IrishOboe

Today is Joseph’s five month birthday.  Time flies.  Life gets easier.  He’s still nowhere near sleeping through the night, but sometimes he lets me sleep late and that feels great even though it’s always interrupted.  But on to the more interesting news . . .

November 10^th Joseph started pulling the tab to his musical mouse (is it a mouse?) the Shireys gave him.  I think it is to get the tab not to make music, but you can believe what you like.

November 11^th he got his second Pentavac shot and didn’t cry at all.  He looked at the nurse with an expression that looked something like “That’s it? Been there done that.  Do something more interesting next time.”  He also rolled from his back to his bell, but he was on a sheep skin and rolled off of it, so it wasn’t entirely unassisted on a flat surface.  He did that officially for the first time at the following PEKiP.  Later that day (Nov. 16^th) he did the same at home with his bulky diaper on.

November 12^th he transferred the ring of the above mentioned musical mouse from one hand to the other.  I’m not sure if it counts since the ring is attached to something.

November 19^th he pulled his foot to his mouth during a diaper change and attempted to such on his toe.  Unfortunately his hand was in the way so he sucked his fingers instead.  Everyone at PEKiP thought it was funny that he crawls but was slower to be interested in his feet and to roll over.

Now he is a very fast crawler, often going commando style by pulling himself with his arms and letting his body and legs drag along.  I attribute that do a bulky cloth diaper and wool cover.  If he’s naked or has a disposable diaper then he has a nice cross-pattern crawl.  I have to be very vigilant.  He is fast and of course, as all kids do, finds what he’s not supposed to very quickly.  He always grabs his feet at diaper changes and of course he is as happy as every to stand with support and he can still hang from your fingers despite is growing size.  He’s a happy and good little baby and it’s amazing how fast his abilities are rapidly increasing!

Now for some news about the family.   We had to miss Thanksgiving at my Aunt’s, but thanks to Skype I got to see everyone (almost) and hear about their game playing and eating adventures.  On the holiday itself I made an apple pie from organic apples from the farm we get our vegetables from and we had mashed potatoes and parsnips for dinner.  Not very colorful, but full of nostalgic meaning.

Besides being thankful for my family, the next thanks on the list was that my wallet was returned to me.  It had been stolen during a project I participated in the Tuesday before.  Stephan was watching Joseph as I had to play and also partake in a panel discussion.  Playing went well, but the panel discussion was tough.  I used to think quickly enough on my feet for stuff like that, but my mother-brain (it’s called Stilldemenz in German I just found out) leaves me too much in a fog to say anything of much interest.  Still, I’m proud that whatever I did say I said in German.  I don’t think it was the language that was the barrier to looking intelligent . . .

But back to my wallet.  At one point Stephan wanted to take a fussy Joseph out of the church but couldn’t find the hat buried in my diaper bag.  He took the bag out of the lighted side area where we were and into the main part of the church to be less of a distraction.  He found the hat and zipped out.  I do the same sort of thing.  Everything is dropped to take care of baby.  Unfortunately, a man came in and wandered the church during the evening.  We all saw him, but we didn’t see him grab my wallet that was apparently sitting at the top of the open bag.  I discovered it was missing when I tried to find my tram ticket for the ride home.  We searched a few places but we were all fairly convinced that the strange man had taken it.  Passports, IDs, Swiss permissions, insurance cards, date-book, Swiss Francs, Euro, coupons, gift cards, etc. were all lost.  I was looking forward to a week of paperwork and bureaucracy trying to get replacement documents and wasn’t excited.  After some searching around Petersplatz hoping the thief and taken the money and dumped the wallet (as the guy did when my car was broken into in Rochester) we returned home.  What should await us but a phone message saying my wallet had been found!  The kind man even delivered it to our house.  Stephan went out to meet him and I started panicking that it was a trick and they’d kidnap him for more money, but he returned safe and sound.  The amazing thing was that the only things stolen were the cash and my Postfinance card.  (That’s a bank card that has a pin.  I don’t carry credit cards with me because we don’t need them here – and it’s good that I don’t!)  Praise God!  I feel positively spoiled.

I’ll write about our second Thanksgiving celebration later as this post is long enough.  Sorry for the long silence, but I suppose you’re used to that.

I hope everyone who cares about Thanksgiving had a great one!

I know I have better things to do then blog about this, but Joseph's still napping, so . . .

I bought planner refill pages in Basel, Switzerland and they asked me to register online so that my planner could be restored to me if lost.  I did and chose Switzerland as my "language."  I found it a bit odd to be asked to select my language from a list of countries, but didn't think much of it until the next page greeted me with "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet . . ."  Huh?  Sounds like Latin to me.  Later on it's in French, which makes more sense but there are more German-speaking Swiss than French-speaking Swiss.  Bizzare.

Just to prove I didn't make it up.

(Click to enlarge)