Swing Kings

Because it's a big swing, there's two swing kings in it. One is King Karl, the other one King Leo. And yes, this blog entry has very little text.

Playground Sociology

We've been hitting the playgrounds quite a bit, so there starts to be a cast of recurring characters. Our favorite playground right now is the one behind the old cemetary. It's kind of a professional scene so there were a few classics to be found there. First there was Superpreggo and her evil Bobbycar-jacking twins. To ease the burden of late motherhood and so far no husband in sight (although the meticulous and very expensive wardrobe hints at a hardworking man behind the scenes) she is always accompanied by her mother whose hair is died in a fiery red. They already claim semi-ownership of Karl's Bobbycar so upon arrival Superpreggo stirs her snotty offspring right towards our red streamliner. Too bad Karl's just a lover not a fighter, but there might be a lesson to be learned and taught soon. Then there are divorco-dad 1 and divorco-dad 2. Both only seen on holidays and alternating weekends. Divorco-dad 1 can barely contain his anger about the whole situation behind his Ray-Bans, so he pushes his daughters really, really hard on the swing and seems to clench his jaw a lot. Divorco-dad 2 is quite the opposite. He can definitely not contain his raging depression, so he tends to solemnly push his son around a tricycle or catatonically watch him have fun in the sand. Then there's multiculti-mom and her dreadlocked Brazilian boyfriend. They have a few kids of different shades, so I'm not sure what the actual makeup of the patchwork is. They have kind of a hostile air about them, probably because multiculti-mom convinced dreadlock-man that all her fellow Germans deep down are really racist and not worth dealing with. Dreadlock-man only smiled once, when older rich couple came by with their adopted chubby African girl, who didn't quite know what to make of the solidarity smile from dreadlock-man. Normally they tend to avoid eye contact with anybody else though, which is really hard, when Karl stands in front of you with his beaming blue laser eyes, fixating you for three, four minutes without blinking.

Yesterday we changed venue though and went to the playground with the small sports park. Somehow we don't know the lay of the land that well yet, because the place was packed with chain-smoking, morbidly obese Russians and their mullet sporting kids (and they mean it, not like the result of a few barbershop hissy fits Karl is sporting). Stereotypes were reinforced right away, when Karl shoveled some sand into some deserted toy bucket. Red mullet boy charged at him, screaming "Mine! Mine! Mine!", immediately accosted by beige mullet boy screaming at him to leave the baby alone, otherwise he'd get some beating he'll never forget. Karl didn't quite get what the ruckus was so he walked and hung out with mercenary boy who was trying to teach him to throw a frisbee.

Caroussel

We had a strange morning at the playground. I think it was national "Communication as Understood by Nerdy Teutons" day. Some of those baby mamas sure gotta work on their social skills. So we took to the Englische Garten in the afternoon where they have the great Caroussel at the Chinese Tower beer-garden. It was built in 1912 and has been kept pretty much the same. There's photos of 3 year old me riding the white horse just behind Karl. Here on his first ride Karl wasn't quite so sure, if he likes the whole merry-go-rounding that much. He warmed up to it though and we had to go again twice. We also bought a balloon. I got him a great one in the shape of a blue helicopter, but he was so steadfastly set on the huge pink Bugs Bunny, that I had to go and ask for an exchange. Oh baby tastes. Always a mystery. It sure made people smile though, having that two feeter bunny float over little Mr. blue-eyes. Probably because the Englische Garten is adjacent to the old hippie neighborhood of Schwabing and it reminded them of some really nice acid they once dropped.

A Day at the Zoo

We hadn't been at the zoo in a while, so Good Friday seemed a good day to go. Most of the Orthodox and Muslim population of our very Catholic town obviously thought the same, so we gleefully walked the pathways in clouds of heavy Russian perfumes and aromatic Arab fragrances. We did work our way further down the list of animals to see, crossing off the rhinos (feeding), the pink pelicans (parading), the bears (sleeping) and the Rocky Mountain goats (looking like something out of "Lord of the Rings"). Biggest hit were the fighting geese though, who definitely made the WWF look like an Emily Post class.

Joyride

Spring is here, so Karl got to take out his Bobby Car to the playground for the first time. Big adventure. He was every bit as proud as all the convertible sports car drivers turning our streets into a speedway this weekend. The really square red Bobby Car galoshes turned out to be a great investment, since one of the fun things about being pushed around town on a Bobby Car is dragging feet over cobblestones, pavements and other shoe-destroying terrain. The tipi in the background by the way is not the famous tipi of "Isar Indian" Willy Michl, the Bavarian Blues Singer who moved into a tipi by the river some years ago and started to dress like a native American, but part of a Kindergarten playground that also comes with a totem pole.
Over at the playground a major step in playground autonomy - swinging on the swing for the bigger kids without being held upright by an adult. Well, the adult was right behind (the photo is a reenactment on the non-swinging swing). But definitely another boost for the boyish sense of self. It's Ego Time!BR>

Playground Season

Playground season has officially begun – I hope. So this is what most of the pictures might look like from now on until September or so.

Heist Team in Training

Karl hung out with his buddy Luisa today. Not that I've been there, but looking at the photos they sure look like they weren't up to no good. What in the world are they doing here? Casing a joint? Listening for hollows? We'll never know. Strutting towards mom Karl sure gave his best Steve McQueen impression though.

Editor At Large

Karl has already been to his dads office a couple of times. Even back in the day when he was still supertiny and the office still in the middle of town. We also went to check out the new building as soon as they had moved in. But today we went to see Andrians brand new office space he moved to from another one. Karl took over the entire business as soon as he walked in.



He clearly wasn't happy with the work of the other editors, but successfully found a way to deal with it (screaming). He was so convincing that one of them even gave him a lollipop!



And in the end Karl also found some quiet time to explain all the train stuff down below to his dad. I mean, it's pretty obvious that our boy here has some great communication and management skills, right?

At The Circus

Originally Karl and I had gone by Circus Krone this afternoon to visit their zoo, but it was closed. There was somebody who had to unload some tickets for the afternoon show though, so I just bought one. It was reasonable enough that we could've left right away, if Karl had gotten scared or bored. Little did I know that we got a first row ringside ticket. We sat so close we got sprayed with elephant drool and could smell the lions' funky butts.



Fearless Karl didn't mind sitting so close to all those mighty beasts. He hung in there quite mesmerized, stuffing his face with popcorn (see photo above). After a while he got the hang of it and started to applaud with the crowd. He was a bit bored by the ventriloquist and the clowns, but the animals, jugglers and balancing acts kept him glued to my lap for about two hours.



Definite highlight was the seals. They were stars from some TV show called "Hallo Robbie. Not that we'd know, but the crowd went wild. So "Fearless" Karl sure redeemed himself, after having thrown a hissy fit at the barber earlier today. Since he had thrown a fit mid-haircut a few weeks ago, this means another week of "mullet Karl", before we try again next Saturday.

Family Vacation

Sorry for the absence of posts over the past couple of days. As some of you might know, Andrian and I made a trip to New York to catch up with our amazing friends that we still miss so much and probably always will. This wonderful vacation was only made possible by my parents a.k.a. Omi and Opa who took the best care of lil' ol' Karl. Thank you again! As you can see it looks like he had a great time with them just as we did in New York.



In order to not get used to being without crazy toddlers running around we went to see all our friends with (new) kids. Thank you, Shirly and Michael for hosting a great New York brunch. I'm proud that I managed to get all five kids in one picture.



Oh and of course, last but not least, the Bru finally got his birthday gifts. Now that he's 16 month old he can really appreciate them. He was head over heels!

Popcorn

Fun facts:

- Freshly made, popcorn does snap, popple and crack.
- Popcorn can be eaten with one or two hands.
- The amount of popcorn that can be grabbed with two hands can enlarge the volume of your oral cavity threefold.
- Combined with ample amounts of water popcorn can take on a semisolid form that - on display in a widely opened mouth or spread over the surface of a piece of furniture - will disgust your parents.
- A small boy of 24 pounds can devour the contents of a freshly made still warm bowl of popcorn half his size in less than a quarter of an hour.

Big Brother

The fun didn't stop though this weekend. Sunday afternoon was all about the cocktail party we had for Fred's extended designer gang. There were three girls under the age of 8 months hanging out. Karl got all big-brotherly with the not-yet-mobile ladies. He even rocked little Marla to sleep in her stroller. After the party he staged a brief post-sugar rush crash and burn drama. But we finished the weekend on a very somber pasta note.

Bestest Show Ever

After the maelstrom of fun the other night was already such a great bonding experience, we decided to take Karl and Max to the big dog show they had at the Olympic Hall over the weekend. Sure enough a whole stadium full of pooches and pups was right on the money. And of course anybody's who's ever seen Christopher Guest's "Best In Show" (maybe one of the best comedies of all time) knows that for members of the ironic set going to a dog show won't be just innocent fun for the kids. Indeed we weren't disappointed.



The dedication, love and earnestess emanating from this crowd makes it impossible to slip onto the sarcastic track though. There's something genuine about competition dog lovers.



But make no mistake - competition is fierce. The adrenaline at the yorkshire terrier preliminaries was running rather high. Sure enough there were some scene reminiscent of Parker Posey's legendary "busy bee" scene.



When the dog dance troupe finally started to fill the arena with a dozen of dogs jumping through hoops and over their handlers, the boys raised such hell that some dog owners in the bleachers got a bit worried, what the whole frenzy was about and could turn into. We think Karl and Max are bestest friends forever now. Karl at least was devastated when Max left for Basel. Well, for about ten minutes. He still has to work on his emotional attention span.



P.S.: After we came back from our morning playground outing today though he did go and check each room and was mightily disappointed that there was no Max to be found anywhere.

Bestest Fun Ever

On their way back from a little skiing vacation in Austria Karl's cousin Max and his parents, my brother Markus and his wife Jessica were in town. Lean back and watch.

Welcome Back, Big Girl!

My son threw up in a supermarket shelf yesterday so I thought he wouldn't be in shape to host our baby meeting at home today. It turned out that he's fine though, so we took advantage of the nice weather and got together on short notice nonetheless.



After spending a couple of month in Shanghai Luisa and her parents are back in town and we're happy to have a girl in our crazy boy crew again. Today Karl showed her that not only can you eat gravel, but also throw it at people. In whatever order you like. Luisa listened carefully and then ran off with Ferdinand.