Our little Munchkin is now 15 months old and has started Kita on August 11th. Kita is the German equivalent to the American daycare and right now, we’re in the middle of the ‘Eingewöhnung’, the adaptation period.

For about one week, I went to Kita with my baby at 9:30 am every day and stayed there for one hour while she played – after that, we’d go home together. She immediately was incredibly interested and happy to be around the other kids, to just be and play in a big room full of toys. Only when her teeth were bothering her, she’d come to me and sit in my lap (yes, at 14 months, the Munchkin finally started teething! We now have two bottom teeth to report).

After the first week had passed without incident, we started going to Kita 1 1/2 hours at a time and my baby was fine with that, too. Last Thursday then, we tried the first separation of ten minutes. Our Munchkin did protest a little bit at first when I left, but did not cry – so I continued to go out and sat down somewhere out of her sight. Things were going really well, so we extended the separation by five minutes. When I came back outside to be with her, my baby did not seem to have missed me much *sniff*. I’m ok, really *doublesniff*

Since everything went so smoothly that day, we attempted a 30 minute separation on Friday. This time, my baby did not object at all when I gave her to her nursery teacher and she was fine for the whole half hour. I felt weird, sitting in the teachers’ conference room, listening out for any crying or other noises of distress from my baby. When I came to pick her up again, my Munchkin reached out for me, smiling. She waved bye bye and on our way home we went.

We’ll be back to Kita tomorrow. The plan is that I sit with our Munchkin for about 15 minutes and then see if she’d be ok with me leaving her there. I’ll stay close by, but I guess it’s intended that she stays there for a good while without me. I’ll have to be honest, this whole thing seems to be much harder for me than it is for her. Of course I am happy that she is so enthusiastic about going to nursery, but it’s still a big, big step for me.

Our Munchkin has never been babysat by anyone. For the last 15 months, I have been separated from her only very rarely and if so, it was only for a few hours at a time, while she was out on a walk with the Laddie. It’s not that I wouldn’t have let someone else watch her, but our baby to this day is still nursing and won’t go to sleep without me. Sadly though, even if that weren’t the case, my sister, the only close relative we have around, is not particularly interested in seeing her niece on a more or less regular basis.

Anyway, all this means my baby and I have been very, very close ever since she was born. So her going to Kita by herself for a good few hours every day is really a big deal.

Next week, it’ll be decided whether the adaptation period can be considered successfully completed or not. If all goes as planned, I will then have a few hours each day to study for my Masters, which I’ll hopefully have completed by May next year. Geez, too much to think about right now. I’m losing my baby, sort of. Must go and wallow a bit.

Our Munchkin turned one year old on May 13 and even now I hesitate when people ask me how old she is – she is still just my baby, it seems impossible she should have been with us for the past 12 months. It feels like she is very close to taking her first few unaided steps – she cruises along furniture like there is no tomorrow and uses her baby buggy to whiz through our increasingly crowded apartment.

Our Munchkin will start attending daycare in August and I am far from ready to let her go. Alas, I have no choice in the matter, as I have to return to uni to complete my Masters. Next May then, I will have to return to work as well and I’d prefer to have uni behind me at that point. I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like trying to juggle work, uni and family life with a toddler. We shall see how all that will work out, though, as we seem to have a bit of a problem even finding an adequate childcare facility. There are so many things involved that I can’t quite seem to wrap my head around – I am running in circles and at this point simply can’t make the decisions that need to be made.

Before this tiny little nonsensical post turns into even more of a ramble, I will leave you with new pictures of our littlest baby girl.

First, for all to see, a picture of the birthday dress I made for our Munchkin:

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this content.

I have felt terribly miserable and quite sorry for myself lately, so I didn’t really think I had anything worthwhile to contribute to this here blog. Seems a bit silly not to blog about personal and/or the more difficult stuff in our lives, in hindsight, since this blog is in fact a personal one – it would seem there’s no need for me to force myself to remain on a subjectively perceived appropriate level. So I’ll just take things as they come now and see where that takes me blogwise. Anyhoo, on to Baby News.

Our little Munchkin is so incredibly active right now, she pulls her tiny self up literally everywhere she can grab hold, walks along furniture and ‘talks’ a lot. She seems very interested in people, especially other little children, smiles and waves whenever she sees them.

On that note, I find the mentality of people in Berlin revolting most of the time. Our baby is so friendly and eager to interact and very often, people notice, but can’t be bothered to show any kind of friendly behavior. Yesterday, for example, the Laddie and I took the Munchkin to a park near our house. She was just really happy to be outside and contently looking at people, when she saw a mommy turn the corner with her little boy strapped in a stroller. My little girl stood up on my legs, smiled at the boy and waved at the mommy. The mother just looked at her briefly, then looked away again and walked past, never even changing her facial expression. My baby looked after her in a sort bewildered manner and eventually shifted her attention to something else.

This kind of thing really does break my heart. It happens more often than I care to admit, but I just can’t get used to this kind of indifference. It’s beyond me how anyone can behave this way. Whenever I see other children do things like this, I can’t help but smile, no matter my mood on that particular day. I personally find it terrible that my child is introduced to the ‘real’ world this young.

Berlin and her people have not presented themselves particularly child-friendly to me within the last year or so, if I’m honest here. Right now, the Laddie and I frankly feel sick of the Berlin mentality and the technicalities of big city life. I’ve had to keep the Munchkin on my lap all this time at the park yesterday, simply because there were things lying on the ground you don’t want to imagine your child getting close to. It’s so sad that we can’t go anywhere with our baby where she could play and crawl around freely, without her parents anxiously hovering over her all the time – it just feels so restrictive.

The Munchkin has just fallen asleep and I have tons of things yet left to do, so I will leave you with pictures of our little sunshine. (more…)

Here’s what the rocking horse looked like after I applied the first coat of paint.

I didn’t really think it looked quite white enough, so I put on another layer of white.

Almost done now, I think. I ordered a bit of cloth to make a pillow from. As I’ve never sewn anything properly before, this might turn out to be a bad idea, but I’ll try my best.

The Laddie and I are otherwise trying to deal with a lot of problems right now, which is paralyzing in more than just one way. Jobs, money, studies, childcare, family, friends…Everything just seems to be going downhill. In the midst of it all, we are trying our best not to let our Munchkin feel any stress or strain. A monumental task at the moment, really, a draining exercise. Hopefully things will look up again eventually.

Here’s what the rocking horse looks like right now, after the sanding action:

I will try to paint it on the weekend – I hope it’ll turn out ok!

As I’ve had sort of an emotional meltdown today, there won’t be any other updates just right now, but I will try to post again sometime this weekend.

This weekend, I’ve been busy sanding down a wooden rocking horse that I bought on ebay – for our Munckin, naturally. Here’s what it looked like when it was delivered:

I’ll go and get white paint for it this week. After that, I am not sure what to do with it, I’d like to add some sort of a floral pattern, but can’t seem to decide on anything. Hm…I’ll post progress pictures soon. Hopefully.

Our little Munchkin is almost nine months old now! I cannot believe how extremely fast she’s developing. She’s been semi-crawling (moving across the floor on her belly, dragging one leg like a wounded soldier) for a while now and continuously practices getting up on all fours. She’s ‘talking’ so cutely with us, too. We still have no teeth to report, but I am told not to worry about that until she turns one year old.

When she was seven months old, we started our girl on solid food and by now she really likes the pumpkin-potato combo (sometimes mixed with chicken) that I am cooking for her. Apart from these foods, she now eats and likes apples, bananas, cereal and rice cakes (unsalted, of course). We’ll be starting her on the next meal (lunch) next week. I am still nursing my Munchkin, of course, but she also likes to drink water. Unfortunately she can’t seem to figure out the Avent Magic Cup. She does drink out of a regular cup, but that’s a really messy thing and she always ends up totally wet, so I am hoping to find some sort of a better solution for that eventually.

Our baby girl by now has also gotten over her first mildly serious illness – she suffered a really high fever between 39.6 and 40 degrees Celsius over a period of six days! Most of this time she spent snuggled into the crook of my arm, too weak to even crawl or play, alternating between nursing and sleeping. It was really heart-wrenching to see her that way. Unfortunately I’d passed my flu on to her, so we were both doing less than stellar for a while. This period was also where I realized again just how much it sucks to be completely alone here – there’s noone I could turn to when things get a bit rough. When you’re too ill to take care of your own child properly and have to spend most of the day seated on the floor for fear of your circulation failing, it does not exactly make you feel great. Nothing I can do about that, though, so henceforth I’ll just hope not to get sick anymore.

In July or August, if everything pans out, my baby will start daycare. I can’t even begin to tell you how much that bothers me. She’s so tiny yet, it just breaks my heart. Alas, I need to finish my uni studies somehow and in order to do that (and to eventually make money) I need time to study.

On a lighter note, I will busy myself with the gift list for our Munchkin’s birthday over the next few weeks. There are so many things I want to get her, I need to prioritize. For today, I will leave you with a monster load of pictures.

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this content.

Our neighbours have been treated to an extra dose of daily screams lately – courtesy of the Munchkin. Whenever she’s lying on her belly, she pulls her legs towards her belly, pushes her little butt up in the air and sort of pushes or slides forward a tiny bit. This technique does not yet quite seem to yield the required results, so our Munchkin gets annoyed quickly and voices her displeasure. I know this is all part of the learning process, but I still find it a bit sad that she’s trying so hard and not quite managing to get anywhere. Anyway, I am assuming she will get a handle on the crawling business soon enough. Which reminds me that we need to start baby proofing the apartment – a tremendously tedious task in our tiny and cluttered living space.

Tomorrow we’ll have our U5 examination (the six to seven months general examination). I’m always a bit anxious before these appointments, feeling like a test could potentially be failed – can Munchkin do everything she’s supposed to be doing at her age? Is she properly developed? She’s also supposed to get the next round of shots in the course of this appointment, but I am not so sure it’s going to happen. Her temperature has been relatively high for the last few weeks and we haven’t really been able determine the cause of that. The last doctor we went to said it’s possible that she just generally has a higher core temperature, but he said it needed to be checked out – as soon as she’ll have a temperature of over 38 degrees Celsius for three days in a row, we’ll be back at his practice to check her blood and urine.

By the end of her sixth month, Munchkin will try solid food for the first time. I really want to cook for her myself – I think parsnips will be the veg of choice. I am reading a very good book on baby nutrition and hope I’ll do everything right in that department. I might be overthinking things sometimes, but I’d rather be overly obsessing about these things than to make the wrong decisions right from the start.

Geez, time is flying by so incredibly fast – I can’t believe our Munchkin is six months old already! Next year in August, she will be attending a creche, a situation I am very much struggling with. If money did not dictate my decision there, I would not yet give my little girl into childcare. I just can’t imagine not to have my Munchkin around me all the time – ever since she was born, she’s been with me. The Laddie has taken her for a walk without me once or twice so far and I could never fully relax when he did. I just really want to be with her, no matter how stressful things can be sometimes. Soon enough, she won’t want to be around me all the time, so while I can, I must take advantage of the fact that so far she can’t even crawl away from me and my hugs, cuddles and kisses.

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this content.

As you have no doubt been able to deduce from our lack of posts, we have not yet organized ourselves any better since our last blogging appearance. I seriously don’t know when, if ever, we will get back to any sort of routine in our daily life. Things like that today aren’t as important as they used to seem, though – it’s just so amazing to see our Munchkin grow and learn more every day. She will be 5 months and 3 weeks old tomorrow and she’s SO adorable! She rolls from her belly onto her back and the other way round now, she smiles a lot and even sometimes graciously bestows a laugh upon her humble parents. Here are some new pictures for you!

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this content.

Apart from our Munchkin, things around here still are a mess, to be frank. The Laddie and I are struggling in many areas and can’t seem to clear our heads quite long enough to sort anything out properly. Something has to change, as we both very clearly feel the strain of it all take its toll on our happiness and general wellbeing. First things first, though – the Munchkin and I are battling a viral infection. I am worried about my baby girl, as she hasn’t been quite well for a little while now. I’ll go and take her to the doc again as soon as possible. Also, I will definetely try to get back to blogging on a hopefully regular basis. I hope you’re all doing good out there!

About a year ago, we purchased a bed from a company called Dolphin Furniture (based in Denmark). Fantastic wood and great workmanship…or so it seemed.

This is something really hard to describe, so bear with me.

The bed can be “configured” into other uses. A junior bed, to a full cot, to something that resembles a baby balcony. We thought we would put it into baby balcony mode and go go gadget screw driver, the masterpiece was complete. I then placed the standard thickness mattress into the bed and watched in confusion, as the protective bar was just a little too high. How high? Well, let me put it this way: Munchkin would not get over it, or under it. But if she were to slip her hands or feet in, they could easily get stuck at the knee or elbow. If she pushed hard enough, I am sure she could trap her head and it would hurt! Rather than take the risk, I remove said bar, which so happens to also obstruct the baby’s route to mommy heaven. The bar is out and there are four screws that kept it in place (two at the headboard and two at the footboard). I remove the footboard without much fuss. But the headboard is a different story. The screws are not really standard hardware store kit, one half of the screw is made for wood, the other half is like a screw for a nut or bolt. What happens is that the wood half goes into the headboard and the bolt half has a strange metal cap that screws in and allows for the bar to lock into place.

So I start turning the cap and thus the screw – the cap falls off, leaving the screw in the wood. Oh crap, the screw is stuck. I try and put the cap back in and tighten it more (making the screw and all go deeper into the wood), but the cap is too lose to the screw and will not come out. After about a minute of tightening and seeing it does not work, suddenly the cap comes lose, taking the bolt with it and the other half of the screw is stuck in the wood.

Yes, by hand, I twisted a metal rod to break in half. Hulk strong, but damn! So the wooden part of the screw has this dangerous sharp bit still sticking out, that is completely round and too small to get with the pliers or to get it out a different way. Did I mention that the screw below it is also stuck?

We contacted both the seller and Dolphin for help in the matter, as it is plain to see that we’re dealing with a failure in the parts here. You should be able to configure the bed…I mean, tha’s why we bought it.

The reply was less than helpful! In short: Your fault! We won’t replace and anyways, we don’t make that bed anymore.

SO MUCH FOR THE FREAKING GUARANTEE!!!!!!!!!! Lifetime, my arse!

We have recruited our fleet of lawyers to write a nice letter, explaining to them in more precise terms that the bed simply failed to do its job.

It’s a fine line though, because I broke it…but was it really my fault?