Cheryl’s Last Day

Today at Little Troopers, Wee Laddie went over to one of the moms and stuck out his now polish-free tootsies. “No more red toes!” he told her.

Sadly, today was Cheryl’s last playgroup. She loved her gifts and was so impressed that I’d somehow personalized the photo book. (Sometimes I forget that the world is not filled with designers.) I was pleased that she seemed to like it so much. She said they were 2 of the best gifts she’d ever gotten, because they were so personal. So we did good. I still stand by my review of the product, though.

She brought her replacement (at least for the playgroup) so we got to meet her. I’ve forgotten her name already. I hope the group keeps going with the great vibe that it’s had so far. I can’t imagine what I’d be doing over here without these playgroups to keep me sane and to connect me with people.

Went to Neumarkt after nap. We bought 2 more “Cars” cars (Hamm and Miss Sally) at the toy store, and went to OBI for shelves for the basement. I was so happy to manage this outing… it sometimes takes weeks for us to be able to make a trip like that. First you gotta work around nap, then there are store closings and the long drive and back in time for dinner… blah, blah. I should shop online more, I suppose.


Anyone else see some Halloween costume potential here?

Photo Finish

At Kids’ Club this morning I was talking with Kelly (Kaitlyn’s mom) about taking the kids some other places just to break things up a bit. Maybe the zoo or the pool. And Zoe brought me some info about an indoor play place (like Monkey Business or something) that she’d gotten a brochure for. It looks fun but I’m not sure how far away it is. I think maybe some of our problem is the fact that we live in the country here. When I really think about it, it’s probably like living in Wyoming or something. There’s probably not much in the way of those kinds of places for kids, whereas Denver’s got loads of them. I’m just not used to living in the sticks.

One of the other Little Troopers moms is putting together a scrapbook for Cheryl, so I went to drop off my page (finally). It’s my first ever scrapbook page. Looking at it compared to the other pages, I can see that my design experience is a bit more conservative and formal than the typical scrapbook page. Mine is so much more businesslike. I don’t know whether it’d be different if I’d had more stuff (though I’m still not into the frou-frou things a lot of people use) or more time… or if I’m just too used to doing corporate design work. Even the little bit of movie stuff I did was pretty limited in terms of actual creativity.



And I finished the photo book. Overall, I’m really not thrilled with the Epson Storyteller kits. I’ve often looked at them & thought they’d be really cool. Not so much. The layout designs are pretty limited… I ended up doing my own layouts in Photoshop ‘cause I wanted a really clean, studio look. But the worst part is that it’s really hard to get the pages to line up correctly (and let me tell you that I’m freakishly able to eyeball straight lines… I can literally spot when something is off by 1 pixel on my computer screen.), so although each page was lined up fine on its own sticky tab thing, the whole book didn’t end up being aligned very well. Partly my fault for forcing it to go 2-sided, but still. Had I finished the book in time to order it online, it would have been much less expensive, taken much less time, and looked much cooler. Lesson learned.

You Know

Wee Laddie’s photo was featured on this month’s advertisement for the Little Troopers. That’s him on the dog, eating Cheerios.


Sorry about the terrible photo.

For some reason, Wee Laddie has chosen some odd additions to his usual speaking repertoire: “so,” “but” and “you know.” Of course he’s been using all of those for quite a while now, but not all together in a phrase. He’ll be talking and then he’ll just stop and say, “So… but… you know,” and kind of shrug. I’m afraid I know exactly where he gets it, even though I (er, I mean whoever he picked that up from) don’t really put them together in quite that way.

Mommy vs. Daddy

Tonight was Guitarman’s turn to tuck in. I still usually try to mention that early in the day so Wee Laddie isn’t caught off-guard. (He adores his daddy, but really always wants me at bedtime.) So we were in the car and I told him, “Daddy’s tucking you in tonight.” He said, “Mommy tuck you in,” which I contradicted. Then he said, “Daddy tuck you in.” I said, “Yup. That’s right.” And he started saying, “Mommy’s at work. Mommy went back to work.” Trying the old switcheroo, I guess. Funny kid.

Daddy’s Fault

We saw some jets going over Parsberg today. The helicopters fly over here fairly often (it only really annoys me at naptime or late at night), but we don’t see jets too frequently. They must have been practicing something, as they were in formation… 3 together. I don’t actually know whether they’re American or German. There aren’t planes on the base here, so we’re not sure where they come from.

Somehow, Wee Laddie peed down his leg (with a diaper on) twice today. The 2nd time, Guitarman said, “It’s Daddy’s fault, sorry about that,” so for like the next 10 minutes Wee Laddie kept saying “It’s Daddy’s fault, it’s Daddy’s fault.” I’m like, “Yeah, but it would be okay even if it weren’t Daddy’s fault. This potty thing takes practice, and it’s all fine.” He didn’t seem to be listening to me, which has me a little concerned. Are we sending him some kind of negative message when he misses? Or is it some kind of pressure he’s putting on himself? Not too long ago we were having some nakey dupa time and he was sitting on my lap and started to pee. I felt it hit my leg and popped him up off my lap, but I didn’t jump up or anything. He immediately started crying and saying, “I peed on you!” So I told him that he’d just barely hit my leg, but that it was no big deal anyway… I’ll just wash it off. I suppose I need to increase the nakey dupa time so he gets more used to it.

So far I’m not too impressed with the Epson Storyteller photo book thing… it’s only set up for one-sided pages (and the layouts are not like what I was working with online), so I’ll have to do the layouts myself in Photoshop. Good thing I’ve spent so much time in Photoshop—and have already planned out which photos go where--or this would be stressing me out a little bit. It’ll be tricky to get it done in time, but I’ll manage.

Our Little Director

Yesterday we’d watched some of the behind-the-scenes stuff on the Finding Nemo DVD for the first time. We’ve been watching the Pixar shorts (Mater and the Ghostlight/Hook und das Geisterlicht and Knick Knack) for about a week now, and Wee Laddie likes to watch them multiple times in one sitting. Well now he’s apparently finding the director commentaries and stuff very interesting. When I told Guitarman we’d watched it again today (while he was on base doing laundry & going to the gym), I told him that maybe Wee Laddie would get some cool job in the entertainment industry and we could both live vicariously.

Happy birthday today to Grandma-Grandma! Her card will be embarrassingly late, despite the fact that I bought it like a month ago. (Much too early to send it, which is why it’s now so late. Had I bought it at a good time to send it, maybe I would have managed an on-time greeting.) Grandma-Nana’s birthday was just a week or so ago… if I were a better daughter-in-law, I’d probably have it written down somewhere.

The McCafe

The mess hall is on the early breakfast schedule again, so we had Burger King. When we first moved here, Wee Laddie was getting up earlier in the morning, and the brunch schedule (9:30 start) was too late for us. Now the early one (6-8:30) is too early, ‘cause we can’t even get there by 8:30. Sometimes even the 8:30-9:30 time is too early for us!

So this weekend, we had the breakfast-lunch fastfood two-fer that we avoided last week. The McDonald’s had fully reopened, so we went there. God we’re pathetic. I would actually love to go to the döner shop at times like this, but for some reason, Guitarman finds it very awkward and doesn’t like to go there very often. I thought it was going to be our “next best thing” to Chipotle, since it’s cheap and pretty healthy. But alas.

At any rate, they have completely revamped the McDonald’s near us… it’s now a McCafe. It’s actually kind of swanky-looking inside. It’s got a coffee counter (and even had paninis on the menu in that section!) and had a 4-sided fireplace and everything. I’ve seen the swankier McD’s on TV, but never in person.

Went to Schweinfurt and Würzburg to look for the photo book for Cheryl. Schweinfurt didn’t have it, but they do have a Taco Bell, so that was good. Finally found the photo book at Würzburg. I wanted a 5x7 size and they had exactly one. Whew. I’d have picked up an extra if they’d had any more… I didn’t want to commit to an 8x10 book, which they did have a few of.

At Würzburg we were toy shopping a bit. Wee Laddie, rather than his usual, “I want that. Wee Laddie wants that,” spiel, was trying out, “I’ll use that.” You can picture it, I’m sure: He points at a toy and says, “I want that.” Mama says, “It’s for babies, sweetie. You’ll never use it.” I think toddlers are hard-wired to be little manipulation machines.

First Spelling Lesson

Today in the car on the way home from base, WL said to me, “Mommy, say R.” So I did. He said, “Say V.” I did. He continues through L, D, D, O and T. (At the 2nd D, I knew something was up, ‘cause why on earth would he do the same letter twice in a row.) Then he said, “What’s this word?” So I look in the backseat, and it turns out he’s picking the letters off of the bottom of his Old Navy socks… and although he had the E wrong, he was spelling “Toddler” backwards (‘cause that’s the way it was on his sock). I was blown away. I know he can recognize some letters, but that was huge! It’s also interesting to me because I used to do that in the car with my parents when I was little, “Mommy, what does s-a-f-e-w-a-y spell?” And before my mom had even realized it (and with some help from Jim Henson) I had learned to read by the time I was three. So I reckon the kid’s got 6 months.

Our beloved Burger King (I am so sick of that place) had a power outage tonight. So no fries and we picked from what they had already hot (‘cause we didn’t want to go to the pizza place, which is our other choice… and their power was actually out, too). They closed just after we left, so we must’ve pretty much cleaned them out.

When Wee Laddie is tired of being stuck inside, or riding in the car or going to stores… he’ll start asking, “Mommy, walk on the grass?” and if you’re trying to walk somewhere that’s near a patch of grass he will pull and pull to see if he can get over to it. So sometimes we take breaks in our day to give him some time to just walk on the grass. Or sit on it. Or lie on it.

There’s Not Enough Playtime

Went to Kids’ Club this morning and then to the playground across the street (behind one of the housing areas) with Zoe and Mario. Mario’s dad is away for 2 months for training in the US, so they also joined us for lunch. Guitarman was “on shift” today so it was just the moms & tots. Wee Laddie did a great job of staying in his chair and eating what I asked him to. :)

This morning Wee Laddie and I called Guitarman (we sometimes do that if Wee Laddie is still asleep when Guitarman leaves for work) and when Guitarman said that he had to work and wouldn’t see us for lunch today, Wee Laddie told him, “That’s bad.”

After nap, Wee Laddie had some lap time while I finished a couple of emails. He doesn’t often let me do that… it usually takes me 20 minutes to do 2 minutes’ worth of computer stuff because I’m spending the other 18 minutes pulling him out from under the desk, finding paper & pen for him to draw, putting back all the things he grabs off the desk, etc. And okay, it was in response to me saying it to him but he said, “I love you, Mom.” Best thing in the world, hearing those words from this amazing little boy.

I feel like there is never enough time to play with my son. I am lucky enough to not have to work so I’m with him nearly every waking minute of every day. But I really feel like we don’t get enough time to just play. In the morning it’s breakfast, dishes, showers & getting dressed. Then we’re always off at some or other playgroup (which is fun, and great for his socialization) but we don’t spend that much time there interacting with each other. Then comes lunch and nap. And since he doesn’t go down easily for nap, by the time he gets up it’s often time to either start cooking dinner or to get ready to drive to base to meet Guitarman. And bedtime comes up very quickly after dinner so even though Guitarman does those dishes, there’s not much time then either. I simply do not understand how working moms do it. I cannot imagine trying to cram even more stuff into my day and see how I could feel like I was giving enough attention to any of it. (I commend them for finding ways to pull it off.)

A few minutes of stolen playtime, although he did make this “trumpet” all by himself.



And after I made him take the toy out of his mouth.



Guitarman and Wee Laddie talked to Grandma-Nana tonight. Wee Laddie told her, “Hi Grandma-Nana, I miss you! I miss Aunt Kaffee, too.” How could you not melt at that? My boy has such a gigantic heart.

Wee Laddie and I spotted this on the way home from base yesterday:

Procrastination

There were 3 sets of parents/tots at signing class today. I’m always so happy when someone asks a question about a sign or signing in general. I usually do know the answer, and it makes me feel like I’m contributing more than just by showing up & plugging things in. There’s a new counselor person there (I forget what they’re called, but they come in on like a 12-week rotation to offer support, and they’re always showing up at the playgroups and classes) and she was asking about my experience with sign. And she was even trying to learn the signs while the video was on.

I’ve gotten totally behind on the goodbye gift for Cheryl… there’s no way I can get it now from Snapfish (I still need a couple of photos from one mom, actually) and I’d be shocked if any company over here would do it by next Friday. My limited experience with German companies does not indicate any penchant for speed. I went to the PX to see if they had a printable photo book I could put together myself and to look for inkjet paper to make t-shirt transfers (‘cause I know a certain little boy who would be stoked to have some more tees with the “Cars” characters on them. And just in case any of the good folks over at Pixar should happen upon this site and start getting riled up about intellectual property, let me just say this: We have already purchased nearly every “Cars” accessory made. Well, a lot of them, anyway. And because we LOVE your movies and want to have money later to see and purchase them on an ongoing basis…and also because my son is fixated on wearing an item of “Cars” clothing nearly all the time, I am going to make some tees for him. Maybe mostly pajama shirts, so he can then save the real t-shirts for wearing out in public. Believe me, you are getting loads of free advertising from us. Well, free to you… we actually are paying to advertise your movie. So there ya go.), but they had neither. Will have to either try the place in Neumarkt this weekend or head up to Media Markt. Bet I can talk Guitarman into that.

I found this tea at the market today and had to buy it. Luckily, it was a flavor that sounded really yummy, too, or else I'd have had to throw all the tea away. Nah, I probably would have just taken the photo there in the market.

His Potty

Wee Laddie is getting really good with pronouns and possessive pronouns these days. This language acquisition thing still amazes me. He’s starting to make sense of when to use “his” vs. “hers,” even. He doesn’t get it right all the time, of course, but the fact that he is aware that there’s a difference seems impressive.

(sorry co-moms, this is a duplicate story) Had some “nakey dupa time” today with Wee Laddie. (That’s him being diaper-free.) We tried to do it last week, but all he did was cry and ask for a diaper. Today he was fine with it. I kept asking if he needed to go potty, he’d say no. At one point he said he had to go and he went and sat there, but nothing.

Then, while I was washing the breakfast dishes (and not bugging him) I heard him go into the bathroom and sit on the potty. A minute later he brings the potty out to show me that he’d peed in it. “I get M&M!” he said. Which, of course, he did. It didn’t happen again today, but that was encouraging!

I actually understood probably 80% of the conversation in German class today. That’s HUGE for me. The asylum-seeker guys all speak pretty good German (miles better than the rest of us, for sure), so they often have some side conversations with our instructor in German (she does it with us in English some, too). Many times I am completely lost when that happens, but today I caught most of it. Ah, progress.

International Relations

Today we ate at the big mess hall (also known ‘round these parts as “the baseball one” because of the sports memorabilia displayed there). We sat in our usual section, a smallish section (maybe 8 tables) behind the wall where the desserts and coffee machines are. The rest of the section filled in with some very friendly Afghani soldiers. Wee Laddie was in full-on charm mode, grinning at and playing with some of the soldiers at the next table. One of them asked if he could take a picture of Wee Laddie. Back home this would have made me pretty uncomfortable, and it still did a little but I followed Guitarman’s lead and let him. Out pop all the camera phones and next thing we know it’s a huge photo-op for all the soldiers and they’re passing my kid around like a bottle of cheap wine. Hmm. Mama Bear instincts kicked in a little but, you know, we were right there.

As we left, Guitarman told me that a co-worker had told him that the Afghani soldiers are like that. This other guy had run into some at the laundry one day and he had his little dog with him… they all wanted to take pictures with the dog. So that’s why my normally very protective husband handed our son over to strangers today.

Wee Laddie and I had to make a stop at the PX after lunch, and our lunch friends were there, too, standing out in front. One of the guys from lunch gestured me over and we went, and they again wanted to take pics with Wee Laddie. I let them. This time there were some American soldiers right there, too. After a minute or so, the American soldiers jumped in and were like, “Okay that’s enough,” and “You guys have to stop grabbing babies from their mothers!” They apologized to me and I said that we’d met them at lunch and that they’d asked first. They seemed relieved, but still told the guys to cut it out. It must be a major problem with them.

So I was thinking about why they would do that, and how things are so rough over in Afghanistan right now, and how fortunate we are to be able to go about our day and feel safe and not have to worry about our family’s safety and all that. (Okay, we worry, but many of us are so lucky.) And these guys don’t have a reasonable expectation of safety in their daily lives. And as soldiers in Afghanistan, what is their life expectancy? I don’t even know. I don't really think I want to know.

Then tonight when I went online, I saw a headline about Afghani children getting killed in a US airstrike. The airstrike was approved by the Afghani gov’t or police or whomever, but still. I thought of those friendly guys at lunch and how sad this all must make them.

Taco Bell Addicts Support Group

Taco Bell Addicts Support Group
Went up to Würzburg, where we bumped into Guitarman’s coworker, Charlie, and his wife, Telise. (We like them.) Had a nice visit with them. I jokingly asked Telise if they’d come up for a Taco Bell fix like us and she said, “We were talking about what to do today and I really wanted to get out of the house to do something. So Charlie said, ‘We could go to Würzburg. We can look at this, and this and this… and there’s Taco Bell.’ And I said, ‘Well, we don’t need this, or this, or this. But there’s Taco Bell.’ So an hour-and-a-half and half a tank of gas later, here we are.” At least we’re not the only ones.

You know how in the US, they take old worn-out tires and use them as playground equipment? Well, check these out:


Seriously, I could dig them up and put them on my car.


And here is Wee Laddie, trying out the bubble gun we got him today. You know, it’s hard for a little guy to blow bubbles, so Guitarman thought he could use an assist. We went through ½ a bottle of bubble soap and he kept the trigger on for long stretches, so there were piles of bubbles on the grass… but he was pretty stoked about being able to make them on his own.

More Riedenburg

We were headed for a breakfast-lunch fastfood two-fer, but the dining room at our local McDonald’s is closed, as are the bathrooms. So if you don’t want to do the drive-thru (which, believe me, strikes fear in the heart of one with an extremely tenuous grip, if any, on the local language), your other option is to sit in the large tent in the parking lot, and use the porta-potties (“Toi Toi” is the brand here). We passed on that and went to Il Cigno for Italian food. It’s in the city center of our town. And very good. And always loaded with Americans who talk loudly. And not just my son.

We made a return jaunt to Riedenburg to walk around the little lake we walked around last time during the mittelalterfest. It was a pleasant walk, so we continued up the trail a bit. There are walking paths everywhere in this area. The Bavarians (and perhaps all Germans) are very into walking… in fact, it’s kind of traditional for the whole town to take a walk on Sundays, from what I understand. It’s called a volksmarch. At one point on the trail, we were walking along the river and there was German music spilling out of a building across the river from us. It felt like we were on a travel show. (I can’t currently get the audio for this on my computer, so hopefully someone will comment if there’s no music on this clip and I’ll try the other one.)





Our eating schedule gets all messed up on the weekends, ‘cause we try to nap Wee Laddie after breakfast instead of lunch so that we actually have time to go somewhere in the afternoons. So then we end up eating lunch at like 2:30 or 3pm, then what do you do with dinner? Tonight we had pseudo-splits (bananas, grapes, yogurt with chocolate pudding on top), which worked out well. Reasonably healthy and Wee Laddie thought he was in dessert heaven!

Courtesy of the Slow Cooker

Went to the fabulous bowling alley on base for dinner tonight. Just to change it up from our Burger King usual. I got a little annoyed because our order was taking a really long time, so I went to ask about it. Now those of you who know me, know that I’m a very polite sort of person and would phrase it nicely and all that. But Little Miss behind the counter pulled a whole bunch of attitude. I pointed out that a bunch of people who came in after us had already gotten their food. (This happened to us once before and they had, in fact, forgotten to make our order.) She said that ours was taking longer because we ordered a burger and the other people were ordering easy things. So, word to the wise: a hamburger now requires a 35+-minute cooking time.

The jukebox is usually blaring when we go to eat there, and tonight was no different. What was different was that we heard a new, rapped up version of the theme from “The Jeffersons.” Yeah, you’re movin’ on up, all right, whoever you are.

I’ve been tagged.
I’m not sure why these things go around amongst bloggers… like we don’t talk about ourselves enough, really? I’m supposed to share 8 facts/habits about myself and then tag 8 other bloggers. Well, I only know 2 other bloggers: Kristin tagged me, and Christina has done this one before, so I’m going to be the lame-o chain-letter killer. But I’ll post the 8 things I’m supposed to.

Fact. You probably wouldn't guess it, but I am actually highly competitive. It goes all the way back to when I was really little. I think that the reason I learned to read at such a young age (by 3) was so that I could do it before my brother did.

Fact. I generally feel that showers are a complete waste of time. Except for that whole needing to be clean thing.

Fact. I assume that I’m allergic to seafood, but don’t really know for sure. I got sick on shrimp once as a young child and haven’t had it since. I am hyper-sensitive to the smell, though… if eggrolls come to the table, I can tell you if they have shrimp in ‘em.

Fact. I love people. Not in that customer service kind of way (I’m not actually very good at that), but in a “Let’s call O-tay. She’ll go!” kind of way. I will shirk nearly any responsibility for a chance to be with people.

Habit. I wish that I needed only a couple of hours of sleep a night. I’ve always been a night owl and these days I often nap with my toddler because I’ve stayed up way too late the night before. That’s also why I often fall asleep with him at 9pm. (Hey, parenting is tiring work.)

Habit. I am frequently late. (Guitarman would say “always,” but the truth is I’m much better since we’ve been together… he’s extremely punctual.) It’s not that I think I’m more important than anyone else… I just always underestimate the amount of time it takes me to do things.

Fact. I’ve often wished I could teleport myself places. Longed for it, in fact. (Largely because of the lateness.)

Habit. I used to bite my nails. My grandmother offered me $1 per nail to grow them out but I never could. I finally kicked it when I was in my twenties.

Sesamstrasse Takes on Columbus

There was a really funny scene on Sesamstrasse this morning. The segment was about Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America. Obviously, I couldn’t understand most of it, but the part I got was that Christopher Columbus was arguing with the native Americans he’d met. They kept telling him, “America.” And he kept responding back, “India.” (I just *know* this isn’t going to be as funny when you all read it.) It cracked me up!

Today on the way to base I got annoyed. There’s this street I usually take that often has cars parked all along one side, and, since it’s a narrow German street, that leaves room for only one car to drive by. The general etiquette (and the law, too, I suspect) is that if the parked cars are in your driving lane, you yield to oncoming cars since their lane is open. Well, this morning there was a woman coming toward me who was totally ignoring that. Not a big deal, I know, but 6 months of dealing with Bavarian drivers makes me not feel so warm toward them. So I said, “Come on, what the f…” and stopped myself. My toddler, however, said, “Need some attention, Mom?” which is what I sometimes ask him when I feel that he’s acting inappropriately. hahaha It’s hard to argue with that.

I am kind of liking my hair at the moment. I had a stylist in Denver that I was pretty happy with. She’s a little expensive, but she nearly always does a great job on my hair. No easy feat, since I’m hard-pressed to like my hair in general. So of course, I got a haircut just before we left Denver. And I haven’t had it cut since then, except that I did trim it a bit before Grandma-Nana and Kaffee came out. I’ve decided to grow it out again, anyway, so it was just a small trim. It turned out okay. See?

Blog Blog Blogging

Low turnout again at sign class. I’m glad the Army Community Service people are committed to offering this class, or I’m sure they’d have bailed by now for low attendance. I don’t know why we’re not getting more people, except that maybe they’re all busy with summer plans. Meanwhile, I drag our big flat panel monitor every time (I was bringing the laptop, too, in case we needed 2 screens. I’ve stopped dragging that one around, though.) just to make sure everyone can see. Nevermind that I could just stick our portable DVD player on table and be done with it.

I could so become a blog addict. Not so much writing (or I wouldn’t always be running about a month behind, now, would I? Although that’s about to change… I’m getting lots of posts written & will try to post several every day or two ‘til I get caught up.), but there are some people out there writing some really funny and/or interesting stuff. I should be really helpful and post some links & stuff, but that’s a little lower on my list than getting caught up is. But when I find a blog I enjoy reading, I just see whose blogs they are reading and so on (to those of you to whom that seems painfully obvious: I know that some of my readers aren’t too Internet savvy, hence the explanation) and I’ve come across some good stuff. Yeah, there’s a lot of crap out there, too. Just like at your local bookstore.

I think this is, quite possibly, the most disturbing logo I've ever seen. Sheesh, who the hell wants to eat that??

What’s on Television

It’s funny to see the differences in what is shown on TV here vs. what is shown in the US. Today on Sesamstrasse they were trying to take a group photo of one human and about 3 muppets, one of whom was the German baby-Natasha character. It was, of course, rather chaotic. At one point the baby Natasha character let one rip. (I am not making this up.) And the others all acted woozy after smelling it and some even fell over.

There’s a show (Kleine Prinzessin) that was on after Sesamstrasse for a little while (Sesamstrasse stays in the same spot, but the shows before & after vary every month or two) about this sort of grubby little princess. They often showed her sitting on her chamber pot.

And once we caught a British show (of the grown-up--not "adult"--variety) in which one character, the mother of a baby, often has milk leakage stains on the front of her shirt.

Certainly not as sterilized as American TV. How many shows can you name that have featured bodily functions like that? I remember the flushing toilet on “All in the Family” and then again on “Married With Children.” I find that funny, since MWC was so much more crass than the former. On “Friends” they at least talked about going to the bathroom. (Oh, and there was the one time where Chandler peed on Monica’s leg.) Can anyone name any other shows?

If You Have Half a Brain

I’ve mentioned before that ‘80s music has a previously unknown (at least to me) 2nd lifespan in Germany. Today while driving around trying to get Wee Laddie to fall asleep in the car (oh yes, we are back to that) I heard Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” And yesterday Guitarman and I heard “Rock Me, Amadeus” by Falco. (At least it’s obvious why that one might be played over here.) But I also learned today that some ‘70s music is also hanging in over here. “Escape” (the Pina Colada song)… and yes, I sang along. You just gotta. I find the whole ‘80s music thing both fascinating and disturbing. But I get to feed my own occasional ‘80s music habit, so it all works out.

You know what I miss? Being able to give people the finger in traffic. Not that I do it often, but there are times when it just feels strangely satisfying to flip off some complete idiot. Here, it’s actually illegal to gesture at someone in traffic. As is honking at someone for being rude or annoying. (You can only honk as an alert, like if someone’s about to back into you from their driveway.) As aggressive and obnoxious as the drivers are here, I find it surprising. Is it this law that keeps them from having a huge road rage problem? Or maybe they do… I’d never know since I can’t understand the news.

Nature Channel, Right Here

I’ve probably mentioned that we pretty much live in the sticks out here. Our town (Parsberg) is one of the bigger towns in the area, and from what I can gather from the town’s web site, the population of Parsberg and the nearby towns (more or less from here to the base, I think) is around 6600. At any rate, we see hawks out here all the time, flying in their big, gliding circles. It’s a wonder I haven’t run off the road from craning my neck to watch those things fly… they’re so amazing! Well, today we got a very rare treat: We were doing our backroad drive on the way home from base, and we saw a hawk dive down and snag a mouse and take off again with it in its talons. I’m not really a “Let’s watch some animals get eaten on the Nature Channel” type, but it was a stunning site to see taking place right there in front of us. I’d have pulled the car over to watch, but there wasn’t even time.

Wee Laddie has been wanting to be a baby a lot recently. Of course, in my O-tay way, I’m imagining the possible reasons for that. One of my theories is that he’s missing his friends & family from back home and wants to regress back to when he was a baby and got to see them all the time. He loves to look at this binder I have with little contact sheets of all the photos of him (since birth), and I realize now that I’ve only got his first year of photos in there. So maybe that explains it. I’ll have to get it updated, then we can talk about all the fun things he can do now that he’s bigger that he couldn’t do as a baby. Hopefully that’ll help. I don’t think it’s conducive to potty-training to have him wanting to be a baby. I did find a photo, though, of him sitting on the potty at like 5 months, so I printed that out for him to look at. Subtle, eh?



Wee Laddie has started undoing the top clip of his car seat belt. Oy. I’m now working on, “You have to ASK before you can unclip it.” Today I was driving along and happened to glance back & it was hanging open. Yikes.

We went to the commissary today and Wee Laddie pointed at a woman and said, “I recognize her from my class.” Now, to be fair, I may have just said something similar, but still he put it all together that way. And he was right, it was the mom who is pregnant with twins, and we see her at signing class and at Kid’s Club.

(More than) Twice the Price

When we got back from our breakfast on base, there was a note from the post office. They’d tried to deliver Wee Laddie’s missing sandal, but there was postage due. 12 euro. (imagine the noise of a record scratching… like they use on TV) Whaaat? That’s nearly $16! “Good going, Mom,” Guitarman said. We paid $12.99 for the pair, so I’ve now just increased the price of them to almost $30. How can it possibly cost 12 euro to send a little tiny shoe 100 miles? And it’s not like they sent it overnight… thing took a friggin’ WEEK to get here. Meanwhile, you can send a regular letter from LA to NYC (almost 2800 miles) for .41. Madness.

Guitarman mowed the lawn today. I debated having him wait an hour so I could pull weeds like mad, but I am so glad I didn’t. I learned that our neighbors’ key to a beautiful yard is simple: keep it mowed.

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A commenter on the blog asked if I’d post some weight loss tips since I’ve lost some weight in the last several months. Short of buying that ultrametabolism book yourself, here’s what I’d suggest (sorry for the delay in posting this):
1) Don’t cut calories. Don’t even count them. (I cut calories and my weight started going UP.)
2) Toss everything with trans fat. And don’t just toss anything that doesn’t say “0 transfat,” read the labels. Everything with hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated oils gets the heave-ho. (I had to break my son of his peanut butter-cracker habit for that one.)
3)Add as much fiber as you can. I supplemented for a while with some cracker-cookie things that Metamucil makes… they’re not bad, so I’d just have one of those if I had a particularly low-fiber meal. In addition to being good for your digestion and all that, the fiber keeps you feeling full longer. That’d be why wholegrain breads are better than white ones.
4) Oh yeah, bread. Don’t eat it. Well, okay, sometimes… but very much in moderation. (The detox part of that diet has you cut out wheat entirely for a couple of weeks. And dairy.) I’m not a big bread eater, so this one’s not hard for me. I started eating pretty much only corn tortillas for my Mex food, although I do like flour tortillas.
5) Olive oil. As I said before… Yum. I tossed all my other oils (although I’ve since bought Pam spray for the grill) and use olive oil for everything. And I use it generously.
6) Skip the high fructose corn syrup. I’m not as picky about this one, as we tend to shop pretty low-sugar anyway… and I still can’t read much of the German labels, though they still seem to use mostly regular sugar.
7) As for sweets, I just opt for things like ice cream or chocolate (even that book says you can have the really high cacao chocolate while you’re detoxing!) rather than cookies or cake. I think the good chocolate is satisfying in pretty small amounts, so it’s worth the splurge. You get to indulge (what diet?) and not sabotage yourself.
Ok, so I’m no dietician and my weight loss has stalled (still), but those are the things that have worked for me so far.

Spoiled

I’ve been thinking recently about being a “spoiled American.” And we really are spoiled. I think it’s a bit disappointing for some things (like that our fruits & veggies have to be slathered in pesticides so that they are pretty enough for us to eat) and awesome for other things (you can find practically anything in a store somewhere). At Little Troopers this morning, we were talking about eggs. Some of the moms won’t buy their eggs in the German stores ‘cause they still have poop & feathers on them. They don’t wash the eggs here, so they last longer and don’t need to be refrigerated for shipping or in the stores. You wash ‘em, they’re just like any other egg. Oh, except that they’re good eggs. My parents raised chickens while I was growing up, so I know good eggs. They’re the ones with the bright, orangey yolks… if you’ve ever had organic, farm fresh or even free range eggs, you probably know what I’m talking about. They are about a gazillion times yummier than mass-produced, barely-yellow-yolked American eggs.

What America does really, really well is retail. Sunday closings are hard to get used to, and even harder to enjoy. I’m annoyed because I have such a hard time finding the things that I want. I saw a glue gun at the grocery store a while ago and snapped it up because I was afraid I might not see one again! I’d love to come across a Target, Michael’s… or something that was open past 8pm. Near where I lived in Denver, there was a 24-hour Home Depot, for goodness sake!

I’ve also been thinking a lot about languages & cultural expectations. I’ll admit… I’ve been there, trying to order at Chipotle and feeling slightly annoyed that the person who barely speaks any English at all is the one who is incorrectly assembling my meal. I have thought, “Don’t put them on the line until they can at least understand words like ‘chicken’ and ‘just a little.’” This whole experience is changing my perspective on that. For one thing, the whole thing about how long you’ve been here vs. how well you speak the language. Christina over at An American Expat is on the other side of it from me (people are impressed by her German skills for her 5 years here, in case you don’t go over to her blog… or don’t spot what I’m referencing), but I have found myself wishing I could tell everyone I communicate badly with, “Hey, I’ve only been here for 5 months.” And it makes me wonder how many people I’ve had interactions with back home who were in that same situation. Then there are people who try as hard as they can but simply cannot absorb the language. It’s not all laziness and ethnocentrism.

We are officially trying for baby #2. :) If you know me or have been reading the blog, you’ll know that makes me very happy. It still freaks Guitarman out a little, but even if we conceive right away, the baby wouldn’t be due until March. He’s worried about me having to go home early and him being stuck here or something. March makes it pretty likely that he’d have found a job by then. Touch wood.

The commissary has been out of corn tortillas for like 2 weeks. They are one of the few foods that I haven’t been able to find in any of the local markets, and they are a serious food staple for me. I usually eat one with my breakfast (tortilla, egg, beans, cheese) every day. It’s starting to annoy me.

And because I have a very cute kid who I probably don’t talk enough about (for his far-away family and friends who read this), here’s a photo of from today. Last month we got him one of these bikes with no pedals… it took a little cajoling on my part, but my theory is that it’ll help him learn the balance and steering of a bicycle without having to worry about the pedaling part. Then when he’s a little older and can pedal, it’ll all come together easily.

Pushing My Buttons

I love my son. I really do. He was pushing every button today. His falls today: in the coat hallway, jumping off the couch, in the bathroom. All by lunchtime. Guitarman noticed scratches on his arm at lunch… I don’t even know how he got them. As an added bonus, he went for a 3-a-day, poopwise. Lordy that child can poop. I have some friends whose kids have constipation issues, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be in their position… but 3x a day seems like a LOT. It happened on Tuesday, too, now that I think of it.

Grilled again tonight. It’s only been a few weeks and I’m already getting over the mediocre, pre-seasoned frozen chicken. I found a recipe online for the Chipotle meat marinade. The real recipe, even, not just somebody’s best guess. Now if I can just find some ancho chilies. Dried. Uh-huh… I see that happening in Germany.

Wee Laddie and I had a big personal grooming day. We polished our toenails a lovely shade of red and Guitarman got a hair trimmer so we cut Wee Laddie’s hair. Our hair styling skills need a bit of work, but I promise there were no bowls involved.

Look It Up

Had our signing class today. There was a dad there with his 3 kids (one baby and two kids older than Wee Laddie). I’ve seen them before at other playgroups & stuff. This father is so incredibly strict with his kids. So much so that it actually makes me sad for them. The little baby is all smiley and laughing and stuff… the older kids are very subdued and straight-faced. I can’t help wondering if they were like the baby when they were younger? It sounds like I’m being really judgmental, but this literally happened: Somebody said something to me and I answered. The man’s daughter (who is maybe like 5) said something related, and he told her: “Angel, be quiet. That is not your conversation to have.”

He also made her give back Wee Laddie’s stuffed animal even though I had just told her it was fine for her to hold it because Wee Laddie had decided to share it today. I just feel bad for those kids, having that many rules. Daddio better watch out… when they hit those teen years and decide to rebel? Hoooboy is he ever going to have his hands full then!

I’ve always been a big fan of the dictionary. When we were kids and we’d ask my parents what a word meant or how to spell it, they always said, “Go look it up in the dictionary.” (Complete madness for my dyslexic sister.) I used to always get sidetracked by spotting a word as I flipped through pages, or when one word would make me think of another word. You know, like people do nowadays with surfing the Internet. Well, you know what’s even better than a dictionary? A two-language dictionary. I think if I’m ever stuck on a desert island with just one book, I’d want it to be that. Learn enough words and you can make up your own fantastic stories.

On the homefront, Bob the builder next door is now building a brick grill. I’m in hell.

Contract Renewal

Got official word today that Raytheon has won the contract for this job that Guitarman’s doing, which means that we’re not done here at the end of October.

However, we’ve decided that we’re not going to stay here long-term. The work situation is really not good for Guitarman. In order to get our relocation back to the US paid for, he’ll need to complete a full year, so we’ll stay ‘til at least mid-December. After that, it just depends on when he can get a job back stateside. We hope to return to Colorado, but will go elsewhere if we have to.

Now if we absolutely LOVED Germany, he’d go look for another job. I could see myself staying here longer, but Guitarman can’t see himself staying here. There are too many of those little things that he misses. I miss the big things (friends & family), which is somehow easier to deal with… I think because I expected to miss them terribly. (I think that’ll make sense to anyone who has spent enough time far away from home. I hope so, anyway.) I miss some of the little things, too, but there are usually ways around them.

Tonight was my first off-site German class. Just me and 2 others showed up. Our instructor said she’d heard that our asylum-seeker friends (I’m sorry to refer to them that way, but it’s partly explanation) are apparently uncomfortable that some of us are paying and they’re not. So I sent an email saying that we really hoped they’d come and that it wasn’t about the money at all, it’s that we had such a good, fun learning vibe going in the classroom and we’d like to continue that way. I hope they come next time.

Just Plain Fat

I skipped the exercise class today (having trouble getting excited about the power walking… and I’ve been having a bit of trouble with my foot), so we didn’t go onto base ‘til lunchtime. Had a good long nap, about 2.5 hours. :)

Today Wee Laddie was whining around about something he wanted. I said, “Oh, would you like the cup?” I prompted him, “Yes, please. “ He whined that, too. I said, “Can you just say, ‘Yes, please’ without whining?” He replied, “Yes please without whining.” It reminded me of this story my dad used to tell about his friend “Fat Eddie.” He got tired of being called Fat Eddie, as you might imagine, so he asked his friends, “Why don’t you call me just plain Eddie?” They started calling him “Just Plain Fat.”

Guitarman and I were talking about the kids we see playing in neighborhood, often unsupervised, like we did back in the ‘70s. But the Bavarians drive insanely fast. We live on a dead-end street and people still come barrelling up & down it… I have, in fact, considered calling Deutsche Post (the post office) to complain about their drivers, who go up to the end of the street and then fly back to the front of our house *backwards* to turn around in the little parking area across from us. I just really don’t understand how Bavarians can drive like they do and then let their children (and we’re talking about *young* kids, like at least as young as 4… maybe even 3) play in the streets. It’s nuts.

Made my best solo-grilled dinner yet: cheeseburgers, corn (which everyone wolfed down), frozen fries and pineapple for dessert. I didn’t burn a single thing. (And it should be noted that I’m not a charred-burger kind of gal… I like my burgers medium rare.)

Bowling Ellie

Did the usual Sunday stuff. Wee Laddie didn’t want to take his nap. We were headed home from base just before the “ideal” naptime, so I thought he’d drop off if I just drove around a little extra. Ha. Shows ya how much I know. Kiddo was wide friggin’ awake the whole time, and we drove around for about an hour. Took the back way from where the Parsberg autobahn exit is (which I often do if he’s looking sleepy… just gives us about 5 extra minutes on the drive home) and then headed over to Velburg. Drove around the stadtmitte there and then worked our way back over here.

When we got home I bounced him on the yoga ball and then we lay down and he finally went to sleep. I stayed and napped, too, as he wasn’t too convincingly asleep. He lasted there about 1.5 hrs, so that’s pretty good. (He always naps longer if I stay.)

After Guitarman got home we decided to go to the bowling alley for lunch. On the way there, Wee Laddie was talking about Ellie (Grandma’s dog) and saying, “Bowling Ellie.” Now I’m pretty sure he understands that those are not the same thing (we’ve been to the bowling alley many times before) but then he was asking, “Grandma go?” (He still asks questions without the w-words… so that translates to, “Where did Grandma go?”) Since Grandma-Nana was just here, I wasn’t completely sure which one he was talking about, so we answered about both. It’s impossible to know how much of all of this he really understands.

Today we finally went to Riedenburg all together. It was very crowded and we realized they were having a little Renaissance Fair there. They called it a “mittelalterfest” or something like that. It was different than the one I’m used to (there’s a huge one in Larkspur, Colorado every summer, for those of you who don’t know), but interesting. I think that kind of thing appeals more to me than it does to Guitarman, but we had a leisurely walk around it. Then we took a footpath to the altstadt (old town) and then back to the car.

Grilled again at home. It’ll be yummy once I work out the hotspots on the grill and cooking times for different foods. Tonight I pretty much charred everything. Guitarman didn’t even complain about the piece of red pepper that he said pretty much just disappeared when he put it into his mouth (I only know this ‘cause I asked, “Oh, so you ate the really burnt one? I meant to warn you.”), so kudos to him for that. ‘Course he doesn’t want to cook it himself, so he keeps his mouth shut. Smart man. ;)

Battling Clean-Up

Guitarman had to work today. The people in his group split up the time to be “on shift,” and this is the first weekend he’s had to work, not counting the week+ in Schweinfurt. Largely because it’s taken this long for him to be able to handle things on his own. (This is what happens when you stick a software engineer in a system administrator position… software and hardware are so not the same.)

I had the TV on too much today (I rarely do that) but Wee Laddie had a good nap… right around 2 hours.

Guitarman came home, we all took showers (showers seem luxurious to me at times, and I resent them at times—they seem like such a waste of time). Then we had a lazy afternoon. Went to the food court on base for Burger King/Anthony’s Pizza dinner.

Wee Laddie’s bed time is usually a family affair… we all read together, and then one of us stays in the bed ‘til he falls asleep (which sometimes takes a while). Tonight when he wouldn’t put his toys away, I said that if he didn’t, I wasn’t going to come up for reading time. So not only did I not go up for reading time, but his cars, trains, bugs and toy basket were all taken away for tomorrow ‘cause he wouldn’t put them away. He was upset about me not coming up, but not enough to put the toys away. This method does not seem to be working very well… I’m not sure what else to do. He is so friggin’ stubborn. (Like his mama, you say? Pffft. Whatever.)

Dere’s a Bug

This morning Wee Laddie said to me, “Need piece of paper. Dere’s a bug downstairs." (Then, correcting himself, 'cause we were already downstairs), "Dere’s a bug by door,” and when I went to help, “Dere’s da bug Wee Laddie was talking about.” Wow.

Went to our Little Troopers playgroup today. Wee Laddie did a great job of sharing and played very well with the other kids. He usually does well, but it seemed especially impressive today. No little squabbles over a particular toy, no time-outs for hitting or not apologizing… just smooth sailing.

Unfortunately, the rest of the day was pretty rough as discipline goes. I don’t even want to think about it long enough to write it all out, but there was more than one time-out and I really just wanted to smack that adorable child of mine (who was probably just out of control from not napping—despite 2 separate 1-hour attempts by me to get him down). I hate days like this. We’ve always struggled a lot on the sleep front… naps in particular. If he weren’t so cranky and on edge without a nap, I would have given up long ago.

I grilled chicken & veggies for dinner… this was maybe the first time I’ve ever done a full dinner like that on the grill all by myself. It was decent, but I need to work on the timing. It certainly wasn’t as yummy as the dinners Aunt Kaffee and I produced while she was here. Harumph.

There Are Toys in Toymarkt

Today, after Kids’ Club, lunch and nap, we managed to have time to go to the toy store in Neumarkt (our closest big-ish town) that I’ve been wanting to check out. It’s the best toy store I’ve seen so far (the one in Schweinfurt was pretty good, too)… loads of stuff that Wee Laddie’s interested in, and it actually has a bit of artsy stuff, too. I took a back road there (GPS route) this time instead of the autobahn. Aside from getting stuck behind a semi nearly the whole way, it seemed like it’d be shorter than the autobahn route. We made it home in like 25 minutes.

Wee Laddie liked the toy store a lot. I know… DUH. He wasn’t too interested in the craft stuff, but was very excited about a ride-on tractor. I had to convince him that his motorcycle and bicycle were surely enough. When I tried to round him up to go he didn’t throw a fit or anything, just said, “I’m looking at toys.” We got a “Cars” car (the Leak Less one), soap bubbles and a Play-Doh set (this kid friggin’ loves that stuff). We actually bought the one Play-doh set they had at the store.

11 people in my social circle (counting both here and back home) are pregnant, one with twins. And there’s one who just had a baby maybe 6 weeks ago… and one more a few months ago. Meanwhile, I got my period 4 days early. Not that any of you wanted to know that, but whatever. (And no, we’re not trying yet. It just still pisses me off.)