Mauricio:
He is 6.5 months old now and growing like a weed. He wears 12mo clothing in US sizes and 70 in European sizes. He's a big boy! He received his 6 month shots at his well baby exam today and handled them like a champ. He's sleeping slightly better but still not more than a few hours at a time, so I'm still super exhausted. Long term sleep deprivation is for the birds!
We finally managed to convince his doctor to refer us to a (German) Gastroenterologist for his reflux/constant spit-up and we're hopeful this will get him the help he needs. Other than that he's developing great and it seems that most of his colic has subsided. Yay for not being screamed at 24/7!
He is now CRAWLING as well, we have a mobile baby, which is both terrifying and amazing at the same time. He loves to crawl over to the dogs and pet them (ridiculously adorable) and is obsessed with trying to eat daddy's shoes (gross). He seems to be a little happier now that he can move, he's always been a very active baby so I predicted that would happen. He also finally cut his two bottom teeth after months of teething, hopefully we'll catch a little break before he starts cutting more.
We started solid food the week he turned 6 months and he loves it! He pretty much likes everything but tart fruits do cause him to make a hilarious face that I've yet to capture on camera. He reaches for all of our food so next month we'll start giving him some of our dinner instead of just baby/mashed food.
Overall he loves people and has never met a stranger, he smiles and talks to anyone who makes eye contact and doesn't seem to have any separation anxiety. I'm excited to see his personality develop as he grows!
Germany:
We are now pretty much settled in our house here, we just have the office left to unpack. This is the biggest house we've lived in so it feels slightly overwhelming but we're very grateful to have a house and yard for both Mauricio and the dogs, we fully expected to be placed in an apartment.
I absolutely love the little town we live in. The locals are extremely nice and patient with my terrible German. Most of them don't speak English, which is actually great for me because it forces me to practice my German. Although I'm a pro at ordering food and asking for things my conversational German is still pretty terrible. Mauricio will probably speak better German than me by the time he's three!
We spent the holidays in the states seeing family and getting Mauricio baptized. It was nice to be home and see everyone but we're very glad to be back in Germany in our own house again. As we were landing in Nürnberg I felt instantly happy when seeing the little German houses as we broke through the cloud layer, and realized how quickly Germany became home to us.
We've traveled a bit since we've been here but not outside of Germany because we didn't have a tourist passport for Mauricio, now that we have that we plan to travel farther away and are super excited about that.
Hopefully I'll have time to update this a little more often now and I plan to write a post on my experience of becoming a mom. For now, here are some photos:
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| 10 days old |
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| one month old |
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| watching the movers bring our things - 3 months old |
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| we love the nature paths all over our little town! |
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| Nürnberg |
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| American Thanksgiving in Germany - 5 months old |
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| Mauricio's first Christkindlmarkt in Bayreuth |
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| Our town is too small to have a Christmas Market, so they have Candlelight Shopping the weekend before St. Nikolaus Day and it's beautiful! |
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| Mauricio is impressed by sushi - 5 months old |
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| Mauricio's baptism at Madonna Della Strada Chapel at Loyola University, Chicago - 5 months old |
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| Christmas Eve - 6 months old |
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| Rocking an Ohio State bib for Grandma! |
