The lyf so short

As has become my wont, I've neglected my annoying mother blogger habits terribly. Julian is now in a very exciting stage of language acquisition (two-word phrases and a rapidly expanding proto-vocabulary) so I should be taking notes all the time, but the sad truth is - I don't, neither online nor offline.

Still, I'll try to sum up.
As I said, Julian's vocabulary is growing rapidly - he'll come up with new words every other day and surprise us all by suddenly naming things that were just generally called "da!" ("there") a few hours ago. He seems to be immensely satisfied that he can (sometimes) communicate succesfully; when we understand what he's trying to tell us, he'll shout "Ja!" ("yes") and bounce on the balls of his feet very empathically.
A lot of words, quite adorably, currently end in -ie, making them sound all sweetie and cutie: For example, "soppie" (Socke, sock), "jappie" (Jacke, jacket), "apsi" (Apfel, apple), "pitzie" (Pilz, mushroom, as well as pizza and pretzel), "tassie" (Tasse, cup), "nunie" (Nudeln, noodles), "matie" (tomato), "saufie" (Schaufel, shovel or Schaukel, swing), "nitie" (Knete, playdough) and "wassie" (Wasser, water). "Auch" (too) has become a very important word, as have "mit" (with = along with), "los" (let's go) and "weia" (weiter, go on).
He has come up with names for more than just Mama and Papa, especially "Ama" and "Apa" (Oma and Opa, i.e., grandma and grandpa, but also used for other grown-ups), "Fesie" (Felix), "Bitie" (Ingrid, apparently, who is also "Ama"), "Dursie" (my mother, Ursula, who is also "Ama"), "Mack" (Marc, Jörg's brother). So far, he doesn't consistently use one name for himself, although I think he means himself when saying either "Ujie" or "Mimi". But "Ujie" could also be my father (Ulrich = Uli). I called myself Mimi when I was small and it remained my childhood nickname, so that would be doubly adorable!
The red-haired doll both children love to play with is called "Maitie" while the other doll, Curry (or Carisa, as Felix has more prettily named her), is "Bebie". "Bebie" can also be any other child (baby). Mr. Darcy is "Dathie", but 'náro is just "Mow!"
In fact, most animals are "Mow!", unless they're "uff" (woof), "baaak" (quack), "pie" (peep) or "maah" (baa).
Favourite foods have a name: Aside from Apsi, Noonie, Matie and Pitzie, Julian is very fond of "nanie" (banana), "saf" (Saft, juice), "tie" (tea), "bok" (Brot, bread, as well as Prost, cheers), "Mais" (corn) and "yogga" (Yoghurt).
Recently, "bau" (build) has acquired the additional meaning of blau (blue). However, red or green often also end up being called "bau". The only other colour Julian consistently identifies is "gebb" (gelb, yellow).
"Auf" (up, on, open) is still an all-purpose preposition, and can also mean "light" (being switched either on or off) and window or door (being open or closed). However, closing a door or pulling the curtains is "zack" (wham or whoosh).

Cars and other things with wheels - "brrrr", "too-too" (choo-choo), "hup-hup" (honk-honk), "tüta" (Tatütata is the general onomatopoeic word for "ambulance siren" in German) - remain his main field of interest - on pictures as well as in playing. He's a very proficient bobby car driver - actually, Felix learned how to properly ride his bobby car from Julian, not the other way round! He also immediately understood how to use the balance bike Ingrid got him for Christmas, even though it's too tall for him. People already say that he'll need to join a junior racing team. :/
That said, he now also loves "buch" (book). He points at things he wants you to name, names everything he can say himself, and cheerfully tells each page "ba-bai" before turning it over.
When he wants to cross the road, he stops and says "hinks, echt, hinks" (links, rechts, links = left, right, left). He doesn't actually turn his head the right way, nor does he genuinely check for traffic, but he knows that it's something adults and big brothers do!

Because Felix so frequently speaks English, Julian has picked up some of that: He counts "fai, sis, sebbie, ey" (five, six, seven, eight) when going up or down the stairs (which he does, quite safely, on his own), he excitedly shouts "oh no!" and "oh yes", and when he has built something, it's a "taua" (tower). He says "look!" when he wants us to see something he's doing. Oh, and then there's "ba-bai"! Julian says "ba-bai" (bye-bye) - and waves in the most adorable manner. (Admittedly, "bye-bye" is a lot easier to pronounce than either "tschüs" or "auf Wiedersehen"!)
When he's annoyed, either for real or in play, he'll say "boah, [name]!" in a very reproachful tone (boah, Mama! boah, Fesie! boah, Maitie!). When he's really annoyed, he'll clench his eyes shut and shout "Weg!" (away!).
All fricatives are pronounced with the most adorable Fëanorian accent (i.e., a gentle lisp).
He's as stubborn as his mother father brother all of the above.
He'll be two at the end of the month! Good grief!

Felix is doing well. He appears to have recovered from the kindergarten experience. It was a noticeable development (including weird things, like suddenly being able to eat rice with sauce again - it sounds silly, but it really seems to be linked to the trouble in kindergarten, like he was lacking the "spoons" (...) to deal with mixed flavours in top of that.), a noticeable relaxation and change in behaviour (for the better!), so I am more certain than ever that it really was those teachers that caused a lot of the difficulties. It was definitely right to pull him out. He's got a place in the Montessori kindergarten in my birth town from August onwards. At the moment, we get to go there once a month to introduce him to the place, the kids etc. - it'll become more frequent as August draws closer. He seems to see it as some kind of test, so he really tries to show off while he's there and comes out completely exhausted after three hours. During these three hours, however, he completely wowed the teachers at the Montessori place. Even they couldn't believe that he's only four-going-on-five.
I know it sounds like I'm bragging but I'm honestly not. It's not fun when your kid intellectually behaves like he's in second or third grade, but socially and emotionally behaves like the four year old that he is. The kindergarten teachers are familiar with the problem and sympathetic (as well as saying that it's "typical for these bright kids"), but most other people are utterly unwilling to accept "fucking fours" behaviour from a boy whose favourite toys include MS Word and Excel, who can read and write in two languages (using correct orthography in both cases) and who constructs rather complex sentences (again, in two languages). Le sigh. I understand the difficulty; I find it difficult myself! But it's something that just has to be accepted, rather than questioned again and again.

But he is no longer as fragile as he was a month ago, and that shows not only in his general behaviour, but also in an increased willingness to compromise and cooperate.
His current obsession is streetlights. He has named several different forms of them and he knows exactly where every single on of them stands, both around our usual haunts and in places that he's only ever seen once. He also draws lots of pictures of streetlights, including details like the anchoring cables or the exact shape of the lampposts. The most important thing is colouring in the light, of course! He spends a lot of time thinking about which colour the light is and trying to reproduce that colour.
(So we've got an emotionally troubled, stubborn, rather bright child with a propensity for language and a fascination with artificial light. I SEE NO DANGER IN THAT WHATSOEVER.)
Unfortunately, he has inherited his father's teeth, so we had to pay two visits to the dentist in the past weeks to get his molars fixed. Being his sensitive self, the noise and sensation of the drill and suction thingy were probably far worse than the toothache, but at least it's over now. :(

And that's that! No, of course there's more to tell, but I don't have the time to write it all up now. Maybe later, maybe never, as usual. Meanwhile, have a picture of cute baby animals. In fact, have two!

This kid was born last Saturday on the sheep paddock across the road. It's visited our garden a couple of times since, because it's small enough (and curious enough) to squeeze through the fence...


The lambs standing up are triplets! To everyone's surprise, they were born without complications and without human interference help, swiftly and quietly in the night. The ewe is feeding all of them, too, which apparently is always a gamble even with twins, let alone triplets. I didn't even know that was possible. I'm in awe of that ewe, pun fully intended, haha.
The lamb that's lying down was born a day after the kid. It's not really recogniseable in the pic, but it's taller and sturdier than the triplets - no wonder! But they're SO ADORBSLE! The whole neighbourhood is in love.

And that really is that. Ba-bai!

After weeks of suffering from sore, swollen gums, Julian got his two lower front teeth at once. Nobody takes me seriously when I tell them this, because they tend to not notice the tiny little incisors, until Julian takes their fingers into his mouth (he still loves to chew on things) and, instead of tough but round gums, they feel sharp little teeth...

He has developed a keen interest in the world and grabs for everything within reach. Or without reach. In the latter case, he is very impatient if he can't reach what he's trying to get, and complains loudly. He will also complain if evil grown-ups decide that whatever he's trying to grab isn't something Baby Julian needs to grab (breakable plates, knives, the TV remote control). He also loves to see food. He correctly identifies eatable stuff, even if he's never seen or tasted it before, and smacks his lips or starts to suck in his cheeks to signify "HUNGERRR!" Unfortunately, he's very bad at eating so far. He pretty much refuses "proper" baby food, so I'm offering him soft-cooked carrot sticks and the like instead, which he loves to chew on, but swallowing is as yet a hit-and-miss game. As often as not, the piece of carrot, apple, potato or whatnot will be pushed out of his mouth, in a state that doesn't invite a second attempt. He also lusts for things he can't have, like potato crisps or grapes, if he sees Felix or one of us eat them. It's sort of hard to distract him from it...

The first reduplicated sounds appear, though they're not yet his favourites. But there are some recurring ones: "ning-ning", "le-le" or "me-me" (all sounds of annoyance), and "ba-ba" (a friendly sound, and presumably going to turn into "mama" and "papa" soon).

He also sounds like Baby Vader because he caught one of the colds that Felix brought home from Kindergarten.

* * *

Felix has succesfully taught himself to read, and is beginning to teach himself English - spoken and written. *facepalms slightly*

He has made a friend in Kindergarten. To be fair, I actually think the friend has been making him, but at any rate he hugs her back, goes hand in hand with her, and plays with her. As it's a little girl, everybody keeps making "cute" remarks re: they're going to marry soon! Hahaha. Ha. I for my part am just glad that he has a friend in Kindergarten at all. He actually tends to be friendly towards younger children (including D., the little girl who has apparently adopted him as a sort of bodyguard), but he's rather indimidated by those who are the same age or a bit older. For the record, he's comfortable with "much" older kids, i.e. school age kids. Pediatrist and Kindergarten teachers keep harping on about how he should be interested in same-age kids and we need to watch it, but if I'm honest, in Felix' place I'd be intimidated by those boisterous, braggy boys, too. (Not even boisterous and braggy in a bad way. They're four-year-olds, after all! But it's not behaviour that Felix feels comfortable with, and their interests don't well match his, either. He doesn't yet watch LEGO Star Wars, and he doesn't want to be a policeman or firefighter yet, either.) So he just doesn't know how to deal with them, and tries not to. He's fine with younger kids, to whom he likes to show things, or older kids, from whom he tries to pick up things. So he's not inherently antisocial, dammit!

When Felix has accepted a rule, he'll stick to it 100%. This can even be a little ridiculous, like when in the morning, he can't get up and come down the stairs on his own. This is obviously residue from when he was too young to go down the stairs without supervision, but he's internalised it and boy, does he stick to it. Other moms tell stories about how their kids emptied their entire Advent calendar in one go, or how, at any rate, the contents of some doors would be mysteriously missing. Doesn't happen here. Felix internalised that Today is the 15th, so I take the treat with 15 on it, and nothing else; tomorrow I can have the treat with 16 on it. He keeps watch on his father's advent calendar, though, because Jörg sometimes forgets to empty it and you can't still have the treat for the 13th in it when it's already the 14th! --
It also has its downsides, though. In Kindergarten, they already marked him as "challenged in his gross motor skills" because he wouldn't jump down from benches or vaulting boxes: He'd stay there and weep until someone helped him down. - He's perfectly capable of jumping down benches. But his grandmother, terrified of injuries, had taught him not to jump down walls and things unless someone was giving him a hand. That was a rule and he was sticking to it, and he had to be explicitly told that It's OK To Jump before he gave it a try. They didn't tell him that; they just expected him to jump, because That's What Normal Children Do.

When Felix hasn't yet accepted a rule, he'll test it for all it's worth. I'm actually assuming that this is normal behaviour in three-year-olds, because aren't those also called the Terrible Threes? But his Kindergarten teachers regularly complain that he says "No" or "I won't" a lot. So? Don't they all do that? And what am I supposed to do about it? He does it at home, too. All we can do is repeat the rule until he has accepted it, or grown out of it. Isn't that just the way it works, always?

I'm a bit tired of translating between Kindergarten and Felix, in case you didn't guess. I suspect they're just a little overtaxed with a boy who's emotionally and biologically three years old, but intellectually five. (Psycho counsellor's assessment, not mine.) Well, so am I! And I manage it, too! And I'm not a trained educator, damn it!
I know that most parents who're told that they're children are "trouble" like to blame others, and I tried not to do it, but by now, I do tend to go They Just Don't Understand My Precious Pebble, too. At some point, it becomes self-defence.

At least he's consistently using the first person now. That helps him a lot because at least they know he's talking about himself now. Still doesn't make them understand that when he says "Please change my diapers", he wants a new diaper. IDK. I guess they don't expect someone who's so eloquent still to need diapers? (He occasionally uses the toilet at home, but only at home, and only for pee, and only when he feels like it. Still, it's a start.) He also uses the advice I've given him for situations that make him angry - intead of throwing a tantrum when somebody wants to help him with something he wants to do on his own, he now shouts "NOOOO!" and then politely adds, "Thank you, I can do that on my own." When somebody gets into his comfort zone, he'll shout "No! Please leave me alone!" But I can't anticipate everything.
Besides, now they complain that "He always says 'No'!" Well, it's better than hitting, I should think?

You just can't win.

EDIT:
Oh God, now he's trying to learn Italian, too.
Send help.

Felix möchte seine Pfannkuchen mit "Zink und Zucker". XD

Ach ja, und: Ich kenn es ja (und fürchte schon lange, dass es auch bei uns bald dazu kommen wird), dass Kinder an der Kasse "Quengelware" (also Schokoriegel, Lollies und was da sonst noch so in Kinderaugenhöhe rumliegt) haben wollen. Mit einem Kleinkind, das unbedingt drei Töpfchen Hornveilchen (ja, die Blumen!) haben will, hab ich allerdings nicht gerechnet...

A conversation that Felix had with me just now:

Felix: Der Erfolg ist das Ergebnis. ("Success is the result.")
Moi: .......?!
Felix: Das hat die Ziege gesagt! ("That's what the goat said!")
Moi: Die Ziege? Kann die Ziege denn sprechen? ("The goat? The goat can talk?")
Felix: Dafür hat die Ziege ja einen Mund! ("That's why the goat has a mouth!")

... Of course.
Seriously, I have no clue where that came from. Every explanation I can come up with is terribly constructed. For instance, Ziege is not only the German word for goat, but also used as an insult for a "bleating" woman, but it's not particularly likely he picked that up since we really only use the dialectal version, Zicke (short i, hard k as opposed to long i, soft g), if at all. It's really more likely that he means one of the actual goats who live up the street, but I very much doubt they bleat business manager formulae!
I wonder whether it's something he dreamed?

... bevor ich die schönen Sprüche mal wieder vergesse:

(Die Oma schaut mit Felix ein Bilderbuch an.)
Felix: Eine Kuh! Die frisst Gras!
Oma: Ja... und dann gibt sie Milch!
Felix: Und Apfelsaft!

(Beim Baden. Felix kontrolliert, ob alle Körperteile noch anwesend sind.)
Felix: Der Felix hat einen Popo!
Ich: Ja, stimmt.
Felix: Die Mama hat auch einen Popo!
Ich: Ganz genau. Wir haben alle einen Popo.
Felix: Zum Pups machen!

Zitat des gestrigen Abends!

Wir wollen ins Bett gehen; ich mache also das Licht im Wohnzimmer aus.
Felix: Licht ist aus!
Moi: Da hast du ja sowas von Recht.
Felix: Und von links!

Keine zwei Jahre alt und macht schon Wortwitze. Der Knirps schafft mich. XD

Ich steh in der Küche und mache Kartoffelsuppe. Felix räumt dazu eine Schublade auf/s. Plötzlich verkündet er:
"Mama kocht! Mmmm, lecker!"

askfdhgslk ♥

Felix is currently in one of the many "difficult phases" kids go through; among other things, he now gets really angry and throws a tantrum when we don't obey his every whim, crying violently, throwing stuff around and hitting people. Difficult phase for mommy, too, because what happened to my sweet-tempered toddler? :P Yes, yes, I know, part of the normal development of volition and identity, absolutely indispensible, yadda yadda. Still difficult!

However, at the same time he is being adorable. He talks a lot (when he is NOT having one of his furios fits) now, often incomprehensible syllable combinations but he also likes to echo things he picks up from us. (Not so ideal when I was talking on the phone and Jörg was telling me about one of his colleagues who had been behaving like a real prick, so I said Was für'n Arsch! ("What an asshole!") - and Felix piped up "Aaach! Aaach!". Oops! Now we're officially in "Mind your language!" territory!

But just now, we had the most amazing conversation. (Well, amazing for proud parents. Bear with me.)
I was actually trying to coax him into trying to say his name - I didn't expect him to succeed because [f], [l] and [ks] are all sounds he can't yet reliably produce, but it would be nice to know what he comes up with! (I'm suspecting that sometimes when he says "Bebi", he actually means "Felix".)
Anyway, the following conversation ensued:
Me: Felix?
Felix: Ja! ["Yes!"]
Me: Bist du der Felix? ["Are you Felix?"]
Felix: Ja!
Me: Wie ist dein Name? ["What is your name?"]
Felix: Mei nahm! ["My name!"]

The amazing thing is not that he repeated the end of my sentence - as I said, he does that a lot at the moment. The amazing thing is, of course, the conversion of dein into mein: Presumably, not an accident (he can pronounce both [d] and [m] without difficulty, and they're articulated in different places too) but the actual understanding that "your" turns into "my" when the addressee turns into the speaker. Which is... quite an accomplishment, I think? I mean, those are complicated concepts for someone who is only just beginning to codify the world and only just discovering self-awareness.
So... YAY! Clever little fellow. (Never mind that he can't pronounce his name! ;)) I'll keep my ears open to find out if he does this consistently!

EDIT: I forgot to relate his great feat from a few days back! Backstory: Felix loves to take a bath with his daddy, and because otherwise I get to do most of the fun and not so fun stuff with Felix, bathing is strictly daddy-time. Anyway, on Monday, Jörg came back from work pretty late. So...
Jörg: Sollen wir jetzt noch in die Wanne? ["Should we go into the tub at this late time?"]
Felix: Baden! ["Bathe!"]
That settled it! So he not just repeats things, he can also 'translate' concepts into words that he can say. \o/

Felix just uttered his first two-word sentence. Jörg was pouring himself a glass of beer, which Felix watched. Eventually he stated: Papa Bier! ("Daddy beer!")
...
...
...
Well, there goes our reputation!

(Jörg is proud of him.)

a.k.a. this is the post I've been meaning to write for weeks, but didn't: Stuff what the Flixster has been up to these past months! As he turned one and a half last Friday, I'm taking that as an excuse to finally summarise the most recent developments.

So, the Flixster is now one and a half years old (at his tender age, we totally count the half years as well!) When he's had enough sleep, he is a delightful, mostly cheerful little fellow who keeps his adults very busy all the time. He's already got a good gut feeling for who is the least able of playing, reading or climbing with him right now -- of course, he always wants that person's attention the most (and nobody else can satisfy him then)!

He has recently hit an exciting stage in his language acquisition endeavours. His current vocabulary: ja ("yes"; generally said very emphatically), ne or nai (nein, "no"), Mama, Papa, Omma or Auma ("granny"), nyam ("nom"), happ ("gobble"), mau ("meow"), wawa ("woof-woof"), pie-pie ("cheep-cheep", also used for the ringing phone or doorbell), mäh ("bah", as in, the sound sheep make), heich (heiß, "hot"), a-a ("poo"), ei ("gentle"), bamm ("thud"), Mann ("man", also used as a general exclamation - he caught this one because Jörg used it as a swearword!), boah ("whoa!"), brrrm (car sound), an ("on" - light, clothing etc), auch (aus, "off" - light, clothing etc.), bitte/ditte/biya (bitte, "please"), Aba (Arbeit or Apfel - "work" or "apple"), bau ("build"), auwa (aufwachen, "wake up"), naohm (nach oben, "[go] upstairs"). He keeps pointing at things on pictures or in his books and wants to know what they're called, but only rarely mimics the words we say - I suspect he's storing them for later use.
So he can express himself pretty well on the whole! Of course, he also still uses a lot of gestures, like lifting both arms when he wants to be picked up, or taking one of his plates out of the cupboard and holding it out to me when he wants something to eat. Alternatively, he'll grab your finger and drag you where he wants to (next to the grapes, for instance, so you can give them to him).
For about two weeks now, he's started to react when somebody talks to him on the phone. Before that, if you offered him the phone he'd just push the buttons and ignore the sounds coming out of it, but now he's listening attentively to familiar voices, smiles and occasionally says "Mann!" or "boah!" or "ja!", then pushes the phone back towards the next present grown-up. After a call, he may well pick up the phone again to listen whether granddad (or whoever!) is still in the little box...
He enjoys "playing music" (or making noise) using building bricks, pots, lids, spoons, the bucket we keep our firewood in, tabletops and/or the (untuned and untuneable :() xylophone he got for Christmas.

He loves to empty and fill boxes, can open all the drawers in the kitchen, loves to switch the light on and off and is very enthusiastic about electronic devices like Jörg's smart phone, the TV remote control or my iPod. He won't accept "kiddy" versions, but wants the real thing! Can't blame him, really. I mean, who is fooled by those ridiculously colourful things that don't even look like proper phones? He likes to "help" me load and switch on the dishwasher and the washing machine (in fact, yesterday he managed to load the washing machine all by himself, except for a nasty towel, which was so large that he stood on one hand while pushing the other in, which somehow didn't yield satisfying results), so all I have to do is put in the detergent and correct Felix' choice of washing programme...

He also loves to run (forwards, backwards and on his toes), dance (recently I was watching The Young Victoria and suddenly Felix was turning and swaying to a waltz tune! :D) and climb. Every evening, he climbs onto the living-room table, then lifts his hands until you take them and help him make the GIANT step from the table onto the couch. And again! And again! He still refuses to go down stairs the baby way (i.e., crawling backwards), instead keeping one hand on the bannister and one hand on the nearest available adult for balance. (He does go up the stairs the baby way.)

He now has 16 teeth (if you also count the canines, which are all growing at once right now! O.ó). He's a good eater and will generally try anything the grown-ups are having, although he also has his own tastes and may decide that eww, avocado is not his thing after all! Sometimes his tastes change over the cause of a few days - last week, he refused potatoes for a couple of days. So I only prepared a small portion of potatoes for him -- and suddenly, he ate them all and wanted more. He used to love bananas, but at the moment he won't eat them. So that's a bit unpredictable ATM. But mostly, he's unfussy about his food. He may get funny ideas, though - such as using the fork he's got to dip his potatoes in sour cream as a spoon to get the sour cream into his mouth directly... (some of it actually did land in his mouth. The rest... got everywhere else. The cats were delighted.)

In December, he was beginning to develop interesting ways to cope with frustration. Either he'd walk around with his head tilted to one side, repeatedly saying "ne! ne! ne!" to himself and refusing all offers of consolation; or he'd go into some dark and secluded corner (e.g., between the toilet and the wall) and shake his head; or if it was really bad, he'd lie down on the floor, again saying "ne! ne! ne!". It was all very adorable and always made me feel sorry that I was such a cruel mother who didn't allow her adorable son to play with the cat food! :P
Now, alas, he rather tends to lash out when he's frustrated - either by throwing things around, or by hitting me (or whoever else told him "no"). Not nice! He's also developed a jealous streak! This weekend we were visiting a colleague of Jörg's, who has two daughters (20 months and 4 years old). Felix was happy to play with Pia(the younger)'s toys, but when Pia wanted to have the same toy, he pushed her away quite violently. (She hit him with a building brick in return, and then we tore the two apart.) Earlier, I had been offering Felix' container of apple slices to Jonathan, another little boy from church, and first Felix blocked Jona from the apple, then pushed him away, and when I finally gave an apple slice to Jona straight away, he raised the alarm. (Fortunately, Jonathan has a big sister, so he's used to being pushed around). Although the saddest case was when Felix was crying about something and wouldn't let me console him, Quinn (about the same age) tried to hug him, and Felix pushed him away so Quinn fell backwards. (Of course, now both of them were crying...)
So I'm afraid he's not being very social at the moment. (Yes, I know this is normal at his age, even for kids with siblings, and in fact is a necessary step in the realisation of a child's own identity. But I'm still feeling sorry!)

He still goes to bed at the same time we go (around 11 pm), then sleeps until around 9 am, often in his own bed! (Yes, this is a triumph for us.) He also normally needs two naps, one around mid-day and one in the early evening. As long as I don't have to get up early, I think this is perfect, so I'm not going to change it unless I have to!

His hair grows and grows and grows. Other kids his age still only have a soft, thin fluff on their heads; Felix, meanwhile, has already been to the hairdresser four times.
The whole boy grows and grows, actually. I've had to sort out so much cute stuff! By now our once seemingly endless stocks of used clothing have run out and we've actually had to buy new stuff for him. He is now wearing size 86 (he started out at 56; German kid sizes are very sensible, simply the closest to the kid's size in centimeters (in steps of 6, so it's 50, 56, 62, 68... up to 170, at which point you have to switch to adult clothing - so I can technically still wear the largest kid clothing size!).

And... that's all I can think of right now. I have no idea why it took me so long to finally write all this down. XD

New tag because he really isn't a baby anymore!