4 months

Timmy is four months today. To celebrate (as is already traditional) we took him for the third round of his 6-set vaccinations. This time to a different paediatrician who seemed fairly nice. We haven't had much luck with paediatricians, because our regular one has moved to Singapore and there aren't that many directly around our place. We took him to some other doctor for the last vaccination but their Soviet style clinic with paper thin walls and dirty furniture, together with just a nasty and mean attitude didn't inspire. So today we were pleasantly surprised when the nurse and doctor turned out to be very nice. The following is a photo from Chorin.

This week is also the first three days that Tim and I are home alone during the day. Beforehand I've been super lucky to have Jack and then my Mum to help me out. It's been ok though. We have been going for walks every day and generally seem to be doing good. Timmy is back to normal in terms of his nightly sleep patterns and that means that we're all generally less underslept and overall happier. Some photos from the last couple of days...

17 weeks

Tim seems to have gotten over his infection and is feeling much better now. He's not back to sleeping as well through the night though, as he did prior to the whole ordeal. He's been waking up a couple of times at night for feeds, but as of three nights ago we substituted feeds with a dummy and that seems to be working out better. He still wakes up around 2am, but then falls quickly back asleep. Then wakes up and squirms around at 4:30ish... and then sleeps until anywhere between 6:30 and 8:00am.

On Friday my parents left to go back to Novosibirsk in time for the new academic year. We're all missing them and hope that it won't be too long before our next meeting.

This week we bought Tim a playpen because during his hospital stay he worked out how to roll over to his side (pics below), which means that he can't be left unattended anywhere now.

This week he also started talking more. He is a lot more loud (and demanding) and talks almost constantly provided he's in a good mood. His favourite thing at the moment is to stick one hand into his mouth and then to start proclaiming something to everyone around very loudly and with much enthusiasm :)

For my birthday we went up to Panorama (a viewing platform on top of one of the tall buildings at Potsdamer Platz). Here are some snaps:

Other random photos from last couple of weeks:

And my absolute favourite photo:

16 weeks or our first stay in hospital

On Fri night Tim was very grumpy in the evening - unusual for him... he was crying a lot and wasn't eating properly. We wrote it off to him being tired, 'cos he didn't sleep much that day. Then on Saturday we went for a day trip to Chorin - a town about 90kms out of Berlin with an old monastery. Unfortunately the monastery had a concert inside that day, so we couldn't have a look at it and ended up walking around the nearby forests. It was pretty warm and Tim was very grumpy. He wasn't eating properly and I started noticing how he is much warmer than usual, even taking into account the heat. Long story short - we got home around 7pm and measured his temperature - it was over 39. We had to give him paracetamol three times in a row, because they are suppositories and he'd poo it out every time. His poo didn't look normal either. The third suppository stayed in and then I tried to feed him but he was screaming and wasn't eating. The temperature wasn't really going down and he was continuously crying and was inconsolable, so we took him to hospital.

In the hospital the doctor had a look at him and said that Tim has a 'Magen-Darm Infektion' (stomach infection) and he has to be admitted. They admitted me as well, so I could stay with him in the hospital room and feed him. That night they put him on a drip to make sure that he's getting enough fluids. Poor thing was screaming when they were putting the drip in. *sigh* By about midnight his temp went down to about 38 and he fell asleep. We were sharing a room with a 17 month old girl who was in there by herself. This needs a separate post, 'cos her story is so sad. Either way - she kept crying the whole night and thus Tim and I couldn't really sleep. Well, he didn't really sleep well anyway, because in the middle of the night his temp went above 39 again and he was again crying so much. They gave him another paracetamol and in a couple of hours it went down again. By this stage the nurses wheeled the bed with the girl out into their room so that Timmy and I could get some sleep, which was very nice of them.

On Sunday towards the evening his temperature went down more and didn't go above 38. He generally was in a better mood and was eating better. At midnight it was down to 36.9 and on Monday morning 36.8. So on Monday after two nights in hospital we could go home. Yey!

He is feeling better now - last night and this morning his temperature is normal and he's generally in a good mood. Now we're just waiting for him to do a number two and see that it's getting back to normal as well. Apparently these stomach infections are fairly common among kids at the moment and they usually last about 3-4 days with temperature. I am just glad we're out of the hospital and at home. Even though we were treated very well, hospitals are not good places.

At least now I know exactly how much he weighs - he was 6950 gr. on Monday morning :)

Here's a pic from last week prior to our hospital saga...

The labour of the Russian Embassy

Yesterday (due to the most silly decision of mine to make an appointment on my birthday) Jack and I went to the Russian Embassy. It was terrible... we didn't achieve anything apart from me storming out of there and then bawling my eyes out for about 30 mins outside (long story). But while we were in there I realised that there are a lot of parallels between being in the Russian Embassy and giving birth - both are extremely painful, you're never quite sure how long it'll take, you feel like screaming (and possibly do) and you're never quite sure about what will turn out in the end of this drawn out process.

15 weeks - meeting Grandpa

Yesterday, on Friday the 13th, Dad arrived. Curiously Dad was also born on Friday the 13th, but that's getting off topic... At first Tim was a little apprehensive (as can be seen from the photos below), but then this morning he woke up in a good mood, was all smiles and happy to see Grandpa.

Tim's personal four wheel drive got converted to a more of a reclined sitting arrangement this week - goodbye the lying-in "bathtub". At first he wasn't so happy about it, because I think the straps were a little tight, but then we loosened them a little and he seems to like it better now.

Tim has been on his "10pm last feeding & bedtime" schedule for a couple of weeks now. He usually squirms a little once around 4-5am, but usually falls asleep fairly quickly after I give him the dummy. So now he sleeps from around 10:30pm, 'till 7am. This is great, because we get about 8 hours of almost uninterrupted sleep that way, but the problem has been my milk supply. Due to the fact that he has practically been missing one night feed now, I end up having too much milk at 7am, and it's been pretty painful. I tried not to use the pump for extra milk because this way the milk should theoretically regulate itself. So far in vain... it seems that I'm producing the same amount of milk as I did three weeks ago and it hasn't reduced. Unfortunately my midwife is on leave, so I can't really ask her for advice and I couldn't find any decent information online. So on Tue I went to my gyno to talk about that and also some things. This was roughly the conversation that followed regarding the milk supply:

me: my son sleeps about 8 hours at night now, but my milk supply hasn't adjusted for the last three weeks. Is there something I can do?
gyno: wow - sleeps for 8 hours at 3 months, huh?
me: yes it's very good, but my boobs are pretty sore... could you recommend something?
gyno: wow - 8 hours... milk should kind of regulate itself.
me: yeah I know, but it hasn't for the last three weeks... *questioning look*
gyno: 8 hours... at this age... that's very good

So unfortunately she was pretty useless and gave me the impression that sore boobs is something breastfeeding mothers should just deal with and that all my problems were stupid. Thankfully it wasn't my regular doctor, as I think that my normal one would've handled it better. Either way... I'm just hoping the milk will adjust itself and then all will be well. Last two nights have actually been better, so hopefully it's starting to work.

This week Tim got his Aussie passport at the embassy and Mum and I also voted. I'm very interested to see how the election will go next weekend.

To wrap up this post I'd like to propose a little quiz. Timmy got the following rattle from Vika and Denis, and it is now one of his favourite. We all take turns guessing what is the blue fluffy thing next to the crescent moon. All four of us have our own guesses, which are posted in an upside down image below... but in the meantime I'm curious as to what YOU think?

A story of a heartless chicken

Last night I decided to be a proper housewife and bake a chicken in the oven. I have baked chickens before but this is the first time that decided to bake a frozen chicken. The packet said "One whole German chicken ready for baking, without heart, with insides". This seemed somewhat strange to me - why remove the heart, but leave the insides in? So when the chicken was thawed I had a quick peak inside and didn't really see anything that resembled insides. I also didn't really want to spend too much time poking around inside the chicken, 'cos somehow yesterday it really did look like a cadaver to me, so I decided to season it and stick it in the oven asap. After it was baked we served it together with Mum's fried potatoes and were enjoying a lovely meal with me reporting how it tastes very good for a frozen chicken and how interesting it is what the packet said about heart missing but insides still intact. It was at that moment that we noticed a little plastic bag hanging out of the chickens bum... after removing said bag we saw that it was full of chicken insides... all cooked... crispy and brown :) yum yum

14 weeks

This week Tim got his second set of the 6-set injections. The injection is against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, haemophilius influensa type b and hepatitis b. He also got a second serving of the syrup against rotaviruses. Again he was pretty grouchy after the vaccinations and had a small temperature in the late afternoon, but seemed to have coped well with it without any medication and was ok by bed time. There's another set of these injections coming up in another month.

He also started grabbing things more. When you give him a rattle he is able to hold it for a little while on his own. And he's becoming very fond of his baby blankets - chewing and tagging on them. Today we all went for a walk to Chagall and Tim again was very fond of Daddy's beer :)

Some photos from this week

Some more Berlin

3 months

Here we are - 92 days! In some ways it seems that these three months have flew, and on the other, as a very good friend of mine said - I can't imagine life before Timmy. To celebrate this marvellous day Tim decided to set a new sleeping record last night at 9 hours. We're very glad that we moved his sleep time back to the original 10pm, because he's been sleeping for 8 hours straight this whole week... yey - happy parents. I made a caramel mud cake to celebrate, but unfortunately I decided to alter the recipe a little for the frosting and it was waaay too runny. Either way we had three candles on it and the three adults blew them out, since Tim was about to have a hissy fit :)

This week was also the last day for our baby massage course. I am really glad we did it, because Tim really enjoyed the company of other babies and also the massage itself. His favourite are tummy and back massages, and arms are least favourite. Now I have to see about some other courses that we could do. May be baby swimming...?

My best friend Nutella
Along with beer Tim seems to have developed a very strong preference for Nutella. Every time it makes an appearance on the dining table, he starts talking to it, smiling and laughing. Here's some evidence:

Winter 2010/2011 Woolens Fashion Parade

I have very much been enjoying being a mother. But this week even a little bit more so. As it turns out, both zoos in Berlin give freshly baked mums very cheap yearly passes, which grant unlimited entry for mum and her baby for a whole year. So now Tim and I have a pass to each of the zoos, and also to the aquarium which we will hopefully be using quite a bit. This week Mum, Tim and I made it to the east zoo - Tierpark, which made for a very nice outing:

While looking for baby slings and carriers I came across something that I haven't thought of before... carrying twins. I find that carrying Tim is already quite a challenge and with him getting heavier and heavier it's not that easy anymore. But I couldn't imagine carrying two kids! There is an actual baby carrier, or you can do it with with a sling.

Some more photos from this week:

And generically Berlin: