Peregrines first Christmas

The first ever Christmas as a family of 3, we ventured out with the sweetened potato box, and the Grand parents made the ham.. it was all very Finnish. All the way to the Santa Claus, who arrived wearing a bookstore bag as a hat and a lab coat.. With ho ho ho's he delivered the packets already in  the evening of 24th. Everybody got much gifts and it was really wonderful Christmas eve. Here is Peregrine with some of his gifts.








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He was really good boy and slept like a dream that night, I guess relieved that everything went to well... as were his parents. Happy holidays to everybody and Thank you all for your gifts and thoughts and prayers!

H&P

Christmas just around the corner

Yes, just few days and Christmas is here, first Christmas for Peregrine. People say how quickly the baby grows. First weeks it seemed that time had frozen and one day and especially night lasted much longer than before.. Now looking back to the birth and the following few days I can have an idea what people are talking about. So just to be sure we remeber what our little boy was like the very first days of his life I took some photos that remind us about his small fingers and feets, that are so cute that you cant help but kiss them.. Later on with sock sweat and what-not it will not be so inviting to kiss his feets..

And to finnish off, here is our boy doing some juggling and balancing on a bar and ball.. I think he has some serious skills..

Merry Christmas to all!

Proud Parents, H&P and Grandparents and Big Sue.

Big Sue and Baptism

Things are moving along nicely, my school year ended with a high note, (passed exams and clinical work permit). Auntie "Big Sue" arrived to town this morning early and her luggage was left half way with cheese and all.. hmm sadness as we were almost tasting the sweet french cheese here, but anyhow it was great for her to come along! Tomorrow the big day, after birth, first week land mark, first outing and all is the Baptism.
As Halle is from Baptist background and I am Lutheran our baptism customs are rather different. We however decided to do as the Romans do this time and baptize him as a child.
I once asked a international church minister about baptism and about child vs. adult baptism. Hes answer was that they reflect the two sides of the baptism. The child baptism brings up the supernatural nature of the process bringing the baby into presence of God and the Holy Spirit, when adult baptism is a sign of public confession of faith through the act of being baptized.
I don't know the truth about it. Anyhow tomorrow is the big day and I pray everything will go well.

Today we went to see the Neuvola lady who took some measurements of our baby, 3,9kg! he is gaining weight well and looks like he is in good health. So everything was fine, even though in the morning we were not so sure how to dress him for the chilly walk to the clinic. This is how he looks usually when we move him in these arctic temperatures..




Everything is in place including the flowers and food and people and program and leaflets about the name for the guests that may feel like our name is not a real name.
Happy Advent to all!

H&P

Baby here baby there

Here he is in his Penn State uniform, checking out the new toy he got from his uncle Gordie and auntie Chrissie. Do you see the death grip he has on the eye.. I can imagine that he will be pulling on it in the near future too.
He is nearly two weeks and is totally more social than in his first week of life. This evening he was chilling on Grandfather Gordons lap and making faces at least for ten minutes. Unfortunately for Pops it was late and time to go to bed for Peregrine as his eyes started to close I gave the grandparents a lift home.

I have developed a routine for the night feeding times. I wait to hear the baby cry for a while and if it persists I get up and help Halle by carrying the baby around and talk to him. It seems to help him calm down and I get a little bit of that precious time with my own baby boy. During these times I feel happy and tired and in awe of the new baby and the way he is. It is just amazing that something that small will survive and grow into full size person one day.

There I am taking my precious 1/2 min nap as Peregrine figures out that this person is no milk truck and no food is going to be delivered.. Then it is time to get up or start singing or something..
This week ended with few experiments for permeability of adhesive layer in dentin bonding.. I will try to get some of the photos online as I think they look rather appealing.. Here is one which has some pixel problems from the camera, but looks pretty good.. except color should be all red.. It looks lie the northern lights..in very small scale as the mag. is 100*

 

Happy weekend to everybody! 

H&P

Independence day

The 6th of December 93 years ago Finland became independent from Russia, but the independence was not recognized by the Russian government until December 31 of that same year. Finnish nation became independent by asking for it.. and by the end of the year, last day of the year the Russians gave us the paper signed that we are independent. From that our journey as a nation begun with several wars against Russia. We defeated them in all of them and have held our heads up high ever since. Thanks to our great brave soldiers for the sacrifice they made. To commemorate this Finnish people light up two candles, often blue and white in their coloring or as we did this year, one blue and one white.




 We had some salmon with lemon and onion, mash potatoes and glazed carrots.. not quite the independence feast my family had in Helsinki. They had the Worchmak with pickles and smetana.. Food of our beloved war time hero Mannerheim
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I always thought that babies bellybutton is formed in the hospital by the midwife.. as they tied a knot in the umbilical cord.. that is not true.. Our baby's bellybutton lost the bit of cord that was left on at the hospital today.. a little snake looking thing was left sticking out... like a service pipe or something.. I guess that will dry up too and fall off and his bellybutton will be left as it is.. I am happy that the piece fell off, it stank and looked bad.. so now our baby is all cute even his bellybutton... even if it looks like it has a little snake looking through.
The finnish grandmother came for a visit and got to hold our baby, she said, "Oh how small the baby is!", even though she has had 5 grand children in three years. I guess they grow so quickly that one forgets how small they were just a moment ago. But here is a reminder for all of you thinking... How small are they?

P&H

The works

I remeber reading from the entrance exam book that babies first poop does not smell and that helps to preserve the new mothers happiness.. Well I think it stinks a bit anyhow. This week has been many firsts, baby at home for the first time, drilling and filling for the first time.. Life looks little different as we have 3hour snooze button in our bedroom and it is not going away. I feel little proud and bit tired during the night when he wakes up... Well we really love our wonderful baby! his head is of particular pride for us it is so nicely formed :) And his smile and sense of humor and his hair and math skills... oh wait his future math skills and wit.. Oh..
And all the funny sounds he makes when he is a sleep and awake..
Gordon and Janis have been the best help for us, Thank God for wonderful parents in-law! I feel very fortunate for so many things. Today we had the last exam of the year and hopefully I have passed all of them to gain patient work permit..

We also booked a church and a priest... now just add baby, guests, the holy spirit and baptism water and we have ourselves sacrament.
Oh and the name of our baby.. Pergrine is latin and means "wanderer or traveler", it is also part of the name of the fastest bird on earth "peregrine falcon". There was a peregrine falcon nest behind my home in Exeter and with Halle we watched the falcon chicks learning to fly and trying to catch seagulls who were foolish enough to fly close by. Grand mother saw a falcon land on her porch just a month before the birth of Peregrine, the church where the babtism is held is falcon road..
For my aunt Elli the name was bit too much, I think she didn't like the fact that she could not pronounce the name of our baby... so I told her to call him Pietari, which is Finnish for Peter.
The reusable diapers...we have used some but seems bit strange.. as he goes through over 10 diapers a day... we should have some 40 infant reusable diapers to have enough... now we have used a mixed packet of disposable and the imsevimse... I think our 12 bumgenius might not be enough although perhaps the frequency will be less and some more bulk.. ?? perhaps? Oh well, I try to worry only about things that are happening right now.. so let us sleep for 3 hours..
P&H