Some firsts for Béla: a bath, and an international journey

My parents were here for almost two weeks, in which we'd planned two trips - a day trip by steam train from nearby Gera to Cheb, a city just over the border in the Czech Republic, and a three-day trip to Hamburg, a city we hadn't yet visited. The trips were our gift to my dad for his 60th birthday, which was in August. My grandmother's 90th birthday was in September, and they had a big joint party on August 29th. I wasn't even able to call to congratulate them, as I was in my second day of labour at that point, and really didn't feel like talking on the phone. Unfortunately Béla was born about four hours too late for the day of the party, which I was hoping for. (To be honest, I was hoping that he'd be born on the 28th, since I went into labour that morning. I really didn't think it would take 48 hours, but that's another story, which I'm not going to get into now.)

But before we headed out on our various journeys, there was some time spent just hanging around at home, which was a good thing, as they arrived only one week after he was born, when I was still recovering from an emergency C-section. I really didn't want them to plan their trip any earlier, as I figured it would be good if we had a couple weeks at home before they arrived, to figure out breastfeeding a bit, and develop some sort of a routine before having houseguests. Of course, Béla didn't get that memo, and came 9 days late, and I had to stay in the hospital for four days afterward, so we were only home for three nights before they got here. Good thing we didn't plan the trips for the beginning of their visit!

During this time, I put my mom to work helping me finish some sewing projects that I'd bought the supplies for before he was born, but hadn't gotten around to actually doing. (I spent much more time knitting, but I'll get into those projects in another post.) Here we are working on a ring sling, following the directions found here. We also have a long piece of fabric that I'm using as a wrap, but it's not quite long enough for Jérémi to use, so I wanted to make this one extra long so he could carry Béla around as well.
Here Jérémi's trying out the completed sling on the cat. It seems that some cats actually enjoy this sort of thing, but Aeris does not seem to be that sort of cat.
Not to worry, she recovered from the stress of this in one of the various apple boxes we have scattered around the apartment for her pleasure.

In the end she made peace with the sling, as long as she's not in it. Here Jérémi is wearing both a baby and a cat. (Incidentally, Béla loves the sling, though we have more success with him lying down, as seen in this picture, than in the upright position. When we start him upright, he ends up lying down within an hour or so, working his way down slowly. I also prefer it with his head toward the rings, rather than the way he's lying here, but both ways work.)
Here Jer's just getting back from the market, where he bought a beautiful new onion braid (Zwiebelzopf), which are sold at this time of year, and a bouquet of dried flowers. How lucky am I!
Among the various adventures of our first week at home, and Béla's second week of life, was his first bath. In contrast to most hospitals in Canada (as far as I know), he wasn't bathed at the hospital at all, and got traces of meconium all over the first outfit they put him in there. There were still some bits left in his hair for days after, but he slowly became cleaner and cleaner, and managed to smell fantastic despite the fact that he had poop in his hair. The midwife said we could bathe him after the first week or so, and on his 12th day of life we finally decided to give him his first bath. Not having bought a purpose-made baby bathtub, we did it in the sink. He was a champ, and didn't even cry!
Here his dad's warming him up after, all wrapped up in a towel...
...and I'm rubbing some oil onto his skin afterward, as he was in the process of shedding the outer layer, and it looked very dry.
I mentioned the midwife above, and I should mention that this is by far the best thing about having a baby in Germany. Rather than the one visit that you might get from a public health nurse in Canada, here the health insurance pays for a midwife to visit you at home several times during the first eight weeks of the baby's life. After that, if you have breastfeeding-related questions she'll come back any time over the first year. In addition to helping with breastfeeding problems, she also checks the mother's recovery, feeling the position of the uterus, checking any stitches, and giving advice, she also checks up on the baby, seeing how the umbilicus is healing, and weighing him at each visit. Right now she's coming 1-2 times per week, but she'll come more often if there are more problems. Also, I can call her anytime for a consult by phone, including at night and on the weekends. It's a pretty fantastic system, and is great if you don't have family around, or many friends with kids, and I'm sure it saves a lot of unnecessary trips to the pediatrician.

Here she is weighing him:

And I put in this picture too, because I couldn't decide which one was cuter. Over the first week, while we were in the hospital, he lost weight, which is totally normal, going from 3620 g at birth to 3380 g five days later on September 4th. (I'm not converting this to pounds and ounces. You can figure it out yourself.) But then between the 4th and the 10th, he was up to 3810 g, gaining an impressive 430 g (almost a pound, and something like 13% of his body weight) in only six days. Even the midwife was pretty impressed by this. Unfortunately, since then he's pretty well stalled, which is making me a bit worried, but she says there's no reason to be concerned just yet, as he's still healthy-looking and full of energy, and is eating regularly, and there seems to be lots of milk, and some babies just like to gain weight in spurts. Nonetheless, I've been encouraged to eat more, and to drink Malzbier (which is like sweet dark beer, but without alcohol) and to eat millet, which people here think helps support milk production. We're also waking him up in the middle of the night now, five hours after his previous feeding, because we seem to have one of those weird newborns who will sleep for eight hours at night. I know, a strange problem to have.
One day when going out to buy groceries with my parents, we decided to enjoy the good weather, and took them for a long walk along both sides of the river, through the parks on either side. It seems that my parents have managed to visit Jena twice before without ever actually seeing the Saale, the river that runs through it. I guess we're not as good tour guides as we'd thought! Here you can see the sling in action.
I think that here we were looking at the ducks, or something...
And then finally Saturday arrived, the day of Béla's first big trip. To be honest, I was a bit nervous, as it was good three hours on the train each way, and that was after the 30-45 minute regional train ride to get to Gera, with four hours to spend in Cheb, and there was no way to head home if it wasn't going well, and he wouldn't stop crying and wouldn't latch and we were on a crowded train. Still, we decided to go for it. Since I figured it would be a long and tiring day, we opted to take the bus to the train station in the morning rather than walking the 1.5 km there. To get to Gera in time for the 8:19 departure we had to get on a train from Jena at 7:24, and to get to the station on time to buy our tickets, we had to get on the bus at 6:41, which meant leaving the house at 6:30, which meant that when he woke up at 4:30 hungry, and it took an hour to feed him, we really didn't have time to go back to sleep. And so we started the long day exhausted. Here Jer's trying to warm me up as we wait for the train from Jena.
We made it to the steamtrain in Gera without any problems, and after walking through much of the crowded train we were able to find seats together in a compartment with a nice older couple. My parents and Jeremi decided to start the day right, when they came through around 9:00 am selling beer and bubbly. They were definitely in vacation mode.

Here we're changing his diaper in the crowded compartment, after I managed to successfully feed him on the train, with a delightfully quick latch. I was grateful, to say the least. He was actually a champ on the train. Like being in a car (which he's only experienced once so far, for the cab ride home from the hospital), he loved the vibration and motion on the train, which meant that whoever was wearing him sometimes had to get up and walk around when we stopped at stations. I think the steam train may have been even better than a regular train, as there was a distinct back-and-forth motion associated with the turning of the drive wheel, which you just don't get with modern locomotives.

And now a few pictures for any train enthusiasts reading this (that means you, dad). Here's the locomotive, which was originally built in 1938 and first came into service in 1939. It was powered by coal, which thrilled my dad, as a lot of coal-powered locomotives were later converted to oil, but this one was still in its original state.
Look at all that steam!
This is a picture out the window as it was going around a bend, which allows you to see not only part of the train and the smoke, but also the heads of various other train enthusiasts stuck out the window. Many of these (almost exclusively) men came well-prepared for this, wearing safety or ski goggles to protect their eyes from both the wind and the occasional embers and chunks of soot that come with the exhaust. The eye protection was also necessary as occasional tree branches hit the sides of the train as we went through wooded sections. There was one guy with a toque and ski goggles who kept his head out the window the entire ride. I kid you not.
Here we are at our destination, with my parents next to the locomotive. On the side (and on various signs inside) it's marked with Deutsche Reichsbahn, or DR, rather than the modern version, Deutsche Bahn, or DB.
Here we are in the city, talking with one of the volunteer crew, who took quite a shine to us, and gave us a lot of historical information about the city, the train, the region, Germany in general, European railroads, and a variety of other topics, in a combination of German and English. His English was actually really good, which isn't so common for East Germans of his age, but he had trouble with vocabulary sometimes, which is common if you don't get to practice much, so he ended up talking mostly to Jer and me, though he did bring a picture of the locomotive in the Leipzig train station as a souvenir for my dad.
Here we are in the town square in Cheb, with the city symbol, a small block of old and crooked merchant houses behind us.
Another view of the town square, with cool golden balls atop the spires of a nearby church.
In the end, we made it there and back without too much trouble, and we decided that it was successful enough that we'd go through with our plans for the trip to Hamburg the following Wednesday. I figured (rightly) that it might even be easier, as at least with a hotel room, you have a home base to which you can return if you're exhausted, rather than having to wait for the end of the day. By the time we got back home it was around 8:00 pm, which made for a long day out, without a lot of sleep beforehand. But my dad really enjoyed the train ride, we all enjoyed the good food and weather, and Béla managed to visit his second country just shy of his two week birthday. Not bad!