Toy Story

There is a little toy store in our building. Sometime that makes it really hard to get Karl through the door...

Hot Lunch

Yesterday I wasn't really succesful with my stomach friendly lunch so I took the easy way out today. Karl and I went to have a chicken broth with pancake strips at his beloved Suppenküche at the market. At first I thought it was a little weird to have a hot soup when it's 35°C (95°F) out, but he did enjoy it. Of course there's more fun stuff to do at the market. Like play at the water fountain or pose for a family picture with a lobster and some random kid.

Oh, and this is Karl this morning practicing piano in a box.

Summer Flu

Just like most of his daycare buddies Karl caught a little summer flu. Nothing too bad, but he used all the support he could get for nap time. This means three bears, three bunnies, one elephant, two dolls, one bee and one bean.

Chasing Waterfalls

Even though this town really sucks when it comes to day care for children (yet another public kindergarden told me today that there's pretty much no way that Karl will get in next year), there's a couple of nice summer events organised by the city of Munich. One of them is the Water Playbus.



It is an old fire trucks that visits playgrounds all around the greater Munich area (please note that Karl wears his fire truck t-shirt whenever he's dealing with fire trucks). Different kinds of water games are being set up and even though a lot of valuable drinking water goes down the drains I must say it is a lot of fun. Karl didn't want to go in the long line for the gigantic water slide made out of plastic film going down a hill (maybe next year), but was totally into the little river running through pieces of water pipe. The kids could build their own boats and send them down through the pipes. In the beginning it did confuse Karl that his feet would get wet when playing with water though.



In the end all the hard work was rewarded with a delicious yoghurt blueberry ice cream from the new ice cream parlor around the corner.

Must Get Ice Cream

This week Andrian is hanging in Oxford with the supersmarts, so my posts these days will be mostly about the amazing cuteness of Karl. I want to make sure his father comes back and doesn't take off with some genius person. Yes, I think emotion wins over content. And there you go: new rocking horse on permanent loan by buddy Leo, Karl happy.



The OBBB (Obsessive Baby Buggy Behavior) is still going on. Today at the playground Karl was very successful in the fierce competition for only one baby buggy in the field and managed to snatch it a couple of times. But there was even more third party property to have had fun with: Excavators! Trucks! And at some point, in between all the stealing, Karl left the playground to get an ice cream as he explained to me when I caught him right at the door.

Sunday At The Zoo

Summer's back, so it was off to the zoo. Right when you enter the vast landscape of minilandscapes there's the petting zoo. Since you can alreay peak in from the bike racks it's the natural first stop due to high pitched demands of "there! there! there!". Sometimes animal names are attached to the theres, although goats can be mistaken for cows or monkeys in moments of excitement.

Being there is a totally different affair though. Whilest being a fearless fan of the type of beasts Safari experts call "The Big 5", free romaing goats, sheep and deer can and will induce moments of sheer panic. There was some impressive climbing up dad's leg and trying to hide behind his collarbone. Admittedly, since there's this feed you can buy in small portions from these gumball machine type of installations, there's kind of a Darwinian vibe. Cuteness can be a weapon in a petting zoo of course. So can outright trickery (see photo). But when a pack of sharp horned baby goats squeezed Karl out of the crowd he was definitely ready to go see some lions and rhinos. Favorite animal of the day: the sleepy but still mighty panther (not pictured due to unphotogenic sleeping position behind some bush grass).

Christopher Street Day

I'm definitely kinda late to post about Christopher Street Day last weekend. It was quite impressive a parade though. Karl was even more into it than last year. Again the soap bubble machine float was his favorite, followed by the drag queens, especially the ones who looked like Dr. Seuss designed their outfit (greeeen!!!). But he was kinda wary of some strange encounters of the very first kind.



When I had to take him behind the driveway door a few times to shield him from the party floats with the massive sound systems blasting Eurodisco at jet engine levels (and we're talking F-16, not just some Airbus) he got quite upset and asked for "More, more, more!" Which happens to be a vintage Eurodisco classic they still kinda like around here. Next week - string quartets or old masters. Haven't decided on the best way yet to get all that cultural glitter out of his system.

The Sentinel

On the other side of the street from our favorite ice cream parlor is a garage which needs very careful surveillance.

Basket Case

This afternoon we were invited to a lovely garden party at Alberts and Katrins new house. It's more like a mansion actually. Their daughter Anna - to the delight of Karl - has her room styled completely in pink. She was busy hosting, so Karl could sneak in and play with a couple of her dolls.



Of course there's even more fun to be had where the bigger kids are. They created an exclusion zone where no adults were allowed. Which was fine with me because they did stuff like filling air balloons with glue, then blew them up and let them explode. Yeah! That was just the right time for me to have some of the delicious suckling pig in the other part of the garden.



The center of Karls attention behind the exclusion line (yes, I walked into the forbidden terrain when nobody was looking) was a big basket full of chocolate and gummi bears. Luckily he hasn't really figured out how to open those things and I wouldn't help him, but I believe some other person might have given him a hand when I wasn't around.

Salad Of Toddlers With A Large Side Of Chaos

Remember this? When they couldn't even roll from their backs to their belly? Well, things have changed quite a bit to say the least. And – to put it nicely – it has become somewhat challenging to have them all together for a playdate. Still a lot of fun though. The mothers just have to speak up a little.

There Is No Bad Weather, Only Bad Clothing

This is what I think we'll have to adapt as our mantra for the days or even weeks to come. The weather forecast promises more of the same: A mix of heavy thunderstorms with lots of rain and a couple of sunny hours. Suckulicious! Karl in fact loves it and when we were once again caught by a big downpour he and his buddy Ferdinand together with their two identical excavators (Thank you, Amelie!) ventured out in the far terrains of the Old Cemetery while their mothers patiently waited in the dry shelter of the cemeteries' colonnade. The paparazzi quality of the picture might give you an idea of how far they walked out in the pouring rain.



Of course after the rain had stopped the two boys had the playground and its newly built gigantic puddles all for themselves.

Ice Cream And Window Shopping

This morning we got completely soaked on our way back from the playground and the weather continued to be totally erratic. But nothing could hold us back from Summers' daily dose of ice cream. And hey – if you have two hands, why not hold a cone of ice cream in each one of them? Even if it's your moms.



I think Karl would've kindly asked me to help the economy quite a bit by eccessive book shopping, if the shops weren't closed on Sundays. So unfortunately there was window shopping only.

Open Fire House

It was open house at the Munich fire department today. Boy heaven! We put on Karl's fire truck Tee and red shoes and off we went. They had all the engines and ladders out, the ambulances and the nifty Beamers of the commanders. There were balloons, coloring books, sausages and sodas. You could shoot at some painted bears with a real hose. Best of all - unlimited, unsupervised crawling, climbing, pushing of buttons and pulling of levers.



Karl has new heroes now. Next year he'll also get one of those kiddie helmets. When he tried one on the firefighter lady said he looks like a freshly hatched chick, so we settled for the T-shirt that says "This ain't no job for whimps".

Little Punks

After throwing all the sand in the sandbox at each other, Luisa and Karl also seized some of the playground housing. And of course there's always some time left to steel a baby buggy as well.



P.S.: Ok, the buggy on the left wasn't stolen on the playground, but taken from Nele at Arianes brunch. I just thought it fits with the whole little punks topic.

Bye Bye Ariane, Marko and Maaahlaaaaah!

We had a lovely brunch at my ex-coworker and friend Arianes house on Sunday. The occasion was a rather sad one though: they're moving to Stutgart this week. Ariane and Markos little daughter Marla will be especially missed by Karl. He always asks for her (Maaahlaaaaah???). Or maybe he just likes saying her name.



When we celebrated Arianes birthday a year ago, Karl was the only baby. This time around the situation has changed quite a bit: now there's Marla, Ida, Nele, Helena and Antonia! A whole bunch of girls for Karl to pick from. Excellent for him. So far, it looks like I'm still his favorite though.