Griaß Di!

With Sandra and Heidi arriving in Vienna on Tuesday evening after an odyssey (caught in a traffic jam just outside Munich and loosing another hour in Vienna basically around the corner from our place) we had a full house all week and Jakob has had a lot of entertainment. Long walks, shopping tours, a first visit to Starbucks and many games were used to keep our little treasure happy. With his two teeth the exercise of giving him our small finger to suck on has become a challenge as sometimes he has the urge to bite and that can really hurt. Kerstin, still fully breastfeeding, has had the joy of such an urge while she was feeding Jakob and her reaction - a pretty loud scream – seem to have made it clear to the little man that this action has hurt. By now the interaction has improved significantly and so one can really have a „conversation“ with him.

A family get-together on "neutral" territory in Styria

On Saturday we have planned a family get-together in Styria with a booking at Steirereck am Pogusch, a very fancy, yet original restaurant 1,5 hours away from Vienna. While a visit to this restaurant has become a tradition for us with Markus’ parents, sister and brother it was the first visit for Jakob, Sandra and Heidi. The food was delicious as always and all three rookies have liked the visit a lot, whereas Jakob clearly spent more time outside in the sun enjoying the fresh air, and the time was flying by. Hard to say whether the enlarged group will become a tradition as well, but we will for sure return to Styria and we are convinced that Jakob will also in the future spent lots of time outside watching the goats and geese or simply playing on the meadows.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

North and South

The first wave of winter with temperatures of close to 0 degrees even during the day, cold wind and first snow in areas of 400m sea level or higher is over and we are facing more normal weather conditions these days for mid-October. With Jakob’s second tooth having broken through at the beginning of the week him bein very unsettled and suffering from teething pain hopefully is over and therefore also our nights are might be coming back to some normality. Obviously there are more teeth to come, but for now we see no need for a rush.

On Tuesday Kerstin and Jakob drove south to Oberwart to spend two days with the grandparents as Markus was on his way up north to Stockholm for a conference on Wednesday. In the evening he followed the invitation of one of his Swedish clients to join them for the Oktoberfest, a big party where they served Wiesnbier, also available at the famous Munich Oktoberfest, as well as Bratwurst and Sauerkraut. This event has become pretty much traditional by now, is “by invitation only” and therefore something very special. Due to the turbulences in the financial industry last year the event has been cancelled and so this year it seemed as if both the clients as well as the brokers were hungry for the party as more than 400 people filled up the place and thus genuine Oktoberfest vibes developed: It was hot, one could hardly move and the Maß-Bier had to be drunk fast if you did not want it warm.

Jakob and Kerstin in the meantime spent a lot of time enjoying the autumn weather with lengthy walks, did some shopping for the little one – we need to stack up Jakob’s supply of warm clothes – and had the car in the garage in order to put the winter tyres on. While the grandparents still enjoyed the presence of the youngest family member still on Thursday, Markus had an early start to catch his flight back to Vienna at 0705 but ended up waiting more than 1 hour for his departure due to heavy fog in Vienna. Clearly he wished to spend his time in bed rather than sitting on a plane waiting for take off, but then one can also sleep while sitting.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

3 months - and counting

It's amazing how fast 3 months are passing by. We still can remember very well the days and hours before Jakob was born as well as the first moment together. And now that we are a small family for 1/4 of a year it is incredible how many memories we do have. It is somehow weird as on the one hand it feels like yesterday that we went to the Semmelweisklinik on Monday morning our little son was born, and on the other hand the events we have gone through since then are so many that one could fill a whole year with.

"Hey! Wanna join me and my buddy Sandman on my sofa?"

Fact is though, that Jakob has developed superbly having grown by 9 cm and added 3190 g (probably even more by now!) since he was born. Long gone are the times when he was screaming a lot in the afternoons, when we had to carry him basically all the time apart from when he was feeding. By now we are able to play together, we can have him rest under his beloved fish-mobile or alternatively underneath the cat-mouse-dog mobile in order to give us some breathing time and allow to do some other stuff even when being alone with him. Especially Kerstin is very happy about that given she is at home alone now that Markus is back at work and on the road. These days Jakob is a little bit unsettled as he is still (or better said already given his young age) teething - it seems as if his second tooth could be coming soon as well - and therefore he is suffering from awkward pain alongside his still blocked nose. As also the current "difficulties" are only a phase and will pass by, we are very relaxed and looking forward to the fourth month together.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Countdown to the first sandwich has started

Summer returned this past week with temperatures reaching 28 degrees in the first half of the week and it was very hard to believe that we are 1/3 through October. On Friday though, when Markus was in Frankfurt still enjoying sunshine on a day meeting clients, the temperatures dropped significantly, it started raining and it seems as if autumn has now arrived. For the coming week temperatures are said to sink further and reach chilly 5 degrees.

Tooth #1 is still small and best seen when crying. You spot it?

It was not only autumn that did arrive last week, but even though Jakob is still less than 3 months old he has got his first tooth! It sounds incredible and we could not believe our eyes either, but our little one is ready for his first piece of bread. As his cold is still present and as he also has symptoms of further teething (the second front tooth looks like arriving soon as well) Jakob is a little bit unsettled, but that should not be a surprise. Considering his latest official measures from Wednesday are 62 cm and 6800 g one can imagine that it’s not so easy anymore to carry and pamper him. Hence Kerstin and Markus are working in shifts.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

A weekend of running

Thursday late afternoon, after Markus returned from work, we packed our car and drove off to Vorarlberg for a long weekend and the Sparkasse Marathon in the Dreilaendereck on Sunday in which Markus participated over the half-marathon distance. The journey on Friday went by swiftly as Jakob was sleeping all the way and no pit stop was necessary and so we reached our destination in just over 5 hours. During the night we realised though that our little one has difficulties breathing through the nose as obviously he has cought a slight cold. On Friday Markus was chained to the computer until mid afternoon as the business activity was haunting him on his birthday which he actually wanted to spend with his family. So much about his plans. Kerstin in the meantime was searching for suitable medication for Jakob’s cold as his nose was running constantly and that gave him lots of difficulties to breathe. The medication luckily did work and so our son was able to sleep well and long during the nights again once the nose stopped running.

Happy faces after having reached the finish!

Sunday morning Sandra and Markus boarded the ferryboat from Bregenz to Lindau where for more than 5000 runners the start for the marathon took place at 11:11. Flo, who was also supposed to participate had to give in to illness during the training programme and so he decided to have one of his friends running instead of him and gaining a strong time in the name of Flo. The weather was absolutely gorgeous with blue sky and sunshine, whereas the temperatures were almost too high for a long distance run with the setting by Lake Constance and the course which even led through the festival arena and the stage of the Bregenzer Festspiele. The high temperatures and the fact that Markus was hardly following his training programme throughout summer as he preferred to spend time with our son took their toll and so his personal best was far out of reach and he ended his race with a time of 1:48:13 while Sandra managed to improve her personal best over the 21.097 km to 2:05:47. Sunday evening finally allows for a birthday celebration before we are heading back to Vienna on Monday morning.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus