Personally, profanity doesn't bother me much. I think it's just words and the value they have is attached by the listener/user. If you can't do a debate without using such words, this just means your debating style is really poor. And if children like to say words they shouldn't as they are taboo, it's usually because they sound interesting - well, not surprising really, as they are most of the time (if not always) used with a lot of stress! They stand out. No need to make a fuss, at this age (two) distraction is usually enough.

In some cases daddies teach their little ones these words - for example Frank. The other day I was in the supermarket and Yannick repeatedly said 'bollocks' with glee. He has no idea at all what this word means, he just likes the sound of it. To stop him I usually ask him to repeat other complicated sounding words, like 'abracadabra' or 'locomotive'.

There is one word that I cannot stop. It's the German word for digger. It's 'Bagger' which is pronounced exactly like 'bugger'. So if we are at a playground and there are toy diggers about you will hear both of us say 'Bagger' quite often. Tough luck.

'Dump truck' is another case of involuntary profanity. The first time I asked Yannick to say this in English, he had trouble with the 'tr' bit of 'truck' and said 'dumb fuck'. I thought it was hilarious.

Before you get any ideas, no, I'm not pregnant! But that's what all this is about, other people are having a second child or trying for one happily and I'm sitting here not knowing what I want.

On that note: congratulations to Stanley and Nicola who just had a baby girl this morning!!!

In my heart of hearts I would love a second one too, and a third one even. However, when I think of the work involved I shy away from the very idea of having just one more. Frank seems to be quite happy with just one, I don't think he wants to go through all that baby trouble again. And I do understand that perfectly, especially as the nights with Yannick are finally getting better. If we had another one as attached as Yannick was, I would not be able to cope on my own at all. But then another baby could be a completely different personality… And it could be the girl I always wanted! This is so hard. Sigh.

Oh my, I've been tagged by Solveig for a meme! My first time!!!

All right, here we go, some of Yannick's favourites:

Trucks and diggers

Well, I could have put about 20 other vehicle related books here. Yannick loves anything and everything about trucks, diggers, tractors, trains, motorbikes, etc. - as long as it has got wheels it's interesting. And in addition to the vehicles he also likes to hear about the occupations of the people driving them. Firemen, digger drivers, all great hits!
This book in particular is a nice book as it encourages play. There are ten vehicle magnets that can be used and I've found Yannick moving them along telling himself the same stuff that I used to read out or make up for him previously. Him playing with this by himself gives me a bit of a break - hooray!

Peppa Pig's car ride

OK, another vehicle book, but this is slightly different to the one above as Yannick has two other Peppa books and he loves them all. It's a bit beyond me why but who cares!

Five little ducks

Ever since Yannick was about eight months old he's been to Sing and Sign and when that was over we started with Jo Jingles. It seems he loves music and has even started to sing English songs (like 'Ba ba black sheep'), despite not having a clue (at least that's what I think) what the words actually mean. Therefore he liked this book from the beginning. He's liking it even better now as I've recently started singing this with German words (my own translation). He really got into the story now, telling me every time that mama duck is very sad because her babies disappear, and when they are back he saying she's happy again.

Wir sind jetzt vier

As we are speaking only German at home you can imagine that German books are high on our wish list for books for Yannick, and we are taking anything and everything people bring along. This was one of the presents we got and a surprise hit. The title translates as 'We are four now' and the type of story represents a whole group of books about what children do or how their families grow. Yannick finds these very interesting and I had a great opportunity of explaining to him that he used to be in my belly!

Guess how much I love you

We have the German version of this book and Yannick is intrigued by it as it seems. I like it loads as it's about loving each other and talking about that. Apart from that it's just a lovely story.

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Now, who am I going to tag? I could only think of one person at first, Simon, but then I stumbled about the fact that James' and Natalie's web site has become a blog - yay!

What can you do as a mother but love your children as they are! I'm in love with this photo of father and son:

When I look at those soft baby arms I just want to cuddle him!!!

So Frank finally got round to installing the new operating system on our web server, yippee! I couldn't post anything until then as it would have had disappeared after applying the back-up that was done a while ago. And I was too lazy too (could've made a copy myself, couldn't I!). But now I need to get back into writing gear. Not so easy when you have a two-year old around who sleeps less and less.

What happened in the meantime?

Yannick and I went to Germany for five long weeks. We stayed in Hanover with my mum and also my sister, and a couple of days in Berlin to see Frank's mum. At the beginning it was still really cold and we had snow, which Yannick loved! We had the mother of all colds (I mean it, my mum is still recovering from it two months later…!), but otherwise we had fun being in a German language environment. Even though Yannick was speaking loads before we went there, I think it boosted his confidence to have more people around him that he could understand and who would respond to what he was saying.

Once we were back, I decided that it's time for Yannick to sleep in his own room. That was quite successful - to a degree. He's definitely waking up less (that started earlier this year) but the early morning hours are still a problem. So I usually end up sleeping with him in his bed (single bed size, I was thinking ahead when we bought that!) from 4 or 5am. It's a bit cramped but at least I can stretch out. I definitely don't want him to come back with me to my bed as that wakes him up more than me lying down next to him. In time this will sort itself out. I've even been out one evening, for a couple of hours to a pub with my mum friends (see below), so things are definitely changing!

In the first two weeks back here, we had yet another tummy bug and then the obligatory cold. The good thing was that Frank had ten free days before starting his NEW JOB and we were able to share all of these lovely predicaments very fairly between us. Yannick loved seeing his daddy after such a long time without him (well, not completely without him, as Frank visited us twice for a couple of days in Germany) and the two of them played beautifully.

I finally got to buy myself a bicycle with a child seat. I needed a new one with plenty of gears to get around this place, there is too much up and down here to get on with just three. Yannick loves being on the bicycle despite that strange thing that's called a helmet! Now we can whiz into town within ten minutes, yay!

We didn't do much since we are back, but we went to see Marwell Zoo with our friends Gayle (mum) and Bella (daughter) and also to Hillier's Garden with the same people plus another mum (Chris) and her two children (Joshua and Georgia). We had good weather both times and loved it.

Then I decided to get some new furniture for Yannick: a bigger wardrobe (man, that child has a lot of clothes!) and a shelf to go with it. Now Yannick's room looks more like a teenager's bedroom (if you disregard the stash of nappies), but I like it. He's growing up fast.

I also got someone to put up some new blinds on our top floor windows. They were much needed as the afternoon sun is heating up our bedrooms like crazy. I'm very happy with those too. Yannick's got a blackout blind, the bathroom now has a white blind that doesn't heat up like the dark blue one we had there from the previous owners, and the two big bedrooms have got wooden Venetian blinds.

Finally my child is teething again. It was coming for a long time, with pangs of pain showing up every now and then for the last months. I think the last set of teeth (eye teeth) arrived in the middle of 2007, so it's been a very long time. Only the other day I've noticed that one of the last molars has finally made it out. Only three to go now!

Tonight Yannick has been eating rice with king prawns and wanted sweet chilli sauce with them, basically just like we ate them. Surprisingly, he wanted more. He's still living mainly on a diet of bread, rice, and pasta, but every now and then some other things creep in. I'll have to make a point about getting some more vegetables into him but as he's teething he's not the greatest eater at the moment anyway. You just can't force them.

Oh, I nearly forgot that we celebrated two birthdays: Yannick turned two and Frank 38. Yannick heard the 'Happy birthday' song so many times (also for other children), that he's attempting to sing it himself! He also keeps telling me that he got certain things for his birthday and when I ask him how old he is, I get to hear 'two hairs' (German 'zwei Jahre' sounds like 'zwei Haare' coming from Yannick).

OK, post done. Now all I need to do is sort through about a million photos that I took since November and publish them. Oh hum…

Here's a photo I snapped in February, not believing my eyes: