With the arrival of our latest family addition, Isabelle Rose Kaeslin, on 6 September 2007 and Andreas Edward Kaeslin on 17 August 2009, I decided it was time to join the blogging age in order to better share family photos and stories. So if you have wandered across this site or received the link via an email, I do hope you enjoy what we post. I promise to try and update regularly so keep coming back often.
Well Andreas was totally not interested in me shoveling food into his mouth with a spoon but still always appeared interested in food. So we have come up with another plan that appears to be working....we just let him him feed hinself. Very little gets into his mouth really but he seems to be totally happy with the new plan and is quite content to knaw on whatever we have given him for the entire meal. Thus far he has had hard bread, carrots and this afternoon for lunch asparagus. He still makes his funny , I dont like this faces but keeps on going with it so it cant be that bad. If he manages to get any kind of biggish piece in his mouth, he just spits it out. It is actually becoming more and more common to feed babies older than 6mths in this manner and is called Baby led weaning. Concept is simple, breastfeed on demand and introduce manageable and age appropriate finger food. Nutritian needs are met by breastfeeding and the finger food, introduces a variety of tastes and textures for the baby to explore and as they continue to grow, their ability to get more into their mouths and actually eat, grows as well. Will see how well it continues to work!
We had a great visit yesterday for Andreas' 6 month check up. He is growing like a little weed! In the 95% for length!! 28inches. I knew he was long but not that long. He weights just under 18 lbs which is somewhere I think in the 75% range. And head circumferance was also 95%. So a big boy and perfectly healthy thank goodness!! And oh my sweet little man did not even cry when he got his immunization. I was so impressed, even the doctor seemed quite surprised. He was just sitting there smiling and spitting as he always does and paused just for a second when the doctor stuck the needle in and then carried on. Isabelle was more worried watching the whole thing.
I am not much for updates on here, more of a picture poster but since I have the time I .thought I would write a bit. So, what is Andreas doing....being a baby.... he loves to stand up and therefor less interested in sitting. He can sit supported no problem but alone he will manage a few seconds before wobbling over. Eating is an interesting topic...he is just not interested or does not like what we offer him, not sure what it is. He is always trying to grab everything but if you actually make him some food and try to feed him, he wont even open his mouth and if you do manage to get anything in, he just spits it right out and makes this awful face. But I am sure he will eventually catch on, cant imagine I will need to still be nursing him in kindergarten, as Ueli always teases. Funny thing, he had no problem opening his mouth when Isabelle gave him a bite of cereal yesterday! Could not believe it. Might have to be her job for awhile.
What else...he loves his jumpy swing and exersaucer. Not a huge fan of the floor. I think he gets frustrated as he can not get to what he wants just yet. Isabelle was the same until she started crawling, so I think we still have a few months ahead of us with that. He loves Isabelle! She is pure entertainment for him, so hilarious! And she is just still so in love with him. Everything she does, she has to stop every few minutes to run over and give him a kiss and a hug. We always thought the newness of him being around would wear off for her but it never has. She always wants to know where he is and how he is and when he cries or coughs or whatever she still runs over to him immediately to check up on him and will then promply report back that "he's ok". So cute.
Isabelle is still a hilarious piece of work. Everything is funny funny funny!! Can get her in trouble quite often but she is slowly getting better with everything. She needs to be kept busy for the most part or she will start finding trouble...boardom really. We are looking forward to summer when we can spend more time out in the garden again. Can be quite challenging organizing activities at times when the weather is not great or really cold. I think hanging out with mom 24/7 can get a bit boring at times she we try to organze things with friends and go to play groups. She loves climbing and jumping and singing and dancing. She just about lives is this purple frilly skirt of hers. She calls it her dancing skirt and quite often insists on wearing if over her pjs to bed. Other favorites.....puzzles, baby dolls, legos and her new little people toys and yes and of course her brother! We are still always impressed with watching her learn german as well as english and listening to her say things one way to me and another way to her daddy. It will be interesting as Isabelle and Andreas get old to see what they speak with each other. Most people tell me it will be german. Not to sure what I think about that just yet.
And Davis....a teenager and a toddler at the same time....OMG...Can you believe these 2 will actually fight with each other??? Well aside from the hormones...she is doing great. She has really adjusted well to living in Switzerland. Ueli tells me that her swiss german is really good now. Her grades in school are good and she seems to have found the motivations for school that she had previously lacked. She sings in a band, plays the keyboard and is on the handball team. A very busy girl!! But she is managing to hold it all together really well.
Here are a couple of recent videos the first one is of Andreas actually opening his mouth for Isabelle and then Isabelle's first camel ride! Oh she loved it!! She looked so proud sitting up there!!
