Alfie and Ben

Alwyn reads Barney

Alwyn and the shade

Embracing 2010

Wow. It feels just like yesterday. And today we're entering yet another new year. We wish you all a happy 2010. May the coming year be at least as wonderful as the best so far.

We don't have a Guinness record class of stuff in 2009. We enjoyed it, nevertheless. Well, not really all the time, maybe. Anna was surely suffering during the Lebaran holidays, as the nannies left for good. And boy, what a pain finding their replacements. It was really trial-and-error at work. I did try to help. But I guess my contribution was marginal, though. The two boys knew full well, I'm not their mother.

I was busy, too. The transition at office took more time and energy than we had expected before. That included the hefty and slow bureaucracy at the university and faculty levels. As a consequence, I was without any designated position (and hence task) for nearly three months. The upside of that is I was able to publish a couple of papers. Life is fair, I guess.

For the two boys, well, of course they enjoyed every single day of the year. Alfie is almost 3 and a half now. This year he performed twice at school. Once as a giraffe and the other time he was a hoola-hoola dancer (the teacher told us, the theme wasLilo and Stitch -- we couldn't find any right costume, so we agreed to his teacher: make him a hawaiian dancer). Alfie has started his Yamaha music school this year. Oh, he also got a special present from Tante Fifi, a set of Lego blocks. He keeps his new assembled house close to his Ben-10 stuff.

Alwyn, on the other hand, is 1 year and 5 month. He can walk -- I guess 'run' is more appropriate: he walks so fast, he falls down many times. But he's made of iron and steel, that's what we think. Alwyn likes to come to Alfie's school. One day he insisted to join the big(ger) kids club and thought he could do trampoline bouncing -- he fell down successfully with his face on the carpet. No tears nor cry whatsoever.

Happy new year, everyone!