Inbetween the Holidays

Just got back from a holiday marathon across three statelines with many a family gathering to post. But before the next batch of relatives arrived at our house for some primo Karl performances (including various versions of the mega-charming head-tilt, the action-packed bookshelf-strafing, recitations of the terms "flower" and "mother, where are you, I do long for your warm embrace"...the short version... plus an astonishing demonstration of table manners including a baby-operated spoon), we had some time to hang out on the nearby playground. On a day like this (bone-chillingly cold and neither part of the Christmas or New Years celebrations) one has the place basically to oneself. Which we used to work on our sliding, swinging and bouncing skills. Sounds like a song by some member of the P-Funk family? Well, was at least as much fun.

Visual Communication

I hope you immediately knew what this is all about: it's Karls first drawing! After unsuccessfully trying to get him to warm up to wax crayons for a while now, the other day Karl grabbed my ballpen and created this beautiful piece of art. I think his talent really shines through, right? I wasn't sure about the orientation, but I think he meant it to be horizontal. Another thing to note is that he chose to draw on a Nr.16 notepad. The Gastätte Nr.16 in the beautiful city of Frankfurt is one of my favorite restaurants in the whole wide world, so I'm happy Karl is apparently appreciative of the Sardinian cuisine as well. We must take him soon.



And since our readers probably don't care that much for the picture, here is another one of him communicating visually. With one of his ducks that is.

Santa Clausa

Christmas is approaching fast and since it's coming totally unexpectedly this year, we're trying desperately to catch up with all the things that need to be done before. Like baking cookies (still in the planning), putting up decorations (thankfully our neighbors have taken care of that) or meeting Santa Claus. People all over the world are doing it and so are we. For once we might even have a slight edge in the diversity department here: not only is our Santa Claus a Muslim, but also a woman. She loves the holidays too though since 'tis the season to get rid of all those crazy little toddlers and their runny noses.

Geeky News

I know that some of our valued readers will appreciate to hear about the fact that the very first Apple Store in Germany has opened here in Munich. Of course it's not open on a Sunday though. Unfortunately they didn't bring that part over from the U.S.

'Tis The Season

Now that Theo is going to Karl's daycare center as well Tina, Theo's mother and I picked them up together and had a little play-date in the afternoon. Karl and Theo jumped at the chance and did some rearranging in the kitchen. As you can see, Karl was skeptical in the beginning but then got totally into it. We just tried to lean back and enjoy our hot spiced wine ('tis the season!).



And when we were back at home, Karl told me that he wants to start fencing.

Christmas Time

I took Karl to the "Pink Christmas Market", which is of course a very camp take on the holiday spirit. There was quite a bit of jolly good timing going on in the middle of the afternoon. Karl wasn't really into it. When it comes to the holidays Karl is kinda conservative. He likes shiny red Christmas tree decorations and classic green Christmas trees with even more shiny things on it. He also absolutely loves that gingerbread tin our neighbors gave him. Mainly because it doubles as a music box turning round and round playing some carol that we now can hum in our sleep, since we've listened to it about seventyfive times in a row. And at the daycare center he was a real hero, because there was a Santa Claus dropping by. In Germany those Santas check their list for naughty kids.
Those go into his sack to be taken to some place we don't really wanna know what happens to them. All the good kids get goodies though. At last that's how the country lore goes around here. So all the older kids broke into tears, when the masqueraded daycare lady stomped into the room, while Karl thought that she's really funny with the beard and the coat and stuff.

Surf City

Musical training should start early. So here you see Karl setting up his drum-kit made up of common household items, as is tradition amongst toddlers since the earliest times. Luckily we have walls about a yard thick (we do live in a stately building from the 1840s) or maybe just very tolerant neighbors. Or both? So far grooving is not part of Karl's routine yet. But he sure makes up his lack of rhythm with volume.

Otherwise Bavarian winter is proving to be rather Californian. While our Berlin friends whine about a serious lack of daylight the skies around here tend to be of an undisturbed crisp blue. And some locals have decided to ignore the arrival of winter altogether, continuing their surf routine on the world famous river wave. Which is on Karl's way back from the daycare center, so Fred sometimes takes him there to watch the guys in black rubber jump into the icy waves of the creek that is actually called Ice Creek. Might make it harder to teach him the meaning of the word "crazy" sometime later, but he does enjoy the frigid spectacle.

Happy Thanksgiving!

For this very special holiday the late afternoon sun turned Karl's red mud coveralls into a pumpkin colored version of it while we were having some fun at the deserted playground.



Even though we're still feeling a little bit nostalgic we didn't do a full blown turkey dinner, but we (and that includes Karl) had some delicious cornish hen (=turkey for babies) with plenty of different sides brought to us by Käfers through Andrian.

First Snow

Karl and me had us some boys' day out today. The plan was to delve into the first snow that had fallen tonight. First we fueled up on a hearty lunch. Karl's choice was pumpkin and rice, which he obviously enjoyed quite a bit. The whole snow thing was a bit disappointing as soon as we had reached street level.

Despite the crispy white rooftops it was a mere sprinkling. I gave Karl some to play around with, but he remained quite unfazed. So we went to the bookstore and got him the German version of "One, Two, Three, Me", which he read back and forth for the rest of the outing. Maybe there's hope that he does develop a love for the great indoors? I guess temperatures around freezing help.

Merci, Omi!

This past weekend Karl we found out a lot of things about Karl. Well, Omi found them out because that's where he stayed for three days while we had a wonderful if childless weekend in Paris. So Karl seems to love cherry jam for breakfast. He's also not afraid of huge black dogs and he loves reorganizing his grandparents house. Oh, yes, and he forgets what his mother looks like after three days.



Here they are in the baby paradise playground figuring out the marble run. Thank you, Omi, for taking such good care of him!

Meanwhile in Paris:

Calling America

Sabine's right about that strange fascination kids have with telecommunications. Of course Karl was calling the Unites States of America. He wanted to check on the election results and immediately wanted to spread the good news that Obama.... no he didn't. He just thinks phones are really funny, because they make really funny noises. And if you hit redial you can call mom's client.Four times in a row. And listen to him getting more and more confused who's calling him making giggly noises. Aaah adults, always a mystery.What they do. How they act. Their mundane dreams and desires. Kinda cute though sometimes.

The Big One II

Before Karls Italian birthday dinner at Seerose we went to pick up Andrian from his Sunday shift at the brand new Süddeutsche Zeitung office. Although the location South-East of Munich is not the greatest, their new high rise building is pretty cool. At least Karl thinks so. He went crazy checking out the freight yard, the truck company, the Allianz Arena as well as the race track from the windows of the 19th floor. Most of all though Karl enjoyed hanging out with REAL boys like Victor and Konrad (the other two people in the picture above are Julie and Alexander).

The Big One

Just like a year ago we started the day bright and early with some warm milk. Pretty much everything else has changed though. It's crazy how much has happened in this one year. Our son developed from this helpless little bundle into a walking and talking energizer bunny boy.

WE LOVE YOU, KARL!

And: Thank you so much for everybody's birthday wishes!

Poing

Since it's Karl's birthday tomorrow we thought we start the festivities today. Hey, 28 hours of labor should at least allow his dear mother to party for an equal amount of time each of the first 18 birthdays. So we took Karl to the Wildpark Poing, which is part natural reserve, part nature trail, part petting zoo. We started out with feeding some friendly deer. The Bambi aged ones were a bit shy, but their mothers sure did enjoy our oats, one even stealing our bag of animal feed munching it down packaging and all. We told Karl that their behavior is paid for dearly in the Bambi movie, but somehow he wasn't fazed that much.



So on we went. It's quiet an impressive piece of deep German woods kept pristinely between manicured farmlands and rural villages turned into rural commuter villagers. Poing by the way really is the name of the village nearby. Karl was super-excited about almost every animal he spotted (hard to document, since now expressed with wild gestures accompanying the screamed announcements of where the most recent source of excitement can be found). He did get to see rams and goats and deer and sheep and boars, a pack of wolves (fighting viciously) and a few lynxes (lounging elegantly). Rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs and some very clumsy piglets rounded out the array of native animals, most of them roaming freely in the vast enclave of forest land. There was even a demonstration of hunting birds' skills done by some falconer. The big owl really left a great impression with it's 5 ft. wingspan strafing the audience. Karl seems to be very much into nature, so we're already afraid he won't be enjoying the great indoors as much as his parents do. We might have to trade in the big TV for new hiking boots soon.

911

I've been copying some of Fred's tricks and kept Karl busy by building him stuff to topple over. Here he is with a nice set of twin towers, Karl and I used to play 911 with Karl as American Airlines flight # 11 and me following him as United Airlines flight # 175. Alright. slightly awkward segueway into announcing Karl's birthday next week, which is on November 9th. In European numerals that reads 911 as well, and in Germany that is also a date burdened by quite a bit of history, like the November revolution of 1918, the pogroms of 1938 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. So maybe I'll just go back a few lines and start over. Wanna hear some deconstructivism phase puns? Like in "Hey, don't scold me, dad, Gehry did it"? Or maybe I just dig that hole even deeper and show you Karl sitting in front of a Freedom Tower version of his toy pile, smirking mischieviously.

You CAN Have Your Cake And Eat It Too

I've been slow with posting the latest boy's outing, since they're currently moving our whole company, newspaper and all, to a new location. Karl got to come by and ride the old Paternoster one last Fred was attending some super wizardy nerd events learning how to program intercontinental missiles or spaceships or stuff, so Karl and me took a trip to the country. We stopped by grandpa's and as it should be at a grandpa's house, Karl got to have a cake and eat it too. Here you see him in the demands phase of the negotiations, before traces of passionate chocolate cake consumption could be seen on Karl, table and grandpa.

He wasn't just excited about the limitless cake eating, but also about working off the sugar high on the stairs afterwards (calories and carbs don't really play a big role yet though, because little baby potbellies aren't just healthy, but cute... don't you wish that would still be valid for your adult life too). Stairmastering became a bit exhausting for everybody else involved, so turns were taken in spotting little Mr. Karl during his workout.


He also liked hanging out with his step-aunt Milena, who not only indulged his every playing whim and fancy, but played him some harp, which he thought was a quite trippy sound experience. Next time it's - pigs and cows and chicken. They really live in the countryside, so we'll have to visit the farmers who let a small apartment to my family when I was a kid.

Baby Architect

I have to say, I'm pretty proud to have become an accomplished baby architect. On a daily basis I'm spending a couple of hours building towers and bridges creatively combining Karl's toys with CD's, DVD packs as well as books and cardboard rolls. The results are stunning as you can see and I have no idea why Karl is not into it. Instead he's trying to call his friends to arrange playdates. How lame is that?

Must Hold

Karl is holding on to the two pieces of pretzel in case the hunger hits him during his little nap.

Study Time

After a few weekends of traveling and weekend shifts Karl and I finally got to have a boys' day out again. While mom was attending a "First Aid For Babies" class (since Karl's been discovering his rambunctious side this might come in handy should he accidentally or deliberately hurt any other babies) we went to the most ambitious playground in town. It's attended by an explosive mix of overachievers and granola-nazis, so given the wise-ass nature of Germans one can end up with plenty of unwanted advice there. A friend of us averts this by carrying a beer bottle filled with water to the playground, which makes him so unacceptable to both groups that nobody talks to him.

Karl was mainly checking out the competition. Ever since he started going to daycare he's been fascinated with older kids. Bouncing on that elephant resembling thing he didn't seem worried,but a few times he really looked quite forlorn,being the only kid not yet being able to play catch and running around on the playground having shoot-outs with pretend-guns made out of sticks like the older boys. Who came by, declared us a clear and present danger and shot us dead. Who's bringing them up? Donald Rumsfeld? Soon Karl will be able to join though, since he's been walking quite a bit these days. By then I might have to teach him the Colin Powell doctrine of overwhelming force.



Back home Karl got into his new favorite book. Dr. Seuss - the perfect entryway into a second language. More educational events to follow tomorrow.

Vertical Adventures Part II: Look Who's Walking

I've been very reluctant to take pictures of Karl taking his first steps. When I did it for Vertical Adventures Part I he fell and hurt himself (a little bit). That's also why these pictures are not the best. I turned them into black and white because that always looks better. Hard-working inspector Karls main motivation with the whole walking thing is of course the fact that he can go to places much quicker. To check out stuff, to create some commotion and also to get into a whole lot of mischief overall.

Birthday Bash

It's not that I haven't thrown a couple of parties in my life, but this was definitely one of the wilder ones. Today the first member of our original baby massage class posse turned one, Magnus, so we came together and had chocolate cake (everybody) and prosecco (just the girls). It was close to impossible to get this gang of little rascals on one picture together without any help. In the end we managed and here they are, from right to left: the birthday boy Magnus, Ferdinand, Theo (Karls future daycare mate), Julian and yours truly. And now I gotta go back to renovating the apartment.

Homeschooling

While Andrian is livin' la vida loca somewhere on the coast of Spain, we are our old ambitious selves and go on with the homeschooling program. For today's filmography class Karl picked the movie Alpha Dogs. Interesting choice, my son,interesting choice!

Family Business

This past weekend we traveled to Heidelberg for the christening of my sister Carolins son Tomas. It was a lovely celebration and even though time was very short it was fun to see the boys pretend to have social interactions. I guess it will be even more fun when they can really play together as well as really beat each other up.



Of course my brother with Max was there, too.



And at some point even Karl took a little nap on our way back while riding into the sunset. (Well, technically we were riding out of the sunset because we live so far East, but that just doesn't sound as good.)

Lost and Found

On our way back home from the daycare center we've been taking advantage of what must be the last beautiful days of fall by going to the playground. Karl already recognizes it from his bike seat and would probably make me stop in a snow storm as well. What he likes most there is the taste of dirty stolen sandbox toys that other kids have forgotten about.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

We hope you're having a great day at the office while we party hard in your name at home. See you later!



The truth is: we're not at home since Karl is of course at the daycare center and he's also not that into funny hats. Unless I wear them which makes them highly inspectable.



P.S.: Yes, as you might have figured this photoshoot happened a couple of days ago in restless anticipation of the big birthday event .