Nap? No, Thanks.

Today was yoga class. Turns out that all of the regular yoga & pilates classes were cancelled but this one wasn’t. This is officially a 'Mommy & Me' class and wasn’t on the cut list. Yay!

Wee Laddie was crying for Daddy on the way home (nevermind that we had JUST had lunch with Daddy), then he fell asleep. Of course, he woke when I was getting him out of the car (he almost never sleeps through that) and then wanted to look at pictures of Grandma. So we did that and he stayed awake for another hour plus. When I finally got him to sleep he slept for 2.5 hours. Crazy boy! It seemed like he would have slept even longer but I woke him up by trying to move him.

We got a dual-voltage, multisystem (NTSC and PAL, at least) DVD HD recorder with HDMI (at this point my mom tunes out of the blog). Somehow we forgot to check on the regions. Turns out it’s only for Region 1, so if we want to watch any German DVDs (which we most definitely do) we have to get a Region 2 player. I understand the whole piracy thing, but the security stuff sure can be a pain at times like this.

Vocabulary Building

This morning Wee Laddie was sitting in his little rocking chair in the living room singing, 'baby boat… moon…by.' Those are lyrics from 'Baby’s Boat,' which is the song my mom always sang to him when trying to get him to nap. He doesn’t let me sing it to him very often. Whenever I ask if he wants to hear it he says, 'Grandma sing Baby Boats.'

Wee Laddie's language is quite astonishing. (Hey, it’s totally legitimate for me to be insanely impressed by my son’s mad language 'skillz!') During a couple of his naps in mid-January I made a list of the words he says (I did this a few months ago, too, and thought it’d be interesting to one day share with him what words he felt that it was important to know). I came up with 450 words that he uses independently (as in not after I say them to him) and in the right context. Wow. No wonder he really seems to understand nearly everything we say to him!

Checked out the thrift store on base today. Not terribly interesting… very typical for a small thrift store. I was hoping to find a sewing machine (I sewed the bathroom curtain by hand and it took ages and now it bugs me that the stitches aren’t totally straight) but no luck. They had a little ride-on motorcycle that I got for Wee Laddie. It was only $3 so I figured I couldn’t pass it up. It’s motorized but needs a battery, so now we have to get that part figured out. Wee Laddie was beside himself about his 'mocycle feeney' (see?). He wanted to bring it upstairs while he took his nap.

They’re Still Here

This morning after getting out of bed, Wee Laddie put his hands on his hips and stood looking at his toys for a moment. He said, 'Heh heh,' with an air of great satisfaction.

I had more moving dreams last night. I’d finally stopped having them (dealing with the stress of the move and all the stuff I didn’t get done in Blizzard City before we left), and now they’re back. Ugh.

I’m still searching around the local shops but haven’t been able to find any of the alternative pastas I’m looking for. Some shops carry corn pasta, but I’m not a big fan of the texture of that one. I’ll have to go check at the health food store I saw in Regensburg unless I can find one closer. I’d spotted an Asian and general foreign food store in the shopping area of Parsberg, but they were closed when I tried to go there. I haven’t been back to see whether they were just closed that day for some reason or if they’re gone. I was thinking that might be a good spot for some interesting foods I can’t find elsewhere.

The Toys Are Back in Town

Today Wee Laddie and I hung out in 'his' room (not that he sleeps there yet) while I unpacked some stuff. Wee Laddie was so cute…he was totally excited about each toy. I’d put one in the toy box, he’d spot it and pull it out to play with. He napped on top of his Elmo phone and plastic keys. He even woke briefly once to find that the keys had slipped out from under him… he tucked them in again and went back to sleep.

I seem to have a problem with overusing the word 'thingy,' as evidenced by my son, who now uses it (pronounced 'feeney') in nearly every sentence he utters.

Online Again, Online

Got the DSL installed. (Of course it overlapped, so we had to miss Kids’ Club time, but I think it’s better to have a sane mama.) The installer was the same guy who had come to fix our phone before. His English isn’t perfect (still MILES better than my German, of course) but he’s very nice & friendly and totally willing to jump in with guess-words.

He also told me how to have our phone quit calling us (which, it turns out, is the answering service that we have…after every call we get, the phone calls every 15 minutes to let you know that you got a call. Great idea, but not so helpful when you didn’t answer the phone because you have a toddler who is trying nap.) He also switched it to English so we can understand what it’s saying to us. :)

A Narrow Miss

Wee Laddie didn’t sleep well. Sometime in the night he and I had a disagreement about whether or not we could sleep with his arm wrapped around my throat (I have trouble even wearing too-tight turtlenecks, in case you were wondering which side of the argument I was on). Ended up with me getting grumpy and him getting very upset. It later occurred to me that this is still a very huge, strange adjustment for him and I need to bear that in mind. I mean, our stuff still isn’t even here… it must be hard for him to feel any sense of security or stability. And, as all parents know, young children LOVE routine.

We were supposed to get our DSL installed today. This morning I asked Guitarman if they’d said afternoon or if I was just guessing that.. he said the thought it was afternoon. Then he pulled out the letters from T-Com and guess what? The freaking router is on backorder until APRIL. (yup, you read that right) So I just about had a nervous breakdown before breakfast, even. Perfect timing that I’d bought that dictionary last night or I’d never have been able to figure out what the letter said. Oh, or that they were in fact scheduled to come in the morning, by 10 am.

Long story short, I found out that they shipped us the router on 29 January so we should have it today or tomorrow. I’m supposed to call when we get it and they‘ll reschedule the installation. Thank goodness. Some of you can well imagine how upset I was at the thought of TWO MORE MONTHS of no internet at home.

The German word for relieved: erleichtert

We Love the Pigeon

Wee Laddie is in love with the Mo Willems book ('Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus') that the Baileys got him for his birthday. It’s such a fantastic book! And at the end of every page where he’s supposed to tell the pigeon, 'No,' he responds with an enthusiastic, 'Yah!' He’s also embraced a few lines from the book: 'No fair' and 'Five bucks.' He’s wanted to read this book 4 nights in a row now. (This began the very evening after I’d talked at the EFMP playgroup about how he’ll only let me read him an actual story about once a month.)

Went to the Möbelhof to look for dishes. Didn’t find any there that I really liked (that were also IKEA cheap), but I found some fabric for a curtain for the upstairs bathroom and a German-English dictionary. It seems very funny because it says, 'Englisch' in big letters on the side, which normally wouldn’t bode well for an English dictionary.

Had my first moment of real homesickness today when Wee Laddie was saying, 'Aunt Tam house, Grandma house.' I miss them.

A Place to Sit

Had lunch at the mess hall again. The first Mexican food we’ve had since we got here… beef enchiladas. They were completely wrong (flour tortillas and the sauce tasted like that chile con carne from grade school), but somehow not horrible. I guess because I wasn’t expecting it to taste like a real enchilada.

We went to Möbelhof after lunch to get a sofa. The one we’d picked wasn’t in stock so we picked another (there’s literally nowhere to sit on our main floor since our stuff from home hasn’t arrived yet) that we both actually like a bit better. (I think it cost a bit more or we’d have picked it to begin with.) It’s orange, but doesn’t quite go with the rug we got (the sofa’s in a brighter palette…more citrusy) but we’ll eventually put it in the loft, probably. I think (and hope!) that our red sofa will go better with this rug… and we can pick another rug later for the loft.

The Deutsche Telecom guy came out today and got our home phone line working… yay! And we’re one step closer to having DSL now, too. First they guy said we need to send a letter but later he said he’d have an English-speaking colleague call us. I’m hoping that means he’ll kind of grease the wheels a bit for us. Bureaucratic stuff is supposed to be very slow here, and I’m already going nutso from my lack of contact with my friends, my family, my co-moms. I just about broke down in the library parking lot yesterday because I was so pissed off that I couldn’t get 10 freaking minutes of 'me' time to check my email. So far I’m the only one putting Wee Laddie down at night (which usually still takes a while), and then Guitarman comes to bed early enough that it’s not even worth going back downstairs once Wee Laddie’s asleep…not that I’m still awake. (We’re all in one bed ‘til we get a low bed for Wee Laddie.)

I’m so caught up on sleep that I’ve been skipping naps (like Wee Laddie is sleeping as I write this) and still waking at like 5-6am most days. And I’m so not an early riser.

Lunch with Grandma

We met Guitarman at the mess hall for lunch, then I took Wee Laddie to the library on base. I was thinking that maybe if he got a chance to look at books or play or something he might give me a few minutes to check my email. Ha. Boy, was I kidding myself. I can’t remember if I was even able to log into Yahoo (I definitely didn’t get to read a single email) before he started screaming. He absolutely wouldn’t settle down so we left. Of course, I first had to carry him screaming through the library to put back the books we were going to check out. (Sometimes follow-through is a pain.) Turns out I’d kept him up too long before his nap… he fell asleep even before we’d gotten off the base!

Today I asked Wee Laddie, 'Do you want to have lunch with Daddy?' He said, 'Lunch with Grandma?' I repeated myself and he answered the same way. Poor thing, he’s really missing Grandma, his cousins, his friends.

And he’s been stuck inside for weeks! The last 2 weeks in CO were so snowy that he couldn’t really play outside and it’s been so wet & chilly here that he still can’t. I have to find some things for him to do to burn off some of his energy. I haven’t seen any kid play-type places that are indoors where he could run around in the crappy weather.

Echo, Echo, Echo

We had dinner at and looked around the Möbelhof furniture store. It’s right across the road (well, and a field, too) from our house but you have to drive about a kilometer to get there. It is a very cool store. IKEA style but more upscale. Rather like Bova…not quite DWR, but nicer than Scan Designs and way nicer than IKEA. Wee Laddie was quite taken with a table & chair set that’s just his size. (Already, with the high-end taste… maybe we can talk him into IKEA at least.) I love that there are all these furniture stores around with stuff that we like. There are some other shops around the IKEA that we’ll also check out on some other trip over there.

Tonight was the first night in the house. It echoes like crazy with the tile floors and no furniture. We can barely carry on a conversation, and then only if Wee Laddie’s not shouting something (which he often is). It’s maddening. Guitarman was unpacking the TV & stuff and it was just insanely loud from the bedroom upstairs.

When I tucked Wee Laddie in tonight he was crying for the hotel. I’m sure it’s just because that’s the only place he’s stayed here and he didn’t want to be in a new place (we don’t even have the bed set up, we’re just on the mattresses on the floor). I had taken some photos of the hotel room so I showed them to him. That seemed to help and he did finally go to sleep.

Funny thing Wee Laddie did: He picked a boogie and tried to put it in Guitarman’s nose. Hehe