Month 12 (06/19/2010-07/17/2010)

Daniel has failed us!!! Despite all his cute soccer outfits, we started into this month watching both of our teams get their butts kicked in the world championship... ;-) Brazil was the first to go, then Germany (though they did at least win the "loser's final" for third place), and in the end we were left to watch some obscure Spain against Netherlands final in some similarly obscure German-Indian restaurant. Ah well, now we have 4 years to teach Daniel to do a better job as a mascot... ;-)

For the moment, though, he was busy learning some more basic tasks like walking and talking. He's made a lot of progress on walking freely and has started to proudly repeat "Papa, Papa, Papa" over and over. "Mama", on the other hand, still seems to be very confusing to him, probably since this word seems to mean at the same time food ("ham ham" in baby German) or milk bottle ("mamadeira" in Portuguese) or "drink from the breast!" ("mama!" in Portuguese, as Jefferson's mother kept reminding him whenever he was getting distracted from drinking)... But since walking and talking were apparently not enough of a challenge, Daniel has been practicing more new tricks, like clapping his hands, waving good-bye and playing the recorder...

Daniel also continued to get more interested in all kinds of toys, like his toothbrush, remote controls, phones... To be able to pry our phone from his hands at least long enough for us to make a call, we decided to get him the "Kuschelfon" ("cuddle phone") - a blinking and singing children's phone. We were skeptical at first whether he would accept this, after all, this is a toy, actually meant for children... ;-) But surprisingly he did like it, and also a few other "real" children's toys have lately caught his attention, like his small ball pen and a new toy with small wooden pieces to assemble (or, if you will, "ammunition" to throw).

This toy was a present by my parents, who made it to Aachen for a short visit. They spent the afternoon taking a walking tour in downtown Aachen with Jefferson and Daniel. Afterwards, we went for dinner at the restaurant in our street, where Daniel entertained all of us by falling in love with a small fountain, giggling about a come-alive wooden piece from his new toy and trying out a slide for the first time in his life.

With summer bringing us some extremely hot days, Daniel got to spend more time outside and enjoy old and new ways of staying cool: eating fresh fruit (he loves strawberries!), "drinking" water by the "Jefferson method", trying his first "ice cream" (a frozen piece of baby strawberry puree), and playing in the water. Even more than before, he enjoyed splashing around in the bathtub. But we also went to a big public swimming place for a change, where he could experience waves, a pirate ship, a whirlpool - but he ended up being the most fascinated by a little stream of water coming from a small hole at the side of one of the pools...

Besides all the fun, we also had to take care of some official business. For one thing, it was time for another regular checkup with the children's doctor. Once more vaccinations, nasty exams, and the cow hung by its neck - no fun, but as always, Daniel was taking it as bravely as possible... On the other hand, since our summer trip to Poland was approaching, we got Daniel his first passport. A much more pleasant experience, especially since, when we had to have his photograph taken for this, he decided to show his most charming smile ever! So this turned out a really beautiful passport...

Last but not least, what kind of blog entry would this be if it didn't end with some funny pictures of us sleeping peacefully to recover from this long and eventful month... ;-)