During my pregnancy I made some great new friends from around the globe. And how do you best find fellow future mamas in a city of 8 million people? Via Facebook! We met every week, and while our bellies grew to incredible dimensions, we ate chocolate... ;-) shared our experiences, and discussed those numerous cultural differences, that you come across, when living abroad. Look at those beautiful round bellies!!

A few months on and the pictures become crowded: our babies are born!

Playtime! Our cuties are about to discover the presence of their fellow playmates. Here we have little Annabelle, Luis, Ruby and Antonius. Luis looks like the oldest of the bunch, but that's just the effect of his mohawk hair and engineer-in-spe-outfit. Ruby is older and Antonius is bigger!

After so much hussle and bustle, 
Luis took a a well-deserved nap
on his cosy lambskin...

Amanda:
 
"Was absolutely captivated by two month old baby Luis yesterday. With these gorgeously intense eyes he has a very direct and inquisitive stare. I just love his little mohawk too! Was a pleasure to photograph him and his beautiful mum!"

Our little cutie is making big progress!!! After mastering the basics like drinking, digesting and sleeping (not so easy as you might think, see blog HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUIS), he just smiled for the first time! What a wonderful sign that your baby is doing just fine. We are so proud of out little one and can't stop admiring him.

Luis got his first bath at around three weeks. As you can tell, it was a disaster. Little man was not amused. He screamed through the whole procedure, and only stopped, once he had him back on solid ground. Three months on, and it's a total different story. Luis loves bath time! He is now splishing and splashing, giggles with joy, and wants to stay in the tub forever.

Now that Luis can hold his head (+/-12 weeks), he loves to be carried on the back, and look around. And he is not afraid of anything! Whenever we go hiking, he bathes in freezing rivers, pets big dogs and wild horses, and tastes everything, that he can grab.

At about four months Luis started to show a lot of interest in our food, and has since tried plums, pears, melons, figs, strawberries, and who knows what else. He loves everything. We took his interest as a signal to start with solids. Now Florian, Luis and I have lunch together! When I put Luis in his chair, he is always pounding the table, impatiently waiting for his food. His absolute favourite is palta (Chilean for avocado). Isn't that just right for the first Chileno in the family!

Also at around four months Luis demonstrated his first skills in sitting. Through a clever three anchor point solution, using his hands and mouth, he sat up in his crib one day, and gave us a big proud smile!

Luis is now six weeks old. His cheeks become rounder by the day and overall he is not so fragile anymore as in the early days. Little genius even spoke his first word: "ui" (Dutch for "onion"). We decided, he is ready for his first hike! Aguas de Ramón is one of the nearest and most popular getaway destinations for us Santiaguiños. I believe this hill is not even outside the city. We exchanged the pram for the wrap and started project "hiking with baby". 

Getting the wrapping technique right was quite a challenge at the start, but as soon as we had him snuggled up tightly, Luis calmed down and dozed off. On the track we were the attraction number one (babywearing is uncommon in Chile). As soon as people realised that there was a little baby "hidden" in the fabric, they cried out "Ooooh que chiquidito, ...que cosita mas rica, ...precioso!!!", called together all of their family, and outbid each other on exclamations of cuteness :-) Luis didn't bother, and only woke up at the end of the day, when we sat down for a cup of coffee and some good old German apple pie.