Not so frightening after all.
Category Archives: babby
Ten weeks
Well, you’ve just survived about the busiest week of your life, with great-grandparents and grandparents to play with! You’ve charmed everybody with your cheeky smiles, ‘agoo’s, and exclamations of delight, and have only got yourself dreadfully over-tired once or twice. You’ve been lugged about to Fredrikstad, Sweden, the fortress (twice), deep into the forest, four different restaurants, a BBQ at a friend’s house, your first train ride and a picnic at the lakes. If there is too much going on or too many people in one day you do get a little overwhelmed, which is completely understandable, but mostly you are happy to watch the world go by and ‘goo’ at those who smile at you.
You’ve decided that you only need three half-hour naps during the day (I’m hoping you decide differently at some point), but you’ve been sleeping most marvelously well overnight – we’ve had several stretches of 9.30pm to 6am, which is pretty luxurious. (And lucky, I know.) Last weekend you discovered your hands but there’s been too much going on for you to really get into them yet. You like pinching fabric now, and you still adore your baths. And your milk. Oh yes.
On Wednesday I heaved you up onto my shoulder and thought – what? You’ve got heavier overnight! You do suddenly seem so much bigger. You’ve been here long enough that I’ve got used to you being around, and got past a certain fatigue that I think I felt around six weeks. But I still look at you sometimes, your shiny little eyes that almost constantly seek out my face, and think, but how did you get here? I am very glad you did.
Generations
My grandparents left yesterday. They caught the bus up to Oslo, for a night there, before flying back to Amsterdam, from whence they are hopping on a boat which will meander down various rivers all the way to Budapest. They truly are world travelers! I was sad to see them go, but the memory of those few days we had together here in Norway will be precious to me forever.
As we were walking through Gamlebyen on Thursday, Grandma said if anyone had told her several years ago that she would one day be walking through Norway with her great-grandson, she wouldn’t have believed them. It would be better to live close to family, but one gift of living so far away is that it makes the time you have together so special. And we are planning to visit Australia in December, so we look forward to seeing them then!
The evening before they left, Michael’s parents arrived! It was only a little chaotic having everyone here at once, and they were very pleased to meet each other. Michael’s parents don’t speak much English, and my Grandparents don’t speak any German, but they managed to understand one another ok. Anyway, says my Grandma, there’s always the international language of smiles.
It is a very nice thing to share a child, to watch others loving him. Especially as I have absolutely nothing to complain about regarding any of Felix’s grandparents – you hear stories of mothers receiving unwanted advice, but there has been nothing like that coming my way. Michael’s Mum, Moni, said she likes my Grandparents very much, and wishes she had had such nice Grandparents. It doesn’t matter, I tell her, because you are a most wonderful Oma.
A perfect day
Something about this photo – the positioning of the figures, our paper cut-outness, and Felix’s benedictory gesture – reminds me of a medieval triptych. Also the overblown sky – just imagine it gilded! I was perched on a little table, which I knew wasn’t a good idea when I’m already so tall. I love the photo anyway. You can tell how happy we all are to be there.
It felt so surreal on Monday night when my Grandparents arrived at our door, and I opened it and said ‘come in’. Just amazing. And then they came in and cuddled Felix, and Felix said ‘ooo ooo ooo’. And now I’m afraid I’m about to bore you with some details but we’ve been having such a lovely time that I don’t want to forget any of it. Yesterday, we wandered around town a bit, had lunch at our favourite pizza place, and walked to the shopping centre to get Grandma a new phone. G&G went back to the hotel for a couple of hours to have a rest, and then Michael picked them up again. We cooked salmon and potatoes for tea, and finished with icecream and strawberries.
Today, I picked them up at 10 and drove up to the fortress, where we wandered around and looked at the view. We then met Michael for lunch at my favourite little cafe in town (a very baby-friendly place with space for prams and toys for older kids to play with and a big stack of high-chairs and surprisingly delicious food), and called in at the other shopping centre to replace Grandma’s handbag. Felix was content napping in the pram and feeding in the cafe before we ate. We drove up the hill home again for tea and easter eggs and a skype chat with Mum and my aunty. G&G went for a little walk (they have more energy than me!!!) while we chilled out a bit at the house. We then had such a lovely afternoon sitting on the deck in the sunshine.
I’m wearing the amber earrings my Grandparents bought me in St Petersburg, when they took me there nearly seven years ago. (At that point I was doing my masters in York and I’d just decided Michael was rather nice and I was hoping something would come of it…)
Granddad read the copy of the Guardian that Michael had somehow procured for him. I cooked dinner – fool-proof spinach and ricotta cannelloni followed by delicious brownies – while Michael helped Grandma install phone numbers into her phone. It has just been so lovely having this time with them, and hearing stories of their children and houses and early life together (next year they will have been married 60 years!).
While we ate, Felix cooed and gurgled. And it was the perfect, perfect day.
Look, no hands!
We tried the little guy out in the sling today. I’d sort of been aiming to all week, but was defeated by all the different straps and buckles. With a bit of help from Michael I’ve got the hang of it now, and it’s actually pretty simple. The instructions say with babies this small they are supposed to face towards you, not away from you, but he hates that, and I think this is ok for short periods. I want to get him used to it so he can stay in it for longer when we’re traveling or going for walks etc. He wasn’t as dubious as the photo makes it look, and I think he actually quite liked it. He likes to be able to see what’s going on.
He’s started gripping on to fabrics and things, like the side of his pram. And today I saw him look at his own hands for the first time. Tiny, tiny little steps, and I know all babies make them, but it gives you such a thrill when it’s your own. And he laughs at us, sometimes, too. And we are always laughing at him.
Now. I was writing this on Sunday evening, and was interrupted by a phone call from my Grandma who had arrived that morning in Amsterdam, but was calling to say she didn’t know if they could get here on Monday as planned, because her handbag had been stolen and her passport was in it!!! So we felt very sad that we might not see them and worried about them both. Luckily the embassy sorted it all out on Monday morning, and they managed to get a later flight the same day, so arrived on Monday night. It is so so lovely to have them here, but I am a bit busy for blogging right now. We’ll try and take some pictures tomorrow.
Two months
Feel free to ignore this endless stream of Felix photos if you’re not family or otherwise smitten… With one set of grandparents in Germany and the other in Australia, I feel justified showing you all his little face several times a week. And then there’s all the rest of my family in Adelaide, quite a lot of them. So…
Here are few more smiles for you all! On Wednesday the little guy will be exactly two months old. It’s such a sweet age as he’s smiling and interacting so much more, but he is still a very small baby. It’s so strange to think that two months ago we hadn’t met him yet.
This is his latest trick – sticking his legs up in the air.
And here he is late in the afternoon, worn out from a long day’s playing, sitting in his little chair watching me cook dinner.
