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Our daughter has been now one full week at the new day care. To our great relief the transition seems to have gone smoothly - no (unusual) cries, tantrums or nightmares identified.  Apparently she is social, smiling and taking already lead in the team (yes, apparently possibly at age of 13 months!). I am not surprised though - I would be shining as well given the royal level of service she receives:  In the morning we can pass by the medical service to ensure our angel is fully fit for the day at the care, the milk lady prepares the bottle for her, two carers gently welcome her in their sunny arms at her dedicated section, where her friends with max 6 months of age difference are waiting her to play. At lunch time they are served a delicious and nutritious meal carefully planned by a dedicated nutritionist with premium products. The cleaning lady comes twice a day to clean the playground and the toys. In the afternoon, the toddlers are taken to improve their psychomotricity with special exercises - every second day it is replaced by storytelling or music class. The nurses pass twice a day to check the sweethearts are still doing healthy. The child psychologies are visiting the section to observe the development of our angels and are accessible for parents wishing to discuss any concerns we may have. The carers are reporting meticulously every single poo, peep and siesta our princess takes and documents this for us with 10 min. intervals when we come pick her up in the evening. On top of all the carer/baby ratio compared to the past moved from a whopping 3:18  to 2:3! Even the fact that I need to pass four times the Security services every single day when picking her up could not make me happier. I am confident she's at the best  place possible - after being home with mommy. 

Match point?

My daughter and I had our first fight the night before yesterday. I am still recovering.

We were all three back from work and day-care, tired and worn out. 

None of us had big appetite for dinner - least of us my little 12 - month old. 

I have taken the approach of non-force and believe babies eat when they are hungry.

Evening ceremonies continued upstairs as usual - diaper change and preparations for the bath. 

These are usually pleasant relaxing moments for both of us, chatting, laughing and playing around. 

I lifted her in my arms and notice her pink-gray smelly 'doudou' still in her hands..nope, not possible to bring 'doudou' in bath tonight. The previous week I had given in thinking the smelly thing needed indeed a good wash too. Guess who was ironing a pink wet-dripping doudou at 10 pm after certain miss could not fall asleep without? (Actually my husband was= ) Anyways, tonight I decided to be determinate, no ironing, no doudou bathing. 

You would not believe that a human body can actually bend to a string position. Quite peculiar phenomenon really, added the tomato-red face and high-peak screaming. Very difficult to position such thing in a tiny bath tub I must say. You can either wash tip of toes or head..For obvious reasons, tonight we washed only the tip of toes. 

How can I be sure that my baby was not hurt or having other serious reasons causing such condition? An amateur parent (myself last week) may be fooled, indeed. The plot is relieved in the fraction of second that I place my baby back to her mattress together with her pinkgrey doudou - Silence. Ultimate, pure silence. I can only hear her pumping heart beat and see her little fist tightly wrapped around her lost friend. And she stares at me. And I stare her back. I don't know really how to react.

It's difficult to be mad (for a long time) to a 74,5 cm midget, with light green pyjama decorated by tiny little frogs. So we stayed both in silence. I conducted the rest of the evening ceremonies with a very low profile, with no extra cuddling or laughing or hugging. Evening bottle and I placed her in her bed wishing her good night. 

The next morning I was woken up by a little ray of sunshine - smiling, happy little toddler asking to be in the arms. In the day-care the girls said she had been very clingy and needed lots of hugs. In the evening I was welcomed in the day-care with a scream of joy and superfast crawling to my arms. 

Nevertheless, I am not convinced I reached the match point yet. A good goal for the next 17 years ;)

Happy belated Valentine !

I need to share with you some of the things that have "made my days" recently..

Pink pale fist size African roses on my desk yesterday

Sushi delivered at home (and not ordered by myself!)

My daughter's little cousin (4 years just) own-initiavely checking from laptop pictures, when she learned to eat with a spoon (still find it hilarious). According to her investigation this took place at 15 months.
Another little cousin (2,3 y) demanding for a ski-session after gym - in the dark, cold Nordic winter night

Talking about proactiveness and drive! 

One year later (almost) !

I was sitting in plane on my way back  from a busy business trip - a rare occasion to sit down and not go around "doing nothing", which usually include ie. arranging E's toys, clearing admin work or folding laundry. No, this was a true moment of peace and calm, where I was literary obliged so sit tied in my seat and contemplate about my life. What a beautiful, emotional, overwhelming and fabulous year we had behind. It seems we have had our little daughter with us already for an eternity, and yet a little more than 12 months ago we had not even met! I went about the whole year in a pink bliss. I can remember vague flashes of crucial moments, all the rest is pink. Here some highlights:

*Elisé is born 3 minutes ago - cd plays "Autumn colours in Seattle" on the background,  My husband is cleaning the baby and I am crying my mind out. I feel so happy it hurts!
*5 days later we are driving home from hospital. My husband so worried we slide in the icy road with our princess on board keeps (for the first and last time in his life) the speed at 10.
*E is with us one week. I have been feeding her day and night and she is finally in a dropping state.  My husband is fixing roof isolation in the attic. The huge stapler makes this noise: "zzzzzzzzsup!""zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzsup'""zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzsup". My husband wears iPod and earplugs.
*E receives baby massages and I manage to witness the first smile after the retreat!
*E's Baptism. All my loved ones come from all corners of the globe to celebrate our little princess. Thanks to my wonder-granny and super-sisters, we pull it through. It is a beautiful ceremony and I will always remember this day. My sister witnessed a week of reality bites with a baby and our level of exhaustion. The age difference to E's future little cousin probably multiplied by five.
*The next day of Baptism. Our life changes. Granny calls us and gives instructions for bottle-feeding.
*I return working half-time. I write 10 - page instructions to the nanny girl. This was the edited version.
*My first business trip. E doesn't smile at me for a day :( I draw bottles to my note book.
*E learns to wink her hand. Since she does it everywhere and all the time. Her target group: middle-aged men (?)
*I visit E's kindergarten. I understand parents who would like to make background checks to the personnel. Or hide webcam-chip in the pyjama.
*E starts the kindergarten. I call them (only) twice during the day. (dial-ins don't count)
*Christmas - E learns to pull herself up and make her first snow angel
* E learns to do fish-lips and kiss-noise at the same time (mommy proud)
*E's first teeth (2) come out at the same time

and today's achievement:

*She pulled herself up in the standing position!

I will save to another time the development curve for myself and my husband :)

Big kiss to all! 

Gums, Germs and..

After the holiday feasting some family members decided to lighten their diet - unfortunately including our little angel. For over a week now, she has basically cut all her meals into half.  Bottles of milk are left half-drunken and meal times have become a real arena of mind games and will power. My husband mindfully suggested to return the apple crumble into his diet, just to see if it would make any difference. I said I appreciate his sacrifice, but doubt our daughter would be so easily played around.

Then came fever, and coughing, and non-stop running nose..One would think we had a 110 year old veteran chain-smoker sleeping in the baby bed =( We became worried: Child with all those symptoms AND loosing appetite is definitely not OK. Finally yesterday we took her to see our wonderful, kind and competent Madame Doctor. She carefully examined her ears, eyes, lungs, throat and announced our little daughter is perfectly fine. AND has her very first tooth out! JIPPIII! The itchy gums had been causing the fever, excess drooling and coughing. Such a relief! And on the same breath we felt silly - we had been waiting for the little teeth since five months ago and yet they managed to arrive sneaking behind..

P.S. I gave my baby a bath this evening and couldn't help myself, but stuck my finger in her mouth, rolled it over and around her gums just to admire the new little white tooth..5 minutes later I sit down to give her the bottle, when I suddenly feel a tiny sharp thingy entering my mouth, rolling with determination over my gums..Maybe the apple crumbre would have made a difference after all? 

Merry Christmas!

It has been an important pause since my last posting. We have a valid excuse though: my little family has shown exemplary solidarity in being sick  - nobody was left untouched. A good thing in being stranded at home for several weeks is that the usually fretted Christmas rush became actually a joyous and long-waited return to the civilitation! What a glorious an hour-and-a-half of wondering in the Christmas fare.. I managed to do all the planned Christmas shopping AND even get a haircut impressing even myself of my time management..Besides, there was going to be no preparation stress this Christmas anyways - we would be spending it peacefully at home with our little family of three. Looking at the news with people having spent a small fortune to spend the Christmas period on a mattress at the airports made us feel very lucky..

For some reason the need to prepare to-do lists emerged anyways: finish projects at work, send thank you notes, clean email box, get Christmas photos for cards, search missing addresses, send cards, get Christmas tree, book the cleaning lady, get Christmas star and red candles, prepare menu and grocery shopping list..the list goes on..strangely enough, in these times of prosperity that we live in, a most peculiar phenomenon occurred to make our preparations even harder - many of my strategic Christmas items are OUT OF STOCK in this city!

Ice-prevention liquid is out from the whole country and therefore airports closed for days, cleaning services are "out" because my girl is sick, no red glu wine in Ikea or Christmas cookie dough for cookie houses..the cherry on the cake was that my personal Christmas Tree Hunter went to 5 different places to get 1,5 - 2 m tree with no success! And one was finally delivered at home. How poshy is that. It's beautiful. And you can smell the price.  But let's remain positive - our Christmas is saved now! Another positive thing I need to share, cleaning my house all by myself made me realize two things: 1. I am definitely not over paying for my cleaning lady. It took me 7 hours instead of 5, but compared to her I am an amateur and perfectionist 2. There is something therapeutic in cleaning Your Own House. Your (not so little) Love Nest. And it definitely contributes to the Christmas feeling.

Then the moment comes; everything is finally ready: cooking, cleaning, wrapping, decorating - all done. It is evening, I sit down and enjoy. Christmas tree decorated, the table beautifully set with fruits, candles and chocolates, the Buche de Noël taking savour in the fridge. We did a long walk the three of us in the snow and admired the houses in Christmas decor, so white and peaceful. I feel utterly happy. It will be a Merry Christmas. 

White Chaos

I have been silently praying for us to have a white Christmas. It arrived early this year. Last night. It is difficult to describe the feeling when you are taken by surprise the first morning after the snow fall. There is something peaceful and magic in the white velvet suddenly covering trees, bushes, streets. Everything is pure and silent. It brings memories of childhood..winter games, red noses and hot chocolate. 

Until the first resident in this foreign country wakes up.

It seems quite funny that every single year 'snow' is considered as a phenomenon of  'force majeur', unfamiliar and -predictable guest creating a complete chaos in this country. 

Motorways are blocked as there is one snow cat serving half the country. They manage to reach the capital region in the evening. And then clean one lane only. The right one. People responsible are interviewed in the radio inquiring why the country does not have infrastructure necessary to clean the roads. Budget restrictions. BUT as a credible contingency plan they have invited the "free-lancers" -farmers from the periferia- to help clean the capital region roads with their mini-trucks. It takes two days before they have cleaned their way out to even reach the civilisation. 

Schools are closed due to risk at slippery roads and no transportation is offered. 

People are freezing due to unfamiliarity to heating systems and/or how to dress in layers. 

It is hilarious to hear the news announcing with trembling voice as a national drama that the temperature is likely to drop to -9 °C in the following night. Back from where I am babies are sleeping outside in -25°C.

It is equally entertaining to witness my fellow residents to clean their cars from snow. What a triumph of creativity! CD-covers, boxes, books..Great entertainment value, but why don't they just invest 2 euros and buy the proper equipment?

Ah, I really love this season!