The Muslins

Wee Laddie fell out of bed in the middle of the night last night. Poor little pumpkin. Once again, I miss carpeting. You know what else sucks about laminate floors? They are dead slippery. I think that half my fear of the Stairway from Hell stems from the fact that the steps are all so slippery. Guitarman and I have both slipped on the stairs here (though I don’t think he’s actually fallen so far, unlike his graceful wife). I think if we were going to stay here, we just might leave the gates on the steps until Wee Laddie is, I don’t know, 9 maybe.

I spotted this on TV recently and it really surprised me. I hadn’t the faintest idea that fabrics were so politically minded… and so willing to take what seems like a potentially controversial stance.

Cars Everywhere

Had the yummy hotel breakfast this morning. The Germans sure know how to do a good breakfast. We had an astounding one at a 5-star hotel in Berlin several years ago. This wasn’t on that level, but it was quite good. There were pancakes, waffles, eggs (scrambled and hard boiled), croissants, assorted breads, cold meats, bacon, sausage, potatoes, cereal, yogurt, jam, fruit, vegetables, cheese… I’m not sure I covered everything, but that’s the gist. I love a good German hotel breakfast. Yum.

Then we headed over to the Hauptbahnhof to find the store were the Js tour departs from tomorrow. They leave early in the morning and wanted to make sure they could find it. While Guitarman helped the adult Js find the store, Wee Laddie, Jessica (the little J) and I watched trains for a bit. I thought it’d be more interesting for Wee Laddie than it was… turned out we only got to see one train come in and one leave.

We went to the Olympiazentrum again (we’d gone there with Grandma-Nana and Aunt Kaffee). This time we went into the BMW Museum which was small but pretty cool. You could get up really close to most of the cars and look right in the windows and stuff. And they’re BMWs, so it was a lot of really beautiful cars.



When we went to the main Olympiazentrum part, we went up in the Olympia Turn, which is this very high tower. From there you have a pretty amazing view of the city and a really neat view of the Olympic stuff. It was quite windy at the top.







We had lunch at the café in the park area and then Guitarman, Wee Laddie and I headed home. Wee Laddie was starting to hit the wall, attitude-wise, so we figured we’d better get going before things turned ugly. We did squeeze in a little play time first.



Wee Laddie fell asleep pretty quickly but only slept for 50 minutes. He woke crying… not sure if he had a nightmare or what. We had some food at an autohof on the way, and more food at home. I’m exhausted. So tired that all I want to do is sit on the sofa.

Glockenspiel

München after breakfast & leisurely getting ready. Js took the train, we went down later to meet them since we can’t all fit into one of our cars. Just a 40-minute nap for Wee Laddie in the car. The hotel we’re staying at is in a much busier area than last time, right by Hauptbahnhof (main train station) & a gambling area.

We were going to meet the Js at Marienplatz since it’s pretty central to a bunch of sightseeing. We got there and didn’t see them (of course… it was packed) so we walked around for a bit. Then Guitarman called them and we planned to all meet in the plaza by the Glockenspiel (which we all agree is vastly overrated as a tourist attraction). We walked back down there and waited for a while. It was pretty hot so we found a shady spot, but then I was worried they wouldn’t see us so Guitarman called them again. Turns out they weren’t even there yet. Guitarman didn’t discuss timing with them at any point, so I’m not sure they realized we were just there waiting for them. Wee Laddie wasn’t too happy about being stuck in the stroller so we let him walk around just a little. (It was very crowded there.) We finally got sick of waiting and went to find them. They were hopelessly lost… about 1 block from the Glockenspiel.

We peeked into the Hoffbrau Haus again, only this time we went all the way in and had a look at the beer garden.



Went and had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and then thought we'd check out the Englischer Garten. It's a very nice, enormous park. It was good to get some time for Wee Laddie to have his feet in the grass after all of the city walking. We found the Chinesischer Turm, where there's another famous beer garden. We walked for quite a while, but only covered a very small portion of the park.

Regensburg II

Guitarman took the Js to Regensburg again. It’s a pretty good-sized city, so there is lots to see there. Wee Laddie and I stayed home to simplify things a bit for them.

The hot water was out from everyone’s showers. It seemed to take a surprisingly long time for the water to get hot again. I don’t know how it works here. We have one of those whole-house control systems… two thermostats downstairs control the heat & water for the house. One monitors upstairs and the other downstairs. We have radiant heat throughout and heated floors on the main floor… and the hot water is set to off during most of the day, after our typical shower time and up until close to dinnertime. It typically works out fine and if I take a shower at a weird time I just go push an override button that gives us one cycle of hot water. Today it didn’t work so well and got our schedule kind of thrown off.

We ended up having a later lunch than I’d hoped and then nap got started a bit late. (Well, late for an at-home day, not as late as it sometimes ends up.) We pretty much ran out of time to do much other than dinner. It doesn’t help that Wee Laddie eats a very leisurely lunch… I believe it was 90 minutes today.

Regensburg I

Wee Laddie opted to skip Kids’ Club so he could go to Regensburg with the Js (“my friends,” he calls them). Guitarman and I talked about taking a boat trip to Valhalla and walking around there. By the time we’d all showered and eaten, we got there about 11am. We stopped for pretzels and walked across the Old Stone Bridge and over to the boat tour place. The Valhalla tour wasn’t ‘til 2pm, so that counted out me & Wee Laddie, since we were still planning to include a nap in our day. (We had to take both cars since we won’t all fit in either one.) So we saw another tour that started in about 30 minutes so we took that one. It was a 50-minute ride on the Donau (Danube). The water was too high for them to take the usual route, so we went the opposite way. I think that was a mistake. Not to say that it was awful or anything, but rather than seeing the buildings in the city of Regensburg we were looking at trees, mostly. There was like one building of note that we went past (of course I’ve already forgotten what it is)



and a village that we could see but didn’t pass, and most of the rest of the audio portion was general info about Regensburg’s history. A little disappointing except for the beach club, which I found rather amusing.



Ate lunch at a fairly traditional German restaurant, and managed mostly in German as our waitress didn’t speak much English. The Js are pretty good sports about trying the language. That’s a good thing, as they’ll be on their own in München and Salzburg for 5-6 days.

After lunch, Wee Laddie and I headed home for nap while everyone else went off to see more of Regensburg. My little guy fell asleep on the way home and it somehow fit into the “sure, I’ll go back to sleep” window, so all was good at home. He slept almost 2 hours… by then everyone else was home. I heard Wee Laddie calling, “Mommy!” so I went to check on him and as soon as I opened the door he came running over saying, “I’m all done sleeping!” as chipper as can be. I love that. Good, long nap for a then well-rested, happy child. That is pretty close to utter bliss for me. And I got a little time to check email & stuff, so that’s the topping.

A playgroup friend from back home just had her 2nd baby, so our pal Avi is now officially a big brother! :)

The Usual Tour

We expected that the Js would be pretty jetlagged, so we didn’t plan to take them anywhere today. They wanted to go check out the base, so I crammed them all into my car when we went in for signing class. I was totally late for signing class, so I stopped on the way to try to call. But call who? Stacy is on vacation and it turns out that all the ACS numbers I have are for people who have left. I called one of the number anyway and I think got the person who’s doing the Little Troopers group now (and whose name I’ve already forgotten) and she gave me a cell number for Tina, the new New Parent Support person. That whole exchange was pretty amusing, as the cell phone reception between our house and base is horrible… I kept saying, “Ok, I only got like 5 digits… 08151…” and she’d laugh and say, “No, it’s 0478… 1… 7…” It must’ve taken about 6 tries before I got a reasonable number of digits. And then I got no answer.

Since they weren’t on the visitor list, we had to go through the closer gate and get out of the car so I could sign them in. Just as we got there, Kelly called to ask where I was. I told her what was going on and that I’d tried to call Tina and would be there ASAP. (One good thing about always showing up is that people cut you some slack at times like this.) Then I dropped my cell phone and PDA, pretty much totalling the PDA. It’s odd to me that Guitarman used to drop his cell phone daily (literally) and he rarely had any problems with one. I dropped mine like 3x ever and happened to drop it on the antenna while open and it’s history. I drop the PDA (this may have been the only time ever) and it’s toast. Seems like some sort of statistical anomaly going on there. But thankfully, I hadn’t dropped the PDA until after I’d made that phone call.

The Js went to the gym and the PX and I went to sign class and apologized profusely (I was about 20 minutes late by then). Nobody seemed too annoyed with me… whew! Turns out the cell phone I called is Tina’s work one and she doesn’t carry it with her. She gave me her numbers, so we’re all caught up now.

Then we all went to lunch at the big mess hall.

After lunch I took the Js home and Wee Laddie and I took a nap. The Js napped a little and then Mr. and Mrs. J went to check out the castle. There wasn’t time for a tour but they found it and walked around it a bit.

Here Come the Js

We ended up going swimming despite Wee Laddie’s lack of nap yesterday… but only because he settled down very quickly last night (a bit early) and got a good night’s sleep. Thank goodness. The German schoolkids go on vacation next week, so these places will probably be too crowded to bother with for the next 7 or so weeks.

Wee Laddie and Kaitlyn had a wonderful time! I had Wee Laddie in the big pool and was trying to work with him about putting his face in (he did well even though it’s been a while) and this older German woman came over and talked to me. The first comment or two, I just sort of smiled… but she kept talking, so I had to tell her that I don’t understand much German. We muddled through a little bit of a conversation, but it wasn’t much. She was very sweet. I don’t know if Bavarians are only this friendly when there are children involved, but I’ve been very lucky on that front. (Touch wood.)

After we were done swimming we decided to have some lunch. After paying €15 at Jura Zoo for lunch, I’d decided to pack a lunch. And since Kelly drove both times, I packed one for them, too. Unlike in the US, we were actually able to just buy a couple of beverages and then eat our own food at the café in the pool area. They didn’t even give us a look.

Here are a couple of photos that Kelly emailed me:





The Js (Guitarman’s sister and her family) arrived sometime after 6pm. Guitarman went to pick them up and I didn’t bother trying to put Wee Laddie down for bed as I knew he’d pop out of bed once he heard the garage door. (We shouldn’t have told him when they were coming, I suppose, but I don’t like to catch him totally off-guard.) He was seriously jazzed about having visitors, of course, and worked his Wee Laddie charm on them. Did it work? But of course. And they brought him some “Cars” toys, so they charmed him as well.

Go Away, Naps!

I hate naptime. Hate it, despise it, wish it would get the hell out of my life. My darling son was nearly asleep when we got home today. So tired, in fact, that he wanted me to carry him into the house. We went straight upstairs and lay on the bed (him on top of me, while I was semi-sitting) and I sang him a song. He moved to lie on his own pillow and then his head pops up. Ugh. Wide friggin’ awake. How the hell did that happen? I’m apparently only singing myself to sleep. This behavior usually means he’s got to poop, but despite the fact that it usually only takes him about 10 seconds to do that, it’s the getting him to actually do it that is the chore. He sat on the potty, got a new diaper, made Mommy come unglued, had a few minutes to himself while Mommy gathered herself, bounced on the yoga ball, snuggled on the bed. Nothing. No sleep, no poop. I told him to have quiet time and left again. Hopefully 10 minutes or so will produce something that will allow me to get him to sleep.

And I want to take him swimming tomorrow morning (to wear him out so he’ll nap well before Aunt Lisa & her lot get here). But if he doesn’t nap today, I’m not so sure I’ll be up for that tomorrow. That puts us at a fairly good-sized risk for some seriously whiny, hyper behavior… not such a good thing at the pool. Or any public place, for that matter.

Wee Laddie’s legs were hurting today… the only thing I can think of to blame it on is growing pains. He hasn’t done anything unusually crazy or anything recently. I sure hope that’s all it is and that it goes away quickly!

Guitarman worked 2-10, so no late-day break from my crappy mom-day.

Wall Woes

The mess hall was on the semi-early schedule… we made it but not with much time to spare. And I had to postpone my shower (not an uncommon occurrence around here). We came home, played, had a snack and took a nap (2 hrs 45 min!), then up again & took my shower.

Just to keep things really interesting we went to the PXtra to look for screws to put up some shelves that I bought months ago. No luck. I don’t know if all the military housing (on base or in the towns) is constructed differently than our German house or what. Our house is built from these cinder block shaped things that are made out of some orange material… not sure if it’s a stone composite or brick-type material or what, which is then covered in plaster. So in order to hang anything on the walls, you either have to use a tiny nail (and very carefully) or drill into the wall with a masonry bit and use a special anchor. But for some mysterious reason, they don’t sell any of these anchors at the PXtra. All they have are drywall anchors. I just don’t get it.

I do know that some of the people who live in military housing have 110-volt power, but I’m not sure if it’s some of each or if it’s all 110. A lot of the appliances they sell at the PX are for 110-volt systems, but they also sell some 220-volt stuff and some dual-voltage stuff as well. Seems weird that the Pxtra doesn’t also carry products for both types of construction.

Since we were on base then, we went to the mess hall for dinner, too. Despite how often we eat there, it was actually the first dinner we’ve had there. It was pretty good. Not much different than lunch.

Taked to some friends of ours… sounds like they’re going to come for a visit! I am so excited that some more fun visitors are coming, and they’ve got a kid Wee Laddie’s age & everything. It’ll be such fun!

MöbelHOT

Back to BK this morning for breakfast. Wee Laddie and I tried to make it to the mess hall, but just couldn’t pull it off. Guitarman had to work today, so he joined us for just a short time. After that we headed off to Neumarkt to get more shelves for the basement… then, of course, to Vedes for “Cars” cars. Wasn’t Wee Laddie appropriately dressed in his new get-up from Roo and her ‘rents?



Home for lunch, then nap.

Went to the Möbelhof to look at rocking chairs and outdoor umbrellas. We’d originally planned to eat dinner there because, like IKEA, they have a reasonably-priced, pretty tasty menu in their cafeteria. But the cafeteria seemed closed… perhaps because there didn’t seem to be any air conditioning in the store. Seriously. None, In a large furniture store. In July. Back home you go to places like that when it gets too hot in your house, right? Ugh, it was crazy. And we didn’t want to sit on the sweltering patio overlooking their parking lot and eat sausages. So we went to the McCafe. The have the “good” chicken strips there right now, so that’s a plus. Quick stop at the grocery store, then home for the night.

Labor-free in Laaber

We had lunch with a very pregnant Christina G (due any minute). We tried a different restaurant in Laaber this time… Greek. I’m not that familiar with “real” Greek dishes but I usually like everything without eggplant. I don’t know if the Greeks are that into pork or if the menu’s been Germanified, but I had a grilled, kebob kind of dish that had pork and rice. Wee Laddie ate some rice, but no pork. It was quite good, but definitely pork… fatty-tasting. The proprietor of the restaurant came over and asked something about Wee Laddie but I had no clue what he was saying. I just looked at Christina, hoping she’d help. She did, of course. He was offering Wee Laddie some ice cream. I said it was okay and he brought out the cutest little ice cream bar… it was actually an appropriate size for Wee Laddie to eat (well, relatively speaking, anyway). And he was thrilled.

I provided just a tiny bit of reassurance for Christina that babies are neither boring nor horrible (some people have been filling her head with nonsense)… she seemed relieved when I told her that it actually is fun. It’ll be fun to see her as a mama next time we see her!

Headed home for a late start to our nap… I had to wake Wee Laddie for our dinner & movie plan. We went to the Burger King and the food court was completely packed. They have a photographer there this weekend and they were using 1/4 of the food court as a studio. And it was super-busy foodwise, ‘cause there were lots of kids there for pictures and/or the movie. The Burger King people were insanely slow, and one of them actually left mid-shift because she’d had enough. We barely made it to the movie on time, but we did. We watched Pixar’s new “Ratatouille.” I thought it was cute. Not as funny and kid-friendly as most of their movies, but still pretty good.

…and He’s Not Sick. Or Is He?

Wee Laddie was fever-free this morning (that’s so weird), but he only ate half of his waffle, which is very much not normal. So I thought it best to skip Kids’ Club. I already feel bad enough about potentially exposing kids to something yesterday at sign class.

My least favorite words these days, often heard from Wee Laddie 30 minutes or more into the nap process: “I’m just awake.” The good news: these words are usually followed by a nap. The bad news: Said nap usually doesn’t occur for at least another 20 minutes. Sometimes less if my back holds up and I can bounce him on the yoga ball long enough. (Try it yourself: Hold a 25-lb bag of dog food or something just above your lap and see how long you can bounce.)

He’s Sick, He’s Not Sick…

Another new family in sign class today. They’ve been in Germany for a while, but just came to Hohenfels on Friday. I hope they come back. Lori hasn’t been there for 2 classes now… I wonder if those twins arrived. I was thinking they were due in August, so maybe. Or maybe she’s on bedrest or something. Or vacation, I suppose. We have one more class for this month, then I think I might skip August… then we can start back up in September and people will be going back onto their regular schedules and maybe we’ll have better attendance.

Wee Laddie felt really hot to me this morning, but not everywhere. And it’s been really hot, and he’s got his daddy’s heater thing going. So I didn’t really think much of it and we went to sign class where he was running around like a maniac as usual. At lunch he was at the “hurry and eat to get ice cream” part of our meal and sort of puked, but then seemed perfectly fine right after. So I don’t know if he’d just overstuffed his mouth & triggered the gag reflex or what.

Got a very fun package today from Wee Laddie’s good friend Roo and her folks, including a wedding gift for me & Guitarman. (Boy, that felt weird… the “wedding” was such a non-event.) Anyway, Wee Laddie got some fabulous “Cars” gear, so we let him eat some car-shaped animal crackers and play with these car popper toys before dragging his borderline sick self off to bed.



And he felt feverish again, so we gave him some Tylenol to make sure he could sleep.

Goatmania

Today we went with Kaitlyn and her mom Kelly to go check out the Jura Zoo over in Neumarkt. It was more like the wildparks, except that it wasn’t free. They had a pretty odd assortment of animals in zoo terms: chickens, flamingoes, goats, sheep, koi, monkeys, owls, rabbits, turtles, guinea pigs… that’s not all of them, but sort of illustrates the “odd assortment” idea. It was a fun outing, but I’m pretty sure we won’t be back. It was €6 for me and Wee Laddie to get in, and then lunch was another €15 and I didn’t even order a meal for Wee Laddie! I just looked at the Tiergarten Nürnberg web site and admission there would’ve been €7.50 for the 2 of us (he’s still free) and that’s a full-on regular zoo! It’s farther away, but it’s a really nice zoo.

The goats were in a petting zoo kind of pen with a sign saying “Eingang” (entrance) on it and we’d bought some goat food, so we went in. Wow, was that an error in judgment. So was me letting Wee Laddie walk in on his own instead of carrying him. First, one of the goats got out into the 2nd penned-in area, so we were trying to herd her back into the main pen. (It was just the 4 of us out there, with a dozen or so goats.) While we were working on that, all the rest of the goats pushed their way out, too. So now, pretty much all the goats are in the 2nd area with my son, and Kelly, Kaitlyn and I were all in the big pen. I have to say, I’m incredibly impressed with how well Wee Laddie handled himself. I was trying to muscle my way past the goats to get to him w/o letting the rest of them out. Both fortunately and unfortunately, Wee Laddie was carrying one of the bags of food. Fortunately, because he could hold it out and the goats went after it and not him. Unfortunately, because they might have left him alone completely if he hadn’t had it. So he’s in the pen by himself with all the goats going, “Uhhhhhh… goats eating Wee Laddie!” I just kept telling him he was okay and that the goats just wanted the food. And it wasn’t that long ‘til I got to him, but it feels so long when it’s your baby you’re worrying about, you know? He did great, though… didn’t even cry. And once I was holding him, he was even throwing food to the goats. What a trouper!

Thankfully, we’d bought 4 bags of the food, as I’m not sure how we would have gotten out of there otherwise! I put Wee Laddie over the fence so he could watch safely from outside. We squirmed our way into the 2nd pen part, and kept tossing the food back in the main pen and the goats finally all went. Yikes. I’m sure it’s fine if there are loads of visitors or whatever, but we didn’t fare so well being outnumbered 3:1.

After all of that madness, we were ready for some lunch. The food was good but seemed pricey to me. The menu was interesting, in that most of it consisted of schnitzel prepared with different things on top. Wee Laddie and I had one with pear and gorgonzola. They had a cordon bleu one that I considered. Kelly’s had some mushroom sauce and cheese on it. Wee Laddie wouldn’t really eat any meat and I had to really cajole him into trying some pear but he liked it once he tried it. It was good, just maybe not 15 euro good.

There were maybe 20 or so tables in the food area… about 17 of them empty. A couple (who were somehow connected to the people who run/own the place) came and sat at the table right next to us. I thought that was a little odd, but whatever. And then, this being Germany and all, they started smoking. Hey, let’s go sit by the toddlers and have a smoke. Come on.

On the way home Kaitlyn was very tired and was crying. Wee Laddie was looking over at her saying, “Awwww… it’s okay.” So sweet. And she fell asleep on the way. Wee Laddie finally fell asleep once we were back in my car. But despite skipping nap yesterday and such a busy day today, he only napped 1.5 hours.

We picked up frozen pizzas for dinner… first time we’ve done that here. Sure won’t be the last, though. The pizzas were like 2 euro each and we had 2 of them total. 4 euro, dinner for 3, no prep time other than preheating the stove and opening the pizzas? That is a beautiful thing.

Hot, Hot, Hot

Hot again. Ugh. Saw Brenda (the one who originally set up the signing & music class with me) at the mess hall, they PCS (move away) on Monday. I thought they’d be totally psyched about Hawaii again (it’s where their home is) but she said it was a year early, so they didn’t get to do everything here that they wanted to. That may be the first time I’ve ever seen her come across as not 100% positive/enthused about something.

Went to get gas, mail a letter and swing by the ATM, then home. Wee Laddie was still wide awake as we got near home so we ran into the Norma store to get an air mattress (one of their super-discount items this week). I don’t know if it was that stop or the heat or what… but no nap from Wee Laddie.

Guitarman got home early so he witnessed my mid-nap-frustration grumpiness in all its glory. Oh well, I suppose it’s good for him to see that staying home with a little one is not all playing and snuggles. I finally gave up and let Wee Laddie come out of the bedroom, even though he didn’t even really get in a significant “quiet time.”

Went to Burger King for dinner (‘cause they have a/c) then to the PX for a little bit. Guitarman tucked Wee Laddie in was back downstairs by 9pm. Aargh. Apparently, battling your mama all afternoon is tiring work.

Cousin Brad was on Ghost Whisperer on AFN tonight. Since it’s so far behind the regular schedule I have no idea when it aired in the US…it’s an episode called “Dead to Rights.” Guitarman saw just a bit of it, but said Brad played the dead guy so it was a good part. (One of the few shows where being the dead guy means a big part.)

French Omelet

Burger King now doesn’t open ‘til 11 on Sundays, so there goes our on-base backup breakfast. We went to McD’s. It’s so annoying when people jack with a good routine, but McD’s was okay. And probably a little healthier ‘cause they don’t have the hash browns. “Brash browns,” Wee Laddie calls ‘em.

They call it an “omelet” on base when there are lots of people here from lots of different countries for training. It’s my favorite time here, because it feels very international and it feels like we, as Americans, are not the hated ones. No matter how much we all may disagree with the way our country handles foreign policy (or not), it’s nice to feel like we have some support, even if it comes from people who may not agree with the way their own country handles foreign policy. But it gives me a little kind of “world peace could maybe work” kind of jab.

It’s also fun to see the different uniforms from different countries. They all have their own camouflage designs. Who knew? There’s one country (I want to say Belgium) that has camouflage with purple, teal and like a rusty yellow. I so need to get a photo of it. I said to Guitarman, “Where are they trying to blend in with those colors?” He said, “Uh… South beach?” The French have, hands down, the worst hats. They are berets (shocking, I know), but they are huge. I was going to say that they look like black Frisbees, but Frisbees aren’t big enough. They look like black pizzas on their heads… and the funniest thing is if you see a group of like 20 of them walking down the street.

Insanely hot again. I know, it’s like 100 degrees back home and only 93 or so here, but it feels so much worse here. I don’t know if it’s the humidity or the lack of good air conditioners, but I don’t even want to leave the house. Except that it’s too hot in the house, too.

Mittendorf

Went for our mess hall breakfast, but we got stopped at the 2nd gate for runners (a race of some kind). There was a guy who told me I’d have to wait for the runners to go by. I incorrectly assumed he meant the handful that were coming up the road just then. Nope, he meant all of them. As I watched runner after runner coming up the road way off in the distance, I finally asked how we’d know when they’d all gone by and he said an orange ambulance will be behind the last one. So I asked if we should turn around & come in at the other gate, but he said that’s where they were running TO, so that’d be closed as well. A few minutes later, a captain got out of his car and was very vocal about this being badly planned and he had to get to work and they needed to find a way to get us all on the road again. (We had been sitting there for probably 10 minutes by this point.) They didn’t bite immediately, but they let us get moving within 5 minutes of that.

Turns out the mess hall was on way early breakfast (6-8:30), so we’d have missed it anyway. So off to BK we went, only to see about 50 soldiers out in front of the food court/PX. I was just sure the line was going to be insane. There were about 10 soldiers in front of us in the line, but they all ended up just getting beverages, so we were through very quickly. After breakfast, we played at one of the playgrounds for a little while, and then headed home for nap.



Miracle of miracles, Wee Laddie fell asleep in the car with just a short out-of-the-way jaunt to lengthen the drive. (I love it when that actually works.) And he had an almost-2-hour nap and was still back up by 2pm. So we had a late lunch and headed off to Nittendorf (Mittendorf, according to Wee Laddie), a town a few autobahn exits from here, for their Bürgerfest. It was small and interesting… parts of it were like a flea market. But they had two stage areas… one seemed to feature more traditional entertainment, the other had different groups of young performers including some dancers (like whatever they do now instead of breakdancing) and a garage band that was pretty decent.

It was awfully hot, so we spent much of our time hopping from one shady spot to the next. We got ice cream cones and gave Wee Laddie a chance to make some bubbles at a play area set up for the kids. Wandered around a bit and decided to get dinner while we were there, rather than rushing home only to have to make something. My lazy side loves that my husband likes to eat out so often. So we had baguettes that I managed to order mostly in German and headed home just in time for Wee Laddie’s bedtime.

Talking Rocks

I still find the language acquisition thing so incredibly fascinating. I wish I were better at keeping track of stuff and could chart like what changes come when, and and in what order. Today, Wee Laddie pushed on the footrest to our old glider (no more glider, but we still have the footrest… hopefully it’ll come in handy when we eventually choose a replacement rocker) and as it started to move he told me, “Look, it’s rocking by him all self.”

Isn’t that fantastic? So close, but it still has the charming toddler spin. I love it.

My Shy Guy (shyeah, right)

Wee Laddie slept in this morning ‘til 8:55am (see, he still needs those darned naps!). We had Kids’ Club (getting there very late, of course) but Wee Laddie was very shy there at first. There were some new kids there and he didn’t see Kaitlyn so he said to me, “Kaitlyn not here,” and then acted all shy for a while. He did warm up after a bit, of course. He’s not one to stand on the sidelines for long.

Good nap, though I had to drive around for an extra 25 minutes before he fell asleep. Then I accidentally took the wrong roundabout exit (toward Regensburg) and was so afraid that by the time I’d gotten us back home, he’d wake up & not go back to sleep again. Like yesterday.

He woke up cheerful from his nap, we went downstairs and I did the Cars iron-ons. He really likes them. I made a big deal out of telling him that he had to wait ‘til at least Saturday to wear them, ‘cause they need to be washed first, but not for at least 24 hours. I didn’t want there to be a meltdown later over that.

Went to Burger King for dinner, then came home and watched a “Signing Time” episode. Guitarman tucked in tonight, and there was a bit of room swapping. We’ll have to stop that for while the Js (Guitarman’s sister and her family) are here, since cousin Jessica will probably be sleeping in Wee Laddie’s room.

No Poop, No Nap

Had a new family at signing class today… both parents showed up, which is fairly unusual. They’re planning to raise their baby trilingually. He’s only 3 months old now so a bit young for signing back just yet, but they seem to be planning to get involved in pretty much everything on alternating weeks. I always get excited about new people coming, but then they don’t come back. And I still don’t know why… we never hear back from anyone about it, except for those that show up.

No nap for Wee Laddie. If he doesn’t get all of his pooping done before naptime, the nap is a lost cause. Sometimes if I get frustrated enough to leave the room he’ll take care of it while I’m gone… but sometimes not. I remember hearing about this problem with Roo once and I didn’t put it together ‘til much later… I think because Wee Laddie has usually had a poop in the morning already. But he doesn’t always stop at one for the day, so I need to watch for that more, I guess.

Yeah, TMI. Whatever. (Those of you who have children understand why I would blog about my child’s poop.)

New Shoes

Today on AFN I heard an ad for a new project the military is doing to help the returning soldiers deal with PTSD and brain traumas. Great stuff… high time they do something significant to help those soldiers. But there was a quote from one guy talking about the “stigmatism” of mental health issues.

And on the topic of funny things, here’s something I saw in the paper a while back.



Heckuva deal for some kind of cute tennis shoes, no? Hm, wait a second, I’m not so sure I want to advertise that…

Oh, to Understand

This morning Wee Laddie wanted to watch my Yoga video. I told him I didn’t think it would be very interesting, since it’s just people stretching but he still wanted to. And sort of did. I’ve been talking about yoga so much that he’s all interested in it, too. Too bad there isn’t that class on base anymore. Since I actually busted out the video today, maybe I’ll get around to doing some yoga. It’s so hard to find time. I’m too hungry before breakfast, then you’re supposed to wait two hours. Well, that’s lunchtime for us, then comes nap. If there’s a fast enough start to nap, I might be able to work it in then. Otherwise, I’m just not sure when.

I got chided for taking a closed road today. Wee Laddie had finally fallen asleep & I was desperately trying not to miss the window where he’d go back to sleep after I carried him in from the car. In case you don’t know, Germans as a group are very rules-oriented (not that they follow them, but they get all bent out of shape if you don’t). so I was scolded even though there wasn’t actually any construction going on yet. For whatever reason it really upset me and I longed to be in a place where I understand everything.

Bowling alley for dinner tonight. Must stop going there. I really wanted Buffalo Wild Wings, but thought the bowling alley might work. Should’ve stuck to the frozen buffalo tenders we get at the commissary. Tonight the food didn’t take so long (I haven’t had the nerve to order a burger again there yet), but I ordered 1 large drink, 1 medium drink and one ice water. The cashier charged us for 2 large drinks and one medium. I really should have complained but I didn’t. And you don’t see the itemized receipt ‘til after they’ve trekked across the bowling alley to use the charge card thingy (not that it’s my fault they don’t have one at the food area, but you know). Don’t know why they don’t repeat the order back to you. I guess I partly don’t want to make a big stink lest they start spitting in our food or something. I mean if we had more options, I’d probably be a little more vocal about it. Or else we’d just stop going there.

But our (non-BK or –pizza) options on base are there or the sandwich shop, and I’m trying to avoid eating too much bread for my weight. And those low-carb wraps are crap. And Guitarman still isn’t psyched about the döner shops, much to my dismay.

More on Bavarian Drivers

There’s a street in our neighborhood that has a sign marking the end of the 30kph zone that we live in, just before you come to the main road through Parsberg. There are some little kids (maybe 6 or 7) who live right near there and are always playing outside and running across the street. Well, today I was driving by that spot and they were actually playing IN the street doing stuff with sidewalk chalk. This is a fairly narrow road (especially right in that spot)… one of those ones where you really have to hug the outside edge—and might even bump up onto the sidewalk—to pass another car. But these kids did not even get up, they just looked at me as I drove by. I swear if I spoke German I’d have yelled at them to get the hell out of the street before they got run over by some crazy-ass driver.

And as if to illustrate my thoughts on crazy-ass Bavarian drivers, on my way to the base (same trip as the above story), I got passed on a blind curve in the mountainy area by the base by some idiot going probably 80kph.

And now for some bubble love.

Gimme Some Sand

You know what I don’t get? Garages that don’t have automatic door openers. Really. What sense do they make? I honestly want to just leave the door open on ours all the time. If Wee Laddie falls asleep in the car, then I have to leave my car in the driveway ‘cause the door has an incredibly loud creak… so it sits in the sun and gets up to about 8 gazillion degrees inside. Or gets snowed on, or whatever. And if he doesn’t fall asleep, then I have to stop & get out to unlock the door before I can move the car in. It’s just stupid. And I think our cheapo landlord ought to just suck it up and get some stinkin’ openers. All of the options he’s had put in this house are crap, and it’s a pretty nice house in a slightly swanky neighborhood. And all of our neighbors seem to have automatic garage openers, Herr Frugal.

We made our regular jaunt up to Würzburg for some Taco Bell. If we don’t go for a few weeks, Wee Laddie starts asking about cheesy potatoes and we know it’s time. We met a few people at the playground and they were talking about having to decide whether to move to Schweinfurt or Hohenfels when the base at Würzburg closes, which is like sometime next year, I think. We told them that the community support in Hohenfels is really good, but that it’s veeeery small. Würzburg is a pretty decent-sized town... maybe as big as Nürnberg (if I weren’t already so far behind on this blog, I’d go look it up… but I’m just going to guess instead). Same for Schweinfurt. The actual town of Hohenfels has like 10 shops.

Wee Laddie spent close to an hour in the sandbox… the first outing for the sand truck we got him almost two months ago. He didn’t even look at the slide or anything ‘til we were leaving.

Just a Brief Whine

No nap for Wee Laddie today. I made him have quiet time in the bedroom for about 1:15 so I could get some time to myself. I was hoping he’d just fall asleep finally, but the no-nap thing also makes me super-pissy sometimes if I don’t get a bit of a break. I don’t like being super-pissy… and I’m sure Wee Laddie isn’t a big fan of it either.

Had to go to the commissary to get diapers, so we had Burger King dinner. Ugh. Really getting tired of that place.

Wanna See a Movie, Guys?

I heard that question about 200 times today, starting from when Wee Laddie first woke up. He was so jazzed. “Wanna go do that? Wanna do that today?” I have to say, toddler enthusiasm can be quite infectious.

We nearly had to skip the movie because the boy was not taking his nap. I’m sure part of it was the excitement, but I wasn’t about to keep him up late in a public place after a no-nap day. He finally went to sleep, but when he woke up he was crying about Burger King. I think he thought he hadn’t slept, so I had to reassure him that yes, we’d go to Burger King and yes, we were going to see the movie.

So he made it through the whole movie (Meet the Robinsons), but cried at the end. I think because of the let-down after being SO excited all day. He was so tired that he actually just snuggled up on me and sat there for a few minutes, but he was wide awake all the way home despite me having made sure he was changed into his pajamas and “sleep diaper.” I should have expected that.

Today when I got Wee Laddie dressed he told me, “I look like Grandma-Grandma.” Here he is:

Growing Like a Weed

We were going to go to the movie tonight “Meet the Robinsons” but it turns out it’s tomorrow. Wee Laddie was pretty psyched all day about the movie, so he was bummed that it wasn’t tonight. He took it pretty well, though. Good nap today: 2.5 hours. Yum.

Grilled some of the pre-fab chicken breasts and made pierogies. Wee Laddie loves pierogies. I should keep that in mind for those times when it seems like he hasn’t eaten a thing in days, as he’ll usually eat somewhere between 2 and 3 of them. Even with nothing on top but a little sprinkle of cheese.

Found out (online) that Wal-Mart has a competitor here called Metro. I can’t remember where, but I know that we drove past one of those ‘cause I commented on the name & asked what Guitarman thought it was. It was probably Regensburg… gonna have to find out so I can have a wander through it one day. I would love to be in a store where I stand a reasonable chance of finding the things that I am actually looking for. I’ve back-burnered several projects simply because I have no idea where to find anything. I can’t even find a little vinyl floor thingy for underneath my desk. Still. Weeks ago one of the grocery stores had one in its weekly assortment of weird crap that you don’t know where else to get… but by the time I got there in the evening, they were all gone.

So our neighbors across the street just had their landscaping done not too long ago. They started around May 26. Now they may have planted grass seeds and I didn’t notice. I kept thinking, “Oh, they must be getting the sod laid soon,” when all of a sudden this appears. In mid-summer. This definitely ain’t Colorado.

Stormy Weather

Grilled burgers tonight… I would’ve saved them for a little nod to the 4th tomorrow, but today was their last good day. Burgers so far, seem to be my best grill meal. Somehow, I manage to get the timing better when doing burgers, although I did char a couple of pieces of bread. Yup, burning the toast. I have found a great way to grill corn, though. I made a tomato-basil butter (no recipe, just add some tomato paste and dried basil to margarine/butter ‘til it smells yummy), put that on the corn and wrap the ears loosely in a big sheet of foil. Grill ‘til hot. It’s been very popular around here so far. I’ll have to try some variations: garlic-parmesan, cajun… maybe mustard-tarragon?

Wee Laddie was asking if we could put more stuff on the shelves downstairs. I had to remind him that a) we were all done with that part of the project and b) the shelves are pretty much full. I love that he wanted to help some more with that project, though. Perhaps he didn’t inherit my gene for starting but not finishing projects.

I get the impression that this has not been a typical summer here in Bavaria. We seem to be alternating between a few days where it’s 85-90°F and a few days where it’s overcast and 55-60°F (I find it curious that the Fahrenheit scale was developed by a German-Dutch scientist but they use Celcius over here. Given the European devotion to PAL video formats even in lieu of HD, it seems odd.) I’m not sure if it’s the humidity or what, but the hot days feel really, really hot. I know, everyone in Denver is going, “Bite me, it’s been 95° every day for a month.” And I don’t miss that. But it’s weird to me to be gasping from heat one day and wearing long sleeves the next. And I’m from Colorado, so weird weather is the norm.

Going All Martha in the Kitchen

Not that we do a Monday activity anymore now that I’ve wussed out on the power walking, but none of our activities are happening this week… it’s a leave week or something (well, and the holiday, too, obviously), so everybody’s off work.

Wee Laddie and I assembled the shelves we got at OBI the other day. I’ve really been wanting to get the cardboard boxes out of the kitchen. So we put them together and then started loading stuff up on them downstairs. Wee Laddie is an awesome helper for stuff like that. I had to keep him from loading up 4 or 5 cans in his arms at a time! We got rid of 3 of the 7 boxes… and cleared some stuff out of the crowded cabinets as well. I love having organized cabinets. Whatever, I’m a goob.

People always find it odd that I fold my dirty laundry. First off, I don’t fold it fold it, I just sort of sling it into a folded shape. Reason: it takes up less space in the laundry basket. And, in case of absolute desperation, you could actually pull something back out and wear it if you had to. The other thing people always find strange about me is that everything in my kitchen cabinets has an exact place. (And it bugs me a lot if things are not in the right places.) Well, food has more of a general place since you don’t always have the same quantity of cans of soup, say… but utensils, dishes, etc. have exact places. It seems anal to some (and that’s probably part of it), but the real reason I do that is so that I never have to waste time looking for things. That’s why I always put my keys in exactly the same place, too. I’m big on using shortcuts whereever I can find them, and the kitchen organization thing is a shortcut. And once you’re in the habit of putting things in their exact spots, it doesn’t take any extra time or thought to get them there either.

Ditto for my closet, which is organized by categories (short-sleeved shirts, 3/4-length shirts, long sleeves, etc.) and by color. Okay, so that’s one more thing that people find strange… but I’m telling you, it saves me so much time getting dressed. Most people are like, “Where’s my blue shirt?” and then they spend 10 minutes looking for it, right? Not me. I think, “Where’s my blue shirt?” Then I go to where it should be… it’s either there or not. If not, it’s dirty. End of story.

I take it back, I’m not a goob. I’m a home organization machine. (Ha. Don’t ask me how often I manage to get around to actually cleaning anything. You’ll never come over.)

Battle of the Bands

Here’s a fun photo for our friends, the Novaks, who have a dog by the same name as this product:


And this seemed silly, too:


Did our usual stuff… mess hall, home for nap, not much else. Had an early (and uneventful, for a change) dinner at the bowling alley. I don’t like to have dinner too early, as I’m always hungry later in the evening so we didn’t eat super-early, but early enough to beat any dinner crowd that might materialize. If you’re going to eat at the bowling alley here, that’s the thing you want to do. Once they start to get busy everything takes AGES (remember the 35-minute burger), and the service goes downhill very fast.

Guitarman has found a new way to entertain himself at the bowling alley. See, usually when we get there, they’ve got some or other horrible rap music absolutely BLARING on the stereo. It’s seriously crappy stuff, like the Jeffersons theme remake and songs with lyrics about cops and bitches and hoes (hos? I have no idea how to pluralize “ho.”). So Guitarman has now started selecting songs when we get there that he thinks will drive the rap guys crazy and get the bowling alley staff to turn down the volume. I’m not sure exactly why he’s picked this particular battle, but so be it. I’ll keep you posted.

Hair We Go Again (sorry)

The mess hall’s on brunch hours. Perfect for us at the moment. After breakfast we went to the PX, as Guitarman saw some super-cheap tees there yesterday. Got some of the tees for Wee Laddie (I’m thinking they’ll be great for some iron-ons), then headed home for nap.

If Guitarman were reading this blog, he would be shocked to learn that I’m only just now going to complain about my hair. At some point between June 14 and now, my hair started to get really annoying, so I decided I hadn’t quite gotten it right last time. And then I thought, “Ah hell, I used to cut my own hair, I’ll just do that while we’re over here.

When will I learn? Now it’s not quite matching up right and the two sides aren’t the same and I still don’t feel like going to have it cut. I do have a name of an English-speaking stylist, but she’s all the way in Regensburg, which means going on a Saturday so Guitarman can watch Wee Laddie… and she’s not exactly cheap either, from what I remember. So I have to decide if I’m going to keep hacking at it ‘til I either get it right or just can’t stand what I’ve done (probably) or start looking for a closer English-speaking stylist (probably, once I’ve done so much damage that I can’t stand it). I’m also thinking about going darker with the color. It keeps seeming lighter and lighter to me (what with all the grey bleaching out) and I feel like it’s suddenly making me look older. And nobody wants that.