Hello everyone,

I've removed alot of information and put it on other pages, so now it's only the last 5 weeks or so on here. Enjoy!

Sandra

PS - send me an email and tell me what you think.

29-12 Reinier had yoghurt for the first time today. As dessert. He liked it; and didn't have it come back out again.

Tracy is coming to visit in February. Here's a countdown to her visit.

We ended up putting Reinier in the camping bed next to our bed and he went to sleep. He slept till 6am when he woke up for a few minutes, but I talked him back to sleep and he slept till 8am.

In the middle of the day I don't put him in a sleeping bag (they do at day care). Then he normally sleeps sort of 1/2 way down the bed, sideways, with his feet between the bars of the crib, and on top of Netty. ..... aaaahhhh.... it's very cute!

We also ordered a bike seat for Reinier today! I'll go over next week and get it installed. It's a very cool seat that you can switch between Edwin and my bikes.  It even comes with a rain-cover!

(mommy took the picture very quickly with her cell phone).

Also, for those of you who don't know yet, we are planning to go to Canada in late June, early July. If anyone has an extra "pack and play" (see picy)..... can you let us know? We need one for Reinier to sleep in (one that folds up small please). The car seat has already been organised by my sister Joanne. Thanks Joanne!

 Prolem fixed... My sister has found one for us!

Reinier also seems to have a sinus-cold. GRRRR!!! We were up 4 times last nite! At 12.30 in the morning Reinier was having fun playing and was absolutely not thinking about sleeping. I finally gave him some paracetemol (that stuff is a wonder drug i think!) and let him go to bed playing with Tad. I also ended up leaving one of the little lights on so that he could see Tad. After about 20 minutes he fell asleep and then slept till around 4.30. He was then only awake for a few mins and slept again till 7.30 am. aaahhhhh. His morning nap was two hours as well; and so far this afternoon he's been at it for 1 1/2 hours. YEAH! 

(yes, they get better when they sleep!)

Reinier pulled himself up to a standing position today!!! It happend at opa and oma's, and he used a childs chair to do it. 

Also today he took his first trip in the bike seat. Wow! He found it great to look around and to whack mommy's back (and kick it :-)  )

And mommy didn't have a problem with the weight on the back of the bike.

Reinier's first birthday is coming up - here's a bit of advice for people thinking about presents:

He has enough clothes. He got alot at Christmas and still has some from the birth presents he received. Also it's really hard for me to judge his size now, so if you are thinking about getting him clothes, please just send us money and a description of what you would like for him to have (ie: pants and a shirt or sweater or something).... We will get him what you want us to get him, in an appropriate size. If you are looking for clothes - you can check out the H&M website - www.hm.com  - they have really cute clothes for him.

Toys - Reinier doesn't (as far as I'm concerned) need that many toys. He has a good selection; and he goes to day care 2x a week and plays with stuff that he doesn't have at home. If you want to get him toys, please again contact us... I really don't want alot of (large) toys that will end up filling up my attic!!!!

I've finally taken the pictures off the camera. Here's some of them:

Bath time for the Little People! (rub a dub dub, a bunch of little people in a tub!)	Our printer-repairer....... also useful for putting toys in the printer and removing the paper :-) (FYI - it's a HP 710c... really old, still works good though, but if it breaks... oh well).
Friday morning playing in pyjama's and sleep-sack with the Little People.  Look at that "bad hair day"!	Friday afternoon after going to the hairdresser!  Wow! Almost think we switched children there at the hairdressers! And you can (finally) see his bottom teeth!

Pancake Tuesday!

Reinier has never had pancakes before, and we had them for dinner! He loved them!

Reinier had his first Belgian Waffel today! We went to Sluis and had a waffel on the street, and Reinier had some pieces. He really liked it!

We got a nice cream to put on his neck twice a day. After 5 mins this morning it already looked better.

Also, I found out today that if Reinier doesn't want to sleep, he tries to eat his bed. Well, maybe not exactly. But this afternoon he didn't want to sleep (schedule got a bit mixed up today) and when I went back up to get him back out of bed (he was a bit upset with me...) he was standing up in his bed. Guess what height his teeth are at?? Yep, you guessed it - the height of the rails on the side. He left some nice marks in there. 

Oh, and I have tonite finally figured out how Reinier gets into all those really weird sleeping positions. Tonite, we put him down just after 7pm. At 7.50 I was going to go downstairs and thought I would check on him. He had flipped over onto his stomach and crawled, with Netty, all the way to the top of the bed. And he was playing! He noticed me opening the door, turned and looked at me, and then went back to playing. He never made a sound. When I went to check on him at 8.30pm he was sleeping sort of sideways in the bed, at the top of the bed, with Netty under his chin. Guess he fell asleep while playing.

And I thought he was moving WHILE sleeping ! Go figure!  :-) 

[maybe I should put the webcam back in that room???]

Here's a picture of Orion, Percy and Reinier. 

Also, today Reinier has been working really hard on his "stand". He stands up all the time now. And, he can also reach the lightswitch in his room from his bed. hmmm... think I need to re-arrange his room. ;-)

We can start him on normal milk (no more formula!) and feed him almost anything. Yeah!

Reinier's 7th tooth showed up. It's on the top, left of his two front teeth. 

Tomorrow at 12.30 we have to be at Brussels airport to pick up Tracy - let's hope her flight is on time!

Today is Reinier's birthday party! Yeah!!!

Here is a photo collage of what we've been doing:

First we decorated the house.... it says "Reinier 1 jaar!"	And we put some flags up and balloons. The flags are the same as his invitations were. There were also balloons like it.
And more decorations - this one says "Hartelijk Gefeliciteerd!"	The cake.
Reinier seeing the cake for the frist time, right before we blew out the candle. This was at his birthday party on 24 february.
On his birthday, tuesday 26 february, Reinier went to day care for the morning. Here's a picture they took of him wearing his birthday hat.	In the afternoon of 26 february, we let Reinier destroy a cake. Tracy had decorated it on the monday. Reinier is a bit of a neat-freak, so it took him a long time to want to take the cake apart.
Reinier got alot of Little People for his birthday. Here are some of them..... we have more... see the list below.	On wednesday 27 february we went to Madurodam. This is a miniature villiage where you can see all of Holland in one morning. The nice thing is that Reinier could see it all out of his buggy, because it's all at his height!

Since we had three of the formula "towers" and one of the formula holders, this makes a big difference in our cupboard. :-)

Our morning routine is also much shorter now. We no longer have to write in his day care book (to say what happend the day before, or how he slept, and what time he woke up).  - The only thing we have to bring to day care now is a spare set of clothes. 

And then last night he did it again! He woke up at 10pm when we got him out of the car (we had had to go to Rijswijk) and stayed awake until 1.30am! AAAHHHH. You can do nothing with him. He only wants to play, or sometimes eat a bit. And if you turn the light off he gets upset and cries because he can't see his toys. And if you don't give him the toys he's crying too. We're not too sure what is bringing on this behaviour - whether it is his diet, or some other environmental factor. We're working on documenting what he's been doing to try to figure it out. I can say that on 10 march, he had had a really weird day, so that might have been part of the problem.  

Reinier stood today without holding onto anything for about 2 seconds!!! Then he fell. :-)

We also have a new way of knowing if he is tired. If he falls, he's tired. And he's of course, been getting bruises with all this standing up and falling down. He hasn't really hurt himself yet.

The biggest problem is that Reinier thinks that breakfast should be at 5.30am!!! And this weekend the time is going to change and then the problem will get worse!

Okay, it's been a long weekend, starting friday morning. Reinier took a nap on friday morning for 3 hours!!! On friday afternoon we went to Edwin's parents house (for his mom's birthday) and Reinier seemd really sick. He wasn't his "usual self". So, after taking his temperature (39.75!) Friday evening, we went to the HAP (doctors office on weekends). The doctor said that it was the flu.  Later on friday night Sandra had itching red spots all over her body. 

Saturday - Reinier still had a temperature, slept almost the whole day and seemd to have red spots. We put cream on them, and it seemed to help. Reinier had slept most of the night, waking up a few times for a bit of water. Sometime in the middle of the night Reinier's fever broke.

Sunday, Reinier had a fever again, but didn't see any red spots. Sandra is still scratching :-) Reinier also threw up.

We'll see how it goes. Maybe his red spots will show up later.... or he has a mild case.

There is also 2 other cases of chicken pox in Terneuzen at this time; one of which is at Reinier's day care....

We'll see how tomorrow goes!

(oh and the doctor said that my rash was probably an allergic reaction).

Only problem is that Reinier doesn't want to nap in the afternoons. We're working on that! :-)

Reinier also explored our back garden for the first time today. Edwin was working in the garden and Reinier and I played with the ball and tried to keep him from eating dirt! :-)

And, Reinier can crawl up the stairs! He can get to about the second step, and he does it really well! Now we just have to work on his walking.

(for the people who have never been here, our stairs have a door in front of them, so he can not do it when we are not there).

(A really quick picture made with mommy's phone showing Reinier on the first step).

Here's what's been happening:

On mother's day, 12 may, Reinier walked for the first time - he took 2 steps between mama and papa.

Today, Reinier took 7 steps - from where he was standing to papa's bike (he really likes the bike!)

We've been working really hard on our walking, and getting ready for Oma's visit (and Tante Griet!).

Last week tuesday (14 may) Reinier got his first molar (left under). He screamed for an hour when he was supposed to be having dinner and after we finally figured out that it was teething pain, we found the tooth (when we gave him the rest of his dinner). On saturday (17 may) he got the matching one on the other side (right under). 

Needless to say, tuesday at work we were both exhausted.

The night from tuesday to wednesday, he slept. (and so did we!)

Last entry.

Reinier turned 15 months today and celebrated it by beginning to walk without help. He can also finally stand up without using something to get up (chair etc). 

This is also my last posting on this page for a while. In the beginning of June my mom is coming and then soon after that we are going to Canada, and then you all get to see him for yourselves! 

• Dad / Edwin
• Mom / Sandra
• Sandra's mother
• Sandra's father
• Edwin's mother
• Edwin's father