This morning my outdoor thermometer showed me -3C, that is very cold for this area. I think last year we managed this kind of temperature once; this year we've had a lot of mornings with minus degrees already.

I've finally found a pair of winter boots for Yannick that were affordable and which I actually really like! Yannick and his daddy go out every morning on the weekends, I think it's wonderful. Yesterday Frank found some gloves for Yannick, they are sooooo cute but I fear not really that warm. However, that's not a problem, we also have warmer mittens for him.

Here you can see Yannick waiting for his daddy to go out with him for his Sunday morning adventure.

We had a bit of a tiring week, Yannick had a VERY sore throat. He was whiny a lot and didn't sleep well unless I gave him pain killers - poor mite. We went to see the doctor who said among other things that Yannick probably wasn't eating very well right now. Strange thing is that he actually ate quite well, despite the sore throat. What he didn't do was drinking. Things are better now and the drinks are slowly beginning to go down again.

Yannick still hates seeing to the doctor. After all of those shots at age one I'm not really surprised. A while ago I got him a book about going to the doctor, which by pure co-incidence was about a little boy with a sore throat. So Yannick knew all the instruments, the little torch to look into the ears and the stethoscope. Yet, it didn't help. He actually cried almost in panic when the very, very friendly doctor got closer to examine him a little. We didn't get any antibiotics and I was quite happy about that as I don't like to use them too often, instead we got a homoeopathic medicine. That was on Wednesday and today the sore throat seems to be almost completely gone! Yippee!

The strangest thing that's happening is that Yannick all of a sudden is eating cooked vegetables. He seems to like sauce of puréed vegetables with his rice and he's even eating mushrooms and green beans when I cut them into small pieces. I think it all started when my sister tried this African recipes with prawns in spinach (an interesting spice mix goes into this, with cinnamon, thyme, cumin, coriander powder and coconut milk). Yannick loves prawns and the spinach was just a green sauce clinging to them so he ate them, completely disregarding the sauce. At some point he must have realised that the yummy taste came from the sauce rather than the prawns and only wanted to eat rice with sauce and no prawns! Just a little while back there was no way I would get any vegetables into him, not even the puréed stuff. I love it when changes like this one happen!

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.

As hot as it was yesterday I had Yannick out in the garden in the paddling pool - butt naked.

We splashed about a little to cool off then he started playing with some toy and I went into the kitchen. Five minutes later he came in and said 'there's poopoo'. Oh? Poopoo? Bird poopoo? Cat poopoo?

I went out with him and asked 'where', he said 'there'. I still didn't see anything and believed it must be some animal poopoo. I asked again and finally after some finger pointing I managed to spot the tiny heap of poopoo in a corner on the patio, together with a little puddle. This time he said 'done poopoo' and after a little break 'I think?' which made me smile.

What is a mother to do? I can't tell him off as he actually told me he did it - normally he never says anything. In any case it wasn't difficult to clean up - much better than in a nappy!!! And maybe he's finally getting more aware of his bodily functions which is a vital step to start potty training at some point. So, actually, well done, Yannick!

This might be a bit of TMI for some of you, but I don't care, this needs posting!

F I N A L L Y - we've managed to stop: Yannick has been weaned. At the grand old age of 26 months! His last drink of mummy's milk was on the morning of 1 July.

My days as a toddler feeding weirdo are over. YES!

However, I do not regret that we went on with this as long as we did - and there was certainly nothing weird about it all as it was just a natural progression. He was just too addicted to falling asleep at the boob (lucky little boy!!!) and would have not understood why we stopped if we did that any earlier. At this age I was able to tell him that mummy's milk needs to rest too and bit by bit he has learned since we were back from Germany that he can fall asleep without his favourite dummy.

There is one big drawback actually: now it is really hard to get him to sleep during the day so I think our days with nice longs naps are over too. Well, you can't have your cake and eat it.

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!