First Steps

So my chaw is feeling a lot better today!! I don't look quiet like a hamster anymore. And I'm also happy because Brian will be off until Tuesday, which means lots of family time!!!

Yesterday I went to the playgroup at the furniture store with my friend again. Her little one started walking about a week ago. It was too funny. I was just talking to her and another girl, who's little one is over a year and not walking. I just said, that I have a feeling it's still gonna take Lucas a while until he will be ready. Then all of a sudden he took off out of my arms 'running' towards a climbing wall thingy. I thought I didn't see right and everybody was laughing. He did it quiet a few times running from one thing to another. Of course it's still wobbly and he also lets himself fall on to the thing he's aiming for. But he's getting better. I'm so proud of my little baby.

Today I went to a well baby check up. He's doing very good. He weighs about 9,6 kilos, is 76 centimeters long and everything else is great for his development as well. He also got some more shots. I was a little afraid of them, but he took the very fine. He even looked at the doctor while he did it, but he didn't even whine or cry. I was very surprised.

Wisdom Teeth...

I had two of my wisdom teeth pulled yesterday and I could feel a little better. But this is mainly the reason why I haven't been online too much. I'll make sure to put up a new update this week, though.

Shoes for my baby

Since Lucas is on the verge to start walking already, I bought him some 'walking shoes' last week. They're just so cute and almost every mother buys this kind of brand for their baby as the first shoe. I wanted a different design, but they only had one that I didn't like colorwise. So I got these








Since this past week he also uses his baby walker all by himself. At first I thought I didn't see right, when all of a sudden he came walking out of the room all by himself with this thing. I should take some pictures soon, with him doing it or even a video. He's also not too much of a chicken anymore when it comes to walk a few steps on his own. When he's standing somewhere and i'm not too far away, I hold out my arms and tell him to come over. He's taking like two steps by himself and lets himself fall into my arms.


This is the baby walker he loves to walk around with. At first I didn't trust it too much, cause I thought he would fall with it, as it is so light and not too sturdy. But he's handling it very well. He only gets frustrated when he gets stuck somewhere.





Yesterday I also found out that he can actually climb steps. I never knew, because we don't have any steps in our apartment. But as I heard that so many other kids of my friends are climbing up stairs, I went outside in the hallway, to give it a try. I thought I didn't see right. He climbed up all the way on top in like only a few seconds, as he's never done anything else in his life. Of course I was there to protect him, in case he would fall. THe steps outside are of pure marble.

Other than that not too much is going on. Brian is home for a four day weekend. YAY for that!!! Today Lucas let us sleep till 6 am instead of 5 am. We have planned to do some paperwork things and stuff, that we've planned on doing for a while and go to the commissary, PX and hopefully Ikea. I also want to do something fun for Lucas like going to the Zoo or something. That's all we will be doing.

Randomness

I thought I should post a new blog on the things that have been going on these past couple days. The weekend was alright, but nothing too exciting happened. While Brian was on his races, I tried to keep myself and Lucas busy. We finally went to the playground around the corner. I never really wanted to go there, since it's in the middle of 'the projects' (as I call it... ) but it was not too bad. No kids were there and the swings were even pretty new. So I was there for about thirty minutes and it was something new for him to see.

Yesterday I drove to Heidelberg to meet a girl that I met online. She has a boy that is 2 and a half and a 3 months old baby girl. They moved to Heidelberg about almost a year ago. So it was nice to meet her and the boys were playing a little bit on the playground and then in his room.

Now it's official. Brian won't leave until the last week of September or the first week of Octobe, which pretty much sucks. I never thought I'd say taht out loud, but it sucks for several reasons. They can't really assure him that he will be going to his own unit. So he might be going somewhere completely different and more dangerous with people he doesn't even know or even trusts.... So we are both not happy about it... The good thing of course is, that he will be here for Lucas' first birthday. And we're still keeping the fingers crossed, that they will still send him to his unit..

Milestones

I was reading that book "What to expect the first year" the other evening for the twelve month and I thought it was pretty interesting, reading about the things 'what your baby might be doing' etc. I thought that Lucas was going just right with his age or maybe even a little slower, but there are actually quite a few things he's doing, that he doesn't even need to be doing his age.


So I thought it would be interesting to put down what he can do out of these things. I'll also leave the headlines in that are in the book.


He's now almost exatctly 11 months old (next week) and these are the things he's doing ->


By twelve months your baby should be able to:

• walk holding on to furniture (cruise)


• use a few gestures to get needs met

...will probably be able to:

• play patty cake (wave hands) or wave bye bye


• pick up tiny object neatly with tips of thumb and forefinger


• stand alone momentarily


• say dada and mama diesciminately

...may possibly be able to:

• play ball


• use immature jargoning

...may even be able to:

• respond to a one-step command without gestures

What he can't do right now, which was also mentioned in the may possibly etc. part is

• say one word other than mama or dada


• stand alone well


• walk well


• say three words

So I guess that's pretty good. I'm also thinking about to get the book "What to expect the Toddler Years" I think that's what it's called. Because I really liked that book so far.

Lucas with his newest favorite thing to do.... walking around with the clotherack....

Hey I want outside..... too bad it's raining..

Not a good picture of mommy and Lucas, but you can see a little of my short hair here

No excitement here

Alrighty, it's Friday (a little after noon) and no excitement going on whatsoever. Well, maybe a little.

Last night I was awoken by a very loud noise. It was about 1.30 am (Brian was still up on the computer) and I had the windows cracked. At first I was like half asleep and have awake and it sounded like a big tractor running up and down the fields right next to our house. So I woke up completely, but still half 'dreamdrunk' or however you might call it. I began halluzinating that it might be that nuclear power plant that's not too far from where we live and it might be the sirenes or some terrorists or whatsoever... YEAH I HAVE A BIG IMAGINATION and I'm very paranoid in things like this, especially when you wake me up in the middle of the night.... I was just wondernig, who in the whole wide world would make such a loud noise in the middle of the night. Brian went outside with my cousin's hubby to smoke and look what was going on. They saw a big tractor like machine going up and down the field, like I thought in the first place. Yeah they were doing that stuff for about an hour till 2.30 am and I could still hear it with the windows closed. I'm really feeling for the people who actually live right next to that field, as it was a field a little more far away from our house..

Other than that not much going on. I drove Brian to the Hockenheim Ring this morning, even though it's constantly raining. I already called him and he said, that they haven't started anything so far, because the rain won't stop and their power dryers don't get to keep it dry. So he's very happy that he took his book with him, at least he won't get bored. But I'm really hoping that he'll get to see anyting today. It would really be a waste of money and time, sitting there all day in the rain. He has awsome seats though, he said. And the big show (with night show and stuff) is going on tomorrow, so today won't be too bad.

Lucas and I are keeping everything on the low today. I'm planning on going to the Hockenheim Center to look for some shoes for him. My dad gave me some money to buy his birthday gift, as they are on holidays now. And he said to buy him some walking shoes. I already know extactly what brand, I just don't know if they have them there. But we'll see.

Oh yeah, yesterday was nice as well. We went over for coffee and cake for Marius' birthday. Lucas got to play a little in the backyard and the neighbour's kids even borrowed him a swing thingy. Then around 6 pm we went to one of my favorite restaurants called YanYan. It's a mongolian restaurant, but they ahve all kinds of Asian food. It was very yummie and Lucas tried a couple things as well.

Bouncing along


My brother Daniel


The Birthday Kid


He just wouldn't let me take a good pic


Playing ball with Grandpa

Chinese???

Well the past two days have been kinda boring, but also went by pretty fast.

Yesterday we went over to my parent's house after lunch. Lucas took his nap there and I was watching the Olympic Games with my brother and cousin, since that's what they were watching. After one and a half hours I woke up Lucas, because he never sleeps that long and wanted him to sleep good at night still. He woke up, happy as always and started talking. These past couple weeks he started talking like a waterfall and he's always very serious about that. It's just so funny, because the sounds he makes sound totally Chinese.. he goes like "diiiiiiiidoooooo" with a very funny pronunciation when he sees something and shows with his finger. All these sounds, sound like a Chinese karate movie. But he's also going like 'cht' (which sounds German) or he sometimes goes like rawwrararaw )which sounds English. I'm wondering when he'll say his first word or something like a word for something.
He also got very good in standing by himself. Sometimes he doesn't notice himself that he's not holding himself and then when he realises, he lets himself fall on his butt. He hardly crawls anymore. As long as he has lots of things he can get a hold of, he just walks around on them. He pulls himself up on straight surfaces too, like windows, walls and whatsoever.... But you never know when kids finally start walking.... my middle brother never even bothered crawling and just stood up one day and walked.... so I guess it's not just about getting a routine in standing up and stuff.... some kids just have to have the courage to try it by themselves I guess.
Anyways, talking about yesterday. I went to the hairdresser around three pm and it took about two hours. Not because my hair took so long though... My hairdresser didn't have any customers in and was kinda bored I guess... so she talked for hours. It was nice though.

Today I was planning on staying home all day. But after lunch I got a little bored. I already cleaned the whole house and evern did the windows and stuff. So while Lucas took his nap, I decided that I was going to visit my parents again after my trip to DM and Aldi for some coffee. So I went there for coffee and my Dad had his old video cam out. We watched some movies of when my little brother was Lucas' age and it was just too funny.

So now here I am, waiting on my sweet husband to come back home from work... It's already 8.21 pm and he's not back. His cell is off due to his battery, so I don't even know when he'll get here.

Lucas and his pool

Have you ever seen a kid loving its' pool more than him? I can tell you, he loves it sooooo much. Whenever the balcony door is open he crawls as fast as he can and climbs inside, with water or empty. He doesn't care. He just loves to be in it. We were already joking, that he could sleep out there... ;-)

What's going on this week?

That's what our little rugrat is doing all day long, whenever we are at home and he gets bored.

What's going on this week?

... not much to be true... At least not much that I know of, as of right now. Today I planned on staying home. It's a little boring right now, Lucas' girlfriend and her mommy are in Poland right now, visiting family. And we usually meet up about once or twice a week. Then I usually visit my family very often, but I figured I should give them a day off, today... hahah By the way, they will be going on vacation this week for about two and a half weeks.... That's going to be the most boring time ever, with them gone.... They will go to Mallorca with their friends. At least my brother Daniel is staying home and he's even going to do some of my dad's businness while he's gone.... let's hope he won't ruin things... (oh did I say that?!?, just kidding)

All I'm going to do today is take a quick trip to Real for groceries. Lucas always wants to get out of the house, so I'll take him there. (YAY). Then I'm going to cook dinner and that's practically it.

Tomorrow I'll finally get my hair cut again. Haven't gotten one since May and my hair is short, so I need that now. I'm also going to get some more highlights in. Lucas will stay with my mom then.

Wednesday, I don't have any plans... Any ideas??? Oh yeah wait... I need to get a present for my brother Marius... He'll turn 16 years old and I haven't got a clue what to get. I got him books the past two years, but he's not really reading much anymore... All he's into right now is his online game and then he meets up with his friends every once in a while... PLEASE I'd appreciate any single idea of what to get him!!!

Thursday is my brother's birthday. So we're going to spend most of the day there for coffee and cake in the afternoon and then for supper we will be going to a Mongolian restaurant (YUMMIE)

Friday I'm planning on visiting a friend that I met online. She's living on post in Heidelberg with her two little kids, so I"m hoping that I get to do that.

Brian will go to the Nitrolympics (hope I spelled that right) from Friday till Sunday. I got him the tickets last year and he loved it, so he got himself tickets for this year as well. Just that this year he'll be going by himself. He couldn't find anybody as interested as he is, to join him. But he'll be fine.

The weekend

Okay, so the past couple days I didn't post any new blogs, because we were busy doing this and that.

Brian worked a 24 hrs shift from Thursday morning till Friday morning, so he slept most of the day on Friday. Lucas and I didn't do much, other than the normal housework and visiting grandma and grandpa after a trip to the drug store.

Saturday was the big night for Brian and myself. For those of you who didn't know, I told Brian that I would invite him to a restaurant and then we could do whatever he wanted to, for his birthday. The clue was, that we would be child free, as my parents watched Lucas over night. It was a pretty tough decision for me, because I have never been seperated from Lucas more than a couple of hours, needless to say a whole night.
So we dropped little man off in the late afternoon and Brian and I went to the PX right away. We decided that we were going to buy a couple DVDs and watch those after the restaurant, since there wasn't any nice movie on that we wanted to watch in the theater and we weren't really in the mood for a bar or anything like that. So after the PX we went downtown Heidelberg to one of our favorite Italian restaurants. We had a nice and big dinner and some ice cream afterwards. Then we went back home. Of course I couldn't resist calling my mom, to see how Lucas was doing. I called exactly the right time.... sleeping time... and he was balling his eyes out. I already felt bad and was on the verge to get him. But then I thought no.... he should learn to stay at their house and also it was supposed to be a nice ngiht for us. So we started watching the movies, drank a little and talked. After the movies I had a down time again,.... after walking by his empty room I just realised how much I missed him.
I really wanted to sleep in this morning, but just wasn't able to. First time I woke up by 6 am, felt back asleep and woke up again a couple minutes to eight. That's when I called again and got up. I cleaned and relaxed a little and went to get Lucas around noon. So now we are back and it's so nice to have our little monster back in the house. I know sometimes I wished I could have an hour or so like it was without kids, just for the feeling and to relax. But now that I know how hard it is, not to have him here, I prefer having him around us. It's like a big part of us is missing.

What's new???

Okay, I already spend about ten minutes to write this, but it didn't save correctly, so one more time ;-)

Not that many news in our life as of the moment. We are still doint lots of different things to prepare for that deployment. The way it sounds, Brian will have to leave the first week of September, which kind of sucks, as he will miss Lucas' birthday. But I don't want to bitch too loud, at least we had about a month longer. His foot is doing a lot better though.

As for Lucas, he is into EVERYTHING and I can't even leave him by himself for one minute. For some reason all those things mommy says no to, are even more appealing... Things like pulling the hay out of Hazel's cage or just putting a finger in there, putting the dirt out of the flower pots, playing with cords, eating anything that he finds on the floor, pushing any keys he can find, pulling himself up on anything he can find, and so many more things. It's okay though. I'm glad that he his such a mobile kid and he has to much fun in doing things. And I still get to manage all the housework besides watching him, so it's all good.
I'm just a little sleep deprived that the moment.... Lucas loves to wake up with his daddy, which is 5 am.... He's been doing that for two weeks or so now... It doesn't even help to put him to bed an hour later... it's like he has an inner clock. So I have to get up the same time of course... otherwise he jumps off the bed himself and then he checks out anything he finds or the other day he even crawled real fast and crawled out the door with Brian.... hahah
At least he goes to bed a lot easier now. I finally came to realise that I shouldn't sit right next to his bed until he falls asleep. About a week ago I found out it got too exhausting and is so much easier doing it the normal way. Also I think he's old enough to learn that now. Of course he still crying when I put him to bed without rocking him. But we check on him every minute or so and after about ten minutes he falls asleep. He doesn't wake up again too many times during the night. Maybe once, which is good.

So other than that I don't know any news.... I better get some other things done before Lucas wakes up from his afternoon nap. I want to mop the floors and then if Lucas lets me, I'd like to bake some things. I found a recipe for 'suesse Broetchen' (basically sweet bagels without the whole...) for kids his age. He loves bread, so I thought that would be a nice things to make. Also I have three ripe bananas, which I want to use for banana bread. Let's hope I'll get to do all that.

New to this....

So I've been wanting to set up this kinds of a blog thingy for a long time already. I saw some friends' blogs and loved the idea. I finally made it here, but I'm still new to this, so don't bother this blank page yet... It's still in the working and I'm hoping to figure everything out soon, as well as having time to do so. I want to set this up, so Brian can read everything that's going on in my life as well as Lucas', while he is deployed. But also for his family to keep track of our life. I hope that you guys like it!!!

I thought about it for a long time and I will keep this in English, as it's mainly for English readers and all of the German readers know English, so this will keep it easy on all of you.