mylène daily

Even quicker than I predicted yesterday: Mylène rolled over today from her back to her belly ... all by herself!!!
And this is what it looked like :-)



Click here

As promised, here is a sample of Mylène talking. It was recorded today in the bath room.
Just click on the picture below.

As noted before, we put Mylène's nicest pictures in an online photo album. I just wanted to point your attention to the link I added on the left side of this page. Feel free to take a look at the photo album anytime you like.

Needless to say that also the fifth month went by in a flash. But I have the feeling that Mylène developed quite a lot during the past month. Here comes the report:

-Talking: during the past few days, Mylène has been extremely talkative, and in a different way than before. It's hard to describe what it sounds like, so I will try to record some of her monologues tomorrow and put it online.

-Crying: Mylène does not like it if you leave her allone. She will start complaining immediately so poor Shiqi does not have a lot of time to get things done by herself during the day.

-Laughing: papa is now also rewarded with occasional laughter when he finds a game she really likes

-Moving: definitely more than before. Her legs are really kicking now and she can really almost turn to her belly almost by herself now. My prediction is that we can announce the first "roll-over" in the coming week.

-Sleeping: she still sleeps well during the night (7:00 - 5:00 typically, and after feeding a few hours more, until 8:00 or 9:00). During daytime she sleeps very littly: only 30 minutes max, two or three times a day.

-Eating: as written in a previous post we have started to feed Mylène with bottle milk, besides breast feeding. Apart from occosional but definite refusal by our small daughter, the transition works out pretty well.

-Observing: Mylène seems to be a very curious girl. She turns herself into impossible positions sometimes to see what's on TV or to see what's happening behind her.

-Hair: Yes! It is definitely growing :-) And we discovered that the small black hairs on her back and on her ears are gone .... pffew ... a big relief :-)

-Weight: approximately 8,3 kg

-Size of clothes: 68

On the picture, Mylène is wearing her new set: a "Dutch rose" shirt and a cute little skirt. However, with her round face, short hair, and "Michelin" legs, it seems we still have to be a bit patient before Mylène turns into a cute little girl .... if ever :-)

The moment Shiqi will start working again, is approaching quickly. On the 1 March she wil no longer be a full-time mom anymore and we will have to trust Mylène into the hands of our "tagesmutter" Corinne.

Last Sunday, Corinna Osterkamp and her family (Gerold, Julia and Silas) came to visit us for the first time in Warburg. We had been at their place already in January ..... ooops .... I now suddenly realise I did not even write a post on this. Shame on me!! So, a bit more introduction will be at its place here, I guess.

The family Osterkamp lives in Scherfede, a small town which lies on the way from Warburg to Paderborn. The two children of Corinna and Gerold are Julia and Silas. Julia is 11 years old and Silas almost 4. We had found them through a short list with names that was given to us by the "Jugendamt" in Warburg. Shiqi contacted and met up with several of the people on that list. On a Sunday in January, Shiqi, Mylène and I went to meet the family Osterkamp together for the first time. Immediately, the atmosphere was very comfortable and relaxed. We got to know each other a little bit, chatted about many things, (drank coffee and ate cake of course) and after a few hours, we went home with a very good feeling about the afternoon. We knew it immediately: this was going to be the daycare family for Mylène!

After that first meeting, Shiqi met up with Corinna one more time, so Mylène could get to know here a bit better before she would stay there the whole day. And last Sunday, the family Osterkamp came visit us in Warburg together. Again, we had a very enjoyable time together. We played with Mylène, played table football upstairs (especially Julia showed a great talent in this game), chatted about this and that .... and drank coffee with cake of course.

Shiqi is planning to go to the company one time for half a day before she really starts working. During that half day, Mylène can get used to the new environment allone for the first time. Then, when all goes well, Shiqi will start working on 1 March. As this will be on a Wednesday, and she will work from Monday to Wednesday, Mylène will be away from home one day only during the first week. I am sure it will be tough, perhaps especially for us. But I am confident we will manage, and that Mylène is going to have a great time at the Osterkamp's.

This weekend, Eelco visited us in Warburg. He had bought new hiking shoes and wanted to test them during the weekend. So, I was hoping for good weather and already had an area in my mind where we could go to and have a walk.

The area was great, because lots of snow had fallen there during the past week. We had to plough our way through a thick layer of snow on the forest path. It was a tough walk, but also a very beautiful one. In a few years from now, I can take Mylène out for a walk in the snow as well. I am already looking forward to making snow men, to sled riding, and to having snow ball fights. The perfect location has been found already.

I recently realised that with the increasing amount of posts on this blog, it is not so convenient for those who merely like to browse through a selection of pictures of our little girl.

So, I created a set of our favourite pictures on Flickr. You can check them out here

Have fun!!

The time has come that Mylène has to get used to something different than mother milk. Because Shiqi will probably start working again in March, we have replace the mother milk by instant nutrition gradually. Shiqi will not stop breast feeding Mylène completely, because of the increased risk for allergies Mylène has (both Shiqi and myself have several allergies). So, it will be a combination between mother milk and powder milk. Going from mother milk to powder milk goes step by step: with every week, you increase the amount of powder milk with one bottle of 250ml. In our case, it will take 3 weeks before Mylène can get 3 bottles of powder milk per day, which is the approximate amount she will need during the time she spends with "Tagesmutter" Corinne. During the weekend we started with the first bottle.

The choice of baby nutrition is abundant nowadays, so we have good hopes we will find something our daughter likes and which suits her needs. Our first try is "Alete H.A.1" (Hypo Allergene Nahrung .... stuff especially suitable for baby's with an increased risk for allergies). The first bottle we tried to give Mylène was no succes: she refused to drink the fluid. Shiqi already worried of course that Mylène would not want to drink anything else than mother milk for the rest of her life. But luckily, already on the second day, Mylène drank the Alete H.A.1 with as much pleasure as mother milk. It is still to early to draw a conclusion, but I think we are on the right way, and I am happy Mylène is cooperating quite well so far. What a sweetheart she is!!

To be continued ...

Finally! Here is the picture of Mylène at 4 months! I know I kept you waiting, and I know it was due at least one week ago. For some of you, that was reason to file an official complaint ... luckily most of you are more patient than some others ;-)

So, what is different from one month ago? To answer that, I always have to go back to the post of one month ago, to see what the status was at that time. I really loose track of what happened when ... good thing I am keeping this blog!

Hmm ... it seems the monthly updates are starting to follow a particular pattern, when I look back on it. Ok, not bad idea, actually. Here are the most important points:

• Talking: much more than one month ago, with a mixture of all sounds she knows
• Crying: quite functional. She gets a feeling for knowing how to trick us
• Laughing: mama gets a lot of it, papa doesn't :-(
• Moving: she can almost turn herself on her belly, but not back yet. She is really grabbing
• Sleeping: usually from 7:00 - 5:00, but sometimes she wakes up around 2:00 as well (no food, though)
• Eating: poor Shiqi is complaining that Mylène is biting her while breast feeding. She actually still drinks quite well, although she is distracted quite quickly
• Observing: this is very interesting: with every new month you can see in her eyes that she is understanding more and more. Fascinating!!
• Hair: seems that she finally not loosing any hair anymore. gradually the bold spot is being covered with some small new hairs.
• Weight: 7,5 kg
• Size of clothes: 62 - 68 (sometimes even 74) ... usually, the arms are too long and around the waiste it's too tight ... hahaha

It seems that Mylène has made quite a big step in her development during the week of holiday in Austria. The tones she produces are quite varied now (she mixes all sounds she learnt to make), which is really funny to listen to. She doesn't know how to control the volume very well, though. So, even though she cries much less than in the beginning, she has not really become quieter.

Another thing she does really well now, is grabbing. Any object she sees in front of her, she stretches her arms to, and tries to grab it. Of course, immediately after she has the object in her hands, it goes into her mouth first thing. (Disinfecting the passifiers in boiling water has little use now, I guess). While doing that she observes the object very well, and shakes it strongly. This can keep her busy for a while. Has the time arrived that we can leave her playing by herself for a few minutes now?