjoying the day and each other. We then walked home, bought six packets of nappies and a loaf of bread - both of which make up our "essentials" list these days.

Two weeks and counting

Yesterday marked two weeks for our little son. This week has been pretty good. Last night Timmy threw up twice (just as two nights before), but Jack managed to rock him to sleep in his arms and Tim slept for almost four hours and then another three hours after a feed. So all in all we seem to have gotten the hang of dealing with the throwing up thing... at least for now.

So far Jack seems to be really good at getting Timmy to sleep. While still pregnant we bought a "breastfeeding" chair... which is kind of a rocking chair with adjustable back, but where the back is mainly straight, so it's very comfortable to sit in while holding the baby. Timmy also seems to calm down in it much better than anywhere else, and Jack is the master of it. Me? I'm more of a "food" person, and he finds it hard to calm down in my arms, as most of the time he searches for the food source and doesn't want to just sit or sleep in my arms, unless he's just been fed to the eyeballs. Either way it's good, because both parents have their ways to calm him down.

This week we've been for a walk almost every day (apart from yesterday when it was raining THE WHOLE day and was windy with a miserable 8 degrees).

We even managed our first family outing to Cafe Nö, which is a nice French cafe not too far from our place, where they serve yummy cheeses, hams, wines and Crème brûlée. Funny thing happened there - I ordered a white tea and the waiter brought it to me with a little glass of Contreau. When I said that I just asked for white tea, he pulled a very "french waiter" face and said "White tea is _always_ with Contreau" *shrug* Jack was happy with the Contreau and I was happy with the white tea.

Random photos:

Sleep and upsets

Two days ago was a very bad day for Timmy. The whole day he spent mainly crying. He threw up twice - once the evening before, which meant he got hungry much quicker and couldn't sleep as well during the night, and second time in the morning, which started the whole day off on a bad foot. Plus he's been having lots of gas which gives him tummy troubles and kept him awake and crying throughout the day. In the end he was too excited and upset to fall asleep. As a last resort we took him for a walk in the evening, which put him to sleep for about 1.5 hours, and then at similar spurts he managed to calm down throughout the night in our bed. In the morning he was happy and calm enough that I could put him into his cradle for a morning nap.

Yesterday was much better. He managed to catch up on sleep and food, and was a lot happier. Our midwife also came by and showed us how to give him a tummy massage which eased his tummy upsets. In the morning we also had visitors for brunch. Alex and Jirka came by bearing gifts and really yummy bread rolls. It was really nice to see them. In the evening we went for another walk and surprised our favourite Hausmeister who, when he saw me pushing a pram, asked "Did it already happen?!", to which I replied "Two weeks ago" :) He was very happy for us.

Last night also was the "Night of the longest Sleeps", with Timmy sleeping from 9pm 'till 3am, six hours straight. And then two more spurts at about 2-2.5 hours each time. He seems to be back to his "normal" self - yey! :) Happy baby = Happy parents.

The gases song

Gases, gases.
Nasty little gases.
Gases to the left.
Gases to the right.
Gases keeping Timmy up all night.

:)

The nappy song

In order to distract Timmy while changing his nappy I came up with a little song that now has taken on a life of it's own and appears in various variations throughout the day. The original went something like:

Timmy is unhappy
"Change my nappy,
Change my nappy
So that I can be happy"

"Nappy, nappy, nappy
Change my nappy"
Change Timmy's nappy
So that he can be happy.


This morning while looking at the weather forecast, which shows that it'll be reasonably cool with daily rain and showers for the rest of the week, we came up with:

The weather is crappy
Just like Timmy's nappy,
Just like Timmy's nappy
The weather is really really crappy.

Ahhh... the joys of parenthood :)

Stumpy, Music, Steak and Walk

Yesterday while breastfeeding I wanted to put on some calming, soothing, happy music and was startled that among our rather extensive music collection there isn't anything really that I would call "suitable for breastfeeding". We don't seem to have any _happy_ music. The closest we came was The Beatles and Xavier Rudd... but as such I wouldn't actually classify either of those as _happy_ per se. I'd be curious to know what other mothers listen to while breastfeeding?

On Saturday Jack cooked us steak. My first medium-rare steak in 9 months. yum yum. He also got us this cute little cake for mothers day and 1 week of Timmy :)

As Jack was changing Timmy's nappy today, his (aka Timmy's) umbilical cord stump (aka Stumpy) fell off. This means that hopefully tomorrow our wonderful midwife Stefanie will be able to show us how to bathe our little baby boy.

Today also marks the day of our first walk. Both for me and Tim it was the first outing after coming home from the hospital. We didn't go far, and were only outside for about 20 mins, but we did manage to go to the bakery and get some bread. Albeit short, it was very nice to be outside. Jack, who was carrying Timmy in the sling, managed to attract the attention of a lovely old lady passing by who wanted to know whether it was nice being a freshly baked Dad :)

Last night was the best night so far with Timmy only waking up once for a feed after about a 3.5 hour nap and then sleeping for another 4 hours. Parents feel refreshed.

Some photos:

RIP Banjo Ash

Banjo Ash - our youngest cat had an accident while we were in hospital. The vet said there wasn't anything we could have done - even if we had been home. Sadly he's no longer with us.

All in all we'd rather not talk about it, and would rather people don't mention it - suffice to say that we're very sad that the little kitten is no longer with us.

Banjo Ash - 29 April 2009 - 3 May 2010
Small and grey,
Always a pest at play.
You were very soft and loved,
and will be sorely missed,
now that you've gone away.

One week

Today Timmy is one week old... well in about 2 hours. Wow - the time flies fast. He is doing very well - eating lots and lots and gaining weight. We're slowly adjusting to sleeping less and in spurts, which are mainly around 1.5-2 hours at a stretch between feeds. So far he's been sleeping with us in our bed and not so much in his pretty cradle (somehow he wakes up every time we put him down in it), but hopefully that'll change in time. During the day he really likes to nap in his little baby swing, thanks to Vika and Tim (pic below - upon arrival home)! Jack has been most amazing and wonderful looking after the two of us, running around on errands and cooking and cleaning. I mainly spent the last week in bed and only yesterday and today have been mainly sitting. Hopefully next week my body will recover even more and we might be able to take our first walk. In the meantime we just feel incredibly lucky and blessed and grateful and overcome with so many emotions, it's too hard to express. Thank you all who wished us and Timmy their best. It might take us a little while to reply to all the emails, so here is this post and some photos in the meantime. Please know that we love you all very much and are so happy to have so many wonderful people around the globe (and it's not just the hormones talking!).

Yesterday silly parents decided to get creative and take hand and foot prints of the little family member. Jack and I spent quite a bit of time deciding which water based paints to use and how to do it properly (ie. push the baby's foot against the paper, or push the paper against the foot)... one thing we didn't do in our excited state was actually test the paint on ourselves. So we proceeded to paint his little foot blue and making various smudges on the paper, none of which ended up looking like a proper print. During this process Timmy looked very confused and wasn't quite sure about the brush tickling his tiny tows, squirming and wriggling them. This is when we realised that we need to perhaps educate ourselves a little more prior to attempting this, so we started washing the paint off... but the stubborn thing wouldn't really come off using water and cotton wool. In the end we took him into the bathroom and actually washed his foot under the tap, but even that didn't really do it properly... so I attempted baby wipes, but even with that there's still some paint left. So now our brand new baby is parading around with his right foot slightly blue in colour. Parents are very very sorry and now know to test things on themselves first prior to doing anything their little son.

First day in hospital

Leaving the hospital

At home