Over the last days I've been looking at my LinkedIn profile and updated it. This is strange, as over the last two years this hardly interested me. I think my mind is trying to get ready for the upcoming changes when Yannick will start pre-school next year. Mind you, this is only in May 2009, and won't give me much more than three mornings per week without him.

Yes, what am I going to do with this absolutely huge amount of free time? Clean the house properly? Change my web site? Go clothes shopping? Sort through all our stuff and throw away loads of things? Clean up the back of the garden? These are all things that I would like to do sometimes, yet don't find the time for as they are slightly difficult to do with Yannick around.

More seriously, as at some point I would like to become a member of the working population again, I think I should look into some training to improve my web publishing knowledge. However I have no clue where to start and what would be really useful. Maybe I should start looking at jobs that are available in this area to get a better idea on where I need to catch up or improve. I can't say that I overly enjoy the thought of having to go to interviews. It's been a long time and the last times I was at interviews I was the person who conducted them.

I'm not sure even what kind of job I should go for. Do I want to be a supervisor again? Or rather be part of a team and just get on with things? Do I want to work from home or go to an office? Questions over questions and no answers in sight.

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On a lighter note, Frank has arrived back home today and is now snoring upstairs since 8:30pm. Yannick (who has been much better since Tuesday) was very happy that his favourite play companion was back. I sent them both out this afternoon, a) so that Frank would not fall asleep while playing and b) to be able to do some stuff around the house at last. Two and a half hours on my own did a world of good for me.

My partner has gone off to the US (Silicon Valley) for training - or so he said.

He flew out on Saturday. Today, during a phone call with him, I realised that his training is not going to start before tomorrow, Tuesday. So he's (insert swear word here) sightseeing in San Fran while I'm sitting here with a flue-y toddler who's very whiny and doesn't want to do anything. Especially not sleep in the morning when he would need it most. He's losing his temper very quickly at the moment about anything that doesn't work the way he wants it - and so am I when I don't get my morning sleep. This morning we argued about whether I was allowed to put a blanket over my body while Yannick was sitting on my lap feeling miserable. I was freezing in my nighty at 6:30am so I think I had a point. Not nice. Sigh.

Daddy won't be back before next Sunday. I just hope that Yannick feels better quickly so that we can enjoy our time without dad a bit more and make good use of the car that we have for once.

End of moan - or so I hope.

Hey, from the number of comments I got lately (zilch, zero, none) I think I'm writing my blog just for myself. This is boring.

Could somebody pretty please leave me a comment every now and then? I know I'm not exactly the greatest person to actually answer on stuff, but still…

If I don't get any soon I think I'll stop!

Your result for The Personality Defect Test…

Robot

You are 86% Rational, 43% Extroverted, 29% Brutal, and 43% Arrogant.

Take The Personality Defect Test at HelloQuizzy

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I'm OK, I know that I also have a very creative side! Bah!

At work (some years ago now) we did this personality test and I came out to be an ISTJ, with both I(ntroverted) and S(ensing) being very close to the centre of the scale and the other two traits, T(hinking) and J(udging), being more stronger pronounced.
Yesterday I came across a free test of this sort on the internet so I thought I try again to see if I remember my letter combination correctly. Strangely it seems that I've changed into an extrovert…! Is it because I have less opportunity to chat to people than when I was working? I definitely have to be more outgoing nowadays if I want to meet new people.

When looking at the list of typical careers for this kind of personality, I definitely don't feel like I'm Mrs Interesting. Gah.

I've seen this meme on Megan's blog and since I like everything photos I thought I could do this one too.

Go on, have a go yourself - here are the instructions:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name? Sylke
2. What is your favorite food? Yogurt
3. What high school did you go to? Lutherschule Hannover
4. What is your favorite color? Green
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Johnny Depp
6. Favorite drink? Water
7. Dream vacation? Cape Town
8. Favorite dessert? Ice cream
9. What you wanted to be when you grow up? Happy
10. What do you love most in life? Being a mother
11. One Word to describe you? Impatient
12. Your flickr name? sylkeweb

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:

We have a new car, one that I'm not very keen on - yet:

I don't know what's wrong as I don't dislike the colour, the shape, or the make. The only thing I really don't like is the spoiler. I think it's just a combo of how it all works together: it looks poky, like a car for a guy who wanted a much more powerful sports car and just couldn't afford it.

Maybe I'll change my mind once I've actually driven it.

Or maybe I'm simply only in the mind state for a proper family car, an estate… Sigh.