how things are now- in English!

Here's a little update for all our English speaking friends. All is well! We've settled fine in Amsterdam and are now sharing the appartment with Katja and Sebastian. It is a bit crowded with the five of us in a two bedroom flat, but we manage alright. Aoife has been sleeping through the night more often than not lately, but as we all had colds over the weekend these days she's  up a bit more often than we'd like. Other than that h er days are pretty regular: she wakes some time between 6 and 8, has breakfast, naps until 10-10.30, then has her midmorning feed, directly with me if I'm on duty, or expressed milk from a bottle when Padraic or my parents babysit (meanwhile I'm at work expressing milk for the next day... I'm lucky Dutch law allows me to do this for up until the baby is 9 months old and it may take up to a quarter of my work time!). Then for her next feed at 14.30 she's brought to the department by the babysitter so I can breastfeed her at work! I work until 5.30, cycle home and we bathe Aoife and feed her her dinner, then have dinner ourselves and time off to do some resting or some household chores (cleaning the breast pump is a daily joy), until her 11 o'clock feed while we watch Mad Men on dvd on my laptop in bed.
We live in Amsterdam Noord now, and that means that when we go into town we have to take the ferry from the rear exit of the Central (train) Station over the river IJ. The ferry is very regular, every 11 minutes at most, takes only 3 minutes to cross the river, and is free. It is always filled with lots of cyclists (yay for flat countries!) and mopeds, sometimes even these little cars that used to be only for disabled people but now apparently also service the lazy in general, and it really makes me feel like every day is a holiday. Amsterdam Noord is still quite calm and quiet compared to the rest of the city and there is a really  nice neighbourhood feel, not unlike Lancaster. The people on our little square (actually it's more like a triangle) all greet us on the street and there's a monthly neighbourhood market where people can sell their artistic or culinary products. Last Saturday children could have their faces painted and decorate kites and participate in a kite festival (unfortunately the only day there was no wind - at all!).

Aoife's main hobbies are still standing up on our laps or the bed and balancing herself and reading eating books. She likes it much better these days to do her tummy time, and she talks a lot (also with her mouth full, she gets more and more distracted while eating)! As you can see her hair is slowly growing, and her eyebrows are also showing more and more. She's great company as we hope you will all soon be able to see for yourself again.