A Mira time capsule

Dear Mira,

You are now nine months old, but like all babies, you are growing and changing very fast... Not long ago, you were tiny, fragile and immobile, and look at you now!
I want to record the things about you that I really enjoy now, another month and the list will be completely different...

• You want to pull yourself up to stand against everything- a coffee table, the clothes drying stand, my trousers or my skirt
• You've got this fake teethy smile going- its cute, and sometimes silly
  
• Sometimes when you are hungry or just need some mummy time, you come crawling to me like a little puppy, saying "ummmummumm" and sit at my feet looking up at me with big, innocent, pleading eyes
  
• Remember when you were lying in bed with us one morning and you started playing peekaboo with the duvet? That was impressive!
• As is the fact that when I read a story to you, you can turn the pages of a (cardboard) book all by yourself
• And that you're slowly getting the hang of turning light switches off and on, and what that does to the room.
• Your favourite finger food is a pear, cut in long slices, you love eating it all by yourself, and do a pretty good job of it too
• Today another baby was here to play, a couple of months younger than you, and suddenly you became interested in ALL your toys, specially the ones he was playing with! That was not very nice, but I guess all kids do that. Sharing is cool, Mira!
  

As I write this, you are quietly playing on the floor, systematically emptying the toy box, one toy at a time :-) Time to cook your dinner.
I love you.

Your mamma

fotookes

Een kus van de mama

Een cadeautje van de peter.

De papa doet Mira haar warm pakje dicht.

Comment on the new album about January and February, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/jeroen.wvh/MiraJanFeb

taxi in Bombay

Mira and her dad in a taxi in Bombay. After 1,5 weeks at home with the flu, I found the strength to put these last photos from our India trip online (click below). The album below starts in Delhi, via Bombay, (where we stayed at Parul's friend Puuja's place), and Istanbul to Belgium. The main bit shows Bombay, which is a happy place with an amazing energy, I was happy to get to know it better, including a nice sunset at salt water grill. When I see movies about Bombay now I recognise much more. Last we saw Munna Bhai, a great comedy with a serious message too. I never laughed so much with a Hindi movie :)

I am slowly getting better, recovering from this flu. Mira is asleep and healthy and Parul is working at the ANEC annual report.

Bombay transit album

Tiring bike ride

On Sunday we went to my parents place for a reunion, my youngest brother Bram is back from 5 months in Italy. We biked over after installing Mira's bike seat. She was singing at the beginning but ended up falling asleep. Bram hadn't seen Mira since September and really liked her earrings. He took the picture of her in sepia.

Mira chasing

A silent movie in which Mira shows off her crawling skills chasing a balloon. When motivated she is quite good, if there is nothing to chase she prefers to try and pull herself up to stand.

Ik vraag het aan

bi- or trilingual?

Many people ask us what language we speak with Mira. We both speak our mother tongue, Dutch and Hindi. We sometimes also speak English to each other, a language she is bound to pick up.

Apparently babies learn to distinguish between the sounds they need to know for their mother tongue. More on the matter in the article itself.

Zondagslunch in Wattman na de lichtmis

Lichtmis is celebrated 40 days after Jesus`s birth, his parents brought him to the temple for blessings so we did the same with Mira, our princess. Mira's Belgian grandparents came too and after the mass everyone had pancakes, very social.

The priest in Zurenborg (where Mira was baptised in June) was happy to see Mira and remembered her Australian grandmother with happiness.

life goes on

Jeroen here, life goes on without too much time to write about it. It is worth sharing some things though, especially Mira's latest development, so let me try.

Now that Mira is 8 months old she loves crawling around. During our three weeks in India crawling was still new and her technique didn't allow her to shuffle off and try and eat plugs, wires, plants or other things. But soon after we got back she started moving around on both knees really fast. We didn't even need to look up the guide "How to make your baby crawl in 6 steps" available on the web :)

We are changing the house around a bit so she can't access too many dangerous things. I really love the way she silently plays and observes all these new objects. Observing is the wrong verb since she will always taste it, chew is and if it is good chew it some more.

I am back at work at Handicap International and we have our New Year's party tonight (even though it's Feb). I like doing communications for an NGO and with some luck we can push some states to ratify an international ban on cluster munitions this year. Israel has recently apologised for having used these weapons in Lebanon, weapons that mainly hit civilians. Peres admitted yesterday to Al Jazeera that it was a mistake to use them. You can help too by signing the petition online. You can check on the website whether you know any of the famous Frenchmen or others who have already signed for a ban on these weapons.

Meanwhile other battles continue, like the one for our second-hand car, which is under warranty repair at a garage that closed down two weeks ago. He probably closed his business before officially going bankrupt and we will not see much more than the unrepaired car. Lawyers advise me to forget the warranty and the repair costs and to be happy with the vehicle itself. Lawyers giving me lessons in resignation, I like that.

Parul has a new boss who has a Narnia cupboard in his office, but I 'll let her write an update too. I am afraid that will have to wait until our sleeping experiment with Mira is over. We are trying to make her sleep through the night and teach her how to fall asleep on her own in her own bed. We adults can all do it, but it is really hard to teach someone how to do it . Hence the reason for very little blog traffic.

take care and keep commenting, tips are welcome!
Jeroen