Half a year ago today, our little boy swam into our world. And he’s been nothing but a joy ever since.

Seriously, Sebastian is the most laid back, jovial, low-maintenance kid we could have ever hoped for. I’m not saying that he never gives us any trouble but, if he does, it’s usually due to an easily solvable request and all is soon well once again with the universe. What I am saying is that his current disposition is a welcome complement to Emily’s frenetic lifestyle.

What does Sebastian enjoy doing in his free time these days? Well, he’s all about rolling and smiling at the moment. He can cover a surprising amount of distance utilizing nothing but his barrel rolls. He’s also quite fond of reaching for things and jamming them into his mouth – especially Emily’s works of art. At the same time, he is also completely content just staring at his hands. Or grabbing his feet. It’s all good.

He’s not crawling yet but he’s definitely working his way up to it. He massively enjoys raising himself to upward-facing dog position and rocking his hips from side to side. I give him another month before he’s officially crawling. If he doesn’t start walking first, that is.

Sebastian is starting to develop a fine acoustic appreciation. In addition to his newly acquired ridiculous habit of prolonged full-volume droning whenever he’s tired, Sebastian can often be found scratching various textures around the house to compare the different sounds they make.

And he looks different. Besides the new chiseled pectorals, rugged jaw, and iron brow, we think his hair might be getting a bit lighter. It’s certainly not red but it appears to have gone from a very dark brown to what Jan insists as blondish. I don’t see it. I do, however, see those baby blues slowly settling into brown.

Six months!!

Wednesday morning, at 7am, Jan quietly sneaked into Emily’s bedroom with the secret mission of pilfering her dummy (that’s a pacifier, for all you Americans). Once said dummy was retrieved from said sleeping child, a shiny new scooter was placed in the middle of her room. Unbeknownst to Emily, she had just been visited by the Dummy Fairy.

Emily has always “needed” her dummy to fall asleep at night. And recently, she has began regressing and requesting it during the day whenever she is sad or tired. With only three weeks until our trip to The States, followed immediately by her first day of school, we knew that if something was to be done, it would have to be now.

Desperate for a winning strategy, we scoured the Interwebs for tactics and techniques and “The Dummy Fairy” seemed like the loveliest one. Kind of like The Tooth Fairy. And Emily loves fairies. How could we lose?

“WHERE IS MY DUMMY?!!”
“Emily, dear, the Dummy Fairy came last night and took them.”
“I WANT MY DUMMY!!”
“But Emily, dear, you’re a big girl now.”
“NO, I’M LITTLE!! I’M LITTLE!! I’M LITTLE!! I WANT MY DUMMY!!”
“The Dummy Fairy has them.”
“I DON’T LIKE THE DUMMY FAIRY!!”
“Look. She left you a new scooter!”
“I DON’T LIKE THE SCOOTER!! I DON’T LIKE THE DUMMY FAIRY!! I WANT THE DUMMY FAIRY TO COME BACK AND TAKE THE SCOOTER!! I WANT MY DUMMY!!!!”

The first hour of her new big-girl life went on like this and was filled with streams of tears and blood-curdling shrieks, pleading for mercy or to be put out of her misery. Then she got over it, loved her scooter and rode it all day. That night was six times worse than the morning. As Jan so insightfully put it, it was as if Emily was a heroine addict, forced to go cold turkey and clawing at the walls.

Yes, going to sleep that night wasn’t easy. After hours of failed soothing and encouragement, Emily successfully negotiated her way to the living room couch where she swiftly fell soundly asleep. Without her dummy.

The next day was more or less the same, but only 63% as bad.

On Friday, Emily was able to sleep in her own bed with only minimal dummy requests.

Saturday (Day 4) was the breakthrough. Emily informed us that she would go to bed without her dummy and without crying because she was now a big girl. And she did.

Here are some pictures of our big girl. Only one more month until she turns three!!

The Savvy Traveler

The Connoisseur

Fairy Training

I just found some dusty old video footage (from three months ago) that made me smile. I’d like to post it here for posterity. But before I do, allow me to set the scene.

Jan celebrated her 40th birthday this past April. I wanted to make it special so I invited a few friends. Here’s an excerpt from the super-secret email invitation.

Hello friends,

I’m throwing a little surprise lunch tapas party this coming weekend to celebrate Jan’s 40th birthday and I know she would love to see you there. Yes, a surprise party. So don’t say anything to anyone!

Her actual birthday is this Friday the 17th. I am planning to take her out to dinner to celebrate Friday night so I hope she doesn’t expect anything for the following afternoon. As I said, the surprise party will be a lunchtime tapas event.

The plan is for everyone to arrive at the restaurant at about 13:30-13:45, and then I will arrive with an unsuspecting Jan by 14:00. There will be a lovely and varied tapas and wine menu for all (at 28 euros + IVA per adult head) and we’re even planning on organizing a little table for the kiddies with a child minder so you’ll be free to drink heavily even if you bring a little rug rat. Please try and wear a white shirt/top to the restaurant and I will try to get Jan to wear red or some other color that will really allow her to stand out in the crowd.

Here’s the video. It’s about eight minutes long and rather boring in parts so I wouldn’t be offended if you chose to give it a miss. It just brings back nice memories for me so, dammit, I’m posting it.

Points of interest:

• 0:00 – Jan and I arrive with Ed and Basia (who are in on the surprise). The story was that we were treating them to lunch to pay them back for babysitting for us the night before.
• 0:30 – Jan thinks to herself, “Why the hell do we have to carry these heavy-ass pushchairs up the stairs if the downstairs dining room is empty?”
• 1:50 – Blitzkrieg!
• 2:00 – My hand starts shaking due to the release of all my pent-up adrenaline. The shaking gets steadily worse and continues for three whole minutes.
• 2:08 – It finally hits Jan what has just happened.
• 2:33 – A little kiss tells everyone they can now form an orderly line to wish Jan a happy happy.
• 2:45 – Notice everyone in white. Well, almost everyone.
• 3:53 – I stupidly put my finger over the camera’s stupid microphone which is stupidly located on top of the stupid camera. 40 seconds.
• 4:07 – Jan starts to piece together clues that she had previously missed, like the text message from Val telling me how much a kid’s menu would cost.
• 4:44 – Sophie and I reminisce about how we saw each other just minutes earlier on the way to the restaurant but I cleverly averted Jan’s attention.
• 4:59 – Julian is the first of many to ask where Sebastian is. He was only two months old and many people had not yet met him at this point.
• 6:12 – Anna Spanner tries to avoid the camera and then apologizes for not going out to dinner with us the night before. Another camera duck at 6:52.
• 7:08 – Checking up on the birthday girl.
• 7:30 – Jan starts to tell everyone the story of what was going through her mind as we arrived.
• 7:50 – Happy birthday.

And we actually managed to get a half-decent group photo.

Wanna see the amazing photos I took while we were in England last week?

Don’t worry. I didn’t upload every single picture I took. In fact, I only uploaded about 5%. You see, I took over 900 photos but, as soon as I got home, I dutifully deleted more than half of them. And then I selected only 10% of those 400 survivors that best summarized our week in England. OK, so maybe 90% of those are of my kids, but they’re all different! Don’t you hate it when people upload 12 different versions of the same photo? I hate that!

Feel free to reread my last post to get a better idea of what’s going on in the pictures.

As always, you’ve got two ways to enjoy the photos:
Fancy-shmancy slideshow
Bog-standard Flickr set

Enjoy!

Did you know that children develop and mature at more than seven times their normal rate when on holiday visiting family in small villages in England? It’s true.

We returned home this weekend from a lovely week with Jan’s parents in the bustling metropolis that is Outwell (near Upwell). Yes, it’s a village so small that they actually use the name of another equally tiny village to help people better understand where it is. I had a very nice time doing the things we always do at Jan’s parents’ house: sleeping, eating, watching TV, entertaining the kids, and desperately trying to find a nearby village with Internet access in a feeble attempt to connect to work so that everyone believes I’m just working from home and not actually on holiday. Ha! I’m kidding. Sort of.

We almost canceled out trip before we even left home when Jan’s mum said that she wouldn’t blame us for not traveling due to the massive swine flu scare. I was not scared at all about contracting swine flu. Until I started doing some research to see why everyone was so scared. Then I got scared. But we braved the claustrophobically diseased airplanes and the bacteria-laden trains with aplomb and, for the first time ever I believe, none of us got sick while in England. Huzzah!

OK, here’s the trip in a nutshell. Everyone behaved beautifully from taxi to airport to plane to train to car to grandparents (including Jan). Emily was happy to see Granddad, very happy to see Grandma, and very very happy to see Chelsea (the cat). The weather was sun, rain, sun, sun, rain, cloudy, cloudy. Homemade meals at the Claytons’ are always delicious and coma-inducing. The backyard was fun for hide-and seek and gymnastics but interesting day trips included a giant soft playpark and a farm/petting zoo. The “award-winning” pepper corn steak pie at The “Hairy” Arms with Garry was delicious and fun, but I’m not giving out my steak pie awards until I’ve tried a few more contenders. We got to spend time with both of Jan’s sisters, albeit briefly. After searching for an Internet café for two hours, I now know Wisbech like the back of my hand. And we spent an enchanting afternoon exploring a vast wild park and stately manor.

There. Now, when I get around to posting the beautiful photos that we took in a few days, you’ll know exactly what you’re looking at. It’ll be like you were there with us.

But back to that developmental factoid I claimed back at the beginning about the kids and the brains and the seven times in the villages. Of course, it’s complete bullshit. Or is it? Both Emily and Sebastian apparently went through some sort of quantum leap while we were in England, changing so much that I almost couldn’t keep up. Sebastian began deftly rolling from back to front and front to back, covering ground across the living room floor as he did so. He started proactively searching for things in his immediate vicinity to reach for, grab, and pull towards his face to either examine more closely or dutifully insert it into his mouth. And he found his voice. In addition to his canary-like chirping laugh, Sebastian would sometimes spend upwards of 20 minutes just doing this shouting/moaning/singing thing in an attempt to fine-tune his vocal chords, knowing full well that he’ll have to debate Emily one day. And speaking of the red-headed wonder, Emily didn’t learn any new tricks per se, but she developed a sense of maturity and clarity hitherto lacking in her conversations. I get such a kick out of her attempts to put such complex ideas into words. It’s like she’s inventing the entire language as she goes. It’s a wonder to observe.

This one’s for you, GG:

I’m sorry. There was still one little Emily song left for me to post and I thoughtlessly went to England first. My bad.

So here you go. She may be short but she certainly isn’t stout.

And since you were all such good little fans, waiting patiently for the final cut from her latest album to be released, we’ve got a special little surprise for you. An extra, if you will. So curl up under you favorite blanket, ladies and gentlemen. It’s story time.

So, all of a sudden, there’s a big giant momma Winnie the Pooh. Then she screamed at mommy’s Winnie the Pooh. And then she cried. And then he cried. And they cried. And then, he wants his daddy because he likes his daddy. And then he picked him up. And then he put him back home and sleep and sleep. And then, all of a sudden, then he screamed about the shouts and then he went to sleep because her mom had tell me to get something. And then she was not feeling very well. She get some medicine. Everybody put medicine all in the mouth. And then they, all of a sudden, there’s a big giant monster. There’s a big one. And then, all of a sudden, there’s a big one. And, all of a sudden, there’s a big long dinosaur. They go away. Wash and wash. Wash and wash and wash. And now, the end.

Apparently, The Little Mermaid is a little red haired girl with insatiable curiosity who loves to sing and hangs around with a little guy named Sebastian. Sound familiar?

Here we have Emily crooning along with her favorite ballad from Disney’s The Little Mermaid.

And here is Emily rocking along with a little guidance from a mysterious off-screen figure.

It’s been five months since Emily was last in the recording studio. She recognizes the fact that her fans demand more regularly-delivered entertainment, and it is to this end that she has been dutifully rehearsing and has recently released some new smash singles. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen: we’ve got a whole new set list for your listening pleasure.

We’ve got enough new songs to fill an entire album. But again, in an attempt to draw out the fun, I’ll just post a couple of songs per day over the next few days. Keep coming back. They keep getting better!

First we’ve got a little Comin’ Round The Mountain action for you. Emily has never been able to make it through the “pink pajamas” verse without cracking up laughing. Please note the lasso on the ay ay yippee yippee ays.

Next, we revisit our beloved von Trapp family. Once she’s got the words down pat, we’ll start work on the choreography.

Finally, we’ve got the always popular John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt (who is that guy?). My favorite part is the elegant pirouette in the middle of the song before Emily finishes with her patented “La la la la la”.

So, I’m recording a Web ad for Pull&Bear this morning in a recording studio when… what is that, a helicopter? Cut! Hold on a second… OK, it’s gone. Let’s try that again.

So, I’m recording a Web ad for Pull&Bear… another helicopter? Come on! OK, let’s go again.

So, I’m recording a Web ad… for the love of God!!! Another helicopter?! What the frick?

So, we finally finish the 1-minute Web ad and look out the window to find out why there are so many darned helicopters buzzing past the recording studio and we see a throng of people gathered all around Plaza Lesseps. We head out into the plaza to find out what all the hubbub is about.

And 177 men on bikes go whizzing past us.

We cheer and they’re gone. 10 seconds. Maybe. I saw the Tour de France race through my town today. I think.

We bought them. We boiled them. We painted them. We hid them. We found them. We broke them. We ate them.

Emily and her friend Cata celebrated the most important annual religious feast in the Christian liturgical year with a lovely Easter Egg Hunt.

What’s Inside?

What a great way to celebrate a holiday that holds no personal meaning to you whatsoever. The kids (and I) loved it! Cata’s mom and dad set up the egg painting station at their house. Food dye, crayons, paint, and the experimental use of rubber bands had us occupied, fascinated, and messy for hours. Hiding the eggs in a nearby park was my favorite part of the event. Strategically hiding them under bushes, benches, and tufts of grass, while still making sure that they could be found by two-year olds strung out on sugar, was a challenge that forced me to think like a child (an experience wholly unfamiliar to me). And then the kiddies were set loose and tore the park apart in their mad dash for one-upping each other on the ever-increasing egg count. Thank goodness they ended up with the same number or it may have got messy.

It wasn’t long before each and every beautifully hand-painted egg was smashed beyond recognition. Some were eaten. Some were thrown. Some they wanted so save forever and ever – which meant that I had to be particularly sneaky when throwing them out. Luckily, I took some lovely photos of Egg Hunt 09. Would you like to see them?

As always, you’ve got two ways to enjoy the photos:
Fancy-shmancy slideshow
Bog-standard Flickr set