Lara and Gloria are now 11 months old. They can both stand, on wobbly knees, though most of the time they insist on holding onto the furniture. Lara has half of a first tooth and a second in the making, and Gloria's first tooth is just about visible. I of course have dutifully brushed Lara's halftooth with pink toothpaste, which she seems to find very amusing. The babies have both suffered through their first cold, luckily a mild version, and have learned to nibble on bread and cookies.It is interesting to see how different the girls are, even though they share not only the same parents, but also a room, clothes and toys. Lara is now a few centimeters taller and also an estimated two pounds heavier than Gloria. (We'll know more precisely at their next doctor's visit, which is in 2 weeks.) When Gloria falls, she inevitably starts crying dramatically until you pick her up. When Lara falls, she might make some surprised sound, though not always, and just move on. She does however occasionally start crying just because her sister cries. Gloria sucks her thumb (the left one), day and night; Lara never does. Lara does however gnaw on the bedposts with her half tooth.
Trying to change Lara's cloths has become a fight because she kicks, throws towels and cloths around, and tries to grab everything close enough. If you pull her away or turn her back around, she laughs and tries even harder. Gloria is one charmingly smiling baby on the changing table, as long as she has her rubber ducky to suck on. But try to take the ducky away...
I meanwhile am fighting once again with the paperwork. Not only are my Swedish parental benefits running out on Tuesday, but the Germans are refusing to pay Stefan's parental benefits. After a lot of calls and letters, it turned out that they seem to have misread one of the Swedish documents I sent them and thought the amount I got for 5 months was for one month, then concluded we're too rich to apply for benefits in Germany. Now they want more paperwork, that I have to rout to Sweden and back. For that and some other reasons I am somewhat stressed out in these darkest weeks of the year, so excuse the lack of originality on this blog. Finally, Lara sends her greetings:
It's very common in the Anthropic landscape two neighbouring vacua to have completely different characteristics.
ReplyDeleteThe babies have both suffered through their first cold, luckily a mild version,
ReplyDeleteYou are quite fortunate not to have to send them to daycare. My 5-month old started daycare a few hours a day a month ago. Within the month, he had two colds, the last one ending in an ear infection. So at the ripe old age of 5 months he is already acquainted with antibiotics... :-(
Hi Giotis,
ReplyDeleteLet me just hope they won't be eternally inflating ;o) Best,
B.
Hi GMP,
ReplyDeleteSooner or later we'll have to look at a daycare solution too... A friend told me the same thing about her son, he is 2 years old though, now constantly sick, needs antibiotics. Probably not much of a comfort, but how else do the children train their immune system? That cold that the babies had, neither Stefan nor I got it. I hope the next time they won't get it either. Best,
B.
Yes they will eternally inflate, sorry about that. :-)
ReplyDeleteThe real fun starts when they walk and talk, around a year. The first year of parenting your first child, or children in your case, if fraught with tons of worry.
Next year should be fine. Then there's the "terrible twos" and "terrible three's" but we'll cross that road when we come to it. One tip: don't buy too many clothes for them, they will outgrow them like crazy. Two adorable angels, congrats to you both., ;-)
Again always the stress with the beaucratics of the countries. Must be really stressing out.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting how different Gloria and Lara develop.
Best, Kay
Hi Bee:
ReplyDeleteThat's so interesting about how different your girls are!
What will be yours and Stefan's childcare arrangement from their one year old? I'm really impressed with the creative arrangement you two made for their first year of care.
I know you have two times of everything needed to run your family.. but at least the pace of their walking is more reasonable than my little girl, who seems to have focussed all of her attention to moving early and fast. I barely had my bookshelves anchored when she was 10months and walking. And despite her having a handful of teeth at that time, she didn't like food very much. When your girls start really teething, I can recommend (baby.. it's diluted) clove oil to rub on their gums to numb the pain.
I guess everyone has told you that when they start being around other kids regularly (at daycare, usually) is when the hard year of colds and flues begin. My daughter got her first cold when she started at a rather large daycare at 5 months. Her colds and flues were ongoing then until about 18 months. My immune system, which is normally robust, picked up her sicknesses about half of the time and hasn't really recovered yet to its normal robustness since. There's alot of super-vitamin mixtures that I use from frequent travel to help me resist her colds which I can tell you about offline if you are interested.
But now at 3 years, my daughter picks up colds more rarely and flues almost not at all. She's never had an ear infection, either; maybe her eustachian tubes are oriented longer and differently from other kids.
You two are doing great.. I love these Interna messages too. Don't get depressed about the bureaucracy.. at least you're not living in Italy...
Amara
Bee - was Lara speaking the Swedish or German? And how is Lara sneaking Gloria's food?
ReplyDelete