Mom and dad come to visit

Three days after we got back from the hospital my parents arrived in town. The plan was that they were going to get here two weeks after the baby was born, so we could have a bit of time getting used to our new life as a family of three, but Béla had other ideas. He slept in late the day that they arrived, so we didn't even manage to make their bed before they got here. It didn't matter so much though, because they were distracted by how cute he is...

They also brought lots of gifts from Canada with them. Here Jeremi and I are trying out a teething toy from Gloria...

...and Jeremi is very impressed by the leather bib.

There was also a beautiful flannel quilt from Mrs. Gariepy!

And a mountain of clothes, mostly from Gloria and my parents. They had the foresight to buy clothes a bit bigger than what he's wearing now, mostly 3-6 month sizes. I can't believe he'll be so big so soon! We also got a sweet little stuffed lamb from my uncle and aunt, and some money from Baba to start a savings account for the new addition to our family. All in all, we felt pretty spoiled.

Here we are after running our first useful post-baby errand, registering the birth at city hall (in the background), while mom and dad had a coffee at a cafe on the market square. We were able to get two birth certificates, which is unheard of in Canada, but will come in handy when we have to send one off to Berlin to apply for a passport and certificate of Canadian citizenship while using the other one to do the German paperwork that needs doing. (The guy also printed the certificate off on a regular office printer, which makes it seem much less official than the Canadian ones, though it does have an ink stamp on it.)

Here I look like I've settled right into this whole motherhood thing, and can do it with one hand, with a cat on my lap, while talking on the phone. This isn't quite the case, but it looks good at least. (In reality, I haven't even managed to check my emails yet...)


Here are our friends Calin and Susanne, who were finally able to come by to see the baby. They really wanted to visit while he was in the hospital, but they were both suffering from a bad cold, and didn't want to infect him. They did bring the sweetest flowers along though - a big bouquet tied with a ribbon to a little bouquet. Apparently this is a common flower arrangement in Denmark to bring to new moms and babies, but it isn't really well known here, and it took some convincing at the flower shop before the woman would do it for them.


And here's my mom, enjoying her new little grandson.

Ah yes, and here's their unmade bed, which was being used to block a baby blanket that I knit for him. It's come in quite handy for covering up his little feet.
And finally, in response to the comments (on the blog and otherwise) about what he's wearing in the hospital pictures - that's what they dressed him in there, stupid hat and all. They don't use gowns on the babies in the hospital here in Jena, but rather dress them all in two shirts and a thick romper-type thing, with a hat on their first day, even if it's 30 degrees in the room. They also smother them under duvets in their plastic-sided cribs, and give newborns bottles of tea, but that's a whole other story. The crib that he was in is called a baby bay, and I'm not sure if I had it just because I had a caesarean - most of the other babies were in plastic-sided cribs. In the baby bay, one side dropped down, and there were brakes on the wheels so it could be set up next to the bed safely. It was pretty nifty.