Not Actively Worried, but...

...there’s news lately about all of the terrorists in Germany who hate Americans. I think we’re probably lucky to be at such a small military base (although there was a suspicious vehicle there taking photos or something a few months ago), because I suspect it wouldn’t likely be too high on the target lists. There are times when there are a fair number of people on base for “rotations,” but they’re often not American and it might be hard to tell when unless you live in the area and see them driving the tanks & stuff onto base.

Still, it makes you think.

And it’s things like that that have made us try to be quietly American here in our neighborhood. You never know which neighbor might hate Americans, or have terrorist ties or whatever. So our “neighbors” a few blocks away, whose giant, wall-hanging American flag can be seen as you drive by their apartment seem rather cavalier to us.

In happier news, fall is shaping up to be quite a beautiful season here in Bavaria. I took this photo at the playground a few days ago.

How Long Will We Wait?

The mess hall sign was wrong again. We showed up at about 9:40 and there was nobody there to take our money. Three teenage girls walked in right after us. Guitarman went up to where the serving line is and asked… turns out they’d been on regular hours (6-8:30am). He made a not-so-gentle “suggestion” that they change their sign. The woman who runs the place (I forget her rank, which would probably be a more respectful way to refer to her) is friendly to us because she likes to play around with Wee Laddie, so Guitarman said he’s going to ask her about it next time we see her. She doesn’t seem the type who’d be pleased to know that her staff isn’t putting up the correct signage. (Not to mention that it seems very non-Army to begin with.) So it was a Burger King morning.

Then we headed up to Grafenwöhr to check out the new, big PX. It’s supposed to be the biggest one in Germany now, they’re saying. We’ve been to the base at Vilseck before (which is about 15 minutes from Graf, as it’s called around here… not sure whether that’s just by the Americans or the Germans, too), but never to Graf. It was packed. I don’t normally like crowds (and it did get to me after a while, but mostly just because I had a hard time getting down the vitamin aisle to get my folic acid). However, we’ve been living in the sticks for so long that it actually was kind of nice to see that many people in regular clothing all together in one place.

The line for Taco Bell took a little more than 30 minutes, but I wasn’t about to eat a sandwich or fried chicken just to get a shorter line. (These are desperate times, people!) Had a lovely chat with the woman behind me in line who’s lived in Vilseck for 25 years!

Overall, though, we were not too impressed with the PX. The maternity section was just two small racks (those ones that point out in 4 different directions, if you can picture them)… and I really need a few more long-sleeved shirts. Guitarman said the CD selection wasn’t that great, and neither of us were too impressed by the toys. Especially now that our Pxtra is pretty much completely a toy store! They had a few shops outside the PX… one was a Polish pottery (would love to get my mom something from there, except that the devalued dollar makes everything crazy expensive!), another was a Christmas & German gifts store (where I got a small gift for Schatzi, our friend the Squash and Wee Laddie’s Christmas ornament for this year… a small European-style Santa ornament. I tried to find something that was more relevant to our year in Germany, but couldn’t really find anything that applied to us personally.).

Wee Laddie, however, thought the toy section was pretty okay…



…and enjoyed his first ride on a chopper, too.



We headed back home, with a stop on base to get the Buzz Lightyear (or Buzz Wipeyear, as he’s known ‘round these parts) toy that Wee Laddie got for putting his toys away all week. We tried to pick it up at Graf, but they didn’t have it. He almost traded it in for some K’nex, and then for a Bob the Builder birthday set… but we talked him out of those. Actually Guitarman talked him out of the latter by finding individually boxed machines from Bob the Builder and talking Wee Laddie into one of those (he picked Scoop) and the Buzz Lightyear toy. So it seems we’ve already moved on from “Cars.” He still likes the characters and the movie, but he’s fixated on everything Bob right now. Could be worse.

That Blinking VCR

No Little Troopers today and Guitarman was on shift. When Wee Laddie kept choosing movies to watch that are in German, I decided I’d see if I could get both DVD players hooked up correctly.

We’ve been watching our movies on the cheaper/not-as-nice DVD player ‘cause when we got the nicer one we remembered to get dual-voltage and muti-format but forgot about region-free. And we’ve bought mostly German movies for practice, so we can’t play them on the nicer one unless/until we decide to hack it. We got an inexpensive one at Media Markt or something and strangely, that one is region-free even though it doesn’t claim to be.

Anyway, Guitarman somehow got some moisture inside it (something about cleaning a DVD and putting it back in wet or something, which is so unlike my husband!) and it started acting funky. It was quirky to begin with, but this was a temporary full-on work stoppage. So Guitarman unplugged it and hooked up the other DVD player, which is not region-free… so that’s limited us to about 5 childrens’ DVDs that we have in English and that Wee Laddie likes to watch.

It took a while, but I sorta got everything working, although not like it really should. Everything is called by a different name on each different machine, and the TV just has symbols on the back (nothing like “video out” or something that someone with a Technical Communications degree might be able to actually understand. I was really wishing for a patch bay for this project… could have solved the whole issue in minutes). All that money on college and I can’t even hook up my home entertainment stuff correctly. Sheesh.

We rushed off to have lunch at the mess hall, even though we wouldn’t be able to eat with Guitarman. I needed to get some stuff at the commissary (where, as usual, “just a few things” turns into an entire cart full of groceries) and didn’t want to have to try to go after naptime, since that’s always such a gamble. Ended up getting to see Guitarman for a bit, which always makes Wee Laddie very happy.

Drummer Boy

Kids’ Club quite busy again, but neither of my fave moms were there to talk to. I really feel awkward now around the moms who snubbed me last week, so my interactions with them were very brief. I should note here that one of the moms who seemed utterly disinterested in the fact that I’d even opened my mouth—but not a mom that I knew before that—turned up at the Total Mom thing yesterday and was even friendly-ish and funny.

It seems contrary to my personality, sort of, but I really don’t feel like even putting that much effort into making new friends at this point since we’re probably not going to be here much longer. It’d be different if it were just a “regular” group of moms… but we’re already the misfits here since we’re not in the military. Not that people haven’t been very nice, and I in no way mean to imply anything negative about military families. And I’m still totally committed to being fully involved in the Total Mom workshop and teaching the baby sign class. But I’m not going to bend over backwards trying to engage people.

Stopped by the thrift store to look for maternity shirts. Nothing good. But as we swung through the toy section (just to placate Wee Laddie), I spotted a fabulous drum toy. We have one we got from my friend Tammy (she’s given us TONS of hand-me-down toys & clothing from her boys) that’s pretty cool… it makes DJ record scratch sounds and has like 4 different sort of songs you can play. This new one, though… it has like 25 or so sound thingies (they don’t really have melodies so I’m not sure what to call them… styles like reggae, house, disco, samba, fusion, punk rock!) that loop, and the drum pads seem like the drum pads on an actual electronic drum. This is like the cadillac of children’s drum toys, I think. Wee Laddie played with it in the car, before & after dinner and in lieu of reading a story at bedtime (except that Guitarman still let him read after that, but I digress). And oh, does it make him dance!

Darned Mosquito

This morning was the 2nd Total Mom workshop. I like what they’re doing. This morning’s focus was home organization. It was a smaller group than last week (today was the big grand opening of the new PX in Grafenwöhr and everyone’s been all a-twitter about a rumored Starbucks… we’re more excited about a rumored Taco Bell, but will probably go check things out this weekend), but a rather jocular one. And I got a few good tips. Not everyone could stick around for sign (the couple who did seemed to like it), but people at least talked as if they plan to come next time. I hope we’ve found our audience, as it’s sort of annoying to put the effort in when nobody seems bothered about it. Not that I’m putting a ton of effort in, just using the videos, but I do bring the videos every week and am there if anybody has any questions. I’ve also put it out there that if they’d like a different format for learning, that’d be fine, too.

Remember how I was recently complaining about the mosquito in our room? Check out my poor bugaboo’s hand:



And here are both hands, for comparison (though one is a bit closer than the other).

Word Fun

I love toddler-speak. My little guy says:

punkbin (pumpkin)

nakbin (napkin)

Buzz Wipeyear (Buzz Lightyear)

Wipin’ Ah-Queen (Lightning McQueen)

to infiy beyond (to infinity and beyond)

gweese-gwee tore (grocery store… you might have to say his version out loud to get it)

I’m guessing he’ll need speech therapy at some point (I did). He substitutes W for R and L a lot. But if I slow him down and pronounce words for him carefully, he can get most of them.

The Budding Artist

WL fell asleep in the car on the way home, and slept for a full 3 hours!! I was so disoriented from the solid nap that when I woke up, I was just sure that we’d missed getting up in the morning and somehow slept right through the day ‘til nearly 5pm. Once I got that sorted out, I felt recharged & fantastic!

We met Guitarman on base for dinner and went to get eggs & milk at the Edeka markt on the way home. There, a woman was using some big floor cleaner on the floors that had Wee Laddie quite concerned. I kept reassuring him that she wouldn’t run him over, I’d see to it… but he still was pretty tense. When we got to the car I told him that she really wouldn’t have run him over, but that it was smart of him to be cautious about things like that. Just in case.

Here’s Wee Laddie’s drawing of RV (AKA “the amazing RV”) from Bob the Builder. I drew the wheels, but he showed me where to put them. Not bad, eh?

Life’s a Circus

There was something called Circus Sergio in Lupburg this afternoon. We were going to try to go, but nap interfered. They have loads of festivals and town parties and things around here all summer long. We didn’t make it to many of them since it always seemed to be super-hot out on those days… or else we had nap issues. I think it’s fun, though, to go around and see what’s going on in the different towns.

Here’s a poster of one they had in our town back in April, when my mom was visiting. We all found the idea of it pretty amusing. (For readers who don’t know, my little sister was adopted and is ½ Navajo.) I didn’t want to actually go to it, though, as it seemed a bit cheesy. And maybe potentially embarrassing to be there and be American, if you know what I mean.



Who'd'a thunk Native American culture would be popular in Germany?? Here's a poster we spotted in Neumarkt a while back.



This is off-topic but I had to include it somewhere. Guitarman didn’t think it was funny.

Going Random

Picked up a small, painted pumpkin for Wee Laddie. When we got it home, he promptly peeled off the eyes, thinking they were stickers. (For some reason, although he loves stickers, he peels them off of everything he gets that has them.) It’s looking a bit less friendly with hollow eyes.

Guitarman got to witness naptime in all its usual glory today. He started out napping with us, but then got up… and when he came back I was trying to get Wee Laddie back to sleep. But I won’t whine about it, as per my earlier promise.

Wee Laddie seemed a tad bit sick today. Nothing major, just a bit under the weather. And he was clingy at bedtime, so he must not be feeling 100%. Poor tyke.

You know, when we found out we were moving here, I thought that the humidity would be glorious for my skin and hair. Not so much. I think the hard water counteracts any benefit we’d get from the humidity. My hair is completely fried at this point (and no, not just from my own lame attempts at haircuts) and I still have issues with areas of dry skin. I live in a friggin’ desert, man. I really thought that lush, green Bavaria would have me all curly and glowing and smooth.

Just Call Him Wendy

Wee Laddie has become enamored with Bob the Builder. His favorite character is Wendy. (I find it interesting that he always seems to identify with these strong female characters.) He’s been telling us, “I’m Wendy. I’m just regular Wendy,” rather often lately and today he went up to the physical therapist who usually attends Little Troopers and told her, “I’m just Wendy.” She, of course, had no idea what he was talking about.

Little Troopers has been so crowded lately that I’m not sure how much longer we’ll keep going. There are a lot more younger kids there, too, and I think it’s really geared more toward them anyway. It’s so crowded, though, that I don’t feel like Wee Laddie gets enough of a chance to play himself out… he seems to always want more playtime afterward. I’ll have to try again to see if I can get the Friday playgroup rolling. I’m pretty sure that Kelly and Kaitlyn, at least, would come. And maybe another mom (and her two girls) who had sounded interested before.

Snubbed

It was the weirdest thing today… I got snubbed by two of the moms on base, including one who has been very friendly to me for months. I was so excited about the Total Mom thing yesterday (but I don’t think they’ve marketed it as effectively as they could have) so I was telling a few people about it at Kids’ Club. And two of the moms seemed very interested and hadn’t heard a thing about it.

So I mentioned it to 3 moms who were sitting kind of together, and one of them (who I don’t really know at all) just sort of nodded that she’d heard of it. One of the others remarked that she’d have time for herself after her children were grown, to which I said, “Yeah, but you’ll be an even better mom if you get some time now to just be you!” And the two I was sitting closest to pretty much just turned away from me and that was the end of the conversation.

I’m not sure anything like that has happened to me since, I don’t know, middle school?

Had a chat later with a mom I know a little bit. Turns out she’s just ahead of me, pregnancywise and we’ve got some things in common as far as blood clotting disorders (which I’m finding to be much more common than I’d have imagined). She’s got a much more serious one than I’ve got and has had like 4 miscarriages since having her daughter! Her daughter is pretty much a miracle, really, as her disorder has like a 90-something percent miscarriage rate if untreated. So she’s a little hesitant to tell people about the pregnancy yet, in case something goes wrong. She’s not showing at all (sometimes you can see a tiny belly depending on what she wears, but she’s tall and wonderfully slender, so it’s not at all obvious) so she can get away with it. But I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for her that everything goes perfectly this time. And I’ll count my own blessings that we only lost one.

Totally Total Mom

Today was the first meeting of the new “Total Mom” program they’re doing on base. This is what replaced the signing class (though it will still be part of it) and the power walking class. It seems like it’ll be a good program and they’re really trying to build the mom community there, which seems like a good idea. It must be so hard to be a military mom/wife and knowingly send your husband off to a really dangerous place for 12-18 months at a time… and then to have to be a single parent while they’re gone and you’re dealing with your own feelings about all of that on top of the normal stresses of being a parent, and maybe you’re living somewhere like Germany where you don’t have a family network nearby. I’ve heard that a lot of the moms tend to isolate themselves when their husbands are deployed, which must add even more stress.

Anyway, they’re having lots of guest speakers and time for us to talk about issues and work on various aspects of our mom/wife lives so we’re all feeling happy & balanced. And we’ll continue the signing class as the last 30 minutes of the program.

When we got in the car, Wee Laddie asked me, “What was that?” (He knew it wasn’t one of our usual activities although it was in a usual place.) I told him it’s a mommy class so I can be a better mom. He said, “You are a better mom.” I said, “Already?” He said, “Yup.”

I ask you: Does it get better than that?

Rain Man

My girlfriend Tammy calls me her rain man, ‘cause I’ve got a freaky memory for numbers. I can still remember the phone numbers of my best friends from kindergarten and 3rd grade, amongst other childhood friends. And back in the days when my girlfriend Milo & I were going to bars/clubs a lot, I could actually remember a guy’s phone number (even after drinking) until I got to the car/home & could write it down.

But for some reason, it took me months to learn our phone number here. (In fact I still never feel quite certain that I’m giving the right number.) I suppose it’s because it’s a different number of digits and in a different pattern than what I’m used to. I still don’t know Guitarman’s cell or work numbers or my own cell number.

The numbers here have city codes first, but those aren’t all the same length. Like Parsberg is 09492 and Regensburg is 0941. And to further confuse matters, the phone numbers themselves don’t have a consistent number of digits. Here’s an example from a couple of restaurants in town:
09492 / 278 (Rudi Rödl)
09492 / 905170 (Gasthof-Restaurant Bärenkeller)

I guess when they run out of numbers they just tack on another digit. Reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where they got the new area code and it was considered uncool to have the new one.

Missing Dad

Last night I was looking online for some Denver area art links. Seeing some of the names & faces of my dad’s former friends and colleagues led me to thinking about him. I googled him, which I do from time to time just to see what’s out there. I guess the upside to having a somewhat “famous” father (he was known nationally and very well-known in the local art scene) is that I can still find articles & things about him online that I’ve never read before. So even though I can’t talk to him anymore, I can still learn new things about him.

I still miss my dad. I don’t think of him every day anymore… so many other things have crowded in. But sometimes I am still sort of blindsided by sadness, even though he’s been gone for over 7 years now. It probably hit me now, in part, because of the unfairness of another grandchild that he will never meet… a list that, sadly, also includes my son.

Ditto for Guitarman’s father, actually, as he passed away just a few months before Wee Laddie was born.


Wee Laddie, working on his version of Jacko’s old look.

Electricity, How We Miss You!

We woke this morning to a power outage. What to do? No idea. I know that e-on Bayern is our power company (and I know where their nearest offices are) but that does us little good. We could figure out how to tell them our power was out, but what then? If they answer with anything more complex than “We’re coming,” we wouldn’t be able to understand them. And one can’t use gestures and such over the phone.

So we wondered… Is the power out in our whole neighborhood? Whole town? Most places are closed on Sundays anyway, so it’s hard to tell. Would the fact that our hot water is controlled by an electric thermostat mean that once we’ve used what’s heated there is no more ‘til the power’s back? How long before all the food in our fridge goes bad? (This is the first time I’ve been glad we don’t have a big ol’ American-sized fridge!) How fast are they about getting problems like this fixed? I am in no way implying that this is a backwards country, but we are in a place where it’s typical to have to wait a month or more for a telephone line or Internet access. We figured it could possibly take a couple of days.

Went about our usual stuff… brunch at the mess hall, playtime at “the flat playground” to wear Wee Laddie out, a nap. Got up & had a snack and planned some foods to buy that don’t require refrigeration, just in case. Met Guitarman (who’d stayed on base to do laundry & see the Harry Potter movie) and bought some candles and flashlight batteries and had dinner at the bowling alley since all we could at home is grill… and it was already getting late.

After we got home, Guitarman spotted one of the neighbors (the one other American we know of on our block) outside and went to talk to him. Turns out they had power, as did our Turkish neighbors and the houses on the other side of the street. The guy suggested checking the breakers.

“But they couldn’t all have tripped, could they?” Guitarman asked me.

“I wouldn’t think so.”

Turns out there is a master breaker that had, in fact, tripped. At some random time early in the morning when hardly anything would’ve even been plugged in. (Power surge or something, I guess.) Who’da thunk it’d all ultimately be controlled by one switch? Anyway, we're happily back amongst the electrified.

Hangin’ with Grownups

Tonight we had a lovely dinner at the home of Charlie (one of Guitarman’s coworkers) and his wife Telise. They’re from San Diego (well, Telise’s actually from Norway originally, but their last home before here was in San Diego). Telise is a painter, so we were surrounded by loads of her beautiful paintings. She doesn’t paint in just one style, so you couldn’t look around a room and guess which paintings were hers and which weren’t. I’m sure many painters do that over time, but I found it very interesting because these were all recent works.

We had sort of a cooperative Mexican dinner: tacos, guacamole, black & pinto beans. Great food, great company. And for dessert, we had ice cream topped with a special treat from Telise: cloudberries direct from Norway. She’d spent about 6 weeks driving through Norway to take photos (for inspiration) and had picked some cloudberries on her family’s land while she was there. They’re apparently a very rare treat, usually only had by Norwegians themselves or people who are willing to pay handsomely at fancy restaurants. I felt very honored to have them. They’re an interesting berry… they look like orangeish, fat raspberries (but with fewer of the lumpy things). They taste like no berry I’ve ever had and although they didn’t taste like marshmallows, that’s the flavor that came to mind when I ate them. The only thing I didn’t like was that they have seeds like raspberries, but much larger. You can bet those got stuck in my teeth.





Wee Laddie adores both Telise (as you can see from the photo) and Charlie (when he see him at the mess hall, Wee Laddie usually says, “Charlie! There’s my Charlie!”), so he enjoyed entertaining them and running around on their back lawn. And speaking of lawns, we borrowed their lawn mower again, so we should soon have a backyard that looks more yard than jungle. All good things.

Nachos!!

They had a nacho bar at lunch today! As soon as I found out about it I modified what I was eating so I could indulge. If I knew who was responsible for it, I’d be giving them a big, wet, sloppy kiss.

Today we were playing at home and Wee Laddie kept grabbing at his crotch so I kept asking him if he needed to go potty. At one point I asked him and then said that I was going to go. As if reading my mind, he said, “I don’t wanna go potty with you right now.” Sheesh.

Poor kid got five bug bites sometime last night. We’ve got a mosquito living in our bedroom. I occasionally see it but haven’t been able to squish it yet… it’s really hard to see a mosquito against the wooden beams that make up most of our bedroom. There’s about a 3’ section of white walls, the rest of the entire room is wood. It’s quite lovely except when you a) desperately want to kill the mosquito that keeps chomping on your son or b) bang your head against one of the beams, not that I’m saying that happens a lot around here. ;)

We actually have a few bug issues here, the mosquitos (and resulting bites) being a big one. We also get a fair amount of flies in because of the whole no-window-screen thing over here. Christina over at American Expat said her husband says the screen interferes with the view of outside. That’s probably one of those things Germans have been saying for so long that everyone believes it, like how they really think you can catch a cold from a draft (and will close the windows once a train starts moving, even in scorching heat). Anyway, the other one that really gets on my nerves is the gnats. I don’t know if they’re actually fruit flies or gnats or what, but I get them in my kitchen all the time. One of the herb plants I bought had some and it’s been a battle ever since. I honestly have squished like 7-8 in a day before! Oh yeah, there was one more: earwigs in the grill. Eeew, I know. Earlier in the summer, every time I opened the grill to cook, like 5 or 6 of them would scatter. Still makes me shudder a bit.

Children Who Do Not Nap

Sorry for this transgression. I’ll get back to my no-more-whining-about-the-stupid-naps policy after this post.

Everything was perfect. Wee Laddie had pooped earlier this morning, so there wasn’t that to keep him up. We stopped by the thrift store (no repeat of last time’s big score and the rocking chair is gone) and he wanted to drive up the road the thrift store is on, which loops up toward the “back” of the base, so that means a longer drive home. He was looking all sleepy… the stage was set. And I did have to drive a bit extra near home, but he fell asleep in the car. Until…

Car seat manufacturers have forgotten one demographic: light sleepers. (Yeah, they’ve got safety stuff to think about… blah, blah, blah.) If Wee Laddie stays asleep until I’ve pulled at least one arm out of the straps, he’ll go back to sleep about 99% of the time… unless, of course, I’m outside of the critical time window of about 20 minutes. BUT. If he wakes up when I’m loosening the straps, or at any other time while both arms are still in, it’s all a crap shoot. Amazing how much difference a few mere seconds can make.

So he snuggled into the crook of my neck and convinced me he’d go back to sleep. (And bowled me over with the power of baby snuggles. It was a glorious two minutes.) Next thing you know, we’re upstairs lying in bed with him sniffing on every inhale. I don’t know why he does this sometimes, but it was keeping both of us awake. *30 minutes* of sniffing, I finally got up to get nose spray and told him to stop, blah, blah… he told me he wanted to get up.

What I said was, “If you’re not going to sleep then you need to have quiet time. See ya later.” What he heard, apparently, was, “Hey, why don’t you go ahead and change your own diaper? Oh, and while you’re at it, you can pull all the wipes out of the container one by one and pile them on the bed.”

So when you come visit me in the loony bin after I’ve lost my mind from this stupid nap battle and you hear me babbling about folding wipes and quiet time and please stop sniffing… well, this is why.

No Nuke

I got a terrible stomach ache after dinner tonight… I thought I was going to throw up and was thinking about which thing I’d eaten could be responsible for food poisoning. I now think it was because of getting too hungry before dinner and then eating pizza. The acidity of tomato sauce sometimes gives me a tummy ache. One of my big challenges in managing the gestational diabetes is getting the timing right on everything. If we end up getting up late from nap I sometimes worry that I don’t have a full hour between a potential snack and dinner, so I wait. I don’t want my sugar to be too high after eating dinner, and it’s a bit of a hassle to just eat a snack dinner and then eat more later.

I now officially miss having a microwave.

Play at Work

We got in some play time this morning, which was really nice. I keep feeling like I don’t really get that much time to just play with Wee Laddie so I really enjoyed it. We were having a great morning until he refused to put his toys away when I asked him to (which I sometimes do during the day if he has gotten out lots of stuff)… and it went downhill from there. He had a huge crying fit after lunch because he wanted to open the umbrella but refused to ask nicely. I am so anti-whining that I try to be super-consistent about not giving in when he cries or whines, and he just wouldn’t stop.

He took about an hour-long nap, then woke and cried for like 15 minutes. Not like him, and I still don’t know why. I ended up feeling grumpy most of the day.

I recently came across a book called “Playful Parenting” and asked my moms group about it. Turns out one of them thought it was a great book, so we ordered it. I’m not very far into it yet but it definitely has some fun ideas, so I’m going to work on implementing more play into our routine (both as a “scheduled” kind of a thing and as an alternative to time-outs and arguing).

Note: As I post this (much later than I wrote it, of course), I can say that it was probably the morning playtime that led to the crying jags, and that it’s probably a good sign. According to the aforementioned book, good playtime can often lead to crying because your child may have unresolved emotions about something that had happened previously. The playtime makes them feel connected to you, which opens them up to more emotions and helps them feel comfortable in processing that stuff with you. So that’s probably why we had such a rough day.

Here’s me at nearly 16 weeks (lab’s due date). I know, I'm enormous!




And one of Wee Laddie, who just couldn't stand to not be part of a photo shoot.

What’s in a Name?

Wee Laddie made me laugh so hard today! On the way home from lunch he drank some water and spilled all over himself. I had an extra outfit in the trunk still from the hoped-for potty training, so I put him into his Darth Vader t-shirt that his Aunt Kaffee gave him. (Here’s a photo from back home of him wearing it.)



He asked who it was and I told him. He said, “Oh, Darf Mater.” hehehe The contrast between the ultra-cool, mysterious, evil Darth Vader and the goofiness of Mater from “Cars” had me laughing so hard I was crying and could barely stand up!

Later when I told Guitarman about it, he didn’t even crack a smile.

The Budding Artiste

Today in the car: “Don't pinch mommy's dupa. You’re troublemaker.”

After nap this afternoon, we finally got around to painting. I’d bought some paints months ago and Wee Laddie’s been bugging me semi-regularly about using them. I actually have a couple of sets: one of sponge paints, and one of brush paints. I’ve been avoiding actually using the sponge ones just because of mess potential. I know, slacker.

We used the brush ones today, and WL had a really good time. He seems to take his artwork pretty seriously. We had fun coloring on some line drawings that Grandma-Grandma had done in his paper book. Here’s an original Wee Laddie.



And the artist at work.



I tried to get him to rinse the brush between colors, but his very favorite paint to use was a blend of all the colors. Oh well.

What We Did Today

The weekend brunch sign they had up at the mess hall yesterday was a big fat lie. They’re on regular breakfast hours this weekend… 6-8:30am. So we had to go to Burger King. We then went to the PX to look at men’s fleece jackets for me (to fit over the belly this winter), then off to the library for new movies. Next stop: commissary, but only for sandwiches. I figured we’d taken enough time doing the other stuff that it might be smart to feed Wee Laddie and see if he’d go to sleep in the car on the way home. We decided to have a picnic even though it’s not terribly warm out, so we headed to a picnic shelter by one of the housing areas. Got everything/everybody unloaded and then noticed the big, smelly pile of grass clippings right near the tables. Ugh. Why there, really? Anyway, it wasn’t worth a whole relocation, so we just plugged our noses…and plugged along.

Wee Laddie didn’t fall asleep in the car, but did surprisingly well going to sleep at home. Perhaps it helped some that Guitarman was lying down with us for a nap. And Wee Laddie had a good nap, too, so I’m in heaven right now.

It’s been cold for like a full week now. Good grief, does this mean we’re already into winter weather again? I really feel like I need a few more blue-sky days to build up my sunshine stores for all the impending grey.

Quick Randomness

Little Troopers was packed today, too, just like Kids’ Club yesterday. It was kind of too many kids for the space, really. We were totally late again. I’m either going to have to shower before we go downstairs for breakfast on Fridays or skip my shower entirely. Or skip my cooked breakfast and just eat frozen waffles with Wee Laddie.

Today, rather than go through another attempt at a phone conversation with the diabetes doctors’ office, I sent them a fax explaining the whole testing strip problem and explaining that I won’t be able to test at all until I get the shipment from the US. I wrote my fax in English, then included a bad German version at the bottom, too, so that hopefully the office staff could at least get that I had to cancel my appointment for Monday. Plus it’ll explain to them why I speak in English there, mostly.

Good nap day today. Ahhhhh.

Kids’ Club Madness

Went to the Apotheke (pharmacy) this morning before Kids’ Club to pick up enough glucose testing strips to last me ‘til the shipment from the US gets here. Turns out that my diabetes strips are only available in the US, and the ones sold over here are not compatible with my US-made glucose monitor. Too bad I didn’t figure that out before opening the package.

Kids’ Club was incredibly crowded today. I don’t know where all the people came from, but there must’ve been like 20 kids there! People are starting to notice that I'm pregnant. The woman who puts all the gym mats away came up and said, “Oh! I didn’t realize you were expecting ‘til I saw you pick up your son. Congratulations!”

Our timing worked out today to where Wee and I actually got to go out somewhere in the afternoon! Just to run some errands, but it's been WEEKS since we've even done that. While we were shopping I realized how much I've missed our trips to the market & stuff. It’s not like we’re talking to people or anything, but without that, I lose pretty much all my contact with anything German and might as well not even be here.

We went to the new Rewe store in town. Most of the towns around here have a market, or sometimes two. For some reason, Parsberg has 6. Two are right by the autobahn, two right next to each other near the train station, and 2 right next to each other close to stadtmitte. This is not a big town, folks, so this just seems bizarre that we have so many. At any rate, the Rewe store was really good… now one of my two favorites (the Edeka being the other… that’s a tip for local readers). They had some produce I’ve never seen before as well as lots of stuff that looked yummy & fresh. Great selection of Chinese and Italian foods, as well as some Mexican and Thai. Nice to find a good variety like that. It’s also a bigger store than some of the others, so that opens up some opportunities. The only thing I was disappointed by was their pizza selection. Will keep that in mind.

Oh, another cool thing about Rewe: Instead of the usual gummy candy the cashier gave Wee Laddie a keychain, which he’s been carrying around and talking about ever since.

Making Out

I’d completely forgotten to write this when we went to the Simpsons movie, but there was this teenage couple sitting in the row behind us, totally making out. Wee Laddie wasn’t terribly interested in the movie, so he was climbing around on the seats and walking in our aisle. At some point, he spotted this pair. And *that* he was interested in. So he’s sitting on one of the seats in front of them, peeking through the split in the seats saying loudly, “What are they doing?” (It was hard to get him to behave when I wanted to bust out laughing!) But I told him, “They’re just kissing, honey. Don’t bother them,” and made him come & sit down again. It reminded me of those awkward teenage moments that we all had, even though I’m not sure they even noticed him.

And as long as I’m reliving past events, I remembered also that I never told the story of how I told Guitarman I was pregnant this time…

I’d gotten my German teacher to translate that “I may be little but I’m the big brother” saying, but then decided that it might be too complicated if he’d have to go look everything up. So I was going to make a t-shirt with the saying in English. I worked on a nice layout for the lettering in Photoshop.

Later in the evening, Guitarman came downstairs to the kitchen and said, “I’m the big brother, huh?” and looked at me questioningly. I’m like, “Whaaa--? Where did you see that?” He said, “Upstairs, on the computer.” What a moron… I’d gotten distracted mid-design and completely forgot to shut down the computer, or even just close the software! I stammered, “Uh, it’s just a little something I was working on…” and then had to tell him.

It would have been a much cuter story had I not ruined the surprise.

Almost a Health Nut

I talked to one of the diabetes docs and got everything sorted in about 10 minutes. I’m still glad I spent the time figuring out what to say… I may have been speaking horrible German, but at least I tried. That’s got to get me some points somewhere for not expecting everyone to always speak my foreign language.

2.5 hour nap… thank goodness! And Wee Laddie fell asleep in the car… woohoo! It was raining again, so I was a bit nervous about the odds of getting him inside the house still asleep, but I made sure my shoes were untied and jacket was off so I could get upstairs as quickly as possible. He sorta woke up, but not fully. Whew.

Made a yummy super-healthy dinner tonight: whole wheat spaghetti with tofu, spinach and peppers, flaxseed, wheat germ and a wee bit of leftover taco meat from the super yummy tacos Guitarman made for us last night. Wee Laddie doesn’t like meat much, so his was tofu, spinach and mushrooms. It was so cute, he wanted mushrooms at the store today but I told him no, because they only had huge packages and he’d be the only one eating them. Then we spotted some individual mushrooms, which he was pretty psyched about.

So when I was making his dinner he came over and wanted to see what I was making and I showed him his and he said, “No peppers?” I said no and told him what was in it. He started to laugh this laugh he does when he’s super-excited about something. It was very cute, my little guy getting all excited over tofu (or “tow-food” as he says it) and veggies. My mom will be proud when she reads this.

Phone Conversations in a Foreign Language

I spent about 2 hours this morning (amid distractions, of course) looking up words and putting sentences together so I could call the diabetes doctor’s office. Here’s a photo of my cheat sheet, as embarrassing as it is:



The doctors speak excellent English, their staff less so… and I need to have my prescription faxed to my insurance in the US so they can order the testing strips from a US company, so we don’t have to pay (outrageously) for them up front. I think this kind of thing is one of the most frustrating things about he language barrier (others being: finding fun things to do with the kids and meeting any locals). Back home the whole thing would’ve taken maybe 10 minutes… and no advance prep. Anyway, I finally got a hold of them (they have weird hours: 8-12 and 4-6) and after I tried about ½ of my sentences, they told me to call tomorrow and talk to the doctor. Figures.

I’d started dinner, but Guitarman took over cooking so I could go sit down and relax. It was awesome.

Is it considered a sign of potty-training readiness if your child can change their own diaper??

Naps, Revisited

Man, this nap thing is really wearing me out. I don’t know what the story is… my child can fight me on a nap so effectively, even when I can see that he’s all droopy-eyed in the car. Or at lunch. Or whatever. Here’s what usually happens. We’re in the car, I’m driving around trying to stall long enough for him to fall asleep (though he hasn’t been letting me do that the last few days… he comes all unglued if I vary from the most direct route home, at which point it’s useless since he won’t fall asleep if he’s screaming). He’ll be looking like he’s about 1 minute from dropping off, then something will catch his eye. His head pops up and his eyes go wide open and he’s chattering away about whatever it was. Oy. You can’t imagine how that pains me when it happens. I want to just pull the car over and have a good cry.

I may have said this before, but my inability to get my child to nap is my single most challenging issue right now. It quite literally drives me to tears (often) and makes me feel like I am failing my child. I know, there are much worse things that could happen. I think it’s just because I am trying (or have tried) everything I can think of or have read about and it doesn’t work. I just keep thinking that I want him to learn how to develop good sleep habits at an early age so he doesn’t struggle with insomnia or anything later.

And I suppose I should come clean now, since I’m totally whining about this. I have terrible sleep habits myself, and it is quite clear that Wee Laddie has gotten this sleep thing from me. My problem is that there is so much that I want to get done (not that I’m exactly busting my butt all day long) and I hate to miss out on anything, so I have tried & tried to get my body to adapt to not needing that much sleep. Does it work? Nope. I just eventually get so tired that I have to go to bed super-early, or… you know, take a nap. I strongly suspect this is exactly the issue for Wee Laddie… and maybe that’s why it drives me so crazy.

And now I think I’ll take a break from whining about naps for a while. Really.

A Chair for Pondering

So the pseudo rocking chair we got at IKEA does not seem to be doing its job. I’m not sure if it just doesn’t rock enough or if the angle’s not right or what, but Wee Laddie will not even usually sit on my lap in it at all. He likes to sit in it by himself, or if I’m sitting in it he likes to sit on the footrest thing from our old glider on top of my feet and rock. Neither of those are very conducive to a nap, as you might imagine.

I spotted a real rocker at the thrift store the other day, so I might have to go back and get it. I tried to get Guitarman to go see it today, but he wasn’t biting. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s also not totally cheesy. And it’s cheap enough that we could leave it behind when we move back.

Hmm… I sure hope nobody turned up here hoping for an actual post…