http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog -- Sylke's mutterings to herself on an island not so far away Wed, 26 May 2010 18:13:43 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Is it scooting or scootering as I hear some people say? (I was pretty sure it's scooting and my spell check just underlined scootering, so it seems confirmed!) Anyway, we had a pretty poorly winter and Yannick wasn't very fit. It was mostly little things like colds but we also got ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2010/05/26/running-and-scooting/ TMI warning: if you don't like to read about the female cycle, stop right here! 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 - ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2010/05/26/update-on-agnus-castus/ TMI warning: if you don't like to read about the female cycle, stop right here! 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 ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2010/01/18/taking-agnus-castus-to-do-away-with-pms/ Wintermärchen, originally uploaded by Sylke Krämer. 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 ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2010/01/08/wintermarchen/ Got lost..., originally uploaded by Sylke Krämer. 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! :) http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2009/10/22/got-lost/ Staircase, originally uploaded by Sylke Krämer. 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 ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2009/10/22/visit-to-the-rathaus-in-hanover/ Just some things I wanted to take note of before I forget again. 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 ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2009/10/20/notes-on-yannicks-bilingualism-2/ I've been busy, I made quince jelly! I love that stuff as it is not as sweet as jam or even marmelade. Unfortunately I've got only about three and a half jars... One of them made me laugh as it set so quickly that the jelly got stuck to the ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2009/10/08/quinces-chillies-and-eating-in-general/ Our three week holiday was great - with our relatives really trying to think up things to do that interest Yannick! We did a lot of tram/underground spotting and riding, train and boat trips, going up and down lifts and elevators, playing with water features, building sand castles, going down ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2009/09/14/one-holiday-later/ On his second day of swimming (Tuesday), Yannick went in as if nothing had happened the day before. However, as soon as they were supposed to go into the water he wasn't happy any more and cried again. I felt really bad about leaving him down there but the teacher ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2009/08/14/swimming-wasnt-so-bad-after-all/ I've decided that I'd like my boy to learn to swim much earlier than I did. So, I've registered him with a five day Swimini course (swimming for children at beginners level) at our local leisure centre. Of course this won't lead to him swimming but at least it will ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2009/08/10/a-crying-boy-at-the-swimming-pool/ So what's going on you must be wondering. Is he speaking English now? Yes, he is! 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 ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2009/08/09/a-bilingual-child/ Gah, lately my child has taken to waking up at the ungodly time of 5:30am again! I thought this was over. We had many, many weeks when he would sleep from 8pm to about 7/7:30am. All of a sudden we are back to 5:30am. That's only 9.5 hours of sleep. ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2009/08/09/sleep-or-the-lack-of-it-in-the-morning/ ... not sure what to think of them. 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 ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2009/08/06/three-year-olds/ It's been 6 weeks or so since my last post. It feels somehow that I have no time at all to write. All I manage these days is status updates on facebook. It doesn't help that I'm currently working on what must be the slowest laptop in the universe. My ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2009/07/18/wheres-my-time-gone/ He must have had one. There were these very disturbed and short nights just a short while back and now the child is asking 'why?' and 'why?' every five seconds it seems. In addition to that we also get a lot of 'I want to do that' which we didn't ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2009/06/01/growth-spurt/ Today Yannick had his first half day at pre-school. He went in without batting an eye lid in hesitation. OK, he stopped to sit on a bench next to the entrance for the first five minutes and watched what was going on but after that he set off to play ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2009/04/21/brave-boy/ Yes, guess what, another cold. Ever since before Christmas it's going this way: 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 ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2009/03/12/ive-had-it/ Today I locked myself and Yannick out for the second time within a couple of month. The the key was inside in the lock of the front door when the door slammed shut. Last time this happened I paid £115 to get a new lock. This time my new contingency ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2009/02/17/locked-out-again/ It's funny but dry runs really work to kindle an interest in unknown/previously disliked foods. 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 ... http://www.sylkeweb.com/blog/2009/02/13/eating-with-yannick/