Keks Nummer 4

For a video of Tara's purple adventure, click here!

Der vierte Keks bröselte schneller als die vorigen, trieb Tara die Tränen in die Augen, und ein bischen würgen musste sie auch, die Gute.
Jose guckt mich scharf an, und sagt, als ob der Blick nicht schon alles gesagt hätte: "Dir ist ja wohl klar, was das heißt!" Natürlich ist mir klar, was das heißt, der Mann hat schließlich drei einhalb Kekse lang Erstickungsgefahr gepredigt. "Ja, Papi," sage ich also kleinlaut. "Keine leckeren Mondkekse mehr bis sie 9 Monate alt ist." Und zack stehen die leckeren teuren Kekse auf Joses Schreibtisch.


Aber nachdem Tara ja nun schon über die letzten Wochen fleißig Tischmanieren geübt hat und wenigstens schon ganz gut im Umgang mit Tellern ist, darf sie sich dafür an ihr erstes Gläschen machen, Bio Blaubeer Vanille Brulee von der schicken irischen Marke Kuh & Gatter (warum die wohl in Deutschland nicht bekannt sind?).

Und wie bei allem, was man sich in den Mund stecken kann - und das wäre also... ALLES - kennt ihr Enthusiasmus keine Grenzen, man könnte fast meinen, sie hätte ihre neue Leib- und Magenspeise entdeckt! (Das testen wir dann morgen mit dem nächsten Gläschen ab, ein viel versprechender gelblicher Kürbismusch.)



Dass der Löffel im Mamas Hand gehört, lernen wir noch, aber die Masse von Mush kam doch im Mund an (anklicken um ein Video zu sehen). Hmmmm... lecker! Andererseits hat sie im Anschluss mit dem gleichen Appetit ein Taschentuch und zwei Milchbusen verspeist und danach die Schokopappe in Angriff genommen. So genau weiß man das also nicht.




PS.: Brei in Jackenfarbe - clever, was?

Sandwich de 4500 personas!!

Hola, que taaal? Debido a los recientes acontecimientos, me han "sugerido" hacer un blog en español (Sorry about that! English readers, Alex will post something really cute tonight. By the way, THANK YOU to everybody who texted Alex this afternoon).
Lo siento por lo de las fotos pero hasta que Alex no ponga la "exclusiva" del primer potito de Tara, no hay nakacer. Como habran leido mas abajo, hemos estado muy liados especielmente un servidor, que entre la Tesis, buscar curro, cambiar pañales, y otros que haceres domesticos, no he tenido mucho tiempo ni ganas para estar por aqui.


Sin embargo, mas abajo habran leido tambien que ayer estaba yo de entrevista currelar y nervios en general. Y esta es la gracia, los señores del "Discovery Chemistry Team" de Pfizer me han dado el curro. Asi que a partir del 26F, pasare de cambiar pañales a diseñar farmacos en Sandwich, no el de comer si no uno que esta en Kent (ques una provincia mupijika al sureste de Londres). Y es que hay que hacer de to en la vida. La tesis esta tambien macoca, asi que para Marzo o asi deberia ser el Dr Vidal. Otra etiqueta de Anis del Mono en mi CV. Aunque la mejor noticia es que Tara ya se sienta solica!!!! Bueno, les voy dejando que tengo que pensar que voy a hacer de cena. Hasta la proxima.

A Biscuit A Day...

... keeps the doctor away? But whoever made such funny claims! Or was it that a doctor a day keeps the biscuit away? At any rate, while daddy is off into the wide wide world to brave job interviews of the chemical kind, mummy has cleverly caught a cold to keep her company, wheez wheez cough cough sniffle. Tara is most fascinated by my nose blowing and roaring coughing, and comments the procedure with cheerful screeches. How exciting it is to live on bed island, surrounded by ever growing shoals of tissue sharks! We eventually swim down the stairs to raid the fridge, and Tara, showing no sings of having caught my cold, energetically tries to throw herself off every seat I place her on. Good girl!

Biscuit No. One

Hey diddle diddle, now Tara will fiddle
with bisquits the shape of a moon!
And mummy just laughs to see such sport;
will daddy get used to mess soon? (he better had!)


For her first half-birthday, Tara has a box of moon shaped biscuits, a packet of baby rice, and two jars of stage 1 food. Wrapping materials separate, but the biscuit rules supreme. She will also have another blog entry when she tires of clamoring for repetitions of The Standing Game, which features mummy as a key player in the role of pick-me-up, and after mummy has called the organix food people to enquire what they were thinking, putting "from 9 months on" on such delicious cookies.

THE STANDING GAME


PS: No, Tara, you don't get to play The Computer Keyboard Game, mummy plays that alone!

Routine - yeah, right!

With an eye on the calendar and a fat scary entry on 12. Feb. - "return to work" - we are trying trying trying to get a routine going that will make life, well, possible, on and after that date.
Here's what's most scary about it:
Mummy will have to get up regularly and early. Sounds scary to you? Sound near-impossible to me! Why not continue cuddling Tara in bed every morning until my little Miss Gorgeous decides to wake up? Now, THAT sounds good to me! She is so warm, so beautiful, so cuddly, and unless she's been puking her head off overnight, or hasn't had a bath in weeks, she smells sooo good too. I love wrapping round her and watching her sleep as I drift in and out of sleep myself, half busy adoring my baby, half busy dreaming up interesting alterate lives, and not getting up until it suits me. - Jose, for those who don't know, has been chucked out of our bed and sleeps on the floor. On a mattress, of course. There, here can indulge his horrible habits of HoggingTheBlankets, RollingOverCarelessly, and TakingUpSpaceInGeneral. He sleeps much sounder and better than I do. My sleep is sweeter and longer. Tara just sleeps as and when she wants. Or doesn't, which must change.
So for once I've not only bought a book, The No-Cry Sleep Solution, but also read it. It's full of good advice, most of which I'm not yet ready to try (what do you mean, pluck my babe off the breast she so likes and so likes to fall asleep with!), but as every other anything about kids and sleep, it preaches routine, routine, routine. So I made a beautiful plan, which read like this:
6.30 - 7pm quite play time (daddy?)
7 - 7.20pm bath (mummy/daddy?)
7.20 - 7.40pm massage naked baby (mummy loves massages so surely baby does too), play nice classical music as auditory sleep-time cue (mummy/daddy?)
7.40pm stick baby on nipple, sing good night song as another definate sleep time cue, baby to fall asleep peacefully, fall off nipple full satified and deep asleep, mummy free to go and get on with her newly acquired adult evening life.
It worked for a day. Tara must have been tired. The next time round she woke after a 30 minute nap, commenced staring at random sources of light, then commenced cooing, had a little puke and would still have the nipple back, thank you, but would not doze back off. So we began to understand Tara's interpretation of her new night time routine as it emerged over the next few days:
Some time after 6pm playtime with daddy. Daddy is Spanish and therefore has no concept of 'quiet'. Lots of shrieking.
Some time after that: Bath with mummy (daddy scared of drowning baby in tummy tub). Tara refuses to sit down in her tummy tub, makes a splash or two, holds on to the rim and finally chooses to try and eat it. Mummy forgets to wash under smelly armpit but never mind, this is about routine, not cleanliness.
Then: Massage of naked baby. Music playing. Start with feet. Baby pulls feet to mouth and licks off oil. Not good. Baby pees. Not good either but anticipated. Baby has a great time being naked sucking oily toes, so we stretch massage time a bit until, oops, we're too tired to change into pyjamas. Nappy - underwear - pyjama - sleeping bag - howling commences while putting nappy on. Howling stops as we lie down and get the boobies out. By now we're in bed and Jose is downstairs. Classical music still plays, I can't reach the player to switch it off, nonetheless have a go at our good night song, but go horrible off as I'm distracted by the persistent classical background. Tara doesn't mind and falls asleep.
I try to unpluck nipple to break free. Tara opens eyes and mouth and won't have any of it.
Try to break free again, Tara opens eyes and mouth and just waits patiently to have her nipple returned. Finally falls off. Mummy sneaks downstairs.
Tara wakes after a nap and I'm convinced she was convinced that coming back downstairs to hang out on the sofa with mum and dad to about midnight was part of the routine. It wasn't.

We've made progress since and have now worked out that Tara is able to stay in bed for 12 hours if I stay with her and present her with milky nipple at crucial wake up points, or come running the second she makes a sound if I do decide to sneak down. Unfortunatly those 12 hours are not consistent with office/work-life get up times yet, at all. 9/10pm to 9/10am is our speciality. Try for 7-7 or 8-7 and you're facing the nap situation with generous sofa time before midnight. It's due to the day time nap routine which is a difficult trick too. But we're getting there I think. Hope. Pray. The calendar definately IS getting there.

Back Home

Back home, hurray, to a phone that is not working as it should, a scratch on the rental car (who put that ugly bolder there?!) that was not fully insured, an electricity bill for GBP 360 GBP for the old flat (but WHY did they never ever issue any bills before?! Or rather, why start now? You’d think BT were issuing electricity bills now too.), and because that went down so well, yet another electricity bill for GBP 500 for the new flat, roughly for the last three years. Other than that, an empty apartment, a cupboard full of German goodies & Just Us! No friends or family, no extra pairs of arms and hands or ears for Tara-roll-over-training or chatting. What a weird feeling. A picture to prove my point:

What can you see? Tara? Exactly my point. No extra people in the pic.

But there is another point to make: What else can you see? Tara wearing delightful new clothes (while practising sitting up without falling over)? Exactly! There – one English post-Christmas delight: The SALES! And what do you do when it’s mostly just you and your daughter all day
long, most days? Exactly, you go shopping. Girly business, retail therapy for mum, retail therapy training for baby girl. I draw a line at buying lovely reasonably priced things for Tara at 84cm, or 18 months. A generous line, and we have plenty fun with it. Tara helps at Bargain hunting too: She sleeps peacefully through all perfect deals, but wakes & starts crying when mummy is about to get careless & buy things that could be cheaper still. So out the shop we rush, crying Babe & I, and rest assured the next time we return to re-raid the sales rack, said items have been reduced further, and are not only still there but also truly cheap. Thank you Tara, thank you GAP (yes, that shop again)!

Tara also kindly turns each trip into a fat burning workout by refusing to ride home in her pram. Wahwahwah pick me up! Wahwah I want to ride on YOU not in the pram wahwah! Or is it more of a weights workout, what with all the bags and Tara’s great appetite? (At any rate, looks like I should have my hair cut too.)

And while spending sprees are such good fun I’ll just ignore the electricity bill – If they really want their money I’m sure their admin team will manage a timely reminder – and buy yet another book dress top for my girl (bargains for mummy hold no charm this season). No toys though. We’ve learnt the Christmas lesson. Tara gets to play with the wrapping material. Bargain, and we’re laughing!

(Mummy: All old clothes, last haircut: 11 months ago. Tara: All new clothes. Mummy to remove Heffalump from hat, even a baby looks stupid walking about with an elephant on her forehead, which is probably why the hat didn't sell well for GBP8 (stupid price), but did at a reasonable 2.39. Bought two sets.)

Four Generations

Every now and then every other women’s magazine has articles about young mums, & then goes on to feature baby, mum, grandma, great-grandma, great-great-grandma, & perhaps yet another generation up. Amazing articles. Amazing people. Lucky lot. Or were they just fast? Anyway, we were neither fast nor are we very young, but we certainly have been lucky to be able to meet up with Tara’s great-grandma this Christmas. Notice the 84 years age gap between the two of them, with me & my mum thrown in between! Also, of course, a fine study of Mendel’s laws, & three instances of a rather dominant nose at three different points of a nose’s life circle (inherited from Tara’s maternal great-grandfather who I never met either). Tara was on her best wriggly behaviour, but of course in such a set up it’s not her mother’s job to keep her quiet, is it? That’s a grandmother’s job. Mummy & great-grandma just come along for the ride, the cake, the gossip & the photo session.

A Picture Holiday

It was ever so cold when we set out in the middle of the night but our little girl, all bundled up nicely for her first holiday, first flight, first christmas, was all warm and content, and on her best behavious. Not one wah on the plane either. What proud parents we were!


What followed was a wonderful time, full of people, friends and family, to hold Tari, and free Mummy's and Daddy's time and hands up. There were so many of them!


So what does Mummy do with free time and free hands? Put her feet up and grab a glass of wine? Exactly.


We met Martha from the other blog as well. Yes, she's real, all flesh, blood, smiles and little pats on Tara's head; not just a virtual character, weird as that seemed at first.


Positively adventurous: Tara's first proper swimming session in a posh lukewarm salt water bath. She loved it - particularly the bit where mum and dad don't want her to keep licking the salty water off her hands in case it kills her. Positively hilarious: mummy licking across her face.


The second time round Tara just caught a cold. Didn't kill her either, though. Neither did the salt water she kept insisting on licking off everything and everybody.


What follows in the build-up to the big event is a visit to the toy shop. Tara, sadly but cheaply, sleeps through it. Will she repeat that mistake in years to come?


The big day arrives (they always do). Tara assists Claudia in getting die bunten Teller ready, there are so many sweets to share out - odd, really, given the fact that mummy had been raiding the secret supplies for days on end, and her appetites are ravenous.


Presents, hurray! Santa Claus has generously shopped in Germany and Spain (See? sleeping through the toy show didn't actually do anyone any harm! It can be repeated in years to come!). At some point through the ceremony mummy realises that she has forgotten all Tara's presents upstairs, and they are not wrapped either. But never mind - all Tara really wants for Christmas is...


... the wrapping materials! Indeed - we seem to feel quite passionate about plastic bags!...

...and won't let go of our beautiful slobbery dripping wet bag whatever we do for the rest of the night (here: studying a map of the world with Opa Didi). Jingle Bells, jingle bells, plastic bags are great!


Aaaawww... I think all we want for Christmas is a new baby every year. So cuddle, so cosy, are they collectible?

Now, a few days after the event, and mummy has successfully raided all the bunte Teller. We need new sweet supplies - and what else could we want but more and more and more banana cake still? So banana cake it is! Just perfect when you're working so hard at rolling over with Kerstin down south.


All good things end (they always do). So back home we go, and little Christmas mouse Tara does come with us, a fully experienced travel baby now. And see the new plastic bag? Mum and dad have leart a trick or two about entertaining baby when friends and family are not around to help.

... and a happy New Year!

Tara sagt sich sicherlich: Was, Opa Didi, Sekt für mich? Nee, du, Mama sagt, das ist noch nix für mich. Gib das Glas lieber an meinen Papi weiter. Ich nehme dafür den Korken, an dem kann man bestimmt ganz toll lutschen und kauen!

Tara sagt sich sicherlich: Hmmmm, ein bischen komisch schmeckt der schon...

Tara sagt sich sicherlich: Neineinein!!! Ich will meinen Korken wieder haben! Gebt mir meinen Korken wieder! Onkel Derek sagt auch, Korken sind gut für mich und machen lustig!

Tara sagt sich sicherlich: Na also. Geht doch. Lecker Korken.
Und Jose sagt: Alex, trink du doch ruhig den Sekt aus.

Ein frohes neues Jahr für euch alle! Feliz ano nuevo!

PS.: A happy & successful new year also to all employees of BT, British Telecom, in India and England who want to learn to administer calls and connection problems more efficiently this year. Good luck in particular with lesson one, ‘I do call a customer back when I say I would,’ and lesson two, ‘What to do with a line re-/connection order (do not bin it, do not throw it behind your desk – just place it).’