Breaking News!

Nicolas's first tooth is out! I just got back from the paediatrician for his 6 month check up and had it pointed it out to me. It must have poked through in the last few days because we've been feeling for teeth! Its the bottom right one - you can just feel its sharp edge.
Nic's all healthy and good otherwise. We are lucky!
His weight (7.7kgs) is slap bang in the middle of the chart of where he should be and his height (64cm) is now ON the chart - yippeee!

Wow, Nic is 6 months old already!

So, today nicolas is 6 months old. Wow, time has really flown. I believe I am now no longer traumatised from his birth! That doesnt mean to say I've forgotten the unbelievably painful ordeal at all - I havent forgotten it one bit. And I am determined not to suffer from birth-amnesia like so many mums seem to! It just means I am considering a second child :-)

Nicolas is suddenly reaching SO many milestones. We moved him into his own room a few weeks ago and his night time sleeping really improved. It seems Benedikts' sleep talking was waking him up. So ja, he is out of the moses basket and in his cot now. He is SO good at getting himself off to sleep. We just put him down after 2.5 hours of being awake and leave him. He cries for a max of 10 mins before nodding off.
He no longer sleeps in his carry cot in the pram in the day time either. His feet were hanging over the edge after all! So now we are using his pram as a stroller, no longer a bed. He looks SO cute in it - like a little old man sitting looking around.
He now also fits into the baby jogger we were given too which is cool: (Although the roads are too bad here to actually go running with him in it)

He is eating solids in a big way now too. We started him on rice cereal, then introduced carrots, butternut, sweet potato, zucchini and cauliflower. With mouthfuls of either banana or mango as desert. As of today he is on 3 meals a day. It seems so much for such a little person. But Gina says so, so I am doing it! So he gets his cereal in the morning, veggies at 11:30 and fruit at 6pm. And ja, I am back to following the notorious Gina Ford. I picked up her book the other day just to see something and ended up reading all about this 6 to 9 month stage and figured it all sounded good and that Nic should be able to fit into her routine. It also told me when to feed him what as I was clueless on that side of things and kept changing his eating plan all around. So ja, its been 1 week of getting him to do what Gina says and he is getting there slowly. The hardest part is going to be giving up his 3rd nap of the day. But gradually we will get there... by increasing the length of his lunch time nap.
Next week we are moving him into the big bath. We have a ring thing for him to sit in. I'm not looking forward to that as I'll have to bend over the bath the whole time instead of having him waist level on our nifty bath station! But boy does he love the bath. Check out these two videos of him:



Overall he is getting more and more inquisitive. He watches everything we do and tries to grab everything in his path. His latest thing is our water bottles. He goes crazy when he sees one and stretches him arms out to grab it very enthusiastically! He is getting SO strong too. Boy is it a mission to change him now. He refuses to stay on his back for one second! And nothing is spared on the changer either - he grabs the wet wipes, the talcom powder, the cream, the nappies and all this time he is kicking things off with his feet! I don't know how he does it sometimes but if we leave him for just 10 seconds he moves like 10 metres! He is trying really hard to move forward too. He lifts one leg and hip up while on his tummy but doesnt quite know what to do next! Thank goodness. I am dreading him crawling - we'll have to rearrange the whole house!

His poos are more human like now, you'll all be pleased to know. And he seems to have no problem getting them out! Also, I'm busy bringing the breast feeding to a halt...I'm SO tired of the expressing! Especially when we go out cycling and I have to get up half an hour early just to express. So I plan to finish up within the next 2 weeks. Just by expressing less and less. Will be a relief! And he will be fine on formula anyway. He's moved onto stage 2 of the formula range now. So ja, I'm over breast feeding in a big way!
With our next child I'm sure it will go more smoothly and I'll be one of those moms who breast feed till their child is 5 ;-)

New Years

So Benedikt & I were quite keen to have a chilled New Years at home, uno using Nicolas as our excuse to escape the forced-upon-you-fun thats not-so-fun that New Years often is. But good friends of ours have a friend that runs a new restaurant here in Nairobi and he was putting on a special evening. So we asked our lovely nanny to babysit & off we went. Didnt take that much convincing really!

We had a GREAT time. And drank plenty of champagne and red wine & shooters & danced the night away. Benedikt even did his crazy dance moves. Benedikt didn't make any new years resolutions as he believes he is perfect ;-)
I made two. Will blog about one of them soon, the other is to get good at yoga. I am just loving my ashtanga yoga and want to be able to do the entire Primary series before I get too old!

So don't know if I've mentioned it here yet, but Benedikt and I are getting married on the beach in Kilifi, here in Kenya on May 21st. So its all systems go in the wedding planning department! Invites have been sent out and most of our guests have replied, my dress is hanging in the cupboard (hidden that is from Benedikt), Benedikt has bought his linen suit :-) and we are about to go and choose rings. We are off to Kilifi in March to organise a DJ, the catering, a hair dresser and the venue layout etc. Its going to be a very small, casual do... just immediate family and close friends. And as you can see on the invite, we're encouraging people to come barefoot! Think it will be a fun day, I'm really looking forward to it.

My cycling is eventually picking up. We did a long mtb ride this last Saturday, 6 hours and 120kms and I kept up with the guys, I was very happy about that! It was my first long ride in more than a year too. Benedikt & I bought an indoor trainer back with us from Germany and I've been going on that a couple of times a week - doing killer programs that we used to do in SA. Think its really helping. We have the 10 to 4 mountain bike race in less than a month, so everyone is gearing up for that. Its now a 2 day event, and quite tough... my plan is just to survive :-)

Christmas in Germany

WOW!! It was amazing to see so much snow. The country looked beautiful. I was totally mesmerised on our drive from the airport to Benedikts parents. I hadnt seen snow in over 10 years afterall!
We'd had a midnight flight which really didn't suit Nicolas as all the fuss and noise and bright lights at the airport woke him up in the middle of his nighttime sleep. And he was awake for 2 hours while we checked in and waited to board etc. And as soon as the plane took off he just let rip. I don't think we've ever heard him cry that loudly and with that much anger! Poor little thing was beside himself. It was very disturbing. After 30 mins of him screaming business class down, we thought his ears may have been hurting him so we gave him some calpol. And after another 20 mins or so he fell into a drug induced sleep. And then he basically slept through to 8am, waking only once for a quick bottle. But boy was that first hour stressful. Nothing we did soothed him.
One old man a couple of rows behind us even complained! Shame the air hostess really didnt want to tell us but she had to. She was lovely. They all were super helpful.

Benedikts parents were so happy to see their beloved grandson again. They'd kitted out their house especially for him. He had a lovely new playmat, a cool chair, new toys and clothes and a fancy bath station attached onto the bath.
The first day we were there we caught up sleep, ate lovely food and just chilled. The next day we got on with the important stuff: Shopping! We went to the Adidas factory outlet store of course and picked up loads of bargains. There are loads of other divine outlet stores (odlo, Salamon, Nike, Reebok, Asics, Puma etc etc! ) in the same centre so we shopped up a storm!
That afternoon we went to Rothenburg ob der Tauber where the Grannies live. They were delighted to meet their Great Grandson. Benedikt and I took advantage of all the babysitters and went off to the Christmas market. Wow, it was pretty to walk around those cobbled streets with all the christmas decorations and cool stands. We stopped for gluhwein of course. And for roast chestnuts, yum! And then some more gluhwein.

The next day we headed off to Munich to stay over with Nina and Thomas, Benedikt's sister and her husband, en route to Austria for skiing! We left Nicolas in the capable hands of his Omi and Opa... but boy it was hard! 5 whole days without him. We knew we were going to miss him. We'd bought over loads of frozen breast milk (his parents had taken some back in November too) so he wouldn't be going hungry and he does love his grandparents so we weren't worried about him!
We had a nice evening with Nina and Thomas in their stunning new house. Nina was 33 weeks pregnant then and looking lovely. We can't wait for Nicolas's first girl cousin to arrive!
Then early the next morning we were off! Skiing - WOOHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Read about it here
On our return journey we stopped off at Philip (Benedikt's good friend) and Tina's place, and saw their cute 2 boys again. Philip is Benedikt's best man at our wedding in May, we are all really looking forward to their trip to Kenya.
Then it was home to Nicolas! YAY! I couldnt wait for his first wake up of the night so I could snuggle him. 5 days had felt like forever, even though we'd had constant updates from Benedikt's mum!
And then it was Christmas. Benedikts dad got such a lovely REAL tree on the 23rd and Irene decorated it so beautifully. With real candles and all. Nicolas just LOVED looking at its sparkliness! We had a divine christmas eve. Heinz and Irene made Nicolas's first christmas so special. We had christmas music playing, santas bell ringing, presents galore and champagne with some lovely mushroom starters. After Nic opened all his awesome presents we put him to bed and continued with the scrumptious spread Irene had prepared. We had vegetable (and meat for the omnivores) fondue. With all the condiments and special sauces you can imagine. Benedikt & I ate our hearts out!