Ha, we are going to Germany this Christmas! Yannick's first trip abroad!

We, finally, finally went to get a passport for Yannick. This involved a two hour trip to London (and two hours back of course!); the German embassy is in Knightsbridge. Yannick did really well, he never complained and even slept a little on the tube.

As we were three adults (with Oma staying at the moment) trying to save some money, we took the car to Heathrow and left it there, and then took the tube to Knightsbridge. That's still loads cheaper than buying peak time train tickets for the three of us. We didn't bring the pushchair, instead I carried Yannick in the pouch when necessary. We arrived at 11am, which was good, as the doors of the embassy close at 11:30am. After having stayed there for about an hour, we had lunch at the old tourist trap around the corner, at Harrod's. That was all we did as Yannick got tired by that time and we reckoned he'd sleep well on the tube. Which he did.

That was on Wednesday. Frank and I were really surprised when the door bell went today (Friday) and the passport actually arrived! All done and finished, wow, lightning speed by German authorities, completely unheard of!!!

Apart from that Yannick is enjoying having another German speaker around. Before his granny (Oma) arrived, I showed him a photo of her every single day, telling him that this is Oma and that she would visit soon. The day before she arrived I asked him who the person on the photo was and got a loud and clear 'O-ma' back. I was so surprised as he never said that before. So of course when Oma was finally here, he knew she was Oma instantly. Really nice. He's talking loads more, things like bread (Buh->Brot), cheese (Dehs->Käse), biscuit (Dehk->Keks) are all very important and he has his own German baby language version of them. And very importantly, he also has learned to call me Mama when I am around or he wants to find me! So nice!

We had a great September - Frank was off for the whole month (minus one day)! He took out Yannick every single morning and they went to the playground, with Yannick walking part of the way. Now daddy is at least as popular as mummy, which I find great, as it gives me a bit of a break.

The other day I had a lie in and when Yannick came back from his morning excursion he started looking for 'Mama' - ha, finally!!! He isn't really using that word much, but then I am usually around, why should he have to ask for me?!

We didn't really do much with Yannick apart from our usual stuff (morning excursion with daddy, afternoon entertainment by mummy, e.g. visiting other mummies), but we did go to a farm and the zoo. Now that he is walking these trips are so much fun for him.

I really need to update my photo gallery, but every time I touch this computer I am magically drawn over to COLOURlovers.com, which is my absolute favourite hangout these days. Addicted, I admit it.