Happy 17 months to Carsten!

It's been a good month back in Switzerland with Carsten. One of my goals for this year for us is to do something 'special' every day. This is basically to encourage us to get out of the house and Egg for activities and socialization, which is something that I think was lacking for us 1 year ago. Special activities that we have been doing are: going to the gym in Egg where they have free daycare in the mornings, joining a kindermusik class in Egg, joining a women's group at our church in Zurich that has daycare, and trying to meet up with friends 1-2 times per week. Grocery trips had previously counted, but I now will no longer count those towards our special activity time because despite the fact that it takes us over an hour to get groceries every couple of days, it is not 'special'. We've been doing great at accomplishing this goal, so much so, that I actually had to back off our activities this week because we needed some rest to recover from colds. These increased activities has meant that we're not home as much, which has also meant that I am now behind in things like keeping up with our blog... sorry! Here's a brief snapshot of our month in Switzerland:

Carsten loves trucks, tractors, cars, cranes, planes, trains, diggers, and construction equipment. He loves to play with them. Also a favorite this month are balls - he loves to kick and throw them. Here's a photo of Carsten playing in the cabinet with a construction truck.

We took a walk outside of Egg to see the lovely Alps at sunset. :) So pretty! Carsten enjoyed himself until the last 20 min, which I think was because his hands were getting cold. He has a very nice stroller bag that keeps hims very warm (see photo below); Andy and I are often jealous :).

Swiss Alps at sunset!

Carsten in his comfy stroller bag.

 Carsten learned to climb our kitchen chairs and loves that he can now get at everything on our table, including my laptop. These new climbing skills have caused a few areas of the house to be 'no climbing zones' to help ensure his safety as well as my sanity. For the most part, he listens and pays attention to the rules we have lined up for him, which is nice. I realize that he will always keep testing his boundaries :).

Carsten needed a new sleeping arrangement this month because the pack n play mattress that he had been using for the last 6ish months had seen better days. Carsten bounced in his pack n play such that he caused the mattress to kind of fold in on itself and then Carsten ended up underneath the mattress a few times, which was bad for safety and sleep. We ended up being able to borrow a crib from Andy's advisor, which has been an excellent solution. Carsten seems to enjoy the bed and the only problem we've had is that he can remove the removable rails (2 rails come out when you want the toddler to be able to get out of the crib by themselves), but for the most part he leaves them alone. We're waiting to see when he's going to climb out, and neither of us are going to enjoy the inevitable battle of keeping him in bed once that happens. Here's Carsten in his new kinderbett!

Andy's advisor also let us borrow some blocks, and Carsten has really been enjoying playing with them. He's gotten quite good at putting them together (I helped with this arrangement), and it's been fun to watch him learn how to do them.

One of our special activities during laundry day last week was to put together this toy from Ikea. Carsten helped me put the blocks on, and he's been enjoying this toy a lot :).

We've been trying to brush Carsten's 12 teeth twice a day. When we started a couple of months ago, he was very receptive. Now we have a bit more trouble getting him to brush for more than about 20 seconds, but we're trying!

Carsten loves riding the train, and he's getting to the point when we can put him next to us in the seat. He loves to see other trains, go through tunnels, and spot the construction equipment along the way. Carsten is very observant and frequently will see things and point them out (like he is doing in the photo).

Carsten likes his rubber boots. And yes, he brought them to me and wanted to wear them around the house, so I just had to take a photo :).

We've been trying to do some craft activities like play doh and coloring. Here's Carsten coloring a modern masterpiece:

Eating has been going pretty well for us with Carsten. He's a pretty good eater, although he's definitely starting to express some preferences for different foods (i.e., he doesnt' always want his veggies now). We've been trying to really let him eat on his own with his spoon and fingers; this has resulted in a messier baby. The photos below were achieved with pasta with tomato sauce and what was supposed to be chocolate pudding, but was really more like chocolate syrup. Also, Carsten likes to stick his fingers in his ears, nose, and sometimes his eyes.

Messy baby :)

Wedding slideshow photo :)

 Carsten still has his 'cheesy baby face' and I love putting him in overalls. :)

One morning Carsten got into one of his toy baskets and proceeded to play in and out of it for the next 20 min. The best toys are really not toys at all :). In fact, one of his favorite toys is still a rubber spatula; he plays with it all the time.

We met our friend Bre and her son Asher at the ETH geological museum, which is a free museum less than 1 block from Andy's work. Carsten loved all the buttons and I loved looking at all the rocks and earth science stuff - I could have spent some more time reading, but alas, Carsten kept on moving!

Pushing buttons

Learning science in German.

My favorite demo: watching sand settle. Carsten thought it was pretty sweet too :).

 We're starting to plan our European vacations for the year, which means that Carsten has to get used to his travel tent if we want him to sleep well. In an attempt to get him to come into the tent, I curled up inside. It worked, but it was definitely tight quarters :).

We got to go bowling this weekend with Kai, Vanessa, and Eleanor. It was very fun, and we really enjoyed doing an adult activity. Carsten and Eleanor seemed to have quite a bit of fun, and the most interesting part was that the pins were on strings and were retracted back up to be reset. I had a lot of fun doing something competitive - I miss my competitive sports :). Here's a photo of Andy, Kai, and Carsten in the bowling alley.

It's been a fun month, and Carsten is getting to be more and more fun every day. He definitely understands what we're saying, and he is really well behaved most of the time. Sleep has been fantastic with the new crib, which has translated to one of the more restful months we've had with Carsten. Carsten is definitely trying out new sounds and it's getting harder to remember which words are new for this month, so I'm not going to include them here.

All in all, we're enjoying all the activities we're getting to do and we're trying to make the most of our remaining time in Switzerland before we move to New York in December where Andy will be taking a job at Union College (near Albany) as a professor.