The end of Days with Daddy...

It is sad to realize that a month with you seems like a couple of hours. This of course stands in dim comparison to the wonderful experiences we shared during your days with daddy...but time seems to move faster when I am with you. This could prove usefull in the future when I need to get through something I do not want to do. Putting you next to me would speed things up! I wonder how long this effect will last. I hope forever!
These exceptional days found an abrupt end with the coming of Karin (your MorMor), who had her own short Days with Elsa experience. Out of nowhere your father was able to start work again and [totally within character] fell into a whole lot of 2Do's & just stuff. The first couple of days I staid home and worked in "my CAVE", but today daddy found his way back to the JAM offices.




I guess my days with you were most fittingly concluded with Daddy D taking Daughter E to Daycare... This was the first time you actually got to interact in a real life baby situation! Your first experience was a short adjustment period of about 2 hours...during which you sat next to a boy named Bikkel in a real chair at a real table! Your parents really need to provide those essentials at home... Your father found it all very moving and tried to stay out of the way of the care-ladies, who did a great job by the way!



You seemed to find the whole experience ok, because you fell asleep right away when Marri (one of those ladies) put you in a rocking chair.
Seeing you lying there (see photo) in between 2 boys (one asleep and one very much awake...begging for your attention...) I realized that there are a lot of people that you are going to meet. You are now about 4 and a half months and this is where our simple lives become more complex. Human interaction, friendships, love, hurt and all other kinds of emotional experiences will be up to you to enjoy. I will get to watch and record. Sometimes guide and correct, hopefully not judging too much. By the time you get to read this I will be in my 60-ies...looking back on a great life filled with love and hapiness.
This is the last entry I will make for the days with daddy blog. in the coming years I will keep recording so you might see where you came from. Thank you for a magical month my dearest Elsa Victoria. I love you from the bottom of my hart to the crown of my believes! Enjoy Life! I will be right there next to you!

Daddy D.

day 18 - a wish came true

click here for the flickr results

day 17 - times flies...under construction

time flies when you laugh!

day 16 - nothing special day

we woke up
we ate
You slept, I cleaned
We ate
we played
we went out with the monkey carrier system
you slept, I organized
we ate
I had coffee
We went upstairs
you slept, I organized
Your mom came
we ate at mike & jori


all in all your daddy got a lot done today... hung a belly, hung knife rack, organized workshack, organized your room, cleaned and washed... and called some people!

day 15 - splish splash

Dear elsa,
today we had a very eventful day!
We had some "dukes" come by the house today. Young Duuk is the proud owner of a father who Your father knows well. Because Tuesdays are his daddy-days we just had to combine calenders to make a shared event happen, where you and Duuk could meet and Merijn (his father) and your daddy could compare children while sharing war stories about the 3 P's (POOP/PUKE & PEE). Your father was given a sneak-preview of the immense cuteness and pride that comes with the development of your infant communication skills. Simple words like Ape, car & bal become events in themselves...expressions to be cherished every time they are uttered without hesitation or doubt. It was good seeing them! Promises were made to go and check out real live monkeys at the ZOO...HIHIHI HAHAHAHA!

After the Dukes carried on with their routine, we headed of into town. We actually got a lot done, which is the reason why it is easier for your father to take a long(er) walk. If something has a goal or a point, your father has an easier time distributing his mental space to accomplish his goals. If the point is just to get some fresh air, your father would most likely just open a window ... But today was a good day to get some fresh air and some apple products so of we went.

When we got home three things happend:
* a roll-in-your-own-poop incident...
* needing a bath... you found out that water splashing can be fun!
* You caught your feet while drying...which made your mother very happy ( something to do with cuteness and flexibility I guess)

The rest of our day was spend with drooling and dancing... one of which you do really welll!

day 14 - the road that leads to creative baptism

So... the weekend has come and gone. A new weeks starts with the realization that we have past the half way point of our shared father daughter experience. I must say that looking back on today, I worked on something with your grandfather, while your grandmother took care of you. This side track investment of time ( not spend directly with you) was a step in all kinds of good directions (too complex to get into).

This 14th day with daddy D fulfilled a wish your grandmother has had ever since people started talking about the fact that our church [now vacant] was going to be sold as a result of parish reinforcement. I guess the idea of having that particular baptism block in our garden reminds us of the times we had in that ol' church.
Combining physical effort with this idea resulted in the manifestation of that thought.

check out some of the pictures on flickr

By doing this today we have created a path that will lead to a summer ritual. That ritual will be about you and today was the first step!

kiss... slpeey daddy

saturday | valentine...sunday | rest

go check out the flickr page... just elsa collection

day 14 - friday the 13th consultation

today we were consulted...on several little things:

* your weight is now 6210 grams and you measure a cool 63,5 centimeters
(both values are directly on curve... only you seem to have a small head... what these people don't know is that Luijer heads are very dens, making it perfectly alright for you to have a petit head.)
* you are a very good roller...the experts were impressed!
* you may not yet start to eat solid foods, even though I bought you a small jar of squashed banana. This is a sales tactic according to the consultant and her lovely supervisor... which of course worked on your silly dad. At six months... so I shall save your jar for another 2 months.
* It is save to swim! So next Tuesday we'll go check this out!
* Your Leg-Shots were no real problem. your father thought the needles were a bit intimidating for such a little body...
* on the whole the experts thought you were adorable... and you did not even pee over their weighing equipment!

So coming out of this consultation session we take with us a
1.) a new appointment,
2.) a clear sense of your growing greatness
3.) the actual first experience and proof of what "everyone" says about time and growth going fast... Compared to a 4 week old neighbor who was lying next to you while I was putting your clothes back on, your father actually felt the hand of time. This made him very much aware of the fact that we need to enjoy this time.

Today is also your 4th month of existence... meaningless in itself, but a great milestone in Luijer/Glaumann-time and family experience. A third of a year... my my!

oh yeah... after your consult and some grossery shopping we went by the JAM office... you were in a good mood right up until the shots kicked in. Having you at the office feels good... except when you start crying in that base-pitch. Life goes fast when you are at the JAM offices! Luckely we escaped, which made time slow down a bit...

day 13 - elsa talk

day 11 & 12 - time 2...

time 2 receive : all those presents that you got when you were born
time 2 perfect : the routine of your and my life intertwined...
time 2 find : balance in the force... it is strong in you!
time 2 see : that your way of testing things out is to bite on it...
time 2 cook : that stew I've been wanting to cook for about 10 years, while warming your milk...
time 2 feel : like a proud and grateful father
time 2 sing : all kinds of songs that were never sung before you were here...
time 2 listen : to the wise and unbiased dribble that comes from your mouth
time 2 report : on my feelings...feeling them even stronger
time 2 picture : what you are going to be
time 2 wonder : if you will be parallel or perpendicular to who I am
time 2 love : all the little things about you

time 2 realize : that we have an ocean of time, but now just a puddle to play in...

time 2 go to sleep

DD

THANK YOU JAM!!!

Macro Borsato - dochters

oma lous...klik even op macro borsato... hele mooie clip... daar gaat dit stuk een beetje over. Dank je Mark... fantastisch omschreven gevoel...

Every day I am seeing more of the intricate wonder that makes up the co-dependancy between a father and his daughter. You need me to take care of your basic needs (...like safety,hygiene,food, toys and laughter) and in return you create for me a feeling of usefulness and pride. It is no small thing how nature/kosmos/god figured out how to match these things up! What I do realize is that the time that we are sharing is extremely valuable! Especially because it is not normal within the mental and professional frame of the hard working dutch father-figure. Taking time of work to get to know your firstborn (or any new addition for that matter) is a gift... a gift that somebody (or need I say some uncles) gave you.

You must understand that we can enjoy this time together because of my unconditional partnership with the guys at JAM...your lifelong uncles (I hope). You are not only my firstborn, but also the premier case for the future fathers of JAM... They are all proud and understanding uncles who in the near future will all go through their own father child experience. All supported by the ever growing JAM family! So you see... you are already a big part of the lives of other people outside of your next of kin.
My personal gratitude mixed up with growing feelings of flow go out to these guys. I hope they realize the gift that they are giving me... thank you my band of brothers... your trust and love means the world to me and to my little one! [ zou dit eigenlijk ook gewoon moeten zeggen tegen jullie maar ik vraag me gewoon af wie dit als eerste leest...die krijgt van LZA een roze pentel met tekening!]

ROUND - a sunday background story on tuesday

Weekends are for LZA and her parents.
This is why I am not counting those days as part of the days with daddy xperience. The reason for this entry is that the family fell into a small adventure last Sunday which lead to these rounded pictures you see above this text. Because you are trying out your new "level of leisure" as we speak I feel the need to explain the story for later use.

We went out on Saturday to get you a BOX at a baby stuff store... [these things look a bit like baby prisons, but will only feel like that once you are actually ready to climb out of one]. When we finally got round to ask a store attendant, it turned out that a new BOX would have to be back-ordered; taking about 4 to 6 weeks. Your parents (in 2009) were not patient enough to wait for such a long time, so decided against buying one at that particular moment. We did however reach an agreement about the BOX shape and feel...The good thing about going out shopping is that it helps you to make mental steps because of the confrontation with actual dimension. We decided that you would most likely look the prettiest in a round box instead of a square on. [This is what people like to call thinking outside the box...in this case taken to the circular level.] When we arrived home that day we were left with a feeling of failure. Failure to provide you with the most important part of your horizontally challenged existence. So we did what your mother always does in situations like this...look on the internets. In this case marktplaats, which in today is the best place to buy and sell STUFF. Looking for the right BOX-model for the right price, we arrived at an address in a small town on our way to grandmother in the Hague. So the next day we set of on a tour of the country to get you a ROUND BOX. We did not think that this trip would take that long and that it would reveal the flatlands of Holland in such a way that we also realized that village life is not for us. We did discuss the possibility but I guess you can call yourself a lucky part of a living-in-or-near-the-city---family. The previous dwellers of the BOX were 2 blond little girls. The only small sneezy drawback was the fact that they owned a cat... which your we felt on the way back home.
After a good clean and some square sized improvisation... you were the proud new inhabitant of a ROUND ISLAND...

I hope it will have a rounded effect on your development... lets see if it gives you another perspective on the concept of enclosed protective surroundings...or box for those who chose to live their life within it.... Just yell if you want to get out... I will always come get you out of your BOX.

Day of rest - so just a picture

good night my dear...sorry for the dip

Day Ten - Road trip to baptism

A big part of growing up is feeling that you are a part of something. When your daddy grew up your grandparents made the decision to join the roman-catholic faith, which in the 70/80-ies was a safe and wholesome group to join. The social interaction that occurred during your daddies growing years was centered around a place of learning (which would be school) and a place of faith (which would be church). On the tenth day of our daddy-daughter adventures I took you to the second place. The place of faith. The deeper explanations surrounding that time will be put to (e-)paper before you can read(...I promise), but today we went to my old church to see how we are going to transport and lift the "cradle of baptism" to the backyard of your grandparents.

With respect to the story and to the effort which will be made to realize this event... I will pause here and just show you a picture of a very special place were your father took a picture of you. This is just the beginning of a bigger story an d because these blogs are just small entries, my short version will not to the story justice. So here you have a picture of you on the spot where there used to be a statue... to be continued...

Day nine-Tante IRIS

Your Auntie Iris, my three year younger sister, dropped by today! After she had not seen you for a while, she felt the urge to check how you are and what progress you are making in your young fresh life. This urge is a special feeling that this family (LUIJER) is experiencing up close for the first ! You are the first born into the Luijer Clan (of the rudolf-lous side) which gives rise to a whole new set of emotional and hereditary responsibilities. The urge to check up on you because you are family will always be there no matter what or how long you haven't seen someone. That is why some say family is everything.

Tante Iris will hopefully check up on you on a more regular basis then birthdays or anniversaries. You will like her my little LZA..not necessarily because she is family, but because she is a creative force from whom you can learn a thing or two! By the time you are old enough to write, send her a letter to ask about things you might not want to ask your parents and if you can look at her dummies... She will always listen and give you the best advice she can give. But don't send an E-mail or a SMS!!! Send her real TEXT and she will send you real TEXT back!

Here is a close up stereo moment just send by your aunt...just in time to clip it into this entry!

kiss and sleep well!

DD

day eight - mommy sick

Ok...just a quick entry and a picture for today. The puke bug seems to be getting around... For some like my anna this is bad news, but for me this created an opening to do some things at the office. Sorry my dear daughter, today was a shared effort between your mother and father...I know you do not mind...
Today your father did something he has been wanting to do for about 10 years!!! Prepare a meal the day before and eat it the next day... You always get a much better tasting result!!! and in this instance we are talking about stewed meat..."draadjesvlees!", one of your daddies favorites! Tommorrow your Auntie Iris will come and Daddy will make meatballs! Oh how meat puts the joy in life. I hope you will grow up loving it as I do, but if you don't please know that I can life with that...kind of.;)

here is a picture of a problem which we are debating to attack, but with which we are having trouble ourselves... the TV..> You already seem obsessed in this picture.

day seven - noise and heat

Your mother and myself have been blessed with the golden tip given to us by our appointed helping hand, who was with us the first couple of days of your stay at the amsterdam estate. Instead of investing into an expensive heat system which you can only use above your "changingstation", she asked us if we owned a simple hairdryer. When this turned out to be the fact (because you were born into a family of collectors...and everyone owns a couple of old hairdryers don't they?) we were surprised by the low-tech solution to this fundamental infancy crisis issue. Simply said: THE HAIRDRYER PACIFIER SYSTEM ROCKS!

This little tip not only saved us from owning yet another large product, it gave us a simple way of mellowing you out when you are in your non-happiness state. I have not figured out yet what exactly makes the above mentioned equation true, but on the technology side of things I must choose between either noise or heat. Because it is already very late and we have lots to do tomorrow... I shall save this dillema for later.

NOISE AND HEAT chief DD

DAY SIX - rollin' by, by yourself

Let me start by saying that it makes me extremely proud that by age 3 and a half months you are able to hold your own bottle! Later on in life in might worry me, but for now I am glad to see that this is progress in the making! Before I know it you will be passing me the bottle...

Today was a day of learning for us both. For you a lesson in waiting and for me a lesson in tolerance and submission. It is hard to deny you your food, half an hour before you are supposed to get it. Your mother is not a cow, even though she sometimes feels she is, and her milk needs to get you through the day. It is especially challenging when you reach that special desperation pitch in your voice which is reserved for hunger and slight panics. Luckily you almost always smile when you are done, which makes every difficult moment worth it.

We rapped the day up with a successful rollover session. It escaped my interest at the time, but the simple fact that a baby turns to its belly by itself is kind of a first real milestone. Seeing that this moment has already passed (and enjoyed by your mother with much admiration I might add...) I am left with the routine task of letting you repeat this event over and over again so you will feel comfortable lying on your stomach (this being the threshold after which crawling starts to set in...). after a good hours worth of rolling you kind of looked unfocussed...

When your mother came rushing in today after a long training day you started spilling your previously ingested mothers finest out over the both of us... maybe we rolled to hard?

DD

Day five - Our first real walk with the stroller

day five... mellow start...your mother went out to give back... leaving us to go through our daily routines of feeding-burping-laughing-peeing-changing-sleeping and feeding. The big difference today was that we finally went out with the stroller! This was a strange but very present threshold I had to overcome, because it does not lie in my productive nature to go out and JUSTt walk. This is why I had to make a list first, which when finally outside, I could ignore...

* we walked to get some FOAM for mothers belly... fun walking into a hardware store with you in a little basket.
* Down the ceintuurbaan, through the Sarphati-park and to the AH Supermarket...
* Went into Blokker to buy a coffee filter and then home.
* ate, watched a movie and then your morther came and we had pancakes.

Now my stomach is acting up and I am farting a lot...time to go to bed.

Day five and a half

Well...my stomach was right to be acting up. The pancakes were given back to the world through the wrong hole... I have been emptying myself all night and am happy to report that while I am writing this my physical state is returning back to normal.
Luckely this happend today (a sunday). Otherwise it would have seriously bummed me out... weekend can be used for these kinds of physical situations... weekdays are for productive experiences.

Daddy D. ( who on day six will fill your mothers stomach with FAOM...)