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As our Moon Baby enters her sixth month on Planet
Earth, she and her mom are, finally, almost completely settled in their
new home, thanks the wonderful help of Luna's family fan club and especially
Opa Ben. Parts of a few of the rooms are pictured below. If you look
carefully, you will see Luna hiding in one of the rooms. |
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 The living room. |
 The dining room. |
 The kitchen. |
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 Luna's bedroom. |
 The back yard. |
 Esther-Mirjam's bedroom. |
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After having paid Iris a
visit about two months ago, Luna now welcomes Iris into her play pen
(top left and bottom left). Iris was born around the time Luna should
have made her appearance. While their proud moms exchange lots of insights,
Luna and Iris hold hands (top right) and stick each other's hands in
their mouths (bottom right). |
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As Luna spends more and more time amongst
us, she gets better and better accustomed to life outside her mom's
belly. In response, she shares more and more smiles with her visitors
(top row). And after so many smiles, it is time for a good stretch and
big yawn (bottom row). |
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* It appears that another disclaimer is in order
concerning Luna's clothing. Uh oh! You can rest assured that Luna has
more clothes than the blue outfit in which she is pictured above and
gets clean clothes every day. It just so happened that several members
of Luna's family fan club took pictures on the day Luna was dressed
in the blue outfit. 
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Luna continues to make developmental
progress. She can now hold her head up while lying on her tummy (top
left). She can also utter sounds that involve pressing her lips together
(bottom left). Luna has recently learned to grab things that are held
in front of her (top right), including her mom's hair! And she likes
to stick everything in her mouth (bottom right), also including Esther-Mirjam's
hair. Perhaps that should not be considered progress, eh? |
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Luna tries to apply her
newly acquired dextrous and oral skills to anything that comes within
reach, including her clothing (top left), Esther-Mirjam's hair, even
when it's tied in a knot (bottom left), and her stuffed animal (top
right). Opa Ben and Oma Alie try to outwit Luna by putting the latter
on top of their granddaughter's head (bottom right). Poor Luna looks
rather befuddled as a result. |
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How many moon decorations can the room
of our Moon Baby hold? The answer is: very many. And how many moon decorations
does her mom suddenly notice when she goes shopping? The answer is:
even more than fit into little Luna's big room! |
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| Luna continues to have
one scheduled outing to the swimming pool every week. That is, the outing
involves no more than a very short walk across the street to the pool!
When Esther-Mirjam holds her daughter as pictured below (left and right),
Luna makes little swimming moves with her legs. Sooo cute! Luna loves
to hang out with the other babies in the class (middle). |
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During the first hot day (= temperatures
in the 30s Celsius and 90s Fahrenheit) Luna experiences in her young
life, she gets to wear the Stanford Cardinal outfit that she got from
Kerry. She sure seems to enjoy it.  For Luna's Notre Dame fans she will put on a Fighting Irish outfit soon! |
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During the second hot day
our Moon Baby's enjoys, Luna gets to hang out in the back yard wearing
her sun hat. While on the grass, she practices the "hold your head
up" and "make a range of sounds" skills at the same time
(left). She also starts to give the "turn over on your tummy"
skill a try. That is, she pushes her bum off the ground, but leaves
it at that for now (middle). And after all this hard work, it is time
to relax (right).
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Luna encounters a few problems in her young existence. She is almost too big for her pram (left) and cradle (right).  And sometimes her mom spends way too much time trying to take her picture (above). Poor baby! |
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Growing older also means
that Luna now gets to visit other babies to congratulate their parents
on their arrival. Below she is pictured visiting Julian, who is some
three months younger than she is, but about the same size! Luna seems
to try to convince Julian that she is older by grabbing him and punching
him in the face!
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Luna accompanies her mom
during visits to Erasmus University Rotterdam (left) and the Netherlands
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences
(NIAS) in Wassenaar (right). However, Esther-Mirjam is so busy making
sure all is well with Luna that she does not get around to taking pictures.
Yet, she wanted to have especially the NIAS pictured on Luna's site,
because this institute has a lot to do with Luna's presence in her fortunate
mom's life! |
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Growing older has further advantages.
Luna now faces the world when she is carried in her Baby Björn
(left). (Note: Those shoes are way too big, but looked cool for the
picture!) And Luna gets to "play airplane" with her mom (right).  Finally, Esther-Mirjam is much better able to understand the signals her daughter gives her, making her interactions with Luna even more enjoyable (above). Here Luna seems to be saying: "Hey, are we finally done taking pictures?!" |
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As mentioned above, Luna cheers not
only for the Stanford Cardinal, but also for the Notre Dame Fighting
Irish (left). She loves the game where her mom rolls her from side to
side while calling out ... "Go" ... "Irish" ...!
So as not to disappoint her mom's current colleagues and students, Luna
also wears a University of Nijmegen shirt and bib (right). |
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| Luna attends a teacher
appreciation party organized by the economics students at the University
of Nijmegen. She wins the Best Boozing Baby Award, though does not seem
to be all that excited about booze. Lest Esther-Mirjam be accused of
child abuse, please rest assured that Luna only got to smell the beer,
and did not consume a single drop of alcohol! |
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Hip, Hip, Hurray! Six months old!
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