Rob Sneaks Out

Early October Rob had to go to Tucson for work, inclusing an observing with one of the telescopes at Kitt Peak. Rob had planned to catch up on sleep, but for some reason this did not really happen. At the telescope this is not too surprising, working at night and sleeping during the day is never a recipe for good sleep, but even in Tucson in a regular hotel he did not sleep all that great. Must have been out of sympathy.

A Visit From Afar

Mere days after Rob returned from Tucson, his parents came all the way from the Netherlands to see Irene for the first time, and to see the rest of the family as well, of course. It was great to see everyone together. Rob and Cindy seized the opportunity to introduce Rob's parents to such typical things as pumpkin picking, pumpking carving, and pumpkin pie. While Rob's parents were visiting, Cindy's parents also came down for a visit, and we seized this opportunity to get a picture with all the grandparents. (More on Rob's parents visit.)

Sleeping Through the Night

By the middle of October Irene Maaike apparently it was time for some more sleep in the middle of the night. Quite unlike Alex, who needed some guidance in figuring out it was not necessary to keep waking up in the middle of the night, Irene figured this out entirely by herself. The result was that some morning Cindy woke up, noticed the time, and thought: What's wrong? Why hasn't Irene woken me up? Fortunately, nothing was wrong, Irene had simply decided on her own to skip the 2 am feeding!

A Visit From Texas

On Friday morning the phone rang. "Can I come visit this afternoon?", asked Tracy. In and of itself nothing unusual, except that Tracy had a baby at around the same time as we did, and an older sun of Alex's age, and she was planning to come with both of them that very afternoon, all the way from Texas. "Sure", Cindy said, surprised. A couple more phone calls went back and forth, exchanging flight schedules and status of the colds of all the children, but soon everything was set up, and before long Rob was on his way to the airport to pick them up.

The visit went well and was a lot of fun. Alex and Kit had a lot of fun together, and the Moms got plenty of opportunity to exchange stories about birth, nursing, night-time feedings, and, when Rob was out of the room, their husbands!

Visit to Vermont

The last weekend before Cindy had to go back to work could have been spent leasurely, but instead we seized the opportunity to visit Cindy's brother and his family in Vermont. They got to meet Irene, and we got to meet Alex and Irene's new cousin in the making, because Denise was about five months pregnant. Alex had lots of fun during this trip as well, because he could play with leaves together with Hunter, and both of them also participated in a Haloween parade (more pictures).

Back to Work

After 12 weeks spending full time with Irene Maaike, the time had come for Cindy to go back to work. On the one hand a welcome change of the daily diaper grind, but on the other it was quite a sad moment for Cindy because it meant she would get to see Irene a whole lot less during workdays.

Irene Maaike was quite considerate: not only had she started sleeping through the night entirely by herself, she also stopped having a fussy period at night right when Cindy went back to work!