To Berber

A little less than a week ago, we lost you, our unborn baby. You were an ectopic pregnancy. You tried to grow in my fallopian tube, which burst the tube. To save my life they removed you, my right fallopian tube, and my right ovary, in an emergency surgery. The day they ended your pregnancy, Thursday the 26th of July, your gestational age was 5 weeks and 5 days. In this short time, you already went through several stages of growth and nearly became the size of a lentil seed (5mm), like the one I am holding on the top of my pinky finger in the photo above.

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Spring of Babel

We’ve moved to a new home. One even closer to Papa’s work and your future nursery: we’re literally across the street now. This will make things very easy when you start nursery in September. I’m not sure how you’re going to do when I leave you behind at nursery, though. I think it could go either way. We’ve already been on a little practice play there this month. You loved it! The best part was digging up lots of worms and feeding them to the baby chicks.

Babel Yearly

We did it again, another photo of the three of us holding last year’s photo. Always on April 25th, starting on the day you were born. This year it is a selfie.

Babel is Three

You are three! You speak a lot, in three different languages. You eat a lot. You run a lot. You laugh a lot. You sing a lot. You dance a lot. You sleep a lot. You nurse everyday and night, but not a lot, not anymore. Milkies is still your source of comfort when you are tired, hurt or upset, but it’s no longer your main source of nutrition. You are growing up, you are a boy, no longer a baby. You are amazing and our constant source of awe and joy. We are so lucky to get to spend our lives with you.

Dear Babel, by Dad

Dear Babel,

Happy 3rd birthday our talkative boy! Everyday we witness your vocabulary exploding in all the three languages, and we just enjoy basic conversations with you. Since your second and a half birthday, we have done a lot of things. I remember we were all so excited to visit Japan during Christmas and Oshougatsu. We did go there, and had a great time again! You got your first-ever Otoshidama, and ate a bunch of Oshougatsu food including Ozouni and mochi (rice-cake). You loved shrimp mochi the most, which we later found out unsurprising; your love for shrimp is significant :)

Winter of Babel

Wow, another season of your life passed. This Winter we went to Japan to celebrate Oshougatsu [🇯🇵 New Year’s holidays] for the first time. It’s the biggest holiday in Japan and we celebrated for three days with lots of gorgeous food and lots of your family members. You spoke lots of Japanese, ate lots of Japanese food, had another haircut (and hated it again), and we bought you lots of Japanese Pla Rail and Thomas trains.

The theme of this trip to Japan almost felt like it was Thomas and Friends. We went to loads of toy stores to find more and more Thomas items and we even traveled to see Thomas and Friends. We took you to Thomas Land near Mt Fuji, to Thomas Station in Izumi, to a Thomas Pla Rail Expo in Osaka, and we even rode an actual Thomas and Friends train. You loved it all!

Fall of Babel

You talk a lot. You ask regular questions and say common things but often the speech rhythms you use crack us up. Unfortunately, they’re hard to explain here, so I hope you can find yourself saying these things in one of the many videos I’ve posted of you on YouTube. Current regulars are:

• youi don! [🇯🇵 ready? go!]
• doko itta? [🇯🇵 where did it go?]
• schoonmaken [🇳🇱 clean], please
• whaddaya doing?
• wat is dat? [🇳🇱 what’s that?]
• where are you?
• who’s that?
• are you okay?
• ittemiyou [ 🇯🇵 let’s do it]
• let’s go

You often say what things are in multiple languages. For example, when you want to express that something is cold you will say it’s “🇳🇱 koud 🇯🇵 tsumetai”. I’ve learned new Japanese words from you. We were working a puzzle with giraffes and you kept talking about something called “🇯🇵 kubi”, I had no idea what you meant until you pointed at your own neck and repeated the word. That’s when I learned the Japanese word for neck from you, my two-year-old son. Thanks!