Anyway, we had a pretty poorly winter and Yannick wasn't very fit. It was mostly little things like colds but we also got chicken pox in February which knocked him quite a bit. He asked me many times to pick him up with the bicycle from pre-school - which is only a five minute walk! After chicken pox things turned around!

Finally Yannick has found his legs (and some more confidence) again! I don't know what happened but between age two and a half and age four he lost a lot of his zest for movement and became really lazy, wanted to be carted around in his push-chair (buggy) most of the time. However, all of a sudden he doesn't seem to need his 'home from home' (that three-wheeled contraption, the push-chair/buggy) any more. I didn't use that thing much at all over the last year, it was mainly there for Yannick's and daddy's trips on the weekend. If I went anywhere where prolonged walking might be required, I would take the bicycle with him on the back as it just made the journeys so much faster. At some point Yannick didn't want to go back in the bicycle seat and just walked home, it was a miracle! For the last month or two he started to walk/run so much more, back and forth into Winchester town centre (at least an hour each round trip), up St Catherine's hill (two hour trip), anywhere we want to go. It's brilliant. If there is a down moment (I'm bored, I'm tired) all I need to do is distract, show him something, and he's on his way again. He's not even asking about his push-chair to be taken along (apart from one time with dad where we quickly convinced him that wouldn't be a good idea). Now I just need to get my act together and sell that thing on ebay.

After realising that he could walk for more than five minutes, Yannick also started to show more of an interest in other ways of moving about again. His scooter has finally been used for more than just 10 metres, he's been into town on it! We also took it along to the zoo on Monday and he had loads of fun scooting about with his friend Callum.

I think this whole new walking thing must be related to the fact that Yannick's legs grew about two sizes over the six to nine months. He always used to wear trousers one size smaller than his tops (which were right for his age group), now they have caught up. Obviously longer legs means you get about faster which makes everything so much easier!

Just wanted to update on my Agnus Castus results as another four months have passed by and I'm sitting here with a nice little headache which must be PMS related. Yes, shouty mum is back - but not quite as bad as before (for now). So, yes, there seems to be an effect on the mood swings, which is good.

My hormones have stayed kick-started but my body seems to have got more used to that as I had no more cold sores ever since I wrote my last entry. Yes, I actually forgot to mention that I got those every time for three months… Not a nice side effect.

It seems that Agnus Castus indeed has done quite something to my body.

A while after I had given birth to Yannick I started getting really bad PMS, sometimes about five days before my period, being irritable like hell and becoming 'shouty mum' for the slightest of reasons. I didn't want to do this to my little man any more so I asked around if anybody had a tip. One of my mummy friends recommended to take Agnus Castus, a herbal medicine.

I read up on it and it sounded all right. A three month course of Agnus Castus is supposed to kick-start the female body into creating more progesterone, a female hormone, and thus help to do away with the hormonal imbalances that cause PMS. I also read somewhere that it might help with conception - this should have set my alarm bells off. (No, I am not pregnant!) However, there was no more mention of that at other places so I promptly forgot about this piece of information again.

I ordered my three month course and have just finished taking it. Now I am wondering, what have I done to myself?!

I think the mood swings mellowed out a little but I am not entirely sure that I have got rid of them completely. Circumstances while taking the drug don't help determining how much it changed me: we had Frank around for the whole of December which obviously took pressure of me, so how can I tell how much of the change is related to Frank and how much to the medicine?

What certainly happened is that it kick-started my hormones! The last three periods I could tell every single time when I was ovulating and I also got my periods at shorter intervals - definitely not a desired effect! I am sure if I would try for a baby now (I won't!) I would most certainly get pregnant quickly. And this at my age…!

I also noticed some other changes but I am not going to elaborate, let it suffice to say it has to do with libido. These were also unwelcome to me. (Ha ha, now you wonder…)

In any case, I am hoping now that my body will go back to some of its sluggish ways without too much of the PMS symptoms returning - I guess I can't have the cake and eat it.

Goodness, I can't believe that one of my last posts here featured the Hanover town hall and only about a week ago I took another photo of it… However, this time in the snow.

Autumn, winter, Christmas, New Year, time flies… What have we been up to?

It seems that autumn just disappeared very quickly and all of a sudden it was time to go for our Christmas trip to Hanover. When we arrived at my mum's place it got very cold. One night it was down to -19C, apparently Hanover was one of the two coldest places in Germany that night (the other was the Zugspitze, a mountain). Strangely I didn't mind the cold at all!

Before going to Germany I kept saying I don't want to go, what if it gets as cold as that one time when my sinuses started to hurt from the cold air? Well, surprisingly nothing hurt this time. Maybe because I didn't have a cold. The freezing air was actually nice, it was very crisp and fresh. As long as you wore enough layers, being outside for a while was great. We also had snow, for almost the whole time - I haven't seen this much snow in years! It didn't snow on Christmas eve but that was ok as we needed to go by car to my sister's house and my mum doesn't like to drive in bad weather conditions.

Apart from snow and cold weather, I had my first Yannick free nights ever since he was born! Frank took him to Berlin for two nights in the hotel so that they could go and see Frank's mum before Christmas. Yannick got plenty of advance 'warning' and of course didn't want to go without me and I had to talk to him several times about this before he went. He was OK in the end, had made his peace with the idea of being without mummy for once. And guess what, I didn't get any tearful calls, nothing, it looks like they did really well! The only person who cried was I - after I had taken them to the train. It was another ice-cold day with trains being late. Their train was packed, they couldn't get to their booked seats at first and I could feel Frank's temper well up. I couldn't even say good-bye properly before the doors closed. It felt horrible and I had to have a good cry once I arrived at my sister's place.

My mum and I went to pick up Yannick from Berlin and see Frank's mum too. Another cold day with late trains but it went OK.

The next day we celebrated my mum's birthday and as almost every year had lunch at a Chinese restaurant.

Christmas eve we were at my sister's place and as to be expected Yannick just loved it. Funnily enough he was most impressed by a toy that he didn't get. His best friend in Germany, Felix (my sister's partner's son) who's eight, owns a Wall-e robot. Oh my goodness, he loved that thing… Wall-e watched him unpack his presents, slept next to his bed every night, you get the idea. However getting so many new things took Yannick's mind a bit of Wall-e which helped leaving him behind.

On Boxing day Frank came back from Berlin and we moved over to my sister's place. We also got to see some of our relatives over the following days which was nice.

Some pictures taken by Yannick:

On 31 December we had our flight back and it snowed like there's no tomorrow. The flights were still on luckily but we spent an hour in the plane while it was being de-iced and the runway being cleared over and over. Eventually we took off and everything was just fine.

I was happy to discover that it was quite cold in the UK as well as this means that I don't have to walk through muddy fields to get to pre-school: everything was frozen hard. Then it started to snow here too and pre-school was closed this Wednesday and Thursday even though conditions weren't too bad. Bummer! But today it was open again. I guess British people are finally coming round to the idea that you can continue life despite snow and ice.

Oh by the way, I've got some more photos over on Facebook and also a few on Flickr.

I was collecting leaves with Yannick today and I was totally amazed by the diversity of colouring you can find on leaves of the same type. Check them out!

During our summer holiday in Hanover my sister suggested to go to the Rathaus (mayor's building) and go all the way up on the main tower to enjoy the views. Mainly because Yannick likes lifts so much.

The Rathaus has a very special lift that goes up a curve and it is entirely made of glass. So you cannot only look up and sideways at the walls while you are moving but also down below your feet. Not everybody is comfortable with that so it did help that the glass floor is already quite scratched. In any case none of my photos of the lift or the views are too interesting but I took some nice ones inside the building which I published on flickr today. This staircase is just one of them.

Recently I've noticed that Yannick seems to use the German word 'jetzt' ('now') in English sentences. I'm trying to tell him the proper sentence every time this happens, so hopefully at some point 'now' will have made it into his memory.

Yannick is often saying in German 'ich meane' (as in English 'I mean'). Proper German would be 'ich meine'. So he maintains the right verb declination but uses the English word, quite funny.

Even though there are plenty of words in German and English that sound similar, Yannick is not confused at all by words that sound the same in both languages but actually mean something different. In a German book we came across an 'Igel' which means hedgehog. Then a little while later he learned the English word 'eagle' which is pronounced the same way. Even though he had heard the word 'hedgehog' before he was thinking for a short while we were talking about the German hedgehog but as soon as I explained that this was a bird called 'Adler' in German there was no more confusion.

He's also becoming a right little translator. Sometimes when I don't remember a word out of an area that he knows quite well (like farm words) I'm now taking to asking him to help me, and more often than not he can do that. It's quite intriguing. It seems he has a very good concept of the two languages being separate entities, rather than muddling everything up and trying another word in the same language of the word I asked him to translate.

Sometimes he doesn't seem to know certain words or phrases for his games in one language or maybe simply remembers something from playing in pre-school and switches to the other language there and then: 'Das Auto soll hier lang fahren. It's going over a big branch and it's breaking the gate. Brrrrm.' He'll stay with the other language for a little while until I or Frank say something again in German. Sometimes we go along speaking English for a while but usually I'm trying nowadays to switch back to German quite quickly so that we don't fall into bad habits and only speak English at home at some point. That would totally defeat the object of raising my child with two languages. The trouble with this is that both Frank and I sometimes don't even notice which language we are speaking as we switch just like Yannick when a phrase in one of our two languages seems more suitable for what we want to express. It must be quite weird to listen to the three of us at times!

We've finally also cut off all the red chillies which now will have to be dried. Here you can see Yannick's chubby fingers holding one for the camera:

The varieties are called 'Ring of fire' and 'Cherry bomb'. Have a guess which one is which. I am wondering whether the few remaining green chillies will also manage to become red or whether I should rather cut them off as well. Any advice?

As I've already mentioned on facebook, Yannick surprised me by suddenly wanting olives on bread. He must have overheard a conversation with my of my friends who is a vegan. I dug out some tapenade (with sundried tomatoes) and ever since that's what Yannick is having at least once a day, usually for breakfast. Until recently he actually wouldn't touch olives at all. Weird world.

Yesterday he surprised me again. At lunch time I was preparing rice with chicken breast in tomato sauce with peas. He usually has the meat and not much else nowadays. Yesterday he said he didn't want chicken and ate copious amounts of rice with tomato sauce and peas! He hadn't touched peas in months! After a while he also had a little chicken but this behaviour was definitely quite different! I wonder is he turning vegetarian? Maybe so, as he keeps asking me what is animal and what is plant: 'are courgettes animals?' 'Now, sweetie, what do you think, you've seen them grow in the garden!'

At the same time Yannick has become really quite challenging, going wild at times, running around, still throwing tantrums, biting, pulling hair, pushing and chasing other children, trying to climb up on people. Is it pre-school that's to blame (I think he feels a lot more independent now)? Or simply the age?

Yannick's interests have widened too, he really wants to understand how life and things work. We had a long talk about what happens when people die. As I don't believe in any afterlife stories it was all about how our buried bodies become soil and plants can grow out of that. After initial unhappiness about the idea of dying one day, Yannick decided that he wanted to be an oak tree and was quite happy with that idea. He also thought hard about who he wanted to stay with if either mummy or daddy died (the other parent of course) and it was tough for him to voice his thoughts on that. In addition to this, he said to me that he will go and fly to grandma Gertrud the next time I shout at him. Equally if he shouts, I will have to do that too… This was another tough conversation, he kept starting to cry at the thought of leaving me. But it had to be talked about.

Oh, yes, while we were away, Frank built the rest of our new living room shelves/cupboards/tv unit. It's actually not as imposing as I thought it would be, so I'm quite happy. However, I'm surprised at how many of the little shelves are already blocked by Yannick's stuff…

On Wednesday he didn't want to wear the goggles. Argh. My child, typical! But he was happy so all was fine. The only thing he needed was a toilet break. Surprising as he went before we left the house and again before he went into the pool. I guess it was nerves.

On Thursday he finally took the goggles with him and the teacher showed him how to use them. It took a little getting used to. Again a toilet break but nothing else.

On Friday all was fine. The goggles went on and stayed on, no crying, no toilet break. Success!

I hope I can go swimming several times during term time with Yannick, he would definitely enjoy that and he said he would like that. I've heard that there is another Swiminis course during half term so I'll try to sign him up again - there's nothing better than proper tuition!

I think it's fair to say that both Frank and I are complete couch potatoes. We've only managed to take Yannick once to the pool before the lessons started - and that was last Sunday. Eek. However, he's been to the seaside where he loved the splashing waves and he expressed an interest in learning to swim when he was in a relatively big paddling pool of a friend. When I said to him that he could go to a five day swimming course with an instructor he was all up for it!

So today we had the first 30 minute lesson. I was watching from the gallery. Yannick was so excited that he could hardly sit still and wait for the instructor to 'swim' with him. The first 15 minutes of that went well, Yannick enjoyed himself. Nevertheless, he made sure to be as close as possible to the pool edge most of the time and sitting on the top most step rather than a little further in with the other children. Then the instructor started showing them how to move through the water on their backs. Yannick didn't like that. I don't know if he got too much water into his ears or his face somehow but all of a sudden he was sitting at the edge of the pool and was crying. The crying sounded half way theatrical but he was clearly somewhat upset. The instructor got him again and talked him into trying the next thing and Yannick seemed OK to go on with it. I could see he was a bit fearful as he was putting his legs around the instructor instead of relaxing them. The instructor managed to calm him down a little, still he came back a little bit more upset than before. This was hard to watch but I decided to keep my distance as the instructor was trying to console him and Yannick didn't seem like he needed me badly. In the end I went down a couple of minutes before the end and Yannick noticed me a moment after I sat down behind him. But he didn't come running to me as I half expected. So I'm not quite sure what to make of this. Let's see how this develops over the next four days.

Yannick has been growing up in the UK in a German speaking family. The first two and a half years of his life, Frank and I only spoke German to him when we were on our own. I would occasionally say something in English but more by accident when in English speaking company. We have a number of English friends so we were never in short supply of an English language environment with other children. I also took Yannick to Sing and Sign (baby signing) and later Jo Jingles (structured music intro). We started Sing and Sign when he was eight months old and far from speaking any language. He quickly picked up the most important signs to him, 'eat' and 'drink'. Other signs followed (including 'more' and 'bird') but as they weren't quite so important they took some time. At 18 months Yannick all of sudden had a speaking explosion, within a couple of weeks he knew and used loads of words (see here for my notes at the time). At his second birthday he spoke quite well but not complete sentences yet. This all developed over the twelve months and his German is just great. Of course there are some things that are not quite right yet, but mostly I only notice a wrong form of a verb in past perfect tense or similar. Sometimes he struggled to put all of what he wanted to say into one sentence and they got ridiculously long and warped, but it was just great to hear how much he was interested in communicating his thoughts. So far so good.

At two and a half I started to speak to Yannick in English when we were playing and reading as I wanted to increase his confidence. I knew he understood a lot as he often would comment on a situation in German to me after listening in to other people's and children's conversations. But he was just not speaking. Slowly, slowly he started to speak back to me. At age three he started pre-school, prepared with the most important things to say, and off he went. From the first week I noticed changes in the way he was using English and while he's not quite as fluent as in German, he's definitely confident to speak now. Sometimes we get funny translations and you notice that German is his first language. For example he still says 'I know that not' or 'I want that not' which is literally translated from German word order. But at the same time he comes out with English songs and typical phrases that he heard over and over in his books. When I ask him what a word means in English he can almost always tell me in German. It's just incredible. Soon he'll be like a native speaker!

We had a nice word a while ago, it was a fusion of 'mechanic' and 'Mechaniker'. What we got was 'mexicaniker'. There were more funny words but I can't remember a thing right now. Have to activate my memory one of these days…

I wouldn't mind him waking up so early if at least he would just go and play. But no, even when in his own bed (that he can climb out of), he calls for me to get up and see to him. When he is in my bed he 'needs' me to lead him to his room (which is just next to mine). Once he's been to the loo and I've dressed him, I go back to bed to rest and he's quite OK to play by himself - but only in little instalments of 15 to 20 minutes each. Then we get 'mummy!' and he wants me to get a book for him, something to eat, or I don't know what. Not my idea of a good morning.

What has changed, what can I change?

• First of all, the young man is out of nappies. Despite still sleeping in one he mostly (in 98% of all cases) wakes up dry and needs the toilet first thing. Understandable that he might wake up earlier than usual as his bladder must be full.
• Secondly, he's managing sleeping in his own bed for a whole night a lot more often than before.

Taken by themselves, these two fact don't t sound too bad, do they?

But which parent likes to be woken at 5:30am, I wonder?

I think I'm going to try this:

• Said young man usually wakes up sometime between 10 and 11pm to drink some water. I might just pop him on the potty there and then.
• As I said, often he's sleeping the whole night in his own bed. The problem with this is that he's looking for his mummy in the early hours to cuddle up to. So I might just carry him over when I go to bed and keep him with me for the rest of his night. In the past he usually slept longer when he was with me. The bad part of this plan is that my sleep probably will still be disturbed as he cuddles up and either kicks me with his legs into my tummy or head butts me at the same place. Sigh.
• I'll try and sneak in a nap for him one of these days. That usually resets his biorhythm a little and he'll sleep later in the morning for a few days. But this might mean that he also goes to bed later - which is not so good.
• Even though it sounds odd, it sometimes helps when then young master goes to bed earlier. Maybe we can get him to sleep by 7pm today. The effect is that all his usual wake up times are slightly earlier. This obviously includes the morning waking time, that one might be shifted to 4:30am. However, this is not bad. At that time it is much easier to get him back to sleep. So there, we'll try this!

Or does anybody have any better ideas?

Here's the complimentary photo for today:

My child was so much easier to manage as a two year old. Before he could speak properly. Nowadays he finds new ways to send me over the edge every single day. The power of repetition, he's definitely cracked it. He also seems to cop on to the fact that being nice to people can earn you some brownie points. What did he say to me the other day? 'Mummy, you look pretty!' Then after a little pause: 'I am saying this because I love you!' Hm, what to make of this now? I'm sure the statement came out with the best of intentions but if he was a grown up, I would have smacked him! He also has learned how to charm the ladies at pre-school, he just takes their hands and leads them to the toy he wants to play with and they are chuffed by how sweet he is. But then their JOB is to play with him, so it's OK.

Pre-school and his new found confidence in English have definitely changed him. He can finally make himself understood (most of the time) and if over excitement doesn't get in the way, he's trying really hard to communicate his play ideas to other children. He's actually using German grammar in some English phrases, it sounds funny: 'I know that not' (I don't know). Unfortunately he's also joining in with all stupid loud and annoying games nowadays. He started to push a little for fun. Not so nice. And he ignores my 'NOOOOO's.

The good news is that he's finally properly out of nappies. We had a few bigger accidents in the first weeks but lately they get scarce and even the big toilet is not a show stopper any more. I don't even have to remind him all the time, he's quite a good judge of when to go.

To follow up on my last post, my eBay selling went well, I was happy with the result. However, we still haven't put together the remaining of our new Ikea shelves. I think I'll leave this to Frank for when Yannick and I will be in Germany. We are going there for three weeks and he can have all the fun with about 10,000 screws and other bits!

Oh, finally, here a recent drawing that Yannick did. And don't tell me you can't see what it is!

On other news my sister visited in May and my mum was with us in June (both staying for nearly two weeks each). Luckily the weather wasn't too bad on both occasions and we were able to do a lot of outside things, including several trips to the beach. I even got quite a tan - at least compared to my usual white skin. I also did a lot of gardening which I love. Unfortunately the last weeks were quite rainy again, so not so much outdoor fun any more.

I've finally made it to the new Ikea in Southampton. At last, after seven long years, we are not too far away from Ikea any more. I hated the fact that there was no Ikea at all in the whole of Ireland! Frank and I have bought new shelves/cupboards for the living room. So far we have managed to unpack one of the shelves and put all of Yannick's toys in there that were living in plastic containers on the living room floor. I'm in two minds about the whole affair as the new furniture will not be as 'charming' or 'warm' looking as our current messy pine furniture combination. On the other hand I was craving storage space and this should provide us with plenty of that. We also had to find something that was able to take the weight of our very old-fashioned non-flat screen TV and this combo does exactly that. At least Yannick seems to like the fact that he can get at his toys a lot easier than before, no more asking, mummy, can I have this or that.

About a week ago Yannick has started potty/toilet training. It's going ok, with some accidents as to be expected, but most of the time things are working very well. I think it was a good decision to wait for such a long time. I don't see the point to toilet train a child that simply is not aware of the fact that he has to go. Now he is (most of the time at least) and that's why the whole process works.

What else? The summer break has started. No more pre-school until September. It's nice as there is less time pressure and Yannick and I can just do whatever tickles our fancy, I was missing that a bit. On the other hand I'll be missing my time without Yannick too. But then, the break will be over in no time, especially as we'll also spend three weeks in Germany visiting the relatives.

Currently I'm trying to sell some stuff on eBay to make space in the garden and the shed. We've bought a huge sandbox for Yannick so his old sand and water play table will have to go, I'm also selling the old rocking horse, the climbing frame, a scooter that he doesn't like, and some other stuff that we simply don't need. Wish me luck that many people want these items to that the auction price goes up!

The photos are a bit dark but they show nicely how much Yannick likes to draw.

We are trying to reflect some of the why questions back to Yannick and I think he's slowly realising that he can answer some of them himself. But the constant 'whys' are really getting to me, approximately after 'why' number twenty I can't help but start asking back 'why not?'.

It's so weird, as if he's only just realised that the word 'why' exists. He used to ask 'what's that' and 'how does this work', 'what does this do' and those questions were fine as you got different angles to explain something that way. The 'why' questions seem to be replacing all of those and more. They always seem to be very wide and often we have to ask back simply to find out what exactly he's asking about. Then you are half way through explaining and boom, the next 'why'. Argh.

The 'I want to do that' is a lot less troublesome as I was always hoping for some more initiative from his side on certain things. Now for example he's showing some interest in putting his own shoes on which is good. Sadly, eating doesn't seem to fall under this category. If I want him to eat more than his limited level of patience makes him, I still have to feed him. He's just bored of eating after five minutes and always needs a toy to keep him at the table. It doesn't matter much whether he really likes something or not, food is just not that important.

However, Yannick's English is really coming on now. We were at a friend's place today and he was asking her question about toys which he never did like that before. It's so nice to see how confident he is getting in speaking in his second language. Soon he'll be like a native speaker and outdo me easily!

How brave is that? He went in there without knowing anybody and doesn't even speak great English yet. I think at almost three years of age this is very courageous, especially if you've never really staid with anybody else but your parents. OK, my sister took him out to play last year a few times but that was that.

He was supposed to stay there for three hours. Two hours after leaving I received a phone call that Yannick wasn't happy at all any more and was asking for his mummy. So I set off to collect my brave little boy who was now crying while sitting on a helpers lap. Awww. He was happy to see me and just wanted to go home. I asked him whether he wanted to come back tomorrow and again without hesitation: 'yes'. He actually really liked being there and I was assured that he was playing nicely up to about five minutes before they called me. I guess that it simply all got a bit much after a while and he needed some moral support. I'm expecting something similar for the rest of this week (two more half days) and maybe for next week too.

I think part of his courage must come from the fact that we have a couple of books which described pre-school pretty well and he was really keen on playing with other children. I was probably more nervous beforehand than he was. And while it was really nice to have a couple of hours to myself today (spent with cleaning of all things…) I was missing my little man and shed a couple of tears about how fast they grow up.

2 weeks of cold.
2 weeks of feeling better (but never completely without slightly runny nose).
Then it starts again.

It seems to be different infections every time as they have slightly different symptoms. Some leave my sinuses alone, others go deep.

This one certainly did take over completely. It took me about five days to get out of the headache daze to finally be able to do something to help myself. A week later I feel more human again and manage to spend time with Yannick without getting annoyed with almost everything he does.

The worst thing about this cold is that it did have to turn me into Mrs Grump right while Frank was away for several days. I think my poor child didn't know what hit him at times… (no, I did not hit him).

I HATE COLDS.

Last time this happened I paid £115 to get a new lock. This time my new contingency plan worked, albeit with a slight hitch.

After climbing over the fence from our neighbour's garden I found that the key for the back door that I had left with our neighbours after our first accident didn't work. I was totally flabbergasted. And I had get back over the fence… Not my favourite past-time.

In the end I phoned Frank who also had a key for that door and asked him whether it had the same number on it as the one I had here. It didn't, which gave me hope. After a long day being out at Hillier's Garden and a café Yannick and I drove all the way to Farnborough to pick up Frank at the end of his working day - and when we arrived back home I found after another fence climbing incidence, that, hurray, his key was the right one! Phew.

At Christmas time Yannick got a little cooker/oven unit which was accompanied by some plastic food:

• a burger bun
• hot dog sausages with rolls
• broccoli
• cauliflower
• a burger
• a lettuce leaf
• a sunny side up egg
• corn on the cob
• tomato slices
• a chicken thigh

Some of these items he had never seen in his life, for example a sunny side up egg or a burger. We also don't eat corn. However, he loves cooking, frying and baking all of these items.

Inspired by this I thought I could include him a little more in our real food preparation and he loves that.

Before the cooker, Yannick would only eat egg as omelette. I had tried scrambled egg and hard boiled egg but he wouldn't touch either of them. So after seeing him play, for the first time I made a sunny side egg and I gave him strips of toast to dip into the yolk. He LOVED it.

Today I thought I show him several incarnations of egg. We did a sunny side up once again, a normal breakfast egg (5 minutes) and a hard boiled one. As expected only the sunny side up one was excepted. I showed him the soft yolk of the five minutes egg and he finally accepted some of that - but only poured over his almost finished sunny side up egg. The hard boiled egg became only interesting after I put some sauce over it (in Germany we eat those with something similar to tartar sauce), but by that time he was too full already to appreciate it.

From the other plastic food items we have only had hot dog sausages which are like Frankfurters and he loves those. I already knew that broccoli wasn't going to be a big hit even though he loves serving his plastic broccoli. But at least he would try it again after playing with it.

I will have to try cauliflower cheese again, last time it was 'so so' with him. About corn I'm not sure as I don't like it too much and I think Yannick wasn't too keen on it either when he had it somewhere else recently.

And guess what, my child doesn't like baked beans too much. Just like Frank and I.

Things he loves:

• Cucumber.
• Apples. Sometimes kiwi. He used to like pears, have to try those again.
• Porridge with banana.
• Fruit purées.
• Rye-bread, crispy bread rolls, or toast with cheese, salami or paté.
• Camembert/brie.
• Sandwiches with salmon, prawns or cheese.
• Pasta/tortellini/ravioli with red or green pesto and crème fraîche.
• Pasta with smoked salmon (or prawns), courgette, and dill in crème fraîche.
• Rice with chicken in sauce hollandaise and if I'm lucky some veggies in there (mushrooms/courgette).
• Rice with braising steak and super sauce (with puréed carrots and red wine!).
• Rice with left over super sauce and chicken meat (marinated in soy sauce).
• Pizza.
• Fish fingers.
• Chocolate, biscuits with chocolate - but not cake (in general)!
• Smarties and milk chocolate buttons.
• Yoghurts and fromage frais.