Birthday, Kitas, Bedarfsplanung, 37 weeks and peekaboo!

Jack on his birthday :)

It's been a while since the last post. We've been crazily busy. With my summer semester quickly approaching we've been looking for a kindergarten for Timmy. So far with very little luck. You might think we're slack for living it to the last minute. Well I'll tell you that's not quite right. While I was still pregnant Jack went and looked at a bunch of kindergartens (or Kitas, as they're called here) and we got Tim onto waiting lists at two of them, for April 2011 as the starting time. We regularly called/emailed these kindergartens to make sure that they know we still need a place. Normally the intake happens in August, as older kids move onto school, and new groups are formed. We knew this before but got told that if someone moves or takes their child out of the group in the middle of the year, then we'll get a spot. Well nothing of the sort has happened, so we don't have a place for April. And now they're not even promising us a spot from August. Over the last two weeks I've called probably around 30 kindergartens in our area, further out, and even around my uni. No luck. We're now on about 5-6 waiting lists for August, but nothing for April. There might be a chance at a new Russian/German Kita, but they won't know until end of March and it's also about an hour away from us on public transport, "kind of" on the way to my uni and Jack's work, but that trip door to door (ie. home -> Kita -> work/uni) will take about 1.5 hours one way. Not so fun! So yeah - that's been a big pain in the butt.

Another thing that I recently discovered is that Berlin (and a number of other states) has a limited amount of doctors clinics that's regulated by the public health insurance authority. In other words you can't just finish studying your psych degree or medical degree and open private practice. The only way to come to own one is when someone else retires/sells, or if they lift the restriction on the number of clinics. And there are huge waiting lists for both options. This is petty rediculous, considering that people wait sometimes years to get into therapy. So naturally the prospect of studying for 8 years and then not be able to do what I want is not that shiny brilliant. At the moment I'm looking at what job opportunities will there be at the end of my study overall, but so far it's not looking great.

Timmy is growing. We're at 37 weeks now. He's 9 kgs and very much enjoying his solids. He's eating so well that recently I've been forgetting to breastfeed him. He has also started sleeping in his own room. We have converted the small room into a nursery and he seems to like it. He's been loving his swimming classes and even doesn't mind diving. Well, diving is not really exactly what he's doing, but either Jack or myself dunking him into the water. Some babies in the group are already starting to be able to kind of swim by themselves. It's pretty cool.

One thing that's been worrying us a little is that he's not showing any desire to crawl yet. He's rolling over fine and kind of does circular rolling when on his belly, but no getting up on his knees yet. He's also not showing any desire to "talk" yet - so no "bababa or dadada". So in the start of Feb we're going to our paediatrician and she's going to do a proper check of his development. Apart from not reaching these milestones he's his usual happy and bubbly self, so on that front I'm not worried, but still need reassurance that everything is fine.

Some photos from the last couple of weeks...

Tim has also finally started getting interested in peekaboo :)