New friends, car seats and, of course, IKEA

I swear that I do not get an remuneration for my IKEA mentions. I really should. But I don't. And I am as confused as anyone could be as to why this Swedish mega-store has become such a staple in my life's tale.

That said, E and I headed out to IKEA with our friends, Sarah and her almost six month old son Will, who is not named after my husband or Schnoodle but Sarah's father. Sarah and I both needed to pick up some household items, and it also gave us the opportunity to flex our bringing-babies muscles in the safety of the buddy system. I was also interested in having Edie try out a car seat. The only time she's ever ridden in a car was the cab ride home from the birth house four hours after she was born, and this summer during our trip to the US she will be subjected to a good bit of road tripping.

Good news first. Does Edie like IKEA? She doesn't hate it! She slept well in the Moby wrap while we shopped and visited happily when we stopped for a rest in the store's cafe.

Now the bad. The car seat was not a success. If she had had this level of meltdown a few weeks ago, I might have blamed her for Eyjafjallajokull's eruption. Even duck, who I attached to the car seat bar (and you can see her gazing lovingly at in the car seat "before" picture) did nothing to quell her anger. In fact, she stayed angry at duck even into the evening, sqwaking at him with animosity while he hung innocently from his position on the bouncie seat bar. I wouldn't have believed that she actually blamed duck for the trip, but once I swapped him out for flower monkey, she was a lot happier. We are very hopeful that the next two and a half months will erase this memory and somehow turn her into a car seat tolerating baby. Hopeful, but not optimistic.

Just another day in the 'hood

We don't live in the one of the more happening areas of Munich as far as restaurants, cafes, shopping and the like go. But our neighborhood is absolutely bustling with kids and their parents. Now that the weather is warmer, children scootering, biking, and just plain running around fill the streets. Their moms and dads hang out too, keeping one eye on the little ones and chatting with each other.

If these folks were gorillas, I would be their Jane Goodall, living in their Mist. Watching from my balcony, but not participating in their unintelligible communications. I have gleaned that a young boy named Fabio is the trouble maker of the pack. There is a constant soundtrack of "Fabio - auto!" (i.e. Fabio, look out for the car) and "Owww.... FA-bio!" (i.e. Fabio hit someone). I have decided that Fabio was probably the young gent I caught peeing while rollerblading when he thought no one was looking. But his side-to-side glances didn't count on an observant American watering her plants that sat on a window sill just above.

The next door neighbors are like celebrities to us. They are a gorgeous couple who live in a gorgeous house, with two well trained golden retrievers, two fat and cuddly bunnies who hop about the backyard on nice days, and three children to boot. It is a stunning display.

It begins.

I always envisioned that if we had a girl, she would take after the women - young & old - in my family. A big part of this lineage is loquacity. Which is an annoying way of saying that we talk a lot. We talk so much that we enjoy obscure vocabulary. (See how I tied that all together? I really don't use words like that in conversation. Please still be my friend.)

Edie has really found her sound lately, and, much like her mother, seems to enjoy talking Will's ear off most of all. Enjoy the show.

Did that baby lose a bet?

I am very finicky when it comes to Edie's comfort. Temperature is an especially hard aspect of comfort to figure out with babies. When we go for a walk, I have to consider the temperature outside, which baby carrier I'll use, what I'll be wearing since she will be smooshed up against me, the wind, etc. She can end up looking a little odd in the end.

Case in point. Yesterday, we started the preparations for a walk. She spit up on her shirt, so I had to change it and I found this cotton cardigan with snaps that close it up in a slanted fashion. She looked like a baby massage therapist in it. Then, I decided I wanted warm mittens because she's been sticking her hands out a lot. So, we put on the green ones. And then she looked like a massage therapist with lime popsicles for hands. Now I became concerned that her legs would get cold because her pants get hitched up and the were footie-less. Thus, the leg warmers. Now we have a lime popsicle-handed massage therapist who moonlights as a jazzercize instructor. Last, her head. I'm no longer convinced that the red knit hat is soft enough, so I put her white cotton bonnet with the chin ties on. Which, alone, makes her look of the Mennonite persuasion.

And finally, the Mennonite masseuse with popsicles for hands who loves to Get Physical (ala Olivia Newton John) and I went for a walk.

Daddy's Girl

Those of you who know Will know that he is not a chatty guy. He can be downright monosyllabic, in fact. Though I badger him to talk more on occasion, I'm not complaining about this trait. If I'd married someone as talkative as me, we would have burst into flames from the friction of flapping gums a long time ago.

So it has been an unexpected and amusing development that Will cannot stop talking to E. At any given moment on the weekend, you can hear Will singing Little Bunny Foo Foo, improvising pretend telephone calls from Edie's stuffed animals to her (good thing I clarified that they are "pretend," eh?), teaching her left from right, or serenading his baby with some electric guitar goodness.

Sunny Days In Bavaria

Warm weather has not yet hit its stride in Munich, but today it was sunny and got up to almost 65 deg. Super (pronounced: SOO-pah).

Same ol', same ol' in the afternoon activity department. Edie pretended like she was going to take a second nap, going down easily and peacefully. Then, like clockwork, she awoke thirty minutes later both exhausted and determined not to sleep. Will, sweet, naive, husband-of-mine, believed that if he tried hard enough, he could get the baby to fall once again into a happy slumber. But, she bested him, as she does me Monday through Friday. In celebration of the good weather, we took the victor out on the porch to enjoy some fresh air.

The sun hat is too big, but it gives her that casual, beach bum look that is so popular with the kids these days. Our outdoor session lasted about five minutes, just long enough for a photo shoot.

Elisabethmarkt

Will and I usually divide and conquer the chores on Saturdays lately, with one of us baby-wrangling and the other shopping. But I was feeling nostalgic for the days of leisurely errands together, and so we strapped I-hate-my-stroller baby to her Dad and off we went. The central open air market in Munich is massive and, to me, a little overwhelming, especially on the weekend. So we opted to try a lesser market in an artsy neighborhood called Schwabing. This market, the Elisabethmarkt, was much more sane.

I faced my fears and shopped at one of the produce stands. Seemingly only to cause additional stress to foreigners, the food markets I have been to don't allow you to physically select your purchases. Instead, you have to name the what and how much of each item that you want, and then it is weighed and priced. I'm not proud of this fact, but I spend a good deal of my time with my headphones in, averting my eyes from on-lookers, in hopes of avoiding the bazillioneth stilted, awkward, "ich verstehe nicht" und "mein Deutsch ist schelct" conversation. Having to draw attention to myself by pantomiming my fruit and veggie selection is low on my list of fun times. But, I got it done.

After the unnecessarily difficult time of buying some lettuce, grapes, an avocado and a cucumber, E was still snoozing happily so we stopped off for a snack. We found a very cute little place on the edge of the markt called SuSa (Suppe & Saft - trans. Soup & Juice). We drank an orange/carrot juice with vanilla bean in it. Sounds odd, but it was quite delicious!

Well, I-hate-to-nap baby has arisen. So this post must end!

[Dad and E pictured in SuSa]

Fast-Hands Amma

Since her departure five weeks ago, Edie's Amma has knit her three sweaters and two hats. E still has some room to grow in the blue one, but I rather love to wear big sweaters and so I assume she does too. I call it her "house coat."

Amma is doing her part to keep the USPS in business by sending not only hand crafts but also toys that she believes Little E will enjoy. Strike "believes" and substitute "knows with a truth deeper than the ocean." One such toy is a rain forest mobile. It's a cute mobile, and I'm sure it will provide entertainment. We already have a mobile, but I love my mother, and she feels so very very strongly about the existing mobile's inadequacy and the vast superiority of the rain forest version that, truly, who am I to argue?

Let Birthday Week Commence!

My actual birthday is not until this Thursday, but long ago Will and I declared that birthdays warranted a full week of commemoration. And so, Birthday Week has begun. Off to an especially good start, too, because Will had a four day weekend. So, there was enough time to do the necessary chores as well as to bum around as much as we wanted. The three main events were 1. eating, 2. working on creating Rachael & Will sized indentations in the new couch, and 3. teaching Edie how to sleep. Success, success, and success.

As for eating, Will made my birthday cake already. Chocolate cinnamon with vanilla frosting. Not too shabby. And together we cooked up homemade pizza and a delicious curry. The curry was so good that I couldn't bring myself to stop eating to nurse Edie, but of course I couldn't bring myself to not nurse Edie either. The result was a couple curry stains on baby's outfit from my shaky fork-wielding hand and two well-fed lasses.

The new couch is sublime. After a brief squabble over how to position it, Will saw the light and I won, and it's now our home base. We rarely plop down on it without a satisfied "ahhhhhh." I admit that I've badly monopolized the chaise. And as soon as Will lactates, I will happily turn over the soft-yet-supportive throne.

Magical No Sleep Baby is making some real headway in the rest department, thanks to our relentless vigilance and persistence. I over-researched the issue, as I tend to do, but it seems to have paid off. For Edie, at least, it's paying off. If Will hears the list of baby drowsy indicators one more time, he may take a night job. She's making up for lost time now, barely able to stay awake for 45 minutes at a time.

We should have added "feed the dogs" as a fourth event, as sadly we realized on Saturday evening that we'd forgotten to buy more kibble. Sadder still, the stores did not reopen until today, Tuesday. Oh well, that's why we have a spare dog, I suppose.

Enjoy the family pics!