EuroLife 2.0

Playground with Emmanuel

2010-06-03T21:09:00.007+02:00

We went to the new playground with Emmanuel today, and now it's time for photo overload!

(Both boys had their bike helmets on, and neither wanted to take them off.)

First, some fun on the seesaw.

And now this swings:

And, of course, the spinning climbing structure...

At this point, David slipped away, quickly and quietly, when he noticed that Emmanuel's crane had been left unattended. He grabbed it, peeked over his shoulder (I swear!) and ran far, far away to play with it.

While Emmanuel chatted with Michael:

After the park, Michael, David and I stopped at our favorite restaurant for dinner. It's right down the street, the owner loves David, it's extremely inexpensive and delicious, AND, if we eat outside, David can bring his Bobby Car.

It doesn't get much better than that.

Now I have a confession. When I first got here, I thought German food was the pits. Now I find myself wondering what I'll do without it! (The answer, of course, is that I will gorge on Mexican food, but that's not the point.) The first time I saw this meal, I thought it was the nastiest idea ever. I mean really, who eats fried eggs on pork chops?

I do.

I do, and I love it, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Michael does , too, for what it's worth.

Oh how I will miss Schnitzel mit Spiegelei und Bratkartoffeln.

But since that would be a weird photo to end with, I leave you with this...

What We've Been Up To

2010-05-26T21:05:00.006+02:00

Things are getting kind of crazy here as we prepare to move back to the U.S. In addition to the practical things that need to get done (like unloading, one way or another, the contents of our apartment!), there's the constant fluctuation between thinking about what we'll miss, and thinking about what we're more than ready to leave. (The weather. We are more than ready to leave this weather. It is simply inexcusable.)

We've had some nice times too, of course, and David just gets funnier and funnier. I'm amazed at how old he all of a sudden seems to be. I can't even put my finger on it, but this week in particular I feel as if he's had a developmental growth spurt. It's really fun, and of course good, but also the tiniest bit sad. There's very little baby left in that boy! (Ever-present pacifier to the contrary.)

I realized that I never write much about his little accomplishments, so here are a few David-brags: he loves counting, and can count (with some prompting) to 20. He can count to 10 with no help, and loves counting objects---which he can do up to about 6 or so. He seems to know his left from his right, which we can only assume comes from Dr. Suess's "The Foot Book." He has demonstrated the ability to go to the bathroom both in the potty AND on the floor.

My favorite: He can tell us when something is too spicy. "Too 'picy! too 'picy!" This doesn't necessarily mean he'll stop eating it, mind you. Often he'll just wait a minutes, and then start chowing down again--with watery eyes. It makes us very proud. :)

That's all I can think of for now! My plan for this blog was to just post pictures, but as we all know I never can manage to do a short post. In any case, here are the pictures of what we've been up to lately.

There are really no words for this one:

Or this one:

David is still sort of obsessed with all things vehicular:

Anja introduced us to a new playground, and it's awesome! It is at a school, and there's a blacktop and a great play area AND the streetcars drive by--which, if you're a toddler boy, is just about as good as it gets.

This big ropey climbing structure actually spins! I think it's pretty cool.

David: "If I stare long enough, maybe she'll come and sit on the other side?"

The difference between a stay-at-home parent and a working parent, I've discovered, is this: a stay at home parent would never take one of the very few things that a child plays with, happily, on his own and turn it into a game that requires a lot of parental work.

But it was still fun to watch them zipping around like this. :)

David throwing rocks, with his beefy arms that we love so much:

And here are those beefy arms again, with what was, I think, supposed to be a camera smile:

And finally, more snuggling with Franz:

Trucks, Tractors, Cars and Ice Cream

2010-05-08T11:02:00.006+02:00

That basically sums up David's favorite things in life. About 6 weeks or so ago, David decided that cars (or motorcycles, trucks, tractors, busses, or street-cars) are the best things in the whole wide world.

When he wakes up, he runs to find his toy cars as quickly as possible--as if the night had been far too long to be away from them. Then he putters around, vrooming all over the furniture, lost in his own little world. It's adorable. (It's made my life unbelievably easier, actually, since these are the first toys that David's really shown and sustained interest in, and he happily plays alone for the first time in his little life!)

Even better than toy cars are real cars. He's forever claiming cars that he sees as his own. ("David's car! David's car!") Michael has told him that we're going to have a car in a few months, and he cannot wait. He talks about it all the time, and his first plan is to listen to Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen) in the car--like he does in Oma's car. David thinks we should get a Police Car, or at least a car with lights and sirens. He's thought about it, and that's the car he thinks we should buy.

So, here are some photos of David that capture this newfound love of machinery. (Not just automobiles, mind you, but also lawnmowers, jackhammers, construction equipment of all kinds.)

A few weeks ago, there was a wood-market/festival downtown. David couldn't believe his luck.

(David and Michael watching the chainsaw sculptor.)

We also watched this for a while. It chopped wood and shot the wood into the trailer. David thought it was pretty awesome.

David liked this wooden train...

...but the real tractors were his favorite, hands down. He kept trying to climb the fence, saying "David in there! David in there!"

They even set-up David's favorite carousel, which they had for the Christmas Markets.

He LOVES this thing. He cried so hard when he had to get off, it broke my heart. His little face looked absolutely betrayed. (OK, it mostly broke my heart and also made me laugh a little inside...he's a very dramatic little guy, and it's hard not to find that a tiny bit funny.)

We ended the day, as we often do, with ice cream. My (ill conceived) plan was to get one for Michael, and one for David and I to share. David wanted nothing to do with sharing, and he took one of the cones and ran off with it.

So, Michael and I shared and David got to eat his cone.

A few days ago, we took David out to fly his kite. The kite flying was a total flop, but we did find...

more tractors!

Here we have David trying to find a way to get INTO the tractor. He kept asking me for help, and I couldn't help but wonder what on earth he thought he would do if he could just get into that tractor.

One last picture, taken yesterday morning--David's new car. (Best 14 Euros I ever spent on Ebay. :)

This picture was taken in the bathroom, oddly enough, where he was driving Elmo and Baby Lamby around in his PJs. (Yep, he is still wearing those Christmas PJs. Yep, he was driving his dirty car all around the house. It was pouring outside, and freezing cold, and I pretty much let him do whatever he wanted to while we were stuck inside.)

David LOVES this car, and we love watching him drive it all over the place!

Biking to Weimar

2010-04-20T21:52:00.006+02:00

Last Saturday, we had a family bike trip to Weimar. It's not very far, 25 kilometers (15 miles)by the bike path, and it was the perfect way to enjoy the weather.

Sadly, as we were leaving, Michael discovered that he had a flat tire. Fortunately, he and David were able to make the necessary repairs:

David is pretty happy in his bike seat, as long as: (1) he can see me, and (2) he gets regular breaks. When he can't see me, he yells "maMAAAA! maMAAA!" Then, when I manage to catch up (this is often on an uphill) he says, very sweetly, "hi Mama!"

It's mostly cute, but sometimes not. Like when I'm gasping for air pedaling up a steep hill, trying simultaneously to say "It's alright, David, I'm right here..."

I'm totally on board with the regular breaks, though!

David loves taking pictures together now, where I hold the camera:

You just have to love this face:

We did eventually manage to reach Weimar, and even stopped at a beautiful palace just outside the city:

We had a bite to eat there, and David grabbed the Soljanka we were supposed to share and made clear it was not to be shared. Oddly enough, this is one of his favorite foods:

The palace grounds were beautiful, and we spent our time there just wandering around outside:

David's favorite, of course, was walking up and down the palace stairs. (And up, and down, and up, and down...)

He also enjoyed standing up there, his personal stage, and telling us elaborate, very dramatic stories, often about a bumblebee. Or just surveying all that was his.

Once we got to the city itself, we did some more wandering and some more eating. (Very, very mediocre bratwurst, unfortunately.) We capped the afternoon off with MY favorite: Ice Cream!

Michael ordered a coffee-ice cream float (an eiscafe), we ordered David a scoop of mango ice cream, and I ordered the sundae that's named after the city--the Weimar.

I think it's safe to say I chose wisely. Michael chose poorly, and so I had to share the rewards of my wisdom.

David was VERY pleased with his own decision. He usually eats strawberry ice cream, which he calls "pink ice cream." (Don't offer him strawberry, he won't eat it.) This time, he did NOT want pink ice cream, so I suggested orange (mango.) Yes, orange ice cream, that was what he wanted. And he was right.

We had to wait a full half hour as David, slowly but surely, finished that scoop of mango ice cream. We had long since finished, and he was getting colder by the minute, but he was determined (and feisty!)

It was a great day.

David and Franz

2010-04-18T20:39:00.004+02:00

As the weather has (finally) improved, David has been having so much fun out in our backyard. It's a shared yard, surrounded by buildings for the most part, but it's really quite pretty. (OK, so the one right outside our door is kind of ugly, but past the hedge-wall it's beautiful :)

One of the neighbors with whom we share this yard is Franz.

Franz is David's new best bud, and they play together the way toddlers play together. When David sees Franz, he either shrieks at him and tries to kick him, or he runs at him to play with him. If he shrieks, and Franz runs away, David gets upset and tries to find him.

When Franz sees David, he either runs at him to snuggle, or he runs away. If he tries to snuggle, and David runs away, he follows David crying, trying even harder to snuggle with David. He will literally throw himself in front of David's feet so that David has to either trip over him or snuggle him.

Half the time, "playing together" for Franz and David means wandering around at the same time, crossing paths just often enough to make clear that it isn't accidental.

Like I said, they play together the way toddlers play together.

So, here's Franz--coming to see if David can come out to play:

And here's David roaming around the yard:

And here they are together, after a long hard day of playing outside:

Let's get a closer look at that...

Finally, if you'd like to see a video of the two meandering around the yard "together," click here! (It just takes absolutely forever to upload videos to this site, and then the quality is crummy.)

What a Weekend (or, the Longest Post Ever)

2010-04-04T20:42:00.007+02:00

I will do my best not to write much today, because I have about a zillion photos to share. Brevity is not really my strong suit, though, so we'll just have to see.

On Friday, we had our second family bike trip of the season! I forgot the camera on the first one, so here are some shots from Friday. It was wonderful!

We biked to our nearby biergarten, where David enjoyed his first beer:

Well, Ok so it was an apfelschorle, but doesn't it look like a beer? At least a little? :)

Then David asked to take a picture with Michael and I. He's into this lately, and I think it's super cute.

I just love this shot:

OK, flash forward to Saturday! Our great friends, Thomas and Anja (and Immanuel) welcomed a new little boy into their family almost two weeks ago now. Little Artur Koch was born on Tuesday, March 23--right on his due date, just like his brother!--and the family had a welcome party for him on Saturday. We had a blast!

Here David DID get to drink something new...orange soda! We forgot his sippy of milk, and he was downright giddy about the soda.

But mostly he just played with his best bud.

This morning was, of course, Easter! Against my better judgment--swayed, I think, by the abundance of German chocolate that we will soon have to leave--I made David an Easter basket.

He was pretty excited about the chocolate, but more excited about the Sesamstrasse DVD... and even MORE excited about the road-map-jigsaw-puzzle-with-cars thing that I grabbed at Aldi and decided to include in the Easter package. (Note to our future children who may one day stumble upon this blog: We do not intend to continue the tradition of giving toys and presents other than candy at Easter. Do not. This was a fluke.)

At church, more play time with Immanuel:

And after church, and after a much-needed nap, dying Easter eggs!

Sadly, the whisk-trick didn't work for long. I think David's fingers might be blue for weeks to come.

But here they are:

In addition to the basket from us, David also got a special chocolate bunny from our friend Claudia! Unlike us, she splurged on the Kinder Chocolate bunny...

It's delicious. (I'm not telling how I know.)

Finally, Anja, Thomas, Immanuel and Artur came over and we had an easter egg hunt in the yard. It was the perfect afternoon, really.

At the end, though, David was pretty spent. Totally spent, actually. He walked inside, grabbed Eeyore, then came back out and wandered off to go sit and snuggle with him. Our neighbor's cat, who tries harder and harder each day to make himself David's cat, rushed to join him.

A Serious Belly Laugh!

2010-04-01T20:20:00.003+02:00

I just had to share this video. I hope to write another real post one of these days, but for now I really had to share this!

Spring is here! (And it had better stick around...)

2010-03-25T20:21:00.003+01:00

The weather has just been great for the past week or so. I had to buy sunglasses for David! Sunglasses! We have been outside as often as possible, for as long as possible, and it has been wonderful.

Today, thanks to a very productive couple of weeks and a foreboding weather report for the weekend, Michael decided to take a day off and to work a longer day on Saturday instead. It was just perfect. We had a lazy morning together, then wandered downtown to get a new bike helmet for David. (We thought we might get him a bike too--a balance bike--but he was totally opposed to the idea. Bummer.)

We spent the morning downtown, mostly outside and, for a while at least, eating ice cream. Just a great way to start the day.

The plan was to go for a bike ride after David's nap. Unfortunately, and I think probably because I told David the plan, there was no nap. Just a non-nap followed by a bike-ride.

The good news is, David still loves his bike seat! Maybe even more than last year. He's finally old enough to really get into the things we see as we go along, like a passing train or a waterfall, and he gets really excited when we do things with all three of us. (He loves is, and says things like: "Mama bike! Daddy bike! David bike!" over and over again. It's very cute.)

So we rode our typical short ride, about 7 miles to a nearby beer garden that sits on the river. Michael and I each had a beer, David had an apfel-schorle (apple juice with bubbly water), and we all got a great dose of fresh-air and sun. David perfected jumping off of this little wall, and was just exceedingly proud of himself.

When we got home, we were all pretty zonked. The bike ride itself wasn't tough, but I don't think our bodies are used to being in the sun--direct sun!--for so many hours in one day! We ended up ordering pizza, and a great deal of silliness ensued. Which brings us to the video.

Somehow, we started playing hide and seek with the pizza box. David started to laugh about as hard as I've ever seen him laugh, so naturally I had to run and grab the camera. I had to hide the camera, though, so as not to stop the hilarious laughter, so as videos go it's not very good...but the audio is well worth sharing!

What a Month!

2010-03-14T21:37:00.004+01:00

If there's anyone out there still checking this blog...my apologies. I'm not sure it even counts as a blog anymore, given how rarely I manage to update it!

In any case, we've had quite a month!

A few weeks ago, Michael was accepted a position at the University of South Florida, in Tampa. This is fantastic news. It's a great position in a great department, and it happens to be located near the beach...and the sun shines there!

As in, the sun regularly makes an appearance, and when it does there is no reason to drop everything and rush outside to try to see it, because you can be certain it will be there for a while. This is, as I said, fantastic news.

About a week after Michael got the job, I sent off my dissertation to my advisor. The final chapter is new, so it's possible there will be some revisions, but I'm really hoping it's finished. It is, at the very least, very nearly finished. So it looks like I will manage to get this phd one of these days, which will be awesome.

Here's a funny story: A few months ago, back in November or December, I decided to submit a paper to a graduate student conference that sounded interesting. I never submit papers to conferences, since they tend to happen in the US and I'm here, but I liked the topic and I went ahead and sent in a paper. When we got back in January, I heard that it had been accepted. Then I saw where it was taking place: USF. When I sent it in, I had no idea that Michael had applied there. When I accepted, and said I'd attend the conference, I knew only that Michael was in the running for the job, but that he might very well not get it. I accepted thinking "This will either be the best weekend ever, or the most depressing conference of all time."

So David and I went to Tampa! The conference was great, I even met a like-minded philosopher who works at U. of Miami, and I got to see the area! (And I got to hear people talk about how great Michael is, and how glad they are that he's coming, and that was nice:) It all felt pretty providential to me.

So that's that. Most of you (are there any of you?) probably knew all this already, but it seemed weird not to acknowledge Michael's awesome new job on the blog, so there you have it.

Now for the photos!

Here are some from yesterday. Emmanuel, David's buddy, is now 2! This happened altogether too quickly, but the party was a lot of fun.

Here's David playing with our present for Emmanuel, who was kind enough not to knock David over and take it back.

The boys played together really well. They crack each other up!

David was playing with these little animal magnets, so I put them in his pocket for him. He was inordinately proud to have them there.

And, after taking them out, tried to put them back in...

Here's my favorite shot from the day:

That's all for now!

Photos! (And an update)

2010-02-15T15:52:00.006+01:00

To update, the bronchitis was pneumonia. Apparently I misheard the doctor! After a week of antibiotics, David was weezing at least as badly and coughing even more, so I took him back in and asked if he might have pneumonia. The pediatrician said "Well, yes he does have pneumonia, that's why we gave him antibiotics!"

Oops.

Sometimes it can be very frustrating living in another country. (That, coupled with the fact that it is apparently totally legal here to set the utility bills too low and then back-charge the tenants a year after the END of the year. As in, "surprise! You owe us 1200 Euros for 2007-2008. We'll get back to you shortly about 2008-2009.")

But I digress.

So after a second medication, David's pneumonia is better, and he's only coughing a little, but now the poor thing has a stomach bug! It's really sad. We had a great couple of days where he was feeling well, but now he's been sick since Friday night.

Friday night was actually a tiny bit funny. He went to bed, started to cry, Michael went to check on him and he had thrown up everywhere. That wasn't funny, but it WAS funny when, for the next 15 minutes, he chatted nonstop about it. It was all sorts of baby babble punctuated with "Uh oh bed! Uh oh, crib!" Then he looked at me and said, with a serious expression "Uh oh, BLLEEEHHHHH!!!!" and did the best throw-up sound I've ever heard. I could not stop laughing, so of course he kept on doing it.

Anyway, that's where we are today. But here are some cute photos of the little guy, who just keeps getting cuter and cuter if you ask me.

Here he is watching Elmo on the ipod:

And here he is with his new "camera smile," which cracks me up:

And the camera smile with the nutella twist:

Have you noticed the hair?! Here's a closer look, post-bath:

A few days ago, pre-stomach-bug, Anja and I decided to go grab a coffee together with the boys. We figured they'd play, we'd chat, and it would be lovely. We were wrong. Mostly, I chased the boys, wrangled them back into the coffee shop, sat down, and immediately watched this happen:

The only thing that temporarily distracted David was getting to play with my (empty) espresso cup:

Finally, I have to show off David's scarf. I crocheted him a scarf and hat a few months ago. The hat looks astonishingly bad, and he cries if I try to make him wear it (seriously. And he loves wearing hats.) But the scarf worked out! Here in Germany, if you allow your child's neck to be at all exposed, you're basically a criminally negligent parent who doesn't love her child. So it's a good thing the scarf worked out.

So, to summarize: David is sick again, but at least he's cute!

Climbing the Walls!

2010-01-31T13:42:00.004+01:00

David has been sick for about 10 days now, and it's freezing and snowy outside, and that, my friends, is a recipe for disaster.

Some babies like to snuggle when they're sick--or so I've heard. They cuddle up on couches and watch movies with their moms, and it's all very nice and cozy. It's never good when a child is sick, of course, but I guess I still had this image of at least getting some snuggle time out of it. David, on the other hand, thinks he should be able to do whatever he usually does, but he's just too tired and cranky to do it without having a total meltdown every, say, 11 minutes. So things have been a little rough around here lately!

Because he has bronchitis, and because he's STILL wheezing after a week of antibiotics, I've really been hesitant about letting him play outside. He's gone to the park a few times with Michael, all bundled up, but I'm more inclined to keep him indoors or bundled like mad in his sleeping-bag-stroller concoction myself.

I think largely as a result of that, he has taken to playing in the windowsill. He's liked it for a while, I think I even posted some photos when he was smaller, but lately he thinks it's just the place to be. So we've been using window-crayons, sticky gel shapes for glass, and basically hanging out in the window.

And sometimes he tries to escape:

He let me take some great photos of him yesterday for a little while! He just sat there posing and making funny faces :

Then he went back to gazing wistfully outside:

I wanted to share one more picture, but this one's from last week when we had Anja, Thomas and Emmanuel over for coffee and cake. David had gone with Michael to get the cake, and came home more than a little bit ready to eat the cake. He ran to his highchair and said "high-chair, Aahhhhh" (which means, "I want to sit in my high chair!"--the "ahh" is supposed to be a sigh of contentment. It's hilarious. If he wants me to sit somewhere, he pats the chair and says "Mama, Aahhhhh!")

We told him we had to wait for Emmanuel, and he seemed to understand this. So when they arrived, after greeting them all, David tried again with the "Cake! Cake! Highchair! Bib!"

When we didn't immediately respond, he climbed into a chair, sat himself down, and waited--chin on the table--staring down the cake in its wrapper.

He loves his cake. I can't imagine where he got that from, but I'm saying Michael :)

Here's the Video

2010-01-25T09:31:00.002+01:00

Oh yeah, We have a Blog!

2010-01-24T19:58:00.005+01:00

We're back in Jena after a nice, long trip back home! We had a great time with family, though we would have had a nicer time had we not had to worry about job-market stuff. There's something terribly inhumane about situating the annual make-it-or-break-it job interview conference precisely between Christmas and New Years. We were fortunate enough to have interviews, but not enough to guarantee a job for next year. So now we wait and see!

David is hilarious these days. He is talking so much, and cracking us up regularly. In fact, he started waking up earlier than usual this week, so I bring brought him back into bed with us to steal an extra 15 minutes or so--all the snuggling that David has time for. When he's ready for us to get up, he leans over to me and gives me butterfly kisses. It is the sweetest thing ever. Then he gets out of bed, walks around to where Michael is, and clocks him--hard!--in the head to wake him up. We're working on this, but honestly it's pretty funny!

He also thinks he's quite the dancer. Check out this video of David singing and dancing:

We had a wonderful afternoon with friends today. After the little ones napped, Thomas, Anja and Emmanuel came over for coffee and cake. Then we basically played for a few hours, and chatted.

By way of reminder, here is a photo from David and Emmanuel's first playdate:

And for a video of them today (well, now it's yesterday), check the next post! It turns out it took all night--honest to goodness, all night--for the first video to process. So tune in later for the second one, or check facebook where I posted it last night!

2009-12-25T23:03:00.005+01:00

Christmas in Atlanta!

Josh and Andrew got these awesome remote control helicopters. Everybody loved them except for David, who cried and cried and said "All done! All done!!!" Then, of course, he wanted to see them again. Rinse, repeat.)

But he loved his new hat from Lauren!!!

And I love my new FlipVideo camera! (Ahem. OUR new camera, of course.)

Hmm. Just watched these, and the blog really makes the videos blurry. I'll put them on facebook too and hope for better. (On the computer, they are super clear!)

More to come, some day. :)

A Month in Recap

2009-11-27T20:47:00.005+01:00

I've really become a terrible blogger. So, instead of continuing to wait for the time & energy to finish our France posts and write other the posts I've been meaning to write, I'm just going to give a quick sampling of the last month or so around here!

(I got one of my wisdom teeth out today, so I'm just laying in bed anyway. Why just one, you ask? Because it took so long, and was so grueling, the dentist wouldn't do another. Let's just say the novocaine didn't really work, and it was the only thing they had to offer. Really not pleasant.)

So, photo share!

David's funny face. It would be better without the yoghurt and the spoon, but you get the idea. He loves to make this face, and I love to see it!

David's climbing has us on our toes constantly. Now he likes to climb up here and STAND, and try to walk across the back of the couch. He's so quick, too, it's nearly impossible to keep him down all the time.

He loves his toy cars these days.

And he loves his toy guitar, and to wear this red hat. The turtle on his wrist was Michael's idea, but David thought it was very cool. I love the combination!

He still loves to play with Emmanuel and...it's time I admit...he sometimes wears tights. Here they are called "strumpfhosen", and in my defense ALL the children wear them. Then when they come inside, they play in their strumpfhosen and sweaters, or shirts, and look so cozy and comfy. So I caved.

He likes to do everything himself. Here he is "refilling" his sippy cup with milk :)

He loves the swings now. We have a baby swing at home, but the only option at the park is what you see there. He did great, though!

Finally, some photos from our family hike the other day. It was a beautiful evening (ahem, 4pm or so), and Michael took some pictures of David and I, so I just have to share them:

And some shots of Michael and David throwing rocks in a puddle, and of course discussing things.

We interrupt our regular programming...

2009-11-04T19:55:00.004+01:00

...to bring you a short film of our boy, the story teller.

Our regular (France related) programming will resume shortly.

France--Part Two

2009-11-01T20:02:00.008+01:00

We went for a walk along the river that runs through Carcassonne one day, hoping to get out into the countryside. There wasn't really any accessible "countryside" like we'd hoped for, too many roads and cars, but we did find a nice path through some vineyards:

There were also some incredible views of the old city from the riverside:

I hope this one gives a sense of how big the city is...it really is unlike anything I'd seen before:

And now for a few more pictures from inside the old city. (We did do other things as well!)

My little lightning bug:

(Darn reflector patch on the back of his jacket. I have about dozen photos which would be awesome, if not for David's illuminated tush.)

David, of course, found some puddles to stomp in:

(But seriously, how cool is it to stomp in puddles with that kind of a backdrop?)

Back home, we had bread, cheese and local wine for dinner almost every night. (Michael and I, that is!)

How's this for stinky cheese?

If you can't tell, the brie on the right is super dusty gray on the outside. The rind was...well...Michael called it diaper cheese. The cheese on the left, though, was awesome! I couldn't look too closely while eating it, but it was delicious. The region is particularly known for goat cheese, and we all ate a lot of that, but didn't take any photos. (Turns out David loves goat cheese! Such a funny boy. Won't eat ham, for example, but bring on the goat cheese!)

Our apartment had a washer and drier, (which we used almost daily, thanks to Ryan Air's lack of a baggage allowance), but it did not have a bathtub. So, David got to take his baths in the kitchen sink!

I think it's safe to say he enjoyed them :

And that's all for now! More to come :)

France--Part One

2009-10-31T10:21:00.008+01:00

We had a great time in Carcassonne!

Writing blogs posts has become nearly impossible, with David running and climbing on everything and Michael and I trying to get our job applications ready and out. It's very hard to find time on the computer that isn't work time! So, this will be mostly a photo share...unless David is more cooperative than I anticipate :)

In the airport, David took the German-French phrasebook from Michael, sat himself down in a chair, and set about "reading" the book. A German man walked by and bursted out laughing--David looked so serious! I didn't quite capture the moment, but it's still a fun picture.

David also loved the little ride-on airplane:

And now for France! Here is the old medieval city. Our apartment was just under the city walls, about a 5 minute walk from our door to the inside of the old city:

Here's the old church:

And, I'm sorry, but doesn't this gargoyle look like something out of Dr. Suess???

We had so much fun just wandering around and exploring the old city. Inside the inner walls are a ton of winding streets with shops and restaurants (and Best Western, believe it or not), but between the inner and outer walls it felt like an old castle. David loved it. All I could think was how much fun my brother Patrick and I would have had there as kids!!!

That's all for now! I imagine I'll have enough posts for the whole week given all of our pictures, so hopefully there will be another one tomorrow :)

Little Drummer Boy

2009-10-17T12:11:00.004+02:00

It's Been Awhile!

2009-10-13T15:24:00.007+02:00

The good news is, we've not been bored! The bad news is, it's been very difficult trying to find time to actually write a blog post. Right now, David is playing with some new giant Leggos, and I'm hoping that keeps him occupied for awhile. We spent the morning at the nearby playground with Anya and Emmanuel, then they came over for about an hour before lunch & naptime. Despite all that running around, David did not nap for nearly as long as usual!

Anyway, here's what we've been up to of late.

David has a new winter jacket, and I love it!

He took it upon himself to decorate it with some chalk.

With the hood attached, it makes him look a bit like Kenny from South Park. (They sell this jacket in orange, too :)

Sadly, David got his first big bump to the head last week. He was running and tripped and fell into the corner of our door-frame. It was very sad, but it seemed to bother me more than David.

He can go down a slide on his own now, which is cool...

Except that HE thinks he can go down THIS slide alone, too. He cannot.
I can barely stick the landing from this slide myself!

We had a nice little birthday gathering for Michael, with coffee and cake and a few of our friends. We were in the middle of changing our apartment a bit, so it was kind of a funny time to host. We've given David the bedroom, ditched our bed and replaced the couch with a sofa bed for us. MUCH more room, but at the time of the party, that meant no couch...but at least there was a lot of play room for the little guys!

(David's super restless, I have to rush here!) Most of what we've been doing lately is playing with Anya and Emmanuel! David and Emmanuel are such great little buddies, it is SO much fun to watch. They are really starting to play together, and it's adorable!

And, of course, a random PJ's shot. Love that potbelly!

The Baltic Sea

2009-09-22T15:06:00.003+02:00

We had a wonderful weekend away on the Baltic Sea with some friends. I'd like to post more about it soon, but for now here's a fun video of David and Michael playing on the beach.

Three things to note:

(1) Despite what it sounds like, there were no gale-force winds. It didn't even feel windy, so I don't know what's going on there!

(2) Because of the (mysterious) rushing wind sounds, it might be hard to hear David...but I assure you he was giggling maniacally. This is important, because...

(3) Despite the gymnastics, David was just fine! OK, so I sort of gave the old Mom warning to Michael at the end, but David was having a blast :)

Now for a more serious note. We came home to the very sad news that Michael's grandfather, Gene Horton, had passed away. He was a really great man--a wonderful father and grandfather and a very entertaining poker player. Michael was able to get home for the week, which is really a blessing, and I'm sure the whole family would really appreciate your prayers right now.

David misses Michael (already!), so we watched this video over and over and over again this morning. He really is a daddy's boy!

2009-09-01T21:04:00.004+02:00

This evening, I got to join David and Michael for one of their favorite activities: naked baby in a river time.

Here in Germany--or at least, here in Jena--when kids play in the water, they do so without any clothes on. It took some getting used to, but now it cracks me up! David loves being clothing-free, so he is a big fan.

Anyway, there is a beautiful spot in the river where someone has dammed off a little area and placed, inexplicably, a bath-tub. It's half buried, and the water around it is only a few inches deep, and all around the area are plants and manicured stones. Michael and David have played there a number of times, but usually while I'm working. This time I came along!

David's favorite part is throwing stones in the bathtub:

And if he gets splashed in the face, all the better!

Afterwards, of course, he claps.

These two shots just crack me up:

We went out to dinner afterwards with Timo. David was completely spent, and very, very hungry. No surprises there!

Another Great Day on the Bikes

2009-08-31T20:48:00.011+02:00

We spent the day on our bikes again yesterday, and it was great. The weather was just perfect--starting to get cooler, but sunny and definitely not too cool. We biked to Rudolstadt, which is about 30 miles south of Jena. About 8 miles in, we stopped at a beer-garden so that I could use the restroom. Trouble is, it was such a lovely scene...a few kids kicking a soccer ball around, families eating, drinking and chatting, and wonderful owners. So we had to stay for a while and have a beer and some fries. (Really, we just had to!) David was happy to get down and run around, and he did so while eating some of the lunch I'd packed for him.

Then he did a quick check on the bikes, to make sure all was in order.

Then we headed back onto the trail, not exactly strengthened by the beer, I'll be honest, but happy nonetheless. Now, I know most of you check the blog for David pictures--and who can blame you, he's a cutie!--but I have to include some shots from the ride. It was just so beautiful, I have to share! (If you can, click on the photos to enlarge them. They really lose something at this size.)

Our next real stop was at a bench along a pretty stretch of railroad tracks. (Which is where most of the above photos were taken. It's hard to bike and take photos at the same time :)

Once again, David munched and played.

This time, though, he also felt compelled to check the route. You can never be too careful!

And, of course, another equipment check. He really is a very diligent little boy.

After all that hard work, he needed a break...

Fortunately, he was fully restored by the time we got to Rudolstadt! As we approached the village, we saw a sight of the sort that never ceases to amuse me. There in the hills sat a beautiful palace, just gorgeous in the sun. There next to the palace sat a monstrosity--a flashing, blaring, blinking carnival. They just never show those things in the Europe guide books. So I figure it's my job to show you all!

Now, I'll admit, it doesn't look so bad from so far away. Up close, though, I promise you...it's not just a pretty little ferris wheel. It was every bit as awful as what you'd find back home, and every bit as loud. And look how pretty the palace is!

Anyway, when we got to Rudolstadt, we decided to skip the carnival.

(OK, so I was tempted by the roller-coaster...it was very big, and looked very cool! This was no Go Go Gator coaster. But then I remembered...if they can break it down, pack it up and drive off with it, it's probably not the safest coaster in town.)

Instead of hitting the carnival, we poked around the town a bit and grabbed (delicious) doener kebaps for dinner.

Then we all sat down for a nice, shared ice-cream sundae! (David had a bit of a fit because he was not allowed to hold the spoon, but we worked it out eventually. One second-spoon and one very messy baby later.)

David even got to sit in his own chair for a while!
Not for long, though. He was off and running in no time, playing one of his new favorite games: pick something tiny off the ground and give it to Mom.

After ice-cream, I followed the plan and hopped a train back to Jena. Michael, on the other hand, is crazy. After biking just over 30 miles UP hill and INTO the wind, he thought it would be fun to skip the train and just bike home.

Even if it had sounded like fun to me, I couldn't have done it. Seriously, 30 miles into the wind and up hill turns out to be quite a bit more difficult than 50 miles on Michigan roads. I now know this.

In any case, we met up back home in a couple of hours. After putting David to bed, we joined a small group of friends in the yard for some grilling and, believe it or not, an outdoor movie! My friend has a projector, and we watched Amelie against the hinterhaus. It was very cool.

All in all a wonderful day!

David's New Trick

2009-08-29T14:32:00.005+02:00

What's that he's doing?

Oh, OK. He's standing in the windowsill.

Excellent.

Perfectly safe place for a toddler to play.

I don't have the photos to prove it, but he's also fond of climbing onto the kitchen table. Honestly, I don't know how he moves so quickly!!!

(If you zoom in on the photo, you will see that his face is filthy. This is why he is naked. After a muddy bike-ride with Michael, he had to be undressed outside of the apartment!)

Well now he's awake again, so off we go!

Can Families have Play Dates?

2009-08-21T20:14:00.013+02:00

We haven't seen Thomas, Anya and Emmanuel since before our trip to the US. When we got back, they were away. So, this afternoon when they called to see if we wanted to go to a new indoor playground in town, I was very excited. I was ALSO excited to have something to do with David. It was raining, and he has been something of a crankypants since getting back to Jena.

As it turns out, it's not just a playground.

It. Is. Awesome.

(It was also about 110 degrees inside, but what can you do.)

So here are some photos from today!

Climbing up to get to a slide that lands in the ball pit.

In the end, David was way less interested in the climbing & sliding part than I was.
But he loved the ball pit!

Emmanuel has become quite adept at throwing. Too bad they don't play much baseball in Germany!

We didn't play in this part, but it's so cool I had to take pictures.
First, you climb into the giant inflatable whale's mouth...

And then, from what I saw, you scream loudly as the whale's lower jaw rises and the big ol' whale mouth closes around you. Now that is cool.

We all had a lot of fun on the trampolines, too. There were six trampolines positioned like little islands in a giant, squishy floor. Again, very cool.

The only problem was, David wanted to run, walk and fall his way across all of the trampolines. He was not deterred by anything, including much larger children jumping like crazy right in the middle of the trampoline he wanted to run across. Needless to say, we had to put a stop to this.

There was also a big bumpy slide, which Michael and I both tried with David.

Once again, David had other plans:

Immediately after taking this picture, I realized that David was moving WAY faster than I had anticipated. Fortunately, there is no photo of my scrambling up the slide to retrieve him. (It's actually a lot harder than it looks!)

And, finally, David's favorite: A giant, moon-bounce blob surrounded by a bouncy alley of sorts.
It was awesome. (OK, so it was my favorite part too :)
I haven't seen David laugh this hard in a long time. Maybe ever. For a while, David sat up top with me while Michael threw himself against the blob, and bounced himself off the walls. This was, by far, the funniest thing David had ever seen.

At the end of the afternoon, we were all completely spent. Emmanuel and Michael wrapped up the day with a good heart to heart:
(Isn't he SO big?!)

It's days like this that make me appreciate the fact that David is, finally, a great sleeper. He sleeps 12-13 hours each night, with no help from us. I think even HE was happy to get to go to bed at the end of the day.

We're Back! (Again)

2009-08-18T12:36:00.006+02:00

Well, just as I finally sat down to write this, David woke up. So it will be quick! (I'm still hoping he falls back asleep. I suspect the recently-ringing telephone is responsible for his waking up. Grr.)

We had such a wonderful time back home! 2 weeks in Stony Brook, 2 weeks in Atlanta, and it really felt like a long and relaxing vacation. It was especially fun to see David playing with his cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles. That boy was born to be in a big family. We think he'd be happiest if we all lived under one (very, very large) roof!

We've been trying very hard to get over our collective jet lag since returning early Thursday morning. For one reason or another, it's been particularly bad this time around. We tried to be outside for as much of the day as possible over the weekend, and David and I did the same yesterday and this morning. The sun should help, and believe it or not, the sun is actually shining here this week!

So here are some pictures from our hike on Landgrafen on Saturday:

For some reason, David carried this shovel around for most of the day.
Babies can be weird like that.

He still kind of walks like He-Man :)

David has recently discovered the game of Untie-Mom's-Shoes.
He thinks it's hilarious.

We brought David in the Ergo, but we let him try to walk home with us for a while.
The thing is, Landgrafen is a hill, so walking home means walking down the hill. It was a fairly gradual decline, but steep enough to teach David about running...
...which he loved....
...and, of course, falling. Most of the time he fell, he laughed and laughed and popped right back up. This one time, he stayed down for a bit. Not hurt, not crying, but a little annoyed.

(We put a stop to the running after that, though I promise he wasn't at all hurt!)

Here's one last shot of David walking through the fields with us:

It was a great day!

Stony Brook!

2009-07-25T16:34:00.003+02:00

I only have a minute, but I thought I'd post a quick video from our trip so far. David has once again proven himself to be quite the beach boy. He just loves it! He is also a real walker these days, so here's a video of him walking on the beach. (I promise I"ll start writing real entries again once we're back in Jena. With all the little cousins running around, it's hard to spend time on the computer!)

So, David's beach walk :)

David Conquers the Stairs

2009-07-05T10:35:00.005+02:00

(Two posts in one day!) David is all about the stairs. If we let him, he'd climb the stairs in the main apartment building all day long. In fact, if we leave the apartment door open, he's out the door in 2 seconds flat, racing for the main building.

Going down stairs, however, is a lot trickier than going up them. A few days ago, we took David to see the ducks in the river. The ducks were OK, according to David, but the steps down to see the ducks--now those was something worth seeing. After a great deal of effort, David started to get the hang of going down the steps, as long as he started from the top landing.

Anyway, here is a pretty humorous progression of videos...

First, David tries to come down from the second step...

Next, he tries from the top...

And, finally...success! This last video is the best. It's got it all: David's doing his best to get down the stairs but, of course, one has to acknowledge one's fans...so all of David's efforts are punctuated by greetings. For whom, you ask? The older German woman who is, unsurprisingly, giving us all sorts of warnings and advice about how to keep David safe. Finally, note the ending. Yes, it's got it all :)

David's Birthday Party

2009-07-05T09:50:00.005+02:00

Last Sunday, we had some friends over for cake to celebrate David's first birthday. Actually, we celebrated David's birthday and the birthday of a little girl we know from church, Sophie, who was born three days after David. We met Sophie just a few minutes after she was born, and it was wonderful to get to celebrate together a year later! (This is also the Sophie that David has tried to kiss at playgroup :)

The timing was perfect, because my cousin Kate was in town Saturday to Sunday and was able to celebrate with us! She was also there to talk me through my mini-freak-out as it became clear that (1) the 2 layers for my layer cake were nowhere near the same size, and (2) the buttercream frosting was a disaster due to the heat, and there was no way it was going to hold up for any caterpillars, or anything of the sort. (Hooray for chocolate letters and pre-made decorations.) Still, the nice thing about using Magnolia Bakery's recipe is that, no matter how the thing looks, the cake is always delicious. And really, that's what matters most! (To me at least :)

David, again, liked the cake :)

We were so happy to have so many friends join us! The hinterhof (backyard, sort of) is the perfect place to host a small get together in the summer. FAR better than the inside of a one bedroom apartment.

We have a little slide that belongs to our neighbor, but since his son is now 9 years old he said we could use it whenever we'd like. We hadn't tried before, but I cleaned it up for the party and it was a huge hit!

David, of course, needs a little help on the way down.

Emmanuel is a whole 3 months older, so he got to go down on his own. Although...

He couldn't QUITE stick the landing!

As David's Great-Grandpa noted in the last entry, David is a real people person. He was just thrilled to have so many people over, and showed his gratitude and affection by blowing kisses from Michael's shoulders.

The boy really seems to think he's a king, or at least a mayor or something of the sort.

There was only one minor hiccup in the day's festivities. The birthday boy and the birthday girl had a little tiff. Well, that's putting it nicely. Really, David decided to be a little bully for a few minutes! You know me, though, so I managed to capture some of it on camera. The progression:
Sophie, happily playing with her bike helmet.

David: "I'll take that, thank you very much."
Sophie makes a valiant effort to take BACK the bike helmet. At this point, David pulled the helmet back, dropped his chin, furrowed his brow, broke-out the index finger and gave Sophie a lengthy, stern talking-to! (At THAT point, I gave the helmet back to Sophie and gave DAVID a stern talking to.)

Sophie's mother, Dagmar, saw what was going on and very generously offered David a second bike helmet to play with. David gladly accepted the helmet...
...and then, storing it safely behind himself, made a play for Sophie's helmet again.
Little Stinker!

Belly Laughs

2009-06-30T22:11:00.003+02:00

I wanted to share a video of David giggling in his swing yesterday. I will warn you though: it's a bit much. I mean, if you're prone to motion sickness you might not want to watch it. I love his laugh, though, so I just had to post it anyway!

David is One!

2009-06-23T20:28:00.008+02:00

I can hardly believe it! I thought it would be fun to write a post about what David is like these days. First, though, the usual birthday cake pictures :)

(Warning: There are a lot!)

The cake--I have to admit I'm kind of proud of this :) I am so very unartistic, incapable even of a respectable stick figure, so this was a big deal for me. And it's Magnolia Bakery's recipe, with their buttercream frosting. Delicious! (Even when baked in a mini oven.)

David made a grab for the candle but, fortunately, was not fast enough.

Smart boy--RIGHT for the mounds of frosting.

AND he knew exactly what to do with it :)

No point messing around with little bites, let's just shove the whole thing in there.

I think it's safe to say he liked it!

No idea what he's doing here. Just none at all.

Taste my fingers, Dad! They're delicious!

We had a great day with David today. This afternoon, the three of us went to GalaxSea, which is a nearby indoor pool and water park. There is a huge baby pool, a pool with a big lazy river, a wave pool, hot-tubs and some giant water slides. (Too big for David, just right for me :) David had a blast! He just kept grinning, clapping his hands, and blowing us kisses as if to say "This. Is. AWESOME!" He really liked when we'd hold him and drift, all three, around the lazy river. He liked to try to swim, too--kicking his little feet and splashing with his hands! After that, we came home and had dinner and cake, and David got some play time before bath & bed. We had to skip his afternoon nap today, something we never do, so he fell asleep before I even got him into his bed!

At one year, David is just a ton of fun. Really, you would not believe how friendly he is, and how skilled he is at getting the attention of passersby. College girls, other children, Harley Davidson aficionados, and toothless men who have probably had too much to drink by 11 am, all are fair game as far as David is concerned. Yesterday, I paused in the Goethe Gallery to look at a menu while David sat in his stroller. Seconds later, I heard laughter. I don't even know what he was doing, exactly, but at least 3 groups of people were watching--and David was eating it up. The funny thing is, this happens daily! He is such a ham, and just loves seeing people--especially if said people are watching him :)

He is also, however, getting tired of me taking pictures of him. I love this shot:
"Seriously? Another one? Don't you have something better to do?"

He is so active, and pretty easily bored, so we try to spend as much time out of the apartment as possible. We go to the playground around the corner every day, and sometimes twice a day. These days, David's favorite activity is climbing the stairs that are built into the hill:

He could climb all day long and be happy!

He also likes playing with sticks:

I'll end with some fun facts about David.

He loves to drink bubbly water, or Ginger flavored Bionade (a bubbly, not so sweet beverage that I love.) He will not, however, drink Apple juice.

He loves bananas and yogurt, but the typical baby tastes end there. He will eat string beans, provided they have been sauteed with a little garlic and olive oil. Otherwise, forget it. He loves curry, loves Michael's chilli, loves Indian food of all kinds--he's had Pakistania and Afganistani food and loved it. He will not eat plain rice. He will play with, but will not eat, Cheerios. He ate a giant bell-pepper and brocolli crepe for lunch the other day, but steamed carrot sticks are a no go. We discovered a few days ago that he LOVES roasted red peppers. Michael made spicy pork chops for dinner last night, and even though the first bite almost gave me the hiccups, David loved them!

So he's quite the adventurous little eater. The only things he won't eat are things that are bland! (And, oddly enough, Apples. He has just started to eat tiny bits of Granny Smith apples, and that's huge progress!) We love that he likes to eat a variety of foods, but it does make it difficult to get vegetables into his daily diet. I don't really always have the time to whip up a fancy side dish. Sometimes I'd like to be able to just steam some broccoli and leave it at that!

He is a sweet and affectionate little boy, but he has no time for snuggling. A quick cuddle, maybe, but that's really all he can muster before squirming away to get back to climbing and crawling!

He is a talker! They don't all sound exactly as they should, but he now uses all of the following words: Yeah, No (Nanana!), Mama, Dada, Echo, Dog, Duck, and Hi. He can repeat other words when prompted, but these are the ones he really uses on his own. He's also doing the signs for More, Drink, All Done, and (thanks to Moira) ceiling fans!

OK I'll stop rambling now. It's been a great year, and we just love him like crazy!

OK last picture: David, a year ago today!

Remember me?

2009-06-20T21:32:00.004+02:00

Yikes. It's been almost a month!!!

David and I are back in Jena after a two week trip to the U.S, sans Michael. We missed Michael--2 weeks is a long time for a boy to go without his Dad!--but it was a great trip. We got to spend time with all 5 of David's cousins, but before we left, a 6th came along! Calder Shane Griffin arrived the day before we left to return to Germany, but David and I had the remnants of a truly, disastrously terrible cold, so it seemed best not to try to squeeze in an introduction. We are all looking forward to meeting him soon, though!

We also had a fantastic surprise birthday party for my Mom, who was seriously surprised! She was, sadly, holding David when she walked, unsuspectingly, into John & Rachel's house. Sadly, because as the crowd screamed "Surprise!" David froze, and then burst into tears. He soon warmed up to the crowd, though :)

The next day, we got to see Fiona in a dance recital--and she was awesome! It was so fun to be able to be at her first recital, and to see her determination and joy as she danced to what happens to be my favorite song from Enchanted--The Happy Working Song.

After that, it was off to North Carolina with my Mom for Stephie's wedding and a week on the beach in a giant, beautiful house. Not bad!

Sadly, my camera is somewhere out in the living room where David is currently sleeping. I will post some more photos later, but for now I'll just give the highlights that I can piece together from other people's shots! (Hooray for the internet :)

Just after the moment of Surprise!

David showed everyone his German tricks. Wie gross ist David? Er ist SO gross!

David playing with the Clark cousins at the local library. Rainy day ruled out our beach plans, but they had fun!

David gave Emily about a million kisses

But he made a mistake when he tried to take Abigail's stuffed dog. She takes her stuffed animals very, very seriously.

We did borrow Abby's walking toy for the week in N.C. David was SO into it! There's a video, too, I'm going to have to post one of these days.

At the wedding:

And, of course, kissing the bride!

That's it for now, hopefully more to come! I think I have photo's of Fi's recital on my camera...wherever it is!

Our chatty boy

2009-05-27T21:10:00.004+02:00

As many of you know, David was born "tongue-tied." He had his frenulum (the thing under your tongue) clipped about 3 months ago, and he's only recently been able to actually get his tongue out of his mouth. He has always been a chatty boy, and now with his new tongue-mobility, his sounds have gotten pretty funny!

Here he is at dinner tonight...lecturing us on something, though I'm not sure what exactly :)

More biking, and a visitor!

2009-05-22T17:39:00.005+02:00

We've been having a great time on our bikes lately, and David now gets excited when he sees us taking them out. He even lets me put his helmet on without screaming!

After about 40 minutes, though, David wants out. He loves being in new places, and gets anxious to explore on his little feet (and hands and knees :) Here are some shots from a trip last week. We went South instead of North (along the Saale river), and it took us quite a while before we found a good stopping point. When we did, though, it looked perfect. A beautiful beer garden by a big grassy field:

Sadly, it was closed. The signs all said it ought to be open, but it was not. There was no beer (or water!) to be had. Fortunately, we had brought along some water & snacks for David, so he ate and played a bit.

Then we stopped by a doener kebap stand near home for dinner. David--always hungry, these days--ate some doener bread with sauce. And Michael reminded me, once again, of the ways that moms and dads are different.

But not too different.

On Tuesday, my cousin Marc came to visit for a few days! He just completed the El Camino pilgimage...walking for 37 days! We had a great time, and I think David is really going to miss him.
Life was, in general, more fun for David with Marc around. For example, after dinner David usually gets to go to bed. With Marc here, however, he got to go back outside, AFTER dinner, not once, but twice! He was beside himself with joy--turning around in his stroller to grin and giggle at us, as if to say "really?!" AND David got to eat a messy breakfast, sans clothing:

Finally, Marc helped us finally set-up David's swing!

Now that's a pretty good week!

Head-banging, Ball Pits & Finger Foods

2009-05-16T11:49:00.008+02:00

Two posts in one day!

I wanted to share a funny story. Yesterday, David was waking up from his nap and I could hear him happily chatting away, then quieting down for a few minutes, then chatting again. I wasn't sure if he was going to fall asleep again (sometimes he does), so I was waiting before going to get him. Then I heard a loud crash, and jumped out of my chair about to race in--but not only did I not hear him cry, I DID hear him happily chattering away again.

So I waited again. I figured the crash had come from upstairs.

Then I heard it again, and thought "What on earth are they doing up there?"

The third time, it really sounded like it was coming from the bedroom, so I went to check on David. This is what I found:

One arm out of his sleeve, David was slamming his head through the mesh side of the pack and play into the wall! THAT was the crazy loud, bowling balls on the floor sounding noise I was hearing. Here's a close-up, where you can kind of see the red marks on his forehead:

As you might have noticed, you can also see the smile on his face. Clearly, he didn't mind crashing his head against the wall, and didn't get why I kept telling him to stop!

Sometimes he can be kind of a weirdo! :)

We have had a lot of fun lately, though. We met up with another American woman who lives in a neighboring town and has a 3 year old daughter. We all went to a cool indoor play-place, where David got his first experience in a ball pit!
If I were a slightly less-good mother, I would have a picture of David lying on his back, trying to wiggle back up into a seated position and looking confused as he, instead, wiggled himself deeper and deeper into the pit. Sadly, my instincts got the better of me and I helped him, instead of taking the picture I really wanted to take.

We've also all been spending a lot of time at the park around the corner:

And, of course, there's fun with finger foods! If we let him, David would eat a banana with every meal, and then another one for a snack. It's so cute to watch him hold it and take big bites off of it! Sometimes if he takes a bite that's too big, rather than spit it out, he uses both hands to cover his mouth so it can't get out while he chews. It cracks me up.

Finally, I did something yesterday that I've never done before. I often make French Toast for David, with no sugar but with cinnamon, and he eats it plain. Last night I thought, why not let him have a little blueberry jam? the plan was to feed him in a diaper, since he goes right into the bath after diner anyway. Well I forgot to get him undressed, and immediately regretted my decision...

He, on the other hand, thought it was fantastic!

Some Pictures

2009-05-12T16:09:00.006+02:00

Wow, I started this post a week ago and never came back to it! Oops. Anyway, here are some photos of David in an adorable outfit. It was a gift from Michael's parents long before David was born, and I've been waiting and waiting for him to be able to wear it!

So here he is...and yes, that's a cheese grater he's playing with.

And here he is doing his new favorite thing: Playing with his books! we used to have our own books on a low bookshelf, and he kept grabbing them. One day it hit me--put HIS books where he can reach them! (duh.) Now he loves to get them, one by one or in a big tidal wave of board books, and he'll sit and turn the pages. It's very cute!

And finally--I think he kind of looks like a monkey in this picture. I love it!

One more photo: Michael took David out for a quick bike ride the other day while I got some work done. This is what I saw when they got back:

David had refused to sleep during his nap time, morning AND afternoon, so there you go! (OK so he slept a little, but not much.)

We're not supposed to let him sleep in his bike seat. His helmet is very light, but when he's sleeping--as you can see--his head slumps over, and then bumps can be a little dangerous. Poor Michael had to start poking David to keep him awake! All he got was a series of grumpy grunts from David, who promptly went back to sleep. So Michael had to ride very, very slowly until they got back home. Not exactly the ride he was hoping for!

But David sure looked cute :)

Biking at Last

2009-05-04T19:05:00.006+02:00

Michael and I have been talking about biking in Germany since before he got the job here in Jena. It took us an embarrassing amount of time to actually get around to it, but we made our first real bike trip on Saturday!

We actually had a warm-up trip on Friday that was awesome, but I didn't bring the camera for that. We set out on a bike path, an hour later found ourselves in the middle of a May Day celebration, and promptly settled-down with the locals to enjoy beer, bratwurst, and the sunshine. (The ride back only took 20 minutes, and confirmed our suspicion that we'd been gradually, but consistently, riding uphill!)

On Saturday, we biked from Jena to Naumburg. (There are two Naumburgs, as it turns out, but we went to the closer one.) By bike, it is supposed to be about 40 km, or 25 miles. We followed a path that included some bike-paths and some low-traffic roads, and that followed the Saale River. What the bike-book didn't tell us was that there is currently a detour. A long detour. It added 15 km, most of which involved riding UP from the river way, way, way higher than we needed to go. It was not pleasant. I was not pleasant during this part of the ride. Neither was David, which is funny considering his comfy, effortless position in the baby seat!

The rest of the trip was fantastic, though. It was sunny, warm without being too hot, and the landscape was gorgeous. We even saw two baby goats ramming each other and sort of wrestling in a field right by the roadside. It was surprisingly entertaining!

By the time we got to Naumburg, the church we had hoped to see was closed and David was beyond tired. Still, we had a quick dinner--which we ate one at a time, while the other walked with David...who was absolutely done with sitting still--and took the train back to Jena. (Another adventure for another time, but all worked out in the end!)

Per usual, here are some photos!

Our first rest-stop, about 20 km in. David was ready to move his legs, and we were all pretty hungry by then.

David ate some cheese... standing up of course!

Then he set off to do some exploring.

Towards the end of our deadly detour, David was so ready for a break that we had to stop here. On the side of the road. It was pretty enough, but not our first choice. Still, he was SO good for such a long time, we didn't mind too much :)

David, our little German boy, munched on some broetchen.

And of course, smiled at strangers as they walked or biked by.

The church at Naumburg.

The city, near where we ate.

David, having sat in a bike seat for at least 6 hours, was ready to be mobile. Here he is next to our table at the restaurant, playing with his helmet.

And finally, a shot of the sunset as we left Naumburg. It was so vibrant, and made me wish I had a better camera!

Back Again!

2009-05-03T10:04:00.004+02:00

Well, yet again, I disappeared. My plan is to write a few posts today and tomorrow, and hopefully I stick to it! We've had quite a few "blog-worthy" adventures in the last week or so. Spring and summer and just so beautiful here in Jena, and we've been able to be out taking advantage of the weather and our new bikes!

But first, I thought I'd write a post about our fantastic, unexpected trip home 2 weeks ago. Michael had an interview at Auburn University, and Auburn is only 2 hours from Atlanta, so the plan was for him to fly home for the interview and spend a few days before and after with his family. At the last minute--prompted, in part, by our little adventure detailed in the last post--our parents generously offered to fly me home with him! (Auburn paid Michael's way :) I couldn't resist, and we had a wonderful time in sunny, warm Atlanta.

The flight to Atlanta was...an adventure. Michael and I were not on the same flight, and David decided to be the mayor of our airplane community. I met a really wonderful couple, and they helped quite a bit with David, but I absolutely could not believe his refusal to sleep. He stayed happy, which was of course great, but in the 24 hours it took us to get from our apartment to the Morris house, he slept a total of about 4 hours. How is that possible????

Usually when we go to Atlanta, there are a number of people we try to see. In addition to Michael's immediate family, his grandparents live there and we always like to see them. My great friend Deanna--formerly of Jena--also lives there, and I usually try to catch up with her as well. This time, though, we really just laid low and spent time at home. David picked sometime up on the plane, and it worked it's way through many of us, but other than that it was a perfectly relaxing trip. As another fantastic, last minute surprise, my parents came for the weekend too! Michal and I are always amazed at how well our families mesh. Our parents get along as if they were old friends, and really they've only seen each other a few times. It's incredible to watch, and we feel so blessed to have such peaceful (and fun!) family relationships.

Now onto the photos!

Picnicking at the park

First time in a baby swing!

Cruising in the kitchen. He actually stood, unassisted, for the first time in the Morris living room! So far it has been the only time, but it was very cool.

Showing off his baby Speedo :)

We all really enjoyed the pool and hot-tub. In April!

And finally, with the grandparents :)

He is a well-loved little boy :)

Now for something completely different...

2009-04-14T10:11:00.003+02:00

We had a very odd sort of day yesterday. After debating whether or not to write a post about it, I decided (with Michael's input) to go ahead and write it. I feel a little protective of Jena. I love this city, and apart from the distance between us and our families, I love our life here. So I want to share what happened yesterday, but I also want to make clear that it was an anomaly. Sometimes East Germany gets a bad rap, and I would hate to do anything to encourage people to think dismissively or derisively about a place that I love so much. So, with that little disclaimer in place, I'll just get to the point.

The weather has been absolutely perfect for over a week now. Sunny, warm, clear and just perfect. After a family trip to the park yesterday morning, we took another family outing to our favorite ice cream place in the evening. (I've said it before and I'll say it again, ice cream before dinner is one of my favorite perks of being an adult.) Anyone who has visited us--whether for a day or 2 weeks--has been to the Eis Cafe Riva. That's where the blog photos of the magnificent ice cream creations were taken, and it's the best ice cream I've ever had in my life. There are at least 3o tables outside (maybe way more, I'm terrible at guessing) and we grabbed the only empty one we saw. So that's the setting: a perfect sunny evening our favorite, jam-packed Italian ice cream shop.

We heard a loud bang, and I asked Michael what it was. (Why I always assume he has the answer to these questions I don't know.) He said it was probably a firework, and I said "Who lights fireworks in the middle of the afternoon?" Then we saw a large group of people marching up the street towards us. (We'd guess 30-40 or so, but again that's just a guess.) They were holding a banner, but we couldn't make out more than a word or two. ("Menschen" and "zuruck"; "people" and "back") The people in the front wore white masks that reminded me of the movie Scream. I looked at Michael and said "Should we be scared?"

Before he could answer, they descended on a group of about 6 young guys sitting nearby--not customers--and started pounding on at least one of them. At this point things moved pretty quickly, and I'm not sure that all of what I remember is accurate. I remember seeing them punch someone, and at that point Michael and I--and everyone else--were standing up. (Michael was holding David.) Then I remember seeing that the group didn't stop advancing, but kept coming, and that tables were being knocked over and glass was breaking. I pushed Michael and yelled for him to run. I think I had about a thousand thoughts in those few seconds. I worried that this was anti-foreigner sentiment (we were, after all, at a very successful Italian restaurant) and that, if so, the American couple with a baby would made a good target. I worried that hurting a baby, any baby, would be a good way of making a very dramatic statement. In retrospect, I can't imagine anyone actually targeting a baby, but as a mother I was really freaking out.

We were headed, with the crowd, towards a side street to get away when I noticed that they were now standing in that street as well. I felt totally trapped, and I've just never experienced anything like it before. There is a coffee shop between the Eis Cafe and the street, and they were rapidly closing up. The walls are all glass, giant sliding doors, and the coffee shop was almost full of people and they were closing them in. We stood there, and it turns out we were both thinking the same thing: if we go in, we might be safer, but we might also just be trapped. I mean, if you're looking for a target, then the 50 people crammed into a closed space are the obvious choice. Finally, the man closing up yelled at us to get in ("you have a baby, get in!") and we did. He closed up, and we watched for a minute or two before the group ran off.

After a few minutes, the police came and things looked alright again, so we went back to the Eis Cafe. We found our table, and our ice cream sundae was smashed on its side, a pile of broken glass and melted ice cream right next to David's pacifier. (Amazingly, our camera was still there untouched.) The waiter came by to see if David was Ok, and said he'd remake our sundae. I didn't really want ice cream anymore, but I also didn't feel right just leaving, so we sat (at a new table, of course), ate ice cream, and decompressed. Had the police not been right there, I never could have stayed there. Pretty soon, there were Police helicopters circling overhead, and vans all around the city. As of this morning's news, it doesn't seem that they caught anybody.

Looking back at what happened, it seems extremely unlikely that Michael, David and I were in any danger of being targeted. At the time, though, I had absolutely no frame of reference for what was going on. They were shooting fireworks out of a little hand-held cannon, and for all I knew, they were about to throw a bomb. It sounds so melodramatic, but in the moment it felt completely within the realm of possibility. It was so surreal, and happened so quickly, I just felt like anything could have followed from what we were witnessing.

It now seems likely that the group was targing the youth that were sitting near the cafe, and after the fight (or attack) we realized that the victims were skinheads, and that at least one of them was wearing a white-power T-shirt. There are almost always kids, or youth, hanging out where they were, so it seems likely that they were the planned target. Why they advanced into the ice cafe I don't know, and they were clearly looking to scare us all.

We checked an online Jena paper this morning, but the article had less information than we did. It did, however, have a picture of our table. That was a little weird. Here's the link if you'd like to see it.

http://www.otz.de/otz/otz.jena.volltext.php?kennung=on3otzLOKStaJena39914&zulieferer=otz&kategorie=LOK&rubrik=Stadt&region=Jena&auftritt=OTZ&dbserver=1

I took a picture or two as well--I couldn't resist--so I guess I'll post them too.

This was our table. (That's David's paci up top.)
Some more damage nearby.

To end on a nicer note, David was totally and completely unfazed by all of this. When it had all settled down and were standing in the coffe shop, I started to cry. I could not stop shaking. David, on the other hand, did not so much as bat an eye at the whole thing. As my mother suggested, I think Michael gets the credit for that. He stayed calm, and he was holding David. Had I been holding David, he would surely have cried if only to say "Stop squeezing me so hard, I can't breathe!!!"

so here's David, after the fiasco and after a little bit of ice cream:

Spring is Here!

2009-04-11T09:48:00.004+02:00

We had a wonderful time in Hamburg last weekend. I was a little worried about how David would handle sleeping in a new location, but he did just fine. (Not great, as he's teething, but that didn't seem to be location-related.) Timo and Michael assembled a crib that they borrowed from a friend, and when I laid David down for bed--wondering if he'd sleep in a new crib--he gave me this huge grin, as if to say "oh this is so exciting! do I really get to sleep here???" He went right to sleep without making a peep! The novelty wore off, but it is so funny to me how much he likes new things.

Here are a few pictures from our time in Hamburg. There are more on Facebook, which you can see here (even if you're not on Facebook.) : (Photos Link)

David on the beach!
Michael and Timo, waiting for the ferry from the beach back to the city.

The ferry ride back.

Back in Jena, Michael and I finally have bikes! We also bought a bike seat for David, and it is awesome. Britax (or Roemer, as it's called here) makes an excellent bike seat that's safe for 9 months and up. (For some reason, it's not available in the States.) It's really well-designed, and David seems to love it! He likes it best when we all go out together, because then he can still get some face-to-face attention with whoever's not driving his bike. He likes his attention, as you have probably heard.

Yesterday was just amazing. The sun was out, the weather was SO warm, and we spent most of the day outside. Our church had a Good Friday service, and afterwards we had lunch with a family from church. Their youngest daughter was born a day or so after David, and we saw here in the Frauenklinik moments after she was born. (She is also the baby that David tried to kiss at playgroup. He loves her!) We all ate outside and had a wonderful time together.

Then we went home, Michael worked for a few hours, and we all set-out for our first family bike-ride. There is a path along the Saale River that goes for hundreds of miles in both directions. We picked a direction and headed off! After about a 45 minute ride, we found a beer-garden and stopped there.

As we walked past a couple, they looked at David and said "hi!" I was confused. Germans don't say "hi." Then they said "Hello little guy!" I said "You're Americans!!!" The thing is, Jena is not like Munich or Frankfurt...we simply do not ever meet other Americans. We ended up spending about an hour with them, where I had the wonderful experience of speaking English, in person, with someone other than Michael :) They were great, and I think we all had a nice time.

Then back to Jena we went, enjoying how long the evenings are here in Jena. It's only April, and it stays light out until about 8. I love it!

When we got back home, I made Michael run in to get the camera (which I forgot!) to get a shot of David in his little seat. Here are a few, but he was pretty tired at this point! We'll have to try again sometime when it's not past his bedtime...

Look Who's Standing!

2009-04-02T08:15:00.005+02:00

Why does David look so proud of himself? About a week ago, he learned to pull-up! He's loving it. We're pretty amazed at how quickly everything has progressed. Just a few weeks ago I would sometimes try to put his hands on the couch to see if he would stand like that. (He has always loved standing while holding our hands, so I knew his legs were strong enough.) Well, he would just laugh and look at me like "what are you doing exactly?"

Once he got it, though, he really got it. He's already cruising around, and he can pull-up on just about anything!

This is particularly funny because, strictly speaking, he cannot yet crawl. He can get from point A to point B, but it's not pretty. I'd like to call it an Army crawl, but I think for it to really be an Army crawl you have to use your legs at least a little. David will pop up into perfect crawling formation, rock back and forth, and then if he wants to get somewhere immediately flatten himself and drag himself there with his hands. It's so funny, I think I still laugh every time he does it.

Now that he's standing, we have been taking him to a park around the corner. The weather is finally starting to turn around (slowly but surely), so there are a lot of other children there as well. Nothing makes David as happy as other children!

Except, perhaps, for the toys of other children...

This particular day at the park, it was just David and I. I met a very nice woman with two children, and we were sitting next to each other and talking a bit. David was standing in front of me holding onto my hands, and there was a man sitting to my right watching his two children play. David, having already sufficiently charmed my new friend, turned his attention to this man. He looked at him, and just beamed his biggest crinkly-nosed smile...and waited. And waited. Finally, the man noticed David and laughed out loud. He said "Oh hello! And I wasn't even paying attention, I'm sorry!" Well that did it for David, this was clearly going to be his new best friend. He hopped, giggled, smiled, did all his tricks. So the man asked if David would like to hold his hand for a minute. Sure enough, David took his hands and hopped up and down chatting with him for a few minutes. (I was right there, of course.) After a few minutes, the man said "Well, do you want to go back to mommy?" He put one of David's hands in mine...and David just about cried. He didn't cry, but he looked at his new friend as if to say "but why? what did I do? don't you like me anymore?"

So TEN MINUTES later, I finally got David's little hands back. It's a good think he likes me so much when we're around the house, because in public he sometimes acts like he doesn't even know me. Other people are FAR more interesting, and he is not above pushing my face out of the way so that he can see around me to the wonderful strangers. Sometimes, when we're at the park, I worry that people are going to think I just grabbed this boy off the street and took him to the park in a desperate attempt to pass myself of as a mother.

There is one other side-effect of David's newfound standing ability: naptime, and bedtime, are a million times more difficult.

Actually, he has a new naptime trick as well! He finally says Mama! He said it for the first time a few days ago, when I was letting him fuss a bit in his bed. I had gone in to tuck him in again so many times, I decided he had to fuss some and just go to sleep. Then I heard, clear as a bell, "MaMA!!!" I ran in (of course) and he was sitting up grinning. I said "You said Mama!" and he laughed. I said "You did! I heard it! Say it again, say Mama!"

And he said what he always says when I ask him to say Mama.

"DADA!!!"

He has said it a few times since then, but really only when he's in his crib and he wants out. When he knows he should be sleeping, but would rather be playing. When, that is, he looks something like this:

But at least he says it!

A Sunny Day

2009-03-24T21:17:00.006+01:00

Today was cold, windy, and snowy. However, about 10 days ago, we had an absolutely glorious day! So, David and I spent some time on a blanket outside a few blocks from home. I think it's safe to say he enjoyed it:

He also didn't mind the fact that I brought the camera along.

I did, however, have the horrible realization that David had never before played in the grass. Never! It made me kind of sad for him, and perhaps that explains why I was, um, not as diligent as I could have been about keeping the grass away from his mouth.

I didn't actually let him EAT it, so much as TASTE it, but still...

And anyway, check out the drool capacities of this boy. Surely nothing stays in that mouth for any length of time anyway!

David Sings with Bono

2009-03-20T18:21:00.007+01:00

I have to start by saying that if some of you don't believe my story, I won't blame you.

That said, I was feeding David his dinner tonight (spinach and ricotta tortellini) and I turned on the new U2 cd. I did so because David has taken to listening to music when he's eating. He gets bored very easily, and I discovered that by putting some music on, he will eat for at least 4 times as long as he would otherwise. In fact, now he sometimes refuses to eat unless there's music playing. (Michael tells me that, this morning, he pressed his lips shut before taking a single bite of breakfast. Michael put this album on and David ate the whole bowl of cereal.) He especially likes this CD, but he'll settle for anything fast with drums. (Ballads seem to bore him. He really is a funny kid!)

So, I put "No Line on the Horizon" on. David was eating away, and I started to think something weird was going on. During the first song, Bono frequently sings "oh yeah", followed by some typical Bono-esque "ohohohoh..." business. It seemed to me that, after the "oh yeah", David was saying "oh yeah", and then oohing after the next bit. But surely babies don't really sing along with CDs, so I tried not to overreact. Then he did it again, and again. After the 3rd time, I grabbed the video camera which, fortunately, was right next to me. I bring you David singing "No Line on the Horizon."

(PLEASE ignore my hideous baby talk high voice. I'm going to have to work on that.)

Bathtime Fun

2009-03-12T10:00:00.002+01:00

(I confess, I took the last eye-rubbing shot in an effort to get a candid one.)

He did it!!!

2009-03-09T20:19:00.005+01:00

I woke up this morning to some very happy David noises, as usual. He always starts the day by chatting merrily in his crib for 10-15 minutes. (After that, if you don't get him, he starts to make "Hey, I thought I made it clear I was awake!" noises. After that, he gets downright grumpy.)

So nothing new about the happy sounds, but still...something was different. I felt...oddly good. It took a minute, and then it hit me: I felt RESTED! Yes, THAT was that funny feeling I couldn't put my finger on. Rested! So I thought about it, and sure enough, I was pretty sure that when I last closed my eyes I was going to bed for the night. Now, there was definitely light coming through the window. Not a whole lot, but light nonetheless. He slept through the night!!!!

I'd love to say we've turned a corner, but my fear is he was just so overtired that he collapsed for the night, and will be back to his regular ways tonight. So if you're saying a prayer, feel free to pray that I"m wrong! I would love to be wrong!

In the meantime, I thought I'd share some photos from Sunday. Just as we were about ready to leave for church, I decided to stay home with David instead. He has not been sleeping super well (teething AND coughing), and church is always right at his naptime, so he ends up way overtired on those days. I stayed home, put him down for a nap, and listened to a sermon online by the pastor of the church I grew up in. It was an excellent sermon, and not just because it was in English.

When Michael got home, we all went out for a hike. (The sun had sort of come out a little, and we didn't want to miss the opportunity to see it.) The hills around Jena are just so beautiful, and I haven't really been up there much since David was born.

Here are some shots from the walk:

(Meg, if you ever get a chance to check this blog anymore, he wears these shoes EVERY day. Thank you a thousand times!)

Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, David did not nap well Sunday morning. We tried to time the hike so that we would be back in time for his afternoon nap, but the warm, snuggly carrier and the steady pace of the hike were too much for the little guy. He struggled mightily--and, to be honest, was revived from what I thought was sleep several times by the sight of the camera--but ultimately he could not stay awake. I give to you the progression:

Hey! This is awesome!

Yep, walking's fun...

OK I'll look, but I won't smile.

(His eyes were closed, by the way, until he saw--through the tiniest of slits--the camera.)

No seriously, I'm awake...

(Again, they were closed. This time I was SURE he was out cold. But as I've said before, this boy can sense a camera.)

First Crush!

2009-03-01T17:25:00.007+01:00

We just had the best visit with an old friend of mine, and I think it's safe to say that David has his first crush. Katie and I went to high school together, though we met long before that, and she and her family currently live in Wiesbaden. Katie and her older son, Micah, came out yesterday and spent the night with us. It was really a wonderful visit, and it was so great to catch up with Katie. We hadn't seen each other in a ridiculously long time--about a dozen years!--but it didn't feel that way at all.

Yesterday evening, I handed David to Katie while I was doing some dishes. The little stinker just beamed at her, and snuggled into her shoulder! Now, for some babies, this would not be a big deal. However, David is not a snuggler. Unless he is (a) sick or (b) mostly or completely asleep, he just does not have the time for snuggling. There is simply too much playing to be done. His typical response to Michael and I when we (rather often) try to snuggle him is to give us a forearm to the face while squirming to look out at whatever else is going on. He gives very intense (and messy) kisses, he gives headbutts, but he does not give snuggles. Unless, that is you are Katie.

I mean, this is just shameless. Michael was unamused. Sure enough, Katie held him again today and he was just a cuddly, snuggly fool. Like I said, he's a little stinker.

The sun actually came out today, and instead of popping out for 5 minutes and then disappearing for weeks on end, it stuck around! So, we had a lovely day. We went for a nice walk this morning with Katie and Micah, then we went downtown for lunch and ice cream (of course) before taking them to the train station. Micah got a lift from Michael :)

On our way back from the train station, instead of going home, we decided to go to the Karl-Zeiss Jena soccer game. We had not yet been to a game and the weather was just perfect. True, the little boy needed a nap in a bad way, but it's just NEVER sunny like this, and we couldn't resist. So, off we went.

Just after half-time, David finally fell asleep in my arms. (And I snuck in some snuggles! Take that, little man.)
He was much happier after a quick nap. Happy enough, even, to enjoy a ride home on Michael's shoulders.
So that was our lovely day!

Best Buds

2009-02-17T21:41:00.003+01:00

I've shared lots of stories and photos of Emmanuel, but this is by far my favorite. David and Emmanuel have been buddies since David was born (insofar as a newborn can have buddies), but they don't see each other all that often. They usually see each other in church Sunday morning, and are often the only babies in the room. (We go to the second service. The first is chock full of babies :) They see each other in playgroup, but we don't go every week. Still, they sure are crazy about each other! When Emmanuel saw David in church last Sunday, he crawled right up to him and gave him a little face snuggle! Anya, amazingly, caught the moment:

I love it!

Funny Faces

2009-02-14T13:35:00.004+01:00

Just had to share! The last one is one he makes all the time. He's starting to look a lot like Calvin, and I don't mean the theologian.

Hello Again

2009-02-13T16:22:00.004+01:00

I can't believe it's been over a week since I last posted!

We had a nice time last Sunday walking in the hills of Jena with some friends. I haven't been up there in ages! Actually, our plan was to walk up to a place on the top of Landgrafen to have coffee & cake, and then come back down. A nice quick walk, 15 minutes up an (impossibly long) flight of stairs, then back down. When we got there, though, it was closed. Until March. So that was a no-go!

Fortunately we know of another great place, just about 2 miles from Landgrafen by the trails. So, off we headed to Papiermuelle for our coffee and cake. It was a longer walk than we had planned, but that's OK. When we got there, though, it was also closed. Some special event had JUST started, and they were closed for the day.

By now David was sick and tired of being in the Ergo carrier, and I was sick and tired of being promised cake and then not given any. Finally, we walked back into town and--about 2 hours after we set-out--went to our favorite cake place downtown. It was really so nice to be out and about, even if it was unintentional, and made me look forward to the Spring. (As I write this, though, it has just started to snow outside. So I guess I'll have to keep on looking forward!)

Here's a shot from the hills. It was such a clear day!
And some shots from the cake-place...

(See, sometimes I hold David too!)
Little Elvis
I tried to take a shot of both of us. Who knows WHAT David is doing here!

(No longer at the cake place...) I thought David might like to play with this. He did. Then he bit a huge chunk out of it, I took it, and he burst into tears.
I LOVE this picture! He is getting so good with his little straw-sippy cup, and I just think he looks so cute using it. I haven't caught it on camera yet, but when he's lazy, he lets it sit on the ground and bends ALL the way over so he can drink from it without picking it up. It's very funny.
And, finally, he's back to staring down the camera. As soon as he sees it, he throws whatever is in his hand and stares. Don't know why he stopped smiling, but he always makes exactly this face. It's as if he's surprised, but he isn't. He holds this expression for as long as I have the camera on him!

Playgroup

2009-02-05T12:22:00.006+01:00

"Check it out! I'm playing with my friends! Isn't it awesome???"

David and I go to a "Mutterkindkreis" on Tuesday mornings at our church. We don't go every week, it's a little difficult because it messes up David's morning nap, but when we do go we both have a great time. Usually, my friend Anja and I will meet in the morning and walk there together. This week, we met at someone's house instead of at the church, and this week I finally remembered to bring the camera!

The photo above is of David, Tabitha and--as many of you will recognize--Emmanuel. Here's a rare treat: a candid shot of David! He's reaching for a toy in the background, totally unaware (gasp!) of the camera.
At some point, David got very tired and a bit grumpy. What did I do? I broke out the camera, of course!

That did the trick for a while.

When it was time to go, I accidentally caught the sweetest moment between Emmanuel and one of the other children (whose name I am blanking on right now)

Jumperoo!

2009-02-01T17:48:00.004+01:00

As many of you know, David got his first taste of jumping over Christmas when my sister brought a doorway jumper for him to use. He was pretty sure it was the best thing ever made.

We don't really have a good doorway for one of those, but Fisher Price makes this Cadillac of a jumper called the Rainforest Jumperoo. They are sold everywhere back home, but a lot harder to get here. What's more, they seem to be gaining in popularity...or at least, that's the only reason I can come up in order to explain the fact that they keep getting MORE expensive, instead of less! They cost 100 Euros on Amazon.de before Christmas. After Christmas, they were up to 120 Euros--and that is before shipping! Needless to say, I bought it used on Ebay. (Even then it costs quite a bit more than a new one would back home!)

That, however, is where generous grandparents come in :) David is a fortunate little boy, and BOTH sets of grandparents figured he was a kid who needed a jumper, so....here it is!

And here!

And it's not just for jumping. This afternoon, David was gently holding the toy monkey on the jumper and talking to him. (Dada, which he learned to say yesterday actually! So he was telling the monkey all about Dada. Not Mama, but what can you do.)

I tried to get a picture but, of course, at the last second he just SENSED that there was a camera nearby. Busted.

This lead to maybe one of the funniest things David's done yet. He started mugging it for "jumperoo shots." Not so surprising, but here's where it gets good: every time I tried to put the camera down, or simply stopped pointing it a him, he would start to fuss and cry. Seriously. I couldn't make this up if I tried. I have 23 pictures of him jumping this afternoon. (And, he STILL cried when I eventually put the camera down.) Here are just a few:

And finally, the "where are you going with that camera?" shot...

Ok, I know I said "finally", but there's one more. Not a jumperoo shot, it was supposed to be a sweet picture of Michael reading to David. David was really enjoying the book, and just listening and looking at the pages, and I SWEAR I was as discreet as possible. It is simply impossible to get a candid picture of this child.

Fun Times

2009-01-24T21:37:00.005+01:00

When we first got back to Jena, I was convinced that somebody shrunk our apartment. There is just no way that it was THIS small when we left, I thought. I was not amused. Then there's the lovely German winter weather. If you had asked me in the summer about living in Jena, I would probably have told you that we could live here forever if only our family were closer. Ask me in December sometime and see what the answer is! January tends to be better--i.e, the sun makes the occasional appearance--but our first week back was not an example of this January improvement.

All that to say, I was pretty grumpy for a while there. Fortunately, the sun was out for much of today, and I'm starting to remember why I love Jena. After a productive and nice day, Michael and I went out for one of our date nights (which, of course, include David.) We headed to our favorite traditional German restaurant where we split two meals: schnitzel (a thin breaded pork chop) in a mushroom sauce served with croquettes--which are kind of like fancy tater tots, and a wildpfanne, which is a skillet of potatoes, mushroom, and a variety of meats. I don't know how or when it happened, but I really have come to love German food, and this restaurant in particular is just so good. David was quite happy for a while in his little umbrella stroller, and when he got bored with that Michael held him and we gave him a little bit of lemon to munch on. The kid can't get enough of lemon, it's kind of odd :)

After dinner, we moseyed on over to the Italian ice-cream shop and shared a bowl of ice cream, half vanilla and half lemon, with hot blueberry sauce. That's when I REALLY started to remember why I like Jena so much. I'm not sure what I'll do without my little Italian ice cream shops when we're back in the States. (And David really liked the lemon ice cream as well, which I suppose shouldn't have surprised us but did.)

So that was our lovely Saturday. It's nice to have a baby that is so joyful, so friendly, and so easy-going that you can just bring him along to restaurants, or wherever you might want to go.

And now for some pictures!

First, one more thing: I tried to do a post on our travels, because we have so many wonderful pictures from home, but it turns out we have entirely too many. I'm going to have to start a Flicker account, or something like it, so that I can post albums from our visits. Until then, I feel too daunted by the magnitude of a post about our trip home, so I'm afraid it's not coming any time soon!

Ok, NOW for some pictures.

David got to try blueberries for the first time this week. I think it's safe to say they were his favorite so far!
He can also eat these teething cookies now, but to be honest everytime he gets a good piece off I freak out and take it out of his mouth. He seems ready for these, but I don't think I'm ready for him to be ready for them :)
Playing with Michael and Timo!

Just more happy baby pictures! This is a new toy, a Christmas present from Michael's parents. He loves it!
I missed the moment, but he picked up this little lamby, which he hasn't seen for a while, and he took one look at its face and burst out laughing! No idea why, but he thinks this face is pretty funny.
And finally, I just have to share how very long he's gotten. I tried to measure him, and it looks to me like he's grown at least 2 inches this month. We'll know for sure on Monday when we see the pediatrician, but I swear he is growing like never before!

That's it for now :)

David's Camera Smile

2009-01-20T15:39:00.003+01:00

Well here it is, as promised! In the beginning of the video, it's a little less clear what he's doing. He was new to sitting at the time, and the whole throwing up of the hands to smile led to some stability concerns :) By the end, though, it should be clear! For what it's worth, the time that I edited out basically consisted of David staring at the camera.

Back in Jena!

2009-01-19T11:33:00.005+01:00

Well, it's been forever, but we're back! We survived yet another marathon of travel with the little guy, though this time I will spare you the details. I will share one funny story, though. At around 7am local time, which was 1am for us, the three of us were on a train heading back to Jena from Frankfurt. German trains are usually very quiet, particularly compared to the US, but this train was quiet even by German standards. It was freezing cold outside, and nobody wanted to be awake. About 5 minutes into our trip, David (who had just woken up) turned to the guy sitting across the aisle from us and let out the longest, loudest sigh which went straight into some babbling. I'm telling you, the intonation was perfect. He might as well have said "Ooh, boy. What a morning I've had, I tell you."

Everyone on our end of the train burst out laughing. I mean about 8 people just cracked up! David's newest friend, a 20-something year old guy, was particularly amused. He said to David, "I'm sorry, what was that you said? I didn't quite get that." It was awesome.

Anyway, if there's anyone still checking this blog, I think I will actually be able to write fairly regularly now because...David is the best little sitter ever! Now that he can sit well, he is so happy playing with his toys. Yesterday, Michael and I had an incredibly productive day of cleaning while David babbled away playing with some cloth blocks and teething toys. He loves to play with us too, but he's so good at entertaining himself! (It's actually hard not to just watch him when he's playing alone. He cracks us up!)

(David with his cousin--technically we figured out she is his first-cousin once removed!--Sara Mei.)
Reaching for a new toy, in a (very rare) candid shot.

While we were gone, David also sprouted two teeth! He's not yet crawling, but he sure is trying, and I don't think it will be too long before he's pretty mobile. He IS jumping, which is pretty funny. If you hold his hands, he will jump and actually get both feet off the ground at the same time. I don't think I've ever seen a month old jump without a jumper before, but he's been doing it for a few weeks now. We're getting a jumperoo this week, and I can't wait to watch David play in that! My sister let us use a doorway jumper over the break, and David could not get enough of that.

I should really start my day here, but I have to share one more thing. David has a new camera face. It's hilarious. He has been aware of the camera for awhile, now, but these days he does the exact same thing everytime he sees one: he drops whatever he's holding, throws his hands up and gives a huge smile. I have no idea how he learned this, but I do have video evidence that I will be posting either today or tomorrow. In any case, I have included some photos of this camera smile :)

And at the Aquarium in a real, American stroller. He looked so big to me just sitting and watching everything!

The Funniest Joke Ever

2008-12-13T15:42:00.004+01:00

There's no telling why David found this so funny, but Michael had him laughing SO hard yesterday I just had to grab the camera. See for yourself! Michael and I keep watching this video ourselves :)

Our Little Ham

2008-12-07T19:24:00.005+01:00

You might have noticed that David likes to ham it up for the camera. (This is especially clear in the last post. He certainly doesn't always make the "oh my! I fell over!" face when he topples.) Well, even when there are no cameras around, he finds a way to get our attention, and he cracks us up! His new favorite game, as of about 2 weeks ago, is to freak himself out for as long as he can take it.

He hates having something over his face, always has. But suddenly, a few weeks ago, he seemed to keep getting either his bib, a burp cloth or his blankets stuck right there--totally covering his whole face. Whenever this happened, he would flap his little arms around and make frantic gasping noises. Just a bit disconcerting for a parent...until we realized that he was doing it intentionally! He would flip his bib up, freak out for a while, and then flip it back and give a big sigh of relief. Here we see him the victim of a burp cloth catastrophe:

He does this all the time, only now it's evolved into a game of peek-a-boo most of the time. (Not always. When he does it at 4am with his little frog-blanket sleep buddy, it's an "I know what will make mom pay attention to me" game. Then it's not so cute.)

Here's the whole peek-a-boo sequence (again, nice and dramatic for the camera):

Of course, there might have been other reasons for which he kept flipping his bib up that night. We had introduced prunes to his diet. He is, as the Germans say, verstopft--say it aloud and you'll probably figure it out, if the prunes didn't give it away. He was not exactly thrilled.

I love this last photo. "No really, mom, I'm good!"

2008-12-05T10:33:00.004+01:00

Adventures in Sitting

On the day David turned 5 months old, November 23, he decided that he could sit on his own. He had shown absolutely no interest in even trying before then, so this was quite the surprise. I was in church, and Michael was in the baby room with David so that I could hear a sermon for a change. After the service, I went in to see them and Michael said "He's practically sitting on his own!" (What he actually said was in German, because he was with some friends of ours, but you get the point.) Sure enough, Michael let go and David just sat there--looking exceedingly proud of himself. He sat for probably 10-15 seconds!

And then he never did it again. Well, not never, but for a while there it was like we had imagined the whole thing. During the past week or so, though, he's back to trying! He can sit for maybe 10 seconds or so, but it's a start :)

Here was this morning's attempt:

Getting started with a little help...

Not completely convinced he's into this "on his own" business...

Steady...

All's well that ends well!

Catch-up!

2008-11-28T17:49:00.005+01:00

Well I did it again. Just dropped completely off the face of the earth. Sorry! Needless to say, David is NOT sleeping all that well--better, but not by much!--and I'm still trying to get this darn dissertation written. I'm going to try try TRY to post more regularly again, because I really love doing it, but who knows how successful I'll be!

So here are the photos I've been planning to use on the blog, just all thrown together! Some of them are getting pretty old, so I'll post them in order:

Fresh out of the bath. I wish I had such a comfy bathrobe!

He loves this little baby aquarium thing

Playing--in PJs and a baseball hat--with Michael and Timo

Baby Crack. We don't really let him watch, but as you can see that means we can't really have it on!

We've started playing ping-pong at a park around the corner from us. David sits in his carseat all bundled up!

He's very into faces these days. It's very sweet, and a little funny.

David's first snow! Two things to note: (1) It really was snowing out, though you can't tell in the photo. (2) He was only out there for about 10 seconds, which explains the lack of hat. (And the lack of German lady yelling at us about said lack of hat.)

And finally, he's been making this face all week. We're not sure why, but he seems to think it means something!

It took about 5 shots for me to get this semi-smile, rather than the face above.

Giggling!

2008-11-12T11:41:00.004+01:00

Sorry I went MIA again! We are in the midst of a little something called the "four month sleep regression," and it is not fun. It seems to be getting better, so here's hoping!

What IS fun is all the giggling that David's been doing. Here is a video of Michael cracking David up. Warning: it contains great silliness on Michael's part, so if you are not sure you want to see him with, say, a sheep on his head, you don't want to watch this video.

One funny thing about David's sense of humor: he has extremely high standards for a tiny baby. Lots of things that make almost all babies laugh--like blowing bubbles on their tummies--do absolutely nothing for this kid. Things that DO make him laugh tend to make him laugh once. And only once. (Unless you wait a day or so before trying again; that sometimes works.) Basically, you wrack your brain for the goofiest thing you can think of, get a few belly laughs out of David, try again, and get a look that says "Yes, that's nice, but what else you got?"

Like I said, high standards. Anyway, here's the video!

Best Friends

2008-11-04T20:02:00.003+01:00

We've posted a number of pictures of David & Emmanuel already, but today I just have to post another. This morning, and our play group, Emmanuel and David were very happy to see each other. We had them face to face on a blanket, on their bellies, and they were smiling at each other and babbling a little bit. Emmanuel kept touching David's head and face--really gently, it was very sweet. (He did occasionally get close to the eyes, but Anja was like a ninja preventing him from actually getting them :)

After a few minutes of this, Emmanuel scooted towards David, leaned over, and planted a big, wet kiss right on the top of his head! It was so, so cute, and of course neither Anja nor I had our cameras with us. Still, I have to put some pictures up of the two of them. These are from the other day, when the whole Koch family stopped by for a fun surprise visit.

Favorite Toys

2008-11-01T11:58:00.004+01:00

All of a sudden, David is incredibly playful. He's always had a great disposition, and we love watching him babble and chat with his toys (or the plug in the wall over the changing table, his other favorite conversation partner), but this week he's just been a ton of fun! It's very weird how quickly he grows, and how much more he can do than he could just 2 or 3 weeks ago.

Our favorite new development is definitely his giggle. He used to giggle on very rare occasions, and only when we tickled him. He would giggle, then give me a look like "What was that all about? Seriously, what's your problem?" So I didn't tickle him all that often. This week, he giggles for all sorts of things, and doesn't give us dirty looks afterwards, either!

So here are pictures of him with 2 of his favorite toys. One is a baby lamb that my parents had sent to the hospital when he was born. It's his little Clover, for those of you that remember Clover.

The other we call his "Froggy friend." It's one of those mini-blankets with a stuffed animal in the middle, and it was a gift from Michael's mom just last week. Terry thought he might like the soft texture, and boy was she right!

(Note how impossible it is to get a candid shot of this boy. I tried, and tried, and tried and finally got ONE. No matter what he's doing, he sees the camera and just has to look at it :)

Jet Lagged Baby--Part Two

2008-10-30T20:39:00.004+01:00

Well, it turns out some of you didn't love seeing David looking so sad. (Grandmothers can be so sensitive!) So, I thought I'd share a few more photos of the happier times spent keeping David awake last night! The sad picture was taken a few minutes before we put him to bed. Before that, there was frolicking, gallivanting, cuddling, and--of course--Scrabble playing. (David is getting a little too good at grabbing the tiles now, though, so that will only continue to get more difficult :)

Here's Michael's newest game with David. It's called "Palm the Baby." Two members of the household think it's great.One member of the household has a heart-attack every time the game is played. I'll leave it to you to figure out who is who.

And, finally, one more happy David picture...to counteract the sad David picture from yesterday :)

He must have REALLY missed Michael. He was so happy to see him at the train station, when he was not in an otherwise good mood, and now when Michael's around, he can't take his eyes off him! It's very funny, but it's making it a lot harder to feed David when Michael's here :)

Back in Jena!

2008-10-29T21:19:00.003+01:00

David and I are back from our whirlwind US adventure! We spent a week in NY and 4 days in Atlanta, and returned Sunday-Monday of this week. David is an amazingly easy-going baby, and did not seem to mind the flights at all. He also didn't mind the 3 hour train ride to Frankfurt, so after a perfect 9 1/2 hour flight from Atlanta to Frankfurt, I was expecting a pleasant--if sleepy-- train ride home. Here's what happened:

I got on the train with plenty of time to spare, and found a nice seat. Thinking "ahh...3 hours until we change trains at Weimar, then 15 minutes to Jena!" I got out my nursing cover, my beverage, and my Time magazine and settled in to feed David. Just as he started to eat, the train stopped and the conductor said something about the last stop, and everyone having to get off. Not a good sign. I scrambled to get my stuff together, checked my ticket (bright idea--should obviously have done so sooner) and saw that there were, in fact, TWO transfers.

So off we ran to the platform, where I heard an announcement about a 10 minute delay. I waited, and waited, and then a train came that was not my train, so I waited some more. I finally asked a conductor, who explained that my train was long gone. There was a platform change, and I hadn't heard it.

Pleading poor-German listening comprehension skills, I got them to stamp my ticket so that it would work on the next train, which left in about 2 hours. I called Michael, and spent almost 2 hours feeding David and trying to find a bathroom with a changing table! Finally, the next train was set to leave, so I headed for the platform...only to see a sign saying that this train had been canceled. Not delayed, mind you, just canceled! I nearly burst into tears. Instead, I wandered aimlessly muttering to myself and to God--aloud, I fear. Fortunately, I stumbled past another platform that claimed to be an "Ersatzzug" (replacement train) for my train! Would have been nice to have put that sign on OUR platform, but what can you do.

So in the end, we rode back on a very, very slow train with very few seats...it must have been ages since this train was in regular rotation. The passengers were all so grumpy, that nobody even offered me a seat--despite David strapped to my chest in the Ergo. (This is atypical. I'm telling you, we were a surly bunch.) I had a funny fold down seat, perpendicular to the others, but it was rather awkward.

AND I hadn't had a chance to call Michael! So I was an hour late, and he was worried, but in the end we got home safely. I can't blame him at all, but David was not a very pleasant traveling companion for the last hour or so of the trip :)

So that was our adventure!!! I should add, the trip itself was absolutely wonderful. I will write more about it, and post pictures of David meeting his cousins and playing with his many aunts and uncles, but for now I thought I'd just share our unfortunate last leg of the trip. Not sure why, come to think of it, but there it is.

One more thing: David is terribly jet-lagged. Last night was a total disaster--by far the worst night we've had since he was born--so tonight we tried to keep him up as late as possible. The plan was 11:30. We made it to 9pm. Here's how David felt about it:

It's not very nice to take pictures of your own child as he cries, and begs to just be put to bed, but his little face is just so cute I couldn't help it!

To be fair, there were some fun times too:

That's it for now! I have a new plan, and I hope to stick with it. Henceforth I will try to write a SHORT post every day or two. The longer I go between posts, the more compelled I feel to post a million photos. Instead, I will now aim for short anecdotes with one or two pictures. Here's hoping!

Correction!

2008-10-16T23:59:00.001+02:00

Wow, I was very tired when I wrote that last post, and it looks like it was a little confusing. I'm not giving up on the blog itself, just trying to find "eurolife day..." numbers for each post!

So please keep checking :)

We're Giving up on the Eurolife Day Business...

2008-10-15T10:15:00.004+02:00

...for a few reasons. First, we realized that after a year we were about 10 days off. So it turns out we weren't very good about the whole counting thing. Second, as you may have noticed, we're not exactly writing every day anymore. (Some of us--ahem--are not exactly writing anymore at all!)

I was just thinking about how fun it was when I would really write posts for this blog! I have had so many ideas lately, including a post about the new shop in the Goethe Gallery (our mall). It's called "Mister*Lady", but despite what you might think, it's not for those of the cross-dressing persuasion. Just another funny use of the English language. And then there was the stove we saw at a friend's house...it was called "Competence." I had to work at not laughing there. I could just see the commercials now: "Want an oven that is able to get the job done? Maybe not particularly well--this oven is not going to stand-out in any way, but, you know, it meets the basic requirements of ovenhood? Have we got the oven for you!"

But, alas, time is short! So, again, I bring you pictures with captions. One of these days I'll be a blogger again :)

We love this hat! (Not my finest hour, but he looks pretty cute :)

Playing with Frog & Turtle:

Bath time! (He loves it)

Tummy Time on his AWESOME blanket--made by his aunt Rachel!

Daddy time--interrupted by the camera

Hanging out with Emmanuel, his best (only?) friend:

And finally...our little studious boy:

For a closer look...

EuroLIfe: Day 357

2008-09-29T23:37:00.004+02:00

I should REALLY be sleeping, but these photos are just too cute. Michael is away until late Thursday night, and I will surely regret the fact that I am still up in no time at all. Anyway, here are some shots more of our little guy...Hopefully I'll come back and write some captions :)

EuroLIfe: Day 351

2008-09-23T16:44:00.005+02:00

David is 3 months old!

And we have more videos for you!

One of these days I really am going to start writing blog posts again. The trouble is, Michael and I are (selectively) going on the job market this fall--which is to say in 2 weeks--and so all of my "writing" time is currently spoken for. Soon though!

The first video is of David complaining. Yes, complaining. He very rarely cries, only when he's uncomfortable or really really hungry--both situations that can usually be avoided. He does, however, complain when things just aren't as he'd like them to be. Like when he's in his swing, or bouncy seat, or on his play-mat, and he's decided it's time that somebody pick him up. A nicer mother probably would have turned the camera off and picked the poor child up, but I have to admit--I think it's hysterical, and really very cute, when he grumbles like this.

The second video is more of David (happily) babbling away. This is far more typical; the child talks all the time. Ask my mother if you don't believe me. We were on the phone the other day for 20 minutes, and David was babbling the whole time. He yells, too! He is just so much fun :)