The lyf so short

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!

but it is an update.

Felix has learned so insanely much in the past weeks that I really feel guilty about not noting it all down, because already it's hard to keep track of it all. I will try, anyway.
- I think I mentioned that he had mastered independent bipedal movement? Since then, he has become quite proficient at it, both barefoot, in socks and (last of all) wearing shoes. Initially, he needed help to get onto his feet in the first place - either by using a chair, wall or other suitable object, or by demanding help from present adults, but soon after he learned to get up all by himself: He pushes himself onto his feet while in a crawling position, and then simply straightens his back. He can also crouch down and get up again without losing his balance. Whenever he falls, he seems to be more angry than hurt; I think he takes it as a personal insult. He enjoys crawling up stairs, but requires help getting down; that is, the past two days he managed to make his way safely down by himself. But he refuses to crawl down backwards - he wants to walk down. It now works, thanks to the railing.

- He is also quite good at finding his way. He knows his way around the house and grounds, of course, but it doesn't take him long to get an idea of the layout of other places. When we were in Brittany, he knew the way from our holiday house to the beach and back after three days, dragging us where he wanted to go. He does that here, too - when he wants to go outside, upstairs, downstairs, wherever, he grabs your finger and tries to pull you. And when he doesn't get his will, he gets really furious!

- He is communicating quite effectively now. He only uses "Mama" and "Papa" occasionally, but he often says "nai" (nein, meaning "no"), "ja" (meaning "yes"), "ba" (meaning "yuck"), "mem" (apparently supposed to be "do that", "help me" or "let me"), "myam" (meaning "nom", also used in the sense of "I want to eat now!") and "da" (meaning "there" and also used for danke, "thank you"). He also creates his own words - current favourites are "dyuppeti", "djobbe", "nammenai", "yomme", "yech" and "bebich" (I suspect that the latter is actually a combination of "Baby" and "Felix"). When he is playing on his own, he'll talk endlessly using these words and other syllables. He plays "using the telephone" with my old dead cell phone, but also with other vaguely phone-shaped objects, such as his hairbrush or my pencil case: he holds the phone (or phone replacement) to his ear and shouts "Ja!" and laughs. He also uses some sign language of (more or less) his own invention, pointing at things he wants to have, clapping his hands when he wants you to sing a certain song, waving hello and goodbye (this is triggered by every motor sound) and raising both arms when he wants to be lifted up. All this is quite a relief to his parents, as he now only has to resort to crying when we don't obey his demands, not as a general form of communication!

- He loves books. He constantly wants us to look at books with him, although he doesn't yet have the patience to listen to the story (or wait until we've told him what's on the pages), but he enjoys turning the pages to and fro, pointing at specific things and hearing us say what they are. Over and over.

- He has three kinds of laughs, one genuine and nice, one genuine and nasty, and one forced and artificial. The nice laugh comes when he is proud of himself or happy about something. The nasty-sounding one comes when he wants to make the cats jump, or when he sees something else that he finds odd or funny - basically anything that moves fast or eratically. Falling leaves are hi-la-ri-ous! The forced laugh is heard whenever we laugh, and Felix doesn't want to be left out of the joke.

- His favourite occupation, aside from running, climbing stairs and looking at books, is putting things into containers and out of them, both with his hands and using tools like a shovel or spoon. He likes to empty cupboards or drawers, but astonishingly enough he sticks to the ones he's allowed to use (for instance, the drawer for potatoes and onions and the cupboard full of tupperware and baby crockery in the kitchen). He has fortunately accepted that he is to leave our bookshelves, and the tray with the cats' bowls, alone.

- Speaking of the cats' tray: A few days back while I was stirring yoghurt for supper, he demanded my attention, so I thought I'd distract with a task of his own. I gave him the empty yoghurt box and said "Put this on the tray for the cats, please". He took it and put it on the ground at his feet, and I thought "Oh well, shouldn't demand too much", but then he picked it up with both hands again and carried it over to the tray, putting it down right between the catfood bowls! Granted, after I'd praised him for being such a clever boy, he picked it up again to play with it, but hey, he still clearly understood what I'd asked of him, and acted on it, too!

- He is, however, still pretty high-maintenance. HE decides whose arm to go on, and when he wants to go on mommy's arms, daddy or granny or whoever can do what they want, he'll kick and push until they hand him over to mommy. He is really jealous when one of the cats manages to slip in some lap time - even when he's been happily cuddling with me, as soon as he sees a cat on his daddy's lap, he has to climb on there right then and there. He also doesn't like when I talk on the phone, or use the computer while he's awake. That is making typing things... difficult. He still won't fall asleep on his own; you have to hold him and sing to him until he finally closes his eyes. I have the patience to do that, so that's fine for now; but it does get you lots of comments along the lines of "Just leave him to cry, he'll fall asleep by himself eventually" (Hurrah, it's never too early to learn resignation :P) or "I wouldn't pamper him like that". Whatever.

- He now eats the same stuff we eat (with less salt and spices, generally) and no baby food at all, except in the evening, when he still insists on being breastfed. It's such a funny contrast - all day, he is this semi-independent big boy, but when he goes searching for my nipple, he suddenly turns into a blind, helpless baby again. XD

And that concludes the Felix part of this post. Actually, that concludes this post, because this is a) more than enough text for one post (most people would probably put a Teal Deer warning on it :P) and b) Felix thinks that he has kindly allowed me to type for long enough now. We'll see when I'll get around to write more. Lyra out!

The mucus of the Spanish slug is unpleasant and evil-tasting, but not poisonous.

Isn't that soothing?

I mean, I sort of intuited the "unpleasant and evil-tasting" bit. The "non-poisonous" part I learned from calling the Poison Hotline just now. Because, guess what? Felix tried to eat a slug.

( Details cut for the feeble )

And thus we missed today's toddler group meeting. At least (I hope) Felix may have learned not to put soft (or ideally: any) pebbles into his mouth? :P Probably asking too much.

Test run succesful.



- Packed and left campsite BEFORE the rains hit!

- Didn't even have to pitch/strike our tent as people immediately swarmed over to help. <3

- Felix slept like the proverbial baby, just not in his own camp bed. (His mother, meanwhile, woke up every few hours (she hopes it was hours) because of cramping or freezing arms/shoulders...)

- Felix apparently notices that orc masks, dog snouts etc. are unusual on human faces (he did stare), but seems to have jotted them down as "people come in all sorts of odd shapes".

- Clinking armour is hilarious for baby.

- So is archery.

- Hilarious for mommy: 2,10 m barbarians who melt and coo over the sight of a baby.

- Favourite moment: Said 2,10m barbarian talking to Felix. It went like this.
BARBARIAN: A pity you'll probably grow up to be some boring pale scholar.
FELIX: *stares*
BARBARIAN: You should grow up to be a barbarian. Screw table manners. Screw clean stuff. Don't you want to be a barbarian?
FELIX: *BELCH OF DOOM*
BARBARIAN: *delight!*

- Conclusion: Felix is a walking, talking babbling Potion of Friendship. And definitely LARP-compliant. \o/

In the olden days, that is, around 30 or so years ago, it was still believed and propagated that babies who did not learn to crawl (as in, move forward on all fours) would have trouble learning to stand and walk.

Today, of course, we know better: As long as a baby attemps (and eventually manages) to move from the spot at all, be it on their butt, their belly, by rolling over or pushing backwards or whatever else they come up with, everything is fine.
As if to prove that, Felix learned to crawl forward throughout the past days (on Sunday, it would occasionally work; on Monday, it worked when it was just a short stretch and my welcoming hands were on the other end of it; yesterday, it worked whenever he thought it was worth the bother) --- AFTER having learned to pull himself up to his feet. (If you gave him your hands and took care of the balancing, impetus etc., he's been doing that for several weeks now; last week he also learned to use static support structures like the bars on his playpen, or chairs.) Don't ask me how the Learned (TM) of the past century never observed such developments. Probably the old story: They didn't see them because they didn't think they'd exist...

Anyway: Felix, being able to stand and sometimes even walk while holding on to something stable with one hand, is now on the threshold of toddlerdom. Incredible. It seems like yesterday that he was this helpless, mostly immobile, utterly dependant little creature, and now he's all muscle and ambition...

In a strange contrast to his otherwise rapid growth, it's been difficult these past days to feed him. The week before last, Jörg came down with a nasty bronchitis, and last week, Felix and I started coughing as well (though we clearly got the lighter variant. Still, explain that to a baby who has a sore throat from coughing.); during that time, Felix refused his veggies altogether. I assumed that the juices/acids in them stung his throat, but even now that he has recovered, he still doesn't want them. By now he also often refuses his cereal pap and will cry pitifully when I try to feed him. So for the past days, it's been mostly breast milk again - we haven't stopped that yet, anyway, but before he started teething and getting sick, we were down to three times a day. Now the count has gone back up. Oh well.
However, he likes eating little chunks of bread (especially when he snatched them from my plate first) as well as bananas etc. - maybe the puree days are simply over. Today, I'll see if he'll eat his veggies in fingerfood form.

His sleep schedule is also messed up - fortunately, not the one at night (although thanks to Daylight Savings Time he now only wakes up at 9:30 as opposed to 8:30, which is a bit late even for my taste), but the one by day. You can see that he's exhausted and he is peevish and doesn't know what to do with himself, either, but damned if he'll nap, he might miss something! The days when he'll take his mid-day and afternoon nap like he used to are now rare - even when I carry him around in the wrap.
And he's very clingy again - if I'm in the room, he won't rest with anyone else. He'll climb and strive until he's in my arms again - even though he cannot talk, he can certainly make himself very clear on that count. It's ok as long as he can neither see nor hear me, but as soon as he gets the impression that I'm near, nobody else can hold him. It's as endearing as it's straining.

He's also "talking" a lot again. For a while, he fell almost entirely silent, but now he's back to telling us entire stories (unfortunately, we don't understand a word). He also loves experimenting with different sounds. "BRRR" and "BWW" are favourites because they enable him to spit like a little fountain...

So we're doing fine.

Picspam (f-locked) coming up!

Yesterday was another big day for Felix. After a few weeks of trying to crawl ahead and either falling over or pushing backwards, thus getting even further out of range of whatever he was aiming for and starting to cry, yesterday evening he suddenly seemed to realise that even if he wasn't moving where he meant to go, he was certainly moving.
Then he first started to determinedly push backwards just to move and see where it took him. After a while, he began to realise that he could use his legs alternately (instead of always bending both knees and then stretching both legs at once), which sped things up remarkably!
Even when it was time to go to bed and I'd just laid him on his back on the bathroom carpet so I could brush my teeth etc., he managed to roll over onto his belly (in his sleeping bag!), and then crawled first towards the door, then turned on his belly and crawled underneath the bathroom cabinet. All backwards, all in his sleeping bag, and all the time beaming with pride.
So that step is taken! The technique leaves something to be desired yet - as he is moving backwards, he can't exactly see where he's going, so he's straddled chair legs or hit the back of his head on low pieces of furniture :(, but having seen how quickly he mastered backwards crawling once he'd realised that he was moving, I'm sure he'll be crawling "properly" in no time. BEWARE.

Other great achievements of the past weeks:
- Things that fall down or go out of sight do not disappear; they end up somewhere. Felix now tries to look after toys (or spoons :P) that he drops to see where they land, or cranes his neck to look after people who just went around the corner. First steps in object permanence!
- Things that fall down make loud noises and will make me blink. When Felix gets hold of his (plastic) plate or some toy that he wants to throw down, he'll over it over empty air, clench his eyes shut in expectation of the CLANG, and then he lets go. Cause and effect 101!
- People are different. Felix is now starting to be wary of people he doesn't know or doesn't see so often. When my parents came to visit yesterday, Felix was in his playpen, which is mostly a place that he wants to be taken out of as soon as possible, so any "big person" showing up there is welcome. But as soon as my parents came in sight, the (up to then, relaxed) little Felix started to cry and only calmed down when I sat down next to him and rubbed his belly. Later on he allowed the grandparents to carry him around and play with him, but his first reaction was OMG STRANGERS IN MY ZONE OF COMFORT!
- He waves his hand "hello" sometimes, and he loves to slap one hand or both down onto a surface to see what sound that makes. It's extra fun when he managed to smear some of his food on his hands first, because that way he can clap AND paint...

Today he's very peevish. I suspect it's because he has something like a bump and a blister on his gums - looks like the lower right incisor is breaking through after all. Meanwhile, my lower right wisdom tooth has started pushing against my gums again. I'm teething along with my baby. Am I not the most empathetic mom ever. (Or just pathetic?)

Speaking of pathetic: A few days back, it was sunny, so the MIL took Felix for a walk while I worked in the garden. Due to some miscommunication, I had assumed that they'd just walk up and down the hill, so I would see them regularly. Instead, they walked (well, the MIL walked, Felix didn't ;)) all the way into town, bought some cake, then came back. (With the cake.)
Because I'd thought I'd see them regularly and I didn', I kept seeing horror scenarioes of them run over by a car, robbed, abducted etc. - no matter how much I told myself that they were surely just taking a bigger walk than I'd expected.
I used to think that my mother was so irrational, the way she always immediately thought something awful had happened instead of thinking of the (usually harmless) real reasons... and now I'm the same. *hangs head in shame*

Happy New Year, f-list, lurkers and guests! I hope there have been no major desasters yet and you survived your respective celebrations and hangovers.

Amusingly enough, I had a hangover feeling despite not drinking anything more potent than apple juice, presumably from sleeping on a really soft (read: no support at all) mattress and in a room warmer than I'm accustomed to. More or less on a whim - because our usual New Year's Eve Party Crowd (tm) didn't contact us this year - we followed Jörg's best man's invitation to celebrate with his family. Downside: They live in the Swabian Jura, near Ulm. Four and a half hours of driving. Back in November when we drove to Jena, Felix slept for the entire way; but of course now he is older and needs entertainment and movement more often. We stopped at a motorway lay-by for nursing and a little motion (in the car - the weather was dreadful) where two rats were cheerfully annihilating the remains of earlier picknicks. After much singing (I eventually ran out of nursery rhymes and had to sing LARP songs etc.) he fell asleep again only to wake up when we passed Stuttgart and to grouch for the last hour of the drive. - On our way back we were smarter - we stopped halfway at Jörg's ex-colleague's (and Felix' godmother's) for a late lunch, so Felix had enough time to kick his legs, and to eye Heike's new baby daughter Mira suspiciously, etc., which made for a much more relaxed drive.

But it was a good idea to celebrate with another family. Felix was apparently fascinated by the concept of "people who are taller than I am and can do more than I can, but are not grown-ups", which he could observe nicely on the family's three sons (aged 4, 11 and 16). He watched everything wide-eyed and only slept very briefly after dinner - then he stayed awake until the new year. He was given a rattle and an old toy concrete lorry and played with them, quite self-absorbed - he has (finally) begun to be interested in toys, as long as they have moving parts and/or can be chewed on. Now he can keep himself entertained for about half an hour, but of course everything is more fun when I'm with him (or other grown-ups for that matter - he mostly doesn't yet make a difference between people, unless he's hungry or tired).
The party was a bit stressful - aside from four kids being present, two of them are mentally challenged, which made for quite a bit additional racket and chaos and attention - but on the plus side nobody was disturbed by disorderly eating, or drooling around, or other delights of young children at table. - Felix stole a piece of (soft-cooked) carrot and managed to grind it into a pulp between his (as-yet) teethless gums, then swallow most of it. (He has also been enjoying parsnips these past days - but he insists on wielding the spoon himself! My mother says that I did the same at that age.)
-- Anyway! We stayed up till midnight (that is, the grown-ups and Felix did; the kids went to bed but only after having been promised that we'd wake them before midnight!), then the two men and 11-year-old Johannes went outside to light some firecrackers in the rain while the other two boys were torn between being scared by the noise and excited about the lights; Felix didn't mind the cracking, but the hissing sound as the firecrackers took off startled him. When the fireworks were over (which didn't take long in that tiny village), we went outside and lit a number of sparklers - those were utterly fascinating. (I can't blame the baby - I still find them fascinating and I'm old and cynical and know how they work!) And then Felix and I went to bed and the others did the traditional lead-pouring divination game before likewise going to sleep.

By the time we returned home it was already dark and our tenants had cleaned up the traces of their wild party (and fireworks). We had some leftovers and watched a new episode of Sherlock on the big screen -- after the latest adjustments to our dish system, we can now receive a varietiy of satellites at the same time and without turning the dish ourselves (it is motorised!) and, accordingly, channels. We now know that there are about as many televangelist (also, telemullah, telerabbi and teleguru) as there are porn channels (including such valuable channels as "Hot Arab Babes" and "Iran Dating Line", I wish I were kidding you), and have seen such inexpendable shows as AlJazeera Children and "Nigerian Idol". It seems that television is horrible all over the world. But - positively - we can also see all BBC channels, and also some NHK and Arirang TV and other occasionally interesting stuff. So on the whole, it's all good. Ironically, we've had the motors for the dish standing around ever since we moved here, but never installed them until the stupid pine tree across the road grew so large that it obstructed the normal dish in bad weat--- I'm rambling, nobody cares about all this. Shut up, Lyra!

Anyway -- have a great 2012! May the best of your old be the worst of the new, etc. And maybe I'll manage to do something about the apocalyptic graphic novel bunny before it's 2013 and the joke is lost...

Today it has been a year since I first saw Felix.

Well, of course I did not actually see Felix back when I went to my gyn, one year ago. What I saw was a sexless, ten-week-old embryo, a bubbly little figure that with some imagination was recogniseable as budding human, and grew to be, eventually, Felix.
But at any rate, one year ago I learned that our efforts to produce offspring had been successful! I'd been suspecting it, and had used one of those pregnancy test kits which had indeed yielded a positive result, but I didn't dare to believe it before a specialist had confirmed it. (You'll sometimes hear people say that all these ultrasounds ruin what should be a time of Great Hope And Expectation (TM), but honestly? Before you feel the quickening and your belly starts to grow, you live in constant panic that you're not pregnant after all, or that the baby isn't growing where it should, or that maybe you accidentally killed it because you ran to catch that bus or lifted something heavy. Great Hope my ass, it's more like Great Fear. During the first months ultrasound is just a damn relief, and afterwards it's just plain fun to see the little creature grow and develop facial features etc. Or that's how it was for me, anyway.)

I should be writing a whole long entry on how much Felix has grown again, or post a celebratory picspam, but today I spent all day putting together a photo book (with, of course, baby pictures) as a Christmas present so I'm tired of staring at the screen. I'll make amends on the weekend. I just didn't want to let the anniversary pass unmentioned! ^^

How much has happened in that year - not just baby-wise...

- - -
Speaking of anniversaries and unmentioned:
Alles Liebe nachträglich zum Geburtstag, rahja!
Ich hoffe, du hast eine Verschnaufpause zum Feiern gefunden. *knuddel*

Alles Liebe nachträglich zum Geburtstag, fusselbiene,
und Herzlichen Glückwunsch, zorn und joyful_molly!
It also appears to be Neil Gaiman's birthday. And the first day of carnival. And Martinmas, of course! Next year, I'll probably start attending Martinmas parades again. That I'm actually looking forward to - Martinmas was one of my favourite feasts as a child, but alas, at some point you're too old to go a-parading and a-wassailing with a lantern unless you have to accompany and protect someone younger...
Oh, and it's poppy day too, eh? Well, let rest their quarrel with the foe. It's a new world after all.
Finally, thanks to shadowbrides for pointing this out, it's clearly Elf day! Why? Because in German (OR Dutch), the word for "11" is spelled and pronounced elf, and today is 11-11-11.
Do something elf-y today! (No pun intended, elfy). I did - I finally uploaded two pieces of CfL art (oh, that takes us back...) to my dA. (heartofoshun, I still owe you one, btw... otherwise, laurenia gets her chance if she's still interested!)

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Saw the first episode of the American Borgia series yesterday. After watching the European Borgia series just a few weeks ago (well played, ZDF), this is the weirdest thing ever, what with everyone being the same person but played by different actors, and with the story told in a different way (or with a focus on completely different episodes). My brother said (when the European series was running) that he much preferred the American version. I don't think I do, in spite of Jeremy Irons. So far, the story feels terribly rushed. Lucrezia is badly over-acted in both versions (though the European was even worse). It's funny that the same period in history can look so completely different, clothing-wise. I'm tempted to research which version is truer to actual costume history; somehow the American version feels too modern, but who knows! I don't care enough about the political history to research which version is taking less liberties with that...
What absolutely, utterly made me laugh and point my finger in disdain at the American version, however, was the coronation of Alexander VI. WITH HÄNDEL'S "ZADOK THE PRIEST" PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND. I am not kidding you. Zadok the Priest. That British coronation anthem. I may be wrong there, but I always thought that they wouldn't have 18th century music in 15th century Rome. But maybe that's just me. At any rate, that was the most ridiculous choice ever. There surely are hundreds of festive anachronistic anthems one could've chosen, instead of taking one that so many people will recognise (... right? right?). I mean... Zadok the Priest. Dude. Dude.

On the whole: Unwise of our tv channels to show two different versions based on the same historical events so shortly after one another. (They're two different channels.) Unwise of me to watch them like that, too, of course - but our recorder hard-disk is almost full, so now we have to watch and delete stuff as fast as we can or it'll stop recording! :P (You'd think a terabyte would last a while, and then suddenly it's all full. It's like having a huge barn - you'd think 200 m² will always give you loads of spare room, and four years of building later everything's full of junk, tools and materials...) [/aside]

What also made me laugh out loud, but for personal reasons, was Lucrezia's "seahorse" scene. Not because of her stupidity, but because of the seahorse pendant. See, a looong time ago in a RPG, our group had to steal a seahorse pendant from the Vatikan archives. IT WAS THAT SEAHORSE I'M SURE.

In garden news, yesterday I actually managed to do two hours of weeding while Felix babbled (later on, slept) warmly wrapped in his bouncing cradle. Maybe we'll manage to do that today, too, as the sun has just come out, which means it won't be quite so ghastly cold outside.
On the whole, this late fall is much sunnier than all summer was this year, but there is so much work to do in the garden that I probably won't manage to do it before the first snows come. (We've been told that about three weeks after New York gets the first snows, we can expect snow around here. No idea if that's true. If it is, that'd give us one more week...)

In Felix news, he's growing nicely and learning new things every day. His latest accomplishment is grabbing things and pushing them into his mouth. I'll make a doudou doll (security blanket doll, Schnuffelpuppe, whatever you want to call it) for him and hope that he'll like it. (Perhaps if I carry it around in my bra for a while...?) So far he seems more interested in things that the grown-ups use (cleaning rags, plates, newspapers) than in toys actually designed for his use. Oh well. He also feels comfortable sitting on my lap while turned away from me (as opposed to sitting on my lap facing me) so he can watch the cats, his daddy, the fireplace or whatever else is going on - or, at table, so he can try to grab a plate and push it around. When he is lying on his belly, he'll try to move forward but doesn't yet manage it --- his movements look like he's trying breaststroke swimming, which, alas, doesn't work on a blanket! (Perhaps I should take baby-"swimming" classes with him?) Sometimes he's lucky and manages to push off something firm (a wall; my legs) so he actually moves forward. Most of the time, he just turns in circles. A few times he rolled over onto his back, but so far it seems to be an accidental side-effect of trying to move forward rather than a succesful attempt to roll over.
At nights, alas, he still wakes and cries frequently. By now I'm happy if he only cries for food every three hours.
The last weekend we visited relatives in Jena. My aunt said (to Jörg, not me) that it was no wonder Felix cried so much if we always reacted at once - "he's got you trained!". At the same time she agrees that babies of Felix' age aren't mentally capable of associating a certain behaviour or action with something else, so he can neither be trained (yet) not train us (yet). Why she does not notice the inconsistency, I do not know.
But the trip was fun. A little picspam may follow.

Next week he'll get his first vaccination shots. It's funny - I'm not afraid of needles myself, but feel uncomfortable about Felix getting his shots. Mostly because he doesn't understand the need and purpose of them yet, though. If I could explain it to him, everything would be fine. (I'll explain it anyway, though - I just know he won't understand it! :P)

NaNo-wise, I'm sooo behind. I can't even be bothered to care, which is quite relaxing. When I have time to write, I write. Unless I don't feel like it, in which case I'll read or sew. If I have a chance to do the laundry or the dishes or the garden or some cleaning, I'll do that. If I don't manage to write 50.000 words in a month, oh well. Motherhood is such a re-arranger of priorities...

Every now and then during the past weeks, I've heard "Oh, he's a very slender child, isn't he?" - concerning Felix, that is. To the point that I was ready to go into panic mode - Aaah, is something wrong with my baby? Is he not growing properly? Is he secretly starving? Are my lactation skillz defective? - despite reassurances that as long as a baby was cheerful and attentive and pooping regularly, everything's all right, and anyway, with breastfeeding the amount of milk regulates itself according to the baby's needs as long as you feed according to demand, not plan. I'm insecure at heart and scared of doing something wrong! And the people clearly didn't mean "slender" in a positive way, but in a "meagre, eh?" way. (The way it should be used for people like Keira Knightley or, heaven help us, Madonna, but I digress.) And held up their own chubby babies for comparison.

Then a few days ago our uphill neighbour dropped by while I was in the garden with Felix to see "the bonny wee lad"*. His comment: "My, he's a stout little fellow!*".
That naturally made me feel better - until I remembered the context:The old gentleman has recently become a great-grandfather; his granddaughter's twin children were born a day after Felix. By Cesarian operation, two months premature because one of them was growing at the cost of the other. At birth, they weighed 1000 and 1500 g respectively. So even now, Enya and Mirya² are probably smaller than Felix was at birth...
Perspective, perspective.

Felix, at any rate, is growing nicely, in strength, length and mind if not in girth. We've had to say good-bye to the first batch of baby clothing, including the sleeping bag we got as a farewell gift from the hospital.

Last weekend we've had lots of visitors (including fuchs, eliathanis and kaneda, and a day later my aunt Karin and three of her boys) who wanted to see Felix, and he was peevish, whiny and perpetually clinging to me (or, at any rate, my breasts) and Jörg. fuchs got to hold him for perhaps ten minutes before Felix started the alarm; the boys had no chance at all, and even my father (who usually seems to amuse Felix well) was cried at. - Come Tuesday, Felix had changed again: now he was babbling cheerfully, studying the movement of his feet and hands, and practicing coordination and different vocal modes - and grinning a lot, seemingly proud of his achievements. When my parents dropped by again on Wednesday, they were delighted by cheerful!talkative!Felix - they had apparently felt a little guilty after Sunday's performance.

So now he not only uses his own pre-language (örröh, gah or n-gah, chhh, grrrr, ah or uh, and sometimes longer compound "words") but also experiments with stressing things differently, shouting or whispering. My little linguist! ♥ Sometimes he also gesticulates wildly. Today he actually appeared to be trying sign language: when I was looking at him, he opened his mouth and wiggled his tongue as if to say "Feed me!" Which I then did, to his apparent satisfaction. Yesterday he also tried to reach his foot with his hands. It did not work out yet (whenever he makes a hearty grab with his hands, he also stretches his legs...), but I'm sure he'll persevere until he succeeds, as babies are wont to do. - Watching his efforts makes you realise what complex motion sequences even the clumsiest among us are capable of, such as opening a bottle or using a knife and fork...
He is also making motivated attempts at crawling, but it only works when he has something to push away from - he hasn't yet found out how to properly put his feet. When someone is holding his balance, he also likes pushing up from sitting to a standing position - which looks absurdly adorable as he's so tiny!

One thing hasn't changed; while he is now managing to fall asleep ok at night (at least something), in the daytime he only falls asleep while being carried around or at least held. No matter how exhausted he is. So much for my hopes that I'd manage to do some garden work or the like... and he's so cuddly and so warm that you can't well resist him!
Because he's pretty heavy now (albeit "slender" :P) and I don't always have the wrap at the ready, my back is aching quite a bit now. >_> Also, for some reason, after nursing has gone well for weeks now, last night I suddenly developed galactostasia³ again. OW. WTF. I mean, I could see why if Felix suddenly started sleeping all night, but he's still waking at least twice per night because he's hungry. So, WTF?

In not quite baby-related news, I kind of got a job! It's freelancing work (which suits me well) and not particularly well-paid, but ok-ish. And it was actually offered to me rather than requiring painful and lengthy application processes. Currently I get to describe lecturers from various fields to (as yet imaginary) business managers who'll want to hire them in order to learn, or have their employees learn, things that are painfully obvious to the humanists among us. Seems to be quite the market. Some of the lecturers actually treat reasonably interesting topics while others are (as far as I am concerned) batshit insane, overrated or both, but what can you do. I'm young and need the money. And the XP...
The downside is that now computer time is decidedly work time, and my LJ and unfinished fanfics have less chance than ever to get my attention. I won't even bother to think about NaNo - I have lots of ideas and I'd like to see where some of them lead, but definitely not the time. And let's not talk about MEFA reviews... >_>

So things are staying exciting.


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* Reasonably idiomatic translations.

²I am not making this up. - Yesterday I met a little girl (of about four years) named Arwen. Her one-year-old sister is named Enya, too. And you gals thought you needed to caution me?

³What a fantastic term. The German vernacular uses, as is the norm with illnesses, a purely Germanic term, Milchstau, which is exactly what it says on the package. Of course galactostasia means the exact same thing in Greek, but it sounds a lot... spacier. "Caution: After an accident near Alpha Centauri junction, there's a 20-lightminute galactostasia on the G147. Drivers familiar with the vicinity are encouraged to give it a wide berth."