mylène daily

It has already been a few days, but because of the Xmas days, there just hasn't been enough time to post something on the 23rd. But I think, there haven't been too many changes during the past week, so this picture should do it as well, I hope.

I noticed that there hasn't been much on the developments of Mylène during the past few weeks, either. So, let's use the opportunity here, and post a wrap up of what's new:

• Mylène seems to have lost the appetite for talking. She does make a lot of different noises, but unlike before, you can hardly call this talking. An exception was a morning when she woke up in her bed, and started a conversation with herself. This was music to our ears, as you can imagine.
• She now knows that she has 2 hands, and really observes them sometimes. It's funny to see how she tries to put both hands into her mouth at the same time.
• The crying changed: it is becoming more varied, which makes it quite easy for us to hear whether something is up or whether she is just complaining.
• She really improved her skill to lift her head while lying on her belly. She even looks around while doing that and smiles if you smile at her. She can hold on to that for well over a minute. After that, she drops her head and starts complaining.
• She is still loosing hair!!
• Last week, she really laughed loudly! Sadly though, she did this only once. Was it on purpose at all?
• Her eyes loook brighter and more curious every day. She observes very carefully what's happening around her and follows whatever is moving in front of her. And she likes watching TV!
• She seems to be recognising us, but I am not very sure about this. Right now, it's only an assumption ... or just hoping?
• She grabs quite well, although mostly without knowing that she does so. This is becoming problematic, because she removes her passifier from her mouth very often now, which usually results in a loud crying.
  Sometimes, she even moves her arms to an object in front of her. But until now, only rarely.
• Sleeping goes very well. One day, she even slept from 19:00 - 7:00 without waking up. Normally she sleeps from 7:00 - 5:00 or so. We cannot complain, I guess. During the day, she only sleeps shortly: 30 minutes - 1 hour max, three or four times.
• And last but not least: she grows!! She weighs around 7,2 kg now!!

All in all, it has been another exciting and enjoyable month, which provides lots to look forward to during the months to come.

Precisely speaking, the day of Mylène's party was not Xmas anymore, but for now, let's pretend it was, because it was a really nice celebration.
On 27 December, many family members and friends came to Gouda to meet Mylène for the first time. Even more people than expected showed up, and definitely more kids. I really never realised until then, that parties with friends will be enriched with many children running around, from now on. It was a happy crowd, this 3rd Xmas day.

I did not plan the catering very well, I must admit. Also a sign that parties will be different from now on, I guess. Most of the guests only stayed shortly. No lingering, no drinking until all bottles have been emptied. No filled living room until deep in the night. So, the drinks, snacks, and food, I had planned that were needed, mostly remained untouched. The good thing about it was, that we don't need to buy soft drinks, snacks, toast and french cheese during the next couple of months. I did try to learn from this experience and noted what had been consumed, really .... it was not much! Let's see, if my catering planning better matches the occasion, next time.

Of course, this detail did not spoil the party in any way! We had a splendid time, and I think Mylène enjoyed the attention as well. She was smiling to everyone, and was not upset by the busy crowd afterwards. In short: it was a wonderful day that will turn into a beautiful memory.

Thank you all for coming!

Second Xmas day was a very special day this year. It was the day on which Mylène met her great grand mother. I think it was a great event for both, although Mylène might realise this a bit later only.

I called oma the day before, to announce our visit. On the phone, she sounded quite excited already. The next day, at around 2 pm, we knocked on her door. Karin and Erik arrived at the same time as we did. When I walked into her room with Mylène on my arm, oma seemed a bit sleepy still, but immediately after seeing Mylène, her sleepy expression changed into a smile from ear to ear.

Oma was obviously very happy to see Mylène. She said that she had been imagining touching her little hands and holding her in her arms, many time already. As we did not want her to wait any longer, we put Mylène into the arms of her great grand mother soon after we sat down. What a nice sight that was, seeing those two together! Oma was holding you very tightly, Mylène, because she was surprised about your strenght and was afraid you would kick yourself free and fall. Of course, nothing happened, and you have been lying in your great grand mother's arms peacefully for quite a while.

We are already looking forward to the moment Mylène can say "hello" to oma herself. By that time, we must have figured out how Mylène should call her; I don't know whether "oma" is accepted by the two real "oma's". We will check; perhaps the Chinese have a good word for it. That's the advantage of growing up with several languages.

Mylène's first Xmas!
We celebrated at her grandparents' place, in Gouda. We arrived on Saturday, 24 December, and stayed until Wednesday28 December. As always with Xmas, the days past very very quickly.
On Xmas eve, like every year, we ate sauerkraut ("zuurkool") and "boerenkool" and played Trvial Pursuit, with the family Braat. Even though it was a very enjoyable evening, I would like to take the opportunity and suggest (....very politely of course) to break with the tradition and play another game next year; perhaps a game of which winning does not only depend on sheer luck, lik with Trivial Pursuit, as this year has shown clearly again ... haha.

On first Xmas day, the weather was excellent; great to have a walk outside. We walked in the direction of the lakes of Reeuwijk, and drank a cup of coffee in the restaurant (Het Vaantje) in which we had our wedding breakfast, more than three years ago. Mylène was very cooperative, as always when she is lying in a moving cradle. Although beautiful, the temperature was not very high, so the Glühwein after the walk tatsted excellently! And so did the Xmas dinner, of which Mylène might have noticed anything only indirectly through the mother milk ... better luck next year!

As announced before, here is a route description of how to get to Myléne's grand parents for those of you who want to visit us on Tuesday.

The address is: Jaap Edenlaan 24, Gouda.

First the bigger picture:









And then the details:

Some of you might have wondered why it has been so long without any news and pics of our little girl. It's not that nothing happened; on the contrary. It was just that a cold with fever kept me from spending much time online.
I am feeling better again now. I hope I did not pass anything over to Myléne. We tried to be as careful as possible: I practically had a ban on touching her for a couple of days. Whether this has helped, I don't know, but as young parents you do your utmost best. We shall see.

It made life for Shiqi double difficult, as now she not only had to take care of Myléne allone, she also had an ill husband around to look after! Luckily, this only lastet two days.

Time to catch up on this and that ....

Because we did not really have a lot of inspiration regarding games to play with a baby, Shiqi bought a book recently, in which many games and excercises are described, in chronological order. This book has already proven to be a good investment. Before, there was one thing Mylène really did not like: lying on her belly. She had no idea how to lift her head or how to turn it, so every time we put her on her belly, she was lying flat on her face, which is of course not very comfortable. And after a few seconds, she would start to shout. After doing some excercises for a few days, Mylène made real good progress as you can see on the picture.
I have to admit, though, that the capability to lift her head like that depends a lot on her mood. Some days are better than others.

Last weekend, opa, oma, Karin and Erik paid us a visit again. They must have been looking forward to seeing Mylène very very much: as soon as they entered, all attention was focussed on our little girl .... Shiqi and I felt totally neglected ;-) (just joking).

This time, they arrived on Saturday afternoon. Strange enough, Erik did not drive his own car; they drove with my father's Nissan ... why are still wondering why Erik did not take the chance to race on Germans highways this time; broken car perhaps?

On Sunday, we took the oppotunity to visit the Christmas market in Warburg's old city center. Christmas market is an essential part of German culture. As soon as we figured out how to download the picture we took with Shiqi's mobile, I will put it here.

In the meantime, you'll have to do it with the only picture I made during the weekend.

This pictures was taken one week ago, when we were watching TV. Mylène seemed to be very interested. This is not very promising: I am afraid we will have to start moving her away from the TV very soon.

After including audio files on this blog, there is still one step to take: inlcude video clips as well. So, here it goes.
Mylène took another step this week in the development of her communication skills: she talks now! Well ... uhm ... you actually cannot exactly call it talking ... not as we know it, at least. But still, she is expressing herself. Judge for yourselves:



Click here


(The movie clip is a windows media video (wmv) file. If you cannot get it running, let us know).

Today, Mylène had a complaining day. Of course there were also periods during which she had a good mood. In fact, I recorded a very nice conversation between Mylène and myself, but due to some technical difficulties (... after five minutes of recording, only white noise was to be heard) I cannot let you enjoy that interesting and deep conversation between me and my daughter ;-)

I did manage to record something today, but that was of course when the good mood was over. I don't want to keep it from you, though.
This is how Mylène complains these days:


Click here

What is still missing here? We have text, we have pictures, but so far there was no sound.
That's going to change. I found an easy way to integrate podcasts in this blog. We will try to record some of the conversations we have with Mylène every now and then. Since this week, she is making lots of progress in producing different sounds; it's so nice to listen to, that we thought you might like it as well.

Here is a test. Just click on the link and an audio file should be started. If it doesn't work, please let us know; perhaps we can help.

Click here

You've heard it well: it's not Mylène yet .... I didn't want to wake her up for the first test :-)
Mylène's own podcast will be on air soon.