Foot in Mouth

Karl pulled off his new favorite trick this morning - putting his foot in his mouth. Hmm. Nah, no puns and references for this one. Just a note that Karl will accompany his parents on their very first paid vacation. What a great European invention. We will be hanging around the pool in the volcanic mountains of La Isla La Gomera, an old Spanish hippie haunt off the coast of Africa, getting paid all the way. Anyway, we're not sure about the internet situation up there, so if we don't post, we're not missing, just lounging.

Travelling To Hessen III

Our trip to Hessen is so last week, but I still got some pics that I want to share with you.



I was really bummed on our way to the local shopping mall when I noticed the sign for Europe's Largest Stunt and Action Show just a day too late. I'm sure that wouldn't have happened if Andrian had come with us. Karl would have enjoyed those roaring gigantic supertrucks so much.



Since the loud trucks didn't happen, I showed Karl the silence of the vinyard and pushed him all the way up the hills. It was pretty exhausting but I could witness amazing wildlife like the pictured snail for example. But again my son was sleeping as usual when there's important things to be learnt.



Another lesson kept him awake though: a history lesson. Whenever I'm at my parents house I'm trying to throw out some stuff. So this time I went through old exercise books from my school days (yes, I had kept them until then...) No time is too early to work on Germany's difficult past I guess and so Karl carefully inspected my national socialism learning materials. As you can see he totally broke into the topic.



On Wednesday he seemd to be happy to be back in Munich (that's because he doesn't know New York yet) and took some really long naps over the past couple of days. Maybe he knows that there's another trip just around the corner.

Preparation

In preparation of our first vacation as a family of three Omi got Karl a supercool sun hat. It will protect him from the hopefully hot hot sun of La Gomera. And you will see, it will also fit perfectly with his new safari suit. Thank you, Omi!

Travelling To Hessen II

Of course there's no travelling to Hessen without stopping at Maria and Tim's in Frankfurt. We took some time to introduce Karl to his mother's former hometown and showed him various parks.

The Grüneburgpark has an addition which I had never seen either: A Korean garden, built in 2005 when Korea was the guest of honour at the book fair.




Very pretty, but Karl was sleeping as usual when I'm trying to teach him important things. He didn't even wake up for the Holzhausenpark play ground but we thought it's better to have it covered anyways. I mean, he's half a Frankfurter.

Travelling To Hessen I

The internet situation wasn't easy on my little trip to the North so I'm doing some belated reporting. Last Friday we left Munich by train. Very conveniently it goes directly to Bensheim, where my parents live, but travelling on the first day of the Bavarian Easter vacation wasn't exactly the smartest move. The Parents & Baby compartment was packed and sort of smelly (which was partially Karl's fault).




We finally made it though and Karl seemed to be excited to be back in baby paradise (a.k.a. my parents house).

He got a bunch of new skills by playing with his individualized air balloon and a plastic ladle. Omi, Nelson – the dog – and Karl also had some pretty intense discussions about the pros and cons of playpens.


But the main reason of my trip was to meet Karl's new cousin Tomas. My sister Carolin and her husband Ivo adopted him from Ethiopia and he finally made it to Germany a couple of weeks ago. He's adorable and his new sister Thora is obviously thrilled.



(I actually forgot to take a picture when I was at their house so my sister provided this one for me)

Karl's in Frankfurt

Karl and Fred are in Frankfurt today, lounging at Grandma's and checking out the situation at Maria's and Tim's. Frankfurt of course is Germany's secret capital of cool (no matter what you heard about Berlin), so Karl should fit right in. Although we can't quite make out yet, if he meant a lobster shack kind of East Coast Cool or more of a Cholo way of West Coast O.G.. Probably neither, leaning more towards a Bornheim Brawler style.

Group Workout

Since our baby massage class was finished a couple of weeks ago, we kept meeting for a weekly group workout at our house. Today was especially fun, because it was Amelie's (mom of Ferdinand) birthday and we had Prosecco and cake.

While the moms were busy intoxicating themselves Karl and Magnus got into a brawl. They had totally different opinions about the consequences of the decoding the human genome for mankind.


And this is how Karl fell asleep afterwards. Unfortunately it only lasted for 15 minutes, but what can you do, science is a tough business.

Easter Is Approaching

Two bunny postings in a row you're going to think, but Easter is right around the corner and as you know, Karl loves bunnies. This one is by far the cutest stuffed animal he has, but of course our taste is not that relevant anymore.

...as a button

We're pitching this to the Encyclopedia Britannica to go with the "cute as a button" entry in the next edition (competing pitches to be submitted via the comments section). This look worked wonders on a bunch of neighbors, who came by for brunch today. Made us think about going into the con man business. Just have Karl look really cute, so our marks go all cuckoo, while we relieve them of their wallets and car keys. By the time they realize all that cuteness was just a distraction the chop shop around the corner has turned their Volkswagens and Benzes into Skodas and Ladas for easy cross-border trafficking.

Karl the Contender

Are you scared? You better be. After almost four month of hard training at Gleason's Gym Karl is totally ready for his world title fight in the super-mega-cloud-weight division. This picture gives you only a little taste of his staredown capabilities. He can back it up though. When he got sick of all the photo snapping he grabbed the camera and beat me to a pulp. What a mean left hook. Did I teach him that?

Ferdinand's Crib

Inspector Karl was invited over to his beat partner Ferdinand's crib, 'cause they had to work on some tough cases: 'The dangling star case', 'The mistery of milk hill' and of course they compared notes on 'The wrestling rabbits", a gang of brutes terrorizing playpens all over the city. Here you see Inspector Ferdinand mulling over some clues in this puzzling puzzle of a crime, while Inspector Karl works on identifying pawprints.

Trip To Sweden

Yesterday we taught Karl a crucial lesson in consumerism and took him to Ikea for the first time in his life. I'm not sure if he completely got the entire meaning of this event, but he will probably get another chance some day in the future. He did listen when I explained the importance of Billy bookshelves for the worlwide book trade though.

Awesome Outfits X

Luckily we have our fashion correspondents Sabine and Bruno in New York to keep us up to date in all things style. They sent us our own pair of Monkeypants and it looks like Karl is enjoying the big city feel quite a bit. What you don't see: for ultimate street cred he's also wearing a Brooklyn onesie underneath. Thank you, Sabsi!

Learning Process

This is Karl in a bad mood. It does pass, but we wanted to share the moment.