One week on Quadra Island

We are back, and we had an awesome time. The place was spectacular, the weather was perfect, Sofia a charm and Emily and I got some really nice time off.

If you want to know where this beautiful place is, here is a map of the area Map of Vancouver Island

It is a small island off of Vancouver Island which is a bigger island of of British Columbia, Canada. About 280km north west of Vancouver, two ferry rides and about five hours travel in total. But because of the ferries, it is broken up nicely into manageable chunks.

WordPress added some great new features, so now I was able to rearrange all these pages and make it all a little bit less cluttered. You can find all the pictures and descriptions of our vacation on Quadra Island on the new page “Vacation” and following the appropriate sub-pages. Here is a direct link to the Qudra Island Page, for your convenience.

Rock and Roll

This time I wrote the German Blog entry first. Hence, time constraints will have to spare you, the English speaking crowd, from any stories. Therefore, without further ado, here is a new video of Sofia, showing off here current skill portfolio, which includes, but is not limited to, rolling from and onto her tummy, rocking on all four paws and sitting comfortably on her popschi (as we call her little behind). Enjoy!

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p(btw: its a bit of a longer movie, so feel free to fast forward)

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The last Thai

This is both great and sad news, well at least for us, since Kee decided to go for the corporate world once again. This week he took on a new job that will combine his interests for operational analytics with his passion for software engineering. This is the great news! The sad news is that he will be moving away from State College and we will lose a great friend and former colleague with whom I have spend much time working over nights as well as beer.

I will never forget the nights before the installment of a new demo system at a major international conference which was held in State College. Or the nights before the very first commercial installment of this system. So many things that we did together for which we had put all our heart into it, given the very best we could and eventually make it all work. Just to be left to the elements by some headless donkey. But hey, it made for great bashing sessions for many years after.

Anyway, we will miss Kee for he is a great guy, a great friend and a great baby tamer! Well, at least he looks great on photo, holding Sofia. And knowing Sofia, we will not discredit him for the lack of a smile on Sofia’s face.

All the best man! We hope to make it to your wedding, someday

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Forget about spring! It is summer!

What a gorgeous day! Sunny, blue sky, temperatures like summer and above all Saturday! After leaving one of our attic windows unfixed throughout the winter I finally got my hands back on it and glued it back together and putted new glassing on it. (I know, this winter we literately have been blowing our money out of the window). In the meanwhile Emily cleaned up and scrubbed our back porch, which had been deteriorating into a dump over the winter. And so we celebrated this great summer day by eating outside for the first time this year and the first time in the life of Sofia. She had great fun being outside. She is such a good girl now! She is sitting in her high chair and enjoying a tremendous mess from chewing on rice bars, while we are eating as well. She also got her first impression on how to roll over on high grass (unfortunately we were not quick enough with the camera to demonstrate). However, since we did get a new ultra slim camera for Emily, we did get a bunch of snapshots from todays activities. Enjoy! (btw, the fact that Sofia is wearing three different outfits in these pictures is due to her “blow outs” which we seem to be seeing more often than not in close, consecutive bursts

Ricebrei

A quick update on Sofia’s developmental front. I am not sure whether it struck her while we were still in Germany (and then cleverly hide the fact) or whether it happened back in the new world, but … tada, tada, … Sofia is rolling off her tummy. She really hates being on her tummy soo, soo much that this skill must have been way up on her priority list. Within two days she managed to do it slowly and gracefully. It has a one hundred precent hit rate. And she is back on her back in the matter of seconds.

There is no stopping her, anymore. The days of tummy exercises are over - once and for all. Finally! she must be thinking. Unfortunately, from our perspective, the days of seeing her crawl on her tummy are fading away. There is no chance left of showing her how to do it. The second we put her on her tummy, a seemingly automated program starts moving Sofia’s left arm stretching out, her left leg pulling up and the right foot pushing off just so softly that she rolls over with the feeling of complete control. And she does this like a robot that is programmed to drive straight forward, wall or no wall. If we try to keep her from rolling she’ll keep trying to roll off until upsetness kicks in if it doesn’t work. Unfortunately we have no picture or video to demonstrate just yet. We’ll keep you posted once we get some footage.

What we do have a video of, is our attempt at introducing solid food to Sofia. Ricebrei! It has not received as much ardor as we had hoped, though. See for yourselves (sorry no sound).

Alice will get me if I don’t post something soon

Here it is, my very first post ever. Ingmar was hoping that I would post regularly too, but I haven’t quite gotten into the habit yet. Since I just received my first ever digital camera, I will have more pictures of my own to post. To get started though, here’s a picture taken by Marian. We just got back from three weeks in Europe. The first week Sofia and I hung out in Budapest with Lea, Marian and Miki. We had a great time, except that Miki and Marian both got sick (the moral of that story is never go to Moscow on a soccer trip with people with allergies). Lea is just a few weeks older than Sofia, and they had fun swiping each other in the face. Lea is a really sweet baby with a special sparkle in her eye. We learned some unforgettable songs written by Miki and Marian: “Lejött a zokni, zokni” and “Fözott a mami hurá” (”The sock came off”, and “Mom cooked, hooray”). I’m sure there’s a promising career there - the songs are surprisingly catchy, and I still haven’t been able to get them out of my head. We unfortunately don’t have any of our own pictures from this trip, since we forgot the camera bag in Germany. We’ll have more pictures to post soon of our adventures in the old country.

Sofia was great throughout the trip, although now she is a little off schedule and is waking up more often at night. I have my usual slew of theories: jet lag, shots, teeth or perhaps adjusting to me being at work every day. I go in EARLY each morning while Ingmar stays with Sofia, then we trade off. She seems quite happy with Ingmar, although she isn’t always excited about bottles. We’ll see how this new schedule pans out. Most excitingly, for the first time in perhaps two or three months, she took a 2 hour nap this afternoon!

Broken Spine

Some say I never really had a spine, which started quite early in kindergarten. Well, I never was the bully and certainly got convinced that if I had a spine, it must be pretty weak. A couple years later, entering teenage-hood, I got enlightened with direct evidence that, indeed something was holding up my back. And it was alive! It was quite a chatty one of its kind and so I found myself in direct communication with it. Well, actually it was more of a monologue on part of its highness. All I had to do was listen in. And since the messages I got were neither subtle nor encrypted in anyway, I should have gotten the picture: something was wrong!

However, as it always starts out this one also came with no big fanfare. At first it was a little bit of a whining. Not serious, but it was there. Later it turned into a mild moaning, which must have increased in intensity over the years, because now it definitely is a very loud and constant screaming, with occasional hazardous chokes and seizures.
What happened in all those years? I don’t really know. Maybe I got distracted by all those knee operations I went under, just to have all those loose cartilage pieces picked out, some of which were as big as your finger tip, and to screw in the remaining pieces, which were hanging loose off the bone. Argh, ok I am getting a bit onto the dark side. I really did not enjoy those days. After all, I was at the height of my teenage years, when all that really mattered were girls!

Now that I found my girl, and here I cannot resist throwing in that we just recently celebrated our 10th anniversary (not the marriage, that was just a party to acknowledge our commitment we already made 5 years before). So now that I found my girl, and my knees kept silence for just as long, I once again begin to listen in to the screaming and moaning of my spine. Though it is quite amazing how easily one can tune out those warning signals, as they become nothing but background noise.

On the other hand I do remember a few occasions in which my spine was hysterically screaming to the point that it almost chocked. And I choked with it. I clearly remember two times when all the sudden I was reminded of the fact that there actually is some quite sensitive stuff running in between the vertebra and the disks. It hurt as if a knife had struck my spine, and I fell to the ground like a bag of potatoes, after which I stayed in bed for two or three days, only to crawl out to the bathroom once or twice. Now, as I am tuning in again and am listening more to what is holding up my back, I more than not experience these small zaps, that for a moment let me relive those dreaded days in bed.

I have to be honest too. It is not just that I am a “grown up” now, who should know better, or that my life is finally in good hands. No, it is also because my dad is showing me in a very vivid way how bad things can get. He seems to have what I have, a spine with little backbone (Here I want to say hi to all those genes involved, and thank you!). It got so bad that after many years of weighting risks versus benefits, he finally said if he is to live another day he wants it to be without back pain. So he went under the knife, and to make a long story short he had to do it over a second time and now, more then a year after his first try he is with much struggle on the upslope.

One can only wonder what is in for me? To find out, I finally went to the doctor, had a few x-rays and a couple MRI’s too, just to find out… uhu, I also have “Degenerative Disk Disease”, just like my dad. Now it is official. What a surprise!

Here are a few illustrative snapshots: Spine XRay, Spine MRI 1, Spine MRI 2

A Wonderful Maus

It has been an incredible week. It started of a week ago (last weekend) when Sofia had been amazingly cranky. Super sensitive. Any little ding would tick her off. We had no clue what was going on. We still don’t know. The only thing for sure is that it drained all our energy. This lasted until Monday, and then as sudden as it had come as sudden it vanished.

And this is when we started into a wonderful week with Sofia. We had big smiles, lots of laughters, immensely many babble, “aguuh” and drooling sessions. Lots of cuddle time and even day time naps seemed to be improving. We went out for games night at Sara and Dave’s house, where Sofia had some play time herself and then went to bed without much hassle. We stayed till midnight and had a great time. Sofia was just awesome. Today we went out again, this time grocery shopping. Sofia took it all in, the meat ail, the fish counter, past the Swiss Cheese, the Blue Cheese, the Italian, and finally the French cheese offerings, just to be baffled by the funny noise of coffee beans running into a paper bag. After that we had lunch at Waffelshop in town. And again, we had a great time.

Sofia is getting a lot better with her hands now. She grabs things with much more precision, and is able to get pretty much anything into her mouth, which, of course, is the main goal at the moment. Her frequent tummy time exercises are also paying off. Though after a few minutes she still gets a bit frustrated and wants to come off and onto her back. She managed to role herself over a few times, but those were rather accidental in nature.

Yesterday all three of us went over to Laura’s house where we babysit her little boy Christopher, while she and Marshall went to watch a Hockey game. Christopher is just a few days younger than Sofia, but is quite a bit bigger and loves to play on his tummy. He also is getting his first tooth already. Everyone is talking about their babies’ teething. Even Emily does. According to her, Sofia has already been teething for about two months. I wonder why that tooth has not come out yet, I haven’t seen any yet. Oh well…

Alright, so that is it for now. I put up a few new photos on Sofia’s second picture site. Those were taken two weeks ago, during one of Sofia’s naked play and tummy time. Enjoy!

Linda goes professional

This a short but exciting news post. Linda, who had done such a great job with Sofia’s portraits a few month back, now decided to step up and do it all on a professional level. We are very enthusiastic about her new career move and wish her all the best. If you have a baby or kids, a loved one young or old, and you would love to have some photographs that capture some of their personality and mood, then Linda is the way to go!

Oh, and I almost forgot: here is the link to her portfolio, which I guess will be growing soon.

Goodbye cruel world

Alice is right, last Friday was the greatest day in a long time, not because Emily and Sofia left for Florida, but because I made peace with myself and started a new episode of life. As you might already know, my Ph.D. has been taking a deep dive for a while now and I was seriously thinking of quitting the whole thing. What was the point about it anyway? I wanted to see if I can do it? The challenge really tickles me? I love to tinker and research around? I love to have crazy ideas and go after them as if nothing else matters?

Well great and how does all that help feed tha family? After a lot of thinking over the recent break and talking to Emily, made me realize more what I actually want in life. Well, at least for now, ’cause life always changes and it changes you. So for now I am all about tha family, my precious wife and my little princess Sofia.

But then again, on the other hand, what’s life if you cannot live or at least chase your dreams? I owe it to Emily that she gave me back a little of my confidence in myself. Enough for me to decide to give that whole Ph.D business another try. To start over. Fresh, with no regrets. I learned a lot in those recent years and I think I am actually better prepared to face the challenges that lay ahead.

So with that decision I went to a new Prof that I started to work with last summer, and told him that I want to start all over and that I would need some funding to do this. I needed to break loose those old and heavy ties with the company. To my surprise he said ’sure, lets do it right now’. The next day I let the company know and said goodbye. And that is why it was such a great day. Because I said goodbye! Goodbye cruel world!

Today is a great day

and it is so very much!

Overdue

I know, it is long overdue; another post, another blurb, another set of pictures. So lets start with tha pictures that I have put on the second gallery page Sofia 2. Sofia is now a little more than three month old, but sometimes she just looks like as if she still is one month old, and sometimes she looks so different, almost like she had matured a little. The ones were she looks like one month old, too me at least, are those when she is sleeping, or when she is screaming. Basically the extremes have not changed - for sure! Believe me, she still screams like the perfect heart breaking machine. And she still sleeps like an angle. It is somewhere in between where changes take place.

Though Sofia is still on the bold side, when it comes to counting hair, she did develop quite a nice set of dark eye lashes, that when wet (typically after an extended crying period) are just beautiful; putting an extra accent on her perfectly blue eyes. The other notable change, though not as obvious in these pictures is that she has grown quite considerably. She is now twice her birth weight: 12pounds and a couple ounces. It is hilarious to think that a lot of the other babies we know were born just short of her current weight. Oh well, while others got the fat, Sofia got the looks! Just a proud father speaking, so don’t take it in a bad way!

There are other things happening as well. Sofia now sleeps roughly from 10pm to 4am, nurses and sleeps again until 7am in the morning. It is a beautiful pattern and quite regular as well. This pattern comes with another gift, in fact it is the best thing that is happening to us in the moment. Every morning is a delightful morning of joy and happiness. When she wakes up and starts to wiggle around and finally makes herself audible, she is awaiting us with the biggest smile, the happiest eyes, the most loving heart she can over us. Every morning she is so excited to see who ever is coming to wish her a good morning. She welcomes Emily or me with such a big smile, gurgles, gluts and gabble sounds, her eyes wide open with love streaming out of them, and a face that wants to say “Wow, oh wow, you are here?, you are coming to see me? oh wow, oh wow, I am so happy to see you! Oh am I happy to see you” It is the greatest moment of the entire day! I wish I could capture it on video to show and tell, cause it is such a great gift she is giving us. I love it!

Check out the pictures! Sofia is changing quickly. Once a big screamer, she now is starting to trust us and showing us her greatest affection. I wish this will never change.

Another Photo Session

To help you all make it through the next two weeks, I am including the link to a photo gallery by Linda Z. She was really nice and offered Emily to do a Photo Session with Sofia. That was, before Sofia was born (Baby Shower, ist that what it is called?).

We had a great time at Linda’s house. Sofia was a bit cranky, maybe she had wanted to sleep a little more. To demonstrate her dis consent with this nude photo shoot, she promptly peed all over the nice and white wool blanket Linda intended to use. So we were off to a good start

It was a little difficult to hold her naked. You will notice that in the pictures. Ah, it is so much easier with her clothes on. She also was a little wiggely and it wasn’t easy to hold her in a certain position or bring her feet in the right place and angle.

Despite these little inconveniences, we had a great time and Linda made the best out of the situation. I guess you have to be quick to get the moment right. Thanks so much Linda! The photos are great and preserve great memories of Sofia.

The Glory of Computers

This is a semi sad post. Not really sad, but somewhat,.. well sad.

So for a long while (ever since) we have been having problems with our computer. The current one, the one before that and the one before that. Every time we fought hard. Real hard. We tried everything to keep going with the computer we had at the time. Reinstalled Windows and all the applications and preferences we had accumulated by then. For that we had to go through the entire house to find those papers with usernames, passwords and other information we needed to get those applications running again. Find those websites that, again explained how to recover your emails and bookmarks from the harddrive. So all in all, every time it was a big pain. We also would buy new harddrives, graphic cards and memory, all based on my good judgment, and double checked with various websites that tried their luck with similar symptoms. And here I have to state that I have been working with computers inside out ever since I was a teenager. I do believe I know this stuff quite well. Anyhow, so every time we “fixed” our computer, it would work fine,… but only for a while. In the end, I feel like so many others must feel: What the heck is going on with that machine?

In a sense our computers are quite like Sofia. If she has a fussy day, then you CAN calm her with all kinds of measures. Rocking, swinging, walking playing, giving the pacifier. But in the end, she is fussy and eventually she will reject anything you do. She will start crying again until you find something else that would distract her. Because inherently she is fussy. Why? Because she has a fussy day. - And who has not!

Unfortunately it seems like any computer we had did not have fussy days but had a fussy life all together. So this time we broke down. The only common thing amongst all the computer problems we had so far was this: I bought all components individually and assembled the machine myself. I have done this my whole life. I NEVER bought an off-the-shelf computer! But somehow, it seems, the time has come for me to retire and leave it to companies like Dell.com to do this for me.

So, coming to the point, our computer finally went beyond any good and evil and refused to start after a long struggle and a lot of TLC. As a result, we broke down and bought a new computer (yes from Dell, EVERYONE buys from Dell!!). And until that machine arrives, I will not be able to access any of our pictures, or store pictures from our cameras, for that matter. So we are stuck, for about two weeks. Hope to have you back soon!

Who’s who?

The girls from our Birth Class started doing this Momies out thing, ever since the first couple of babies were born. After a while they got tired of holding and carrying for their babies, ’cause really they just wanted to chat. So they had this wonderful idea of luring their husbands to this party as well, telling them there will be wings and pizza served.

I guess it is a great idea to meet some other people while especially the moms start to feel like everything is just turning around their baby. While it certainly is a good thing, it certainly is not a guys thing! And so we have naturally saved ourselves from being exploited one more step; some ladies are eagerly trying to get their hubbies to do a dadies night out - with the babies, of course! And so it is a good thing - the way it is. We see other parents and other babies, we get wings and pizza and we hold and carry around our baby until it decides that we have to leave.

Sofia does not seem to care much about the wings nor does she care much about the other babies. She must, however care for something, because every time we go there she starts to fuzz and scream after a while; we always end up leaving first. On the drive home I spent most of the time leaning backwards, trying to find the Nunu that Sofia developed some sort of hate/love relationship for. She can’t live with it but she can’t live without it either. And so it is my job to play along and try to find it everytime she spits it out and try to put it back into her mouth without seeing a darn thing. By the time we get home I sure have a headache, every time.

Anyhow, so at the last meeting we celebrated Halloween and most parents put their little ones in hilarious outfits. They really were quite cute in those. Everyone took lots of pictures while we watched, since we forgot to bring ours. So the ones on Sofia’s picture page No. 2 are from Justin and Stephanie. Thanks to you guys!

Now, the question is who is who? We leave it up to you to pick out Sofia, though it should be quite the no-brainer. Her “character”, as well as ours totally stick out Enjoy!