Honey

Oskar had been coughing for a couple of days. Nothing serious but somehow getting worse every day. When fever came into the picture together with sleepless nights because of the cough, we took him to the doctor.

Of course, it was a holiday in Germany leaving us with the ER. It would not be a complete trip to Germany without a visit to the ER.

The doctor probably thought we were clueless parents rushing to the doctor to the first signs of a cold. While it is true that we are not used to Oskar  having colds because it is hard to catch one in Singapore, we were more worried about the baptism the following day. Ideally we wanted to have a happy healthy child and not a sick one.

Doctor dismissed us with the good news that it was just cold and that we could manage the fever with paracetamol. And for the cough: honey. We had tried honey the night before but Oskar didn't like it. So I asked, what if he won't eat honey on a spoon. Answer from the doctor: put it on bread. He was barely eating any solid food so surely puting honey on bread will make it easier.

Nevertheless, two days later, Oskar was worse: had not slept at night except when carried by us, was coughing like hell, started a runny nose and had 39.9 fever. We were exhausted and went back to the doctor. This time it was Monday so  we visited Fabian's pediatrician. He confirmed that it was only a cold - did not get to the lungs or ears which was good because we were flying the next day - and gave ibuprofen to help with the fever as well as some syrup for the slime in the throat. He did say that it would take 5 to 10 days to overcome the cold and that fever could last 5 to 7 days. The good news was that we had survived already 5 days. 

And indeed, the same night, doped with all the good drugs, Oskar slept 6 hours in a row (and so did we!). The next day was a festival of disgusting runny nose moments which of course he would prefer to rub on your clothes instead of a tissue. But fever had broke down. Not fully gone but significantly better. Oskar slept a lot throughout the day and we are hopeful that he will sleep through the night (and so will we!).

Keep your fingers crossed and have a teaspoon of honey thinking of us!

 

Originale Wiener Schnitzel

To close a week of celebration, we were all invited by my parents to the Schiff restaurant in Aldingen.

We all enjoyed a broad selection of local specialties. Well except for those who decided to go for the original Wiener Schnitzel.

Portion was huge so Wolfram had to jump in but it was really good. 

Oskar and a mouse

German white sausage and bretzel

For a truly German lunch :)

Snow!

It's snowing. We did not have a white Christmas but we will have a white baptism !

Oskar's baptism

Oskar was baptized on December 27th, just after Christmas in Aldingen.

The grandparents were there.

The two fairy godmothers travelled from Paris and San Jose respectively.

Oskar was there dressed up for the occasion.

(Thanks Alex for the pictures)

Christian and Wolfram had organized the ceremony with the pastor Volker, a friend of the family.

At 4pm we were all gathered in the church and Oskar was exploring the place. At least until the organ started playing which scared our little guy.

Ceremony was in German but Wolfram had foreseen that the booklet would have French translation when possible. This lead to funny singing with the Germans singing in German and the French singing in French. It probably sounded dreadful but somehow it was beautiful to me to have us all singing "together".

We were also lucky that Oskar did not cry  when he was baptized. I think he was more focused on getting his comb into the water than paying attention to what was happening to him.
Yann kindly accepted to record the moment and after quick editing by Wolfram (a million time faster than if it had been done by me), video is available on our shared album about Oskar.

Now Oskar can go on live his life with the protection of god and a blessed comb. 

All I want for Christmas is...

... sleep :)

First week was jetlag.

Second week was teething.

Third week is a cold.

I can only hope that week four with bring complete nights again. 

Joyeux Noël - Frohe Weihnachten

Merry Christ to everyone!

I hope you are as fortunate as me to be surrounded with people you love on this day.

A BIG THANK YOU to Christa and Christian who accepted the challenge to host the crazy family this year :)

Porsche Museum

There are two car museums in Stuttgart: the Mercedes one and the Porsche one. We visited the Mercedes museum in one of my first visits in Stuttgart so this time we planned with my parents to go to the Porsche museum.

Local people say it's not as good as the Mercedes one which is true to some extent. Mercedes museum is about Mercedes cars of course but also show the whole car history so you learn about both. Porsche museum is only about Porsche so if you don't like Porsche, indeed you won't like the museum. But if you like Porsche (like me), it's quite a nice museum to visit and learn about Porsche. 

Boys being boys, Oskar was eagerly trying to touch the cars in display starting with a firetruck and later with a beetle.

Did you know that Ferdinand Porsche designed the very first Beetle car? I did not. It was actually the beginning of a collaboration between Porsche and Volkswagen that gave several other "compact" or "sport" cars. If I dare to say so, they were not as successful as the Beetle.

The museum presented a collection of the different Porsche models through the years. It was interesting to see that the design of Porsche only evolved a little bit over the years. We were also surprised to see a tractor from Porsche. Must have been the fastest one in the fields.

Apparently even the police in Germany was driving Porsche cars. Lucky them.

After the movie Cars, the engineers of Porsche modified an existing car to create a real version of Sally Carrera.

Pink pig: one Porsche got a funny paint job. I thought it was advertisement for a pork butcher but I was wrong. The design engineers identified the different parts of the car like butchers do for pork. 

Porsche workshop:

Porsche family:

And happy new Porsche driver:

Random shots from a week at home

It went too fast as usual, so fast we realized last night we forgot to eat crab :)
Here is a random selection of pictures I took during the week.

1er foie gras de la saison

First one of the Christmas season.

First one of many :)

My Yaris is fantastic

My Dad always says that his Yaris is fantastic. Once again it surprised us by fitting all three of us plus Oskar.

It was a bit packed but manageable for a short distance.

Crêpes

Last night on the way back from shopping I quickly stopped by the Crêperie de Coataudon to buy some freshly made crepes.

I bought two dozens.

By the time we got home, a few had disappeared in the car. No idea what happened there.

After dinner, a significant number of them went missing. They are so good you can just eat them plain. No need to add anything.

This morning, there were only six left and after breakfast they were gone.

Those crepes disappear so fast we did not even get a chance to take a picture.

We have to go back and buy some more for the pictures :)

Tree holder

And there was light

It started with the wish to have christmas decoration outside. My Dad came up with one set that is powered by sunlight.

Today around lunch time the two men of the house went outside to decorate the outdoor tree. 

After some serious thinking, the lights were set and the tree ready for the night.

Now all we need is some sunlight which is going to be challenging given it's raining.

Night update: no light on the tree :( 

It did rain pretty hard the rest of the day. 

One week later, Wolfram figured out that there was a switch button. Once "on", the tree was shining through the night :)

Waiting for their grandson

My parents got everything ready for Oskar's visit: the baby cot in my former bedroom, a changing table and even a table and toys to play with. 

Most likely these toys are as old as me but that's really sweet to have kept them for the next generation.

And what will be Oskar's first bike :)

5 days

It took five days for Oskar to adjust to the time difference. Finally last night he slept the whole night and today we had a happy baby who was very patient while we toured our former office and enjoyed decorating the tree at Alice's.

Happy baby, happy parents :)

The biggest switch ever

Alice's new house was built in the 70s. Most of the house has been renovated except for the guest room where we sleep and the toilet on the first floor.

Thanks to this we had the chance to see what must be the biggest switch ever.

Still wondering who needed such a big switch.

Cranky cranky cranky

There are most likely too many changes at ones and Oskar is struggling to adjust.

A combination of jetlag, unknown places and people is giving us an exhausted baby who is very cranky, cries every five minutes for anything, wants to be carried most of the time and cherry on the cake does not want to sleep in the sleeping bag. 

Did I mention he entered the phase where Maman is everything?

I know it's all for good in the end as he needs to learn to adjust but when it's not highly annoying, it is heart breaking. Let's hope it will get better soon.

A visit to Tante Anna

Tante Anna is my aunt who lives in Belgium. As we were in the country we grabbed the opportunity to visit her. 

As usual there was a great roast beef (Belgian beef please) waiting for us, topped up with her home made waffles (which recipe we all want to get) and plenty of gifts for Oskar. He received an owl that my aunt knitted and a music box.

We all had a good time and it was great to see her and hear her stories about her recent trip to the us... the first one in maybe 30 years!

For those who wonder, the toilets are still outside and going there in the winter is quite a challenge. But a visit to my aunt's would not be complete without a visit to the legendary toilets across the yard from the farm. 

And yes, these are Oskar's new shoes. Still learning how to walk with them but making huge progress every step.

Layers

It's cold in Chantilly. Technically it's winter so such cold temperature is to be expected but when you leave in Singapore you tend to forget what cold really is. People in Singapore do say that it's cold when the temperature "drops" to 24C.

The three of us are cold. It will take a few days for my body to remember how to deal with cold temperatures. But for Oskar, it's only his second winter so it is very likely that he will get sick. In a desperate attempt to avoid this, we are wrapping our little boy in as many layers as possible of clothes. I don't think Oskar has ever worn so many clothes at once.

Jet lag

We were lucky enough that Oskar slept until 3:20 this morning. By 4am he was wide awake and so were we. 

4am is the best time to start repainting the walls.

7-14-3

7 hours delay for our flight to Paris. At least we found out on Friday morning so we could sleep a bit at home instead of waiting at the airport

14 long hours in the plane because Oskar only slept 3 hours in total: 2 hours at the beginning and 1 at the end.

This was the longest flight ever. We must have checked a hundred times how much time was left until Paris.

When Oskar was not sleeping, he was walking, climbing the seat up and down (we were lucky to have a free seat next to us so we enjoyed the additional space), and in our arms so he could see what was happening.

I don't think I ever spent so much time in the kitchen area in a plane before.

This said for the first time I saw the amazing landscape of the desert in Saudi Arabia or the coast line of Greece.

Getting ready

Less than a week to go before we fly to Paris and packing is already half way done. 

First time ever I have so many things packed in advance but let's face it there won't be time during the week.

The other half will have to be packed on Friday night. It's a good thing the flight is at 1am. 

Perfect husband

I have this cup from starbucks with Christmas decoration on it. I bought it several years ago in the US and have been using it every year at Christmas time. 

Last week it fell from my cabinet as I was getting it. Luckily the inside container was not broken so with tape we fixed it so I could still use it. At least this year. 

Today I received a gift from Wolfram.

Yes that's the same cup as before with just a bit more glitter but the two polar bear are there.

Wolfram has been checking every day at starbucks to find a replacement.

If that's not a perfect husband, I don't know what it is.

Fall in Singapore ?

We've had a very rainy week with cooler temperature. Singaporeans say it's the winter season in Singapore. 

They might be right. I just spotted mushrooms growing near a tree and there are reports of giant mushrooms appearing after the heavy rain.

Just missing trees changing color and we can call it fall.

This and temperature dropping :)

Mamma Mia, here I go again!

Following what seems to be our new trend of one show per month, November brought to us Mamma Mia. 

Yes that's the Abba show from which you probably know all the songs by now. We certainly did. Well except two of them.

We had seen the movie which was so so. Wolfram had concern that the musical would be very "Abba" and not better than the movie. I was hoping for a good show full of Abba songs and I was not disappointed.

The musical is a million time better than the movie. The cast really acted the story out and even if sometimes the songs are a bit forced into the story, it was good fun and great entertainment.

Cherry on the cake, Wolfram got us really good seats close from the stage. This time we could see everything comfortably:)

Now the challenge will be not to hear Abba songs in my head for the coming days. It's not going to be easy given I have Mamma Mia in my head already.

Mamma Mia, here I go again...

Almost time

It's almost time for our Europe tour to start. Only three weeks to go until we are reunited with our families, friends and the cold. 
Weather is kindly helping us getting ready. Today it rained all day long and it reminded of rainy Sundays in Belgium where you spend the whole day hiding inside. Except it was still 28C :) 

More seriously, the coming three weeks are going to be intense. Lots of work and packing ahead of us. And cherry on the cake for our last week in the office: an open house event for Wolfram and a director's visit for me.

We will make it to the plane for sure. Fingers crossed we won't forget anything critical for Oskar. 

Counting down the days!

New office uniform?

Seems Rhona and I were inspired the same way on Monday morning: black outfit, red shoes!

One more down

I killed another hard disk this week. It's the third one in two years.

It peacefully died on Wednesday night causing the loss of the presentation I had just finished. While this is extremely annoying as I had to rewrite the whole presentation, I was very lucky that apart from the three files that were open at that moment, everything else was saved safely in my box somewhere in the cloud. 

It took two days to get me a new hard disk installed and another day to download everything from the box. It may feel long, it's nothing compare to the seven days from the recovery company. Not only would they charge me 2500SGD for the recovery but on top it would take a week. They could do it faster but they charge extra for that. It seems that's one profitable business. Sadly for them my data were backed up in my box.

The funny part of this story is that on Friday night I received an email informing me that I was eligible for a PC trade up. It would have been smarter, maybe, to give me a new PC right away. But that's assuming that all those systems are connected to each others :)

Team work

When it's time to go to the pool and it takes to long to inflate the rubber ring, Oskar immediately jumped in to help his father.

This is the beginning of the father and son team :)

Time

I had asked for time for my birthday and among all the time gifts I received from Wolfram was a massage vouncher.

Today I finally found the time to go.

I might have fallen asleep at some point.

I surely have sore muscles in the shoulders.

I definitely enjoyed the break.

Thanks Wolfram! (on track for best husband ever)

Mariah Carey still has it

PAfter J-Lo concert at the formula one, I was in the mood for concert and I convinced Wolfram to go to the one of Mariah Carey in the brand new National Stadium. Not that I am a big fan of her but opportunities to see international artists are limited in Singapore so better grab what we can.

It started bad when we realized that the set up of the stage and sitting was not as showed on the website. We had picked seats in category 2 with a decent view on the stage. When we arrived we realized that the stage was much closer than shown and consequently we could barely see anything.

Luckily there were empty seats here and there so when spent the first 20min of the show hoping around until we had better seats and no one claiming them.

We were still far away but close enough to see her on the stage. 

And she was surprisingly good. Maybe we had particularly low expectations after J-Lo, maybe we had no idea how Mariah Carey is live but we were both positively surprised.

True she gained weight and does not do much dancing on stage. She never was really a good dancer anyway. But she still has her voice and she can really sing high. When she does it live it's really impressive.

It was also great to see all the fans going nuts at the first notes of her big hits. I only knew the old ones I have to confess.

Fundamentally she and her musicians had fun on stage and as a consequence the audience had a great show.

So well done Mariah and thank you for making our Friday night out memorable.

Milestone follow-up

It seems that Oskar is getting used to going to sleep by himself. 

Three nights and two rounds of naps later, it takes him about 30min of turning around in the bed until he falls asleep. That's way more than we could have dreamed. We were ready for tears and hours of drama. Our little boy surprised his parents by making it super easy.

Our son is great! 

Totally unbiased assessment obviously :)

Milestone

After one year and a bit more of walking / bouncing / rocking Oskar to sleep, tonight I put him down, sat next to the cot and waited.

There was heart breaking crying and two little hands reaching out to be carried but I hold strong. Surprisingly this lasted only 10 minutes or so.

It was followed by Oskar playing in his bed, talking, turning around, trying to find a good position, putting his feet through the bars, etc. 

After 45 minutes, Wolfram took over and patiently waited.

It took an hour and a half, but Oskar eventually fell asleep by himself!

Yes, our little boy is growing and is now learning to fall asleep by himself.

Soon he will leave for university, I can already feel it :)

Is this spring cleaning?

Is this spring cleaning? Asked Tess as we started to empty our wardrobe to clean it and sort all the clothes.

Obviously not because we are in October :)

To some extent yes because we have decide to clean the whole house to eliminate all the black dust that comes from the outside (thank you pollution and haze) and to sort our belongings as we need space for all the new toys that Oskar received at his birthday.

We will go slow: one room every weekend starting with our bedroom.

Hopefully by the time we are ready to go on vacation, the house will be sparkling clean making it harder for mould to grow and we will have some space in our cabinets so we can store all the toys and maybe some left for the upcoming Christmas gifts.

Catch me if you can