Farewell to the Hoopdis

Today we took the cars over to Peter’s to see about selling them. There was a couple there--with a little kid--who arranged to buy Guitarman’s. That was fast!

Mine didn’t go today but hopefully will before Guitarman leaves. Wow, it’s weird to think that our time here will be done soon. I know there are things I will miss about being over here. But I’m excited to get home, especially with Schatzi coming. I think I’d be a bit nervous delivering here. With the complications we had with Wee Laddie it’d make me pretty nervous to have that language barrier to worry about.

Strawberries in December

Went back to the Weihnachtsmarkt in Nurnberg… this time with Starfruit (this is the moniker she suggested for herself, by the way) and Cutiebug. It was very fun. We did a little bit of actual shopping then played around at the Kinder Weihnachtsmarkt.

Starfruit took this first picture.





And here's Starfruit and Cutiebug.



Cutiebug was quite enamored of the fabulous strawberries I bought. The whole way home in the car she kept asking, “Mo’ tawbay, peese?” (More strawberries, please?) It was adorable and I’m quite impressed by her full sentences, Little Miss One-and-a-Half. It got dark while we were driving home and Wee Laddie started playing a Peekaboo game with Cutiebug to entertain her. And himself, of course. Those two are very cute together.

Definitely gonna miss them.

Nürnberg Weihnachtsmarkt

Went to the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) in Nürnberg. Before Guitarman and I moved here, we’d read about these markets and planned to one day take a holiday cruise down the Danube and stop at all the markets.

I didn’t do a good job of looking up directions or anything online, so we totally lucked out that my randomly selected GPS destination was pretty close to the whole thing. There’s a little artisans’ market in one section,



then a few blocks away is a Kinder Weihnachtsmarkt with carousels and things in addition to booths with gifts, ornaments, food, etc. Then there’s the main section, the Kristkindlemarkt. They were all absolutely JAMMED with people! We took the stroller in case Wee Laddie got tired of walking (or if we needed it to keep track of him in the crowd), so that made navigation a little tough. It was too insane to actually shop, so I’m hoping to go back during the week to get a few little things.

We also completely lucked out with the weather. It’s very grey here and has been raining & snowing pretty often lately. We felt a couple of sprinkles, but did not actually get rained on. Hurrah! It wasn’t even actually that cold, although we were pretty well bundled up. Not that Wee Laddie looks like it here:



I decided that I just couldn’t be here at a Christmas market, in Germany, and NOT try Gluhwein. It was different than I expected. I was expecting it to be cinnamony, but it was more of a fruity/sweet taste. Maybe that’s just ‘cause I got the Heidelbeere (blueberry) kind. But now I can look up online how to make it and that can be one of my “life souvenirs” from our time here.

Early to Rise

Wee Laddie woke at 5:45 am, after not falling asleep until nearly 10 pm last night. It doesn’t happen often that he gets up that early, but it always makes me wonder why my husband hasn’t gotten tired of co-sleeping yet. Don’t get me wrong, I like the co-sleeping, too. To a point. I suspect that we’d be making better progress with the nighttime potty training (the pooping in the diaper every night thing, I mean) if we had Wee Laddie in a bed with a plastic mattress. Like, say, the toddler bed phase of the convertible crib we bought… which is set up in Wee Laddie’s room, but goes largely unused. Especially since he usually now sleeps on the air mattress when he goes to sleep in his room (which is every night nowadays). Aaaanywho...

This morning while we were getting ready to meet Starfruit and Cutiebug for swimming, Wee Laddie fell on our stairs. Thankfully, he didn’t fall all the way down...but it scared the crap out of me anyway. He was trying to bring the broom upstairs and I have no idea what happened, as I was in the bathroom getting ready. I saw a flash of something (broom handle probably) and then heard the bumps. I came running out and he was lying about halfway down the stairs (just starting to cry) with the broom on top of him. God, how I hate these stairs. I will not miss them.

Now we went swimming despite my hesitations about it after last night’s lack of sleep. Lesson learned. Wee Laddie kept throwing toys no matter how many times I asked him to stop. He got a time-out-of-the-pool (sitting on my lap watching everyone else have fun) twice, and once I just took him back into the locker room while I decided what to do. One time-out was for not listening when I was calling his name (the circumstances were that he was headed down the steps into the big pool… I got to him JUST as his head went under!), the 2nd was for pulling Cutiebug down in the baby pool. (I know he didn’t mean to endanger her or anything but since we’d just had an issue with him grabbing her and them both falling plus the whole fact that it’s dangerous for him to do that in the pool, I felt I had to let him know that it IS actually a big deal.) And then he threw yet another toy… and we made our locker room trip. We ended up coming back out to have lunch and went home after that. I’d thought about trying to swim again after lunch but Wee Laddie wasn’t listening to me during lunch either and I’d told him that maybe we could swim again if he listened really well during lunch.

On the way home, he fell asleep… a bit too soon, as I’d feared. We got home right around the 20-minute mark. Our neighbor was out using the log-splitter for his enormous pile of firewood, Wee Laddie woke as I was loosening the car seat strap and was looking at the neighbor when I got him out of the car, so I thought it was all over. Took Wee Laddie upstairs and snuggled up and took slow, deep breaths right next to him… and (wonder of wonders!) he fell right back to sleep.

Sometimes even the strongest fighters succumb to the lure of a good nap.

Cutiebug's Playroom

We were invited to spend the morning in Cutiebug’s playroom. Wow, I thought we had a lot of toys! It’s amazing. She’s got a kitchen, a medical cart, a Bob the Builder workbench. And all the toys that go with each. An art table & chairs. Playdoh tools, paint, toy food, scarves, books. Just a ton of stuff, really. The kids had a wonderful time.



After playtime we went to have lunch at Hotel Gastof zur Post. I would definitely recommend it if you need a place to eat in Velburg. The food was good and the waitstaff was very nice.

We were letting the kids kind of walk around in our section (we were the only ones back there). There was one section of floor that was higher than the rest and Wee Laddie and Cutiebug were right by the edge there and I think Wee Laddie was trying to snuggle Cutiebug or something and he fell and pulled her right down with him and she bonked her head on the edge. Ugh. I felt horrible, he felt horrible and Cutiebug felt pretty horrible, too, although for a completely different reason. And she ended up with this big goose egg on her head. :( Forehead, of course. And right before they’re getting some professional pictures done. Of course.

This evening after nap, I went to the commissary solo to get a few things for my contribution to the expats Thanksgiving “do” at Christina’s. I really like shopping in the local stores and it would’ve been more convenient timewise except that I don’t know that they’d have everything I needed (and I know they don’t have frozen waffles, which are worth their weight in gold to my son). Plus it’d probably have cost a small fortune.

When I got home, Wee Laddie came over and hugged me around the legs and said, “I’m glad to see you.”

Friends & the Almighty Dollar

Went for lunch with Christina and her little Oliver to Hotel zum Hirschen. Even though we don’t eat there often, I will miss that place. I miss the Käsespätzle already. After we’re home and I’m able to be off the gestational diabetes diet, I am going to have to start doing some research and trying to replicate that meal. I’m not a “signature meal” kind of gal, really, but for that meal? For that meal maybe I’ll become that kind of gal.

Anyway, it was a nice lunch. Everything’s starting to have that “last time” feel to it. (Have I said that already?) We will see Christina & Oliver again, as we’re going to their house for the Expat Thanksgiving Dinner, but that may be the last time.



We went to Möbelhof after lunch and Wee Laddie was admiring the sling Christina was using to carry Oliver. When we got home, Wee Laddie used a pair of pants as a sling to carry Baby Spunky. And he was carrying him around in his jacket like this:



And the dollar is now worth .6535 euro. Ouch.

Wiggly Worm

Our little Schatzi is getting really wiggly. I love to feel him moving around in there. :) I know some women don’t really enjoy pregnancy so much... I love it. Parts of it suck, sure, but it’s just such an amazing time. I feel so lucky to be able to experience it.

In German class, we’re still working on past tense (vergangenheit… How’s that for an easy word?). It’s hard, but I’m glad I chose to keep working on my German even though we’re leaving soon. It makes me feel like I’m taking a bit more out of this experience to have at least tried to learn some of the language.

Wee Laddie didn't want me to go to class tonight and was really clingy at bedtime. He wanted Daddy downstairs & me by the computer (just outside of his room). We usually switch off, so this is Guitarman’s night to be upstairs. Sometimes we indulge Wee Laddie, sometimes not.

Big Belly Goes Shopping

Went to the big PX today for our usual Taco Bell fix. Happily, the weather was clear enough to drive up. It’s a long enough drive that we don’t like to go if the weather is iffy.



I actually found a few maternity tops I liked. The selection there is very limited so I usually find one shirt, max. And I tried on a few jackets ‘cause mine is already barely fitting me. There’s a brand here called Jack Wolfskin, that is sort of like the European version of North Face. They make some really good technical jackets & stuff. The jacket I ended up with is one of theirs. It’s fleece, but it’s some type of fleece that’s supposed to block wind 4x better than regular fleece. And it’s water resistant & all that, too. And it may actually be useable post-partum, too. Early Christmas present from Guitarman.

There was no line at the Taco Bell when I went to get in line. It was so awesome to be able to just go right ahead and order without having to wait 20 minutes! (Oh, how my standards for quick Mexican have changed!)

Swimmin’ with the Girls

Wee Laddie and I met up with our friends Starfruit and Cutie-bug at the pool in Burglengenfeld this morning. We splashed & played for a while then had a picnic lunch in their dining area. (It still seems weird to me to eat our own food there, but they really don’t seem to mind.) The kids had a wonderful time.

The interactions between the kids is pretty fun to watch. Cutie-bug is more than a year younger than Wee Laddie but they get along smashingly.

I really like Starfruit and Cutie-bug. They’re maybe the only people from the playgroups that we know well enough and see often enough that I can honestly say I am going to miss them. They leave here next summer and Starfruit said that Hawaii’s first on their list and Colorado is 2nd, so there’s a chance they’ll end up in our neck of the woods. (They spent 6 years in Hawaii prior to coming to Germany, so I don’t know if that makes it more or less likely that they’ll get sent back there.) It’d be fun to have some friends from Germany turn up in Colorado.

In a month from now, we’ll be back home.

These Boots

Today while getting ready to leave the house, Wee Laddie pulled on his boots and stood up.

“You just stomp them on,” he told me. “That’s what Grandma says.”

The Downside of Potty Training

What do you do when you’re in the car, with a ways to go, and there’s nowhere to stop? Wee Laddie had to pee on the way home from base. It’s too cold to stop anywhere outside and there’s not really anywhere convenient where we can stop inside. We had to go home for him to potty, which means I couldn’t drive around ‘til he fell asleep… and that makes for a tough naptime.

And then, my darling Guitarman wouldn’t go pick up a döner kebap, which is what I really, really wanted for dinner since the nearest Chipotle might as well be on another planet. I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Wee Laddie has been saying some pretty funny things lately. Well, they’re not really that funny unless you think about the fact that they’re coming out of a two-year-old’s mouth:

“Maybe, but I'm not going to do that right now.”

“Stay there. I'm just going to go play by myself.”

“I'm just going to look. I won't touch them.” (in regard to the babies at Total Mom)

Memos & Morning People

Ugh. This morning Wee Laddie woke at like 5:30 or something (I’m not even sure what time it was, I was in such a stupor) and did not go back to sleep. It’s moments like this that make me wish my hubby wasn’t so pro-co-sleeping. But I don’t argue ‘cause it’s his one kind of crunchy, granola “vice” and it’s also a great connector for those two, I think, to have that time just being close. But anyway, Guitarman isn’t the one who ends up trying to keep Wee Laddie quiet and in bed until at least 7 am. I’m not sure whether he goes back to sleep or not... although he's mostly very attentive, he has been known to sleep through the sound of a crying baby before.

My child apparently did not get the memo: Mommy is NOT a morning person.

This pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day. Add to that the fact that Wee Laddie was completely squirrelly from waking up early himself, and you can imagine how friendly a bunch we were today. The trip to the grocery store was sort of a nightmare, although there weren’t any tantrums or anything... just a constant barrage of “no” and then, once he’d been banished to riding in the cart, trying to keep Wee Laddie from grabbing everything within reach.

Then tonight, it took until nearly 10 pm for the child to fall asleep. What is going on??

My Little Helper

Wee Laddie very much likes to dress himself so I usually let him… mismatches and all. Two different socks? Boots when it’s warm out? Whatev. So today, no big deal that he put his pants on backwards. At lunch Guitarman commented on it. I said that yes, I knew they were on backwards. Wee Laddie makes a remark about taking them off and putting them back on sideways. I laugh, ‘cause I’m trying to picture sideways. My son jumps up & drops trou right in the middle of the mess hall! Guitarman jumped up and stopped him… I was laughing too hard to be of any help whatsoever.



I’ve figured out a new way to get a few minutes to work on a project: let Wee Laddie wash the dishes. He loves to do it and it takes him ages so it gives me time to actually do something, as long as I can do it close by… because it makes me nervous, him standing on a chair or something. (I’ve been using his highchair for it since it has kind of a step on it.) So today I got a little knitting done while he did the dishes.

Now THAT is a beautiful thing.

Snow Big Deal

What I learned today: Do not stall about putting snow tires on when you live someplace like Bavaria. I suppose we got a bit spoiled last year with the remarkable lack of snow and the fact that our cars had the snow tires on already, it being January and all.

We got snow overnight so we took Guitarman's car to base this morning to have BK breakfast and check out the holiday bazaar. He said it was slippery and that he hoped we could get an appointment for the tires before we leave. I thought that remark was for dramatic effect since he has reminded me a couple of times about the tires...but no, the first available appointment at the car shop on base was December 8. Yikes. The woman there was unusually nice and suggested another shop and even called them for me. The guy said to come in an hour... they're in Parsberg. Readers who've ever tried to get anything done quickly in Germany (and especially on a Saturday, for goodness' sake!) are probably now sitting with mouths agape. But I swear this is true.

Anyway, we went home, Guitarman put the tires in my car while I shoveled the driveway... and off I went. Got stuck on the first hill up out of our neighborhood. Downside of living somewhere hilly. The upside of living somewhere hilly is that I was able to back down far enough to find a spot that went uphill, so I could get enough speed to get back out. Didn't get stuck anyplace else and, thank goodness, didn't run into any other cars at any corners on hills... but I was sliding all over the place. Not pretty. Been a long time since I've driven in snow in a rear wheel drive car.

Next is a LeCorbusier

Why does a suction cup suddenly stop suctioning? I’ve had a razor on one in our shower for months, and then it suddenly fell off a few weeks ago. I thought I’d gotten it well re-stuck but it came off again tonight (after my guys were asleep, of course) and went crashing down.

Here’s Wee Laddie in the chair we got him (a while back) that matches our IKEA pseudo rocking chair. Cool, eh?

No Kiss

No yoga today because of the holiday. I had an okay day with Señor Runny-Nose. Poor guy. We did go to have lunch with Daddy at the mess hall. Wee Laddie’s been doing this thing where when we drop Guitarman back at work and he asks Wee Laddie for a kiss, Wee Laddie’s like, 'No! No kiss!' and he’ll put his hand over his mouth. If Guitarman kisses him on his cheeks, he’ll wipe his cheeks off afterward. I think it’s one of those power things…like he doesn’t want Guitarman to go back to work (he does it in the morning, too) but since he can’t control that he refuses to do the part that he can control. As soon as Guitarman starts to walk away from the car, Wee Laddie’s saying, 'Bye, Daddy, see ya later!'

It’s pretty interesting to listen to the radio here. The stations seem to have general themes, sort of, but they play an odd assortment of music. Guitarman was commenting on how they play lots of ‘80s music (which is great for us) and then there’ll be some cheesy German pop songs mixed in. But we’ve heard some stuff that may not have been played on the radio in the states since the ‘80s… such as the German version of that Peter Schilling song about Major Tom, and the Nik Kershaw song about the tree by the river (I think it might even be called 'Tree by the River')… neither of which Guitarman had heard before. Now THAT is shocking.

No Trains, Just Automobiles

Wee Laddie was under the weather today (not sure whether this is related to the mystery rash or not) so we bagged our plan to ride the train to Regensburg (or maybe Nürnberg) to walk around. The weather was pretty good but I didn’t want to take Wee Laddie out to a playground or anything and risk him getting a chill. He likes to run for a bit then fall on the ground on his back…even when it’s wet & cold out.

So we stayed home and watched 'Cars.' Ka-chow.

Buddy, Can You Spare a Phonebook?

Finally went to Media Markt…it’s better than Best Buy (I say that because they have light fixtures, too, so I have something to do while Guitarman looks at CDs). We now want to buy all of our DVDs in German because then you get both German and English versions. They dub like crazy over here. I don’t know if it’s like this with most other languages, but I swear, they’ve got practically everything they have back home. You can already get the newer shows like 'Numbers' and that Patricia Arquette one and 'House.' It’s phenomenal.

We got 'Cars' for Wee Laddie, which Guitarman’s been wanting to do for a while. I kept putting him off ‘til we found it in German, which was today. Of course, then we also had to get a region 2 DVD player. I know I had a brief rant about this already, but I think it’s all just ego that prevents a worldwide standard for video. It seems that video people around the world should get over themselves and just embrace whatever’s got the highest resolution.

We also got a phone book! They don’t deliver them to your house like they do back home and nobody that I asked had ever even seen one! Well, we got a card in the mail a week or so ago saying that you could pick them up at Media Markt or at a post office. Interesting. I perused it when we got home. Not that I know what anything means, but I tried to find a few things, like our fave döner place and a pediatrician. No luck on either count.

The Wrong Threat

This morning before Guitarman left for work Wee Laddie told him, 'Mommy snuggle.' When Guitarman gave me a hug Wee Laddie went, 'Aaaaawww!'

Then when Guitarman left for work, Wee Laddie told him, 'Peace out.' Cousin Dyami would be so proud. :)

Had the first playgroup at our house today. It was nice…the kids played really well together and the moms are all really nice. And involved. There were 3 other mom-tot sets. We had a couple of minor skirmishes but the sharing went very well overall. I was very proud of the way Wee Laddie handled himself…he’s still not very used to sharing HIS toys with other kids. I made a big deal out of praising him for it and told Guitarman twice, to give Wee Laddie some positive reinforcement.





We were going to go to the mess hall for lunch but we had one of those moments where I chose the wrong threat (From the front seat: 'If you don’t hand me the pen 3-2-1, we’re going back home.') and then had to stick to it. I sure hope this Love & Logic stuff works. I can totally see why parents sometimes aren’t good at follow-through…I really wanted to go have lunch with Guitarman, not turn around and then have to make lunch for Wee Laddie and myself.

Is Indifference a Parenting Style?

Wee Laddie’s mystery rash seems better today. I’m not quarantining him since he doesn’t have any other symptoms that I’ve noticed.

At Kids’ Club today, talked to a couple of other moms about playgroup…they both sounded interested. Two older boys were there, one probably a year older than Wee Laddie… one just turned 5, I think. I realize they’re older and want to do 'bigger' stuff, but they were being bossy and kind of mean to Wee Laddie. The younger one was making growling noises at Wee Laddie, trying to scare him away. Wee Laddie’s not a fearful guy and he’s used to playing with older kids since his Denver cousins are all so much older. Still, he sometimes does get freaked out by sounds he’s not familiar with or whatever, so I went to stand over there ‘cause I knew the boy would stop. He did, but then kept bossing Wee Laddie around and telling him, 'No.' I was determined to give Wee Laddie the chance to play by these boys if that’s where he wanted to be, so we hung out with them for probably 20 minutes. Never once did the other 2 moms come by or ask if everything was okay. (At one point I was holding the hand of the little brother of one of the boys ‘cause he wanted to hang with them too, which meant being on some steps. And he’s littler than Wee Laddie, I think.)

The lack of involvement surprised me. Then as they were leaving the oldest boy said, 'I’m trying to make it a better place than I found it.' Or something like that. You could tell his mom must say that to him all the time, but he was full of crap. And she, apparently, had no idea.