Oh, do I have a blog??

My apologies for not posting for several months. The less said about that the better, I'll just say we've had a rough few months but things are improving! I recently passed the one year mark in Belgium! Time flies!

The big BIG news is that thanks to the unbelievable generosity of family and friends, Luna and I will be coming home for a visit from May 9th to June 8th! We'll be able to attend my mother's graduation, and hopefully see everyone! G will be unable to accompany us for this trip, and its going to be very very difficult for him to be away from the baby. :( But I am ever so grateful to everyone for helping to make this happen. Its been a very difficult year and a visit is just what the doctor ordered. Although traveling alone with a toddler should be interesting!!!

Luna has grown and changed so much in the past few months! She crawls like crazy now, and pulls up on anything that will hold still long enough. She "walks" along furniture, but has not yet dared to take those first steps unaided. She says "Mama" constantly, and occasionally says "Papa," and "No." She also uses the sign for "milk" regularly, and has also signed "more," and "all done" a few times. Despite several intense teething periods, she still has only two teeth, though they are pretty much fully grown in now. She feeds herself 85% of the time, and eats just about everything at this point. She claps and points and waves bye bye. She's HYSTERICAL, and cracks us up all the time. She's turning into a little person! I miss my little baby, but every single day is an adventure now and its so much fun to see her learning and growing right before my eyes! This picture was taken on her 10 month "birthday." She'll be one on March 31st!!!

I will keep this short for now, but will try to post updates a bit more frequently! Thanks to all of you that actually read this!

Time Flies!

Its hard to believe, but G and I have been married for a year already. Halloween was a big day around here - our anniversary, Luna's 7 month "birthday," and of course my favorite holiday. We didn't do much, we went for lunch. Halloween isn't celebrated here, but as you can see, Luna dressed up! I also managed to find a few decorations here, and my mom sent some, so the house looked good.

My appointment with the new gynecologist went fine. He did not find anything wrong gynecologically, and suspects that whatever is causing my abdominal issues, its gastrointestinal. So we'll have to find a gastroenterologist I guess. As I write this I am entering another one of my "spells." My abdomen swells out (I cannot even wear regular pants, I have to wear stretchy things) and I have a great deal of pain. It gets worse and worse for about 3 days and then it fades. And around 3 or 4 weeks later, it starts over again. Its bizarre.

The big excitement in my life recently is that I managed to hack our DVD player to make it multi-region, so I can finally watch all the DVDs I brought from home. Its been great watching all my old favorites!

Luna is doing well, though she's in a cranky phase lately. For about 3 weeks now she's had a short fuse and hasn't been sleeping great. She's getting new teeth, definitely, and the two she already has are pushing through further. She's also growing and learning new things everyday, all of which can stress a baby out! We got her a walker and she's started running around getting into everything she can reach. She is rolling all over as a means of transport, but we haven't seen any crawling still. I've been trying everyday to teach her to say "Mama," and today she actually managed to say the "ma" sound, so who knows, maybe she'll be talking soon! She's the light of my life and every single day she does something amazing!

We're heading into the holiday season, which is going to be very very difficult for me. I'm happy to report my friend A (the American) and her husband have invited us to celebrate Thanksgiving, so rather than sitting home moping I'll be eating like I should be! It looks like G will have to work on Christmas, though, which will suck. I suppose I'll get through the holidays one day at a time, just like I get through everything.

Happy autumn everyone!

Growling Our Way Through October

As usual, time got away from me and its been weeks since I posted. Funny how a 6 month old keeps you busy!

First, as a follow-up to my last post, last week we met again with the imburgering worker and filled out paperwork that gives me an extension until September 2011, which is the earliest that any of the local child care services could provide us with a slot. I am so relieved that I will not have to wean Luna early! I also found out that I can test out of the Dutch classes that are part of my imburgering requirements, so if I manage to learn Dutch on my own before then I can skip 60 hours of classes. There is no getting out of the 120 hours of social integration, but I don't mind much. By September, Luna will be weaned and it will be good for her to get some socialization.

I've been having some pain issues that remain unexplained. Every couple of weeks, my abdomen swells and becomes hard to the touch and I am in severe pain for a few days. The last time it happened, I was in so much pain I couldn't go for a walk and I needed help to give Luna a bath. I went to the doctor the first time this happened, and he thought it was a hernia. However, a scan of the area did not locate any hernia. He did not bother ordering more tests, which I found a bit strange! It has happened twice more since then, for three or four days at a time. I made an appointment with a new gynecologist (no way am I going back to the one that delivered Luna), and I had to wait several weeks. However, that appointment is coming up Thursday. I am not sure if the problem is gynecological or gastrointestinal, I have no idea. When its hurting it hurts sort of all over, I haven't been able to pinpoint the source. Anyway, perhaps the new doctor can help.

Luna had her six month check up last week and the doctor was very pleased with her growth and development. She is back on track with weight gain, and she has two teeth just barely peeking through, one on top and one on bottom. The doctor said that her balance and coordination with sitting up is on level with an 8 month old, and also told us not to worry that she is not showing interest in crawling. Apparently it is quite common for babies with acid reflux to loathe being on their bellies and to skip crawling altogether.

My sister-in-law's sister, Bridget, sent Luna a hazel wood necklace, which is supposed to absorb excess acids and help with acid reflux, eczema, and a host of other problems. Though I had noticed some improvement in the days leading up to me putting the necklace on her, Luna's vomiting has been greatly reduced. Hard to say if its the necklace or if she was growing out of it anyway, but the necklace is adorable and Luna doesn't mind it, so we keep it on! Thanks Bridget!

Luna is standing up with only some minor assistance to her balance, and she has several amusing new noises she makes! One of them is a sort of growl that is just perfect for Halloween! She is now eating meat with her veggies and she loves her fresh food feeder. She's even drinking out of a sippy cup, though she needs help to really get a drink out of it.

Our Little Chick says: "Happy Halloween everyone, wish I was there to celebrate with you all!!!"

So Much For Mother Knows Best... Belgium Knows Best?

I'm angry, I'm sad, and I'm confused all at the same time. We had the intake appointment at the imburgering office today. They do not make any exceptions for breastfeeding mothers. In other words, I will have to put my child in day care and stop breastfeeding in order to go and sit in classes in which I will learn mostly ignorant things that anyone from a modernized country would know.

We were given a list of two creches (large daycare centers) here in Landen and the office that organizes the local onthaalmoeders (smaller home based daycares), and we must report to each of the three locations and inquire about daycare. If they have no slots available, they can fill out a form stating that and indicating when a position may become available. If there are no positions available at any of the three, we will get a six month extension to continue searching for childcare. HOWEVER, if there IS a position available, even if we find the creche or onthaalmoeder not to our liking for some reason, we MUST take it and I must start classes immediately.

Which would mean I will have to wean Luna. Even if we purchase another breast pump (mine broke, and the one I borrowed from my friend won't work for me - breast pumps clearly hate me), we have no freezer, so there is no way I could pump and store up enough milk to be away from her 8 hours a day. We tried her on formula this week (I'll explain later) and she was so disgusted that she gagged until she vomited and did not swallow a drop. So what exactly is she supposed to eat??? Geert was so astonished by the insanity of this law that he actually said, "You're telling me these classes are more important than the health of our baby?" Our intake counselors response was, "That's Belgium for you." He then started mumbling about lawyers, but we of course cannot afford to fight this. If we do not comply with the law, we'll be fined, possibly repeatedly, until I comply.

I am excited to learn Dutch. Those classes I actually look forward to, or I would if I could attend them without harming Luna. But the "social orientation" classes will likely be an insult to my intelligence. A big clue about what I am in for came when we used the bathrooms at the imburgering office. I did not have my camera with me, but the sign was similar to this one. Apparently the office caters to people who have to be told not to squat on the toilet seat. No wonder they feel these classes are so damned important!


I'll post an update once we find out about the availability of childcare.

In other news, Luna isn't gaining weight as fast as the doctor would like. This is unsurprising, as the vomiting from her acid reflux has gotten really bad in the past month to six weeks. She still nurses well, she just vomits a lot of it back up. Her solid food usually stays down, but not always. The doctor suggested we start giving her one bottle of a special thick formula they make for babies with reflux at night before bed. The idea being that it will give her some extra calories, and might help her to sleep through the night better. We bought the formula, which was ridiculously expensive (about a third more than the cost of standard formula), and Luna will not eat it. She was simply horrified, the looks on her face were hysterical, and she gagged and gagged and gagged until she eventually threw up. I tried it from a bottle and from a spoon, both times she gagged as soon as it touched her lips - before she could have felt the texture, so it must have been the taste. I tried two nights in a row to no avail. We've been in touch with the doctor, and she's arranged for some samples of another kind of formula that we can go and pick up. But I don't have high hopes. I've read, and the doctor confirmed, that solely breast fed babies frequently refuse formula. In the meantime, I have increased her nursing sessions almost two fold and I have started adding a little avocado to her fruits each day for the extra fats. I squeezed in an extra nursing session between her evening solids and her bedtime feed and she has been sleeping for much longer stretches the last several nights. She is not LOSING weight, mind you, but her rate of gain has leveled off. Hopefully it will pick up again.

I've been having some weird pain in my abdomen in the area around the C-Section. Our family doctor thought it was a hernia, but none could be found on ultrasound. He did not order any further tests, so I have just been living with it. We made an appt. with a new gynecologist, but its not until next month. The pain isn't debilitating or anything, but as is always the case with chronic pain, its exhausting. I've been way tireder than normal. Just one more thing to deal with I guess.

I haven't gotten around to cleaning out my Photobucket page and posting new pics, but will try to do so soon. She's getting big - she is sitting up on her own now and she eats in a high chair! Our little girl is growing so fast!

Adventures in Antwerp

On Sunday we journeyed to Antwerp to see the Royal De Luxe giant marionettes. The trains were crowded with teenagers returning from the Pukkelpop music festival and we nearly gave up before we started, but eventually we found seats on a very crowded train.

I had never been to Antwerp, but the park where the marionettes were that afternoon was in the opposite direction of most of the parts of Antwerp we might normally have visited. So I still need to go to explore Antwerp. We followed the people to find the right park - there were a lot of people! According to the news, 800,000 visited the marionettes during the three days they were in town.

The marionettes were amazingly detailed and a wonder to behold. We did not get to see them walk around or dance, as we got there in between the 2 parades. We did actually wait until 4 o'clock, even though the baby (and the husband for that matter) were getting tired and cranky by that point, but the parade did not start on time so we ended up leaving. But even just sitting and looking around they were fascinating. The Giant Little Girl was my favorite. She had a sweet, slightly sorrowful look about her. The Diver was a bit scary looking, reminiscent of Frankenstein. He did not have his diving helmet on while we were there.

The park where they were settled in the afternoon was pretty cool in and of itself. There were very neat fountains that had hundreds of children playing in them, and an enormous, tall, futuristic looking playground. There was a large exposition building with a craft fair going on. We bought Luna a knit hat for winter, and she was so cute in one of the hats we tried on her that the vendor asked permission to take her picture in it. We had hotdogs for lunch (not exactly the American hotdogs I'm used to, but not too bad) and fed Luna her veggies right there at the festival. Other than the occasional fussy time, she was great all day, despite being unable to get a good nap in. She doesn't mind interruptions to her routine at all.

We were all exhausted by the end of the day, but it was definitely a fun day!

All the pictures and video we took are here, but I encourage you to check out the videos of them in action I found on YouTube here, here, and here.

Photobucket Cleanout

Just got notice that my Photobucket page is getting full. I will be clearing it out at the end of this week, deleting some of the older photos and videos to make room for the ones still to come. So if there is anything you want to download, this is your last chance!

Brussels Flower Carpet, 2010

Luna and I went to Brussels with Ambre, Hannelore, and Kirsten today to see the Flower Carpet. Every other year, the Grote Markt of Brussels is transformed into a colorful carpet of flowers! 750,000 to 800,000 flowers, mostly begonias, are used to create the design, which is different each year.

We had our hands full with two babies (Kirsten is one day older than Luna) and Hannelore, who is almost three and very independent. But we had a nice time all the same, visiting the carpet, having pizza and ice cream, and strolling through the outdoor market. I had planned to go up to the city hall balcony for a better view, but the line was too long, so we settled for the close-up view from the ground. We bought some professional pictures to show it from above.

Check out the pictures and videos!