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.