Index nieuws

Apr 2004

Tuesday, 4/27/2004
Opa and oma Mangelaars visited
Between April 19 and 26 opa and oma Mangelaars visited. We have been out a lot, shopping, zoo, playground, strolling, etc. Bram and Vera enjoyed the extra attention a lot and we had nice weather most of the time.
Bram had his regular therapy schedule during this time, so opa and oma have been entertaining Vera by herself too.
We also went for a trip to Boston, on the way there we visited the Westpoint museum and on the way back we explored a historic town. Quite some busy days all in all!

Monday, 4/5/2004
Car trouble
The last week of March brought another surprise. When we were about half an hour from home (Monday Mar 29) and just started the drive home, our automatic transmission failed. This was quite a scary situation because we (Wilma, Bram and Vera) were driving on a road where cars do about 50 miles per hour and we could get a bare 15 miles out of our car.
At the time we did not know exactly what was happening, but it felt like the car failed to find gear. Eventually we had to stop and the car had to be towed to the garage. Bram and Vera had to be picked up by a friend, for they were not allowed on the tow truck.
The day after this, it turned out that the automatic transmission failed badly and it had to be rebuilt. A big repair that takes 3 days and had to be done by a specialised shop. We had to consider if the car was worth the expense. We ended up prevailing the practical value of the car over the economic. On Friday April 2, it was back home.

Saturday, 4/3/2004
Sinus problems
Unfortunately this was a hard month for Bram health wise. The first week of March he had to start a course of antibiotics for another sinus infection. This just would not clear up, so mid March we had to take an even sicker little guy to the pediatrician again. He then got a shot with a powerful antibiotic because in the meantime he had developed a double ear infection on top of the sinus infection. Next day the shot proved to have worked, but not enough, so he got another course of antibiotics. That seemed to be successfull.
Today we write April 3, a week after that course ended. We again start to worry some for he has 'the nose' again in a nice (?) green. We'll need to keep another close eye on him again.

Eat en talk
This month too Bram and Vera have been going on learning new words. It's a slow process, but nicely enough: in 2 languages.
Vera now eats by herself, using a spoon. She thinks it is very interesting to do and she gets much less messy and more precise in her technique. Bram now too gets more interested in eating by himself. He by now waves "bye" more and more frequently anyway, showing he want to do things by himself.

Travels
This month was a big travel month for Erik as well. He likes the work he has to do on location, but the huge amount of travelling is quite a load. He travels throughout the country, so faces time differences of 2/3 hours every once in a while, which is quite uncomfortable.

February 2004
This time I will tell about the entire month. We have altered a few things on the technical side of our website. This made it impossible for some time to update it.
At the beginning of the month Bram got his braces. These are plastic supports for his feet and ankles that leave the upper part of his foot free. These go inside his shoes. From the start, Bram really enjoys wearing these. He gets a lot of support from them while walking and they increase his self confidence enormously. He now is able to walk almost 'normal' and he constantly is off exploring now. It is great to observe that he will come back for the braces as soon as he thinks we take them off too soon.
Mid February we got a visit from grandparents Karel and Annemie. This was so nice. Quite interesting fact: both Bram and Vera seemed to really recognise them, even though it had been since October last year that they had seen them last. They both decided to give them a title of honour: "opa", both Karel and Annemie got to be called this way. (opa is the dutch word for "grandpa")
That week we visited Washington for a few days. It was nice to be 'out' for a weekend. We of course did the standard tour: White House, Capitol, Lincoln monument, Arlington. We also visited Old Town Alexandria, a very old town for American standards, a nice town too by the way.
Both in January and in February Erik had to travel a lot for work. Each week he had to go for a few days. He saw many airports and hotels and at best a few hours of the towns he went to. Bram and Vera really had a hard time seeing him so little. The 2nd night in a row that they would not have been put in bed by daddy too, they decided to not be able to go to sleep.
You really can tell that Bram and Vera are working on spoken language. They are experimenting constantly with sounds and slowly but surely they use more and more 'real' words.
© Wilma & Erik van de Pol, 2000-2008