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 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'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 lid:

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!'

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 a water slide, visiting a park with deer and hogs… Not bad at all. Thank you, Mama, Elke, and Karin!

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 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 really looked after him so well that I thought Yannick simply has to get over this to learn to be less water shy. I believe that if things really would have been bad the teacher would have called me to collect him anyway. So Yannick was crying for 15 minutes - and then all of a sudden he started to enjoy himself! After swimming I bought him a pair of goggles and he was very happy.

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'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 expose him a little more to water than I managed to do in the last three years. Unfortunately I couldn't get him into the weekly swimming lessons during the upcoming term time any more but there's always another term after that.

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.

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 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…

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. That's surely not enough without a nap at midday!

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:

… 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 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!

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 have so much before. A different child.

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!

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 as if he'd never done anything else. After another five minutes or so I went over to him to tell him that I was leaving. He wasn't bothered too much. He looked at me in a way that it seemed like he was trying to find out whether I was really going and then just played on.

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.

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 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.

We had the following dialogue today:

Me: (by accident speaking aloud) Oh, I'm bleeding.
Yannick: Where are you bleeding?
Me: Oh, ehm, hm, women bleed every month, there's nothing wrong with that.
Yannick: *confused expression*
Me: *thinking how am I going to explain this one to a two year old???* That's what we do when we are not pregnant.
Yannick: What's pregnant?
Me: *thinking have I never used that word before???* Ehm, when there's a baby in mummy's belly.
Yannick: What is that? (pointing at a sanitary pad)
Me: Ehm, that's like a nappy for grown ups. To make sure that mummy's underpants stay clean.
Yannick: How do the babies get in the belly?
Me: *should have expected that question sooner or later* Ehm, um, when mummy and daddy really love each other a baby will come.
Yannick: *another confused look*
Me: *frantically thinking about what to say as he's probably now thinking that we don't love each other* Don't worry, mummy and daddy do really love each other but there's currently no baby in mummy's belly.

At that point he finally changed the topic. Phew.

Anybody here who can give me some hints on how to explain this better? I am actually a great believer in explaining things as they really are (apart from Father Christmas :P).

Don't we all know that? Ha!

There are definitely two kinds of people: parents and people without children. They live in different universes.

Either we are parents and are witnessing first hand that we are not able to live our lives as before any more (going hand in hand with a strong need to communicate about all the things that we are now exposed to on a daily basis) - or we are without children and think about people with children that they have become total bores, only being able to talk about their children and related things, and the children, oh don't let me start about the children…

Apart from being completely absorbed by the antics of the little monsters our emotional world also changes. Yep.

Some years back I had a conversation with somebody who claimed that only in a German movie a baby could be killed or die (he'd just seen such a movie, goodness only knows which one it was), never in an American one. And that it was just completely sick. Needless to say this was an American who said that. Well, we all know that Hollywood movies are usually quite predictable and yes, a dying baby would not make a movie easier to digest and therefore sell.

While it might not be easy to see a baby die in a movie, it still might be part of the story. So I still think there is nothing wrong with this. We all watch movies in which people die, so why are babies so different?

The point is that ever since I've got my own child I can understand a lot better why dying babies in a movie are hard to take. I've become completely soppy when there are children involved in a movie and anybody around them dies or something happens to the children themselves. So much actually that it can become unbearable and all I can do is cry (and I never used to be a movie crier).

The person who was making the comment about German movies was a parent to three children at the time, so naturally this would be a lot more upsetting to him than to me (no children at that point). However, I still maintain that death is a normal part of our lives and therefore should not be censored out of movies.

And now I've run out of steam. I'm sure we all could come up with lots more examples how parents change through our children but for today this is enough. After all I've got to think about my night that will most likely be disrupted several times by my toddler and the possibility of a very early start of the day.

Some time before Christmas I had cut some skewers into smaller pieces, so that Yannick had some sticks that he could transport with his train trucks. I usually put them away before other children came around as they were not completely safe with smaller children (as in "don't eat") but they were OK for Yannick.

When we were in Germany over the Christmas period (just a few nights in) Yannick woke up early one night and was getting more and more upset. He was crying and saying something. It took a while before we worked out that it was about the little sticks.

Finally we got it: he was saying 'Bella has your sticks' (Bella is one of his friends, and Yannick still mostly refers to himself with 'you' - so he meant 'his' sticks). He was really inconsolable about this. We were really surprised at this coming up there and then.

Eventually I remembered that Bella had visited us not long before the Germany trip and that I also gave her a set of sticks (she had seen Yannick's and wanted them). I had said to Yannick that these were different sticks from the ones he had and he seemed to understand at the time as he didn't get bothered.

When we realised what the dream was about it looked like that he actually felt cheated and that he thought that Bella took some of his sticks. So I had to explain to him over and over again, that those were different sticks and that his ones were safely at home. It was a bizarre conversation in a way as these little sticks were really nothing, they could be reproduced at any time and yet, they were so valuable to Yannick.

Eventually our little man went back to sleep and we were sitting there in disbelief about what just happened.

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.