Camping at Lake Naivasha (again)

So we packed the bikes, the tents, our bags, food & drinks for the weekend, the travel cot and all the other paraphernalia for Nicolas, PLUS the dogs into the car and headed off to Camp Carnellys this last weekend.
We made a little kraal with our tents (we met 4 friends there), drank some wine, had a meal at the casual camp restaurant & had a great first night. If you can sleep through endless dog barking (not ours) and hippos roaring and ducks honking that is.
The boys all went for a loooooooooooooooooooooong ride on the Saturday. They did 90kms and 1900m of climbing in 8 hours. I had decided not to go with them as I didnt want to leave our ayah (yes, we took our nanny!) alone with Nicolas AND the dogs for the entire day. So I took the dogs for a 2 hour run to knacker them (and me) out.
Saturday night was a disaster. The campsite next door (known for being a party destination of note) hosted an ALL NIGHT thumping, screaming party. I used to not mind these kinds of things but now with a baby, its different. Nicolas was amazing though. He only woke once for some milk and took a little longer to fall back to sleep, but still, he slept through it. AMAZINGLY.
On Sunday we all went on 4 hour ride, through beautiful scenery and through Hells Gate nature reserve.



Oh yes, Nicolas now has 2 teeth! You can just see them when he smiles, its SO cute!

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!

Skiing in Austria

Wow, what fun we had! We skied for 4 days in awesome conditions - the sun shone, the slopes were emptyish and there was plenty of fresh snow. We were in Gerlos, in the Zillertal Arena in Austria... it took us just 2 hours to drive there from Munich.
I hadnt skied since 1994... thats almost 17 years ago. Even though I skied quite a bit during that gap year I took, I realised once Benedikt started teaching me again how badly I must have skied back then! Clearly I had no style or skill.... as everyone always says you never forget how to ski, its like riding a bike etc etc... well, riding a mtb doesnt exactly come naturally to me so I wasnt surprised when I was like a total beginner again on the slopes. Benedikt was super patient though and kept giving me tips and advice and training sessions the entire 4 days. I tried to do what he told me, but didnt quite master things. I basically established a controlled sliding method to get me down the steeper slopes... So snow plough turn to the left and slide down 10m.... Snow plough turn to the right and slide down 10m... etc etc!
Check out this video Benedikt took on the second day:


So Benedikt is an AMAZING skier. I fell in love with him all over again! He's just so super cool and slick on the slopes. The best by far! Everyone else looked like a joke. So I had the best partner and teacher. He would carry my skis for me whenever we had to walk anywhere, and would load them into the gondola for me. He bought me my boots when it was time to don them at the hotel. And he would even clean the snow off my boots so I could click into my skis. When it came to the actual skiing, he would tell me where to go and would either wait for me to get down, or wait half way for me. He would take 10 seconds to swish swish down the slope and I'd take 10 minutes to weave my way down doing my wide turns. I loved seeing him glide past me. Except when he showered me with snow.
Here's a video of him, playing the fool of course. (he's the 3rd skier to come down)


So we'd ski all day from 9am to 4pm, then come back to the hotel , share a bottle of wine while I expressed and Benedikt watched nonsense on TV... then went to the lovely indoor pool and sauna area where we chilled for an hour or so. Everyone kept their costumes on thank goodness... I've seen how Europeans like to walk around in the nick at these places! Then we'd go for some apres ski and dinner. We went to a different restaurant each night and ate lovely food and drank even lovelier gluwein.

One night we went sledging... to a nearby 7km floodlit course. We took a cable car up, sledged half way down, stopped for dinner and some gluwein, then continued along the course. The sledging was pretty calm at first, then it got a bit hairy. Benedikt was steering from the back while I just screamed and giggled all the way down. We crashed at every corner! This vid shows me going down the last few metres... it was really steep with a really sharp corner at the bottom...

Nic's first (of many) camping trip

So its been a busy couple of weeks. I dont know how I'm going to fit work in in January!
I've started going to a new baby group, which is much better than our little one... there are always at least 15 mums with babies of all ages. Is basically a fat social for all the mums. Although we do we sit in a circle and fun sing songs with actions for the last half an hour...which the kids love, Nicolas included.

We went to a couple of great Christmas craft fairs where I could have bought everything! You get really cool things here I must say - like all the Kikoi stuff and some cool glassware and the lovely indian clothes & scarves which I love and we bought a unique zig zag wooden chair thing. Benedikt tells me these Nairobi markets are krap compared to the German Weihnachtsmarkt... so imagine how mad I am going to go there!

Then we went to a really big and fancy Caledonian Ball last week... there was about 350 people all dolled up, many of whom were in full Scottish kilts and Highlander outfits. The ball was full of tradition which would have made my half scottish father proud - I missed my Pops! We sat at a table where there were no Scots unfortunately so we didnt really know what was going on half the time. And there was loads of confusing Scottish dancing... Benedikt and I tried our hand at one of the safe ones where you don't swap partners & still we didn't get it right. It was a fun evening though. Our 4th ball in the last year and a half!

The next day we had a mtb race - one that I won eaily last year. This time round I came last! I dont know if I'm ever going to get strong on the bike again - maybe when Nic moves out the house when he is 18.

We just came back from a mini camping trip - just one night at Lake Naivasha in our fancy new tent. The tent was awesome and nicolas was even awesomer. He had his best nights sleep yet - he slept for 9 hours on the trot. Clearly he likes the outdoor lifestyle. And he also wasnt disturbed by the hippos, giraffes, loud parties, nor horse and Mahindi's antics in the night. We were very happy
campers. We met up with friends in the evening and had dinner at the camp site restaurant. We'd decided it was easier not to take our own food. Next time we will though - it makes it much more authentic. We also realised how much camping equipment we still need. Pole pole we shall get it all together. Its such a cool thing to do as a family.

So we are off to Germany this week. 2 weeks of COLD WEATHER. We have lots of warm things to wrap Nicolas in and I am borrowing lots of things from Benedikts mum as I obviously dont have a lot. Kenya is always so warm its going to be a shock to my system. I havent had a cold christmas for like forever - maybe 15 years? And Benedikt and I are going skiing for 3 days in Austria - I cant wait. Although it will be hard to leave Nic for that time. But he will be spoilt by his Omi and Opa so we know he will be in excellent hands.

So bye for now....more blogging in the new year... if I have time!