11 months old! And we're heading out on vacation!

Prescript: I wrote this post at work, so it's not directly related to the pictures. Instead, I'm adding pictures with captions in brackets throughout the text, to make it more fun to read.(Last weekend we had a lazy morning, which meant that breakfast took a little longer than Béla wanted. When I came to the kitchen from the bathroom I found he'd taken things into his own hands and gone rummaging in the cupboards - not unusual by itself - and found...)
(...a bag of raw potatoes, which he started to eat. Poor starving thing! He's nothing but skin and bones... ...and substantial amounts of muscle and fat and plump little organs.)

Today Béla is 11 months old. I swear he's grown in the two weeks since his last doctor's appointment, and his hair is definitely getting longer and thicker. It even looks a bit shaggy now, which I love.
(One morning when I was leaving for work, and Béla was already down for his first nap of the day, joined by his sleepy papa.)

This week marked the first time that he spent a night away from me, as I travelled to Bonn Monday night for a meeting at the German space agency (DLR) on Tuesday. Béla and Jeremi did just fine, though he wasn't impressed with having to wait for the bottle to get ready the two times he woke up to eat in the night.
(Trying to decide which bucket fit best on his head. It's a shame we didn't get a better picture of him wearing the yellow one - it looks like a big fez on him, like in the Julius Meinl coffee logo:)


Yup, he still wakes up to eat pretty often. He really slept through well the first 5-6 months, and now wakes up at least once, and sometimes more. I'm convinced that he needs the food though, and that it's not something that needs to be "trained" out, and we're nowhere near desperate enough to attempt any sort of sleep training that involves crying. Usually he wakes up, nurses, and goes right back to sleep. Occasionally, less than once a week, he wakes up and is quite alert and wants to play. At this point, when nursing doesn't get him back down, Jeremi gets up with him. Sometimes they just have to go to the living room to play for a little, sometimes he needs a little midnight snack (of food, not milk). One time this past week when he woke up hungry and I nursed him on both sides and he was still desperately hungry and not going back to sleep, Jer got up with him and got him a bottle of cow's milk (we've started introducing this over the past couple weeks), and he drank 300 ml (~10 ounces), after being nursed. This is partly why I'm convinced that he's waking up because he's really hungry. And he's really growing! Right before our eyes! He was 26 pounds on the bathroom scale this morning, which is two pound more than he weighed on our scale last month.

(He's been playing with the pots for a while now, but on this particular morning he was smashing together two pot lids like cymbals, which pleased him to no end. It also gives me ideas of dressing him up in a monkey suit with a little red velvet vest and gold cymbals as a Halloween costume. Oh, how I wish Germans liked Halloween more. All my costume-making energy is wasted here. Our area doesn't even really go in for Carnival so much, unlike some regions of Germany.)

He's getting more active and independent by the day, and spends lots of time walking around, bringing items from room to room. He loves moving shoes, and it's quite standard to have to hunt for one or both of them before leaving the house. They might be in the bathtub, the bedroom, the kitchen cupboard, or the playpen. There's really no way to know. Last night he put one of my shoes in the oven, which thankfully wasn't turned on, which is partly why we're trying to get him to stop playing with the oven in general.
(Here he is, wearing his Osh Kosh 18 month overalls for the first time. They're still a little long, but definitely not too narrow! And yes, that's a pile of cardamom powder that he's standing in.)
(Looking like a baby, on his hands and knees. His eyes look pretty brown here, but they're a little greenish. I hope they stay a bit green like mine, but I'm sure he'll be gorgeous regardless.)
(Absolute concentration...)

This month marked the first time that he can actually get the stacking rings onto the classic Fisher Price stacking ring toy, which has been very exciting. He's also moved from inside-outside (the concept that informed all of his play last month) to open-closed. Anything that can be opened and closed must be repeatedly opened and closed, or else he becomes quite frustrated. This is hard, because some things he's not yet able to open on his own, at which point he hands it toward whichever parent is there, and if you don't immediately open it, he starts to get rather angry. But of course some things we'd rather he not open, like the jars of spices that he plays with (though he did manage to spill cardamom powder all over the hall last week). There's one plastic case that holds a deck of cards that we've renamed "the box of unending sorrow", as he had so much trouble opening it at first, and it made him cry so many times. (It's better now, partly because his motor skills are improving, and partly because he wore down the clasp through repeated use.) The plastic wipes box with the lid that flips open is also a particular favourite.
(Playing with his friend Hanna, the daughter of friends of ours who we met at prenatal classes, and who conveniently live around the corner from us. Hanna is 11 days older than Béla, and her dad's at home with her right now too, so he and Jer hang out, just as her mom and I hung out when I was at home.)
(Hanna and her dad, Sebastian. They get together every week or so. I got together with all the moms and babies from the prenatal class while I was off, they meet roughly weekly, but I haven't seen them since April, but apparently Hanna and Béla are the only ones walking so far!)

In other non-milestone-related news, we're heading out on vacation tomorrow! We're doing a bit of a crazy tour, travelling over 2700 km by train, stopping in Krakow (Poland), Lviv, Kiev, Bakhchysaray, and Sevastopol (all in Ukraine), and then going by ferry across the Black Sea to Istanbul, where we're spending a week, meeting up with our friend Marie. (See approximate train route on the map below.) From there we're flying back to Berlin, and finally taking the train back to Jena. All told we'll be travelling for 18 days. We likely won't be updating the blog in the meantime, but you'll hear all about it once we're back, of course.

Größere Kartenansicht

(After having removed everything from the cupboard, there was clearly plenty of room to climb in. Of course!)

Check up number six

Yesterday Béla when in for his 6th official check-up. His cholesterol isn't too high and his heart is in good shape, so no statins yet. He impressed the doctor with his walking and she said that he was as advanced as a 1 year old. His stats as of July 12th:

Weight: 11.02 kg (24.2 lbs)
Height: 78 cm (30.7 inches)

Here he is healthily waving around a cardboard tube.

The day before he also went to the dentist for the first time. This time they were impressed with how many teeth he already had, which is 7 now. We went to a kids dentist and they had a ball pen, slide, aquarium and other random toys in the waiting room. I put him in the ball pen but he didn't seem to be that interested.

In other news, it was too hot to live here for a while, which is also why he's not wearing any clothes in a lot of these pictures. Here is is having a sweaty nap on the couch:
...while Aeris was napping in the playpen (aka "castle"), wishing she could sweat.
All this naked hanging out meant that not much besides the chair and his diaper got stained while he enjoyed quite a good serving of pitted cherries. Here he's kindly offering me one.
With all that heat he went swimming a few more times, but we still haven't managed to get a picture of it. Maybe while we're on vacation...

The other big news over the past couple of weeks was our anniversary! Not the anniversary itself, which is really just another day, but the fact that Béla was babysat for only the second time, and we were able to go out together, just the two of us, for the second time since he was born. (The first time was while we were visiting Canada in April.) But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before the babysitting and the evening out, we first had a lovely riverside picnic to celebrate our anniversary, complete with bottle of fancy champagne thanks to Paul and Betty Ann. Here Jeremi's popping the cork, while trying not to blind himself:

Jeremi was very clever, and brought along two blankets, which meant that there was more room for Béla to run around, and he actually stayed on the blankets playing for the first hour at least, meaning that we could have a relaxing picnic without having to continually chase him as he ran for the river. He did eventually venture off the blankets, at which point he started collecting beer caps. How lovely. And he did make it down to the water's edge, but then I was right there with him, and we dipped our feet in the Saale. But while we ate leisurely, he was content to play with his stacking cups while staying right on the blanket.

We had little puddings for dessert, which Béla doesn't get yet because we're trying to avoid giving him sugar until he's at least a year, but I did let him have at the container once I was done...

And then he impressed the pants off me by trying to put the cork back into the bottle. It was impossible, of course, especially with the giant corks in champagne bottles, but I was really impressed that he even knew that the cork belonged to the bottle, so long after Jeremi had taken it out. (It had been long enough that the bottle was empty already, and we weren't drinking quickly.)


Now on to the babysitting! Our friend Grit is visiting from Ithaca for the summer, staying with her parents (she's from Jena), and she and her mom babysat Béla from 4:00 until 9:00 pm the Saturday before our anniversary, and it went really well! We felt a little mean because he fell asleep in the stroller on the way to their house, so we were sort of sneaking off while he was asleep, but apparently he woke up just as we were leaving the garden (which we didn't notice), and saw us walking away, and didn't really mind. Besides, they have a parrot, which is far more interesting than his boring old parents. They took a bunch of pictures while he was there, but only one of them with our camera, which we had inadvertently left with him. Here he is with Grit's mom, reading a new touchy-feely book in German that she bought him for the occasion:He had a great time, and so did we! We got all dressed up and went out for a nice supper, and Béla played and played, finally dropping from exhaustion around 8:00, and still soundly sleeping when we picked him up later. Hooray! Babysitting success!

Summer fun (and 10 months old)!

Here's a recap of the past few weeks, showing a bit of what we've been up to since getting back from Paris. Unfortunately Béla came down with a bit of a cold a couple days after we got back, nothing serious, but with enough of a cough that we all had a few nights with very little sleep. I stopped counting one night after I'd been up with him 8 times. In one night. Of course he wants to be nursed every time, even if it's just for the comfort, since there can't possibly be any milk left at that point. And then I got up and went to work. Unsurprisingly, I got a bit of his cold, which morphed into a sinus infection, but which finally went away on its own after a week of suffering.

But his cold didn't stop us from doing things, such as attending my institute's summer party. It was a beautiful day for it, and the turn-out was good, and we had some good BBQ outside on the grass around the building where I work. Jeremi and Béla came up for the party, and he impressed everyone with his walking, and he had lots of fun picking up rocks, sucking on them, and trying to shove them through holes in a grate. Unfortunately his cough was getting worse as the evening went on, so we didn't stay too late. We also forgot to take pictures the whole time, despite having our camera with us, so Jeremi took this picture while we were walking home.

The following weekend was Calin and Susanne's going-away party! After three and a half years here, they headed back to Copenhagen. Susanne's thesis isn't quite done yet, but she's working on writing it up this summer, while Calin is busy fixing up their condo there and looking for work. They'll be missed, that's for sure!

The going-away party was lots of fun, and there were many babies there. Here Béla is playing with Alexandra and her son Konstantin, who's about three months younger than Béla. (They were actually one of the families at the prenatal class that I translated for my colleague's wife last fall.)
Calin at the party, after receiving his chocolate Dutch World Cup as a going-away present from some of his colleagues. (Perhaps he'll get a real one soon enough...)
The day after the going-away party was Fathers' Day! (The North American version.) Jeremi was really spoiled this year, getting cards and packages from Canada, as well as gifts from Béla and me. Here Béla is helping him unwrap the present from me: Vietnamese coffee filters (or hats), along with Vietnamese coffee and evaporated milk, so we can have delicious Vietnamese coffees at home. Béla very much enjoyed unwrapping the individual boxes.
And here he is playing with one of the gifts he gave Jeremi: some new English children's books, including such classics as "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?", among others. (Okay, so not directly a present for Jeremi, but having some fresh material makes being a Papa easier, so everybody wins.)

Later that afternoon we headed over to Bakr and Dai's for a wonderful BBQ, with more food than we could have possibly eaten. Bakr works with me, and his wife, Dai, who is Egyptian-Canadian, had a baby boy, Eiad, about four months after I had Béla. My colleague Christian (at left) was also there. Unfortunately we didn't get the camera out until late in the evening, when Dai was inside trying to get Eiad to sleep, so neither of them made it into the picture. We had lots of fun eating and grilling outside, and Béla really enjoyed all of the gravel for sucking on.

This picture was snapped a moment too late, because Jeremi was trying to get him all the way in the cupboard, with only his feet hanging out. Rather than putting on locks, Jeremi has rearranged the cupboards such that there's nothing too dangerous or fragile in the ones he can reach. He has great fun unpacking our spice cabinet, and pulling various things out onto the kitchen floor. Certain items are favourites though, and we can find them later in various places throughout the apartment. Favourite storage places are inside the washing machine (it's a front loader), inside the laundry hamper, in his car seat (which is in the corner of our bedroom at the moment), and on the balcony, after being dropped through the bars of the safety gate. I can't believe that in his nine-month post I wrote about him not really getting the idea of putting blocks back into the bucket - now it's all he wants to do! He's really taken with the idea of inside-outside in any context, and can repeat a given exercise many, many times. (A favourite is dropping a block into Jeremi's stainless steel water bottle, with or without water in it, which has a neck just big enough for Béla's hand to pass through. This makes it tricky to get the block out, which requires sometimes dozens of attempts. Once successful, he drops it in again, and repeats.)

(I also like the above picture because it somehow makes him look like a newborn again, though I'm not sure why.)

One fun item he found while rummaging in our bedroom this month was a boomerang that we were sent by friends in Jena after they moved back to Australia. He set off right away to hunt some wombats.
He decided that the wombats must be in the laundry hamper, and actually opened the lid and looked in with the boomerang held aloft. Alas, I got pictures immediately before and after, but didn't get one of the hunter at work.
One more, just to show you how pretty the other side of the boomerang is. (You can also see how scraped up his nose was - the right side is from the gravel at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and the left side is from a tumble at my institute's summer party. Our little bruiser!)
There has also been much BBQing this summer, which is great. It's been really hot here, so much so that we didn't want to cook for a full week, so pretty well everything went on the grill. (This requires a certain amount of patience though, as it's only charcoal here.) We had a nice supper with our friends Grit and Ekarat, before Ekarat headed back to Thailand for good, after finishing his PhD. Alas, we didn't get any pictures of this, or of the supper we had with them in town either. They were among the first non-work-related people we met in Jena, through the German-language Stammtisch that Grit organized. She's now teaching at Cornell, but is back to visit for the summer. Hopfully we'll get to see her some more this month.

We did, however, get some pictures when we were in the backyard grilling with two other families from our building. Here Jeremi got a nice picture from our kitchen window, while he was up getting something from upstairs.
And here, a wider view, where you can see Béla sleeping on the trampoline. He'd fallen asleep on my lap upstairs, and I didn't want to be stuck up there waiting for him to wake up, so I came down with him, thinking he could finish his nap on my lap while I chatted with the neighbours. They suggested I put him on the trampoline instead, and it was perfect! Not to worry, we were watching the whole time to see if he stirred, but he was really in a deep sleep, and he doesn't really go straight from sleep to running anyhow.

To give you an idea of how deep the sleep was, the two six-year-old boys of the neighbours chased each other around the trampoline with sticks for quite a while, and he didn't budge.
And a close-up. I love this picture, because somehow the perspective makes it seem like he's a giant, fully half the width of the trampoline, which is clearly not true. I think his feet sticking out from the quilt makes him look taller too...
Eventually he did wake up, and came to eat a delicious meal with the rest of us. After supper he went back on the trampoline to play with Jeremi. The game basically involves Jeremi running around the trampoline, trying to catch Béla, while Béla, on the surface of the trampoline, giggles like mad while trying to "run away". He always starts running or crawling from where Jeremi last caught him, but then goes in a nearly straight line the other way, only to find that Jeremi's there waiting for him! Then he changes course a little, but it always ends by being caught by his papa. And repeat. He really, really loves this game. It was already late when I started to take pictures of it, so they didn't come out well, but here are a couple representative pics: Pure joy!


Out of focus, but showing the unstable walking/running. The fact that it's on a trampoline makes the walking a bit harder, and when he gets going he even bounces a little, which usually results in a fall. But of course it's not so hard a landing...
Finally, after much running around, getting off. It was already after 10:00 at this point, but he was still raring to go. Crazy baby!
Here he is surveying the view from his prison cell, or perhaps looking at the latest objects to get dropped through the gate and out of reach. Jeremi's cell phone has ended up out there, as has one of my nipple shields. (Another lost one was found a couple days later in a pot on the shelf, with its lid back on.) Here he's wearing his little bathing suit outfit that Betty Ann bought him while we in Canada, in preparation for a trip to the beach (fake lake, with nice wading pool).
We've brought him swimming twice now, which actually went really well and was tonnes of fun! I thought he might hate it, given his uncertainty about the bath, but he was really excited to get in the water and splash around a bit, especially after seeing all the bigger kids doing it. And of course, it being (the former East) Germany, all the kids are naked. Not just little babies like Béla, but kids up to about 10 years old are regularly naked. So far we've gone swimming in the evening, so sun exposure really isn't a concern then, so he got to wear his bathing suit there only to be stripped naked before going swimming. (Diapers are off too.) I know in Canada babies are naked at the beach sometimes, but here it's really something different. Alas, we forgot the camera the first time, when he was happy as a clam and splashing about, and then he slept through our second trip, when we came armed with camera and videocamera. Third time's the charm? Let's hope so. (We were joking about writing a long post called "Béla's eighth time swimming!")

One more out of focus picture from that hot-hot day last week, just to illustrate something relatively new: He now regularly brings us books that he wants us to read to him, which is really cute, and really fun.

One other new thing this month is that we bought him a bike helmet! Now he can go out in the Chariot as a bike trailer instead of just as a jogging stroller. We have yet to try it though - perhaps this coming weekend. The manual officially says to wait until they're 12 months old, but that's for the average 12 month-old, and he's easily as big and robust as the average 12 month-old. Here he is, modelling the cool helmet with fishies all over it:
And, with a bit of help from me, actually showing off his face while wearing it.
In other general developmental news, he now says "cat", and repeats it quite excitedly as he abuses the cat. He really tries to pet her, but he's not so good with "gentle" just yet. And that swishing tail of hers is just too tempting not to grab. (At least he lays off the ears now.) She keeps coming back for more though, and will roll on her back for him, exposing her tender belly to his "petting". She has batted at him a couple of times when he hits her in the face too much, but without claws. Sadly, he doesn't get that this means she wants him to stop.

As mentioned above, he's the master of inside-outside now, and can spend much time playing with his stacking cups. When they're adjacent sizes it's still quite challenging, as he can't fit the little one in the big one if one of his chubby fingers is in the way, but if they're two sizes apart it's just fine. The square ones are also a bit tougher, but the round ones are no trouble at all.

He's not as excited about knocking down towers as he used to be, but he loves putting the blocks back in the bucket. In fact, he likes putting anything that will fit into the bucket. He has made a couple attempts at stacking too, though I don't think he's managed to make towers more than two blocks high (though Jeremi might be able to correct me on that).

He walks so much better than he did a month ago - it's good to have to video to remind us of this! Now he barely crawls at all, only sometimes to get over an obstacle he can't step over. He can climb up onto the lower of our two couches, and onto our bed. We're working on teaching him to get down feet first, as his instinct is to go down head first, which isn't so safe. Hopefully he learns this soon, as he requires more supervision now that he can climb up onto higher surfaces. In general, he's quite happy to wander around the apartment. In the evening if one of us is in the kitchen and one is in the living room he comes and checks on us, bringing objects back and forth to show us and to play with.

As for his stats, by our measurements he didn't grow as much as last month, which isn't surprising given that he was sick twice, which puts him off his food a little. He last weighed in at 11.4 kg (25 lb), and is about 76 cm tall (29.9"). He's going to the doctor for a check-up next week though, so we'll get the "official" figures then.

So there you have it, ten months old, and only about a week late, after all!

A weekend in Paris

First of all, let me thank Julia for doing all the posts since Béla was born and possibly before that. Luckily for our readers, keeping our friends and family in the loop is a high priority for her. I also love you guys, but not that much (kidding). This is the first post I've done in a long time but should be fun because I get to bitch about die Bahn (the German rail service) a bit.

This was Béla's second time in Paris although events did not make it easy for him to get there. First, we weren't sure if we would go at all since we were going for one of Julia's meetings. This particular one had only been briefly mentioned a while ago by her boss who could not attend and wanted Julia to go in his stead, but was unsure if this was possible. A few days before the meeting, he told Julia that it was indeed possible and that she could go. This was also a good meeting for Julia to attend since it had a lot to do with her present work. So we decided that Béla was getting better enough (see last post) and that we could afford my last-minute ticket.

This trip usually takes 7-8 hours, three trains and is relatively pleasant if you reserve the kids' room in the wagon. It took us 19 hours and six trains. The first train was a short 20 min ride to Weimar, where we can get on the fast east-west express line. It was 5 mins late, no big deal for a regional train, practically on time.

The next train that should have brought us to Frankfurt was an hour late. Already this meant that we would be missing our connection for the train to Paris. This was also the last connection out of Frankfurt that day so we weren't sure how we would get there in time for the meeting. Julia went to see the Bahn Travel Center and was told she had to bring her problems to the incompetent person at the Bahn Service Point. Die Bahn is the company that controls pretty much all rail passenger traffic in Germany and possibly everything else that moves on rails (Julia, Germans or Bill, feel free to specify in comments below). Usually in most largish stations they have two desks were you can interact with them; the Travel Center and the Service Point. They are allowed to do different things and your supposed to know which one to go to when your trip has been screwed up because of late trains. Anyways after some hardly helpful rude 'service' from this person, we now knew that the earliest time we could get there was at 9:30 the next morning, half an hour after Julia's meeting would have started, and to do so we would have to take the night train from Stuttgart. We considered our options; calling it off, renting a car and driving there; or taking the night train where hopefully Béla would not have any trouble sleeping. Since the hotel room was non-refundable and the car would have to be left in France and this is usually not worth it because of the drop-off fee if at all possible (and because Béla really doesn't love being in the car), we decided to go for the night train. We also decided that we would ask someone in Frankfurt to change our tickets, someone hopefully more competent.

When the train finally did come it was of course packed and the air conditioning was broken. This sounds like we're whining about our comfort but the ICE train, the high speed trains in Germany, was not designed to run without AC. Since it's a high speed train you can't open the windows plus it was really hot out which did not help. It was literally about 40 C on the train. After seeing how much Béla was sweating, even after getting stripped down to a diaper shirt, and knowing that we had three hours before our connection in Frankfurt, we decided we had enough time to get off at the next stop, in Gotha, and wait for the next train, since they run roughly hourly.

So we got off in Gotha to wait for the next train which was also 30 mins late. Still we had enough time in Frankfurt to get the train to Stuttgart to get the night train, so we were still not too worried except that we didn't know if Julia would have time to take a shower at the public bathrooms in Frankfurt. She would have to go to the meeting directly from the train station in Paris and spend the night sleeping on the train as opposed to our hotel room.

When we got to Frankfurt we ran for the Service Point and the Travel Center. Against our wishes, we had to buy reservations for the night train because they were obligatory and the Die Bahn policies are apparently too stupid to make exceptions for our case. The man said that we could likely claim the money back later, given the circumstances, but it was still annoying. Most of the time you can buy tickets without a seat reservation which means if all the seats are taken you have to stand around somewhere, but usually night trains and some international trains require reservations.

With that done, Julia ran for the showers with a mere 20 minutes left before our scheduled departure. The shower was really necessary after sweating on the crazy hot train, and then playing with Béla on the filthy train platform in Gotha. I went to the platform and stopped to get some food for the night. When I got to the platform she was already there with time to spare. Of course this train was also late but only by 10 mins or so. Strangely they were very apologetic during the announcements unlike the other trains that were far later in which they mentioned their tardiness only for your information. Passing through Mannheim (important to remember for later on) we finally got to Stuttgart where we had another couple hours to wait for the night train.

We walked around a little trying to find a bench where we could camp out and wait and maybe sleep in shifts, it was getting around 1 am by now. There were no benches inside but the night was very warm so we picked a bench outside on our platform. Julia and Béla got a little nap as you can see here. Bela did eventually get a couple blankets on him as it got colder.


I sat next to them and read. By this time we also knew that the night train was also running late, about 5 mins at first then 10 - 15- 25 - 50 - 60 mins late. By the time Julia woke up from her nap the train was 90 mins late although announcements had stopped. Because of this we went to the Service Point again and asked what was going on. The train was now more than 2 hours late, and they weren't sure when it was coming. We asked for an alternate route and she gave us one that had us taking four more connections to finally get to Paris at 9:35, the first train leaving in less than 5 min. So we ran for that train that was going back towards Mannheim.

This train was actually on time. Julia slept a little in her seat while I walked a very awake Béla up and down the passageway at around 4 am. The Bahn employee that had taken our tickets saw me and told me that there was a high speed train leaving from Mannheim and going directly to Paris that we could take instead of the three more connections. The only downside was that it was going to get us there at 9:49 in the morning instead of 9:40. Great, I said, we'll take that.

This conversation took place while Julia was in her seat and I in the dining cart so she didn't know exactly what was said. Just before getting in to Mannheim, the very useful Bahn came to tell us that there was a connection that would get us in even earlier, the night train. The same night train that would eventually go through Stuttgart and that we knew to be more than two hours late. Julia thought this was the connection I had told her about and that now we were going to be even later waiting for it again in Mannheim. Since we had already passed the stop we had to get off at to make the three other connections that would get us there at 9:35 that was no longer an option. While the Bahn Lady and a very tired Julia argued over the confusion in very good German, a very tired Jeremi was trying to explain that we were talking about two different trains in less than perfect German and that we could still take the ICE going to Paris and arriving at 9:49 and that it was NOT the night train. All this happened while pulling in to the Mannheim station and finished with Julia having a nervous breakdown (while wearing Béla in the carrier) and the Bahn Lady removing herself from the situation cause it was getting heated and her train was leaving again. Once she had left we clarified with another very nice Bahn employee that was on the platform that there was indeed a ICE leaving for Paris as we had thought.

This guy was really nice, but had an incredibly thick regional accent, and there were a number of Bahn mechanics hanging around who joined in in the conversation as well, who also had accents that were hard for us to understand. The mechanics assured us that the night train would run better once they were done with it, as they just had to swap the locomotive for another one, and then it should run much faster. We weren't convinced. They also explained that the train chaos was largely caused by thunderstorms in western Germany, on account of the heat, and there were lots of trees down over the tracks, which means also that the power lines that run over the high speed trains were damaged in several locations.

Again we had some time to kill in Mannheim. And we thought about what had happened. They only option we were told was available once we had gotten to Frankfurt was this stupid night train connection. We were even told they could put us up in a hotel to wait for earliest connection to Paris the next day, but that only got us in to Paris at 11:30 or something. But of all the Bahn workers we talked to none of them considered that we could have gone to Mannheim, gotten a hotel room, slept for 5-6 hours, and taken the 6:40 train to Paris getting us in at 9:49, a whole 9 mins after the stupid f#%& night train. Great job Deutsche Bahn.

Killing time in the Mannheim station at "0' stupid hundred" in the morning, Julia filled out some paperwork to get us partial refunds on this ridiculous trip and me and Béla stretched our legs a little. This is mostly just to give you an idea of how well he could walk at the time, when he was almost 9.5 months old. It's funny, looking at it now, only a month later, he looks really clumsy, but at the time we were really impressed! He walked up and down the length of the train station a few times while we waited, quite pleased with himself, and quite enjoying watching people going up and down the escalators.



The last train of this odessey finally came on time but was still late getting into Paris at 10:15 ish. Then we spent the weekend in Paris. The End!

...just kidding. I will go on about our time in Paris and show you more pictures than Julia having to sleep on a bench.

Directly after our arrival Julia had to dash for the meeting and got there and told them about the craziness that was our trip and made it through the rest of the meeting pretty well having only slept a fragmented hour or so the whole night. Me and Béla went straight to the hotel and tried to get some sleep. After a while of exploring the hotel room Béla succumbed to his nap as did I shortly thereafter. With the extended train trip in the hot weather we were a bit worried about the milk that we'd brought with us for the time that Julia was at the meeting, as Béla is still drinking only breast milk or water, but Julia's clever plan of putting bags of milk into my stainless steel water bottle, filling it up with water, freezing it solid, and wrapping it in a towel for insulation, meant that there was still ice in the bottle when we got on the train in Mannheim, and it was still nice and cool when we got in to Paris, and I was able to store it in the fridge in the breakfast room of the hotel until he needed it.

This time in Paris we didn't bother with any of the tourist stuff but just hung out instead and enjoyed being in a big city. Except for that night of course since we were all quite tired. We still managed to go to a restaurant for some nice French food. Béla loved my canard confit and also Julia's side vegetables which mostly only he got to eat. Then we went back to the hotel to finally sleep for real.

The next day, Saturday, we wanted to get Béla some nice French board books. Mathilde, a friend of ours that went to McGill with Julia, had recommended a store that was near where we were staying, so we walked towards it stopping at nice markets and bakeries for a leisurely grazing breakfast. The book store was aimed at kids and teens and had a whole section in the back with board books. We found a bunch that we liked and bought them. We then continued to walk around and found another market with the most wonderful Lebanese booth that sold fresh galettes with ground meat and spices or with zaatar. Delicious!

Here is a picture of Béla napping, with his face still covered in croissant crumbs, after enjoying some pastries on the go. Mmm, buttery pastry...

We stopped at another restaurant for a beer and a nurse. One thing that Paris is not great at is having kids in restaurants. This is something Germany does a lot better. Very few places have high chairs in Paris, not that we've tried all the restaurants, but we were told this by Mathilde and found it to be true. In Germany or at least in Jena the opposite is true. Last week we went to the Mexican restaurant and they had a high chair and a place mat with cutouts of animals that could be folded and stood up. Plus they brought a baby spoon with the utensils, all without even asking.

On the way back toward the hotel we thought it might be good for Béla to have a chance to play a little, as he'd been cooped up much of the day, so we stopped at the Jardin de Luxembourg, where there was a playground exclusively for small children (under 5 or so)! There was a nice grass area, little wading pools, and sand boxes. Here he is running around in the grass.
And making friends
Playing with a balloon a little girl gave him.
Playing with Papa, and one of his favourite things - our camera bag, which has a velcro flap, perfect for opening and closing, and for putting things into and taking things out of.
Try as he might, the nipple on that giant balloon was not giving up the milk.
Charming all the ladies.
Offering to shod one of them. A little too Cinderella for my taste, but whatever works.
More friends in the sandbox. "Hey Blondie, hands off my soother"

Looking for treasure!

Béla dancing the Haka.
If you are ever in Paris with little kids, I definitely recommend this place. It's really chill and the grass was soft enough that Béla could probably had landed face first without hurting himself. And green despite children running all over it all the time. Seriously, what did they do to that grass? Something awfully right or awfully wrong. It's Paris, probably something awfully wrong. Maybe they found a way to produce a high power fertilizer from all the dog poop in the streets.

This next pic is from earlier in the day and just an aside for my family that lives in St-Ignace. It's the church of St-Ignace. It's always funny to me to see the word Ignace any where else then in the tiny village where I grew up since it's not a overly common name.



The next day we met Mathilde and her daughter Éloïse at Le Jardin des Plantes, the botanical garden of Paris. It was a five minute walk away from where we were staying and also has a zoo. Mathilde and her family were supposed to move that month but the seller postponed at the last minute and have stranded them somewhat since someone is supposed to be taking there apartment before they will be able to take possession of the new apartment. To boot, she was just about nine months pregnant with their second child. Yet she was still able to make time to come and meet us at the zoo and apologized for not being able to put us up. I'm leaving out a lot of crazy details here but we wish them luck with their tough times.

This was Béla's first time at a zoo! He was not overly impressed. Perhaps because he has the Calico Wonder at home which is not usually in a cage and he can "pet" most of the time. Or maybe he just isn't old enough to be interested in it. I though it was cool, especially the stout and powerful looking snow leopard. Very differently shaped from other big cats. Big paws.

Anyways here are some funny looking rabbits and weird species of deer looking animals, and the kids looking at them.

"I like panini."

You can also see a bit of the fresh wound on the left side of his nose in this picture - gravel parks are not so nice for face plants. There was a fair bit of blood, and some crying, but nothing that some nursing couldn't make better.

We of course saw a bunch of other animals but the camera ran out of batteries after these. After the zoo Béla nursed and fell asleep and we checked out a bit more of the botanical garden before packing it in and heading back to the train station. They had a history of wheat display among other things. It's a pretty big park and it doesn't feel like you're in the middle of a gigantic city when your there. (Both Julia and I even got pooped on by birds while we were there, which made us feel "at one" with nature.)

The trip back to Jena was relatively uneventful, although we had to take a crazy bus trip from Erfurt to Weimar, as they were doing some work on the tracks, and this was running a bit late. I was really wondering when we were going to get to grandmother's house, because this bus went the most roundabout backwoods route imaginable. It was mostly full of young people who'd gone to watch one of the early World Cup games (Germany won), so there were some cops on hand in Erfurt to make sure things stayed orderly. The fans were well-behaved, but one of the cops mentioned disparagingly that it was a bit late to be out with a baby (it was shortly after midnight). Julia glared at him and commented that the trip from Paris is a long one, and left it at that.

After how well Béla dealt with the crazy trip from hell, we decided that it really isn't insane to take him by train all the way to the Black Sea this August. Honestly, he's really easy going, and is happy as long as we're there, there's something to eat, and he can move around (which is why I wouldn't want to plan a driving vacation anywhere). But more on our crazy vacation plans in another post...