Faire les 100 pas (walking 100 steps)

A few days earlier I realized that I had walked more than 10 000 steps in the day. For someone who barely leaves the house, that is quite an achievement. Looking closer at my monthly tracking (thanks to the watch), it showed that I have a monthly average of 8752 steps per day.
Again this feels incredible given I am mostly home. This said I do walk a lot within the house with Thomas when I try to get him to sleep or just stop crying. Apparently all those steps are adding up quite nicely.

Now I understand why my feet hurt at the end of the day. Maybe I should wear my sport shoes :)

Life is cool at 7 weeks

Wildlife in the condo

For several days Oskar has been talking about an "orange geiko". 

Today he showed me the beast.

Quite impressive creature I have to say.

Ps: not sure it is a geiko or some sort of lizard but it's entertaining Oskar. 

Why don't they get it?

When you are tired, you sleep to get your energy back. It's simple logic that somehow babies and toddler seem not to get.

Why is it that they cry and get angry when they are tired when all they need is a bit of sleep.

Yes, it's Sunday afternoon and for the second day in a row, neither Oskar nor Thomas are willing to take their nap. 

At least Oskar is not crying anymore...

Can't wait until they outgrow this phase. 

The jungle is back!

And it is a bit tight for two :)

Nutella

Thomas didn't want to sleep tonight so I spent nearly two hours pacing in the bedroom trying to keep him quiet with more or less success. I managed to get him to sleep four times but never deep enough so he would stay asleep in the bed. By the time Wolfram was done with his night call, I was more than ready to pass the ball.

Once I got everything done and was ready for dinner, it was 22:15 and I was not in the mood for the pasta prepared by Agnes and that we're waiting for me in the kitchen. I needed comfort food so I grabbed some bread and open the cabinet to get the Nutella.

At the usual spot there was a Nutella jar with my name on it.

And a note:

It did make me smile and forget for a second that Thomas was still not asleep :)

Thanks Wolfram for this tiny moment of happiness in a long stressful evening.

Now, time for comfort food!

6 weeks already

And Thomas starts to express his creative thinking.

Sweatshop

After three years in the apartment and numerous servicing of the air conditioners, during the last one we were told that two of them needed chemical clean up. In other words, deep cleaning. In theory this should not be needed for well maintained airco but apparently it happens or we could argue that the servicing is not so good. Anyhow, we realized during the haze that those units are not cooling as good as the others. In all fairness they are the ones we use the most (our bedroom and Oskar's) so it could be that they got dirtier than the others. 

It took a lot of frustrating phone calls to set the clean up. Apparently the servicing company does not see the need to send people a proper quote for a 500$ service and would rather fix the appointment and tell you over the phone the cost. Alternatively they offered to send the cost via sms. If I have to spend 500$, I want to know for what. 

A couple of weeks ago, the technicians came to do the clean up. Before they started I asked the one in charge what exactly they would do and wanted to confirm that they would be done by noon, before Oskar comes back from school. Unlike what the lady on the phone told me (she guaranteed everything would be done in half a day), the technician explained that they had to take the units away to their workshop which will take 3-4 days. We were in the middle of the haze and totally not ready to spend several nights and days with airco. Technician apologized for the wrong information and based on his tone while he called their office, someone was in trouble. I later learnt that she no longer worked for that company. I might have got her fired...

Here we are now, the units are gone. It's 30C in the bedrooms and we are getting ready for a couple of sweaty nights.

Wish us luck and don't hesitate to send some of the cold from Europe. 

Thoughtful gift for a mum

Jonathan and Liliana visited us in Sunday. They brought gifts for Oskar and Thomas as well as one for me.

Very thoughtful gift for someone who has to pace the apartment trying to get a baby to sleep.

They also indicated that Wolfram could give me a foot massage, but something tells me it's not going to happen.  

One month old

Thomas is already one month old and growing at full speed. 

So fast that this morning I find his head bigger than yesterday :)

The Muse miracle

One night to ease the pain of the crying of Thomas, I put on a playlist of Muse on my ipad. From one ear, I had the crying. From the other one, I had music. It made the crying more manageable.

Surprisingly, Thomas fell asleep after 5 songs. 

Maybe it was a coincidence.

Maybe it was the music.

Maybe it was Muse.

Maybe it was that the music helped keeping calm.

But he fell asleep.

And so did he the following night.

And the one after.

And the one after.

I still don't know what happens but it seems to work quite well on our little guy.

Let's hope this continues. 

Madness

2 adults

2 kids

2 car seats

1 stroller

1 gigantic diaper bag with everything doubled

1 bag with swimsuit for water play

1 backpack 

1 bottle of water

No we did not move house, if you wonder. We just went to the zoo. 

And that felt like an expedition with all the things to bring. 

And no pictures because that would have been an extra bag to carry assuming I would ever get my hands free.

Life with two kids :)

Haze

For more than a month now we have been experiencing haze in Singapore. Most days we have to limit our outdoor activities, and occasionally we have to stay inside especially for Oskar and Thomas.

Every day we monitor the level of haze via the hourly PSI readings and adjust our activities accordingly.

This morning I noticed some dust on the coffee table. 

Agnes cleans this table every day which means that this is what the haze brought in 24 hours. Seeing this dust made me visualize how bad the air we breathe is currently. 

Let's hope it will stop soon... Or at least that the winds will blow in the opposite direction. 

Feeling good

True that I am exhausted as taking care of a new born is a full time job, not to mention entertaining a toddler when the haze is keeping you indoor.

This morning, I went swimming and it felt so good. 

Doctor said yesterday it was ok for me to go back to the pool, although I have to wait for more intensive exercise. 

Wolfram took Oskar to his swimming lesson. My mum watched over Thomas.

In other words, kids were taken care of.

For the first time in weeks, the sky was blue and the gaze gone.

In other words, perfect conditions to go for a swim. 

Let's hope this happens again soon.