St. Martin's Lantern

We're not just gearing up for Halloween, but also for St. Martin's Day (a day traditionally celebrated in Germany by forcing children to wander through the streets and sing songs with lanterns). Here, Finlay has his own lantern.

Balls

Finlay at a childrens cafe last week in Friedrichshain. The haze in the photo is caused by the heavy concentration of Mutterglück (maternal happiness) in the air...

Not Smiling and Smiling

Finlay this past weekend at the table, with various toys and vegetables. We will be celebrating Halloween this year, which is growing in popularity (or at least marketing efforts) each year in Germany. We're considering going as pirates, and dressing him up as a parrot. Or maybe we'll have him in the baby carrier but made to look like he is bursting out of Christine's stomach. Wait a minute - maybe not. Too close to home. It's only been ten months.

It would be more fun to dress him up if we could actually go trick or treating here. However, we doubt that many of our neighbours would really understand that part of Halloween. And in any case, they could rescind any exchanges of candy the next day under German laws relating to "doorway transactions" (Haustürgeschäfte). We'll stay home, carve a pumpkin, put Finlay in the pumpkin, quickly blow out the candle in the pumpkin, take pictures of Finlay in the pumpkin, post them here, etc.

Sleeping Finlay

Cat in the Hagia Sophia

This is a street cat photographed on Sunday morning three weeks ago in the centre of the Hagia Sophia cathedral/mosque/museum in Istanbul. Finlay wasn't there. But we'll take him there someday, if only to show him a central node of European culture.

Mini Finlay in a Mini Cooper

Here are Finlay and Christine at Gallerie Lafayette on Saturday evening with Finlay behind the wheel of a small replica of an Austin Mini Cooper. He knows he resides in centralBerlin, and therefore has no need of a car, and his feet don't really reach the pedals - perhaps that accounts for his desultory expression.

Afterwards, Christine ate a deep-sea prawn and Finlay fell asleep. Then we all watched the Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland. Curioser and curiouser!

A place at the table

Several hours later... here are Finlay and Christine actually sitting at the table together. They're watching that video with Jimmy Kimmel and Ben Affleck. Yeah, you remember the one. That one. The plate in the picture was sent flying to the floor a few moments later and broke into several pieces. That had nothing to do with the video.

Box Baby

Finlay this morning in the box for his new "Stokke" highchair - a tasteful (and expensive) baby seat for him at the kitchen table. The box was fascinating - a smaller box was successfully used as a little motor car in which Finlay went driving around the living room...

Finlay and Fruit

Finlay today comparing various types of fruit. Finlay went to the doctor today with his father, and then to the zoo with his mother. Apparently Finlay babbled at the fish and shouted at the monkeys, but became very quiet and humble around the very large elephants...

A Purposeful Stride

Read the post below to find out where/why this photo was taken. This is Christine with an extremely purposeful march across a landing field on her way to see Finlay.

(She also uses the same very vigorous stride when Finlay manages to crawl to the cats' litter box)

Brave Finlaymother!

Here is Christine after completing a 4 km tandem skydive with "Api", her jumpmaster. There are photos of Christine from before the jump looking very nervous, which we won't publish.

Finlay has a very brave mother! Finlay's father jumped last year (with Finlay's godfather and Tomas), but Christine couldn't go, since Finlay was already a bun in the oven at that time. Now she's caught up. Cool experience, and definitely something we'll offer to Finlay when he's a little bit older. Thanks very much to gojump.de, who offered us a professional, safe and very friendly skydiving experience!

Another photo with a leaf from today

This ws Finlay today at Gransee, a small village 65 km outside of Berlin. Finlay amused himself with a leaf (after crawling all over the grass) while his mother jumped out of an airplane.

Leaf hunting - successful!

Fall Attire

Finlay, last week, right before going out leaf hunting.

Couch Potatoes Reloaded

There is an earlier post on this blog of Finlay and father sacked out on the couch. Here's the next instalment from last weekend. Look closely at the bottom left of the photo (and ignore Finlay's open-mouthed snoring - he had a cold).

Why it's Turnip - equally tired! She's probably exhausted from Finlay crawling all around the apartment in pursuit of her that day. That's a new hobby.

Finlay now has an all-purpose word for everything: "da!". As in - point at the cat and say "da!" Look out the window of a streetcar and say "da!"

We guess it will take him a year to differentiate between "der", "das" and "die". Lord knows his father needed about 15 years, and still gets lots of them wrong.

Finlay and his Grandfather

Finlay was in Tübingen two weeks ago for the wedding of Christine's brother - these are two quick shots of him with his grandfather, Jupp. We see a resemblance... Finlay apparently slept through the wedding, but stayed awake at the reception until 2 am. Also a family tradition (at least on his father's side...)

The Finlaybabysitter

In German, that's probably all one word. This is Lara with Finlay - Lara is Finlay's godmother's responsible daughter who has looked after Finlay on several occasions. We are immensely grateful to Lara for helping us out on short notice and at odd hours, and for letting us have a few very nice dinners with friends (and just friends) in the last while. Dinners that have not involved pureed spinach, bibs or spitting up afterwards.

Thank you Lara!