August, Summer Holidays, Naxos I

August means summer and summer means holidays!

Hello little one - we are setting off for Naxos with your cousins, your aunty Lilly and Grandad P and Granny Y.



Here you are with Mummy and Cousin E on the boat. Can you see in the background what's going on? It's the famous Hekatontapyliani church of Paros - they say it was built by St. Helena herself... (actually, you can't see it in this photo, Daddy likes to show off!).



We were on Naxos last year and after Daddy went back to Athens to get ready to go to France for the FSE General Assembly, Mummy realised that she was going to have a baby. You! Look at you now, one year on in your little sun hat...



Here we are with a very happy Daddy! We are on the back of the boat with the wide expanse of the Aegean behind us. You liked to be out on the back of the boat with the smell of the surf and the briny winds. You weren't too keen on the exhaust fumes from the Goodies restaurant, and to be honest, I don't blame you.





While on the boat, we had to change your nappy at some point and the nice steward unlocked the disabled bathroom for us so we could use the changing table in there. The disabled bathroom is very big compared to the other one and gave us plenty of room to manoeuvre and wash you with running water properly. Full marks to the Blue Star steward for this one.

On the left, you are lying on the changing table waiting to get changed. Here on the right, you can see how we set up your child seat so you could sit comfortably for the whole journey.



We spent the summer at Athina's apartments in the Plaka area of Naxos. It was our third time at Athina's rooms. She was expecting you and had set out a play pen for you and had put a friendly teddy bear in there for you. We called him Athinoulis.



This is a common sight in the Plaka area - can you see how the dog likes to be on top of the car?



Here is Mummy with the pram on our first day on Naxos as we headed to the world famous Cedar Cafe. Can you see how she positions the sling over the pram so the sun does not burn you. This is how we moved you around in the day. There is a funny video here with cousin E pushing the wrapped up pram:



It was quite a windy day, that one...

Our average day went a little like this: We would wake up and Mummy would feed you in the morning, then sometimes your cousins would come round on their way to the beach to play.

Here they are in our room both of them trying to get your attention with the wind-up music box.


And here they are all together with Aunty Lilly.

Sometimes Daddy would have to sit and work on his laptop - and you would help him by hanging on his shoulder:


You were a great help to Daddy, so much so that things he worked on in Naxos are still having results almost six months later.

Some days, we would all go to the world-famous Cedar Cafe for eggs and bacon or for cakes and coffee. Here is a selection of photographs from Cedar Cafe.



We were most often there with Aunty Lilly and Uncle Claude and your cousins:





Here we are all together at Cedars in a photo taken by Daddy's friend Lefteris:



Sometimes we would go to the supermarket in town and buy exciting things to eat in our rooms, all together. Here Mummy is preparing scrambled eggs with some eggs from real hens that one of the cleaning ladies gave to us.



We tried all sorts of meat cuts from the meat counter of the supermarket but our most interesting discovery was the Naxian cheese shop in the town. Very interesting indeed.

Sometimes friends would come and visit us. Here are some photos of friends who visited us in Naxos:

On the left is Daddy's boss Marianna, and on the right is Daddy's friend Lefteris. Below is Daddy's friend Margarita.

First trip on the Athens Metro

Hello little one.

Saturday 11 July was a big day for you little one.

Mummy and Daddy decided to go out shopping again, and although it was not your first time at the shops, it was going to be your first time on public transport and first time on the Athens Metro. The Athens Metro is a nice piece of engineering put together for the Olympic Games in 2004. Aunty Igor went on the Metro before it opened while she was a journalist with the Athens News (Greece's only English Language Daily Newspaper) together with the then prime minister Kostas Simitis. A lot of things have changed since then for everyone, but Daddy will not forget the excitement of watching the opening ceremony online and playing with the controllable webcam to look at the archaeological "section".



Here's a photo of you in your sling in the sun (see how it shines a little through the linen fabric) and here's a photo of you in the Syntagma station. Mummy is holding you so that Daddy can get the sling in order again.



In this last photo you are sucking your fingers in Ermou Street, the big shopping street of Athens. You can just see the Kapnikarea in the distance above your head. The Kapnikarea is a 11th Century church and Daddy uses it when he is taking guests around town to show how street levels rise and the basic concepts of archaeological stromatography.



Here are a couple of videos showing your first trip on the Metro: Going to Ermou and coming back…





In the evening we went to Granny Y and Grandad P. You sat while Daddy played Scrabble with Grandad P and Mummy helped Granny Y get the house ready for your cousins Alexandros and Esmeralda who are coming soon.

Mummy's birthday

On Thursday, Mummy had her birthday and Grannies M and Y came with Grandpa P. You spent the whole night sleeping on one or other of the grannies and they took it in turns to hold you or to eat.



Here you are with Granny Y and Mummy - three generations of Taurus born in May!



And here you are with Granny Y and Grandad P!



During the afternoon, you went out with Mummy in the sling all the way to Ethnikis Antistaseos street to get the birthday cake! Mummy took care to let you smell all the nice smells on the way there, especially the roast meat smells coming from Arkhontas across the road.

Here is a funny picture of you from this week where you are trying to copy the little boy on the dolphin from the Augustus of the Prima Porta type:


The photo on the left is by a chap called Andreas Wahra and it has a creative commons license, which means that Daddy can do what he likes with it as long as he mentions Andreas as the original creator. Isn't living in the 21st century cool, huh?

A week full of firsts

Hello little one.

It's been a week full of first times. Daddy has been very busy so he didn't have a chance to write about each few days as they passed. He's writing now, from the waiting lounge at Gate 10 in Otopeni airport in Bucharest. Some day you will come to Bucharest too and hopefully it will be a much better place when you come than it is now. Daddy is helping the programme to stop prejudice against the Roma people.



Anyway, let's start the discussion with a visit from your Auntie Igor early in the week. She didn't stay to watch bathtime, but she stayed long enough to rival Granny M. for pulling a silly face while holding you. Look at this one:



On Monday night, we swaddled you! Everyone at the hospital and elsewhere was telling us that babies don't need to be swaddled like they were in the past. But now, in America, they have different ideas and your cousins Irene and Evgenia sent you a "swaddler" from America. It's meant to keep you snuggled up like you were in utero. Well, you are still a little small for it, but you sure liked having your arms pressed up against you while you were inside it.



Here you are sitting on Daddy's lap, swaddled. You stayed quiet for long enough for us to want to try it again some other day.



On Saturday, Daddy doesn't go to work and the two of us spent the morning trying to see how many hairs we could get to stick to your cheeks. Well, we weren't actually trying to do that, but it happened! You had a really good time lying on Daddy and kicking your feet back and forth.

Later in the day Mummy and Daddy took you for a drive. Here you can see how happy you are in the car seat before the drive. You slept your whole time in the car, so you missed both Granny Y and Grandad P. Still it was a good trial run for Sunday, to know that we could put you safely into the car and drive around.



That afternoon we discovered that some times, you are not too keen on being photographed with flash. This is a rather funny photo because you reacted to the pre-flash and the real flash caught you as you were complaining.



Daddy generally does not like using flashes and prefers to shoot with available light even if it means he gets more grain. Like in this photo of you after bath-time. You really enjoy bath-time whenever you get under that warm water!



After drying you Mummy put you in your eco-friendly re-usable nappies. We are very excited to be helping the environment like this, whatever some bad people are saying about the wasted water needed to wash the nappies every time you fill them with your green poo. I guess this is as good a time as any for Daddy to refute the information he had received from Elektra's mum before you were born that Baby's poo does not smell bad. Oh yes it does. End of story.



So here you are in the eco-nappy! Mummy says you look like the black-and-white actor Avlonitis in his big trousers. You will look so much better when you grow a bit…

This is a photo of you on the morning of Sunday. On Sunday, Daddy went to work to help write the proposal for a big project in the Ukraine and when he came back, you went for a big adventure with him and Mummy.



All set for the big adventure?

You are now a week old!

Hello little one...

You are now a week old.The week did not go too fast for Mummy and Daddy because they were learning all sorts of new things.


Mummy has been reading to you like she used to while you were still in her tummy and Daddy still sings to you - the same old songs, because he cannot find where he has put his song-book.


Granny M came to visit inthe morning on Friday and she held you for a long time and let you sleep on her. She likes to hold you very much and comes to visit as often as she can.


In this photograph, you are sleeping on top of her. Mummy and Daddy are not sure whether we should let you sleep on us or whether you should get to know that sleep is for your basket. It is difficult for them to make these decisions, because you find it very calming to be sleeping on top of someone else.

During the night in between your sixth and seventh day of life, your link with your previous life was lost. Your umbilical cord stump came off while Mummy was changing you and she didn't notice until it fell on the floor. Mummy does not want to keep it, and Daddy is not going to insist.

This is your first official photo without your umbilical cord stump.


Other things that are new are the way you smile more and more often - Mummy and Daddy are sure that you are not actually smiling yet but just making the smiley face motions as a reflex action. Sometimes you smile in your sleep and sometimes you open one eye while sleeping like you are trying to check that Mummy and Daddy are both there.


Here is another self portrait with Daddy that he likes.


On your one-week birthday, Mummy and Daddy decided to try and put you into the rocker. It is still a little big for you but they are worried that you are confused about your basket because they are letting you sit in it while you are awake, and then when they want you to sleep you don't. Two nights in a row now you have kept Mummy and daddy up from three am until morning because you don't want to sleep after eating and don't like to sit quietly.

Later on Saturday, Grandad P and Granny Y came to visit.

Here you are with Grandad P in the rocker. We talked about your name a little with Grandad P because he likes talking about names and Mummy and Daddy have changed their minds about all the names they had chosen while you were in Mummy's tummy. After all the discussion and even after Aunt Lily sent ideas by SMS, there was still no decision about the name.


Here you are with Grandad P and Granny Y. Later on Granny M came too and Mummy made her first trip outside the house to go to the supermarket. This was very exciting for everyone because it helps signal that life will go on and almost everything will be as it was before. Soon Mummy and Daddy are thinking of going to the supermarket together with you in the sling. Now that your stump has come off, we'll be able to do all sorts of new things at home and outside the house also.