Baby Swimming.

Every Saturday is swim day for you, and it seems that you really enjoy it! Most of the time it is you and your dad in the water (apparently he is in charge of the physical education!) with about 5 other babies and the sweet Hungarian teacher. The lessons consist of a series of simple exercises, all accompanied by nursery rhymes sang (badly!) by the group.

The most amazing thing is the submersion bit! First it is a gentle vertical submersion, preceded by a "Iolanda, ready, go!" and down you go beneath the water! This is sometimes followed by lots of spluttering and coughs, but generally you are very good. A step up from this is where the teacher and Heino stands about one and a half meters apart, she submerges you and push you towards your dad who then catches you and bring you above water!

Some of your swimming friends include Edward, Rosinda, Margaret and a little boy that keeps on falling asleep in the water in his mom's arms! Needless to say, to your parents anyway, you are the best of them all!

Fifth Month.

Your greatest achievement of the past month is that you can roll over from your tummy! It is by no means easy, and it goes with lots of little moans, groans and cries, but the look of absolute satisfaction when you've done it is only outdone by the applause from your parents!

But this is not all! You can also sit by yourself for a good few seconds, even a minute or two at a push! This is always in a forward leaning position, and the fight is always either won by gravity or a huge poo! We've come to realise that this position is the optimal position for a loaded nappy.

It is also the month during which you've left your little moses basket behind for your cot. The base is still set at the highest level, but once again you have acres of space to move in, as opposed to the little basket that you've seriously outgrown!

Even the buggy had to be adjusted so that we always take you around in the seat as opposed to the pram basket. No more lying down as little Iolanda wants to see everything and be part of everything around her!

For your mom there was additional fun as well since she finally decided that it was safe to venture out for a night with her friends, leaving you in the care of your dad.
However, it has to be said that there is no improvement on the sleeping front! You still wake up every two hours or so, making night time extremely hard going!

But overall there is more than enough to make up for that! We've taken you for baby swimming, and you seem to enjoy that immensely! You've also finally doubled your birth weight, and to us you are just the most beautiful baby ever!

Spring in London.

After a period of hectic travelling, you finally spend a full month in London! The weather is not too bad, actually this is an understatement as it turns out to be the driest spring in decades! To celebrate this you host your first barbeque where all your little NCT friends are invited.
In the end it is a fun day with Tara, Simon and little William, Rachel, Mark and Kitty-Bee, Isabel, Steve and baby Charlie, Helena, James with little Joe and Jon, Lorne and Oscar. The only ones missing were Sinead, Liz and little Taihg as it was Sinead's birthday.
It was especially great to have all the dad's together again after the last few months!

Your dad's old friend Jane Evans and her 8 month old son Oliver also came over to meet you for the first time. The two of you had great fun in your little gym!

But soon the ants in the pants dictate that we can't stay in London all the time, so a daytrip is planned for the May Day Bank Holiday. The destination this time is Hever Castle, famous for being Ann Boleyn's childhood home. We spend the day with Fabio and Kate, and also Aiden with his daughter Siorche. It was great fun to wander around the beautiful gardens and to circumnavigate the lake.

If this is spring, we can't wait for summer proper to begin!

Fourth month.

As with most of these first months, it has been a month full of changes! However, we will remember it as the month of the big weight gain! At first your weight gain has been very slow, to the point where you started to slip down the various growth curves, but with the additional 200 ml of formula milk we give you every day, you've reached almost 6 kg by the end of this month!

It's also been a great month of travelling. Out of the whole month you've spent only 5 days at home in London! The rest of the time you were in Namibia where you've met your African family for the first time, and also to Italy for Easter.

You start to be really good fun as well, and your little smiles just light up the room! What makes it even more enjoyable is that you've started to respond, meaning that a smile on demand is now quite easy, especially in the morning.
You've always been quite a strong baby, but now you keep your head up very well. We sometimes put you on your tummy, and the way you keep your head upright like a little meerkat is just too cute for words!

One area that is still not improving is your sleeping pattern. Some nights you still wake up EVERY hour, making it extremely exhausting for your poor mom! But as if to compensate for this, you seem to have grown accustomed to the changing table, and the terrible screams with every nappy change are no more. As always you still enjoy bath time a lot, but for some strange reason you have gone completely off dummies! Whereas at first you could be calmed down with a good suck on your dummy, you just won't have any of that now!

And finally, to round off a great, adventurous month, you've also seen the sea for the first time! Judging by the big smiles when you saw the great blue for the first time, you've definitely inherited the Italian's love of the seaside!

Easter in Rome.

Even though you've just arrived back from Africa, it is time for you to hit the road again! This time it is your first trip to Rome in Italy to spend Easter with your grandmother and Uncle Matteo. Of course you will also be dragged right across Rome and beyond to meet various members of the family, as well as your mother's huge circle of friends! Nonna Mariapia borrowed a little cot, bath, and a baby chair so the house in Rome is well set up to welcome you!

with uncle Matteo

Right from the start you are spoilt rotten by your uncle Matteo and his girlfriend Benedetta who are very enthusiastic babysitters, and just love to have you in their arms! Easter is celebrated in the village of San Giovanni near Viterbo as this is where Zio Franco, your great-grandmother Delia's brother, lives. Not only do you meet Zio Franco, but also all his friends from the village!

Friends from the village of San Giovanni

Back in Rome you get to meet your mum's best friend since childhood, Silvia, and her family. Everybody finds you to be "molto simpatica", a very nice baby!

With Silvia

Pasquetta, or Little Easter, is an Italian tradition where everybody goes for a picnic on the Monday after Easter Sunday. This is then where you meet all of your mom's other friends, mostly from University. Quite a few of them have babies as well although they are all just a bit older than you. Hopefully you will all be just as good friends as your parents are!

Pasquetta

Little friends: Flavio,Michele,Luca,Viola

With Pasquetta over, you also receive a few home visits, much like a little royal princess! Alessandra's friends Gianluca and Stefano, Francesca and her boyfriend (also!) Stefano and of course Zio Manu are amongst those that popped around to see you. As nonno Gianfranco is in Rome as well, you all make a trip to just outside Rome where uncle Manu's family lives.

with Gianluca and Stefano and Emanuele

And yet all the visits are not over! Last but not least on the list is Sabrina, Raffaele and their young boy Edoardo who lives in Cerveteri. Sabrina is pregnant with twin boys who will be born in June, adding to the list of little friends with whom you can play over the years to come!

with Sabrina's family

It was a really full, but enjoyable few days, but all too soon it is time to return to London where your papa is waiting eagerly for his little family! This was the first time that you have been so far away from him, and understandably he simply can't wait to see you again. And so the time comes to say goodbye to all in Rome and board the plane back to your home in London.

Visit to Namibia.

Full of courage after the successful flights to Milan and back, we get ready for your first intercontinental flight: destination Namibia! It is Friday 25th March when we board the Virgin flight to Johannesburg where we will stay over for two days. On the plane you get a flight cot, also called a bassinet, strapped to the bulkhead separating the different sections of the plane. The system works really well and after a reasonable night's sleep you set foot in Africa for the first time!

With Iiris,Theo and Demi

Our first stopover on this African safari is with Heino's Aunt Iris, Uncle Theo and their daughter Demi. As always they are very welcoming and make it a very relaxing couple of days. Theo introduce us to the wonders of Gripe Water (very good for stomach cramps) and you also experience your first braai(BBQ). The final step in preparing us for the Namibian trip is for your mom to have her hair cut short, as it has become impossible for you to resist giving it a good pull!

Monday morning sees us on Johannesburg airport again, this time the desitination is Windhoek, capital city of Namibia. It is here that Heino's brother Henrico and sister Letitia lives. It is great fun to introduce you to your African family, and especially your cousins Sonja and Jacobus are very pleased to see you for the first time. Jacobus even spent a whole half an hour cooing and playing with you in your basket!

With Jacobus, Sonja, Letitia, Pieter, Henrico

Three days later it is time to take on the next leg of the journey: 710km's in a southerly direction to the small village of Karasburg. It is a town full of history for your dad as it is here that he was born, as was your grandfather, where both of them went to school and it is here that this Oupa Joepie of yours still lives today!

Despite a very hot day you are very good in your car seat and after 10 hours and numerous cool-down stops we enter the dusty town of Karasburg!

As you can imagine entertainment in a small African village is not in large supply, which makes it for a very restful break. We visit the doctor to use his scale, and we notice that you've made very good progress and now pull the needle down to 4.7kg! We also visit the grave of your Ouma Sonja who you so sadly will not be able to meet in person. It is a very emotional experience, however we can imagine how she is smiling down on her cute little granddaughter who has come so far to visit her!



Something we've been looking forward to all year is to visit our family farm, Haruchas. We stay with Louis and Anina Potgieter, the neighbouring farmers who rent our farm from Oupa Joepie, and their hospitality literally knows no bounds! It is great to go around the farm and to look at all the nice scenery, especially as it has been a great rainyear! We also visit the old farmhouse in which your dad lived for the first four years of his life. Unfortunately, as no one has lived there for many years, it is severely derelict, but it still is our ambition one day to fully restore it!

On the way back to Karasburg we stop over at oom Dolf and Tannie Kinna de Wet, lifelong friends of the Von Wiellighs, and largely responsible for your dad's love of tennis. Again the braai fire is lit, old times remembered and a new member of the Namibian family welcomed into the fold!

With Oupa Joepi

The final part of our journey is a three hour drive to the South African town of Keimoes. It is here that Heino went to secondary school, and here that his childhood friend Eric Swenson lives as a grape farmer. We stay in his mom, Tannie Etta's house, and she is extremely good with you, even giving your parents a few hours off for a rest! This used to be a second home for Heino whilst being at school far from his parents, and it is easy to see why he had such a good time here! Naturally more meat meets the braai and more friends are met, as well as you meeting little Evert, Eric and his wife Christine's son of just over a year old.

With Eric and Evert

Back in Karasburg the time just flies by, and before we know it, it is time to start making the long trek back to London. Your Oupa Joepie is very sad to see you leave, and it is easy to see that he got very attached to you in a short space of time! In Windhoek we spend the last two days looking at some flats and houses. The market here is still massively undervalued compared to Europe, and it is our desire to make an investment here for your future one day.
After another short stopover in Joburg, we are back in London, but with the amazing Namibian landscape still in our hearts! It's been a very good time for us all, but especially for you as the scale tells us that you now weigh 5.57kg, up from 4.5kg when we left. Undoubtedly the combination of good Namibian food, lots of sun and fresh air did us all good, ensuring that we will do it all again next year!

Under a quiver tree

Third month.

After celebrating your second month in the air on the way to Milan, the end of your third month sees you in the beautiful land of Namibia!

The biggest change of the last month is that we've started to give you some formula milk, not much, only about 200ml per day to supplement the breastmilk. This is of course because your average weight gain per week has been a bit small, and generally it has to be said that you don't strike us as a big eater!
The first few nights with the formula milk has been quite tough as you slept very little! We suspect that your little tummy and digestive system is struggling with this strange milk that it is not used to!

And then there are those smiles! They start to be more often and it is a constant competition between your mom and dad to see who can generate the most smiles! You seem to be very much a morning person as this is the time of day that you smile the most. They are heart-meltingly-cute and all the crying, dirty nappies and sleepless nights are instantly forgiven when those little gums are bared!

Another sign of your rapid development is that you start to use your hands much more, especially to grab some hanging objects. You also seem more interested in toys now, and especially Jack, the hanging parrot in your moses basket, is a firm favourite!

Apart from the stubborn cradle cap that does not want to go away despite our best efforts, every thing is going well with your growth and it is an indescribable joy to see how you are developing into a beautiful little person!