Lipstick

My daddy days with Lorelei are so entirely different from the ones with Tobias. There are many reasons for that, but one of the main reasons is most definitely that Lorelei is a girl… With Tobias we would always have to fix something, play with cars, play soccer, play hockey, play with the racetrack, and so on…. Boy stuff…

Well, first of all, Lorelei plays a lot more by herself. She will just wander off to her doll corner and start putting her baby to bed or getting her up or walking around with the baby in the stroller. Also these days, she goes into her room and listens to music on her CD player while reading a book or playing with her princess doll. But today we were sitting on the couch and all of a sudden she goes: “Oh, I need lipstick!” and she ran off to the hallway to get her purse. Yes, she has a purse, a gift from Sinterklaas, and it came with all sorts of stuff including this little make-up mirror and the lipstick (well, technically it’s lip-gloss I’ve been told…). Anyway, she races off and comes back with her purse, pulls out the mirror and the lipstick and starts putting it on… (the only thing I had to do was open the lipstick :-)).

Like I said: different, but I love it just as much!

Potty Training Baby

Lorelei is (almost) potty trained. It took her a lot longer than Tobias and she had some ups and downs. Now all she needs to do is the night, and get a little bit more comfortable and timely with #2… Anyway, it has to be on her mind because this morning she was playing with her baby doll and all of a sudden she came up to me saying: “Papa, you have to turn the light on in the toilet, baby has to do a wee!”. So, I turned the light on and got to observe this spectacle… She took baby’s clothes off and put her on the potty encouraging her to do a wee… :-).

New Look

Some great new blog templates came out recently. I thought I'd try something new: the dynamic layout. I particularly like the FlipCard view, but I decided on the Magazine view as a default. I also used this template for Tobias' blog. Let me know what you think... (for example by posting a comment to this message).

Update: I missed the link to my other blog and the history overview too much, so, I reverted back to a more classic (yet different) layout...

Not Quite Herself

Lorelei is not quite herself today. She was a bit feverish this morning, has a stuffed up nose and is not anywhere near her usual energy level. A perfect excuse to cuddle up on the couch and watch Ice Age and Buurman & Buurman, and read lots of books. She said she was cold, so I wrapped her up in this blanket.

She’s still cute, even when she’s sick, right?

Sinterklaas

This year was Lorelei’s fourth Sinterklaas, but her first where she was really aware of it. We went to see Sinterklaas come into town, we saw Zwarte Pieten several times and places, and we listened to lots of Sinterklaas songs. Lorelei was even able to sing some by herself! So, she realized that there were presents in the bag. To see the excitement on her face when some of the presents were hers… Priceless! Her favorite was a purse with hairclips, lipstick and a mirror in it… What a girlie girl .

Biking…

… without training wheels or my help…! Quite amazing I might add. I guess my prediction was a bit too optimistic, but to be frank, I knew it would be. What I did not know is that it would take only three times around the block without training wheels before she could do it all by herself! Well, today she did it as you can see in this picture. I do run with her in case she does not pay attention or gets too close to cars, walls, lampposts and such, but really, she does not need my help anymore. She can even turn a corner by herself!

I am a proud papa, and even though it is hard to tell in this picture (it was very foggy outside today…), Lorelei is quite the proud girl!

Pooped…

After most of our guests were gone and it was just my parents, my brother, Yuri and us Lorelei had a chance to wind down. These days she loves watching “Buurman en Buurman” (literally: “Neighbor and Neighbor”), a Czech animation series about two neighbors who like to fix stuff but get into all kinds of trouble doing so. Here she is on our couch watching that with her baby (Oh, and the baby-carrier was another birthday gift ).

Can you tell she’s pooped?