Amaia & Kaspar's Blog

Afternoon walk in Shanghai

2007-01-27T11:24:00.000+01:00

I am testing both my new camera and picasa web albums (since Kodakgallery is a bit cumbersome).
Here are some pictures of old houses in Shanghai on a nice winter afternoon.
http://picasaweb.google.com/probstkbp/AfternoonWalkInShanghai
(And for some reason the hyperlink button doesn't show up in blogger.com's editor, so you need to copy and paste the URL above...)

A nice quote

2007-01-10T14:36:00.000+01:00

All people are migrants on this earth, in time and space.
There is but one race - the human race.
Knowing our root is to better understand and respect other people's roots.
Preserve our cultural heritage to promote diversity not hegemony.

Christmas Letter 2006

2007-01-01T13:49:00.000+01:00

Dear Friends

Our weblog has been inactive for almost nine months, so we have no excuse for not writing a “Christmas Letter” summary-of-our-year to you now! - If the blog was inactive it is for two main reasons: the first is that we moved to Shanghai in June and during a part of the year we were not able to access our blog, presumably due to internet filtering by the Chinese authorities (though we can not be sure, and it also seems strange, since our blog is about the most harmless website one can imagine); the second reason is that it took us some time to adapt to the intensity of life in this huge and buzzing city, which left little time to be in touch. Anyway, here comes a summary of the past year, and of course one of our resolutions for 2007 is to do a better job keeping you updated about our life in the Middle Kingdom.

The Move. – Early last year (i.e. 2006) Kaspar was offered and happily accepted the possibility of moving to China as the Finance Director China & Korea for Givaudan. The preparation of the move took most of our time during the second quarter. Kaspar spent a few weeks in Shanghai with his predecessor to transition into his new role. Meanwhile Amaia reduced her work schedule and visited her family in Spain. Just before moving we were able to take a break for a few days in Greece to visit the island of Stantorini as well as Nadia’s godmother in Athens. Finally, on June 19, we boarded a plane to Shanghai and Nadia soon dozed off amid several pillows in a big seat of her own.

Shanghai. – Once landed in Shanghai, we were happy not to move into yet another temporary accommodation but immediately into our house in the center of town. During his stay in Shanghai in May, Kaspar decided to rent a so-called lane house, which is a house built in the 1930s in a local neighborhood. Although it proved true that everything tends to break and needs to be fixed in old houses (electricity, air condition, water-pipes, bugs, etc.) we are still very happy to have chosen a place among local people in a central location. – We will not attempt to answer the question “How is Shanghai?”, but hope many of you will come to explore this fascinating place over the next few months/years!

We all adapted quite well to our new surroundings. Amaia and Kaspar are busy creating a new social life here and trying to study more than just minimal Chinese. As for the social life, it has been quite a bit more animated than in Geneva. We have met many people and are slowly building a group of friends. As for our Chinese, it is slowly progressing: by now we have a vocabulary of about 500 words and 100 characters. Amaia speaks much more while Kaspar – though speaking little – believes he has a better pronunciation and knows more characters.

Nadia. – Of course none of us understands more Chinese than Nadia, who goes through intensive *training* with her nanny. It has been a fantastic experience to watch her grow over the past 6 months from being a baby that could not even crawl when we arrived in Shanghai to a 15-months old who likes to walk, climb (our house has 4 floors!), dance, eat, speak to the phone (yes, “to” rather then “on”), and speaks her first words. “NNO!” is what she says most frequently these days, more often than “Papa” and “Mama”. Sometimes she also says “好的“ (haode), which is the Chinese word of „ok“. Nadia of course loves the attention babies get here from anyone aged between 8 months and 80 years old. For us it is sometimes a bit surprising to hear people unknown to us call her by her name (some of the friends of any age she makes when playing in the park). Since August Amaia and Nadia participate in some “mother and baby” playgroups with both Chinese and foreign toddlers. And soon we will start looking for a more regular type of pre-kindergarden.

Work. – Kaspar is very happy with his new job. He is leading a department of 15 people in China and 2 in Korea that take care of the finance matters of five legal entities. Work in this foreign culture and fast-growing environment is very intense and the start-up of Givaudan’s second factory in China in October was an added challenge. With the company’s recently announced acquisition of the Flavors and Fragrances industry’s fifth-biggest player Quest International, 2007 will not be a relaxing year either. But the tasks ahead are interesting and the experience is very rewarding.

We didn’t take a Christmas vacation but look forward to spending a long winter-holiday in Spain and Switzerland during the Chinese New Year break in February. Hopefully we will be able to keep more regular contact – or even to meet – with many of you in 2007. China is not that far away, so please visit us or give us a call using skype! Meanwhile we wish you a very happy, healthy and successful new year!

Love,

Nadia, Amaia, and Kaspar

P.S. Note that Kaspar’s @bluewin.ch e-mail addresses are not active anymore. While still searching for the perfect solution, we are now both on Yahoo!

Belly (continued)

2005-09-22T21:47:00.000+02:00

For those who can't wait, an other picture of Amaia's belly taken last night. (Sorry, I don't have an ultrasound camera and it's still too early to release the ultrasound pics taken by our doctor.)
It's the FINAL COUNTDOWN.... max 2 weeks to go!!

We are ready and impatient...

2005-09-25T11:35:00.000+02:00

The last two weeks of pregnancy are not too much fun. But as you can see, we are ready. This is the cradle in which alredy Kaspar's great-grand-mother has spent the first months of her live. It is waiting for our daughter, newly "dressed" in white by Amaia's mother and a friend of hers.

6 months already!

2006-04-09T16:38:00.000+02:00

It's a scandal that we have not posted any news since almost two months... As always, there are plenty of reasons for this, in this case some important personal and professional matters. But then, back we are, with some important news!
Nadia turned 6 months old yesterday. Her development during the second three months has been even more amazing to observe than during the first three months. She is already 68 cm tall an weighs 7.8 kg, continues to be a good sleeper and starts being a good eater as well. And she likes to move a lot, turn from front to back and from back to front, puts in her mouth whatever she can grab, and would love to be able to move forward already but still can't figure it out. Her hair keep growing fast and she already had her first haircut three weeks ago.
Even more important news: Nadia will spend the next few years together with us in.... China! We decided to take the opportunity offered to Kaspar by his company and we will relocate to Shanghai for the next 3-5 years in mid-June. We are very excited and at the same time quite scared by all the administrative and logistic nightmares we will go through until we're finally settled in Shanghai. Anyway, very interesting times ahead after two rather too calm years in Geneva.
We probably owe the few readors of this Blog some more pictures. Here is a nice one taken just before she had her hair cut.

Also, there are some mor pics posted in a new kodakgallery album.

Some news

2006-02-13T16:53:00.000+01:00

Long time no news about Nadia! Time has been running and we were busy being amazed at her development day-by-day. It is incredible how she has grown (now around 7kg and 65cm), how much more awake she is, how she is observing everything, laughing, "talking", and learing quickly. Latest news are that she is now feeding only 4 times per day - having made the change from 5 to 4 without any problems from one day to the next -, sleeping nonstop from 9pm to 7am, and able to turn from back to belly.

We don't take 100 pictures a day anymore and we probably haven't taken a better one than the one shown on the last post, but for you to keep watching we still post a good one here.

Nadia's December

2006-01-15T19:00:00.000+01:00

A few more pictures of Nadia between early December and early January here.

"Christmas Letter" 2005

2006-01-08T14:30:00.000+01:00

Dear friends

It is two weeks past Christmas. I spent a good part of yesterday replying to Christmas cards and feeling bad that I hadn't even started writing my own traditional "Christmas Letter" yet. At the same time I was wondering if in the age of blogging – a blog being by definition some type of online diary – it still makes sense to write a summary-of-the-year type of Christmas letter. I concluded that, yes, it is still adequate to write at least a short version of the letter since our blog is not always very updated and, more importantly, most of you probably don't regularly check out our blog. So here comes the short version.

Probably the only really important thing that happened to us this year is the one you already know about: Amaia's pregnancy and the birth and first three months of life of Nadia Ana (see the all blog posts of the last 6 months below). Having a baby is really a blessing and seeing it grow from day to day is extremely fascinating and also very challenging. We have been really lucky with Nadia so far as she has been very healthy and a good eater and sleeper. During the last three weeks she has become more and more active, awake, observing, smiling, "talking", etc., which is a great pleasure to observe.

Due to the pregnancy it was a rather calm year in terms of personal and social life. We didn't take any big holidays but relaxed during a number of long weekends meeting friends and family in Madrid, Granada (Amaia's best friend's wedding), the Basque Country, and Provence. In addition, Kaspar, being a bit less pregnant than Amaia, went alone to three very good friends' weddings in Malaysia, Finland and Switzerland.

On the professional front, Amaia was not too sad to take the maternity break but plans to take up work again in February. Kaspar spent the year working mostly on several interesting projects for Givaudan, including a short assignment in Mexico. Besides, Kaspar evaluated and then dropped the idea of starting a dissertation project. In the process he had the chance to take a two months break at Givaudan and get an insight into a Venture Capital firm, which was highly interesting.

2006 is certainly going to be an interesting year for us and we are looking forward to it. Amaia's planned return to work will be a big challenge in terms of family and time management. Kaspar expects some significant professional development to take place. And Nadia… will probably grow and develop at an amazing speed and keep astonishing us every day.

We wish you, your families and loved ones a Happy Easter (as it's a bit late for Christmas now) and a very happy and fulfilling year! And once again we hope to be able to meet as many of you as possible personally over the next 12 months.

Love, A&K&N

Pics November - early December

2005-12-14T09:24:00.000+01:00

Long time no news from us! Seems like Nadia, Christmas preparations, weekend projects and the like are taking all our time lately. Anyway, we recently created yet an other album in kodakGallery with some pictures of Nadia's second month. Here you go.

Just too cute!

2005-11-09T20:58:00.000+01:00

This picture is just too cute to keep it for ourselves...! (More will be posted tonight on our Kodakgallery album).

Facts & Figures

2005-11-07T18:56:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow we will celebrate Nadia's first-month-birthday. Within this month she gained 1kg (just like daddy, but for a different reason) and grew 6cm!

More still

2005-10-30T19:27:00.000+01:00

Still more pictures... of a short trip we made to one of the most beautiful regions of Switzerland, the lake of Geneva coast east of Lausanne (the Lavaux wine region).

More pictures

2005-10-29T21:19:00.000+02:00

We finally posted some more pictures of Nadia in our second album. Have fun! More later. (In short: Nadia keeps on behaving well, is sleeping quite well, loves to be in the street in her stroller, is as cute as ever, etc.etc.etc. - we're still very very happy.)

Curly

2005-10-26T20:14:00.000+02:00

... and who said they are losing their hair?

Nights of terror... or: Welcome to reality

2005-10-22T10:31:00.000+02:00

Kaspar sent the following SMS to some of his friends this morning at 06h38am:

First night of terror. 06h40, am walking in the street with baby and stroller so at least amaia gets some rest. Olé! Guess am now part of the club...

... calling it night of terror is probably a big exageration by someone who doesn't have the real experience yet. Anyway, after a one-week "honeymoon" with Nadia sleeping in blocks of 4-6 hours we had the first night which was a bit tougher. That's why at 06h30 I decided to go for a pareto-optimal solution: rather than two adults and one baby not getting any sleep at all, I went for a 1.5hr walk with Nadia so that both the daugther and the mother got their rest. Daddy will need a long siesta!

Let's put it like that: I am slowly starting to understand when people say that having a child changes your life!

Nadia update

2005-10-15T16:46:00.000+02:00

As some of you know already, Amaia and Nadia returned home on Thursday. The first 48 have gone quite well so far. Okay, it is not very easy to understand or try to manage the cycles of feeding, digesting, and sleeping during the first days of the life of a baby. Sometimes she eats for just about 8-10 minutes, falls asleep, and calls for mor 15 minutes later. Sometimes she eats for almost half an hour and then sleeps for four hours or more. This seems still quite logical. But sometimes she eats for 10 minutes and sleeps for four hours without asking for more... we hope to get some more system into the feeding cycle soon.

As for the nights, they went quite well. Last night, for example, she slept from midnight till 4am without asking for more, then eat quite well between 4.30 and 5.30, just to go on sleeping till 9 am. I guess we can only pray that she continues that way!

Pictures
- This is the link to the initial album posted earlier (Oct 8-13)
- This is the link to the new album from Oct 14 onward

Nadia is born!

2005-10-08T23:15:00.000+02:00

We are very, very happy to announce the birth of our daughter

Nadia Ana

at 16.58 h today (October 8). Mother and daughter can be visited during the next few days at Clinique de Grangettes in Geneva or anytime thereafter at home.

(More pictures are posted on our KodakGallery Album).

I was told to be prepared to answer the typical Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). So here you go:

Is she beautiful? - Of course, she is the prettiest baby on earth!! She is very cute and looks quite mature for being only a few hours old.
Does she have hair? - Yes, in line both Probst and Aramburu family tradition she was born with quite long, thick, and a bit curly brown hair.
What's her weight and how tall/small is she? - You are right, somewhere around 3.5kg and 50cm (exactly 3750g and 51cm).
Did everything go well? - Yes, thank god!
How does Amaia feel? - Very happy and very exhausted.
Flowers & Gifts are not expected. However, if you can not resist, please note the following: Flowers/Plants: In the clinic flowers will decorate the corridor. So better send them home from next Thursday onward. -- Gifts: We are already quite well equipped in the 0-3mt and 6-12mt baby clothes segments but not yet so much in the 3-6mt segment.

Readings on Pregnancy & Parenting

2005-10-02T11:24:00.000+02:00

(Still no contractions...!)

Expecting a child, especially the first one, inevitably makes the future parents think about a whole new set of topics, questions, and concerns. Of course there are always parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, friends, colleagues, and complete strangers happily willing to share their great treasures of knowledge, experience, and above all opinions. Moreover, there are countless websites dealing with all kind of questions relating to pregnancy and parenting. (One of the funnier but also interesting ones we found was Daddytypes: the weblog for new dads.) Obviously we - especially Amaia - spent hours, days, probably weeks digging into these resources. But then, we still trust books written by experts more than opinions voiced by whomever happens to be there and willing to share them.

The books we read can be be categorized roughly into the categories of pregnancy and parenting. In terms of their content we much preferred those books that try to give a balanced and objective view of things - leaving the reader draw his/her own conclusions - to those that basically represent one specific line of thinking (doctrine!) and ignore any possible alternative evidence and points of view. So what did we read?

Pregnancy day-by-day (by Sheila Kitzinger): The subtitle summarizes it all: "the expectant mother's diary, record book, and guide." It's a pleasant and easily readable diary and workbook which will answer already a great part of the parents' general questions on pregnancy. Highly recommended.
The birth of a mother (by Daniel N. Stern and Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern): An excellent and highly recommended book for and about the expectant mother, written by a professor of psychology at Geneva and Cornell University and his wife, a pediatrician and child psychiatrist. Besides the more psychological aspects of pregnancy, birth, and parenting, it also covers some important practical matters in the last chapters titled, etc. "Your Carreer - When?" and "Husbands and Fathers".
A diary of a baby (by Daniel N. Stern): Subtitled "what your child sees, feels, and experiences", this book tries to give an insight into a baby's first four years from the baby's perspective. I think we haven't read it in detail and we are not convinced it tells you much more than any of the other books about the baby-years. But then, the idea of taking the baby's perspective is interesting and pleasant to read.
Babyjahre (by Remo H. Largo, in German): If you speak German, this book written by the Swiss guru of pediatrics is a must. It covers almost all relevant aspects of the baby's development during the first two years of its life in a well-structured, well-written, and above all balanced and objective way.
Touchpoints: Your Child's Emotional and Behavioral Development: Birth-3 (by T. Berry Brazelton, though we are reading the French version): If you don't speak German, this is the best alternative to the book above, written by the American guru on pediatrics and being equally exhaustive as the one by R. Largo. It is less well-structured than "Babyjahre", but its French version contains an excellent Index at the end that makes up for the lack of a decent table of contents. Furthermore, this book seems to be a bit more exhaustive than "Babyjahre", particularly in covering illnesses and the like. Thus, this book is also highly recommended, or actually a must.
On Becoming Baby Wise: The Classic Reference Guide (by Garry Ezzo & Robert Bucknam): This is one of the doctrine-books. While it also contains some interesting ideas, it certainly does not give a balanced view of things. If you take for example the section on co-sleeping (the baby sharing the parent's bed), it starts with "Sharing sleep with children puts them at risk both physically and emotionally." If you compare this what any of the "the gurus" has to say about this topic, this is just ridiculous.
On Becoming Baby Wise: Parenting Your Pre Toddler 5-15 Months (by Garry Ezzo & Robert Bucknam): Yes, given the title and authors, it's an other one of the doctrine-books. Don't bother.
The expectant Father: Facts, Tips and Advice for Dads-To-Be (by Armin A. Brott & Jennifer Ash): A nice book to accompany the "expectant father" through his wife's pregnancy month-by-month. Probably 80+% of the content of this book is also covered by the other pregnancy books. The difference to the other books - which makes this one read-worthy - lays in "the other 20-%", i.e. its purely future-dad-oriented content, as well as in the simple fact that this one is witten for the father's perspective.
Infant Massage--Revised Edition : A Handbook for Loving Parents (by Vimala McClure): We just received this one, which seems to be the book on Infant Massage. Amaia is quite enthusiastic. And in this case as well, the author had the good idea to include a chapter "Especially for fathers".

This list covers those books that you can easily find in your bookstor or on Amazon. As you will notice when you get pregnant, you will receive a whols set of additional publications from various sources. Most of these contain parts that are worth reading and complementary to the books mentioned above. Such publications contain for example sections on legal, administrative, or insurance matters that are country-specific. Then there are the books sponsored by companies interested in selling whatever to future parents, which can usually be ignored. Finally there are books on important topics like beauty, such as "Donner la vie en beauté" sponsored by Clarins, etc. -- In short, there is an information overload as in so many other aspects of life. The key lays in selecting the useful stuff and ignoring the rest, which is often easier said than done...

Orange - Colour of the Decade

2005-09-29T21:31:00.000+02:00

We are more than ready and more impatient every day. Meanwhile we also got the stroller in beautiful orange. But she doesn't seem to care and prefers to wait until she is really due, which is 9 days from now...

Amaia's Belly

2005-07-17T11:48:00.000+02:00

Amaia's Belly...

Family Planning... - Announcement

2005-04-03T12:15:00.000+02:00

If you did not get these BIG news already, here you go: we are happily informing you that Amaia is pregnant with our first baby. The mother and the three-month-old baby-to-be are well. And we are all excitedly expecting the big change in our lives in early October.

Lang Lang Recital

2005-02-05T14:17:00.000+01:00

Last night Amaia and I went to listen (and see!) the performance of Lang Lang, a 22 year old Chinese pianist said to be one of the best of his generation. He played Mozart (Sonata no 1), Chopin (Sonata no 3), Schumann (Scènes d'enfants op 15), Rachmaninov (Prelude op 23 no 2 and 5), and Liszt (Années de Pèlerinage, Rhapsodie hongroise no 2).

Overall it was certainly one of the most outstanding piano performances we have ever attended. While Kaspar did not like all of his interpretations of Schumann's "Scènes d'enfants", his performances of the Rachmaninov Preludes and Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody were incredibly impressive and breathtaking. Experiencing this music life performed by one of the best pianists has nothing to do with hearing it on a radio or CD! (The only pity was that Geneva's Victoria Hall is not one of the best venues for such a piano solo concert.)

You may want to check out Lang Lang's website to get an ide of his music, career, concert schedule, etc. Some of his CDs will also soon be on our amazon wishlist (here or here).

Definitely don't miss Lang Lang if he performs in your town!

(Also posted on Kaspar's blog)

Instant Messaging (continued)

2005-01-16T09:56:00.000+01:00

In his newly-emerging fascination with Instant Messaging, Kaspar has decided to go for the full-blast-version on our computer at home. We are using a tool called Trillian, which allows to connect to various IM systems at the same time. ("Trillian is a fully featured, stand-alone, skinnable chat client that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC. [...])

Thus, while we are at home you can now reach us through:
Yahoo! Messenger: as user kbp_ch
MSN Messenger: as user amaiakaspar (AT) hotmail.com
AOL Instant Messenger (AIM): as probstkbp (this account is also used by Kaspar at work)
ICQ: as user 332622799

Besides, we are still using Skype:
- At home as user aaikbp
- At work (Kaspar) as probstkbp

So if you are using just one of the above systems, we can connect and communicate through instant messaging.

Fascinating!

P.S. Note that we are not using any of the e-mail addresses connected to the usernames mentioned above (kbp_ch (AT) yahoo, amaiakaspar (AT) hotmail, kbp (AT) bluewin), but keep on using the personal ones you know, which are not published here to avoid spam.

Instant Messaging

2005-01-13T17:21:00.000+01:00

Kaspar is now connected to the AOL Instant Messaging system. If you feel like linking up with him, his screename is probstkbp and the e-mail address kbp (AT) bluewin.ch