33 weeks - big bed

Tim's bigger bed is officially done and has been tested by Jack. So this morning Timmy is sleeping in it for the first time. He didn't seem to notice much of a difference and drifted off to sleep very quickly.

Yesterday we decorated our christmas tree and our little boy was very excited to play with the decorations. I'm glad I bought some plastic ones, as the culinary qualities of those were very quickly assessed :)

Best form of winter babycise

Babycise - exercising with your baby.

Pushing a pram through piles of fresh morning snow gives you the ultimate in cardio workout!

Bronchitis

We went to the doctor yesterday and turns out that Tim has bronchitis. How they haven't been able to work that out over the last four (!) weeks, I don't know, but that's how things are. He got prescribed a reasonably strong cough syrup and that seems to be helping a little already. He is actually not too grumpy at the moment and despite having a nasty cough has been very happy all of yesterday.

On Monday we went to pick out a christmas tree and it got delivered last night. Unix is most curious about it and spent the whole night sleeping under it and the tree was standing on a slight angle this morning - not sure what he was doing to it... :/ Now it's just waiting to be decorated.

Jack is making good progress on Timmy's larger bed and hopefully it'll be finished this week.

Some photos from swimming two Sundays back.

Snowy, wintery Berlin.

And some generic photos from the last couple of weeks.

32 weeks - first cold continues

Here's a little update on where we are at... and that is we're sick. All of us. Well apart from Unix, who seems to be hanging in there with only occasional bouts of vomiting and diarrhoea, which he happily displays at various corners of the flat in so many different shapes that it'd put modern artists to shame.

Timmy still has his cough, which hasn't gone away for the last three weeks. It was almost better at some point last week, but then came back with a runny nose and sneezing. He's now not his happy self and is grumpy most of the day, crying and generally is very unhappy. So far every trip to the doctor has been somewhat unproductive - everything that they've given us so far hasn't helped and on Monday we're going there again, because he's not feeling any better.

I also got a cold this week and only just starting to recover. Jack seems to be developing a cold as I'm writing this and has just recovered from a nasty case of food poisoning last weekend after a work christmas party. Eeeehhh

So yeah - it's all doom and gloom around here... but we're hoping to all recover and be well and happy for the upcoming festive season.

Jingle bells, jingle bells!

Oh - and who said that Germans were cold? Two of our neighbours left us presents at the door for Saint Nicholas' Eve! So so sweet! :)

7 MONTHS

On Sunday Tim's swimming lessons started. After our previous bad experience we were a bit apprehensive, but we're really glad to have enrolled. The course is great - the teacher is nice, the pool is nice, there's only small babies there, so it's not too loud or splashy and Tim loves it. Jack went into the water with him and the two of them seem to have had quite a bit of fun. In the 'getting to know other babies' part of the course Tim even managed to pinch another baby and make him cry... so our little boy has already become a bully! The course consists of 10 lessons and apparently towards the end of it babies should be able to dive under water, which I'm looking forward to. Apparently they're going to get a photographer with an underwater camera to make photos of that - cool!

Jack is working on a larger bed for Tim and hopefully our son will be able to relocate before new years. Here's a pic of work in progress...

Winter is officially here and snow has been lying on the roofs for about a week now. It's about -2 or so outside, and the air is nice and crisp when we venture out for walks.

Some photos of the 7 month old boy.

* * *

In other unrelated Berlin news - according to Al Qaeda Germany is the target of some terrorist attacks that were going to happen in the end of November. We're into December now and all seems quiet on the western front so far. Still - all around the centre there are now more police and many of them are walking around with pretty big machine guns. Even though the threat is now gone in theory, they're leaving the heightened security arrangements until end of this year and possibly into next year. There's already been talk of imposing censorship and cutting down on freedom of press, after Der Spiegel published information that Reichstag was a target. All this seems like we're back in 2001 after 9/11 in the USA. Either way - it makes me feel pretty unsafe walking around, mainly 'cos the police keep staring at me and I feel that they think I'm going to recreate a scene out of that (can't remember the name of it) movie where a person is slowly and suspiciously pushing a pram and then suddenly takes out a huge machine gun out of it and starts shooting everyone... is that from the Godfather? Either way - it's all silly over here.

Another example of obviously useless research

Impulsive Behavior in Males Increases After Periods of Heavy Drinking

Amazing - who would've thought?!

29 weeks - more fish and first cold

Jack and I have noticed that we keep being busy with so many things that we hardly spend any time together. So we decided to make Sunday a Family Day... where we don't really do anything and just spend time together. Last Sunday was such a day, and it was good. After traditional pancakes for breakfast we went to the aquarium where Tim once again got very happy and excited to see some fish.

Julia was in town on Monday and she came by for dinner - as usual it was very nice to catch up.

On one of our walks we discovered the Berlin equivalent of the Melbourne Croft Institute. It's called Zyankali Bar and is apparently an "institute for conversation chemistry". One amusing poster on their front door reads "credit for organ donation only" :)

Right now our poor baby has his first cold. He's coughing and sounds like an 80 year old smoker, and has a blocked nose. We went to the doctor yesterday and thankfully it's nothing serious. But poor Tim has to put up with me giving him "nose baths" - basically putting in salt water solution down his nose with a syringe... to say that he doesn't enjoy it and makes it very difficult to aim is an understatement. But it does help him to breathe, so ... Despite his cold, he's been in his usual happy and chirpy mood, so I'm hoping this thing goes away soon. Here are some random photos from the last week and a half.

Oh yeah and now after much bureaucratic turmoil we finally have the full collection...