OK, OK, OK, OK, I admit it, this is not much to complain about, but I feel rejected! *sniff*

Yannick seems to have discovered words. Since yesterday he seems to have copped on that when he says 'baba' or 'papa' we think he says 'Papa'. He also makes a sound like 'anni' which could mean Yannick for all I know. However, he does not say 'mama' and means ME - the person who has been sleeping only six hours on average almost every single night since he is in this world and who fed him gallons of mummy's milk.

*sniff*

Last week our friends Nicola and Stanley and their two year-old son Lucien came to stay with us for several days. They are from South Africa but Stan was on training in Dublin (and took the family along) so the trip over here was short for them. Yannick and I had an absolute ball of a time, it was so fun to walk around Winchester with somebody so much appreciating all the play-grounds, shops, and scenery and not leaving us after a couple of hours. It was like a family visit in the best possible sense.

The kids were kind of playing together with Yannick watching Lucien very closely. He picked up how to jump on the trampoline (even though he still is a bit too short for it) and also tried copying him when getting on his car. Both of them also loved climbing up our play-cube in the garden and going down the slide one after each other in fast succession.

I was also pleasantly surprised that our friends unknown to us had adopted a similar parenting style to ours and that their little boy was far from being the little devil they usually described him to be. He is just a normal curious two year old!

The downer came on Saturday morning at 5am. Yannick had to throw up - and continued doing so at 30 to 60 minute intervals for the next six hours. His facial impression was so full of surprise and disgust. Poor thing, he never had anything like this before. I was so glad that we are still breastfeeding as that meant he would take in fluids without too much hassle, as the boob was the only thing he wanted anyway. He didn't look too happy for the rest of the day either but was definitely better than in the morning. Sunday evening, after our friends had left, the same story started with me. Imagine feeling sick and still having to help your little one sleep by breastfeeding… Not nice, but somehow we managed without getting a screaming baby at night. Then it hit Frank, but he was spared the puking part, he only felt rotten. Frank's constitution is so much better than mine, he was almost back to normal on Tuesday whereas I was still dizzy in the morning and battling with food, simply not feeling like eating anything. However, today is much better and I had a normal breakfast, albeit slowly.

I was so glad that Frank was off work - I really don't think I would have coped without him!!!

*** START BOASTING ***

I've just read Kerstin's thoughts on ageing and got stuck on this quote:

"When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old."
~ Mark Twain

Hm. OK, according to that quote, I've been getting very old from age 24! Only I haven't.

From about age 14 to 18 I was 18 to everybody, quite handy really, as it allowed me to go out without having to show any ID to prove my age. I think this was simply because I am tall (1.8m, or 5′9″ for those not familiar with metric measurements) and was so very early on.

From 18 to about 24 or so, I was still 18 for everybody. At that point it started to get boring, having been 18 for 10 years and not progressing…! I wanted to be taken seriously according to my age: haha, little did I know that that never happens with anybody who is at least five years older than you are.

From 24 onwards I have (slowly) aged but never caught up on my real age. I am 42 now and people still look at me in complete disbelieve when I tell them how old I am. Most seem to think that I am early to mid thirties. This is very flattering but at the same time I am so used to this reaction, that it doesn't really move me much any more. Only when I see people my age who look a lot older than they should I am surprised and I wonder why we are all so very different. I would love to think that my outside youthfulness is due to good health (not eating too much, hardly any sweets, no smoking, no exaggerated sun bathing), but to be honest it's simply in my genes. My parents both looked younger (and still do in case of my mum / my dad died ten years ago) and my sister also looks about ten years younger than she is. It has nothing to do with sports (I'm a total couch potato, apart from cycling for transportation in the Netherlands) and I actually was quite partial to drinking beer before I had Yannick (mind you, I'm cheap drunk). OK, of course my body ages, I can see certain things that I didn't have when I was 24, but to be honest ageing is very gentle to me, and even the pregnancy didn't leave any traces apart from a softer belly. I am very lucky indeed! Now don't forget that it's just the outside. Inside I am getting just as forgetful as anybody else around this age. Um, what was my name again?

Of course there is that one tell tale give-away that tells everybody without fail how old you are. Any guesses?

But I can still be surprised by other people: last week I met a match, another mum astonished me completely by telling me that she was 41 and I had not expected that at all! Using my own stereotypes I thought she was about 32 or something as all the mums I met over here are around that age. And of course she looked that age too. I think we both looked quite sheepish looking at each other!

*** END BOASTING ***