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.

Thanksgiving, part Deux

When Wee Laddie woke up this morning he was talking about a dream he’d had with a fire alarm at the movie theater. (Fire alarms have been a frequent topic of conversation around here since this one and this one at the PX in Graf.) And he said that his mommy got him out, but I wasn’t his mommy in the dream. So I told him that dreams were weird that way. It’s incredible to me to have someone this age be able to talk about his dreams and kind of understand (at least by appearances) that they’re just stories in your head and not things that really happened.

In the late afternoon we went to Charlie and Telise’s for a late-Thanksgiving/early-Christmas dinner. It was lovely and Telise did the whole thing... turkey, stuffing, potatoes, the whole shebang. Yum.

She also gave us a copy of her painting of Wee Laddie, which is just such an awesome thing to have. What a treasure.

Best Playroom Ever

Went to play in Cutiebug’s playroom this morning. The original plan was the aquarium (Sea Life) in Nürnberg but they’re closed for relocation. Starfruit looked into a couple of play areas that looked really fun, but neither one opens ‘til like 2pm. And that doesn’t fit with nap schedule for any of us.

Happily, Wee Laddie loves Cutiebug’s playroom as she has practically every toy known to man in there. (And here I’ll mention that Starfruit told me she’s a bit embarrassed at my descriptions of the playroom and feels that she should clarify that most of those awesome toys were gifts or purchased secondhand. In other words, she’s not insane.) They played with some doctor toys and the kitchen for a bit, then they painted and played with Play-doh. Fabulous time.





After playtime we all went to Hotel zum Hirschen for lunch. Yum again. I tried the Wienerschnitzel this time (which was, indeed, very good) and Starfruit had Käsespätzle and we shared. And split with the kids, who both ate very well. And we still had food left over. Oh, don’t get me wrong... I’d have gladly chowed down on the rest of the Käsespätzle if not for the carb counting and the fact that I’d also had a small amount of the Bratkartoffeln (potatoes). My blood sugar was a beautiful 112 after an hour. (I thumb my nose at my goofball doctor.)

The Baby is How Big??

Another OB appointment today. It’s sort of weird to get an ultrasound every time. We ended up with another arm shot, ‘cause Schatzi really seems to enjoy facing backwards. He’s head-down now... facing a different way than Wee Laddie was when he was in there.

My belly seems absolutely HUGE to me (and, apparently, to Wee Laddie and Guitarman), but I’ve only actually gained 3.2 kilos (7 lbs, for those of you who are metrically challenged like me) so far.

The doc seemed concerned that Schatzi is growing too fast, and she made it pretty clear that she doesn’t believe me about my blood sugar numbers. That sort of ticked me off, as I take the health of my children very seriously. (It was Wee Laddie whose tiny presence got me to quit smoking, after all, and I also managed my blood sugar well with him.) I don’t get it, ‘cause my numbers have been really good. Like my one-hour readings are often lower than the goal for two hours after eating. I’m hardly eating any bread products at all and have been eating lots of salads and smaller portions of everything. I’ve had a few high readings in the past week, but other than that I usually get like 1-4 high readings per week (testing 4x a day). The doc was predicting a 10-pounder and telling me that not taking care of this now can lead to him having problems with diabetes later in life. So then she looks at the graph again and realizes she’s marked it on the wrong week... and says, “Oh, that’s not bad.” Grrrrr. Because at this point I’m all friggin’ stressed out about it (still, frankly, even though now she’s saying it’s okay… ‘cause I don’t know if she means REALLY okay or just semi-okay) and questioning whether or not I’m testing correctly or if there’s something wrong with my glucose meter. I’ll be so happy to get back to my regular doc.

After the doc, Wee Laddie and I ran over to Laaber to pick up Christina and Oliver and the four of us went to IKEA. I broke one of our bowls the other day and wanted to replace it before we leave. So we had lunch there and did a bit of shopping. Of course, they didn’t have the bowl I need. They have a similar one, same shape and very nearly the same color but it’s not exact. And they wouldn’t let me take the display bowl that WAS the right color ‘cause they’re getting more shipped in. Sometime. I’ve no idea when. Or how annoying it’ll be to replace one stupid bowl. And I should just let it go, but I suspect it’ll bug the crap out of me every time I look in the cabinet and realize that we only have 5 bowls but 6 of everything else. Like the spoon from our silverware set that went into the garbo. Still bugs me and it’s been like 7 years.

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.

The Expat Thanksgiving

I think I've only been away from home for 3 Thanksgivings. The first was during my student exchange to England during high school. The People-to-People group (their part of the Sister Cities Int’l group) threw us a Thanksgiving dinner which I find very funny, since it seems almost an anti-England holiday. The second was just a few years ago when Guitarman and I went to visit his parents in Florida for the holiday. And then this year.



We had a very lovely dinner at Christina’s. It’s an annual tradition for them to invite local Americans & other assorted friends to the Expat Thanksgiving Dinner. It was an interesting collection of people... about 1/2 American and about 1/2 other, I’d guess. I had a nice chat with the German neighbors, who were talking about how Germany doesn’t really have an equivalent holiday with a celebration & food and all of that. They seemed to really enjoy our holiday.

And the food was fabulous. Everyone brought a dish to share. And far from being a replica of all of the traditional American Thanksgiving foods (green bean casserole, sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top) it was a fantastic spread of all sorts of international flavors. Yum. The stuffing was made with apples & sage, for example. I brought a curry-butternut squash soup that was yummy. I overheard a couple of remarks about it, one of which was a wife to her husband, “Here, you’ve got to try this soup,” which was followed by a brief chat about how he’d have never thought to put cilantro with it but that it really worked. So yay me. Or rather, yay Allrecipes.com.

I’ve learned that my kid is a natural problem solver. Ok, I already knew that. But isn’t it much more fun when I make it seem like you’re along with me on this journey of learning fun things about my son? Remember, he's just shy of 3. Anyway, he was trying to get a container of toys through the baby gate but it wouldn’t fit. So he tries again and still no luck. So he slides the container up to the top of the gate and reaches over to grab it. Genius, I tell you. ;)

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.

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.

Memories

We were supposed to go swimming in Burglengenfeld with Kelly & Kaitlyn but Wee Laddie had a little bit of the runs last night (after saying his tummy hurt), so I didn't want to expose anyone to anything in the event he is actually sick. He probably isn’t, but you never know. I wonder if he’ll one day be mortified that I’ve posted his bowel habits on the Internet.

This surprised me: Wee Laddie suddenly mentioned juggling balls today. Sometime in summer 2006, it must have been, we went to Wendy’s with our friend Rutabega and her mom. In Rutabega’s kids’ meal, the toy was a set of three juggling balls and her mom swore she was going to learn to juggle so that she could entertain Wee Laddie. I was so surprised that he actually remembered that!

Sightseeing at Last

Since we keep going to Würzburg but not visiting the castle, we decided to do a little sightseeing there (well, we had to go anyway as the pair of speakers Guitarman thought he'd bought turned out to be just one speaker). We were planning to go to the castle but drove around a bit & ended up at the Parkplatz Residenz. I believe it was built for a bishop or something. (With Wee Laddie in tow our chance to actually find out what we’re looking at is a bit limited.) We didn’t go in but just walked around the gardens. They were beautiful. I want to go back in the spring or summer…I imagine it’s just stunning then.

Having some trouble with the slide show here, so if it's not working here & you'd like to see it, here's a link.

We had dinner at Burger King on the base (sometimes we do that ‘cause it’s open, sometimes for a stop for something at the PX and sometimes just ‘cause we’re feeling lazy, languagewise). Guitarman picked up a copy of Bavarian Times (a magazine they have on base) and they had an article about Würzburg. Turns out we were right outside of the building that houses the world’s largest fresco painting! Guess we’ll really have to go back now. Maybe when my mom comes to visit, since she might find that interesting.

We saw Paloma, a friend of Wee Laddie’s from the Friday playgroup. I pointed her out, then Wee Laddie talked about her throughout the rest of dinner. 'Poma cheeburger,' etc. So we went to say 'hello' on the way out. We got outside and Wee Laddie pointed at a car and said, 'Poma car.' I said, 'Oh, is that Paloma’s car?' He said, 'Yes.' I don’t know… he could be right.

Is This a Hurricane?

Kids’ Club today... 5 other mom-tot sets there. (This was actually our 2nd time there, but I was whining so much last week that I didn’t write about it. ) The kids seem to play together well. Wee Laddie really likes this German mom named Sabine. She reminds me of Rutabaga's mom in her 'anything to make this kid have fun' attitude. Her daughter’s fantastic, too… very happy & playful. This playgroup is in a gym on the base and they set out big gymnastic mats & tunnels & things. It is so good for Wee Laddie to have some serious run & climb time!



The satellite installer came to look around & see what he needs to do to get us set up. There’s apparently free German satellite TV (Astra), which I love having. Guitarman wants to sign up for AFN (Armed Forces Network) so we get some stuff in English and so we get the sports he wants to watch. I’d rather have just the German… it’d kind of force us to learn the language, you know?

Made my first trip to a local market… Netto. (I used to know a girl named Netta so it reminds me of her.) My observations: They were out of bananas. Yup, just plain sold out. No blizzard, no nothing...just sold out. Weird. Also, there were very few big loaves of bread. There were a lot of loaves that were like half or so. It must be because of all the bakeries...they must be used to having their bread really fresh.

I got some email time, thank goodness. Oh, how I miss the regular contact with my 'peeps.' It makes me crazy to just have these stolen moments online… it’s not enough time to actually accomplish anything, just enough time to make me realize how behind I’m getting!

Oh, and apparently we’re having a hurricane. A bunch of stuff on the base closed because of the wind. I went to the library. While there, the guy who works at the library went back to talk to a woman who works at the library. Here is the gist of their conversation:
Him: 'The weather is horrible. Go straight home when you leave here.'
Her: 'But I was going to stop at the store.'
Him: 'No, you need to go straight home. It’s really bad out there. Everything’s closed.'
(I’m really downplaying some of the drama.)

So a little bit after that, I go outside to go home. The weather? Perfectly freaking still. Seriously, not even a breeze.