What nationality should I choose?

by Peter Fogarty
(Bucharest)

Snow in Bucharest

The night was tougher as Doina sensibly stayed in her own bed last night, so we were left to look after Victor without Granny - and so I spent the night working out in the little Victor Gym - getting up, walking around and around the apartment until Victor dropped off for half an hour - recover - then repeat - quite tiring work! I eventually found that he wanted to fall asleep on my tummy, so I left him to it, then later in the night moved him on top of the duvet - where we all slept until it was light - of course, as Doina came in, she was stunned to see he was not in his bed - surely we knew how dangerous normal duvets are and what bugs might lurk in them! (This is I hasten to add one of the cleanest houses I have ever lived in!).

My morning work was, having got through all the local paperwork, well almost, I looked at the problems of an International Baby. I am having to discover how little Victor can become three different nationalities - he is obviously very Romanian, but he also can become both British and Swiss, and so we need to launch these processes.

However to become British is going to cost a few hundred dollars, as passports in the UK are so stupidly expensive - but as it is where I suspect we will all end up one day, particularly if he wants to study at University in the UK, I need to make sure he is a British national - not to mention the fact one day my little flat will also be his.

The Swiss are very warm about the idea of him being three nationalities - I guess they are a small country and so like a few more warm bodies to boost their numbers. However to do this, means I need to register my marriage at the Swiss Embassy, which will be a lot more paperwork and a few months work, including a few court appearances - the email they sent me at the time reminding me to do this was lost in the process. But again it will be worth passing this nationality onto little Victor - we just need to see if we can have all three nationalities - the Romanian friends are often amazed anyone would want a Romanian nationality when there are others on offer - they are funny like that! Still most are stunned that we are still here at all and not hightailed it to the UK and take a lot of persuading that I want to be here.

The nurse came again today - and he is now well into the idea of a bath, feed and bed - he couldn't wait quite so long today however so after a 10 minute screaming fit, he had a double feed. I did enquire if I too had a 10 minute screaming and shouting fit, would I get all I want - and the answer was this was only the case if I was wanting an ambulance to a mental patient in - patient ward.

I am also curious to know, apart from Lucy, as anyone tried to breast feed a baby lying down? I looked at the how-to-breastfeed instructions and most show them in a chair.

The trial and tribulations of the scale continued today. Having taken it to the service centre, it was shown to be working well - with the exception that it is not designed to be accurate, so cannot be used for measuring milk intake. It has now returned, after another session of Nae testing it by weight apples together and individually, back into the baby cupb- along with other rubbish - 'almost made it' baby equipment.

My major success of the day was making a double mustard, with flat beer and onion bread - I was surprised as the yeast was well past its use by date, but then remembered that yeast from the Egyptian times has been revised and so it can't be too easy to kill off in a kitchen cupboard! Sadly almost all the ingredients are on Irina's 'Do not eat' list as it affects the taste of milk or gives Victor wind... so I alone enjoyed making toast with it, and adding organic homemade butter on top.

The weather is still terrible here, so I stayed inside, and watched on TV Romanians being pulled out of their cars, or their cars being ridiculously far into a field and firmly embedded in the snow! Romanians do tend to forget to look out their windows when driving new, fast cars... the slow ones like mine, never leave their drives or precious parking spaces (I don't want to dig out a new one!) in this sort of weather. The real Romanian men however religiously build up their snow walls around their cars or throw the yards snow into my area, as I am on the only one who does not park his car in a garage, and I have a little lawn and flowers.

Good news - tonight Irina's stitches came out, using the Doctor downstairs and so she is well on her way to recovery.

Today's questions we would like to know the answer to is this....

In Romania, every baby as a matter of course, is given Vitamin D supplements to boost the strength of their bones and stop rickets. I am sure that in such a sunny country that we don't need to do this, as I would like Victor's bones to grow at the right rate - and I was wondering if anyone else had experienced this _ the drug we will use is called Vigantol. Also does anyone know any side effects I should know about?

The last piece of good news is Doina is back with us tonight and so all is back to well as we have an extra pair of hands and I am back to getting a good nights sleep, and ready to lift, walk and sing with Victor tomorrow again.

Keep on commenting, as I love it. This blog is rapidly rising through the recommended blogs - yesterday it was number 127, today it was 87!