Sick Again

It never seems to end with us... Two weeks ago is was a stomach bug, and now it's a cold. Poor Marius seems to have gotten it the worst and was up all night coughing the past few days. Thankfully his appetite hasn't decreased, so he's eating all of his food and then some. I'm over my cold, and Simon is half way through his... I hope we are all back up to 100% by this weekend, as we're supposed to go to a nature/farm park with some of Simon's colleagues. We were at the zoo last weekend and Marius was loving all of the animals, so I can't wait for this weekend. I think he'll really get a kick out of petting some goats and sheep.
Speaking of sick, our boiler was sick this week too. A boiler is a water heater. Except they are way different from the US water heaters. The ones here are direct heating, so there's no water tank. It's fine as long as you don't take a 30 minute shower, like I was fond of doing back home... They also don't let you use hot water out of more than one tap in the house, as that's too much water to warm at once. There are other types of boilers here, but that's the most common one. It's totally efficient though, and I got used to the change pretty easily. But anyhow, so ours was making this huge banging sound when we turned off the hot water. A plumber was send out and came back 3 times of the past 3 weeks trying to "fit" it. Yesterday he broke the thing completely and told me that he'd have to order a part for it and we'd have no hot water or heating (because we have radiators heated by the boiler) overnight. Needless to say I told him that with a sick baby and near freezing overnight temperatures, this was unacceptable and that I was livid. He just said, that's what happened and it couldn't be fixed and he'd call my property management company. Thankfully they send out someone who only works on boilers, and they were able to come out that afternoon and fix it. I was so happy I got their work info and will call them to service our boiler in our new flat as soon as we move in.

Big big news

Marius took his first steps today! In the past week or so he's been finding himself standing without anything to hold on to and has been quite stable. But he'd always gently lower himself on to the ground and crawl away in the direction of his choice. So today it wasn't a huge shocker when we had him standing up in the middle of the living room and stepped back a few steps only to watch him follow after us on two feet. But it was totally exciting non-the-less, and especially because he looked so good at it. I'm sure I'll be kicking myself about it in a week when he's getting into more precarious situations much more quickly than before. We'll try to get a video of this mind-blowing feat shortly.
On another front... We're buying a flat and it's pretty much a done deal. We'll move in on May 16th, so we still have plenty of time to pack and get ready for the move. The good news is that it's a HUGE place, at least by UK standards. Meaning it's just over 1200 square feet. So that means that we'll have plenty of space for visitors, as it's a 3 bedroom flat. The bad news is that we're wiping our bank accounts clean with the purchase, so we won't be making any exciting trips to Spain like we had hoped this summer, and we will likely be carless too. We'll have to make due with the lovely avocado green bathroom until we can afford to totally gut it and start anew. The flat is on the second floor, meaning the third floor to all of you Americans (oh, and elevators are almost non existent in this country). But compared to most of the spiral staircases here that are accidents/deaths waiting to happen, ours is very gentle and has platform turns instead of winding turns, if that makes any sense. So, mom and dad, your knees should be able to handle the walk up and down with no problem! We also have a patch of private garden out back, which we're totally excited about. Simon is already planning the border plantings. We want to make it a little secret garden of sorts and put in a hedge or something to section it off from our neighbours’ uncared for portions. But we'll see. A new flat and a toddler running around will make us very busy, so gardening may not be our first priority like it was in Tallahassee. Anyhow we'll post photos of our new digs once we move in and get settled. Oh, I can't wait!

Sick family

This has not been the best weekend.... I felt horrible all day and Marius obviously did too as he refused to eat anything but a few cheerios. Then Simon was up all night and was sick to his stomach, and then some! I didn't get any sleep, mostly because of Simon's commotion in the bathroom, and then I worried that Marius would get sick in his bed too, so I ended up sleeping on the floor in his room so that I could attend to him if he threw up in his sleep. Insane paranoid mother.... yes I know! Marius was fine, but I'm a bit sore and tired today. I'm feeling better, and thankfully Marius ate a decent breakfast. Simon on the other hand is not feeling so hot. He tends to be a bit of a baby anyway when he's sick, but given his state last night he does deserve to wallow a bit today. The poor guy. I hope we're all back to normal by Tuesday, as Simon and I have a dinner reservation at a super nice restaurant in town. It's my belated birthday present. I pitched a fit when I found out that the reservations weren't made for my actual birthday last week, but eventually I calmed down and agreed to go this week instead.

1st Haircut

BEFORE

Well, after more than a year.... we figured it was time for a little trim trim. We had no clue what we were doing, but in the end I think it turned out OK. I made sure to save all of his locks. Oh, I can imagine giving them to his wife one day thirty years from now! Here's a before and after shot so you can see just how much we took off.

AFTER

We have a 1 year-old in the house!

Marius had a pretty good birthday. He was showered by presents over the weekend, and then had a little party at the house last night complete with cake. We had one of Simon's colleagues and his girlfriend come over for pizza and cake. The guy is French and just came back from a trip back home with a car full of wine!!!! Lucky for us he brought a wonderful bottle of bordeaux which we had with our homemade pizza then we celebrated afterwards with sugar free carrot cake and a bottle of clairette de die. Oh man, I'm now totally ruined for champagne..... Clairette de die is so sweetly fab!
Anyhow, we adults had a good time and so did Marius. He would laugh right along with us when someone told a funny story! He's such a little social butterfly! He certainly didn't get that from his mother.

Role reversal

Due to two more teeth coming in on the bottom, Marius has decided it's much more fun to feed mommy and daddy than let them feed him. You know, just when you think that you know what to expect from your kid, they change. Then you have to figure everything out all over again. Marius didn't make the slightest fuss when his first four teeth came in. Then his 5th and 6th ones brought on some fussiness and total refusal to eat veggies. And now his 7th and 8th ones are taking their sweet time to cut through, making for one fussy baby come eating time. He just didn't want to eat anything but cherios this weekend, but we managed to get some pancakes and pinapple in too. Today he's feeling a lot better and he ate some carrots, which he stiffly refused two days ago. I hope the next few teeth aren't as bothersome for him, but I'm sure they will be. At any rate, Marius did enjoy feeding us his cherios, but only after he licked them to make sure they were good enough for mommy and daddy!


Tomorrow we have carrot cake!!!!!