We're going on a bear hunt

click the image to hear Stefanie narrate the story of the bear hunt to Elias...

What that noise?

....voila...la fin de l'annee arrive! que le temps passe vite! alors je me dis qu'il faut que je resume ces derniers temps avant notre depart pour le luxembourg (ou l'on va passe le nouvel an chez les amis de Paul, Paul, Karen et leurs deux enfant Zoe et Aiden).

Souvent je me dis il faut dire ceci ou cela sur le blog, c'est trop super cool etc....puis le temps passe, quelque chose d'autre ce passe, puis j'oublie, puis je n'ai pas le temps! C'est vrai que d'etre maman a 100% c'est assez speed des fois...puis quand c'est un bb c'est possible de prendre 1h par si par la pendant la sieste pour ecrire mais la....les siestes se font rares et le soir apres le coucher...je n'ai qu'une envie c'est un verre de vin puis, ouaaaahhhhhhhh relaxation!

Mais j'avoue qu'a chaque phases je me dis, 'celle la c'est la plus belle!', puis il y en a toujours une plus belle....et en ce moment c'est la plus belle! Notre petit homme parle, parle, parle de plus en plus....puis les 'pourquoi' et les 'comment' on commences....What that noise(il ne sait pas encore mettre le 'is' apres le'what'? (quel est ce bruit?) What that smell?(quelle est cette odeur) - 'smell good' (ca sent bon) 'very good maman' (c'est bien maman).... ce n'est qu'un example - Puis notre petit homme aime toujours autant la cascade et la vitesse! Quand on se promene sur mon velo avec lui deriere il veut toujours aller 'faster, faster maman!' (plus vite maman!)....voila le genre de notre petit garcon!!! Mais oh qu'il est affectueux! On recoit de ces bizoux et calins!!!! --- Puis en ce moment il adore se faire peur!!! (apparement c'est de famille car Paul adorait ca aussi quand il etait petit garcon) alors on joue a cache cache, puis a maman/papa qui fait le monstre et lui court apres ou l'oppose!

Il y a tellement de nouvelles, de developements que je sais que j'en oublie des tonnes et pourtant j'aimerais tellement partager ma joie! c'est tellement beau a voir! (enfin je sais aussi que pour la plus part...c'est du deja vu...ou pas aussi excitant que pour moi!! heureusement d'ailleurs sinon on serait peut-etre tous fou!!! )

Voila...sinon on a passe un Noel plutot de fete avec une maison pleine d'amis et famille depuis le 23 decembre jusqu'au 26 avec visite de Claudine, Sacha et Oliver, puis party chez Lilly pour les enfants, puis visite d'Anneli et Joseph, puis visite du frere de Paul, de Wendy et les enfants (Marta, Toby et Jacob), Puis les parents de Paul, puis l'oncle et la tante de Paul et leur fille.

...alors apres une annee pleine de belles (et un peu mauvaises!) choses....Nous vous souhaitons a tous une magnifique annee 2008!

My bro and my boy

The day before Christmas Eve my brother came up with his family. First time ever actually.
We went up to Highgate village for lunch at a Strada with a slightly restless Eli.

Considering he had no nap he then did really well when we went over to the Heath. Such a misty day that we couldn't even see across the duck pond.
Eli had fun playing with his cousins and opening his present.

Christmas had truly begun early with Sasha, Claudine and Oliver round on Saturday. My bro's clan on Sunday. Josephine and Theo on Monday morning and then Lili's party on Monday afternoon - which only Stef made it to - and my parents arriving, as well as Annelie and Joseph calling round with a present for Eli.
I'm reading a Christmas Carol so it's Merry Christmas one and all!

The office

On the last day of working Stef and Eli came to see me in the office...

Pere Noel

Lundi mon garcon a rencontre le Pere Noel pour la premiere fois de sa vie!!! Oh! vous auriez du voir!!! il trepidait d'excitation! Il la suivit de la porte a la chaise ou il s'est assit. Puis est reste a cote durant toute sa visite.



...et au moment ou il a recu un petit cadeau de Monsieur Pere Noel....il etait transfixe et n'osait pas prendre le cadeau ou n'a meme pas realise que c'etait pour lui! ...et finalement..apres lui avoir fait un rapide petit dessin, a son depart Elias lui a couru apres pour lui offrir son dessin!




Et voila. Elias reconnait bien ce que 'cadeau' veut dire! par contre.. cadeau, bougies, petites lumiere, sapin de Noel...c'est tout la meme chose 'Happy Day Day!' (Happy Birthday!)

Gorilla

This is from December 1st. Eli and I took my parents to London Zoo. You gotta love the way the gorilla seems to write his tag and then does that Californian rock hand signal like "Yo, dude!". Eli then calls him a "monkey" - to his face!

Words

The trickle of words has become a stream. A fairly constant one. Every woman with a green face (you get a lot of them where we live) is a witch. There are spiders in most corners but Eli isn't scared :)

First words in the morning might be "nine o'clock", when it is in fact 6am, or "dinosaur book!" followed by the clatter of a pile of books onto our duvet.

When I get home from work he regularly asks for "cadeaux" and I am sometimes able to oblige.

Stefanie regularly hears "very good maman", "oh maman!" and "pour mummy"

Fave game at home is cache-cache conducted between his bedroom and ours with elaborate rituals that must be followed in order and conducted in semi-darkness.

Last weekend we went out for a walk before eating one evening and he's now dead keen on going for a "walk ina dark".

Almost forgot, when we're singing along to Sun Arise (previously twice a day, now once every few days) Eli has great arm actions for "she drives away the darkness" where he points vigorously out the window as if driving away the darkness himself.

Lots of fun at the moment...

This weekend

Sat morn - er, zoo.

Sat pm - gardening at home into the dusk.

Fireworks visible across London all evening.




Sun morn - Eli and I up to Highgate...

Sun pm - gardening, um, into the dusk but Gudren and Lili came out. Lili and Eli went crazy in the leaves like two autumn foxes playing in the fading light.

Autumn

Halloween

Even two year olds can do Halloween!
Eli went to his friend Oliver's house where they opened the door to Hampstead's very dressed-up witches - a far cry from the one in his sleeping beauty book. Since then he keeps talking excitedly about witches and that they are at the door. Fortunately this exposure has not led to him being scared of them.

Last weekend

Sat morn - swimming with Saskia.

Sat pm - zoo. Eli specifically wanting crocodiles (made do with a caiman) and snakes.

Sunday morn - Greenwich park to meet Paul and Karen and kids plus Simon and Emma and Peter.

Sunday pm - rained in til about 5pm when we did some gardening more or less in the dark.

Latest hobbies

1. Counting from one to ten (in English).

2. Arranging toys in circle, line, or parade on the living room floor and demanding photos be taken.

3. Asking for moving photos (videos) to be taken.

Walking Daisy

"Look at that moon!"

It was full moon this week. Every evening Eli would go to the living room window to see it. To my delight, on evening he went to look, pointed out the window, turned towards me and yelled "Look at that moon!"

Elias commence a dire des phrases!!! Cette semaine, en observant la lune il a crie 'look at that moon!' (t'as vu cette lune!!!) puis en francais il dit 'attend un p'tit peu', 'merci maman' et de nombreux mots noms et adjectifs en anglais et francais....c'est un peu franglais mais on se comprend bien! -- c'est un emerveillement de voir mon petit garcon grandir - sur le chemin de l'independance, il court il court, il adore sa trotinette (ne supporte pas de s'en separer!!!), il rigole beaucoup, et il pique des crises monstres aussi! il aime aussi aller au cafe en bas de chez nous demander un 'baby ino' (pour babyccino qui est tres Highgate c'est de la mousse de lait avec un peu de chocolat dessus!!) 'not too hot' (pas trop chaud!)....

Oh and one other thing to add, months after he got stung by that bee (back in May maybe???) Eli still likes to reenact that bees pique (sting) and in particular they pique feet, requiring immediate administering of peem (cream).

Highgate Woods

Greenwich Park

And you can tell everybody, that this is your song.

The better birthday photos

An education at the zoo

Well, this weekend just gone Stefanie was on a course both days so it was just me and Eli all the way...

It's been a few weeks since we last went so on Saturday we went to the zoo. Normally the big cats are asleep around 10am but not this time. As Eli trotted up to the lion enclosure he would have expected to see a couple of snoring big cats on the other side but this time he came face to face with a pacing male directly on the other side of the glass. Cue, that delightful mix of fear and delight.

Later on we wandered over to the vultures and on the floor at the front of the cage were six large freshly- slaughtered rabbits. Eli exclaimed "rabbits" and for a moment I hesitated, looked into the next cage and saw that the birds in there were actively tearing the rabbit to shreds, and then bit the bullet ... "yes, they're eating the rabbits". "Eating rabbits" Eli muttered aloud as we wandered over to the gibbons.

The final animal event, which again invoked the fear/delight mix I mentioned above, was on Sunday afternoon in our back garden. A baby frog hopped out ofthe grass. I managed to get it to jump onto my hand and spent a few fun minutes watching it before it hopped off again into the bushes with Eli in hot, but fruitless, pursuit.

'nails, 'piders and 'erpents

Eli is currently obsessed with snails, spiders and snakes. In France he would take great joy in collecting the white snails to show us, or watch them on the wall. Back here as soon as I get in from work I am attacked by either a spider or a snake, that Eli then takes and throws to save me. Phew!

10 days in Provence

So we've been moving house, Eli has turned two and we just got back from 10 days in Aix en Provence.
It looked like this ...

B'day

The worst cake in the world

Eli was two last week and yesterday we had some good friends for cake and champagne in the park up the road from us. Unfortunately the cake was the worst the world had ever tasted - so much for sugar-free, chocolate-free delights promised inthe recipe on the side of the carob tin! Eli had fun, spending most of the afternoon playing with his new rugby ball, surrounded by girls or insisting to go into the darkest bits of undergrowth on a bear hunt!

Anyway at home we are still in a technology mess so I can't get the pics off my camera so here's one in the same park but two months ago with Jude who wasn't there yesterday.

New home

Finally got everything upstairs. My first day back at work. Can't find the laptop yet to blog from home. All of us settling in. Blackberry season sends us down the garden regularly right now. First sunny day in weeks :)

Moving...

Very busy with comings and goings as we move flat over the next two weeks. A long way.......... upstairs! It's also full house .... Grandpa (Appa Appa) has been here for a few days helping out ...
And before that Mama Zoulou and Jacques were with us for the weekend. Appa Appa and Amma Amma will be up next week and after that Mama Zoulou will be back for a couple of weeks.

Eli is hooked on (l'ane) Trotro.

Pot

Porridge bath

Bike ('ycle)

Eli has always liked my bicycle, but I just bought a new one and he likes it more than the last one!

The cries of "ycle" go up every morning and evening.

Stef has now inherited my old bike with bike seat and rides Eli to the Heath most days.

Bee

On Sunday morning, at the paddling pool on the Heath, Eli was stung on the foot by a bee. After 15 minutes of crying and upset the pain seemed to pass and the day carried on as normal. However at 6pm the pain came back and his foot was red and swelling and he couldn't walk on it. So the evening was spent rushing between pharmacy, nhs direct phonecalls and Camidoc. With us finally having medication and Eli asleep by about 9pm. At which point I could start packing to go to Helsinki on Monday morning. I looked in on Eli before going to bed and he was fast asleep. See you in a few days Eli!

MZ gone

Stef's Mum has gone back to Switzerland after being with us for a couple of eventful weeks.

Dodo

Elias has a new obsession with sleep. Ironic considering this is the boy who had a year and a half of major sleep issues at the beginning of his life (or his parents did!).

These days he happily put his safari explorers to bed multiple times a day, takes various bears and other animals from one sleeping place to another, lies down on the kitchen floor pulling the rug over him saying 'dodo'.

Peekaboo

Bang bang

A few days ago Elias fell down the garden steps hitting his head on the way. After some tears and cuddles he was ok but spent the rest of the day walking round pointing at his head (and steps) saying "bang bang". When I put him to bed that evening he was saying "bang bang" as he drifted off. And, when he woke briefly at 3am, he muttered a few more "bang bangs".

Sunny Sunday

Dung beetles

I need not say much more than ... yesterday at the zoo

Saskia's birthday

Eli's friend Saskia just had her second birthday party.

In the still of the night...

....the lion wakes. At 04:50 this morning a loud roaring ripped through our flat - waking Stefanie and me, perhaps the neighbours and some of the pigeons sleeping on the roof. After three or four roars silence was restored and we slept through until 06:20.

Birthday surprises and an exciting morning at the zoo

Well, it was my birthday this week and Stefanie organised me a fantastic surprise trip with Ben and Ben to see the Scott Walker documentary which is on a very short run at the cinema.

Last night Stef went out to surprise drinks for her friend David so Eli and I were home alone and for the first time in about year I put him to bed with stories along the lines of those Stef tells him - about the animals in his room looking after him at night.



This morning Eli and i made our usual trip to London Zoo. We were the first people in the Rainforest and arrived to find a monkey out of the main "forest" and on the walkway in front of us (first photo). Eli was very excited and it scampered off back into the main area of trees.


We turned a corner only to find another monkey on the walkway AND a bird (second photo - click to enlarge). Luckily I caught Eli before he could quite make the move to run and catch them. It's a new exhibit and a great time to go there before Camden Council busybodies shut it down on health and safety grounds!